Vale did not respond immediately. He remained where he stood, eyes fixed on Ares as the weight of the explanation settled into him with uncomfortable persistence. The words refused to pass cleanly through his thoughts, instead lingering and overlapping,
'Category Five beasts… no power… a monster.' For a brief moment, his mind stalled entirely, caught between disbelief and recognition. Not understanding, but a faint, unwelcome familiarity that made the concept feel less distant than it should have been.
Slowly, almost without conscious intent, he turned his head toward Shade.
The shadow's form remained partially obscured beneath its constant veil of shifting darkness, but its reaction was unmistakable. The faint glow of its crimson eyes sharpened, narrowing with something that resembled tension, no, something closer to internal conflict. It raised one hand and studied the armored gauntlet that encased it, turning it slightly as though examining something it did not fully remember yet could not ignore. The motion was restrained, deliberate, carrying the weight of a question that had no answer. It was not reacting to Ares, it was reacting to itself.
Ares watched the exchange without interruption, his gaze steady and analytical, as though this response confirmed something rather than surprised him.
"Of course," he said at last, his voice cutting cleanly through the silence without raising in volume. "Your shadow does not yet possess the capacity associated with its origin. A shade, by its nature, is incomplete, a fragment formed at the moment of death, bound to the limitations of what it once was in that exact instant."
He shifted slightly, his gaze moving between Vale and the entity behind him, measuring both with equal precision.
"However," he continued, and now there was a distinct note of interest beneath the calm, "yours deviates from that pattern. The fusion with the relic has altered its developmental trajectory. It is no longer confined to stagnation. It has the capacity to grow, adapt, and evolve until it approaches, or potentially reconstructs, what it once represented."
Vale's eyes widened a fraction at that.
"You know it fused with a relic?" he asked, the surprise in his voice unfiltered this time.
Ares allowed a faint, almost restrained smile to form, more acknowledgment than amusement. "Shades cannot exist outside their origin domain without anchoring themselves to a physical medium," he replied. "That interaction is not uncommon. What follows afterward, however… is where deviation begins."
His gaze lingered on Shade for another moment, the scrutiny deepening slightly.
"Growth," he added simply.
The word did not carry emphasis, yet it lingered in the air with disproportionate weight.
Vale fell silent again, processing the implication of the words. Beside him, Shade's posture shifted almost imperceptibly. Its attention is locked fully onto Ares now, the crimson glow in its eyes sharpening into something far more focused, its intent bordering on challenge. It did not move forward, did not raise a weapon, but the shift in its presence was undeniable.
Vale noticed immediately. His expression tightened, instinct flaring. 'Don't.'
He didn't need to say it aloud.
Ares had already noticed.
A low, chuckle escaped him, unforced and entirely unthreatened. "You would challenge me?" he asked, almost conversationally, as though the idea itself was worth mild curiosity rather than concern. "I would advise against that course of action."
There was no aggression in his tone. He did not need it.
"If you proceed," he added, "the outcome will be your termination."
The statement landed without force, yet carried absolute certainty, less a warning and more a factual conclusion that was already determined.
Shade held his gaze for a moment longer, the tension sustaining just long enough to feel deliberate. Then, gradually, it receded. The crimson glow dimmed, the edges of its form loosening as the structure unraveled into shadow. Within seconds, the entity collapsed inward completely, reforming into the spear at Vale's side as though the confrontation had never fully manifested.
The moment passed shortly after.
Ares exhaled softly, bringing a hand to his mouth as if suppressing mild amusement rather than reacting to a threat. "Even so," he continued, shifting his attention back to Vale, "you should understand the implication of what you carry. If your shadow continues to evolve along this trajectory, it will eventually cease to function as a conventional weapon."
His gaze sharpened slightly.
"It will become something else entirely, a specter. With each stage of progression, it will acquire greater autonomy, along with capabilities that extend beyond your direct control."
Vale glanced down at the spear, his grip tightening for a brief moment before he lifted it and secured it across his back. The weight of it felt different now, not physically, but conceptually.
When he looked back up, his expression had changed, more focused and certain.
"…Who are you?" he asked.
For the first time since entering his office, Ares hesitated.
The pause was brief, so slight it could have been missed, but it existed nonetheless. Then, just as quickly, it was gone.
"I am merely a memory," he said calmly. "A brother… and above all,"
He stopped.
Something shifted.
Vale felt it before he fully registered it visually. The air itself seemed to compress, pressure building in the space around them with unnatural suddenness. Ares's eyes ignited, shifting into a deep, draconic crimson as something beneath the surface emerged. Scales surfaced across portions of his skin, not fully, nor permanently, but enough to confirm what lay beneath the human form. The transformation was controlled, contained, yet undeniably, it was there.
The atmosphere became oppressive.
Not overwhelming in noise or force, but absolute in presence, as though the room itself had been reduced to something smaller under the weight of what stood within it.
"I am a calamity."
Vale reacted instinctively, stepping back as his instinct overrode thought. His hand snapped to the hilt of his blade, his breath catching sharply as his body prepared for something it could not yet define, but knew, without question, was far beyond him.
Ares watched him for a moment longer, really watched him, then, almost unexpectedly, he smiled.
"I've missed that expression," he said, the remark light but edged with something older, something that didn't quite belong to the present moment.
Just as quickly as it had surfaced, the oppressive presence vanished. The scales receded beneath his skin, his eyes dimmed to their prior state, and whatever force had filled the room collapsed as if it had never existed. He turned back toward the window with quiet finality, posture composed, as though nothing of significance had occurred.
Vale remained still, his grip tight on his weapon, pulse elevated as the echo of that pressure lingered in his nerves. For a moment, he said nothing, forcing his breathing back under control before finally exhaling.
"…You weren't surprised," he said at last, his voice steadier now, though still carrying a trace of caution. "When I called that thing a false angel."
Ares shifted slightly, stretching one arm across his chest as if easing tension from a body that clearly did not require it.
"Why, you ask?" he murmured.
Without warning, his hand seized the front of his uniform and tore it open. The sharp rip of fabric cut cleanly through the silence, abrupt and deliberate.
Beneath it was not merely a scar.
It was a division.
A grotesque, unnatural seam stretched across his torso, as though his body had once been split apart and forcibly reassembled. The flesh bore no signs of natural healing, no gradual stitching of time or biology, but instead looked reconstructed, imposed back into shape by something external and unnatural.
Vale felt his stomach tighten.
Ares's voice followed, low and steady, unbothered by the reaction it provoked.
"Because that being is the reason I am here," he said. "I was brought into this world by the same angel that corrupted that boy… or more precisely, his soul."
Vale couldn't look away. His eyes remained fixed on the mark, on the answers it carried, on the quiet certainty in Ares's tone.
After a brief moment, Ares closed his eyes, then released the torn fabric, allowing it to fall back into place and conceal the scar once more.
"I had hoped you knew more," he continued, turning slightly back toward the window. "And in part, you did. But not enough to matter."
When he faced Vale again, the neutrality had returned, cold and precise, almost clinical.
"As far as I am concerned, you are unrelated to him. You look different. You feel different. And your power…" his gaze flicked over Vale, dismissive in its assessment, "…is insignificant by comparison."
The words landed without embellishment, stripped of emotion.
"It is more likely that your ability, the one that allows you to glimpse memories, simply granted you access to his past. Nothing more."
Vale's jaw tightened, but he said nothing.
"It would be wise," Ares continued, his tone hardening just slightly, "for you not to involve yourself further. This is not your conflict." His gaze sharpened, the underlying hostility no longer masked. "This revenge is mine. I will not have someone like you interfere with it."
The warning was not personal, but it was absolute.
Vale felt it, understood it, and stepped forward anyway.
Just once.
"…That boy," he said carefully, choosing his words with precision. "How did his soul separate from his body?"
Ares' expression shifted instantly, sharp and immediate.
"How did you-"
"You said his soul was corrupted, not his body," Vale interrupted, holding his ground. "In the vision I saw, the angel became him, but his body was left behind."
Silence followed, stretching longer this time.
Ares studied him with renewed intensity, something unfamiliar flickering behind his gaze as he reassessed, recalculated. Then, slowly, a faint smile returned.
"…You are sharper than you appear," he admitted quietly. "Very well. I will answer that."
He stepped forward, once, then again, closing the distance until he stood directly before Vale, near enough that the air between them felt thin, compressed by presence alone.
"A false angel does not merely kill," he said, his voice lowering, each word deliberate. "It consumes. Specifically, the soul."
Vale felt the tension tighten in his chest.
"And a soul taken by such a being cannot be reclaimed," Ares continued, unflinching.
A brief pause followed before his tone shifted, just slightly.
"However… there exists an exception."
He leaned in a fraction, his gaze locking onto Vale's with precise intensity.
"Some souls are too powerful to be consumed."
The implication settled immediately, heavy and unmistakable.
"In those cases," he went on, "the process reverses. The soul does not get devoured, it takes control. It overwrites the angel, bends it, uses it."
Another pause, short, but deliberate.
"What you witnessed," he finished, "was likely that outcome. The boy's soul consumed the angel instead… and claimed its form as its own."
Vale took a step back, the memory of the vision resurfacing in sharp detail, the transformation, the shift, the eyes that had not belonged to anything human.
Before he could respond, Ares straightened, the moment closing as quickly as it had opened.
His tone, when he spoke again, carried no room for argument.
"Now," he said calmly, "you will leave."