Chapter 17: Light Turned Black

The cathedral was decorated in pure red fabric. It lay over the banisters on the second floor, covered the benches with a thin layer of red and golden silk.

Kult members stood, hands raised, chants echoing through the walls, bouncing off the blackened glass and burning green candles.

Carlos, covered in a thin layer of blood, stood towards the entrance doors, his back facing the isle. His eyes were shut and head low. Behind his back, he gripped his hands, listening solely to the cries that began echoing out loudly. There weren't any cries of pain, just cries of joy.

A Gem.

A God Gem had graced them under the ideal of saving one dear to him.

For love, for family, people would do anything to protect and cherish those close to them. Many times, he's witnessed this.

Takabi, overcoming limits and pushing himself to the brink, dying for the woman, Rose, and his sister, Shine. Reawaking his Fallen Power and sparing his twin brother, unleashing the Violet Gem's evil to save his woman, Nana. The boy's heart was a weapon, and fueled by feelings of love, he would always perform some type of miracle.

What if the same could be applied to one of their soldiers?

Darkness becoming light was not an unheard of concept. They were both different sides of the same coin. What is light to dark? Gracious, vaillant angels have fallen many times before. No one is safe from corruption, Girston was living proof of that.

Carlos looked up to the second floor, Diablo staring down at him with curious, yellow tinted eyes. Once the darkness had claimed him, it erased what he knew. He gave his soul over to those who reside in hell. He was no more an angel than Carlos was a child.

And in Carlos' eyes, a child he no longer was.

He was a man, a man with unending power he wished to release upon those he distainted, but there was one wall he must overcome first.

Takabi, was his one and only goal.

After he killed him, he would have no one to stand against him, to torment him in his dreams, to laugh at what little Carlos had, and rub his progress in his face. To do so, he needed the God Gems' power.

That was the purpose of all the experiments he continuously put himself through, why his eyes held the darkest black, and his skin was coated with withered darkness along the left side of his face. The violet in his eyes, shining so brightly in the dimly lit room, burned with hate, and yearned for victory.

A single hand reached up from inside the blood bath. Carlos looked on, in shock, in surprise, that he had so willingly accepted the sins he bathed in, just for a single chance to save his grandfather. As his body rose up, blood soaking his yellow hair, he turned to face the Kult. Standing, exposing his body without a bit of shame, his eyes glowed and cackled, electricity, and pure power boiling brightly from within.

He felt older.

He felt undefeatable.

But most importantly, for the first time since that night, he felt whole.

He was Lukas, and boy he was no longer.

"How do you feel," Carlos asked him, approaching cautiously.

Lukas looked at his hands, opening and clenching his palms slowly. Graciously, he locked gazes with Carlos, and spoke in a cooled, relaxed tone. "I feel… Alive."