Fairy Tail: Kyoka Suigetsu

**Communal Pride**

[The Devotion of An Atheist]

**The Laboratory**

The entrance to the lab was hidden beneath the mundane, ordinary storefront—an innocuous facade that betrayed no hint of the horrors below. A narrow, damp passage, faintly illuminated by flickering overhead lights, descended into a forsaken underbelly where shadows clung to the walls like living things. The air was thick with the sickly scent of antiseptic, but it couldn't mask the deeper, more unsettling stench—a pungent mix of decay, metal, and something far more primal, like rotting flesh.

Inside, the lab was a twisted, sterile maze of rusted metal tables, overturned cages, and an array of unidentifiable, grotesque machinery. A low hum vibrated through the air, an unsettling, mechanical symphony composed of whirring gears and the distant drip of fluids—each drop a testament to the perverse nature of the place. The floor, cold and unforgiving, was streaked with dark stains that had long dried into jagged, brittle patterns, as though the very ground itself had absorbed the blood of countless, unmarked victims.

But it was the **capsules** that truly dominated the room. Row upon row of glass tanks stood like tombs, their murky interiors shrouded in mist. Inside, children floated—emaciated, pale, their skin a sickly shade of grey beneath the water, their once vibrant eyes hollowed out and glazed. Some had limbs **cut off**, discarded like broken toys. Others had been twisted beyond recognition, their bodies warped by unnatural mutations—limbs elongated or fused, faces distorted into grotesque masks of humanity. They were alive in the most horrific sense, their breath shallow, their hearts still beating, but their spirits had long since withered. **They were living corpses**.

The sound of the **water rippling** in the tanks was unsettling, like the faint whisper of something *unnatural*, as if the very liquid that sustained them was aware of the depravity it was a part of. The gentle lapping against the glass was almost a lullaby, a cruel mimicry of peace. The silence in the room was suffocating, broken only by the soft clink of metal on metal as the last of the researchers were being dispatched.

With a **sword in hand**, I stood before them. My heart was as cold as the room, my resolve unshaken. "It's better to end your suffering..." I whispered, barely a breath, the words lost beneath the unsettling hum of the lab. And with that, I raised my blade—its edge gleaming under the dim light—and brought it down with swift precision.

The **slash** of the sword cutting through the glass echoed through the chamber like a death knell, followed by the **crackling sounds of water rushing out** from the tank. It flowed freely towards the bodies that now lay lifeless on the ground, its murky, blood-tinged flow pooling around them. The movement was mechanical, as if the blood of the fallen, those I had slain, had become part of the lab's very heartbeat.

The researchers, their forms now still and unblinking, had been dealt with in a much quicker, more impersonal manner. I had **snapped their necks**—the motion so swift it was as though their lives had been snuffed out by a mere afterthought. They had no chance to resist, their eyes wide with shock, yet blank, unseeing. The disturbing truth, however, was that they had never **seen** a thing in their lives. All of them were blind. **Their sight had been stolen long before their humanity**.

Mercy was a concept foreign to this place, an illusion. The **blind researchers**—cloaked in their own arrogance—had played gods with the lives of the innocent, molding their bodies, distorting their minds. But they were nothing more than tools, discarded once their usefulness had been exhausted. In this place, there was no room for pity, no time for hesitation. **Their deaths were as insignificant as the experiments they conducted**.

I turned away, my movements deliberate, as I searched the space, collecting anything of worth. **Research notes**, scribbled and blood-stained, a collection of **tools**, **magic stones**, and **monstrous corpses**—discarded, but still valuable. Each object was a testament to the unspeakable acts carried out in this forsaken lab, where the only currency was pain, and the only law was cruelty.

With a final glance around, I muttered, "This is just the beginning. There are still facilities left..." My voice was low, cold, as I faded into the shadows, leaving nothing but **corpses** in my wake. The **lab** was no more than a haunting memory now, but it would never leave me. It was a place where humanity's worst instincts had been laid bare, and in its depths, the **true face of darkness** had been revealed.

**Tap!**

**Tap!**

**Tap!**

The echoes of my footsteps reverberated through the suffocating stillness of the dark passage, each strike of my boots on the cold, unforgiving stone resonating like the ticking of a cruel clock counting down to an inevitable end. I moved with purpose, my mind consumed by the weight of what I had uncovered.

"Halt!" A voice shattered the stillness, sharp, commanding, and filled with unshakable authority.

I had sensed their approach long before they dared to announce themselves. Yet, I did not turn. Their presence was but an afterthought, a fleeting inconvenience in the grand tapestry of what I had witnessed and uncovered. My hand rested lightly on the hilt of my sword, the barest touch, as if to remind myself that I was ready—but they would not understand the significance of such a gesture. To them, I was just a figure poised, a nonchalant shadow in the dark.

A man stood before me, his features harsh with age and experience. His short black hair, neatly combed, framed a face that bore the weight of endless decisions, of duties fulfilled with hollow conviction. His eyes, dark and calculating, gleamed through the lenses of his glasses—shiny, cold, and unblinking as he adjusted them with an almost ritualistic motion. The quiet intensity in his gaze betrayed no fear, only a stubborn resolve.

For a long moment, neither of us moved, the silence between us thick as the stench of decay that lingered in the air, the unspeakable horrors I had left behind clinging to the very walls of this forsaken place. We stood in silence, locked in an unspoken battle of wills. He raised his right hand, signaling for the others to circle around me with calculated caution. "You are under arrest for trespassing, destruction of property... and murder."

His words were not so much a warning, but a sentence, one that he believed I would meekly accept. His sword, now aimed at me, was but a gesture of his own fragile authority. He underestimated the depth of my indifference.

"Cooperate with us and you won't get hurt..." he said, his voice softer now, laced with the thin veneer of hope that he could still control the situation.

"Murder, huh..." I echoed, my tone detached, almost amused. I didn't expect an answer, nor did I care for one. "You should probably know what's going on down here, yet you did nothing. Are you collaborating with them?"

His expression faltered, just for a moment, as if unsure whether he should continue lying. "What's happening here is none of your concern. You wizards shouldn't interfere in human affairs," he replied, his voice cold, yet tinged with an unmistakable hostility. "Surrender now, and you won't suffer the consequences."

It was clear: whether I surrendered or not, they intended to kill me. They had their weapons drawn, and their hands trembled with the anticipation of violence. The silence that followed was thick, suffocating, like the calm before a storm.

"Even if you are a wizard," the man added with false confidence, "you cannot escape this."

"Fire!" he shouted.

**Bam!**

**Bang!**

**Boom!**

**Pow!**

A symphony of gunfire rang out, the deafening cracks breaking the stillness, the sharp reports of the weapons ringing in the air like the toll of an ancient bell. Yet, as the last echo of gunfire faded, there was only the sound of a body hitting the ground with a sickening thud.

It was not my body that lay motionless on the floor, but his—the man with the glasses. And beside him, his comrades crumpled, their lives snuffed out in an instant. They had fired upon each other in a deadly dance of chaos, their minds ensnared by the hypnotic influence of Kyoka Suigetsu. I had orchestrated their demise with a mere thought.

I ignored their lifeless forms, stepping over them as though they were no more than debris in my path. My mind wandered, thoughts swirling like a storm in my chest, and I muttered aloud, though no one was left to hear me.

"Communal Pride..."

The words spilled from my lips, bitter and heavy. "Some members of the authority know exactly what's happening down here, and yet they do nothing. They think this is their chance to gain power over those who cannot use magic. The parents of these children willingly handed their offspring over to be used as experiments. No, to be precise, it all comes from the orphanage. The church likely established the orphanage to care for the poor, but it's only a facade."

"Now, communal pride... It's an illusion they cling to. A twisted sense of loyalty to a system that does nothing but bleed them dry." I let out a dry, mirthless laugh. "They think they honor their communal pride, but in reality, they only pride their own honor."

I paused, my gaze hardening as I looked upon the still forms of the men who once stood against me. "Just because their leader harbors a strong sense of pride and they follow him with a misguided sense of honor doesn't mean they understand what either of those truly means."

I nearly let out a bitter chuckle. I took a deliberate step forward, my voice resonating through the hollow passage. No one was there to hear me, but that would not deter me.

"There's a vast chasm between honor and pride," I continued, my words hanging in the air, cold and cutting. "Pride is the satisfaction drawn from personal accomplishments, the ego basking in its own reflection. Honor, however, is rooted in respect—a deeper understanding of duty and integrity. They believe they honor themselves by clinging to this hollow notion of 'pride,' which they equate with being 'independent.' But that illusion of independence is precisely what traps them. In reality, it's an endless cycle, a distortion born from confusing two fundamentally different concepts. Just because their leader exudes pride doesn't mean the followers possess true honor."

I paused, letting the silence stretch between us, before adding with a darkened tone, "Just because you're the leader doesn't necessarily mean you're always right. They follow their leader blindly, as if the leader's every word is a commandment. But no one is perfect. You must judge the world's morality for yourself. If you merely adhere to someone else's standards, your values will become no different than theirs. It's neither honoring morality nor taking pride in being follower, that action is merely called blind faith."

With that, I turned my back on their bodies, fading into the darkness, leaving behind nothing but a silence deeper than the one before, and the chilling realization that my work had only just begun.