"...I finally escaped death through reincarnation, how amusing." Beatrice whispered, her voice unnervingly calm.
"but, this feels irritating."
Without hesitation, Beatrice raised the knife, and with a sickening calmness, sliced through her own left eye. Blood poured down her face as she winced but showed no real pain, only satisfaction. She stood slowly, wiping the blood from her face, her one remaining eye fixated on Akeh.
"Akeh." she said, her voice still unnervingly calm.
"i have no reason to kill you. Not yet. But if you give me a reason, you'll end up like your parents." her lips curled into a chilling smile, one that sent a shiver down his spine. She stepped to Akeh's side and spoke in a low tone.
"the sister you once knew, no longer exists."
With that, she stepped over their fathers body and walked towards the door, leaving a trail of blood behind her. She exited the house without a second glance, leaving akeh standing there, frozen in shock, his mind reeling from what he had just witnessed.
The silence that followed felt like a void, but he forced himself to move. He dropped to his knees beside his father's body, hands shaking as he tried to access the damage. The gashes were too deep, the blood too much. His father was gone. There was no saving him.
"Akeh…" his mother's voice was faint, almost unrecognizable.
He scrambled to her, tying to shake her out of her frozen state. Her eyes stared ahead, her body still like a statue. He checked her pulse, she was alive, but barely responsive, as if something had taken hold of her soul, trapping it.
After a while, a shadow appeared at the door. It was a girl, her figure slender and cloaked, her face hidden behind a faceless mask. The dim light cast strange shadows around her, making her presence all the more ominous.
She stepped inside the house, her movements deliberate. Without a word, she stood by Akeh's mother and examined her, her fingers moving with practiced precision.
"her soul is missing." the girl said, her voice cool, detached. "it's the first time I've seen another hollow. She needs to be put to rest."
"what do you mean by that?" Akeh shouted, stepping between the girl and his mother. "who the hell are you? Thinking I'll just let you walk in here to take my mother's life, I won't let you!"
Akeh assumes a dambe stance.
The girl sighed, seemingly unaffected by his resistance. "it's unfortunate that this happened to you… but still, I can't leave a hollow unchecked. This is mercy."
Before Akeh could react, the girl moved in a blur. She struck him with a series of quick blows, precisely targeted. Akeh's body seized up in pain, his muscles locking as he collapsed to the floor. He tried to move, but nothing worked, his will to fight diminishing inside him, vanishing as if he's very soul has being manipulated.
"please…" he gasped, his voice weak. "don't… she's all I have left."
The girl glanced at him, her eyes concealed behind her mask. "it's better this way, she won't feel any pain."
With one swift motion, she raised her hand, prepared to deliver the fatal blow to his mother, but something stopped her. Her hand froze mid-strike. She didn't understand why her hand froze… until she felt it. Her soul had been invaded, manipulated into sparring Akeh's mother.
She looked at Akeh, her eyes wide with surprise.
"you…?"
She stepped back, staring at her own hand as if it no longer belonged to her. She couldn't believe it, her gaze lingered on Akeh.
"how did you… manipulate my soul?"
Akeh blinked, confused, his breath shallow. "what…?"
She knelt beside him, explaining. "only those with the spirit's gift can manipulate souls, but manipulating a soul master like me is impossible…"
Altine sighed. "you just showed great potential… since I can't put your mother to rest, I'll just have to take her to someone who can."
She stood up dusting her knee as she stared at Akeh. Akeh stared back, still paralyzed but now filled with a deep sense of unease. He didn't know what had just occurred, but it had saved his mother's life, for now. His vision blurred as his body succumbed to the burnout from the day's stress.