No More Doubt

Power does not always corrupt. Sometimes it reveals.

Europa had changed them both.

For years, Kentaro-5 had ignored the feeling. A comment here. A secret shared too easily there. Quiet contempt for the Vanguard. For the Traveler. For the Light itself.

Eague Talask had always known how to make doubt sound like reason. Kentaro had told himself that was friendship. Then came Stasis. It did not make Eague into something new. It only stripped away the excuses.

So Kentaro planned.

A routine job on Europa. A favor called in. A Sparrow modified where no one would think to look. The explosion came exactly where it was supposed to. Eague hit the snow hard. Kentaro stopped several meters away. Wind tore across the ice. Rogue appeared immediately, Light already gathering around Eague's wounds.

"Kentaro!" Eague shouted. "What the hell happened?"

Kentaro stepped from his Sparrow.

Crunch. Crunch. Crunch.

Eague looked up.

"What are you doing?"

Kentaro drew Ace of Spades. Rogue turned toward him. The first shot shattered the Ghost. For a moment, even the storm seemed quiet. Eague stared at the pieces scattered across the snow. Then at Kentaro.

"What did you do?"

"My job."

Eague tried to summon his Light. Nothing. Stasis answered with the same silence.

"You could have talked to me."

Kentaro said nothing.

"That's what friends do."

Still nothing.

"You can't do this. We're Guardians."

Kentaro's aim never moved.

Eague swallowed.

"What would Jason say?"

For the first time, Kentaro answered.

"Jason's dead."

The wind screamed between them. Eague laughed once. Weakly.

"You wouldn't dare—"

The second shot ended the argument.

By official record, Eague Talask was lost in a snowstorm and killed by House Salvation forces. No further investigation followed.

Spider considered the matter settled.

Kentaro did not.

For the first time in years, he had no doubt about what Eague had become.

Only what killing him had made Kentaro.

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