There is an empty satisfaction in finally sinking his sword into Phantom’s heart.

Kat pulls Phantom’s arm back, leaving his chest open, and with Lorraine’s approving nod, Phoenix plunges the sword in, the steel cutting deep through a lack of armor. Blood seeps through the grey clothing quickly, and Phoenix pulls his sword back with a crunch of Phantom’s ribs and a squeal of torn flesh.

It’s satisfying. It’s vengeance and it’s justice.

It’s not going to fix anything.

How many deaths? How much suffering, for one man’s obsessive ambition?

Phantom falls. His body convulses as everyone gathers closer, arching in a way someone stabbed through the heart shouldn’t.

Phoenix casts a glance behind him.

Ashton is still there, unharmed.

The body turns over, something disconnecting itself from Phantom’s skull at the base of the neck. There are sounds that don’t quite make sense, a rustle, a wet squeak and a cracking of bones, and then a thing pulls itself off of Phantom’s spine, leaving a bloody imprint.

It looks like a large bug, or maybe a scorpion or a centipede. It’s not a creature of this world, and Phoenix can only conclude it’s a gift from Phantom’s fiendish patrons.

He readies his sword, but as Phantom’s body finally lays still, the creature starts contorting, its multitude of legs scattering against the stone floor as if unable to find purchase. Having lost its source of living force, it seems unable to sustain itself.

They die side by side – a parasite and a host, a master and its servant.

Phoenix should feel relieved.

He feels tired.