For Whom the [Zeno] Bell Tolls
Vengeance ven-jəns
noun
Punishment inflicted or retribution exacted for an injury or wrong.
What you take on a person who murdered you and four of your friends.
tailoredtokill --> @4thdemonsand --> @godlightning
The February air was still chilly in the evenings that fell over Hive City. Clouds overhead threatened to frost the city over with a blanket of snow, and a soft stillness covered the space Iori stood. That space was a few feet from Ballista.
A chuckle held on the tailor’s tongue, and he clenched the detonator in his fist. Oh, the irony of what he was about to do wasn’t lost on him. The establishment he stood apart from made their business in revenge--Ballista advertised as such, anyway. Scorned lovers, heated rivals and disdained business persons alike walked through its doors to contact the two assassins that ran the establishment. Inside, it looked like an old-fashioned sitting room, fit more for a time of prohibition than the high-tech surroundings of Hive City.
Even then, Iori’s quarrel wasn’t with Ballista itself. No, it was for the person who ran it--the cold-hearted, marionette-like child with a grin like saw blades. With Zeno Bell, who murdered not only himself, but five other people.
There was a significance to the five bombs he snuck around Ballista, after all. For Kotoura Haruka, Peridot, Rei Ryugazaki, Yuan Ka-Fai, and for himself. Each had a low, even charge to balance a blast that would compromise Ballista, and only Ballista. The extent of Iori’s revenge didn’t need to harm anyone but his intended targets.
Movement through the window of the uilding took the smile off of his face, and reality hit Iori again. He was about to lay waste to someone innocent--to not murder Zeno Bell, but his accomplice (friend?), Rasa. To really twist the knife into Zeno Bell where it would hurt the most. To take away everything he’d worked for in this city in one fell swoop. It was tactic reserved for someone more akin to a monster than a human.
But it was a monster who pushed Iori to do something so awful as to murder.
With Rasa in place, Iori walked away to a safe distance. And the detonator clasped in his hand was pressed. Five seconds passed between his slender finger on the trigger, and the Boom that rang out in the streets.
Wood supports broke, paint recoiled from the walls, and in a few moments... Neither Ballista or Rasa would be standing any time soon.
Pulling his hoodie tightly over his head, Iori Shirou walked away from the crumbling building, closing his ears to the pops, bursts, flames, crackles, screams from the soon-to-be wreckage that Zeno had so proudly erected. As if it pitied the man in the building, the sky began to release the snow it held captive in its shapeless arms.
