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He wanted to break. Wanted Ren to break him. If Ren didn't then Zero would end up killing him. Ren hadn't been wrong in his guess, Zero wasn't himself, or was he? Running on nothing but the fire fueling him, he struck relentless and unforgiving. It's as though he'd replaced any affection he'd once held toward him into something long buried. The truth burst with every punch, every swipe of his vectors.
Ren however didn't crack, he met Zero at every hit and kept nothing back. He sent volts jolting through Zero as if that could stop him. The blows didn't register and wouldn't, not after he'd turned off the nerve receptors. But if Ren noticed he gave no indication, he continued holding up strong.
"Zero, come back!" The words strung in the air then fell away like dust. They meant nothing. Not anymore. He wouldn't go back to the way he was, not now or ever. Wasn't is better this way?
"There's nothing to come back to."
"You're lying to yourself."
"Just like you lied to me, for years." He landed a solid strike toward Ren's torso, ripping away. "You're a ghost."
Ren gripped at Zero's throat, white sparks crackling the air. "Is that what this is?"
Zero ran him through with the edge of his vector, blood seeping from Ren's lips. Yet he didn't even flinch. "I've been sharpening them for years."
"I've been getting revenge for the both of us." Ren sounded a little angry or was that disappointment? Did he honestly think that was what Zero wanted? Wrong.
Zero choked a laugh. "Look who's delusional now."
Ren turned his attention away. "Stay out of this Red man. It's between us."
Grell's signals were spiked and frantic. Zero grinned. The taste of it better than blood almost. "Let him join the party, it'll be fun." Zero ripped at Ren's wrist, bone snapped and the limb tore. The hand writhed once severed from its host. He tossed it away. But of course it crawled up in a heap of shattered bone and active muscle magnetizing back to Ren."Where are you going?"
Zero stood at the edge of the building, below near the beach, another set of their kind—no, the girl. She was emitting a signal unlike any he'd ever sensed from her.
"Zero!"
He leaped off the roof, landing into the concrete with enough force to shatter the surface, then bolted. He wasn't sticking around, not while there was a chance at capture.
Ren's signals were close, why couldn't he just disappear again? There was only one way for this to go.