Chapter 134: Like Broodfather, Like Son
Staring at the knife on the ground, Ash's stomach lurched hard enough to make him gag. Saliva flooded his mouth. Heat rushed to his face. Sweat streamed down his spine, his body shaking on empty.
"I—I can't. Please—"
"You don't get a choice."
Seo-jin's voice stayed flat. This was the cut line. If the boy couldn't cross it, he wasn't worth keeping. The father meant nothing to him either. If one killed the other, so be it.
Seo-jin shifted his blade toward McLeach. Bloodlight climbed his frame, thick and suffocating.
"If you kill him, I won't lay a finger on you. You can walk away."
The reactions split clean. A slow, ugly grin crept across the father's face. The son folded inward, panic tearing through him.
"Don't drag it out."
Seo-jin added.
"Or I'll finish it myself."
Snare, Pain, Panic, and Seo-jin stepped back, opening the street and leaving the two of them alone in it.
McLeach wasn't seeing Ash anymore. His eyes kept snapping between the knife, the scorch-mark where Joanna had died, and the empty space she'd filled. His burned skin barely registered. His shoulders slumped. His head tipped back toward the sky.
"It should've been you...Joanna's dead because you never learned to listen."
Each word hit like a round fired point-blank. Ash flinched. He knew this rhythm. The calm always came first. Then the hurt.
He glanced at Seo-jin, bile rising with the taste of betrayal.
"Boss… I can't. He's going to—"
"Ash."
His father's voice cut in, sharp and steady.
"Look at the mess you made. I should've sold you. Should've let you die so many times. You're a curse. Always were."
One step forward. Just one.
Everything Ash had scraped together shattered.
Tears broke loose. His chest caved in.
"I'm sorry! I didn't want this—I tried to warn you! Please—Father—!"
Another step.
"I fucked up! I'll listen! I swear I will!"
It didn't slow him. It didn't soften his face. That expression, the one Ash had learned to fear, crawled straight into his bones.
When his father bent and closed his fingers around Panic's dagger, something inside him snapped clean.
He didn't think. He didn't wait.
He ran.
McLeach lifted the blade, lips curling as he watched his son bolt. He tilted his head toward Seo-jin.
Seo-jin gave a single nod.
"Make it fast."
McLeach spat blood onto the street and went after him.
Without shifting his stance, Seo-jin dismissed Butcher's Wrath. The blades resisted, irritated at being called out without flesh to chew, the recoil biting back through muscle and bone as they sank away.
"Track them. Keep an eye out for other Users."
Two shadows peeled off at once. One lingered. Snare stayed planted beside his master, Triss still unconscious, cradled in his arm.
"Do we permit the boy to die?"
"Yes. Broken toys aren't worth fixing."
Snare's grin cut wide. He bowed low.
"As you command, Broodfather."
Then he turned and followed the others.
Left alone, Seo-jin shut his eyes and centered on the heat pulsing inside his chest. Grimm stirred there, warm and heavy, and alive. When Seo-jin opened his eyes again, they burned bright, sharp as flares, and he started forward.
[You're sure about this? The kid's already shattered. This could—]
"Doesn't matter. If he crawls through this on his own, it saves me time. Time I don't have."
The skyline pulled his gaze, the Woon Tower cutting through the city like a scar. No matter where he stood, it watched him back. Always there. Always waiting.
[And when he hates you for it?]
"He will for a while. I can break that too."
A scream split the distance. High. Ragged. Fear-soaked.
Seo-jin's head turned.
"Caught him."
He lengthened his stride, boots cracking pavement, curiosity curling tight in his gut as he pictured the look on the kid's face right now.
Ahead, a smear of blood dragged across shattered concrete, a sloppy trail that ended at Ash's hunched shape. He clutched his hand tight to his chest, red leaking between his fingers from a fresh slice across his palm. He forced his breathing shallow and quiet, then sank into a crouch.
"Why is this happening?"
[Because that traitorous piece of shit played you. Crossing him was the worst mistake you ever made.]
'But he saved me. He saved me! Why would he do that just to turn on me?!'
[Doesn't matter. Move. Get out of the city. Put distance between you and both of them.]
'Where am I supposed to—'
"Hiding won't save you! You turned your back on me, Ash! You spat on your mother's name! You brought that bastard to us, Joanna death is your fault!"
The voice was closer now. Too close. It scraped down Ash's spine and stole the air from his lungs. Each word crushed tighter than the last. But when his mother's name came out tangled with that ghost's, something hot twisted in his gut.
Anger flared.
Not enough to run. Not enough to speak.
The pain dulled. Not gone, just quieter, like something deciding whether to finish the job.
[If you stay still, he'll find you.]
'He finds me anywhere. You know that.'
[Then what are you going to do?]
For one sharp, useless heartbeat, Min crossed his thoughts. Big. Loud. Solid. The idea of reaching her sparked, then burned out, crushed by the immediate need to run.
His father slid into view.
"Why you?"
The words came flat.
"It shouldn't have been you."
Ash lunged upright, his blood-slicked palm slapping the wall as he broke into a sprint—
"No more."
[Status Effect // Paralysis // Applied]
[Duration // 15 seconds]
His body locked mid-step. Muscles seized. Breath jammed in his chest. Only his eyes still worked. Pale, spectral hands cinched around his limbs, pinning him in place. Panic tore through his skull.
"Enough. We both knew this was how it would end."
Every nerve screamed as Ash tried to force motion. Nothing answered. He knew already, even though he'd hoped, even though he'd known better. This wasn't a punishment. Not a lesson. This was murder.
The day collapsed inward, memories of his entire life slamming together until his head felt ready to burst. In that moment, the child who had existed that morning had died. Nothing was left but the now.
A hand cupped his frozen face.
"After that day, I hated you. I've rehearsed this more times than I can count."
Steel slid between Ash's ribs.
Slow. Deliberate. Inch by inch.
"Die, you fu—"
Light detonated.
A white flare tore across McLeach's vision. He tore the blade free and staggered back, swearing. Onion hovered in front of Ash, eye blazing, veins of red crawling through the glow.
Blind and snarling, knowing what happens next, the man reacted on instinct. Black system light flashed in his hand. A glass vial formed. He crushed it.
The moment the vial shattered, a small, swollen, red shape popped into existence beside him, then burst.
Gas washed over him.
McLeach dropped where he stood, unconscious before he hit the ground.
[Status Effect // Paralysis // Ended]
[All Movement Restored]
A scream tore out of Ash. Wet. Broken. Blood surged up his throat as he collapsed into coughing, spraying red across the ground. One shaking hand slapped over the wound in his chest, fingers slick, useless.
[Run! Run now! Ash! Move!]
The warning drowned in the noise of his heartbeat. He stared down at himself, at the torn shirt soaked dark, at the blood pouring through seams that wouldn't close.
"I don't wanna die."
The words came thin. Barely sound. Gruff and Onion slammed against him through their bond, panicked and screaming, while his UI strobed warnings he couldn't process. HP draining. Time bleeding out.
"Whew. Never thought I'd actually have to burn one on you. You really are an ungrateful son."
Dust brushed off fabric. Boots scraped concrete.
McLeach stood upright.
"You never listened. Rule one. Always be prepared. Ever since you picked up that little shit, I stocked counters just for you."
He flexed his fingers.
"That vial chops status effect durations to pieces. Costs a fortune. Be proud. You died expensive."
His legs folded. Ash hit the ground hard.
Then the bond screamed.
Pain detonated through his chest as he lunged forward, blood spraying from his mouth.
"Stop!"
Too late.
Two black cages snapped into existence midair. Gruff. Onion. Trapped inside burning frames of voidfire. They clawed and thrashed, shrieking as McLeach lifted them with a lazy curl of his hand.
No speech. No warning.
His fist closed.
Black fire swallowed both cages.
Two screams ripped the street open. High. Raw. Then thinner...then nothing at all.
System text flooded his vision.
[Companion // Onion // Deceased]
[Companion // Gruff // Deceased]
"Don't worry. You'll be with them soon."
Above it all, Seo-jin clung to the edge of a shattered building, watching. He'd said he didn't care. Still, something twisted in his gut.
'All of this. For nothing.'
[What will you tell Min?]
'Father and son reunited.'
He just wouldn't mention where.
His hand flexed, ready to loose the brood and end it.
Then he paused. His brow raised.
"Bloodlust?"
The broodlink flared. Snare's voice cut in, tight.
'Apologies, Broodfather. The ghost you entrusted to me escaped.'
Seo-jin didn't answer.
He didn't need to.
He was already staring at it.
And the thing hovering over the street wasn't the ghost he remembered.
Something tore loose inside Ash. Not anger. Not fear. The space where everything else had been crushed caved in, and a single word filled it. Heavy. Final.
Kill.
Above him, the air folded. Triss rose through it, her aura no longer soft or playful, but dense, dark purple pressed hard with black. The roar that came out of her wasn't sound alone. It shook brick. It rattled teeth. The street buckled as McLeach was driven backward, boots screeching, heels carving twin scars through concrete.
"Triss?!"
The cat had outgrown the shape he knew. She filled the space like a predator made wrong by scale. Tiger-sized, hunched forward, her head still too large for her body, now split by four black eyes burning hot and wide. Purple fur ran long and matted down her spine, striped through with pitch-dark bands that bled off her body, drifting and curling like loose organs in water. Black vapor leaked from her eyes and mouth, clinging to the air, stinking of ash and old blood.
Her jaw hung open. Teeth crowded inside, uneven and thick, wet with spit and something darker. Each breath dragged smoke in and pushed it back out in choking bursts.
Ash stood beneath her.
Not braced. Not ready.
His head sagged forward. Arms hung loose. Blood slid down his side, then slowed. Then stopped. Black smoke threaded out of the wound, knitting flesh with ugly purpose. His hair lifted, tugged by the pressure of his own aura, skin paling as something cold settled behind his eyes.
McLeach felt it before he understood it.
The calm shattered. The practiced distance vanished. What stood in front of him wasn't a scared boy anymore. It wasn't even his son. The shape was familiar, but the weight behind it was wrong.
This was why Ash's class looked broken. Why it was weak. Why it fed on ghosts and little else. Why he'd let the child chase games and fantasies instead of power.
Because this was the end of that road.
The word surfaced in his mind, uninvited. Ash's class name.
Shinigami.
He stared at the boy and didn't see flesh or fear or failure.
He saw death standing up.