Chapter Text
Cale doesn't remember how he was placed in an underground cellar with no light pouring in, with no knowledge how much time had passed from the outside world.
He wonders where did it go wrong. Was he being too lenient and careless despite being in a war? Cale who was previously Kim Rok Soo, should've been more cautious since he had already experienced countless battles in his previous life.
Everything around him was blurry. His body aching painfully despite the common fact that his ancient power should've healed his wounds by now.
Cale couldn't even utter a low whine when he felt his wrist burn at the painful friction of the rope that was tying him.
"Cale."
The redhead looked at the source of the voice, a blurry shade of red moving in front of him.
There was then a lamp that was settled beside him, Cale blinks to see the White Star fully in front of him and his guard raised at the maximum in case on what he plans on doing.
"Eat."
There was then a piece of meat that met against Cale's bleeding lips. The disgusting stench of blood penetrating his nose as he weakly glared at the man.
White Star smirked, "Go on, eat. You'll get stronger."
Cale's eyes blown wide when he saw the meat that the White Star was trying to feed him. It looks like a charred one that was burnt from cooking, if you ignore how blood still seeps from one of the tendons.
"....!"
The White Star then forced his mouth open, easily clenching Cale's jaw as he stuffed the black meat inside his mouth.
Tears pooled at the side of Cale's reddish-brown eyes as he tried to spit out the meat.
He can't, for the love of God, he just can't.
"Listen to my pleads, my dear child. Eat."
'No...'
"Raon..." Cale utters in a hoarse voice.
The White Star tilted his head in a mocking way as he pushed the flesh more inside his jaw.
"Raon? Ah, so that is the dragon's name."
Along with that, the White Star forcefully closed Cale's mouth making him bite the meat.
The taste of blood and meat joined, the nauseating smell making him gag and have the need to vomit it out...vomit the black meat that looks like a dragon's heart.
"Good boy, swallow it all. It'll make your foundation strong."
Cale chokes, his eyes becoming blurry again as streaks of tears continued to run down on his cheeks.
'Raon...'
He wants to think that this is all just a part of his delusion, that Raon was still alive and talking with his siblings back in their home to bring him back, that Cale was the only one abducted.
Cale managed to spit out bits and pieces of the flesh, making the White Star frown as he pushed the heart more with no regards of Cale's comfort.
"Your child will be sad if you waste any of his heart. Eat it all Cale Henituse. If you did, I might just give you his body for you to have a company."
His pupils dilated at the confirmation from his enemy, his whole being trembling in rage and sorrow as he processed the information that was thrown at him.
Cale wants to ask how could someone be so immoral, so inhumane that he have the guts to make another person mad by forcing him to eat something inhumane.
Cale Henituse was eating his child's very own heart, Raon's black heart.
He wants to scream out loud, punch the bastard in front of him until he's satisfied(he won't). In the end, Cale could only weakly grab the bastard with his tied wrists by his collar and try to push him away.
"Just eat it humbly and be my child, Cale Henituse."
'Fuck...you.'
Cale Henituse has the qualifications to be a dragon slayer unlike the Dragon Half-blood. He can stand against the dragons without cowering from fear thanks to his ancient power.
Cale couldn't quite comprehend when or how he managed to finish the excruciating torture. He just knows that it was a long, painful time of choking and trying to vomit the heart out, struggling to not bite a piece when the White Star forces the flesh to his throat.
He continued to cough, he tries his best to wretch the contents of his stomach out with a sob. He feels dirty, piled with guilt and rage swirling inside him.
He weakly cries on the ground as the White Star watched him with an ecstatic face, finding amusement towards his enemy at his lowest.
White Star kneels on the ground to take a good look at Cale's face as he grabbed the latter's chin before his lips curled upwards in a smirk.
"I welcome you, my child."
At the same time, the White Star removed his white mask and Cale saw a familiar face. A face he used to once bore in his previous life as Kim Rok Soo that Cale is filled with spite just by looking at the other.
"It'll take twenty four hours for the mask to get accustomed to your face. I suggest you try not to do funny things that'll only hurt you."
The White Star roughly placed the mask to Cale's upper face as he still continued to smile. He could see how Cale's hair roots starting to dye black.
Cale's hand trembled as he tried to pull the mask away from his face. It only gave him a painful sting as he accidentally scratched his cheeks. Though he ignored the pain as he still tried to remove the mask.
[How immoral.]
[He ate his child's heart.]
[If only he was strong enough, he can shove the other to stop him from feeding him the heart.]
Voices filled Cale's already chaotic mind.
[His family will look at him with scorn once they found out his immoral act.]
Cale shook his head sideways in attempt to shut the unfamiliar voices out. The voices of his ancient powers were nowhere to be heard.
[They will hate him.]
[While he wallow in loathing and despair himself.]
White Star went out of the cellar as he left Cale who was groaning from the pain of his head. Cale slams his head repeatedly to the rough wall as he still continued to try and remove the white mask.
[What a pity. Snicker.]
Cale's hands continued to bleed as you could already see the lowest epidermis of his skin. His head also continued to bleed and his face full of scratches from repetitive act of removing the mask.
The door to Cale's prison once again opened. Cale's eyesight became blurry from all the blood he loss while his ancient power is still not healing him.
"Spend your last cognizant hours with your child. This is my last generous act for you as your former enemy, Cale Henituse."
There was a black blob that was thrown near his feet. Though Cale's eyesight is blurry, he could still see the outline of the black blob near him.
There were droplets of tears from his eyes, his hand hesitantly reached out before touching the black blob.
"Ah...no...no...!"
[Hah!]
Cale ignored the clamoring voices in his head as he continued to touch the black blob. Cold, reptilian scales felt familiar in his bleeding hands as Cale touched two pointy things in a place that seems to be a head.
Cale didn't know where he get the courage to look at the black blob as he scattered to get the lamp that the White Star placed earlier.
"Ra...on..."
He wants to vomit, though he's not sure if it's from disgust or remorse, he wants to dig his stomach out and piece together the heart that was fed to him.
"Ra...on...!"
The smell of blood nauseates him so in the end, he vomited.
It wasn't the chunks of black meat no, it was a dark blood that he didn't know if it was from him or the remnants of the liquid from the heart.
It nauseates him more.
[The heart was already digested.]
Cale slams his head to the wall again.
"Shut...up...!"
He cries pitifully as the corpse still laid there near him. He doesn't know how much time had passed, nor he wants to know as the voices still lingered inside his mind. Whispering, laughing, manipulating his feeble thoughts.
[The White Star will discard your child's body somewhere you wouldn't ever know.]
[Would you allow that?]
[His spirit will never rest if you just let him rot there.]
'Give him a proper burial.' He thinks, 'But where...'
[Surely you can't bury him here.]
There was another wave of laugh that the setback of stinging pain numbed in Cale's head.
[Eat him.]
Cale's hazy eyes dilated as he looked at the black corpse. There were no tears falling anymore, perhaps it had already dried from how much he cried.
He wants to scream in agony. He had already ate his heart, and now he needs to eat the body so that Raon's corpse will not be thrown away?
How immoral. What an iniquitous guardian father he is.
But still, in Cale's weakest mind, it was the only way for Raon to have a proper rest.
Will his child be content if his remains will rest inside his father? Will Raon be fine with it if Cale ate him like a damn delicacy?
[Who knows? Maybe he'll hate you, maybe he won't.]
[But what choice do you have?]
Indeed, what choice does Cale have in this torturous time?
A part of him starts to accept, a part of him still screams. To find another way to give Raon a proper burial. That eating him would hunt him for the rest of his life.
Because Cale who was once Kim Rok Soo, he is someone who cannot forget.
His body started moving involuntarily, reaching out to the black corpse of the dragon he raised for two years.
'Raon still had a long life ahead of him.'
Yet here he is, the great and mighty being laid lifelessly in the arms of his human he secretly calls father. The weak human that needs to be protected by the great and mighty Raon Miru weeps endlessly as he hug the black dragon's body.
"You...can scorn...me in...the afterlife...Raon."
Cale gave him the name Raon Miru in hopes for him to live a long and joyous life. The sole thought of it brings despair to Cale's mind as the voices continued to whisper.
Raon once asked him if Cale was given the chance to save him again, would he do it again?
Cale answered back then nonchalantly, that he would save him again and again that brought joy to the dragon's entire being.
His human will save him again, he will.
But now, Cale wonders if saving Raon leads to him dying like this, he wonders if it was the right thing to do.
For the first time, Cale wasn't sure of his thoughts anymore.
He stared at Raon's face, the blue orbs that will never again open and look at him with mirth. The glistening eyes that looked at him as he fed his weak human some apple pies after coughing out blood.
It will never happen again.
Never.
Cale held one of the stiff paws as he looked at it for a while.
He looks.
He then leaned in and took a bite, the blood easily seeps in despite the scales that should be protecting the dragon's body.
He chews like he ate one of Vicross' steaks, though this one tastes bitter and tangy combined with the newly made tears that dropped from his eyelids.
He ate, and ate, and ate, and ate as the bones were the ones that only remained.
Cale felt disgustingly full, his entire being screaming at his immoral acts.
He then vomits once again, the black blood was discarded as Cale lamented at the fact how the rotting flesh was easily digested in his stomach.
His breaths heavy as he stared at the bones that remained.
[Eat the bones also.]
And so he did, voluntarily as he didn't notice how his teeth became sharper for him to gnaw at the skeletal remains of his child.
Before he knew, his consciousness had already slipped away, successfully turning him to a puppet for the White Star to play. Courtesy to the manipulation of the white mask that was latched unto his face.
His once red hair turned black, his teeth far sharper than he once have. His mouth littered with wounds from the bones he ate as he stared into nothingness.
Nothing.
Even his internal pleas were silenced.
"Hah!" The White Star exclaims in disbelief, "You actually ate your child's remains!"
Cale sat there silently, his reddish-brown eyes empty of life as his black hair covered most of his face.
The White Star continues to laugh in hilarity.
"Welcome to the real Arm, Cale Henituse." He mocks from all the times the latter did in the past to annoy them.
He cradled the latter's bleeding cheeks, thumbing the white mask he placed as he adored the mess he made against the hero everyone admires.
The Young Master Silver Shield is nothing but a hollow shell. The traces of Cale Henituse were gone, his entire being dyed in the color of his own child that he ate.
The remarkable red hair was gone, and it was placed with the color of the abyss. He leaned towards the hand that was cradling his cheek monotonously.
"I..." He starts with a hoarse voice, the pain in his throat numbing as he continues, "...await for your orders...my liege..."