Ragnarök, Eternal Tragedy.
Chapter 103: The absence of care.

Chapter 103: The absence of care.

(Kenneth)

The hallway cracked open like a ribcage—support beams half-bent, heat soaked into the walls, and that low electrical hum of something wrong lurking past the smoke.

Kenneth rolled his neck.

His gauntlets hissed, runes already glowing faint orange from the last guy who tried him. Steam curled from his forearms. His blood wasn’t boiling—it was the boil.

Then the new one stepped through.

Tall. Calm. Dressed in dust-gray robes etched with wave patterns that shimmered when he moved. His hands trailed through the air like he was painting music.

Name: Cyneth.

Unco: Flowstate. He could slow the world around him—not stop it, just bend its tempo. Cut reactions. Warp rhythm. Turn speed into confusion.

Cyneth spoke like someone who didn’t raise his voice often.

"Your fists make noise," he said. "But noise isn’t music."

Kenneth spit blood to the side. "Didn’t come here to sing, choir boy."

He charged.

Fast. Direct. Stupid if you didn’t know Kenneth.

Cyneth pivoted, barely moving—just enough to slide past the first strike. The second grazed his sleeve. The third didn’t land at all.

Cyneth’s eyes pulsed silver, and the air folded inward.

Kenneth felt it. Like someone took the tempo of his body and dialed it back half a step. Every swing lagged a beat too slow.

He cursed and planted his heel harder, slammed a punch wide—hit nothing but air.

"See?" Cyneth said calmly. "You react. I compose."

Then a strike hit.

Open palm.

Kenneth flew sideways, slammed into the wall, cratered the tile.

He stood up.

Grinning.

The gauntlets hissed louder now.

The rune lines turned from orange to bright red.

Cyneth tilted his head. "You’re bleeding internally."

"Good," Kenneth growled. "I was starting to cool down."

He moved again. Faster.

A spinning left swing—absorbed into a kick. He took a blow to the ribs, spat more blood. Fire lit under his skin. He roared.

The next punch sent a shockwave down the corridor. Dust blew sideways. The gauntlets screamed with pressure. The runes blazed like forge-iron.

Cyneth faltered for a blink.

Kenneth grinned wider.

"That’s the thing about rhythm," he muttered, stepping in close. "You bend mine?"

He swung.

A punch so charged it cracked the wall just from proximity.

"I’ll break yours."

Cyneth staggered, momentum thrown off.

He tried to slow the air again.

But Kenneth was in his face.

Every punch a note.

Every bruise a chord.

And the crescendo? A double strike to the chest, both fists lit with glowing rune-fire.

BOOM.

Cyneth went airborne. Slammed across the corridor. Skidded. Lay still.

Kenneth exhaled. Steam poured from his arms. The gauntlets flickered back down to orange—barely holding.

He flexed his fingers, skin blistered, bones humming.

"That’s the song," he muttered.

Cyneth coughed into the dust, wiped the blood from his temple with the back of his hand, and narrowed his eyes. The floor beneath them was cracked, gouged with shallow craters and broken tiles. The air buzzed like it remembered the last blast.

Kenneth stalked forward, slow now. No need to rush. The gauntlets glowed hot orange, heat tracing the scars along his forearms. His breath came sharp and shallow, but his smirk was still there—chipped, lopsided, and wired with adrenaline.

"You bend space," Kenneth muttered, circling. "But I bend pressure."

Cyneth flicked two fingers. The air snapped sideways—time bent in a lurch. Kenneth’s next step faltered. He dropped to a knee, nearly went over.

The next blow was surgical—Cyneth’s palm to Kenneth’s throat, followed by a twist that sent him skidding.

But Kenneth grinned while sliding.

Heat bloomed down his spine. The gauntlets shifted from orange to a deeper red. The runes pulsed like they were counting something.

He came up swinging.

Faster now. Not clean—but savage.

Cyneth dodged the first, blocked the second with a shimmer of warped air. But the third? That one caught his ribs full-force and stuck. The blast knocked his breath out, sent him reeling into a pillar that cracked behind him.

Kenneth didn’t let him catch pace.

He closed the distance, shoulder-first.

Another hit. Not graceful—grinding. He took a blow to the stomach in return. Grit his teeth. Let it in. Absorbed it.

Pain fed the furnace.

Cyneth tried to jump back—but the hallway was closing fast, one ruined corner at a time. Kenneth boxed him in, pressed the tempo. This wasn’t a brawl anymore.

It was attrition.

Cyneth’s next trick—a warp that bent the walls behind Kenneth—barely shifted his footing. Kenneth charged through it, every motion vibrating with raw pressure.

One hand to the gut. The other an overhead haymaker.

Cyneth barely twisted aside—but not fast enough. Kenneth’s gauntlet scraped the edge of his jaw. You could hear the bone stress.

And that was the first time Cyneth hissed.

Kenneth’s grin widened like someone lit a match in his chest.

"Yeah. You’re feelin’ it now."

Another hit. And another.

Cyneth moved slower, his precision slipping. The Unco was still active, but Kenneth was just tearing through it—like noise crashing through a symphony.

The hallway was a furnace now. The gauntlets pulsed white at the seams. Small gusts of wind flared every time he moved, shockwaves rippling at his elbows.

Cyneth tried one last bend—a twist of tempo meant to freeze Kenneth mid-step.

Kenneth roared through it.

He didn’t stop.

He threw both fists forward like battering rams, runes screaming. The blast blew outward—wall to wall—and Cyneth was gone. Launched backwards, legs over shoulders, slammed flat through debris.

Kenneth stood in the crumbling silence, smoke rising from his arms, fists steaming.

He rolled his shoulder. His knuckles bled.

"Still think I’m off-beat?" he muttered.

The fire behind his eyes hadn’t dimmed. If anything, it was just catching its second wind.

Cyneth coughed blood onto the broken tiles, one knee down, shoulder caved from the last hit. The walls around them were cracked and scorched, heat warping the air with every breath Kenneth exhaled.

The gauntlets glowed bright—no longer red, but pale-gold-white, steam hissing off the runes like they were trying to escape his skin.

Kenneth stood over him, fists trembling, not from exhaustion—but pressure. Contained fury. One more hit would end it.

Cyneth looked up, breathing ragged. There was blood on his lips, but his voice held.

"Why?" he asked. "Why would you burn a village for a child? Take her like a trophy? This—this isn’t war. It’s slaughter."

Kenneth tilted his head slightly. The grin on his face didn’t move.

He didn’t answer right away.

He let the silence stretch just enough for cruelty to take root.

Then he said it—flat. Brutal.

"She’s not a child," he muttered. "She’s currency."

Cyneth flinched.

Kenneth stepped closer.

"You think we came here for strategy? For honor? Nah. We came because someone richer than you wanted her, and someone like me’s willing to shatter people like you to make that happen."

He leaned in, voice low.

"And because I like the sound your bones make when they stop trying."

Then he struck.

Final hit.

A downward blast that cracked the floor beneath Cyneth’s body, splinters of stone kicking into the walls as the weight of it all came down.

Kenneth stood in the wreckage, gauntlets hissing, face lit by firelight.