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14

The Cumulus of hate approaches with speed, fury, and pain. Camui's hand moves diagonally from waist to sky. A gale gushes from the boy's body, stirring the leaves of the trees and the swampy waters. Titania covers her face with a hand to protect herself from the wind, but continues watching. The Cumulo splits in two, both halves fly past Camui's sides, ascend and meet to swoop down, now attacking from above.

Camui squints. He understands that it will take more than a slash to defeat the Cumulo. Aiming upwards, he moves the hand again and again, until his arm turns into an incandescent blurred trail, from which light shavings are departed. The swampy waters are emboldened and swirl around the trunk where the boy stands. With each hand movement of Camui's, the Cumulo slows down until it finally stops dead in mid-air. Camui also stops.

The windstorm subsides. The boy remains with his arm outstretched, smoking fingers mere inches from the Cumulo's twitching faces. Titania gasps as she glimpses how what was once skin, is now only muscle that when exposed to the wind, begins to drip blood that slowly trickles down to the boy's cloak.

"Tha... Thank you..."

The Cumulus muses before bursting like rain, drenching the atmosphere with a black dew.

Camui slowly lowers the bloodied arm. Both his lips and shoulders tremble. It clearly hurts, but keeping his manners the boy uses his healthy arm to take another Nomad King berry from the cloak, which he eats quickly. The layers of lost skin begin to grow.

The battle is over.

Titania leans on Camui's shoulders, and together they advance through the swamp, helping each other to jump between the moldy stones and rotten wood. As soon as they step onto a bank of land, the relief of both is visible in the relaxation of their faces and palpable in the sudden lightness of their shoulders.

The girl had been casting sporadic glances at Camui for a while, waiting for him to say anything, but Camui seemed quite comfortable being quiet as a tomb. Even if Titania doesn't like the idea, she forces herself to speak:

"Thank you" Titania finds it strange to talk to someone other than herself or a customer, also her tongue gets tangled as she had not said thank you for a long time.

Camui gives Titania a confused look.

"Thank me for what...?"

"You saved me, you didn't have to do it" Titania says looking away.

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"I did it because I wanted to, you don't owe me anything... I defended you because I understand your pain"

Titania is startled and jumps away, recovering her usual distrust as if the sincere warmth and closeness that Camui shows burns her. The girl grits her teeth and snorts, pointing a finger at the boy:

"You don't understand anything!"

Camui raises the face to the increasingly clear sky and scratches his cheek.

"I know what it's like to lose people you love" the boy says.

"I didn't lose them, they were stolen from me!" Titania cries out and quickly turns her back to the boy so that he won't see the tears. She rubs both hands repeatedly over her face in a futile attempt to erase the traces of crying. "For my clan and for my loved ones, I must continue my vengeance to the end..."

The girl assures and takes a step to start walking away, but Camui's next words stop her:

"Are you going after the piper? But you don't even know where she is"

Titania turns to him slowly with a clenched fist. She may no longer possess swords, but she still has the ability to strike the brat until she erases the calmness from his face!

"As I said, I've been watching you... My mistress thinks you might be a error"

"A error?"

Camui nods and adds:

"But I don't think so... I think you could be a friend. Like I told you, we're the same"

"I'm a murderer"

"I've killed people too. Besides, I know you only hurt people who deserve it"

Titania bites her lip and looks down at her feet. Camui continues speaking:

"You also need to regain the strength you lost and discover how to control it better. I learned a lot traveling with my mistress, I'm still weak, but I'm not helpless and that's an important advantage... Maybe you should do the same, travel with us"

The proposal takes the girl by surprise and when she raises the face, discovers that Camui extends a hand in her direction.

That helping hand is an option that goes against the solitary and unfeeling posture that Titania embraced to stay firm in her mission, but a part of her thinks that Camui is right... She needs to strengthen herself before facing the last of the people who destroyed the clan, and who possibly holds the necessary answers to understand the background of that tragic night. Besides, the practice would help her to understand the talent a little more, an ignorance that was about to kill her or turn her into, as Camui's teacher says, a error.

Titania's gaze shines with determination and her palm collides with Camui's, shaking it in a handshake.

"Very well... But only until I learn to control my gift better and find the piper"

Camui nods. Their hands part. Together they move on through the forest, but Titania still has some doubts, for example:

"How is your teacher?"

"Hmm, I'd tell about it, but I don't want to scare you"

"Eeh?"

Titania is already beginning to regret her decision, but she sighs and continues to move forward without looking back.

Returning to the fallen realm, two figures peek out from the mouth of a cavern. The sun falls on their faces, and the blackened, cadaverous figure that Ivy carries on her back lets out a long gasp of relief. His voice is like a whisper reminiscent of the sound of the wind.

"I'm going home... Before the sunset"

An ash-colored dust is carried by the warm air. The witch gradually stops feeling a weight on her back until she no longer holds anything. With a burned hand she lowers the brim of the hat until it shadows half of her face. The eyes of the man and woman on the staff weep tears of red sap.

The end.

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