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98.49% The Last Rising Sun / Chapter 260: Chapter 255: 'Gray and Transparent' Part 2

章 260: Chapter 255: 'Gray and Transparent' Part 2

-By Sakura-

It felt like a distant memory; a nostalgic and sad experience that filled my heart with pain. Everything is dark. I can't hear or see anything. That nostalgic feeling was the only thing different about me.

'I'm scared,' I kept telling myself. 'I don't want to be alone,' I tried to hide my tears by covering my face with my hands.

Suddenly, I heard something finally and felt a solid surface under my feet. I stopped covering my face and realized that I was now in a large garden with green grass and bushes cut in adorable animal shapes under a radiant sun. A rabbit, a cat, a dog, a bird. Animal figures adorned the gardens displayed around a gigantic mansion with gray brick walls and a brown roof. Each wall had large colorful windows. It even looked like a church.

I walked down a long stone path that ran along the edges of the walls. I'm a little confused at the moment. I remember lying on my bed. I remember when Toru started burning the inside of my body. After that, I don't remember anymore.

I walked thinking about my memories and where I am, but suddenly I heard a scream. As if time had sped up, the clouds in the sky for a second moved out of place, as if a few minutes had passed in the blink of an eye.

The siren of an ambulance was heard. That caught my attention, so I followed the sound. Walking along I felt the ticking of a clock near my ears. When I reached the source of the ambulance siren noise, the ticking stopped.

There were people gathered in one place in a circle. Most of them were maids and two butlers. They were all speaking in a language I could understand.

I approached them asking what was going on, but none of them answered me. In that case, I pushed my way through them and apologized for the intrusion, but none of them seemed to react to my presence. When I reached the source of the commotion, what I saw made my breathing stop for a few seconds.

There is blood, rectangular glasses, a shoe a few inches from what looked like the corpse of a boy lying on the ground. The boy had blood-stained brown hair, tears on his face and a sad, mournful expression of half-open eyes pointing to the sky.

At the sight of him I was overcome with a sense of pain and sadness....

That boy... I know him.

He was the boy who has been appearing in my dreams. I finally remember his face. I remember his silver eyes...

[...............]

A voice in my head. I looked around confused. I felt that I had heard that voice in the past. A girl's voice; mechanized and expressionless voice.

When I heard that voice, everything went black again.

-London, United Kingdom-

She felt strange after making that deal with Toru. Now she heads to her mentor's office. She thought about many things as she always usually does, she thought so much until she reached the office door. She knew that her mentor was waiting for her inside there. After Reines left, the man locked himself in his office waiting for his mentee.

She knocked twice and then opened the door. The man was waiting for her on the other side of the desk.

"I thought I needed to tell you a few things regarding what you wanted to do," he began immediately. Waver crossed his arms on the desk with a slightly worried look on his face.

Gray nodded. The look on her mentor's face a few minutes ago confirmed to her that they needed to talk about it. She didn't object. She stood in front of the desk waiting.

"I think this should have been one of the first lessons I could have taught you, but I realized it too late. I apologize for my incompetence as a teacher."

"You shouldn't apologize... You are a good teacher, but...," she felt guilty, but her mentor continued.

"First let me show you," he pulled out a couple of sheets of paper. He examined them as he arranged them on the desk. "There are ways to share mana with someone. Especially with a servant. Just by being near your master the servant can get mana. That's different when the servant can't get mana from his master by that method. That leaves us with the first point of this topic. As magus that we are, mana flows through our magic circuits and our entire body, especially when it comes to the fluids that the body produces. Do you understand what I'm getting at?"

She denied. She didn't know anything about that. At least she hadn't studied that subject. Well, knowing that a magus' body has mana is common sense, but sharing that mana is a separate matter.

"What I mean is that both our sweat, blood, saliva and body fluids in general contain that mana that can be bestowed. If a magus consumes the fluids of another, he can obtain that person's mana to a small extent. now do you understand?"

She fell silent. Her body stiffened and in her mind a lot of strange situations began to float like clouds. The reason her mentor told her to think better of her decision made sense.

"So...," she squeezed the cage with one hand and with the other she tightened the fold of her cloak. Hiding her face under the hood hoping that what her mentor was going to say wasn't what she was thinking at the moment.

"Perhaps a few drops of blood will do for the moment. But since you don't form the pact with Assassin yet, I don't think you should worry. You might as well apologize to him and ignore the idea of giving him your mana. Somehow or other I'll see to getting him some mana, or at the very least, a mediator who can take care of his needs."

Hearing that, she felt her legs lose strength. She squatted down looking at the ground and let out a small choked groan, as if she had choked on saliva. Her face was tinged crimson and the shame of her actions came crashing down on her like a bucket of cold water.

"I... I don't think I can anymore..." she muttered causing her mentor to raise his eyebrows. "He accepted..."

Waver put his hand to his forehead. He let out a long sigh and then stood up. He approached Gray, who looked up as she noticed her mentor standing in front of her. He too squatted down to speak to her.

"By accepting, he formed the pact with you. It may seem like an overly simple act, but that's how it works," he tried not to look at her face, so he glanced at the door behind her. "Don't be afraid of having made the pact, for you can undo your decision whenever you want."

"Don't listen to him child," Add suddenly snorted. "All those juicy souls are mine-...I mean, you don't have to take it back. You'll still be a coward if you back out," his shrill voice made Waver feel overwhelmed.

At the same time, the word 'coward' echoed in her mind, resonating in the confines of her psyche. A word that described her personality to perfection. A cowardly, fearful, pathetic child with the responsibility of dying in the future.

She looked down at the ground after that. A heavy feeling took place in her heart. She thought that, at that very moment, Assassin was probably in Sakura's room. Possibly alone, looking out the window in complete solitude, waiting for his master to wake up; waiting to see if his existence would vanish into thin air. At least that was what she thought.

She wanted to speak, but something stopped her. That confirmed what Add said. Sometimes she couldn't even say what she really thought. She locks herself in her own mind for extended monologues that get buried deep in her memories. She criticizes people without being able to tell them what she thinks straight out.

The cowardly, pathetic child with a name just as depressing as her entire life.

"I've never heard him laugh," she said, referring to Assassin, referring to herself... 'He never says anything he thinks...' she shrank back to the ground. She looked like a sad, embarrassed little rabbit, hiding her presence from predators.

It didn't matter if Add just wanted the stock of souls Assassin had. She knew that the harsh words of that Mystic Code, no matter how much they make her angry, are true.

"Lady, are you going to make a decision?" he asked in a calm tone of voice. "What will you do about it?"

The words her mentor said that day in church came back to her mind. This somehow gave her the strength to look up again. She still doesn't know how she will give her fluids to Assassin, but if she backed out of her decision she would still be the same coward she always was.

Although making a decision doesn't mean to stop being afraid....

"I... I couldn't back out of what I've already decided," her voice trembled. Her eyes looked at her mentor as if searching for a way out of muddle. "Even if it's hard, I'll do it. This will be my way of repaying Sakura for everything she's done for me..."

"I don't think it's a good idea for you to be so influenced by this Mystic Code, but..." He looked at Gray looked back down at the ground in embarrassment. "Haa... I wouldn't know..."

"Accept the decision of my pathetic mistress, Lord of the Clock Tower. If she wants to help the Assassin boy, there should be no problem," Add shifted inside the cage causing Gray's cloak to shift as well. "You said that, with a few drops of blood, that's enough, well, that's settled! This silly owner may be afraid of ghosts, but she's not afraid of the color of blood. I'm sure she can do it. And if something else comes up with the Assassin boy, well, we should support her in everything, don't you think?"

'That last one was surplus to requirements,' Waver thought.

It seemed Gray also thought the same thing as she stood up suddenly, her face flushed with embarrassment. She had also considered the blood thing as an option. That way she didn't have to think of some way to get other 'fluids' out of her body.

'I guess there's no way to change her mind,' for, though unbecoming of her, Gray was determined. Obviously it was all due to Add's words, Assassin's need and Sakura's poor condition. Put all that together and you get changes in the perception of people close to the situation. Even Reines seemed to be quite serious at times. That surprised Waver.

"So, we have nothing more to say, I think so," Add said under the cloak. In his voice you could hear that he was very happy with his owner's decision. He was silently celebrating the victory "Let's go, child. I can see it in your face that you want to be alone."

"Uh? Me? Ah-...."

"If you stand there like a surfboard in the sand you might make the Lord uncomfortable."

"Okay..."

"I feel like you're listening to me more already. That's a big step," he celebrated. "I'm sure this incompetent mistress will be coming to ask you questions later."

"Of that I have no doubt," Waver replied. He knew that inconveniences would arise with all this.

"Then, with your permission, Professor."

Trying not to drag out the conversation any longer, Gray fled the office, leaving the man alone. The latter let out another long sigh. This day had been a heavy one for him, and that was barely ten o'clock in the morning. All the rest of this day was missing.

Since Reines would be sending someone from the family to take care of Sakura, he didn't have to worry. She will wake up. She has to wake up, for it is only a matter of her own mana healing her from her wounds.

As for Assassin's lack of mana, that was only going to get worse with time.

'Assassin will need more mana as time goes on. I don't think she'll be able to satisfy that need for mana with just a few drops of blood. Haa...', he is tired of having his mind so full of troublesome situations. 'I'll have to find a mediator to take over when she can no longer.'

A day full of work.

***

After leaving the office, she walked aimlessly throughout the house. She went downstairs to the basement and found the door in front of her room. The sanctuary of knowledge lay behind that door. Her mentor's library.

She looked at the door and reached her hand to the knob. She opened the door hoping to find tranquility there, but when she entered the library, she stood still as if time had frozen.

-By Gray-

I'm sure this shouldn't surprise me, but the presence of that servant still frightens me at times.

There are a lot of books on the table, and among that big pile of books was Assassin. His eyes had that strange multicolor with the black X that seemed to want to rotate on its own axis. When I saw him, he instinctively saw me. Our eyes met for a second, but then he ignored me as if I didn't exist.

He is reading the books at an overwhelming speed, turning the pages in two to three second intervals as his eyes dance watching the lines of text being painted on the paper.

'Here you are...', I thought. It had been almost an hour since he disappeared. Now I meet him here, as if by chance.

I moved forward as if he wasn't there and approached one of the bookshelves. I searched through all the books for some topics related to everything that is going on. I think it would do me good to get better informed about everything. I don't want to be lost again. At least knowing things will keep me out of more trouble.

I found three books related to mana and servants. I took them in my hands, but when I turned around and saw Assassin, I felt a chill. Being near him gave me that feeling of fear, but having felt his 'presence' inside my body; my magic circuits, fused with my being as if we were one, I remembered everything that happened that night at Ashbourne Castle.

I sighed and walked over to the table. I took a seat and opened one of the books. I was ready to read, but the quick succession of pages made me look at Assassin.

"You're materialized...", I said. He looked at me, as if I had said something obvious. In fact, it was. I didn't think it through. Now I felt embarrassed.

"If I don't materialize, I can't turn the pages," his voice was calm and soft, but he seemed a bit nonchalant in his gestures.

Still, he was able to answer me without taking into account my earlier mistake.

Then I didn't know what else to say. The library turned into a strange silence that depressed me. I took advantage of that silence to read.

A few minutes passed. The only noise in the library was the sound of sheets of paper passing one after another. I'm sure this was all simple, but somehow it helped me to understand some things. In this silence, as I read, I look at Assassin repeatedly.

The first thing I notice is that Assassin, while reading, turns the pages with the ring finger of his right hand. His gesture is somewhat strangely elegant, as if he were some son of nobility. His gaze was absorbed in the books the whole time. Like me, he did not remove his hood at any time.

"You two... you're so boring...", that voice again. Add was surely bored. "You do nothing but read silently over and over again. Talk about something. Maybe they could talk about the weather, new technologies, magecraft, I don't know. This silence is so sad it makes me want to cry."

"Add...," I prepared to use my final attack on him, but stopped when I realized Assassin saw me take the cage.

"If I had something to talk about, I would have mentioned it already."

And after those brief words he went back to reading.

"That makes it even sadder!" cried Add. He rattled inside his cage as if Assassin's words had offended him.

In the end I thought that with Add and Assassin here, this was never going to end....

To be continued...


next chapter

章 261: Chapter 256: 'Gray and Transparent' Part 3

She is surrounded by an ocean of blood, sinking to infinity without knowing what to do. She can't move her body, can't open her eyes and can't breathe. But despite that, suddenly a warm feeling filled her heart.

It felt so warm and comforting. As if her mother was there, hugging her and stroking her hair. She felt safe in this place.

While she wasn't looking, two giant crimson hands moved through the blood. Those hands gently covered her.

'Where am I?" she asked herself. But there was no concrete answer to that question. She right now could be everywhere and at the same time nowhere. What this girl, Sakura, knew, was that this place felt familiar. This all felt familiar.

Then she heard the cry of a baby and the story of a tragic hero began....

...

...

...

***

She already forgot how many times she has walked these corridors. It's been more than two months since she arrived and everything has become so everyday that it was hard for her to think of any other place but here.

She found herself in front of the door to Sakura's room. On the other side of the wood, that girl rests with the hope of one day waking up. No one knows when, but that man had told her mentor that her recovery was likely to be swift. Under her hood she showed a stricken expression.

'She's so amazing...', because that meant Sakura had enough mana to heal herself from such a deadly wound.

Gray had seen that talent in her. Sakura was supposed to be the best student in the Modern Magecraft Department. She was simply too talented.

She wants to greet her during the mornings. She hopes that at some point she will open her eyes and show that kind smile to the world.

Click. The door opened. Her eyes were immediately drawn to the shadowy presence staring at Sakura. It was Assassin, standing at the side of the bed in complete silence. His eyes under his hood were dull as always. He didn't react to her presence.

"Good morning," she said, approaching him. "Are you taking care of Sakura?" she took a seat next to the boy, as he stood there doing nothing. It was even a little disturbing to see him like that.

He denied in response. He didn't let her know his intentions. She just looked at Sakura to avoid asking more. But seeing her, she had a distant memory of her childhood. She was sick, lying in bed and, beside her, her mother was taking care of her. That woman was quite troubled at the time....

'I don't remember her face anymore...', she thought as she remembered that.

Realizing that she was thinking of sad things, she shook her head twice and suddenly let out a question for Assassin.

"Don't you need mana?", her face turned red at the thought of yesterday's strange things. Her voice choked, expecting Assassin to ignore her as usual, but she was wrong.

"At the moment, no. I still possess enough mana to exist."

There was something about that that bothered her, though. Assassin looked tired. That was something she couldn't see until she was close enough to him.

"You haven't been able to get mana since the castle...."

Assassin looked like he wanted to refute Gray's statement, but couldn't. He remained silent without denying anything.

"You even spent more mana when you dealt with the curse that was on Sakura."

No response again. There was a stony silence. But suddenly Assassin was heard to sigh.

"You're right," he replied in a whisper. "But that doesn't mean I have no mana left. I can resist quite a bit without mana."

"Just because you can resist doesn't mean you won't suffer from the mana shortage," the cage inside the cloak shifted. Add wanted to see the Assassin. Gray pulled him from her cloak to listen to him. "Boy, you look like the kind of person who hides a lot of things. If you keep doing it any longer, it will be something you will regret in the future. Ask my depressing mistress to give you mana. Swallow your pride and ask her for help."

Assassin looked at Add. His face remained expressionless making Add feel frightened from one moment to the next. In fact, the Mystic Code regretted being so presumptuous. The boy's gaze was completely vacant and dull, which made him think that he was standing before a strangely terrifying being.

"It's okay, I guess," but he replied curtly.

"Huh?" both Add and Gray said in unison. They didn't expect him to agree right away. It was anticlimactic for everyone.

She looked at him silently as if the servant had said something odd. The silence was short-lived, as sometimes Add had a hard time keeping his mouth shut.

"Hmm... that was... weird. You could have at least said 'please', but that'll do for now," he turned around inside his cage with a small hop. "Now that Assassin boy agreed, you'll have to help him, girl."

"Oh? Me?", at the suddenness of the situation she felt confused.

"Of course you," Add snorted, "Do you see anyone else here, because I don't."

"Uh... I...," she didn't know what exactly to do. Her eyes looked into Assassin's. She thought of all the possibilities and ways she could give him her blood. One of them was something she remembered from a vampire book she read a few years ago. Her face turned red at the thought. If Assassin approached her, grabbing her around the waist ready to bite her neck, she couldn't with such intensity.

Those strange thoughts made her head even hotter as she seemed to be steaming. She thought Assassin would be able to do that to her, for at the Castle of Separation something similar happened. He grabbed her waist and 'blended in' with her body. If this guy was that kind of man, she thought maybe regretting this might have been a better idea.

The bad thing about all these thoughts was that she couldn't tell that Assassin had approached her without eliciting any sound. Add celebrated this.

"You seem to be able to act like a man, Assassin boy."

Add's voice brought her out of her thoughts. When she realized her closeness to Assassin, she felt her heart racing with fear and embarrassment. However, those feelings changed as she watched Assassin kneel before her holding her hand. She looked down at him as he looked up at her. The expressionlessness of Assassin's gaze conveyed to her a great deal of unease and curiosity, but most of all, a great dark emptiness. Whereas, that servant's weathered hands made her feel a depressing warmth.

She saw through the sleeves of the boy's kimono that he had a lot of scars and burns. She could only think of one thing...

'You... who are you?'

Asking that to someone else was too ironic. She always asked herself the same question. Every time she looks in the mirror. Every time she hears her own voice. Every night she goes to sleep and every morning she wakes up.

Assassin's presence had vanished in front of her. She no longer felt so much fear towards him. Although deep down something was screaming at her to run away, her mind was only thinking about solving this mystery that has been tormenting her lately. There is even a bit of hatred towards this servant because, although he is dead, he is still walking among the living. That was one of the things she disliked the most. But looking at him more closely, she wondered if thinking like that was right.

Assassin, taking her hand, touched her fingers with his. He took his index finger and slowly opened his mouth. She opened her eyes instantly, frightened and confused. Before she could pull away from him....

"Yum...," he slipped Gray's finger into his mouth.

She felt, her face red with embarrassment, the inside of Assassin's mouth was warm and wet. She stammered trying to pull away, but Assassin held her arm.

"Ow," she groaned as she felt a prick on her finger.

Assassin bit her finger with his fangs, causing blood to start flowing down his tongue. It was only a few small drops of blood that trickled out of the small wound, but Gray felt Assassin's tongue move caressing her finger. Every slimy movement inside the servant's mouth made her feel shivers run through her body making her feel strange.

He swallowed the blood making that characteristic swallowing sound. Thus he consumed the mana present in those drops of blood. As he did so, he opened his mouth and pulled away from Gray's hand, leaving a thin trickle of saliva between his finger and his tongue.

She didn't know how to react. Her whole body stiffened and her breath came in short gasps. Assassin sighed as if the blood had tasted good, and in turn, reached out his hand which glowed a faint green color.

"Thank you for the food," he whispered, stroking Gray's hand with his own.

She felt that soft throbbing pain disappear in seconds. In fact, her racing heart calmed down a bit after that. Although her mind had become a chaotic mess full of embarrassing situations, she still had room to think about other things. She herself was the one who said she wasn't very smart and couldn't process that much information easily, but that wasn't true. That was just this girl's insecurities speaking for her.

He let go of her hand and stood up. She realized again how tall he is. Kneeling he looked like one of those elegant fairy tale princes, but standing he looked like the sinister dark silhouette of death. They were two completely contradictory postures, but they made the expressionless Assassin have more strange facets that she was still getting to know.

But what she undoubtedly thought was that he is totally shameless. He doesn't seem to understand the meaning of shame and decency. He doesn't seem to understand others either and that was a problem. Overwhelmed by this, Gray looked down at the floor. She looked at her hand as if her finger had been torn off and clenched her fist gently as she realized that the small wound on her finger was gone. After that, she returned her gaze to Assassin.

"I thought if I was quick about this you'd save yourself a lot of trouble," he said, and tightened the knot of his scarf a little, for it had come loose when he bent down.

Gray didn't know what to say. What had just happened was extremely strange.

'I... I felt really weird...', she hid her face inside her hood. Her face was hot and flushed again. She clenched her fist because somehow, every time she lost her concentration, she felt Assassin's tongue caressing her. 'That's not from God,' sitting back in the chair, she hugged Add's cage inside her cloak. But she felt too guilty when she saw Sakura lying on the bed.

She felt that she had done something wrong even if she wasn't the one responsible for this strange situation. She was still unresponsive to what Assassin said earlier, but he had kept quiet. Maybe he wasn't expecting a response and that reassured her a little.

'I'm sorry, Sakura,' she thought she was betraying this girl. Though there was really nothing to feel guilty about, maybe?

It was all a bit awkward after that. This thunderous silence was very different from the silence of the library. Her eyes couldn't help but glance at Assassin, but he had hidden himself in the darkness of his hood. All she could see of him was his nose.

"Assassin boy," shattering the silence, Add rattled inside his cage. "That whole thing earlier was a lot of fun, how about from now on you stick by this pathetic little girl?"

"What?", Gray was surprised. Add ignored her and continued.

"Standing here watching your master and doing nothing must be so boring. You've said it before. That you're always bored. If you stay close to her you can ask her for mana whenever you want. I'm sure she won't refuse."

"No, I-"

"You could even get closer to her. If you fall in love with her I'll give her to you."

That last made the confused Gray fall silent. She rose from her chair and raised the cage high. Her gaze was completely expressionless, which made Add think the worst was about to begin.

"Hey, wait. Let's talk a little bit. I can apologize," he sounded full of fear. "I didn't really mean that. Come on, child. You know I always say things like that. I'm really sorry. I won't say anything like that again," but his pleas went unheeded.

She then waved the cage as if it were a flag. Assassin witnessed this in silence. Add rattled inside the cage vigorously, banging on the small bars that made metallic clanking noises with each strike. By the time Gray finished rattling the cage, Add was face down, eyes rolling.

"I don't regret anything..." he said, before passing out.

She stood watching the cage silently, trying not to look at Assassin, but he just didn't seem to have reacted to that.

"I... should I?", his soft voice trailed off.

"Should you?", Gray looked up at him at once.

"Should I be with you...?"

That didn't make sense, at least not to her. She couldn't believe Assassin had even considered Add's words. Moreover, that last part, about falling in love, that bothered her. One shouldn't talk about such things as if they were a joke, it would confuse people.

Now Assassin was saying that as if it was nothing. Another proof that he had no shame about anything.

"It's true that being taking care of Sakura can get overwhelming," she calmed down and as she spoke, she thought about what Add suggested and what Assassin said. "It's true that it can get boring to be alone here, but I don't think you'll be happy to follow me around."

Assassin walked to the window and opened it. He watched the leaves on the trees and met her gaze.

"It won't be any different than with Sakura-sama," because it was simply being by someone's side all the time. That wasn't something difficult. That was even better than standing around watching for eternity. "I don't see the difference," and he turned around to look at her.

The coldness with which Assassin said those words made her understand that he really didn't care about Sakura, but that was very contradictory from his actions. That was something very hard to understand.

"You just don't care?"

"I didn't say that," Assassin refuted. "Not seeing the difference in something doesn't mean it doesn't matter. But in the end it's what I can do best. Stand by someone... fight... protect..." he paused for a second. "destroy...", and he whispered in his monotone voice.

"You will definitely regret it," she said, mimicking the same words as the servant.

Assassin nodded in confirmation of that.

"But, until then, I'll be there. Besides...", he took off his scarf. "The words you say to me are something you wouldn't say to just anyone, right? That's because I sense your hostility towards me."

"You don't... how?"

"Because I'm a ninja. I'm trained for that."

"Ninja...", that word got her a little excited. So, whoever is in front of her is a ninja.

Before she could say anything, Assassin began to vanish into thin air. His scarf evaporated in his hand before his whole body and finally disappeared. Gray stood expectantly, but nothing else happened.

She looked down and sighed.

"Today has been a strange day..."

And it will continue to be that way for a while longer.

To be continued...


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