"Bad idea." Konrad Curze said this for the five hundred and eighty-fourth time. "This is such a terrible idea."
"Friendly reminder, I was just throwing out a suggestion back then. You're the one who actually made the decision, Lord of the Eighth Legion." Fujimaru Ritsuka broke off a piece of chocolate behind him. "And I've said it about four hundred times—if you really don't want to do this, you can stop anytime."
She popped the chocolate into her mouth and met Konrad's glare with an exaggeratedly innocent look.
By subjective time, they had been hunting—with terrifying efficiency—for roughly half a Terran year since leaving the Warp, or rather, the Astronomican.
Hunting Night Lords.
Ritsuka's original suggestion had been: "You already have a Legion. Sure, they rebelled with you, and it's been ten thousand years, but now that you've returned to the Imperium, your sons might be willing to submit once they hear the news. Setting aside the details, if we just need a fighting force, we could probably scrape together an unaffiliated Chapter if we pick and choose."
Konrad Curze was convinced that the golden light permeating the Astronomican must have subtly warped his mind, because he had actually considered it feasible. And after Ritsuka had spent an eternity explaining magecraft theory to the Emperor, successfully arguing that "technical issues aren't issues," he had even started to think it was a good idea.
Make no mistake—he had braced himself for this. Or so he thought. He knew exactly what most of his gene-sons were like. He understood perfectly that ten thousand years of unchecked warfare, with no oversight or discipline, would only have made things worse. He had fully prepared himself to face "a horde of bandits, pirates, sadists, murderers, grotesque 'artists,' even cannibals—or just worthless beasts acting on base instincts, cowards who'd kneel at the first sign of real opposition, and every other kind of scum whose crimes would shame even paper and ink to record. The 'salvageable' ones might number one in a thousand."
He didn't even dare hope that, after all this time, any of his sons—even the newly recruited—would retain anything resembling a sense of justice. His Eighth Legion had always been made up of criminals and monsters. The only tradition he could trust them to uphold flawlessly was that one.
But when you think something can't possibly be worse than your worst expectations, you should still leave room in your mind for "it will be worse." Because fate is the kind of thing that laughs madly in the face of human will and makes everything worse—especially in a world where reality and the immaterial are bleeding together thanks to the Great Rift.
It was hard to pinpoint when Konrad Curze had been most furious, disappointed, or despairing—
Was it when they returned to realspace, and his cursed foresight immediately resumed torturing him with visions of what awaited?
Was it when he actually laid eyes on his sons, those broken wretches who had knelt to Chaos?
Was it when, in a frenzy of rage and grief, he slaughtered an entire Chaos warband bearing his gene-seed?
Or was it later, during the cold aftermath, when he realized that more than half of those barely-Astartes abominations had died with joy on their faces?
If he had been mortal, he might have vomited. But he wasn't, so he simply told Ritsuka for the first time: "I'm starting to think this was a bad idea."
Though it had been her suggestion, Ritsuka wasn't particularly attached to it. She immediately proposed cutting their losses, listing several alternative approaches. But Konrad refused.
To him, this was torment. A punishment he deserved—not for betraying the Imperium or the Emperor, but for betraying his own sense of justice. The assassins sent by the Emperor had judged his past crimes, but that didn't mean he could reclaim the noble, sacred things he'd once had simply by returning to life.
So he would personally execute his guilty sons. He would excise the poison he had allowed to spread across the galaxy through his negligence.
And he would do it the way he knew best.
Ritsuka had told him three times, "I think your methods are a bit excessive." Konrad ignored her. After the third warning failed, she started demanding to accompany him—openly admitting she was there to get in his way.
Most sane people would refuse such a hindrance, but Konrad simply parroted her own words back at her: "You're the one making the decisions. Do what you want." Her surprise suggested she hadn't actually planned to follow through, but since he'd called her bluff, Ritsuka wasn't about to back down.
Thus, over the next four subjective months, they "cleansed" four Chaos warbands with terrifying efficiency—in the Warp, in hive worlds, in derelict orbital stations, aboard a battered Imperial cruiser that had clearly been stolen. Ritsuka did her best, but the most she could manage was turning Konrad's crime scenes from grotesque performance art into something resembling a standard gore-fest.
Their efficiency was largely thanks to Ritsuka's reliable magecraft. There was the imprecise but serviceable divination spell she'd dubbed the "Night Lords Positioning System," which ran on Konrad's own blood via a base-pair contract. And then there was her beloved little ship—clearly designed for atmospheric flight—which proved shockingly effective.
Konrad, lacking the aptitude, couldn't fathom how she operated the Storm Border's systems with both magecraft and the Emperor's psychic power. But this relic—incapable of even sublight speeds, likely built at the dawn of the second millennium—somehow navigated the Warp with ease, even riding its temporal currents to achieve limited time travel. Hence why their journey had to be measured in subjective time.
She had even developed a large-scale ritual for near-instantaneous long-distance travel, supposedly based on the Astronomican's light. Using it, they had gone from Holy Terra to the edge of the Ghoul Stars—historically the farthest reach of the Astronomican's light—in under three hours. But the ritual required the Emperor's psychic support, and channeling that energy left Ritsuka weakened for days. After joining Konrad, she suspended its use.
Incidentally, during their "cleansing" campaign, Konrad Curze:
Threatened to kill Ritsuka 42 times.
Fell into sudden rages or deliriums 17 times.
Actually attempted to kill her 10 times.
Succeeded in grievously injuring her twice.
Locked himself in his cramped quarters aboard the Storm Border to sulk 16 times (totaling ~15 Terran standard days).
The most infuriating part? Ritsuka realized this was Konrad holding back.
Their "success" amounted to "recovering" eighteen Night Lords who were "rotten, but maybe not all the way through"—all recruits from the past two centuries, to whom the Great Crusade and their Primarch were mere legends. Yet the moment they saw Konrad, they understood exactly what he represented.
Ritsuka had known better than to expect Konrad to show his gene-sons anything resembling warmth. But witnessing the reality was another matter. He allowed them to live—barely—but made no effort to hide his disdain. He couldn't even be bothered to speak to them, dumping all responsibility on Ritsuka with the excuse that she was the ship's captain.
His attitude was far from kind, but it worked. These eighteen terror-warriors—clad in patchwork power armor, adorned with flayed skin and corpse-parts, who made their living raiding merchant ships and corrupt nobles on backwater worlds (the latter being why Ritsuka argued they "weren't completely rotten")—behaved like skittish, traumatized animals aboard her ship.
Being utterly ignored by their gene-father seemed to terrify them more than watching their warband get dismembered. Ritsuka gave them space and imposed no rules beyond the basics, but they quickly deduced the situation and volunteered every rumor and scrap of intel they had on other Night Lords.
Konrad remained indifferent—or tried to. But as he himself had pointed out, Ritsuka was the captain. A ship followed her commander's orders, so after a week of studying star charts, they set course for an "agricultural world" mentioned in one intriguing rumor.
The moment Sheba's sensors displayed the planet, Konrad repeated his refrain:
"Bad idea."
Ritsuka chewed her chocolate thoughtfully, then played her trump card: "What? We're already here, but… we could always turn back toward the Great Rift?"
"No. I'm going down." Konrad's tone was deliberately flat, giving nothing away. "Those rumors might have some truth to them."
"Did you 'see' something?" The topic had become safe enough that Ritsuka could ask directly now.
Konrad hesitated, then grudgingly admitted:
"I saw myself finding Sevatar on that planet."