Kenzii spent the remainder of the day completely horizontal, pinned to his mattress. His two cousins being over acting had effectively placed him under house arrest, supervising his every move to the point where even a simple trip to the bathroom felt like it required a security escort.
"Seriously, I'm not dying. I don't have a single broken bone, so I can handle myself," Kenzii grumbled, unable to suppress his irritation as Alas walked into the bedroom bearing a lunch tray.
Across the room, Sota was perched on the couch, his fingers a relentless blur across his laptop keyboard, occasionally pausing only to shoot Kenzii another inquiring glance.
"We are just concerned. Is it really that hard to just shut up and lie down?" Sota snapped without even bothering to look up from his screen.
Kenzii let out a heavy sigh, his brow furrowing deeply as Alas leaned over the bed, holding a spoon out toward him.
"I can feed myself," Kenzii hissed. Alas rolled his eyes dramatically but ultimately yielded, handing over the utensils and letting Kenzii eat in peace while he went to sit next to Sota.
"Don't you two have jobs? Why are you still lingering here?" Kenzii asked between mouthfuls. The meal was a steaming bowl of pork sinigang with rice; despite Alas's occasionally airheaded demeanor, the guy was undeniably a phenomenal cook.
"Don Hidalgo forced us onto a mandatory leave of absence just to check on you. Though honestly, even if the old man hadn't ordered it, we would've called in sick anyway to make sure you weren't dead," Alas replied, pulling out his phone to mindlessly scroll.
"Hmm," Kenzii muttered, continuing to eat in silence until the plate was completely cleared.
"By the way," Alas started, shaking his head slightly, "How did your call with Grandfather go after your mission?" he asked, looking back at Kenzii. "He called me, absolutely livid because he couldn't reach your line. I seriously thought fire was going to blast through my phone screen. That old man is eighty-five years old, but his horns haven't lost a single bit of their edge. If anything, they're just getting longer."
"You should be used to it by now. He's always been like that," Sota chided mildly, finally shifting his gaze away from his laptop to lock eyes with Kenzii. "Speaking of Don Hidalgo, he wants you to visit him at the mansion tomorrow afternoon."
"Are you serious right now?" Alas immediately interjected, slamming his phone down onto the cushions, his face twisted in disbelief. "He knows Kenzii literally just crawled back from a high-alert, life-threatening mission, and he's demanding an audience tomorrow? Is he completely heartless? Why can't he just let my cousin rest? "
"He said it was urgent," Sota replied flatly, his piercing gaze remaining anchored to Kenzii. "He mentioned that you wouldn't want to miss what he has to say." Sota's tone carried a heavy, unspoken weight, a clear indication that his analytical mind smelled something profoundly fishy about the invitation.
"Can't that old man just wait a few damn days— "
"I'll go," Kenzii cut in. His voice was deadpan, his eyes fixed entirely on his own hands resting loosely in his lap. A suffocating, unreadable aura began to bleed into the room, fueled by a dark, volatile fury that threatened to consume him from the inside out.
"But Ken— "
"I'll let him know," Sota interrupted, cutting Alas off before the argument could escalate. Alas rolled his eyes and fell silent, realizing he was outnumbered.
"Leave. I want to be alone," Kenzii murmured, his voice hollow and devoid of vitality as he turned his face toward the massive glass wall of his bedroom. Outside, the bright sky stretched wide, with buildings just peaking through the parted curtains.
"Are you sure?" Alas asked softly, but Kenzii didn't offer a response, his eyes remaining entirely glued to the world outside. Sota placed a firm, grounding hand on Alas's shoulder, silently signaling him toward the exit, and the two began to slip out.
"Let us know if you need anything," Sota added in a final, quiet reminder before the heavy door clicked shut behind them.
The moment the room emptied, Kenzii's mind dissolved into a thick, suffocating fog, and the solitary image of his father's portrait materialized behind his eyelids. His thoughts began to spiral into a macabre loop: What kind of twisted masterpiece had Elias carved out of his father's flesh?
He knew his father must have suffered unimaginably in his final moments. He could almost hear the phantom echoes of his father's agonizing screams every single time a sharp instrument tore through his skin and bit deep into his flesh.
Just the mental imagery alone sent a violent, scorching wave of hatred roaring through Kenzii's veins. He wanted to find the architect of that suffering and inflict that exact, exquisite agony tenfold upon whoever had ordered the execution.
Now that he knew his grandfather possessed intimate knowledge of his father's horrific fate, Kenzii truly didn't know what he was capable of doing to the old man. May the heavens forgive him, but if he lost control, he wouldn't stop. The only absolute truth remaining in his mind was that justice would be carved out by his own hands.
.
The following morning, long before the scheduled hour, Kenzii was already pacing inside his grandfather's study at the Monteriel mansion. His cousins hadn't even realized he had slipped out of the condo before dawn. Now, Kenzii stood silently in front of a massive aquarium built into the wall of the study, watching the exotic fish glide through the water.
They were exactly like him. They swam with the illusion of freedom, yet their reality was dictated entirely by rigid, impenetrable glass boundaries. It was a beautiful existence, but it was entirely artificial.
"You're early. I distinctly told Sota that it's four in the afternoon. It is barely seven in the morning," Don Hidalgo's voice boomed as he strode into the center of the expansive room. "I have a corporate board meeting to oversee shortly, so let's conclude this matter swiftly."
The old man settled into a grand, high-backed armchair and gave a dismissive wave of his hand to the servants stationed near the doors, silently commanding them to leave. Once the room cleared, he reached out with practiced, deliberate elegance and poured a stream of tea into a porcelain cup on the adjacent table.
"I assume you already comprehend the gravity of why you were summoned here?" the patriarch began, lifting the cup to catch the aroma of the brew.
Kenzii slowly turned his head away from the aquarium, his gaze cold as ice as he sank into the long sofa directly opposite his grandfather.
"Shouldn't I be the one interrogating you, Don?" Kenzii rasped, his voice dripping with venom. "You know exactly why I'm here, and you know exactly what I want."
"Hmm. As time passes, your tongue becomes increasingly insolent. You speak exactly like your father did," Don Hidalgo remarked casually, taking a slow, untroubled sip of his tea. "It is hardly astonishing that he met such an unfortunate end, given his lack of discipline and that disrespectful mouth of his— "
The old man's words cut off abruptly, but he didn't even flinch when Kenzii suddenly snapped. With a motion that looked deceptively effortless, Kenzii reached out, grabbed the heavy glass table separating them, and hurled it violently to the right. The massive piece of furniture sailed through the air, crashing violently into a nearby bookshelf and shattering into a thousand lethal shards of glass.
"Watch your mouth," Kenzii whispered, his expression deadpan, his eyes completely hollow as they locked onto the old man. "I will not tolerate that garbage coming out of your mouth."
Stepping forward, Kenzii's eyes burned with a murderous intensity. "Who paid that monster to butcher my father? Was it you?"
"Doesn't matter, and even if it was me, what exactly do you plan to do about it?" the Don countered, his gaze unwavering, entirely unfazed by the terrifying aura radiating from his grandson. "Do you honestly believe you possess the power to challenge me?" A cruel, mocking smirk spread across the patriarch's weathered face. Kenzii's hands began to tremble violently, his lips twitching as the rage threatened to shatter his composure.
"Let us simply say that your father's stupidity had become entirely intolerable," the Don continued smoothly. "His fate was merely the natural consequence of his actions—"
Before the old man could even finish the sentence, the world blurred. In a fraction of a second, Don Hidalgo found himself violently pinned against the concrete wall of the study, Kenzii's hand wrapped around his throat in a crushing chokehold. The sheer, explosive impact of the strike caused structural cracks to spiderweb across the plaster behind the old man.
The Don's expression remained devoid of shock; he was well aware that his grandson possessed a monstrous, otherworldly strength fueled by a demonic system.
"How can you sit there and say that when he was your own flesh and blood?!" Kenzii roared, his eyes entirely bloodshot, his vision swimming with a primal, homicidal rage. "How can you stomach the absolute filth coming out of your mouth?! Answer me! " He slammed the old man harder against the cracked wall, tightening his grip.
"H-hah..." the Don choked out, gasping for air as his oxygen supply began to dwindle. "I feel no r-remorse for the blood that came f-from me if he turned out to be that choice of a son. I w-would *gakk* g-gladly sacrifice a single drop of my own l-lineage if it meant ensuring the s-survival and prosperity of the rest of this f-family."
"You goddamn animal," Kenzii hissed under his breath. His vision was rapidly darkening with pure, unadulterated hatred, his breathing ragged as every instinct screamed at him to tear the old man apart.
Beneath his skin, his left arm began to throb violently as the obsidian, demonic energy flared to life, slowly crawling up his hand and threatening to take complete control.
"Kenzii! "
Sota's voice pierced through the chaos as he suddenly burst into the room, throwing his weight into Kenzii's left arm, desperately trying to pry the demonic fingers away from the Don's throat. The old man was turning a dangerous shade of blue, on the verge of asphyxiation. "Let him go, Kenzii! Please! " Sota yelled, his face contorted with panic as he violently shook Kenzii's shoulder.
"Fuck, he's completely out of control! Alas, what the hell are you just standing there for?! Help me! " Sota screamed, glancing over his shoulder at Alas, who was frozen in the doorway, staring in absolute shock—completely forgetting his training as a police officer.
"R-Right!" Alas stammered, finally snapping out of his trance. He rushed into the fray, adding his weight to Sota's as they forcefully threw themselves against Kenzii to break his stance.
"Die... Die… Die..." Kenzii muttered over and over again, the mantra repeating like a broken record. The hollow, unhinged look in his eyes sent a violent shiver down his cousins spines; it was clear that Kenzii's sanity had completely fractured under the weight of his grief.
"Reasoning with him isn't going to work, Alas! Use it now! " Sota barked, his voice trembling with exertion.
With shaking hands, Alas reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a high-grade sedative—the exact countermeasure he had kept on hand ever since the day Kenzii's demonic arm had first gone rogue.
"I'm sorry, cuz," Alas whispered, before plunging the needle deep into the side of Kenzii's neck, slamming the plunger down to send the chemical rushing through his bloodstream.
Almost instantly, the chaotic fire in Kenzii's green eyes began to dim. His lethal grip loosened, releasing the gasping Don, and his body went entirely limp as consciousness abandoned him. Yet, even as his muscles collapsed and he drifted into the dark, his lips continued to twitch, faintly slurring the same broken promise into the quiet room: Die...