"Balza, speak!" Luke frowned, addressing the severed head hanging from his belt.
"He's right," the head of Balza replied, his voice finally unrestricted. "But I'd like to add that you should have hit him harder. Blowing Constantine's head off would qualify as a public service!"
Balza's head had been silent for far too long. Since Luke had claimed him, he hadn't been asked a single question. The silence and isolation were driving the demon mad.
"Oho? An old acquaintance. Can you still contact Hell, Balza?" Constantine asked, leaning down to stare at the charm.
He hadn't been able to reach any demons for a long time, as if they had simply ceased to exist. It made him uneasy. His reckless attempt outside Broadway had nearly killed him. He needed to know what was happening downstairs.
And right now, Balza was the only demon he could find.
Balza's head remained silent, waiting for Luke's permission. Constantine looked up at Luke.
"Speak," Luke commanded. He studied Constantine, wondering what drove a man to constantly dance on the edge of disaster. He saw a man who didn't care for dignity or power—someone whose heart wasn't just filled with revenge, but perhaps a flicker of something resembling justice.
Constantine was a mess of contradictions. His allegiances were murky. But he was undeniably working for the sake of humanity, even if he paid a terrible price for it.
"Hell has been eclipsed by something from a higher dimension. I'm just a pendant now," Balza said reluctantly.
In the distance, Bruce Wayne watched Constantine's back, memorizing every detail of the man. Constantine was an anomaly; his behavior lacked any traditional logic. He wasn't a "madman" in the way the Joker was—the Joker had his own twisted, internal logic.
Constantine was different. His actions seemed purposeful, yet the methods were utterly incomprehensible to a rational mind. Wayne flagged him as "Extremely Dangerous" and "Requires Observation."
The Rorschach Journal
"Earlier, I met the incarnation of Justice.
He told me that everything I stand for is not the choice of Justice. I am in doubt.
By whose standards is Justice measured?
Bul-Kathos and Worusk have not told me. They are hiding a truth—a truth they are encouraging me to find for myself.
I do not understand. Why must a truth be witnessed personally rather than told?
Unless they are incapable of telling it.
But why?
A secret concerning Bul-Kathos… why would he choose me to dig for it?
What can they gain from me?
The incarnation of Valor pushed me away from judgment and took the Barbarian's wrath in my place.
I do not understand why. Compared to them, I am a speck of dust.
I am Rorschach. Justice never compromises."
Rorschach sat curled in a dim, shadowed room, scratching into his journal with a piece of charcoal he had whittled himself. The ancestors on the mountain had mocked his habit of journal-writing more than once.
He ignored them. Eventually, they stopped asking. Rorschach didn't write to remember; he wrote so that when he died, he would leave something behind. Justice should be transparent. Nothing should hide in the gloom. To Rorschach, anything that couldn't stand the light was unjust.
Even his own human face was a mask of injustice. Only the shifting ink of his mask was the true face of "Rorschach." He was merely the vessel.
But now, he was a Barbarian. He could stand before anyone with his own face and shatter the skulls of the guilty with a heavy hammer.
Yet, he was still afraid. A wavering spirit breeds negative emotions. Fear. Hatred.
"You're still writing in that book?"
Veda's figure appeared, having slipped past the notice of the other ancestors. Rorschach hurriedly stowed his journal and charcoal, looking silently at the man.
Veda, now possessing a physical form, looked gaunt and weary. His cheekbones protruded sharply, and the muscles around his lips had withered, revealing missing canines. His eyes were sunken, as if he were being subjected to constant, invisible torture. It was hard to believe this was the same Veda who had been so comforting to others.
"Fine, keep your secrets. But would you like to hear a story? A story about a man who also loved to write in his diary."
Veda stared into the darkness of the room, his voice slow and hollow.
"Do you know what I fear hearing most? It's the voice of an old man. He always uses the slowest, most agonizing tone to say, 'Stay a while and listen.' Then he tells a story so long that no one can stay awake for the end of it. I might be the only exception."
Veda smacked his lips, knelt down, and pried up a floor tile. He pulled out an old, tattered book. After a few flips of the pages, the book crumbled into ash in his fingers.
"A long time ago? Or maybe not so long ago… there was a warrior named Joret. He loved to record everything he saw in his journal. Deep thoughts, hopes for the future, reflections on the horrors of war. But every time he stroked his lover's hair, he saw his hands were covered in blood."
Veda spoke as if reciting a dark poem.
"One day, Joret heard a prophecy of his fate from his lover's lips. He even saw his own death in her powerful eyes—a vision of a battle where he fell. He recorded it all in his diary. He began to wonder: what kind of power is Destiny?
Joret didn't retreat. That battle was a war for the survival of the Barbarian people. Perhaps it was the same for their enemies. Everyone has a right to live, but when rights conflict, what is there to do?
Joret defied Destiny. He took a side road! He didn't die in that battle, but he made everyone believe he had. To do it, he made a deal with a demon! The price was a portion of his lover's soul—a soul that contained knowledge of Destiny itself!
Yes! Just as you think! The warrior Joret succeeded! He defeated Destiny! But he would spend the rest of his life trying to buy back his lover's soul from the demon. He died before the debt was paid!
He left only this diary. And before he died, it fell into the hands of a meddlesome old man named Deckard Cain. Only those with the 'right' can hear the whole story."
Veda's voice dropped to a whisper. Rorschach felt something foreign and repulsive emanating from the man—something hollow, eerie, and saturated with resentment and sin. It felt like slimy tentacles sliding down his throat or crab claws scraping against his stomach.
"Joret wants to finish that trade. Just to get back that tiny fragment of her soul. An incomplete soul can never truly claim the right to life."
Veda stood up, his body suddenly swelling, his gaunt face filling out as if being inflated.
"Now, my story is over, Rorschach."
Rorschach felt a wave of biting cold.
"I don't care who chose me! I am who I am! Rorschach never compromises!" Rorschach shouted at the top of his lungs, but his voice was still a mere rasp that only he and Veda could hear.
"Joret! The demon you made the deal with—what was his name?!" Rorschach demanded. He needed the truth, even if it killed him.
"His name," Veda said, a red light flashing in his eyes, "is Azmodan!"
The moment Veda had charged into the Black Soulstone and used the strength of the ancestors to shatter Azmodan's soul, the torment had begun.
Andariel hadn't been helping Bul-Kathos. She had spent that time focused entirely on corrupting Veda's soul! Azmodan's sacrifice had been worth it. The Lords of Hell would find a way to strip Bul-Kathos of his chance to reach the pinnacle. Again and again, until the King's death.
The warrior Joret—the only Barbarian to ever escape his destiny.
A thousand years of love.
A thousand years of guilt.
A thousand years of searching for redemption.
Every one of those thousand years had become the final weight that broke him.
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