Cappuccino Cuts

Kail had been staring into the depths of his coffee for longer than he cared to admit, the dark swirl in his cup mirroring the restlessness that had drawn him back to Central City. East City and its aftermath was still a bruise in his mind, a wound he kept poking at, hoping it might annoy him less or—by some twisted logic—reveal a clarity that wasn't there before. Yet here he was, feeling both like a stranger and like he belonged more than anywhere else.

The woman who burst into the coffee shop had an odd, offbeat air to her, humming an old tune with all the ease in the world as she swung herself over the counter and raked her nails through the register. Kail’s gaze hardened as he watched her, noticing the almost careless power in her hands, the swift, practised way she cut through metal and plastic like it was paper. He felt something inside him tighten, a distaste crawling up his spine as she relished the destruction with the blithe satisfaction of someone who hadn’t spared a thought for the people around her.

Words he didn’t quite understood reached his ears, tainted with a tone that seemed almost mocking. Yet, he could still feel the rhetoric behind them before she announced her intentions.

“Quite a violent prophet,” Kail muttered to himself, the arc of ki passing just over his head as it cut into the walls.

The other patrons scattered, terror widening their eyes as they pushed past each other in their rush to get outside. Kail stayed put, fingers tightening around his mug as she made her way to the coffee machine, humming as though she were alone.

He leaned back, a flicker of disgust edging his expression as he raised his mug and took another long, deliberate sip. When she seemed to take notice of him, he finally spoke, his tone cold, his words edged with a quiet, disdainful weight.

“Does violence just come that easy to you, woman?” he asked, his gaze flicking to her with the same uninterested attention one would give a street performer— or a quite vocal bird. “Or do you only wreck places when it’s this public?”

He gave a slow shake of his head, the faintest flicker of bitterness seeping into his eyes. “Whatever you’re trying to shake up here, it won’t last. They’ll patch this place up, tack on some extra fees for the repairs, and the world will just keep turning.” He let his gaze drift to the damage she’d done with the calm, critical eye.

“And you,” he added, meeting her eyes, his tone edged with quiet disdain, “will have added another ruin, and for what? A moment’s satisfaction?”

Kail tilted his head, his expression heavy with judgement as he looked at her with the quiet conviction of someone who was done with destruction but couldn’t look away from it, no matter how much he wanted to. "But don’t let me stop you if this is really the only way you know how to dance.”

Kail chuckled— a low, reverberating, mirthless sound that seemed to echo off the cracked walls of the cafe. Raising his paper mug, he finished the remains of his coffee before dropping it onto the ground. The empty cup hit the floor with a soft clatter, rolling once before coming to a halt near a twisted shard of metal that had once been part of the register. Kail’s eyes followed it lazily, as though the discarded cup held some quiet significance in the mess of destruction Marie had left in her wake.

He straightened, his gaze shifting back to her, his lingering smirk fading into something sharper, a shade less forgiving. His mirthless chuckle had died away, leaving a silence filled only by the faint creak of the building, strained by her artful cuts. Dust drifted through the air, catching in the early light, but Kail remained unfazed, almost relaxed, as if the chaos around him was a predictable backdrop he had learned to live with.

“You know, there’s a certain… simplicity to it,” he said, his tone calm yet edged with a subtle, sardonic bite, as he stood up from his seat. His eyes hardened as he took her in, as if truly seeing her for the first time. “Violence, I mean. It’s a good, loud show— tear things down, get everyone’s attention. It makes you feel like you’re… more, doesn’t it?”

He walked towards her, his boots scraping against the ruined floor, each stride a silent threat as he closed the space between them. In her eyes, he saw a mirror of his own past, the reckless fire that had once burned in him too: the foolish, swaggering confidence of someone who saw war and violence as something honourable, even noble. He’d walked that path himself, so many years ago, before the Tuffle-Saiyan War had stripped every illusion from him, before the glory he’d craved was drowned in blood and ash.

And the sight of it in her made him seethe.

“Look at you,” He muttered, his tone carrying a venom he could barely contain. “This little display. This… hobby of yours, breaking things down to prove a point. You think it’s clever, think it makes you different from anyone else. But I know your type, woman, you’re just another fool who hasn’t learned what violence really is.”

His fists clenched at his sides, each word a sharp, biting syllable as he stalked toward her, his shadow stretching across the floor to swallow her in its breadth. Memories surged unbidden, flashing images of the Tuffle-Saiyan War, of friends, comrades—brothers and sisters at arms—who had died for nothing more than the same naive bravado he saw now. And here she was, strutting through the aftermath as if this destruction meant a damned thing. He felt his temper slip, his gaze darkening, hardening, as his voice rose, rough and raw.

“People like you,” he growled, “people like me, once, think we’re untouchable. Think we can just throw ourselves at the world, tearing it down piece by piece, and walk away unscathed.

Another step, and his fingers twitched, his self-restraint thinning by the second as he felt the weight of his own foolish, furious youth reflected back at him. His hand shot out in an attempt to wrap his fingers around her neck—not tight, but enough to halt that damned smile of hers. His grip would be firm if he managed to take hold of her neck, like he was holding himself steady against something that had haunted him for years.

“You’re a child throwing stones,” he said, voice a low, venomous whisper. “Hiding behind all this chaos because it’s easier than facing what’s really in here.” He tapped his chest with his free hand, a hard, accusatory gesture. “One day you will break. And when that day comes, when you’re standing alone in the wreckage, don’t expect anyone to be there. Because you’ll have destroyed the only thing you ever had—the part of you that could have been more.”

His piece said, he fell silent as his hardened eyes stared down at her. Deep inside, beneath the myriad of emotions swirling inside him, there was a smidge of hope. Hope that she would see in him her future, just as he saw his past in her.

And hope that she would be as equally disgusted as he was.

Kail’s jaw tightened, his grip on her neck loosening only as he left her ki surge with terrifying clarity, slicing through the bank with a fury that turned brick and steel into crumbling debris. His hardened gaze never left her eyes, even as the cacophony of a crumbling building reached his ears.

He felt the slow, simmering anger that had built within him burst forth in a sudden, ferocious blaze as Marie's taunts sliced into him, each word a mocking jab at his restraint, at his bitterness, at the life he had once clung to so blindly.

Her smirk, so casually cruel, and her words, sharp and dismissive, bite at his rage, threatening to snap it free. It was more than her defiance—it was the twisted idealism laced within her violence, the sick parody of a "higher purpose" that hit too close to his own forgotten convictions. And that thought—that she might still believe herself some redeemer, justified in her ruin—ignited a visceral rage he hadn’t felt in years.

And then, as if to mock him, she dared to stand there, grin lopsided, spouting her twisted philosophy, promising to forget him as if he were nothing. As if he were benea- Her blade flashed, a deadly arc intended to slice his arm, but his instincts flared, honed by years of war and tempered by a lifetime of regret. His free hand moved with the fluidity of one who had fought for his life too many times to count, imbued with ki as he slapped the blade away with an open palm.

"You think yourself so clever,” he finally ground out, his voice a low, guttural rasp, the barely restrained threat of violence lurking in every word. He laughed bitterly, a sound devoid of humour, his voice growing sharper.

The image of himself—young, reckless, full of hollow ideals—rose in his mind unbidden, nearly merging with her own face. The memories clawed at him, the battlefield strewn with bodies, the sacrifices made for causes that turned to ash in his mouth. And here she was, another fool playing with forces she barely understood.

He felt something inside him snap.

He tightened his grip, his fingers pressing into her throat until her skin turned pale against the force of his hand as he lifted her off the ground. Her smirk, that smug, insufferable grin, doing nothing but fueling the loathing consuming him.

“You think you know violence, child,” he growled, his voice a low, venomous rasp laced with mockingness. “You think you’re carving out something worthwhile in this crusade of yours,” He squeezed harder, the need to silence her driving, to finally force her to see her own fragility, to show her that her life could be stripped away as easily as her delusions.

But then, something flickered within him, a glimmer of what remained of his self-control. Killing her wouldn’t change anything. She’d go out smiling, proud of her rebellion, another "martyr" in her own mind, a testament to her twisted philosophy.

He refused to give her anything.

So, instead of snapping her neck, instead of letting his fingers crush her windpipe, he loosened his grip just enough for her to breathe. Yet he held her suspended, his fingers a merciless cage around her throat, each pulse of her heartbeat against his hand igniting the embers of rage he’d buried for years.

"You’re nothing but a child," he spat, the words laced with scorn. "Wielding a sword too heavy for you to bear, stumbling in the darkness, lashing at anything that crosses your path," His gaze darkened, the final wall of his restraint crumbling.

Even as the weight of his own hypocrisy settled on his heart, he did not stop. In a single fluid motion, he released her throat, only to meet her falling form with an upward kick aimed at her stomach. Whether blocked, evaded or it actually connected, he would retract his leg, adjust his footwork and deliver a powerful side kick, intended to kick her off the building and into the street.

"Get up!" he would snarl, his ki whirling a storm around him, he would give her no time to recover, no chance to retreat into her arrogance. "You wanted violence?! Here it is! Stand and face it! Stand and face me!"

Kail watched her with narrowed eyes, the madness of her words ringing through him like the clang of a bell struck by a hammer. She stood there—defiant, smirking, spouting nonsense as if her very existence was a testament to some perverse sanctity. He could almost hear the echo of her declaration through his clenched jaw, his hands still tingling from the crushing restraint he had held over her throat. He'd held her life in his grasp, and yet, her sheer arrogance only seemed to embolden her.

She was too far gone.

Her words—twisted, deluded, wrapped in the reverence of violence as though it were something pure—scratched at his mind. "Artisans," she had said, as if the bloodshed she reveled in were some high calling, some craft that transcended humanity itself. Her philosophy, so obscene, so far removed from everything he had ever believed, gnawed at him like acid eating through stone.

"You want to fight? Fine," he spat, his voice a low growl, thick with disdain and the weight of years worth of battles, scars, and rage. "Let me show you the pathway to hell."

His words were venomous, laced with the promise of violence. The ki around him crackled, dark and heavy, his hands trembling with the restraint he had shown until now. His eyes narrowed into slits, his posture stiffening as his control broke and something darker rose within him.

He had let her talk. Let her believe that she had won something by surviving. But he knew better. She couldn’t possibly understand what it meant to face the truth—to face the point where ideals were crushed under the weight of reality. Violence wasn’t art, it was just the wreckage left behind after all the grand ideals fell to dust.

But now, it didn’t matter. He didn't care anymore.

For he could tell that no matter what he did, she would take it as her win. Every strike he made, every moment of resistance—she would see it as affirmation of her delusion, a victory in her warped war against the world. Even if he ended her life, she would call it another triumph in the twisted narrative she had woven for herself.

She was a child, still. But she refused to see the truth. She thought herself invincible, untouchable, as if the suffering of others was just an abstract concept in her pursuit of glory. “You’re nothing,” Kail muttered, uncaring if he heard him, the words harsh as the tension in his body reached its peak. “You’re just a story you tell yourself to justify the hell you’ve made of your own life.”

He didn’t wait for her response, didn’t care if she had another insult or grand speech to give.

She wanted violence? He would show her violence. True violence, where the body and spirit shattered beyond repair.

He wasn’t playing by her rules anymore.

With one swift, powerful motion, Kail advanced on her, ki crackling around him, the air warping with the force of his raw anger. His ki flared violently as he launched forward with speed that would have crushed any lesser fighter. He moved with precision, intent, and the fury of someone who had long since given up on mercy. His fist cocked back as he aimed to her face.

She wanted to see how deep the pit went? He would show her. Oh, he would show her.

Kail's fists clenched, his breath coming in shallow, uneven heaves as Marie’s words dug into him like barbed hooks, relentless, tearing at the threads of restraint he had left. His vision blurred, the edges hazed in red, and each of her mocking, venomous taunts seemed to reverberate through his very bones, eroding the walls he’d painstakingly built over years of guilt, years of trying to control the beast within. She wanted him to lose it. She wanted him to fall, to give in and prove himself everything she accused him of being.

But she didn’t understand.

Her insults, her laughter, her self-annihilating, twisted philosophy—it was hollow. Her words were the rantings of a soul yet untouched by true horror. She revelled in this clash, treating it like a twisted game, oblivious to the true depth of suffering, of annihilation. And she had the audacity to think that this skirmish was enough to judge him. To call him cowardly, weak.

In that moment, the last sliver of his restraint snapped, and Kail's ki erupted around him in a violent storm, swirling up and out like a hurricane born of rage. The power burst forth, tearing through his own spirit, unleashing the fire he had kept locked away, the embers of battle he’d buried beneath the rubble of his past. His muscles bulged, his hair crackling with a fiery golden aura, though it remained dark, his transformation incomplete, as if only his fury had forced it to surface. His eyes blazed an intense, piercing white, his face a contorted mask of primal Saiyan fury.

“Have you ever seen a world at war, child?” he roared, voice carrying a timbre that seemed to shake the very ground beneath them. “Have you ever watched as entire cities burn, reduced to ashes and rubble, as lives are trampled under the weight of chaos?” His voice was thick with memory and menace, the echoes of a past she couldn’t comprehend.

She thought herself acquainted with violence, even devoted to it. But there was no artistry in what he remembered. There was no glory, no hollow satisfaction—only annihilation. She thought her devotion to destruction made her strong, resilient. But he had been forged by real war, a war that destroyed more than bodies, that chewed through spirit and left nothing in its wake.

With a guttural yell, his ki surged, blackened gold streaks fanning out around him like a spectral flame, his false Super Saiyan transformation fully engaged. Each pulse of his power sent shockwaves through the ground, splintering it beneath his feet. He didn’t bother with words anymore. There was nothing he could say to make her understand, no reason to convince her.

He took a small step forward, his foot cracking the asphalt- and he shot forward, the world blurring at the edges as his gaze focused only on her. His fists would blur as he closed in, his strikes would be swift, brutal, each one aimed to break, to crush, to shatter, to destroy. Each blow backed by the raw force of his Saiyan heritage, the rage he had locked away.

He then would dash back in a burst of ki. His feet barely touching the ground before he pivoted, launching himself forward again, his aura swirling around him in a tempest of rage and energy.

With a roar, his palm shot forward in a devastating strike, strengthening his arm and hand with ki as aimed directly at Marie’s chest with the intent to cave it in. There was no elegance in his movement now, no restraint—only the brutal, unrelenting force of a warrior who had spent too long holding back. He wasn’t just fighting her anymore; he was unleashing the full fury of his past, of the countless lives he had taken in the war, and all the years of anger that had festered in his soul.

If she died, then so be it. She would just merely be another speck of blood on his blood-soaked hands.

But he didn’t care.

For in that moment, he was violence incarnate.

An Idol of the ideas she so desperately worshipped.

And he was going to show her how much her ideas loathed her back.

Kail’s mind was a storm, thrashing in the chaotic, primal fury that now consumed him. The battle was supposed to be over, his rage had reached its peak, and yet, something in the air shifted. A sense of profound detachment hung between them—almost like they had slipped out of time itself. Her words, manic and laughing, echoed in his ears, a haunting melody that only spurred his violence further.

Marie’s twisted acceptance of destruction, her invitation to obliteration—it should have felt like a victory, a triumph of might. But as her blade twisted aside and his palm struck into her with devastating force, something didn’t sit right. Her expression was not one of defeat.

The pain of his strike was satisfying, a release, but her smile—so soft, so tender in the face of such violence—reached through his psyche. It was... unnerving. The blood rushed in his ears, his pulse hammering in his chest as he prepared to deal the final blow.

But then, she moved.

Her ki surged, gathering in an instant, and with a swift motion, she slashed through the air, a jagged arc of crimson ki rushing toward him. It was a blur, a vicious line of destruction aimed straight at his torso, a cut meant to carve through him, to leave a permanent mark.

His eyes widened just a fraction of a second too late. Her strike was too fast, too sudden, and the very air around her crackled with intensity as the slash roared forward.

Kail’s ki exploded around him in an instinctive shield, his aura flaring desperately trying to absorb the brunt of her attack. It failed. The slash met his body with a sickening sound—a sharp, cutting force that cleaved into his flesh, sending waves of searing agony across his chest.

He didn’t flinch.

The force of the blow knocked him back, his feet skidding across the cracked pavement. His breath came out in ragged gasps as the pain blossomed, red-hot and relentless, staining his undersuit, his skin, with the truth of her strike. Blood oozed from the gash, dribbling down his torso and arms as he stood tall, a few steps away, his aura sputtering in defiance.

The force of the impact sent shockwaves through the air, and the surrounding buildings, cracked and weakened by the tremors of their battle, began to crumble. Concrete and steel groaned, a terrible sound of destruction as entire structures shattered and collapsed in a cascade of chaos behind him.

His blood, already hot from the rage coursing through his veins, burned even hotter as it collided with the charged air. His heart pounded, not with the panic of someone wounded, but with the primal rhythm of a hunter that had long ago abandoned the pretences of morality.

Her words echoed in his ears, but they meant nothing now.

Kail’s gaze, fierce and unyielding, narrowed as he wiped the blood from his lips with the back of his hand, a savage grin stretching across his face despite the pain. He took a step forward, his voice hoarse but cutting through the air like a blade.

“You’re nothing,” Kail snarled, his voice thick with the pain of his injury and the weight of countless dead souls in his wake. “Nothing more than a flash in the fire. A brief spark that fades when the flames die down.”

Kail's hands clenched, his body shaking with the searing fury and the bitter, aching realisation. She thought she was different. She thought her violence meant something. That she was something.

But to him, she was nothing more than another soul that would be swallowed by the storm. She would fade into the same oblivion as the countless others who had crossed his path in his bloody past, reduced to dust and forgotten. The blood on his hands was as much a part of him as the rage that fueled him now.

All of them—every single one—was just another dead body, another face in the sea of the nameless and the forgotten.

And her face would just be one amongst hundreds.

Kail stood motionless, his chest heaving, the ragged rhythm of his breath barely audible over the eerie stillness that had settled. Blood trickled steadily from the deep wound across his torso, staining the cracked asphalt beneath him. His ki had dimmed to a faint flicker, no longer the roaring tempest it had been moments ago. The world around him was a tableau of destruction—broken buildings, severed streets, and the faint, acrid scent of burnt stone and blood accentuated by the metallic stench of blood.

And there she was.

Marie, lying amidst the wreckage, her voice rising like a hymn to madness. She was laughing, wounded but unbowed, her body a ruin and yet her spirit unbroken. Her words spilled out in a tumbling, fevered stream, laced with a devotion that struck him as grotesque in its purity. She exalted his violence, lauded the destruction they had wrought as though it were the hand of some divine force guiding them both.

For a moment, Kail’s gaze dropped to his trembling hands, cloth stained red with her blood and his. He flexed his fingers slowly, as if testing whether they still obeyed him. Her words were a poison seeping into his mind, needling at the core of his being.

"Beautiful?" he rasped, his voice hoarse and low, the weight of exhaustion making each syllable drag. "You call this... beautiful?"

His eyes lifted to meet hers, and in them was a hollowness so profound it seemed to draw the light from the air. "You think you’ve seen something? That this... hatred, this violence is some kind of truth worth worshipping? You’re wrong." His voice cracked, weariness breaking through the barrier of his rage.

He shook his head, a bitter, broken chuckle escaping him. “You talk about hatred like it’s some grand, transcendent thing. Like it’s a gift. You don’t understand it. Not the way I do.” His voice cracked again, but he pushed on, stepping closer, his boots crunching on the fractured asphalt. His aura sputtering—dying— with each passing step. “You haven’t lived it. Haven’t worn it like a second skin, haven’t had it seep into every breath, every thought, every action. You revel in it, but you’ve never let it consume you.”

He stopped a few paces from her, looming over her broken body. For a moment, he simply stared, his expression neither of disdain nor pity but of sheer emptiness. “You want me to take off the mask? To show you my true face?” His lips curled into a mirthless smile. “Fine.”

He lowered himself slightly, his body groaning with the effort, his voice softening into something cold and cutting as he grabbed her by the neck and forced her eyes to bore on his empty, ashen white eyes. “It’s not what you think. There’s no masterpiece beneath it. Just a monster. A killer. A man who’s seen more cities burn than you could ever dream of destroying. Who’s stood in fields of corpses so vast and rotten that you can never forget the stench.”

He leaned closer, his voice dropping to a near whisper. “You think you’ve seen violence? You think you’ve touched the face of hatred? You’re nothing more than a child playing with fire, mistaking the sparks for stars. You’re nothing. And when you die—because one day you will—I won’t remember you. Not more than I remember the thousands I’ve already killed. The ones who begged, who screamed, who fought like you. The ones who didn’t even have a chance. I watched them burn and crumble, and do you know what it left me with?”

He gestured at the wreckage around them with his free hand, at the chaos they had created. “This. Nothing. The ashes of a life I can’t even remember. Faces that blur into shadows, screams that fade into silence. And you? You’ll just be another shadow, another scream. A footnote in the blood-soaked story of my existence.

So keep laughing. Keep calling this your revelation. But you’re not special. You’re not a prophet. You’re just another broken soul clinging to the only thing you think makes you whole. And when it’s over, you’ll be gone like all the rest.”

He let go of her throat, letting her broken body collapse back into the street in a puff of dust. Straightening, he turned his back to her, his steps slow, each one heavier than the last. She was already dead in his mind. A ghost that hadn’t realised it yet.

“Keep your delusions, if they bring you peace,” he muttered over his shoulder. “But don’t call this love. Don’t call it beauty. And don’t ever think you’ve reached me.”

With that, he began to walk away, his ki dimming further with each step, a broken shadow retreating into the haze of the dying storm before his transformation fully died out. The distant, echoing blaring of sirens growing louder each passing step.

“You’re nothing. Absolutely nothing.”