"Could you imagine the havoc the public would reap on us? Godius and Goddessa promised to always care for our souls. We stay faithful to them, we pray to them and we're blessed with good karma in our next life. Now you're saying they're incapable of doing that for the faithful? It's that promise that keeps people from being evil." Marcius stuck his thumb to the west. "Do you have any idea how long the west has been waiting for this nation to fall apart? They've wanted to conquer this land and that fear of war is the only thing keeping the Akira and the humans unified. Well, unified being a loose term considering we're still separated by law."
"The church would stop them. We're the most powerful organization in all of Chara."
"But the church is unified by it's faithful, if the faithful stop believing who would they go to next? We wouldn't just be separated by race we would be separated by our religious beliefs and our morals. The disarray of our nation would give those war mongering bastards to the west the opportunity to strike us when we aren't unified."
He made a valid point.
"Then what do we do?" I asked. Marcius sighed and rubbed his forehead. He did this when he was frustrated.
"I'll think of something. Right now I'm more concerned about the lost underworld."
"Do you think that the disappearances are connected to the underworld?" I asked.
"I have a strong suspicion it is. People are vanishing overnight, Ezekial tells you the god and goddess lost the underworld, demon rifts are opening all over the place left and right…"
"Demon rifts!? Why haven't you mentioned this earlier?" The chair croaked as I leaned forward.
"We got stuck on the subject of the underworld. I'm sorry."
"This is just perfect." I threw my body against the chair with defeat.
"Worry not, Shi. I will handle this affair with the other head priests and priestesses. You go hunt down those rifts and close them for good before all of hell consumes us in destruction."
I nodded but I lingered. The thought of the rift that opened last night and the bastard that crawled out of it made my palms sweaty. The thought of how he so easily tricked me caused my blood to boil.
"Marcius… Something else happened." My fingers knitted between each other. Focusing on the creases in my leather gloves instead of him made this easier to say. I could only imagine the look would he'd give me when I told him this impossible story, "The battle we fought last night was different. There was a demon I never saw before."
My eyes lifted to Marcius. He was focused on me with sorrow in his eyes.
"Xanthius told me about the battle already." His voice was calmer than before.
"I failed them."
"It wasn't your fault Shi, nobody blames you. Not even Amy."
"I find that hard to believe."
"Truly, she doesn't. They all talked to me and they all said the same thing. It was the demon you fought. He had an influence on their emotions."
"He possessed a power that seemed to trigger every negative emotion. He popped open a very dark bottle and everything I felt came pouring out of me until I was practically blind and deaf. What kind of demon could do that?"
"I don't know for certain." Marcius said as he rubbed his head.
"I should get to work." The chair creaked against my weight as I stood. Before I opened the door I remembered one last thing. Marcius was wise, hopefully he would know what to do.
"I know that the underworld is lost to Godius and Godessa. But would it kick out our souls?"
"Why do you say that?" He asked.
"After the battle Leonard and Howard came back to life but they weren't themselves. They were monsters that fed on flesh and glowed blue."
"Since nothing like this has ever happened before we might want to find them and bring them in for experimenting. I don't know what's going on in the underworld but we were commanded to look into it. Are they still there?"
"It is possible they moved. But I could return?"
"Yes, make that top priority." Marcius commanded.
I had promised to my fallen knights that I would return and cremate them appropriately in the name of Godius. But I shivered at the thought of seeing their broken carcasses, purple with death, and frozen into chunks of ice in the snow. I had to cremate them all. Leonard and Howard deserved eternal peace just as much as the others and we deserved to know what was happened to our souls with a lost underworld.
I left the office with haste. We must not waste any more time.
~~
My ass sat on the edge of Felicias bed. Her skin was soft against my fingers as I caressed the back of her hand. She needed to be broken out of her trance. The rifts won't close themselves and I'll need all the help I can get.
Enfolded in her other hand was a little stuffed doll. This toy was handed down from her eldest son to her youngest daughter. That toy survived seven children, as it was tied inside her breast plate that toy survived many battles against demons of all elements. I purposefully repressed my memories so I could walk forward but she held onto her past. She held onto this toy never letting her children go.
"I- I failed my sisters," my words got stuck in my throat but I choked them down. I've never talked to my friends about my past but Felicia needed to hear this. "The others, they lost many people they cared for. They lost their homes and at one point they lost the meaning to live. Just as I had. Godius chose me when my family was butchered alive by a fire demon right before my very eyes. I could have stopped it. I could have saved at least one sister… But…" My eyes ached and my cheeks became wet. I wiped away the tears and fought the rest back. I could not be weak.
"I hunted demons for the sake of calming my hatred and anger. It was revenge mistaken as purpose. Unlike the others you and I watched helplessly as our families were being tortured before our eyes. But… Having those babies in your belly, giving them a piece of yourself and dedicating every second to their growth only for the outcome to be a brutal death is the most awful thing I could imagine. When I met you I discovered a new purpose." I felt strength in my voice again, strength that pushed my tears back. "I vowed that I would never witness a woman holding onto pieces of her babies. I would never help a father dig the graves for his children ever again. That is my purpose. And now Marcius has alerted me that demon rifts have opened across the realm. We need to protect people, Felicia and keep them from losing their children so they will never know despair as we had."
Felicia's eyes finally blinked. She grasped my hand until her knuckles were white. Spit splattered out of her mouth as she screamed out in agony. I repositioned myself to be closer and wrapped my arms around her shoulders for comfort while she wept. The position could have been softer if I had taken my armor off, but I hadn't the time and we didn't care, it only mattered that I was here now.
"I will find that demon. I will cut his head off for making us relive that moment." I vowed to my dear friend.
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