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Mars has killed for less, that much is true.
His past is blood-stained, marked by every life the syndicate had forced him to take. He had painted it as his own choices, he had worn a mask of apathy, and guilt had become an emotion foreign to him, but none of those lives had been lives he had wanted to take.
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Martín del Mar hadn’t felt a desire to kill until his wife and child were taken from him.
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Kill those who had hurt his family. Kill those who had wished for it to happen. Kill those who could have stopped it and hadn’t.
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A primal desire.A deep-seated need. A thirst for vengeance unlike anything he had ever felt. One that seems impossible to quench no matter how many lives he takes.
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Is
Pace Mahmoud’s death the thing that will finally satiate him?
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His Urshifu strikes, and when the traitor’s body hits the ground, Mars feels nothing at all. No concern, nor joy. No sadness, nor thrill.
Nothing. As if
Pace Mahmoud means nothing to him. When had things become this way? Had he stopped caring? Or, is it perhaps that he’s locking his feelings away?
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On the day they had met, a bottle had been gladly emptied together, and it’s as if that cherished bottle now contains everything he has ever felt for the defeated man before him. And if so, the bottle is cracking and close to breaking. If so, it has been cast to float adrift in the merciless ocean that is his psyche.
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Mars feels nothing, yet he still reaches for the gun. He moves closer, he steps upon the fallen body of his enemy, holding him close to the ground, and he points the gun towards him. A
’click’ and the safety is off. One shot, that’s all it would take. One shot and
Pace Mahmoud would be dead. Mars knows this, so why is it that he doesn’t pull the trigger?
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Eyes of gold meet eyes of gold. Those molten against those pleading and dulled.
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”Don’t kill me. Mars.”[break][break]
Doesn’t Pace deserve to die?
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Doesn’t he deserve to pay for everything he has done?
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For Natalia’s death? For his betrayal?
For abandoning Mars?[break][break]
”You destroyed my family, Pace.” Does he realise that? When he had allowed Natalia to die, when their son hadn’t even gotten a chance to see this world, when Mars had been at his lowest point, Pace – who had been family to him too – had left without a word. Even before Mars realised the truth about his disappearance, Pace had already deepened his wounds.
Pace had left him alone.[break][break]
Pace Mahmoud deserves to die, but in the entirety of this world, he’s the only person who Mars has considered family that still lives, and in the end, despite everything, Mars can’t bear the thought of another person he loved dying because of him.
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”I hope and pray that you spend every day of your life being haunted by the thought of their deaths. Even at your happiest moment.”[break][break]
Natalia’s death. Their son’s death. The death of everything he had cherished.
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The gun is lowered and amongst flames, Mars walks away.
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Turn around. Never return.[break][break]
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