"No need."

Razeal's voice cut her off flatly, carrying no hesitation.

Maria froze mid-step, her hand still raised, droplets swirling above her palm. Her brows furrowed, confusion flickering briefly across her face as she watched him raise his right hand.. the one coated in poison.

And then, before anyone could react, his left hand snapped upward.

His fingers dug into the skin at the very edge of his right wrist, claws gripping as though seizing fabric. Without hesitation and even a fiber of flinching, he yanked.

The sound tore through the air like ripping cloth.

Skin peeled from his hand in a single brutal motion. From wrist to fingertips, the flesh was ripped away in a grotesque sheet, torn clean from muscle. Blood burst forth in a hot spray, splattering across the deck, staining the wood beneath him in crimson streaks. Droplets spattered across his cheek and chin, dotting his pale skin with red.

Razeal looked down at the bloody sheet of skin dangling in his hand, the palm sized piece of flesh swaying grotesquely, its edges slick and glistening red. The shredded fibers twitched faintly as if mocking life, and for a brief second the green poison clung stubbornly to it, wriggling in the light like a parasite searching for new flesh. Razeal's gaze narrowed.

Without hesitation, he flicked his wrist. The skin arced into the air and vanished over the edge of the ship, disappearing with a faint splash into the endless ocean. He made sure not to let the green substance touch him again. His face didn't shift. No wince, no grunt, not even the faintest flicker of discomfort. To him, it was just another action practical, efficient, already forgotten.

The deck fell into silence.

All sound seemed to die except for the faint, wet slaps of the massive fish still thrashing weakly against the planks. The ocean's waves rolled gently against the hull, but even their steady rhythm felt muted in the suffocating stillness that followed Razeal's act.

Maria froze in place, the water sphere in her hand collapsing into droplets that splashed harmlessly against the deck. Her eyes were locked on him, wide with something between disbelief and anger. Levy's lips pressed into a thin line, his brows furrowing as he stared at him with narrowed eyes. Aurora's hands clenched unconsciously at her sides, her face paling as if the sight had left her nauseous.

And Yograj the old man who had seen more than most people could imagine stood wordless for once. His casual grin, his easy banter, all of it slipped away. He simply stared at the boy with lips pressed tightly together, his dark eyes sinking deeper with thought.

This boy… he's really different.

From the very first moment he met him, Yograj had sensed something strange. An edge, a hardness that didn't fit a youth of sixteen or seventeen years. But now, watching him peel away his own flesh without hesitation, without a single trace of pain showing on his face it wasn't just strange. It was unnatural. Wrong.

Yograj had lived long enough to see every kind of cruelty men were capable of. He'd seen murderers who carved smiles into the faces of their victims, sadists who delighted in screams, tyrants who butchered their own kin for the sake of power. Cruelty toward others was almost ordinary to him, a symptom of weakness and ego.

But cruelty toward oneself? That was something rarer. More dangerous actually.

If someone could so easily harm themselves, what did that say about the limits of their heart? How far would such a person go when it came to others? Yograj's stared silently at boy as the thought crossed him.. Just making him wonder what might had lead to make a kid this young be this cruel.

Maria finally broke the silence. Her voice cracked with sharpness as she stepped closer, her eyes never leaving his face. "Why are you so cruel towards yourself?"

Her brows furrowed, and for once her calm, almost disinterested mask fell away. She looked genuinely shaken, genuinely baffled by what she had just seen. "You pulled off your own skin like it was nothing. Like it doesn't matter. Why?"

The water sphere she had conjured evaporated into nothing as her control wavered. She let it fall, droplets pattering quietly against the wood beneath her boots.

Razeal tilted his head slightly, meeting her gaze with the same calm, cold eyes he always wore. "This was the best… and easiest way to do it." His tone was flat, unbothered even little confused as what was this question even about.

As if to punctuate his words, the ragged flesh of his palm shimmered faintly. Dark, blackened bones glistened through, slick with blood, but the wound was already knitting itself back together. New skin began to crawl across the raw tissue, stretching and weaving like threads being pulled tight. The healing was steady, almost unnervingly smooth, the blood drying into faint scars as the flesh renewed itself before their eyes.

Maria's frown deepened. Her lips pressed into a hard line as she snapped, "But I could have healed it. That's what I just said. There was no reason for you to do this!"

Her voice wavered with more than frustration there was disbelief, maybe even a trace of anger buried beneath it. But also something else: a kind of sorrow. She wasn't just angry at the stupidity of it she was unsettled by the way he treated himself.

Her eyes darted to his hand again, watching as the new skin continued forming unnaturally fast. She had known he was strange. But regeneration like this? This was something beyond human. But right now, that wasn't what stuck in her mind. It wasn't the speed of his healing it was the fact that he had chosen to hurt himself when he didn't need to. The literateal stupidity?

"This is faster," Razeal replied, shrugging as though the matter was trivial. He lifted his palm toward her, the raw muscle half-covered with fresh, pink skin. "You would've taken too long. Why should I bother wasting time on something so insignificant?" His eyes narrowed faintly, his voice carrying no pride, only practicality as he shrugged.

Maria stared at him, lips parted slightly. For a second, words didn't come. Then her frown twisted sharper, her voice lashing out in frustration. "Just because you can do this doesn't mean you should! Do you even hear yourself? Going through pain just to be a little faster? Acting like you don't have time for anything.. what are you even chasing so desperately? What could possibly matter so much that you can't afford a single breath to do things the right way?"

Aurora, standing beside Levy, nodded at her words too, as even she could do it. "I would've never done this," she said, nodding at her own statement, looking disgustedly at Razeal and how he handled things.

Razeal didn't even blink at her words. His expression remained calm, detached, almost bored. He lifted his healed hand casually, studying it as though it were no more interesting than a piece of wood. "This wasn't even much of a pain," he replied, his tone eerily plain. His eyes flicked toward Maria, whose frown had only deepened. "And why do you even care? You might be scared of pain, but I'm not. Stop whining about it."

The words struck her like an insult. Maria's chest tightened, her brows drawing together. She stepped closer, her voice rising, sharp and cracking with frustration. "I am not scared of pain! I don't fucking even care about that!" Her hands clenched at her sides. "It's just this is utterly stupid. I can't understand it, and that's why I'm pointing it out."

Her teeth ground together, a vein twitching faintly at her temple. "If there's no benefit, no reason for it.. then what the hell are you even doing?!"

Her voice echoed across the deck, louder than she'd intended. For a moment, even the waves sounded muted beneath her anger.

She pointed at his hand, her finger trembling with how much the whole thing rattled her. "If I could do this," she spat, her voice thick with disbelief, "if I could heal like that.. Even then I would never choose to do this. Never. Because it's fucking stupid."

Her voice cracked into a sharp edge, dripping with frustration as the comparison tumbled from her mouth as whys this even thing even needs to explain. "It's like.. if your eyes got dirty, would you pluck them out of your skull, rub them clean in water, and then stick them back in?!" She laughed once, harshly, shaking her head at the absurdity. "What sense does that make? None! It's beyond stupid!"

Her hands flew up, then dropped with a helpless slap against her thighs. Maria wasn't someone who often let herself lose composure, but Razeal's calm, blank face made her chest boil with a rare, genuine frustration at such idioticity.

Razeal tilted his head, his calm eyes sliding back to hers. His voice carried no bite, no defense.. only plain confusion. "Why not?"

Two simple words. And that was enough to snap the last thread of her patience.

Maria's chest rose and fell as she stared at him. Then, suddenly, she shook her head and turned away, exhaling hard through her teeth. "Alright. I don't fucking care. I really don't." Her words hissed like venom. "You're just fucking stupid. Be it. Do whatever you want. I don't have time to waste on rocks who don't even want to understand basic logic."

Her voice cracked again, her tone dipping into disbelief. "It wasn't even that big of a thing, but you!" She stopped herself, dragging her hands down her face as if trying to physically wipe away the irritation clawing through her.

She turned her head sharply, refusing to look at him anymore. Her jaw tightened, her lips pressed into a line. Her shoulders trembled faintly as she muttered under her breath.

Just illogical thinking of brain-dead people… it drives me insane.

She thought of her comparison again, her mind replaying it with sharper detail: a man slamming his head into a wall to cure a headache. Wouldn't anyone try to stop him? Wouldn't anyone feel the frustration clawing at them when he calmly explained it was "faster" that way? What kind of twisted logic was that? The actual pain of the headache wouldn't even come close to the agony of cracking your skull open. Even if the wound healed… what sane person would choose that path?

Her chest burned with heat, her face flushing faintly. Stupidness really can't be cured, she thought bitterly. And with that, she let the matter die, jerking her head away, refusing to waste another breath on him.

Razeal only shrugged. The gesture was slow, indifferent, as though her outburst hadn't touched him at all. To him, she was just making noise. Just being stubborn. She's the one being stupid, he thought, his gaze flicking briefly to her before drifting away. He wasn't interested in explaining further. To him, her reaction was the exaggerated whining of someone too soft, too trapped by comfort to understand.

Levy stood silently off to the side, arms crossed loosely over his chest. His expression was unreadable, but his eyes had narrowed slightly, watching Razeal with quiet thought. He remembered their earlier interactions, how awkward and stiff things had been between them. Now, seeing this exchange, he understood why. Razeal wasn't someone who bent to reason. He wasn't someone who cared about being understood.

Aurora shook her head once, sharply, but she didn't add anything more. The disgust still lingered in her expression, but she'd said her piece.

And Yograj… Yograj just scratched his cheek, his sharp old eyes watching the boy with a look that was hard to read. His lips curved downward into the faintest of frowns, but he said nothing. He wasn't sure if Razeal's way was madness or brilliance, but he knew one thing: there was something deeply wrong in someone who could hurt themselves so easily. He let the silence stretch, his thoughts heavy, his face unreadable.

For a moment, no one spoke. The sound of the ocean lapping against the hull filled the air, joined only by the labored flapping of the massive fish still sprawled across the deck. Its scales glistened under the sunlight, its gills straining, its body convulsing weakly. The wood beneath it creaked with every desperate thrash, though each one grew weaker than the last.

Yograj's gaze shifted from Razeal to the fish. He could see it see the way its strength was fading, the way its body was losing the fight against suffocation. If he didn't act now, it would die in vain. That much, at least, he couldn't allow.

"Alright," he muttered finally, breaking the silence with his gravelly voice. "Enough of this nonsense."

He turned his back on the boy and strode toward the fish. His steps were heavy, deliberate, his large shadow falling across the creature's trembling body. He crouched down, lowering himself with the slow confidence of a man who had handled creatures like this before.

The marlin flailed weakly, its enormous sword-like bill scraping against the deck with a sharp screech. But Yograj moved with precision. His handblarge, calloused, and rough as iron slammed down onto its body. The wood beneath them groaned, the sound cracking in protest under the sudden weight.

The fish convulsed, muscles flexing as it tried desperately to shake him off. Its tail slapped violently against the boards, sending salty spray flying into the air. But it was useless.

Yograj's grip was absolute. His palm pressed deep into its side, pinning it against the planks as if the very weight of the sea itself had come crashing down upon it.

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