"Let's better talk about what happened before", Assassin suggested. He obviously evaded anything to do with the earlier conversation.
"Uh, yeah...", I nodded in response. I, too, thought it best to save that for later. In turn, I thought about what I should say. "I don't understand why anyone would go so far as to create such a beautiful person."
"It seems like a waste of time to me. Simply 'creating' a beautiful person is useless, not from my point of view."
Assassin's reasoning agreed with what I was thinking. I really didn't understand why anyone would do such a magecraft experiment. Thinking of the things the Iselma family could have done to get that far made my blood run cold.
"My brother would say something similar, too", Reines added. "But something like that is also within magecraft's reach."
"In any case, beauty is magecraft?"
Toru walked over to the bed and sat there at my question. He touched his ankle and a small cloud of gray smoke materialized next to a glass of wine.
"'Beauty is subjective.' I mean, beauty is different for everyone. For me, for you, for Sakura-sama. If we think of beauty as something objective and solid, the only thing that could ever make sense would be the same issue we talked about earlier with Waver-sensei. The meaning of beauty changes with the times, as well as beauty itself. If we call beauty 'perfection', it would be a totally different subject. Although perfection, as well as beauty itself, are rather ambiguous words. In conclusion, it is something that could not be explained in words or something solid. Something that really, although we can see it, we can't 'understand' it. The human mind is not advanced enough to understand it."
Reines smiled. She nodded her head as if she was saying: You got it all! Although for me, I really got lost somewhere in the whole explanation.
"It's like the Origin Spiral", she said, looking at Assassin for him to explain.
"It's similar, yes," he adjusted his glasses with his ring finger. That gesture looked quite natural on him, as if he'd always had to wear glasses, even though he'd never actually worn them. He sipped some of the wine in the glass and continued. "Magus seek to get to the beginning of everything 'The Root', the 'Spiral of Origin', call it what you will. I find it funny how magus aim for something impossible. I've seen a bit of this world. I've met some magus from near and far. They are all so weak, so incapable... And yet they seek something as fantastic as the beginning of all singularities. It reminds me of ordinary people. Almost everyone wants to know how everything originated, they want to make sense of their tiny, pathetic existences. In the end that's just a passing and distant longing. It is meaningless. It's something that lacks logic."
"But we still do it", Reines asserted. She folded her arms with a satisfied smile.
Maybe I half understood, but chasing something you can't get sounds rather contradictory. Assassin seems to understand it, though, and Reines seems to know that. In that respect, something rather bizarre was being cultivated here. If two people's thoughts are the same, inevitably they will both feel that the other understands. So the explanation for the following was that. Assassin drank the entire glass of wine and the latter disappeared the same way it appeared. He lay back on the bed with his arms outstretched and Reines moved closer to him, making both their heads point at each other.
"Maybe because it's fun or because we wouldn't have anything else to do...", Reines said looking up at the ceiling.
"I know. That does make sense. It does make sense...", he closed his eyes as if he was going to sleep, but continued talking. "When you have no purpose, the best thing to do is to find something to do. Having nothing to do can lead to bad feelings, those bad feelings lead to bad thoughts, and those bad thoughts in turn lead to bad actions. It's a circle that will repeat itself if you don't manage to escape. A person without purpose does not exist, could not exist. He would inevitably bring about his own destruction."
"That's... too sad. When you get philosophical do you say similar things?", asked Reines.
I thought Assassin wouldn't answer, or at least tell Reines to shut her mouth, but he just sighed. This time it was strange for me. He is usually very expressionless, but this time his gestures showed that he was somehow tired.
"I don't know", he replied. "It's possible. Maybe it's something that's already become part of me."
...
"Like a habit. Like you've gotten used to it", I said suddenly. I covered my mouth with both hands as I realized I had let those words out. Somehow I felt the mood had become dreary enough to ramble on. Bad idea.
"Yes...", Assassin whispered. "I think so..."
This is strange. Something strange is going on with him. He suddenly started saying those things, he responds to my words as if it's normal with that sad tone of voice. Something is wrong. Something is not right. Maybe this is related to what I saw when we arrived.
Assassin...
Oh... I had forgotten. So many things in my head made me forget...
Melancholy? Sadness? Sorrow? What is this mix of emotions? I had forgotten that Assassin's emotions can affect me. He's just lying there, doing nothing, but I can feel something strange about him.
He got up from the bed suddenly and took off his dark glasses. His eyes showed that characteristic multicolored glow so mesmerizing.
"Two people are outside. They are approaching..."
After Assassin said that, three knocks were heard at the door. Reines snapped her fingers and Trimmau appeared to open the door. One of the maids we saw earlier next to the Gold and Silver Princesses came in introducing herself.
"My name is Kaleena."
And without even asking permission, the maid entered the room. Reines was silent, not understanding what was going on, but her face distorted, a little frightened and surprised, at the sudden presence of the Golden Princess.
A second later, the two were sitting across from each other behind the small table in the corner of the room. Assassin stood nearby. He looked ready to fight, while I merely watched.
"Lady Diadra has said she wants to speak with you. Would it be a bother to tell your attendants to leave the room?"
Reines refused. "They two are to be trusted. In this place, there is no one I trust more, you can be sure of that."
Kaleena nodded and looked at her mistress. She raised her hand showing her the way out and Kaleena obeyed her leaving the room.
What was to come is far from my and Assassin's imagination. He is very intelligent, I am aware of that, but even someone intelligent can be extremely stupid. He hasn't proven that yet, but after all I have experienced being around him, I feel I still have something left to explore.
We both listened to the Golden Princess's conversation with Reines.
-???-
It was just after arriving at that immense mansion. Frederica escorted him to his room and left him there to take a bath and go to bed to sleep. Alek was going to do that without complaining, although he was worried about his mother. He hadn't seen her since he left the event hall.
After taking a bath and getting dressed, he went to bed to sleep. He really was tired and, although he wanted to go look for his mother, he remembered that Frederica might be out there lurking around. It was too risky to do that, as he might get scolded by the maid. So he lay down on the bed and closed his eyes.
Soon after, he fell asleep.
...
...
A few minutes passed since he went into deep sleep, but a noise nearby woke him up. He opened his eyes slowly and looked to the side, finding Biserka, who was sitting in front of the mirror with a bottle in her hand. She was looking at her own reflection in the dark in a rather creepy way, but Alek didn't seem to mind that. In fact, he smiled at the thought that maybe his mother came to say good night to him.
It had been a long while since she had not given him a kiss on the forehead telling him that tomorrow would be a better day. He missed those moments. When that man was not so distant, when that woman smiled and loved her son. They were good moments that Alek still had in his memory. Always a good memory, that was one of his talents. He could remember even when he was only two years old. Although there the memories are a bit fuzzier because his mind was not yet fully developed. And, although blurry, the memories always showed him brief images of when his mother and father were together.
They looked happy.
He sat on the bed looking at the woman. He thought long and hard about what to say, but in the end nothing came to mind. His brilliant mind showed him nothing this time.
However...
"Mother... it's already very late, you should go to sleep."
The woman did not answer. She took another swig of the alcohol straight from the bottle and looked at the ceiling.
"You look a lot like him", Biserka said. Her voice sounded like a rather brittle whisper, but more than that, it also had a slight tone of anger. Her hand clenched the bottle tightly, and she slowly turned her gaze back to Alek.
She was pale, her brown hair in disarray and dark circles under her face. She looked thinner, and overall her appearance was too depressing.
Alek pursed his lips at the sight of her in the darkness. Still through the window, the moonlight illuminated the scene a little. That gave him a better look at his mother.
"Do I look like father?"
Biserka said nothing more. Her silence was getting darker and darker, her silver-eyed gaze was becoming more sinister and her soft breathing was cut off from one moment to the next.
She got up from the chair and walked over to Alek. She sat down next to him and held out her arms.
'A hug?", thought Alek, but his mother's arms were pointed at his neck. It was there that he realized that he was now lying down, with his mother's hands wrapped around his neck, exerting a lot of force and pressing him against the bed.
He wanted to say something, but couldn't. His voice caught in the back of his throat. He uttered a few small whimpers, but no one could hear him. His brain, in view of the sudden lack of oxygen, began to send signals to the whole body. Thus Alek held his mother's arms tightly and writhed vigorously flailing his legs and torso. You could say that this was just a lucky break. No, in fact, it was. The sheets moving in response to Alek's movements caused them both to fall to the floor, which in turn allowed Alek to be able to free himself from her grip.
He coughed slightly as he tried to breathe, but when he turned his gaze back to the woman, a hard slap pushed him back. Unable to react in time, he was grabbed by the hair and dragged a meter forward, where Biserka stepped on his hand. Alek let out a cry of pain, as tears inevitably began to spill down his face. At that, she slapped him again. This was repeated many times. Alek tried to cover himself with his arms, but she kept hitting him relentlessly.
Scratches, slaps, there were times when she would take advantage of Alek being on the ground crying to kick him mercilessly. The boy could only scream and cry, asking for forgiveness in tears.
He didn't know what he had done wrong, but he thought he was being punished for some mistake he had made. Even if he thought about it, he could find nothing. He felt helpless, his little body not resisting the blows. There was blood staining his pajamas. There were tears painting his face with the pain and suffering of the moment. Biserka never said anything. She simply kept beating him without stopping.
Although it didn't really take long, for Alek this torture was eternal. All the things that were scattered around his room had become weapons, being thrown as projectiles, used as clubs to hit. Everything was stained with misery, screams and wails. The misery of a child who was not to blame for anything, but still faced the consequences of being the son of this family.
Whatever he asks for, the maids will bring it to him. The family has plenty of money to afford it. Whether it was candy, clothes, toys, and all kinds of things a child would ask for. He basically had it all. He was born into a cradle of gold.
A very stupid irony...
This child really had nothing. What he always wanted was never given to him. The slightest glimmer of hope arose like a flame, at the same time that this very flame became so fragile that it could easily be extinguished.
Perhaps it was that night that the deepest desire of Alek Gusev's soul was born.
What was this desire? While being mistreated, that child thought about it inside his mind.
Maybe that was what he was missing. What he always wanted. The only thing he would ask for...
When this unjust torture was over, Alek was lying on the floor staring at the ceiling. His face was swollen, blood on his clothes and dried tears on his face. His gaze was dull and his slow breathing made it seem that at some point he would faint. This time she didn't.
"Mother..."
It was the origin of his story....
"Why?"
...
...
-The next day-
The Golden Princess made a rather bold and dangerous request. I request asylum in the El-Melloi family. Lately, not to say for quite some time, the methods Lord Byron Valueleta used to make the Princesses look more beautiful stopped working. The procedure had just become a constant torture that yielded no results. Diadra feared that, if this continued, at any moment one of the two sisters would die. Byron's methods were dangerous enough to consider that possibility. Reines thought it would be better to seek asylum with other more influential families, but the reason why Diadra was asking this of the El-Melloi family was mainly because of my mentor.
There was more to understand in this, but it really wasn't that important. Diadra was asking for help, and Reines agreed to help her.
Right now we were heading to the Golden Princess's chambers. Walking through the corridors of the Moon Tower was a strangely captivating journey filled with paintings, sculptures and art of all kinds. These towers did justice to the Department to which the Iselma family belongs. Assassin also seemed a bit interested in art. With his hands in his pockets, he observed the small clay sculptures in silence. His gaze was softer than usual. That was another thing that has me puzzled.
"Huh...", I felt a shiver run down my back. It was like a bad feeling. Reines asked me what was wrong with me, but I said it was nothing. If I didn't understand what was wrong with me, it was better not to try to explain it. Although...
Assassin had a similar reaction. Instead of freezing on one side of the hallway, he looked in a specific direction. With that, he moved ahead of us.
We eventually arrived at Lady Diadra's door.
"Lady Diadra? Are you there?", Reines knocked on the door, but no one answered.
"It smells like blood...", Assassin said. He pulled one of the daggers out of nowhere and touched the door with the sharp tip. His eyes showed that mysterious color. As he did this, the door opened and we all rushed in. What we found was something we could never have imagined.
***
If this was about Assassin's bad luck, it was the perfect time to blame him. Still, these three teenagers watched the scene in silence.
Blood was strewn all over the bed, where different pieces of flesh were spread out on the once white sheets. There lay Lady Diadra, torn to pieces on her bed, obviously lifeless.
To be continued...