Revenge

The house was quiet at last. The only sounds remaining were the soft crackling of dying fires and the night breeze blowing the smoke away. It was over, For Erina Zaisen, everything was over. What she came for here was over. The lives of the scum who took her husband's life was over. Sadly, it also seemed that her life was over as well. The last meteor storm she summoned had literally torn the house apart, smashing some of her foes into boiling puddles of blood while turning the others into blackened ashes. No one survived the onslought. It was important as if anyone had a sliver of life in them to cast one spell, she would be killed.

"This is a pathetic sight..."

Erina winced when she heard the voice. Had she failed? Was there one wizard she didn't kill? Her answer came when she saw the purple cloth of a wizard's robes ahead of her. She tried to look up but the movement caused her own burns to throb painfully. She, instead, glanced at her hands. One hand was a charred stump. She had used it to hold one wizard into a fire pillar. Both her hand and the wizard had been burned into cinders. She was bleeding from cuts to the head and through her nose. Propped up against a low, half-burnt wall; she looked like another corpse in the area of devastation. Her green hair, normally shoulder-length, was partially burnt. It was hardly a loss of appearance considering that a quarter of her face, including her right eye, was scorched. Fortunately, that still left her mouth free for use.

"Not pathetic enough to fail to ki-..."

"I am not one of those who killed your husband, Erina Zaisen."

Erina forced herself to look up this time. Her remaining eye's fuzzy vision caught glimpses of purple from the clothes and white where the hair should be. It was a wizard but his appearance would have still been strange.

"Who...are you?"

"Someone who's partially interested. Well...not in you, actually. There's nothing interesting in a half-burned corpse. The reason why you are does amuse me."

The wizard grasped her by the head and stared at her remaining eye. Even with her blurring vision, Erina saw crimson within the man's eyes.

"Was it worth it, Erina Zaisen? It cost you dearly to get this revenge. Did your investment pay off?"

Erina tried to frown. The muscles around her face ached from the strain. She knew the price this wizard was talking about.

"No...of course it wasn't."

"Then what was it all for?"

"Something that had to be done...that's all..."

"What of your son?"

Despite her wounds, Erina found enough strength to add some menace to her voice.

"Leave my son out of-!"

"This? That's what you did, Erina. You left your son out of everything. Good for you, though. There would have been two half-burnt corpses propped up on that wall but you spared him of the affair. Ended it yourself to leave him free to do what he should. The Source commends that."

Erina's voice softened. The Source...she knew of what this man was talking about. Her reasons did not concern the source of magic.

"He would have grown up...learned about all this and...and tried to take his own revenge...he's too...good for that...I took revenge...f-for both of us..."

Despite the haze of pain, Erina felt the man smile even when blood dribbled from her mouth.

"Sounds like excuses to me, Erina Zaisen. You got what you wanted though. You even wrote a will with instructions not to inform him about all of this. He'll probably never know. You know what he'll think of you, don't you?"

Erina smiled bitterly. She was so tired now. She could even feel her own heartbeat slowing down.

"H-he'll...hate me...h-hate me for not being there...f-for...dying on him. I h-haven't seen him even once...i-in the academy. He'll...t-think that...I...t-think...he's worthless."

The man ran his hand over her eye to close it. She felt his breath on her neck as whispered to her ear.

"True. He'll think you're a witch; rotting away in a marble box just to spite him. He has his own stupidity to deal with. Still, you shouldered the stupidity of revenge for him, Erina Zaisen. That frees him to be useful to the Source. It's pathetic but useful; better than mothering him to grow up into some fool bitter over his father's death then watching him be propped up on that wall. Trust that you did not die in vain. Goodbye, Erina Zaisen."

The green-haired wizard smiled again and sighed. Raven Huer shrugged his shoulders, dusted his robes and walked away. The Juno police would find the ruins soon enough...there was only one body worth burying.