'Seifer, go now!' Jayson barked as Illyssa fell from Seifer's fiery punch, his eyes not leaving Kazen.
'You're kidding?' Seifer retorted, flashing him a mischievous grin.
'You're unarmed and I need you to guard the door so no one comes in or out.' Jayson replied drawing Fixxer the blade glinting darkly in the faint light of the Quad.
'Fine.' Seifer muttered giving Jayson a resigned look and walked off, glancing once more at Jayson before he disappeared through the door.
'So what will you do now Omen? You defy me again and again, you betray your family.' Kazen said as Illyssa slowly stood, her cheek a tortuous welt of seared red, angry flesh where Seifer had punched her.
'Family?' Jayson spat, raising Fixxer.
'You gave me nothing but punishment and pain, you never cared for me.' Jayson retorted and shrugged a strange grin crossing his features. 'A family of murderers we are then and I'll show you who's the biggest murderer by finishing you off like I should have all those years ago.' He snarled, moving quickly towards Kazen.
Kazen twisted the top of his cane, drawing a thin rapier from within it, holding it tightly in one hand, ready to parry Jayson's attack.
This movement was not required as Illyssa stepped between them drawing out a whip from inside her robes and cracked it at Jayson, catching his cheek, drawing blood. Jayson shook his head, slightly stunned by the stinging pain, which allowed Kazen time to step back and move to circle him.
Again Illyssa cracked her whip, keeping him at bay, as Kazen slowly and warily circled him, swift swipes with his rapier warning Jayson to be careful.
It was just the three of them, he had nearly killed them before, there was nothing to hold him back, not even the small voice in the back of his head that tried to dissuade him from hurting his half-sister. The pain and anger inside caused by Kazen was still fresh in his mind, having never truly left him in the ten years after he had massacred Pandora and Illyssa was no longer innocent, blood stained her hands just as they did his and so he had no need to be merciful this time.
He ducked under her whip, the speared tail sailing over his shoulder as he dove at her, the sharp edge of Fixxer's hooked blade slicing into her thigh before his shoulder connected with her chest, knocking the whip from her hand.
She stumbled backwards as blood trickled from the deep wound, soaking invisibly into the black material of her robes. Jayson stood, bringing Fixxer upwards and swung it at her, doing what he had failed to do all those years back. As the blade met her flesh exactly where her scar was he felt the stinging pain of Kazen's rapier swishing against his back but he ignored the pain, the warm blood trickling down his spine as the cold metal was whisked away and he concentrated all his focus into the swing of his arms as it cut cleanly through Illyssa's neck, flesh carved away like butter, the bone and cartilage of her neck vertebrae offering as much resistance as paper as Fixxer's blade flew from the other side of her neck, drops of blood hanging in the air as the fell from it, Illyssa's head rolling away to the floor, her face frozen in an expression of disbelief before her body followed it to the ground.
Behind him, Jayson heard Kazen's wail of anguish.
'Illyssa!' he cried out, the despair evident in his voice. 'How could you kill your own sister?' he seethed, the sound of the rapier swishing through the air as Jayson turned to catch it against Fixxer.
'Pretty easily…. You seem to forget that as far as I'm concerned I have no family. You should be more worried about your own life as I'm about to end it all.' Jayson replied coolly, his blue eyes flashing darkly.
'You could've have been something better than this. You could've been the right hand man to a supreme being!' Kazen told him heatedly as he tried to slide the rapier under Jayson's guard and stab him in the stomach.
'Just like you? No thanks! The only thing you succeeded in doing is making sure I hated you… was that ever part of your plan?' Jayson snarled, bringing Fixxer down and knocking the rapier away, only mildly surprised by the older man's cunning.
'No… you were to respect me, be pleased at the strength I'd given you, that you'd understand when you were older and your mother ruled once more.' Kazen said softly.
'Then you're more of a fool than I thought… how could a young child understand all that pain and torment as something good? But you're right it made me strong, in the mind, I was able to resist everything you tried to break me with, yet it cost me my emotions, forced me into loneliness.' Jayson said, his eyes narrowing in determination as the seemingly frail Kazen was a lot faster on his feet than Jayson had remembered, dancing around him as the rapier's blade flashed at him again and again, avoided by quick movements and parries with Fixxer honed by years of training.
'Then maybe you can understand how it was for us when Adel was taken from us and were we forced into that hell hole of caves.' Kazen replied, sweat beading on his brow as he continued to try Jayson's defences, looking for any opening, something to weaken him with so he'd get chance to explain, to change his defiant mind.
'Don't try to tell me we're the same, I may have your blood but that means nothing. I have that witch's blood in me too but I'll never be a ruthless tyrant like her, I don't want to rule the world, be feared and hated. If I had the choice I'd tear every part of her out of me along with all the powers it gave me.' Jayson snarled swiping at Kazen who barely dodged the attack.
'You'd besmirch the powers you've been given to be normal? When you could do so much with them?' Kazen snapped, flailing weakly with the rapier as his old body became fatigued.
'These powers are a curse, as are you!' Jayson yelled and gave up on holding back, finally having said all that he had wanted to get off his chest and finding the perfect opening.
Kazen was powerless to stop Jayson shattering his rapier with a blow that reverberated through his whole body and the ground around Jayson's feet sparked with a brilliant light that erupted around him, crackling in jagged arcs of energy before fading.
'What is this?' Kazen whispered in awe.
'Death…' Jayson replied as his muscles bunched as he launched into a limit break, everything he had, everything he felt all focusing in his arms, in Fixxer as a new technique came into being from the recesses of him mind, unleashed as Kazen stood frozen before him, the once proud and overbearing tormentor of his past now a frail little thing.
'Unforgiven' Jayson snarled as his body followed instinctively the technique that became available to him under this time of immense emotional stress.
Jayson held Fixxer low, slashing across Kazen's lower legs in a straight line, his arms twisting at the end of the arc so he could bring the blade upwards diagonally and the straight across Kazen's chest, the tip of Fixxer's blade following a Z shaped pattern in the air.
There was a whistling sound as Kazen tried to breathe, the last slash opening his lungs to the surrounding air, a gurgling sound growing as blood bubbled through the wounds.
As Kazen started to fall, Jayson pulled Fixxer back for the last motion of the Unforgiven limit break. With a fierce determination in his eyes, Jayson drove Fixxer forward with all his might, the point of the blade piercing Kazen's good eye and going straight out the back of his head, this time definitely mutilating his brain and destroying what existed of the personality that was Kazen Orca.
Jayson pulled the blade back, breathing heavily as he looked at the two bodies that lay before him in growing pools of blood. This was how they had left those innocent girls who were nothing more than pawns in their twisted scheme and it seemed fitting that he would have the girls' revenge for them this way. This was the only way it could've ended, to let them live would no doubt mean more deaths as they came at him again and again, blindly living in a hopeless dream. He still held the guilt for those girls' deaths for if he had done this properly the first time this would never have happened.
His past could physically be buried but how long would it be before Garden found out about him? Could he trust Seifer and the others to keep his secret? How much would he have to explain?
He was too tired to think now, all he wanted was to fall into Meia's warm embrace once more, lose himself in her love where he felt so safe and then he'd have the energy to face whatever the world had to throw a him next.
Author's note: As you can probably guess this is meant to be an alternate ending taking place of chapters 13-15 in the main text. I originally planned to have this as the ending, wanting to go out on a somewhat happy note and have the Dark Jayson scenario as the alternate but as I wrote that ending I felt that this one was so much weaker and decided to relegate it to alternate.