Val made time rewind so that she could watch the interaction between Arius and his half-siblings which led up to his decision to kill Iharu. She moved her frame of reference by the teenagers and positioned herself at Urru’s side.

Arius simply wandered away from Iharu and Fang, that stern expression unchanging on his face. “I was just curious: which of the two of you is stronger?” Arius took great interest in his knuckles and fingernails as he asked this.

“I am!” Iharu said at once.

“Yeah,” Fang agreed, “Iharu is.”

“Great. Thanks for the information.” Arius generated his red energy and sent a blade straight for Iharu’s neck. All the while, a smile lifted onto his face for the first time. Arius grinned wickedly while he attacked the older teenage girl.

Though Val hated to side with Tavras on this one, Arius actually was behaving like a little demon child.

Blood splashed from her neck into the open air. Iharu fell onto her knees before collapsing across the ground. One hand, painted in gold, stayed clasped over her throat as she was in the process of dying. She happened to be the same age as Val at the time of this vision.

“Arius!” Ludo could be heard screaming.

Shortly after, Tavras yelled in kind. “Iharu!”

The angelic light from Ludo’s ability flew over and entered Iharu at the point of her split neck. The skin healed over anew so that not another drop of blood was shed. That same light zoomed for Arius, struck him in the neck, and opened an identical gash across his throat.

Arius staggered from the shock and nearly doubled over, but his regeneration ability activated quickly enough for him to right himself.

Thunder boomed over head and rainwater started pouring down all at once.

From the aid of his water, Tavras joined the group of teens first. Immediately, he collapsed at Iharu’s side and drew her into his embrace. “Are you all right?” The glow of his healing ability activated at her neck even though there was no injury to be healed. As if he could shield her in this position, he cast his attention up to Arius with abhorrence.

Before Tavras could lash out in any way, Ludo had arrived.

First, Arius had an innocent look of confusion on his face as he asked calmly, “Why did you do that, Ludo?”

“Why did you do that, Arius?” Ludo screamed in return. He grabbed the child Arius by his shoulders and shook him so that his head swung back and forth on his thin neck.

“I-I don’t know,” Arius said. The confusion in his eyes was overwhelmed by shock and fear. “I didn’t mean to. I thought that you wanted me to!” Twisting around, Arius broke away from Ludo with an impulse of red razors slicing at his skin.

A translucent screen rose between Ludo and Arius and sent each of his blades back at him. The wall between them also set him free from Ludo’s grip.

With a myriad of cuts on his arms, Arius turned heel and ran. “Urru!” he called.

At once, Urru darted around Tavras and Iharu with his claws digging deep into the sodden field. One hop sent him into the air. His wings spread as he flew low across the ground and intercepted Arius who jumped onto Urru’s back. With a pound of his wings, Urru ascended against the pouring rain.

Arius and Urru fled from the whole scene.

A big sigh hefted from Ludo’s lips. His knuckles pressed against his brow as he shook his head repeatedly. “It looks like I was the one who did not explain things well enough to Arius.”

“What do you mean by that?” Tavras shouted. “That bastard just tried to kill Iharu! No amount of talking or therapy will fix that demented mind, but I know something that will fix it.”

Iharu stayed close to Tavras. One of her hands grasped desperately at his arm, the knuckles nearly bone white in contrast to her dark, even skin. She swallowed a few times as if testing out her neck. Aside from that, she simply blinked. So near to death, she looked to be in a state of shock—a surprisingly tame reaction for her.

“Just listen to reason, Tavras,” Ludo said. “The other side of Arius’s family is… problematic to say the least. You can imagine what his life has been like so far.”

“I see that he is choking on his golden spoon,” Tavras spit.

A dastardly scowl crossed Ludo’s face. “You are being willfully ignorant so that you can hate Arius more. Suvier raises his offspring under conditions that appeal to the primal, tribalistic minds of children. Arius is the least violent of all his siblings! You saw him in a bad light today, but he really has a gentle heart.”

Tavras scoffed. “You are only telling me that all of Suvier’s children are demons—which I already knew!”

“No!” Ludo tried harder to explain on Arius’s behalf. “Due to his circumstance, it must have confused him when I told him that we were meeting his half-siblings. He must not have realized that his siblings would be any different on his mother’s side. It did not help that you came here glaring at him like all of the mothers of his other half-siblings! Arius reasonably perceived it as the same situation and acted accordingly.”

“Oh, so it is my fault that I somehow triggered the psychopath?” Tavras asked, pointing one hand in towards his face where he feigned surprise. His other arm, he kept securely around Iharu. “Face it, Ludo. You cannot heal everybody. Some people are best removed from the world before they cause more trouble in it.” With a final squeeze, he ceased hugging Iharu, got up, and turned his back to them all.

Before he left, Tavras gave pause. “I really am sorry, Ludo. I like kids—I really do, but this one needs to die.” With those last words, he took off in a burst of water to follow the dragon disappearing in the sky.

Val watched on in utter surprise, though she should not have let any of Tavras’s behavior astonish her at this point. When Arius was but fifteen years old, Tavras had already set out to kill him. Taking into account Arius’s ability, he very well could have killed him multiple times.

Meanwhile, Iharu had absorbed her shock as fuel for her rage. Her voice came out in a seething mutter. “I swear that I will get back at him. I will eat out his heart one day. I will!”

Val recalled that Iharu had said a similar thing when she had nearly killed her by accident.

In a fluid motion, Iharu’s body shifted into the form of a wolf—smaller than the one that Val had fought against, but almost as big. Those sizable paws scraped up the dirt as she pushed herself into a run. Iharu gave pursuit after Tavras and Arius.

Val knew what would happen. Tavras would kill Arius a bunch of times, probably getting incredibly angry that he could not make him stay dead. She had no desire to see him vexed like that, nor did she want to see Arius brutalized in that way.

So, the vision wavered away Val returned to the present moment in time where she laid in the field with Foofy and Arius.