Chapter 25 – Consequences (Patreon)

Once Tom was confident that the rage had vanished, he stood up and absent-mindedly kicked a wooden model of a wyvern. It clattered nicely as it tumbled and crashed into the wall.

It was therapeutic.

Now that he had calmed down enough to think, his eyes swept the room. It was a mess. Toys, weapons, and containers were scattered everywhere. He assessed everything for permanent damage, but, excluding a handful of smashed toys, nothing appeared to be broken. There was, however, a surprisingly large number of red splashes on the walls. Some had even dried sufficiently to be a brown colour instead of a wet red. It was hard to estimate, but he was pretty sure that the cycles of rage had persisted for over ten minutes. The thickest blood was where he had punched the wall repeatedly, but other smears were a mystery to him. He stared blankly at one that was above the height he could reach. At some point, he must have been standing on one of the boxes and doing… well, he didn’t know what he had been trying. It was kind of like he had been finger painting with a clenched fist.

Nope, he was glad he couldn’t remember anything. Whatever thought process had led to that was beyond weird.  

“What the hell’s happening to me?”

He sighed.

It was not good. Uncontrollable rage and memory loss were not a great combination. His body hurt slightly, but the main issue was how painfully his right hand was throbbing. A visual inspection revealed the broken skin across two of his knuckles, but the way it was complaining told him that the damage was more extensive. There was cracked bone in there.

It was a chance to practice his magic. He focused and manifested all three spell forms, overlaying them and letting them bond together naturally. It wasn’t the right path to create Heal Cut, but it would help him understand how the three input forms interacted with each other. He was almost surprised when the mix created something stable. In order not to push his good luck, he immediately infused it with mana and tried to heal his fist. Magic flared, and the flaps of skin shifted to better positions, and the slow but steady leaking of red stopped. Beyond reducing the bleeding, the healing did nothing to stem the continuous waves of pain. They went on, as strong as ever.

Being careful not to step on the equivalent of scattered Legos, he picked his way across the room and triggered the healing crystal. The magic flowed through into him in a powerful wave; the partially mended skin shivered, and, in moments, was as good as new. The throbbing pain also vanished. He stretched and did some ghost spear forms. Everything was flowing smoothly once more. Physically, he had fully recovered, but the same could not be said about the evidence of his violence. It was everywhere, and not just the walls. His hand remained caked in blood, and there was evidence of drips on the floorboards as well.

There was a small tap in the corner, and he washed himself quickly. Water dripped off his face, running red. Then he used a wet cloth to remove all the patches of blood that he could see; the efforts included climbing on a toy box to clean the areas that he otherwise couldn’t reach. The effort was probably unnecessary, as the cleaning spell would have likely dealt with everything when it triggered. But he was being cautious, and he hadn’t wanted to risk it not doing a thorough job and exposing himself to unwanted questions. It was better to be proactive, no matter how low the risk of the cleaning spell been inadequate had been.  

The physical mess he left as it was.

If traces of blood remained, he wanted to use the explanation of having had a temper tantrum and having cut himself while breaking the toys. That would be normal. Leaving the room tidy while there was proof of bleeding and broken toys would look like a coverup and be suspicious. This way was better, even if he would be growled at.

There were five minutes to go before the mandatory two hours were over; he wasn’t in the mood to study, and there wasn’t space to practice his spear forms in.

So, he sat on the floor to wait. As he did so, he meditated on what had just occurred.

Ignoring the bouts of anger was no longer acceptable. Something was very wrong with him. That overwhelming emotional reaction when he thought about all the children being put in danger was not natural.

But nor was incompetency.

His hands balled into fists and his jaw muscles hurt from how hard he was clenching them. He could almost hear his teeth creaking.

How could they allow access? That stuff was deadly. His entire body was thrumming with energy. He wanted to leap up and explode into action.

Who made the dumb decision to put this here? There had to be a safer way…

With a gasp, Tom realised what was happening, and forced his mind elsewhere. Desperately, he searched for a topic to distract himself.

Michael! He had been a great man and friend. He would counsel calm.

He opened and closed his hands, and on the fifth repetition he sighed in relief. The simple effort of unclenching his fist had suddenly become easier. The threat of imminent violence receded, but the underlying problem remained.

Unfortunately, he was still out of control.

The situation was beyond frustrating. There was a genuine threat, something real for him to conquer, to seize control of and crush beneath his heels - but there was nothing to grab a hold of, to identify… hell, he couldn’t even see it. Even when he was consciously aware of the threat, it had crept up on him and had almost taken him out. 

How? Why? Who? What? the questions rang in his head. Tom glanced up to where the fist painting had occurred, something he had no recollection of.

Then there were those holes in his memories from his last life. Was it related? He remembered the conversations with April. His mind dwelled on the precognition affinity and how ridiculously high it had been. It had been way too strong for something acquired from a reincarnation. Soul-bound artefacts gave affinities, but these were not anywhere near that powerful. It was a puzzle to solve. 

Three mysteries swirled around him, and they presumably came from his past life.

The power of that affinity, the memory holes, and this curse.

All of them, even in the context of reincarnation, were unusual. The anger was some sort of horrible infliction that consumed him if he thought about the wrong things. Anything that pressed his buttons could be a trigger. Like the bloody cupboards being unlocked. If he found out who authorised that, then he would tear out their throats and piss on their corpses.

Alarm swept through him at both his bodily reactions and the alien thoughts. He forced himself to his feet. He focused on slow breathing and unclenched his fists into open palms, then deliberately lifted them both and placed them on his head while sticking his elbows out to the side. It was the recovery position one adopted after hard running. It could be a struggle to do, but the posture opened the airways, and once the body realised the benefit, it became instinctive to use after any vigorous exercise.. He spun slowly on the spot while breathing deeply in and out as he sought to calm himself down once more.

The curse, if he could call it that, was insidious. It was sneaking up and trying to take over if he relaxed his focus for a moment. Those three unknowns were linked, he was absolutely sure of it. The how and why was not something he could put his finger on, however. He might never be able to solve it by himself. Understanding might need to wait until he found his companions from his previous life so that their memories could fill in those missing moments. But that didn’t mean he had to remain helpless until then. It didn’t mean he had to be a victim.

The curse acted in a defined, consistent manner. It activated whenever he saw something unjust; he would first get angry in a perfectly normal fashion, and then the outside rage would sweep in and multiply everything to ten times the intensity. When he had reacted to the white-streak girl, Corrine, it had been fury at Bir getting picked on. Same with the man on the hill, and right now it was children being put at risk.

It was pretty easy to see what his trigger was.

Callous, mean behaviour, or incompetency that threatened the helpless, particularly Little Ta’s friends, were the primary triggers. The problem was, his thoughts could spiral so quickly that he could be overcome before he set up defences; but that was something to work on. If he were more disciplined, he could have stopped the overwhelming rage, because right now, if he lost control, it didn’t matter - he was a four-year-old. There was only so much he could do with his fists or any other objects he seized.

That equation changed once he got stronger and gained some extra skills and abilities. A practice spear could be deadly if it was empowered by Power Strike and Piercing Blow. Likewise, his magic, whether Earth or Lightning, leant itself to offensive attacks. Even if he didn’t kill someone while hulking, the loss of control meant he might reveal his capabilities to the wrong people.

A chime went off as the room announced that his time was almost up. The cleaning spell washed over him, and the door unlocked and opened.

With his head held high, he strode out like he hadn’t just trashed the room. Dimitri, as was often the case, was outside. His eyes narrowed as he noticed the state that Tom had left it in.

“Boy,” the adult growled. “What have you done?”

Like last time, he took the opportunity to run, and sprinted away before he could be caught and forced to clean up.

His escape, of course, only lasted twenty-four hours.

The next day he had to turn up to the isolation room at the normal time, and Dimitri was waiting for them.

He stalked forward.

Tom shrank backwards and tried to dodge behind the others, but he was way too slow.

“Not you, boy.” The large man’s hand easily encircled his arm, and he was pulled away from the other two. A shock of energy passed between them at contact. It felt almost friendly, like they had a connection. If Dimitri experienced the same, no recognition made it to his face and the angry eyes showed no mercy. “You’re coming with me.”

Bir and Pa looked scared. Pa, bless him, raised his hand like he wanted to object.

“No!” Dimitri roared and stamped his foot. He pointed at the available isolation rooms. “Go.”

The objection died, and the two of them ran into their respective isolation rooms. Tom didn’t blame them; Dimitri was pissed.

“Boy, what do you have to say for yourself?”

He froze and for a moment was not sure what to do. He instinctively retreated into his pseudo-system room to allow the Skill to act on his behalf to stop himself from giving away his status. Apparently, the question was a rhetorical one because Dimitri did not pause and marched away. His hand was like a vice around Tom’s arm.

Half-being dragged and half-scrambling to keep up, he followed the other man up two flights of steps to an isolation room that he had never seen before.

“This is punishment for leaving messes.” Dimitri snapped. “I’ve had to clean up after you twice this week. That’s not good enough. This is your room for four days. Learn your lesson. Afterward, you can have a choice again.”

The door closed with a click and ding behind him, as he was sealed in an isolation room once more.

He was not perturbed as he had been half expecting something like this, as the threat had been whispered about, even if he had never seen it carried out before. Curiously, he glanced around, wondering what was different about the room. The architecture was the same, but the bookshelves were empty. Most of the weapons were missing. All the loose items, minus a couple of practice weapons, had been removed. He checked the toy boxes, and was unsurprised to find that they contained nothing either.

It was like a naughty corner, a spot to send unruly kids where boredom was the penalty.

Tom’s eyes swept around the place. The missing books were annoying, but now that he had done enough research, he found he didn’t care too much. Two hours was not that long and there was a spear even if it was sized for someone a head taller than him. A private room was a private room, and this was as good as any other; he could train his spear forms here well enough.

Of course, once he left, he was going to have to pretend to look morose and beg not to be sent back in here, but that was something he would deal with over the next few days. Everything easy to grab had been stripped, but his eyes drifted up to the cupboards.

What about them? Had they thought to remove that stuff too, or assumed he was too little and dumb to reach it?

Less than three minutes is how long it was required to build the tower. Knowing what he was doing and not having to empty containers out were the main time savings.

Then he went up to check their status. Deliberately, he had targeted the same cupboard as previously.

This time, he left more room, so the doors opened without him having to contort his body to avoid them hitting him. The instant the gap was wide enough, he saw the same jumble of bottles as yesterday.

His first impression was that the vials here were fuller than the ones in the other room and he snatched up the same central bottle that he had yesterday. The label told him it was the same acid, and when he scanned the rest, everything was identical to what he remembered.  

He had been right: they had not bothered stripping these cupboards. There was stuff for him to do in this room after all, and he wondered if the cupboards contained any restricted manuals, because if they did, given the poisons, they would be interesting.

He glanced around the room and then back at the single cupboard he had opened. If this contained this much, he wondered what would be in the other thirteen. What amazing treasures and training aids was he about to find?