Rebirth: The Shadow Of Greed

... Z felt his c.h.e.s.t go wet, it was warm and sticky, blood splashed across his face as he widened his eyes in shock.

At the end of the knife he was holding, was Alice, skewered with her blood spurting out on his face and c.h.e.s.t.

"Zero, Friend. Find Sister." Alice said as she moved even closer extending her hug onto his body plunging herself deeper into the knife.

These 4 words came to haunt Z for a very long time after that. It was Z's first kill, although it was classified as a suicide it didn't make him feel any better regardless of the technicalities.

"no, no, no, no! Alice! Wake up, your sister needs you to save her! Don't throw it on me! Alice!"

Memories of the innocent girl flashed through his mind, the first time she kicked him, the first time they shared food, how she would always be defensive of him and how he would teach her to speak properly. All that ended with a stab of the knife.

"Useless piece of shit! How could the experiment fail so bad! An emotionless weapon actually succ.u.mbed to her emotion. F*ck"

Mistress Juliana shouted her high pitch voice gradually becoming lower and lower.

"Boss, did you see this? Now that he killed our weapon what do we do with him"

Swet asked, talking to the hologram seated behind them.

"..... Test him..."

The voice said before trailing off.

Both Mistress Juliana and Instructor Swet bowed as they walked out into the hallway.

"Ten of you, come in with me. The original test was for all of you to kill each other. I'm giving you a chance, Zero had just fought with Alice and unfortunately, Alice has died.

As you can see he is there in front of you. Your mission now is to go together and kill Zero. If you can pass this mission, I will allow all 10 of you to pass. Does this sound good? "

The recruits looked at each other and started whispering, a lot of buzz could be heard.

"Isn't it just the weakling Zero that's following behind Alice?"

"He must have sneaked attacked her."

"Wow, I can't believe he killed his own protection."

"It should be easy to kill him."

They started to plan out what they wanted to do all while Z was in the room, sobbing uncontrollably, tears fall onto the corpse of Alice, while he rocked back and forth mumbling words that were jumbled together.

"You shouldn't have..."

"I lost everything..."

"How could you..."

"Whose fault was this..."

The mumblings gradually just turned into a repetition of the last sentence as he started sobbing even more.

"look at that weakling, he's already lost his mind. Through my mental training, he should be stronger than that but look at him! Looks like the upper management failed in their assessment this time around."

Mistress Juliana sprawled out in her chair fanning herself with her trademark fan.

"Give him some time, if he can get out of this, perhaps it isn't wasted after all"

Instructor Swet said, watching the screen in front of him seriously.

"he's already broken, the both of you just attack him together. Don't even need to use your manifests, just stab him in the back"

One of the recruits shouted. The two recruits nearest to Z picked up daggers on the floor as they slowly approached Z who was still in the same position.

"Whose fault is this... Whose fault is this..."

The duo approached as the raised their daggers viciously stabbing into the back of Z, only to find he had vanished from their sights.

"It's your fault!"

Z appeared behind them back to back with the duo, a surge of power could be felt emitting from his body as his hair turned white almost instantly, no one knew it it was because of extreme stress or duress or if it was because of all the anguish he had suffered, it had provoked something inside him to burst forth.

Instantly 2 black spikes emerged from his back impaling the duo that wanted to stab him with the Dagger. Before letting it dissipate into shadows and letting them fall to the ground.

Z looked at all the people in front of him with extreme bloodl.u.s.t as he was like an uncaged beast.

"Let's go! Get him!"

Z felt a strange attraction pulling him into one of the recruits who had his hand outstretched, drawing him in whether he liked it or not, resisting the force, he ended up leaving drag marks on the ground. Beside the recruit, 3 others stood waiting to gang up on him once he got attracted over.

Z immediately let go of his grip on the ground flying forward at full force, just as the recruit wanted to grab his face, his head turned into shadows making him grab air instead.

Z's hand swung sharply, reaching over to the recruit's face grabbing it firmly, before using his leg to trip him slamming him hard into the ground. The black spikes emerged again as it shot out impaling the three that were stunned by what happened in front of them.

He raised his fist as he created a blade with the shadows and swung his hand across the neck of the recruit that was on the ground, leaving him to bleed out. He stood up slowly, blood rolling of the shadow blade as he made it dissipate.

Turning around, it was like a curtain of pitch-black floated behind him as it slowly came together to form the shape of a girl. The witnesses there could have sworn they saw Alice alive again as they saw the realistic shadow walk towards Z's back hugging him from behind and turning into a cloak with shadows flapping around like a torn flag all around him.

Z looked like darkness incarnate, as he stood there cold and calm.

One of the recruits decided that it was at this time where he was most distracted that he had to move. In an instant with great speed, he moved in front of a wall attempting to pick up a morningstar to use it to secretly attack Z from the back. The minute he picked up the morning star, he felt an attractive force pulling him towards Z.

"Dammit! That's Wayne's manifest!"

He shouted as he lost balance and flew directly into Z's hands.