Title: Enjoying The Duel
Character: Zarc||Romance: N/A
Word Count: 500||Chapters: 1/1
Genre: Drama||Rated: G
Challenges: Diversity Writing, A62, 3rd person fic; Arc-V Flash Bingo, #128, sin
Summary: It feels very good to hurt other people. Zarc kind of wishes it didn't. But only kinda.


I liked it.

Zarc tried to tell himself that it wasn't true, that there hadn't been a delicious rush of adrenaline all through him when he finished off his opponent. That the look of fear on the other's face hadn't appealed to a part of him that he hadn't even suspected existed.

Zarc was very good at lying to himself.

It was their fault, he told himself. He only did what the fans wanted. They wanted blood. They wanted savage defeats and they didn't care who gave it to them.

It wasn't his fault. He just tried to entertain. To give them pleasure. He didn't really like doing this.

Or so he tried to convince himself. It didn't feel good. It was for the fans. Zarc would do anything for his fans.

He stopped counting his victories. His opponents did try, he would give them that much. But to no avail.

When one couldn't lose, what did it matter?

He began to hate dueling. Not his monsters, by any means. He loved all of them. But dueling and the destruction that everyone around him roared for?

More violence. More rage. More cheers that only came when he unleashed more violence than the time before.

He hated those cheers. Those cheers that he'd once craved and which meant so much when he'd first heard them now only meant pain and suffering.

Not his, though. Never his. His opponents tried to hurt him and he laughed. What did their petty attempts mean in the face of everything else? When he could hear how his monsters hated this as much as he did?

Human pain meant less than nothing to him.

I'd kill them if I could. Zarc considered this, even as more cheers and demands for blood and pain rained down on him. He plastered on a false smile and waved to the crowd before he strolled out of the arena, mind filled with images of blood and death of all those who demanded it from him.

He didn't know how far he'd gone before he caught sight of a transparent figure not that far away, looking at him. Before he could ask who it was, a whisper of a voice spoke.

I can help you.

A dozen questions leapt to Zarc's mind but only one crossed his lips. "How?"

Now he could see who it was: Astrograph Sorcerer. All of the cards in his deck held spirits, but he seldom spoke to this one.

What he heard wasn't what he expected. The more he heard, the more he grinned, and the more his dragons approved. They wanted this as much as he did.

All the people in this world were far too rotten and corrupt. They all needed to die.

Zarc smiled. "The Championship is next week." The idea of killing them all while they praised him for the carnage enticed him. "Then."

Astrograph Sorcerer bowed his head. "As you wish, master."

Zarc would enjoy this last duel most of all.

The End

Notes: I'm going to have fun writing Zarc. I can just feel it.