Stu had unlocked Rule 19, mostly.. He couldn’t help but feel like the rules were stupid. How was this supposed to help him? Redacted rules that set the tournament up for a rollercoaster ride of bullshit. He never asked to be a blue blood, but he didn’t want to give it up either. He sat inside his dark and quiet house. The girls were in bed; he was sitting in the living room. He took a deep breath, alright he thought. Let’s try to decipher this redacted BS..

  Blue blood will participate as human weapons. They are all-powerful worshippers, carrying humanities’ hopes and desires for the future in their blood. Once a blue blood worships a God as their own, it will allow said blue blood to stand on the pin of Gods. See section rule 19(A) for more information. As determined ahead of time by the [REDACTED](A) The pin of Gods refers to any event, action, pce, or time the Gods are privy to. This allows a small subset of humanity to have a say in the outcome of the tournament.

  (B) Once a Blue blood is activated, it will no longer actually be able to exist as a human, since humanity is fully incapable of competing with Gods. The blue blood will retain all human like faculties and appearance but are unable to return to their previous actual css of humanity.

  [REDACTED]

  He sat back on the stool and leaning on the wall. What did that mean? Was that why he felt so different? All these questions weren’t getting him anywhere. His mind wandered to the kids that evening. He made sure they got home alright and told their mom to not let them go to the tracks anymore. They told her fantastic stories about a talking cat and a man named Mr. Monster, insisting to their mom that it was all true. She grinned and pyed along never believing any of it. He figured it was for the best. He smiled, and these thoughts made him feel human.

  The rules said that he was not human anymore though, just a representative of them. The words hung heavy in his mind, are unable to return to their previous actual css of humanity. Would he lose himself in the process of the tournament? His self-doubt was building up the longer this went on, while his ability to kill became less doubtful. A noise made him look up from the floor.

  Prosperity stood there looking at him curled up against the wall. She was trying to decide if he was asleep or not, and realizing he wasn’t she said, “I couldn’t sleep tonight, mind if I hang out with you since you look like your awake too?”

  He reached over and turned the light on. “Find a seat and join the pity party.”

  She walked in and found a seat on the floor next to him. She said, “We saw the fight, it was.. it was something else..” they sat quietly for a moment. “There were some pretty hot parts too so don’t be too hard on yourself.” She gave him a joking look.

  Stu couldn’t help but grin, “I knew I heard you out there.. So, let me ask you something, why is it so easy on you to kill or hurt people? It bothers me, and when it doesn’t; that bothers me.” This was a burning question in the back of his mind.

  Prosperity softly spoke while keeping eye contact with him, “It never has, that’s the way it always was; I think. It’s hard to know for sure when you can’t remember where you came from or who you were. While I can’t say for sure when I started feeling that way, I can tell you when it changed.” She pointed to the eyepatch. “Can I ask you why you hate Miracle so much?”

  Stu pointed to her eyepatch. Sighing, he expined, “When she took me, or whatever she did, to the world that was a miracle.. You and Chaos were there with me and everyone was happy. You had your eye back, and as much as I wanted to just go with it.. It wasn’t real, she lied to me, and it hurt. She got to hurt me in a way that no one else in the tournament has. I hate her for that, more than anything else. For a moment, I saw a major regret had disappeared, and it was a relief.. It was so perfect that every time I see her, or think I see her, I want to go back. So, that is why I hate her so much.” He looked over to see her reaction to his honesty, and she was crying.

  She grabbed his hand gently, holding it she asked, “Would you like to see it?” Blushing and crying while looking away.

  He was confused asking, “You mean the wound I gave you? Why would I want to see that?”

  She spoke very softly, “Because you and I are the only ones embarrassed by it. I think it will give you the closure that you need. I didn’t realize that my eye was something you regret, it is the thing that saved my life. I told you before, I’m here because I want to be.” She reached up removing the eyepatch.

  Stu looked away, he didn’t know if he could do this. Facing the damage he caused her was hard. His imagination ran wild from empty eye sockets to ice cream scoop sized pieces missing. He shut his eyes tightly trying to unsee his imagination. Prosperity pced her hands on his face and making him face her, his eyes still shut tightly. He said, “I don’t think I can do this Prosperity, I’m sorry..” He felt her lips on his, he opened his eyes in surprise.

  Prosperity kissed him and kept her eyes closed. He was kissing her, but he saw the thin scar go from the center of her closed eye and travel diagonally off her eye bout an inch. She stopped kissing him and slowly backed away from his face. She said, “I’m going to open my eyes now. Just rex and don’t worry. Her eyes opened and Stu saw her bad eye. It was still there, just milky instead of pink. She smiled at him.

  Stu smiled back sadly yet relieved at the same time. He said, “It’s not nearly as bad as I thought it was.. I still hurt you badly, but it isn’t what I feared I’d done.” He touched her face near the scar. It’d been healing nicely. He felt so much relief flooding his mind that he almost cried. “I don’t know why you still wear the eyepatch at all..”

  Prosperity put it back on saying, “Because I look like a badass. I’m a god with an eyepatch! Come on, don’t even try to pretend that isn’t cool!” He ughed at her, but she got serious again asking, “So, do you want to talk about the humanity thing?”

  He grunted saying, “So, you know about that huh?”

  She slid closer to him, resting her head against his leg saying, “Well, you serve Chaos.. She knew, when you knew.. Then there’s the whole; I serve you thing, that means I know, when you know. So, we all know. You know?” Prosperity looked proud of herself.

  “What’s there to say?” Stu sighed before continuing, “Proxy was right all along; she just asked the wrong question. I’m not human anymore. I represent them, that’s all there is to it. It expins why I’m not feeling the same on the inside anymore. I’m not sure that I’m in control of it anymore, it wasn’t until the kids scared me that I snapped back into control.”

  Prosperity said, “It was intense, you scared a god into hiding. That was something I would expect from Miracle or the other powerful gods. Not a..” she stopped herself short.

  Stu picked it up saying, “Human, but I’m not a human. So, am I becoming an unthinking weapon? I think I almost killed those kids tonight. I didn’t know if they were a trick or not and my first thought was just to be safe…” He didn’t finish his sentence.

  She said, “The thing is that Proxy would have let you think it was her, if it let her get away. There are no good guys and bad guys in this tournament, you just have to accept that. Whatever things come of the future always remember that we are the house of Chaos, and we’ll pull through together.”

  Stu asked, “You have to do whatever I command of you right? As per the terms of your surrender?”

  Prosperity looked up at him saying, “Yeah, but I’d do anything you want me to anyway..”

  Shaking his head he said, “This you won’t. I want you to make sure that if I ever get to a point that I don’t care about kids looking at me like they did tonight, and I hurt them anyway.. I want you to kill me!”

  She shook her head saying, “I can’t do that! You have to take that back!”

  “Listen, if I ever do that, it means I’m not me anymore.. it means I’m completely gone, and if I were in control I’d kill myself. You have to promise me this, so I can keep myself in check. I trust you, and I need you to do this.” He looked at her desperately. Avoiding eye contact, she nodded. Stu said, “I need to hear you say it.”

  Prosperity said, “If you start not caring about who you kill, I have to kill you.”

  He got up pulling her into an embrace. Holding her there and saying, “Thank you. This means a lot to me, I’ll find a way to pay you back somehow.”

  Prosperity hugged him back wondering, “Will You talk to me like you talked to Proxy tonight? It was kind of hot..”

  Still holding her he said, “Maybe tomorrow.” Grinning at her messed up humor.