Sister Agnes stared at Jinn’s shadowed back with a complex look on her face. At first she was glad that he was alive, but witnessing him kill Geralt in cold blood shook her.
’Did this happen because of me?’ She blamed it all on herself for not being a better example for Jinn. She felt like she had failed him as a matron and as a guide.
Her eyes drifted to Jinn’s hands, which no longer looked human. His hands were covered in a dark metallic sheen that reached up to his elbows. Just looking at his back gave her an unfamiliar feeling.
’What is happening....’
Sister Agnes’s breath caught as Jinn finally moved.
His shoulders rolled back, bones creaking audibly as though his very frame could no longer contain him.
His body grew in size. The thinness of his limbs thickened into cords of raw muscle, tearing at the seams of his clothes.
His five-foot figure stretched upward, inch by inch, until he stood half a head taller than before, his presence filling the room in a way that made the walls seem too narrow to hold him.
His skin lost its warmth, paling into something closer to ash than flesh.
A dark, curling, suffocating mist that seemed less like vapor and more like the shadows themselves rising to kneel at his feet seeped out from his skin.
The boy’s hair, once short and black, lengthened strand by strand, spilling past his shoulders.
The color bled away from the scalp to the tip as it grew, each lock turning white as bone, thick and heavy, gleaming in the faint candlelight.
Sister Agnes clasped her hands over her mouth as the last remnants of his boyhood melted away.
The innocence she had always seen in his features was devoured, leaving behind sharpness, edges honed by something inhuman.
His lips curled in neither smile nor snarl, but his eyes...
They were glowing red, filled with a slyness and hunger she could not name.
The pupils narrowed into vertical slits, beast-like and unblinking, and they pierced her as though peeling away every layer of her soul.
Watching the changes he was going through, a flicker of realization struck her eyes.
Sister Agnes wanted to say something, but a sound silenced her. A wet, grinding, alien sound emerged as the skin on his forehead split open.
Bones pushed through two holes, curving upward with slow inevitability.
A pair of horns, not some manifestation of energy, something that could fade at any time, but solid, real, bone-forged, had grown from his forehead.
They curled back with the elegance of a crown, rough and jagged at their roots, polished black at their tips.
By the time the change stilled, the boy she had raised was gone.
Before her stood something taller, darker, wrapped in a mist that swallowed the light around it. Something is no longer merely human.
"What a Joyous occasion!"Jinn heard a new yet familiar voice ringing beside his ears. "Finally, you can tap into your real self. I congratulate you on successfully claiming the soul of an awakened with your own hands and fulfilling our contract... ’Master.’"
The voice was no longer mocking and touched with deceit. No, it sounded fully subservient and obedient, though there was a touch of amusement in its tone, which seemed to be etched deep in its core. Tʜe source of this ᴄontent ɪs 𝓷𝓸𝓿𝓮𝓵※𝖿𝗂𝗋𝖾※𝙣𝙚𝙩
Jinn turned his head slightly and saw for the first time the white mist over his shoulder take a form.
There stood a creature of darkness, a small palm-sized creature with red skin and no hair on its body. There were small drill-like holes on its head and a tail with an arrowed tip on its end.
This creature was an imp, a small aide to the devils who were meant to serve them until their deaths. Although mischievous and naughty creatures, Imps were said to be the most loyal subordinates to those with whom they have signed a contract.
Seeing the creature with his eyes told him one thing for Jinn: ’This confirms it; I don’t have Schizophrenia.’
"Look down at your stomach, master."The imp flew down, letting Jinn follow its movements. Right around where he had seen his dragon energy awaken a few days ago, something else was stirring.
"This root chakra of the humans is the only thing they share with us, the creatures of the darkness."The creature pointed at the spot, which used to glow with a silver tint but now had gained a red hue around it.
"The second reward of the contract: You have now awakened the first core, master. Congratulations."
As it said those words, Jinn could feel a new power surging through his body.
"You are him..." Sister Agnes finally spoke, drawing Jinn’s attention. "It was you who helped me all this time."
Jinn, who was about to inspect his new power, looked at the matron, who was still kneeling on the ground. Her eyes were filled with sorrow and uncertainty.
"It was you who came to me after I killed Torus and offered me that deal in exchange for my silence and the souls of those I killed."
Slowly, her senses returned and she began to make connections.
"It was you who cleaned up after me and removed all the evidence I left behind. You also told me about the janitor and moved his body to that classroom."
As she spoke, the flashes of the past flickered through her mind. In the first image, she was crying in her office on the night of Torus’s murder when everything suddenly turned dark, and she heard the voice of a dark entity.
The entity offered her a deal, and she had no choice but to take it, even if she knew that she had made a deal with The Devil.
Then came the image where she saw Jinn appear before her once she was done killing the janitor and say he would deal with the aftermath.
Then came a different image and then another until finally she knew it.
Jinn calmly stared back at her, as if waiting for her to speak or act. The matron stepped forward and raised her hand.
’Is this it? The end of outbound...’ he thought, looking for an answer in her eyes.
As her hand continued to rise, Jinn did not blink or close his eyes and waited for the impact.
His eyes shook slightly when Sister Agnes touched his face with her hand and asked with a mournful voice, "why?"
"Why go through so much trouble to help me? Why not just come to me and tell me everything? Did you not trust me?" Her words cut through Jinn deeper than she could have realized.
But the boy now turned devil said the most serious and definitive words with utter calmness. "Because... I am The Devil."