Chapter 17 – A Mask Full of Emotions
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Meanwhile on the other side of the city.
The white-haired girl sat on the roof of a building with her legs crossed, observing everything that transpired in the city. She immediately when Kage had left and observed him quietly.
“That should do it, now everything is back on track.”
“The way it should be…”
A painfully sad expression flashed down her face as she quietly observed him from the distance.
Back to where Kage was.
So, what did you need that for, Kage asked the old man. He looked down to his hands, holding something in between his fingers.
“That´s….”
“It´s okay, Arthur. You may explain it to him.” Lyra said to him.
“As you command, my lady.”
“My Lady suffers from an illness since she was young, and it always haunted her. But the symptoms got worse after that Incident. She was told that this is an incurable illness for people like us that live in Nacht. A high-level Healer would be required to do that, but it may still wouldn´t work.”
A week ago, a new Dungeon resurfaced in the middle of Nacht city. A Dungeon is sometimes born of life energy, left behind my once powerful people that died there. And the Place where the Dungeon appeared was exactly from his grave and that person was none other than the first leader of the Nacht City, Stark Reinhard a powerful light magic user, able to use the rumored high-level magic capable of healing most injuries.”
“In hope of finding something related to him in the Dungeon, to his magic I stole the details about the Dungeon, a scout from Nacht had found out.”
“I understand, what does it say.”
He opens the scroll and starts reading it, as he reports him.
“They weren´t able to find out much, because the Dungeon swarmed with Monsters, and high-level ones at that. But they also found out something strange, all the Monsters within the Dungeon were of Shadow attribute, the type that is rumored to had devasted the city Lumenvall a year ago……”
A fierce energy covered the entire inner of the house, coldness ran down their spines.
Arthur and Lyra noticed something, his once dead purple eyes, screamed out loud in the color of red. That flaming color even pierced through his mask.
“Lumenvall?”
That place where I woke up. Left all alone. With only one thing left behind. These voices in my head.
“Kill, Kill, Kill, Kill, Kill, Kill, Kill, Kill, Kill, Kill, Kill, Kill, Kill, Kill, Kill, Kill, Kill, Kill, Kill, Kill, Kill, Kill, Kill, Kill, Kill, Kill, Kill, Kill, Kill, Kill, Kill, Kill, Kill, Kill, Kill, Kill, Kill, Kill, Kill, Kill, Kill, Kill, Kill, Kill, Kill, Kill, Kill, Kill, Kill, Kill, Kill, Kill, Kill, Kill, Kill, Kill, Kill, Kill, Kill, Kill, Kill, Kill, Kill, Kill, Kill, Kill, Kill, Kill, Kill all the Shadows infesting this world!” A voice screamed out loud.
His eyes went back to normal, but his face just hung down like he was dead.
“Are you okay?” Lyra asked in a concerned tone.
“Yeah, I´m fine. I´m always fine.” He said in a quiet yet pained voice.
He slowly turned around and walked through the door.
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“Where are you going?”
“I will be back soon.”
He closed the door behind him and started walking straight into the woods. A calm forest, with nothing but his steps in the mud hearable. He continues walking deeper and deeper, not a world leaving his lips. As he steps into the mud, with a puddle of water in it. His legs suddenly give out and he falls to the ground. He knelled there looking through the trenches of the trees, high into the sky. Something from above drops down on his face covered by his mask. A drop of water slowly flows down his cheeks. Another one and another one. The clouds above him began crying out water. He looked down onto the ground, and while he kneeled there, he found himself there. The small puddle of water was big enough to reflect him in it. He stared into the puddle, where he found his face covered by the mask. He slowly reaches for the mask with his right arm covered in mud. He grabs the mask and slowly pulls it downward and places it the water of the puddle, exactly where his face would be in the reflection. His Black hair, with some white strains of hair had already reached down his back, his dead purple eyes lifelessly looking into the world.
“Why?
He slowly lifts his right hand and punches the ground. And then with the left hand, he continues as he cries out his frustration. His tears were colored black and as these tears dropped down his cheeks onto the mask, where it continued to flow down into the puddle. The puddle slowly started to color itself black as time went on.
Why?
As he punched the ground with his fist mud flew onto his face.
Why?
Why is this happening to me?
Who am I?
What are these voices that I keep hearing all the time.
Why do these voices start screaming every time it´s brought up?
Who am I supposed to help them, if I can´t even help myself? He screamed out loud in pain.
As he stares down to ground on all four, tears began flowing down his cheeks.
The sunshine started piercing through the clouds and a beam of sunlight lit out before him.
“Who are you, you asked? I can´t answer that. But the one thing I can tell you is what you´re to me.”
He slowly lifted his head and the person standing before him stood in the beam of light.
“What?”
It´s was the first time he saw it since they traveled for the last weeks.
She smiled happily as she shouted out loud.
* You´re my one and only sunshine!
I couldn´t understand what this person meant. Because the roles were exactly reversed. As he kneeled in the cold muddy rain on the ground, she stood there before him standing in the light of the sone reaching out a hand.
He would only much later find out the meaning behind this sentence.
Not understanding want she meant by that, he stared at her face confused about the situation. Her hand that reached out to him slowly closes in on him, her delicate hands touch his cheeks lightly, as she washes away his black tears. His black tears worsened his sight so he wasn´t able to figure out the person’s identity before him. But as she wiped away his tears and witnessed the presence of a girl that descended from heaven. Her white hair glowed in the presence of the sunlight and her blue eyes calmy comforted me simply by meeting eye to eye. I was finally able to see her, because my vision worsened by my black tears was clear now. The girl standing before me was none other than Yuki.
“I thought you would never take of that mask of yours, but I finally got to see your face for the first time again.”
His eyes widened, and as his dead eyes that were tired after not sleeping for a long time, looked at her they became slightly calmer. The black circles around his eyes formed, after not sleeping for a long time, finally met the blessing of the sun.
“But your face is quite a mess, did you not sleep enough?”
“I wasn´t able to sleep, because of these voices, I keep hearing…”
“Voices…. since when do hear them?”
“…. Ever since I woke up one year ago, I constantly hear them.”
“What do they say?”
…
“To kill….”
Constantly hearing these voices for a year must be unimaginable painful both physically and mentally.
“It´s alright”
She knees down before him and hugs him tightly, to comfort him from his pain.
As they both sat there for hours, it finally came. A message announcing the time when the Dungeon to the tomb of the first King, Stark Reinhard will be opened.
The next day in the early morning.
Knock, Knock
“Oh, you are back?
Kage walked back into the house, where Lyra sat in her bed.
“But who is she?”
“She is a… Companion of mine.”
Before she was able to hear the part “Companion of mine”, the girl screamed into the room- “I´m his lifelong partner!”
…
“I see.”
Kage looked back at Yuki confused, but soon turned his face back to Lyra as he asked about Arthur´s whereabouts.
“I don´t know, the moment I woke up he was nowhere to be found. But never mind that, are you feeling better?”
“What do you mean?”
“Yesterday you seemed extremely pained by something.”
“So, you noticed…..
I´m alright, thank you for your concern.”
“I´m back”
Arthur rushed to the door as he happily announced to everyone, the great news.
“The raid into the Dungeon will be held in two days, at the center place of the inner city.”
Arthur looks in the room and notices a white-haired girl and asked, “who is this?”
“I am Kage´s sworn lifelong partner.”
…
Did she just add something to her self-declared title? Both Kage and Lyra looked at her full of questions.
“Kage… so that´s your name. I thought you didn´t want to tell us.”
“Oh, my bad, I just…. Forgot.”
“Then let me introduce us for the first time. Her name is Yuki, and she is my partner, I guess… and my name is Kage.”
-Nice to meet you, both Yuki and Kage said in synchro.
“Nice to meet you too!” She said with a happy smile.
“Let´s see each other in two days again, before the Raid, until then….”
“Until then I have something to do.” An ice-cold glare covered his face thirsting for blood.
Both Yuki and Kage walked out of the door and her smile instantly fazed away.
“So that´s what happened….”
“Did you see it, miss Lyra?”
“Yes, I did, make sure not to anger that man in the least. Because as the saying goes, a hurt beast is far more dangerous than a healed one.”
How is he able to endure all that? Most people would have killed themselves after a few days, but he kept on suffering for a whole year, still searching for his reason to exist.
…
Kage and Yuki silently walked down the road in the forest to the city.
“So, Kage, what do you plan to do this next two days?”
“What I plan to do?
You could call it many names, like a selfish act, a wannabe hero, an apostle of justice, but I would call it something else.”
Yuki looked at him while he stopped walking. His hand reached for his mask and grabbed it. Slowly pulling it down as he states his plans.
-“I would prefer calling it a massacre of bastards, who don´t even deserve to breath air.”
His face was covered in darkness as he smiled vividly and full of anger, his eyes glared the word death.
“I will kill every single piece of shit in my way of revenge.”
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End of chapter 17--------------------------------------------------------------------To be continued