"Fight"
"Why?"
"Fight"
"Fight"
"Keep on fighting!"
"Wait...I'm not done yet. Hold on!"
"Fight"
"..."
"Seraph, listen closely. You have to just keep on fighting until you are done. In your heart, there is always a...you have to find it...for us".
"There is no such place...I am sorry, Lady".
****************
"Sorry, I shouldn't have made you do it", Felix walked towards me as I stood motionless like the body in front of me.
"Huh?"
"You've never killed anyone before, have you?", he smiled weakly, "I can tell from the look in your eyes. Does killing this guy really make you so sad?"
I didn't feel like replying. That attacker was lying there with his rotten guts spilling out. His rancid blood covered most of my hands and Ebony was smeared crimson.
"That's commendable though. I mean, after all, it is so easy to forget that human part of us when we are killing people left and right everyday".
"You don't look like the sort of guy that kills people left and right everyday, Felix", I said blandly and without moving a muscle.
"Ehh?! Really?! That makes me so happy, Seraph".
And he indeed was genuinely happy, though he never confirmed if my belief about him was correct.
It was the first time I had engaged in a real head on fight like this. Everything Deli had taught me had become muscle memory for me, and even though our unknown assailant wasn't something to scoff at, I barely broke a sweat as I masterfully slashed his stomach before flinging myself over him. His head was next and Ebony smoothly pierced through his skull as if it was butter. I grabbed the guy by his collar and flung him towards a tree. I was surprised at how destructive my weak arms had become.
Felix wasn't much of a fighter, though he did save me a few collisions that could have cost me an arm or a leg. I still was questioning his tagging along with me, though. I wondered if Nasty really was the only reason.
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"Who was this guy?", I asked as we were about to hurry on ahead.
"He was looking for something, wasn't he? Did you take something from him? Seraph, are you sure you've never seen the guy?", Felix asked me back.
"Yeah, I'm positive. He did seem a little weird for what he was, didn't he?"
"Hmm? How so?"
"It was almost like he wasn't even alive", I almost mumbled.
"Heh? Well then, why were you mourning him so, Seraph? Looking at you, I was convinced he was human enough to have been alive".
"You are so sure?"
"Nope, but probably! For now, let's just get out of here as fast as we can".
We continued onwards and my mind remained puzzled with questions, which I believe was noticeable enough for Felix to have been trying to distract me all the way.
"Felix...", I finally decided to ask, "Why are you tagging along?"
Felix stopped in his tracks immediately which called for me to stop too. And so I was about to halt my horse but Nasty decided to stop on its own and turned towards Felix.
"Am I bothering you with coming along, Seraph?"
"You know that is not the point".
"Seraph, do you really have time for this?", I couldn't help but notice how he always avoided anything about himself.
"Not really", I decided to settle this, "But I can't go on with someone I don't even know. Even though you were trying to protect me back in that battle...in the beginning when I wasn't careful, you even injured your arm, didn't you?"
He thought he had been able to hide it but I noticed the occasional drops of blood and his inability to move his arm.
"I see, so there is no other way, is there?"
He already knew the answer so I just stared at him.
"When I was a kid, Seraph", he sat down on one of the stray stones and began gently, "there was a little...bitch that gave birth to three pups. It was a stray and it carried those pups around until it found a home in front of the door to our house. Every time someone opened the door, it would make such a huge noise, fearing for its children as if we were just there to swallow them. They say when a bitch gives birth, it changes its house every seven days. It moves to the next place after those seven days. So then, all we had to do was wait seven days before it was gone, right?".
He paused a while.
"Then one day, I had come home from a friend's place and I didn't notice it was lying around with its pups. The moment it sensed I was getting near, it stood firmly in my way and growled at me. I was so scared I started running and it started chasing me, barking and howling at me all the while. I ran and ran, eventually feeling that I would never be able to stop. I just kept on running. At some point, I reached a place I didn't know. The bitch hadn't been following me for a long time but I just...I kept on running until I was in the middle of nowhere".
"Felix..."
"That realization helped me define my life. I suppose it was more a revelation than anything else. When I did get home, they were taking the bitch away. She was being separated from her pups and I watched it screaming in agony. I felt nothing. I watched it with a poker face like those of all other as it resisted and bit some meat off of someone to escape their holds and get to her children. They broke her neck and that guy she had bit also ended up dead. It felt like...something heavy was over. But I think that bitch was crying. Oh, and...it was raining that day, they threw her in the dump or maybe somewhere nicer. We never saw them again".
I listened to Felix silently as he got up and looked straight at me.
"My grandfather told me this when the guy she had bit, died that you must never forget what a mother is capable is. Anything that stands between the mother and her child is the most worthless existence of all", he had a pleasant look on his face.
I shook my head and continued onwards without question. Felix tagged along. I looked at him once more through the corner of my eye before Nasty found speed. Felix looked hopeful, like I've never seen anyone.