Days passed just like that. For the rest of the world, it's a flawless paradise. While for Reiji and his victims, it's just the foolishness of the mortals, dreams that can never be true. Perhaps they're right; perhaps what Reiji was doing was righteous, or could be a foolish way of salvation.
A bright morning made an appearance throughout the entire world, illuminating the world as usual. But the scenario from a week ago simply changed my view of the world, changing the sincerity I was holding for the world and for those mortals. I don't know why, but I began to hate all the mortals in the world from the depth of my soul. Like a few days ago, I was quite jealous of them. I was thinking, I was wondering about the way to mimic them, to be happy just like them. But now…the cost of this happiness kept bothering me, kept bothering me for those mortals who were sacrificed just for these ignorant and foolish mortals' happiness.
As usual, all of them stepped out of the largest castle for their never-ending attempt. Very happy, bright with their expression, except Reiji with his blank and weakened eyes. It's no longer something strange for them; it's a usual expression he expresses. Unlike the rest, he remained expressionless in every situation, like a soulless piece of creation without emotions. I could understand the reason, but the world could never, not even the ones he described as his friends.
They continued their usual attempt, running throughout the entire world. Following that, they set their foot in the forest that was placed just a bit away from the mainland, with the bone chilling appearance seeming very familiar to me.
As they got deeper inside the forest, I got a little surprise as the corpses I saw a week ago were no longer there; even the burned-down trees didn't have any trace of existence all around there. But what I saw there was expected for me, as the surroundings returned to the way they usually were. Apparently, Reiji cleared out every corpse and changed the surroundings to their original state, with the area covered with countless trees. Not just that, but also removing every piece of evidence and way of wondering was his action.
While wondering all around, Liona suddenly froze her foot in front of a blank space. Reiji noticed her and stood a little away from her. She put her right hand upon the blank space and spoke out of her wonder, "There was a beautiful tree here…so why can't I find it?"
Liona shifted her gaze behind her toward Reiji and asked, "Do you know what happened to the tree here?"
"No…I don't." Reiji replied, surprised a bit as he appeared to be stumped by her question.
"I don't think there was a tree there, it was blank all the time." He added.
"Uuh, I'm pretty sure I saw one yesterday. I wonder what really happened here." Liona replied, confused as she appeared to be.
"Don't think about this, it's just your intrusive thoughts." Reiji replied, putting his right hand upon her shoulder.
Liona didn't reply back. She kept wondering about that, trying to figure out the reason for that tree's disappearance. It wasn't merely a question, but something that was planted in her mind as an excuse, an excuse for something terrifying.
Liona was quite a talented person, her talent and high level intelligence were well known throughout the world. Figuring out something was an easy task for her to do. It was the problem for Reiji, the very matter he was afraid of. He was afraid of Liona figuring out everything he was doing, and the story running toward something like this.
Following her wondering, she realized something surely was going on during the night. To figure out the answer to this question, she stepped out from the castle during the night and began to wonder all around the world. Following her wondering, she ran ahead toward the forest. And then, the thing she witnessed was familiar to me. Chaos and destruction…the undeniable destruction erupting inside the forest. And the person was simply familiar to Liona, the person with an effective physique and emotionless eyes, holding the crimson red sword in his right hand. In simple words, it was the similar scenario I witnessed a week ago. The only things that were different were the person witnessing it and the time.
Liona's eyes were trembling, and so was her entire body. Her eyes could never possibly believe the scenario she was witnessing with her own eyes. Chaos, destruction, murder, malice; the things she never witnessed for a thousand years were now happening in front of her eyes.
For a moment, it felt like a false fantasy to her. For Liona, nothing such as this could possibly happen in the world. Out of her frustrations, she screamed extremely loudly and began to run away. Her scream obviously took Reiji's attention, who was busy slaying the mortals-he immediately shifted his sight upon Liona. His expression changed as he appeared to be surprised.
Instead of keeping staring upon her exit, Reiji flew toward her and kept chasing her. After a few minutes, Liona set her foot on the ground and froze her movement entirely. Reiji also stopped himself from moving, pausing his steps as well.
"Why are you here, Liona?" Reiji asked, calm and expressionless.
"I refuse to believe that this question matters much here; I have something else to talk about." Liona replied, her voice effective, unlike her usual calm nature.
"And surely you know the matter. I don't see the necessity of asking, Reiji." She added, an indifferent expression.
Reiji kept his gaze down without showing any sight of willingness to speak; his entire appearance fell under a deep silence.
"I'm not asking you to show this pathetic silence to me, just speak and tell me why are you doing this? What could be the reason behind that? Why are you being such a pathetic piece of shit? Why are you causing all these for over thousands of years just for this so-called salvation? Why?" Liona shouted, stepping ahead toward Reiji and grabbing his collar tightly.
"I don't have an answer, nor did I have any further way to choose. I failed…" Reiji replied with his weakened voice, falling silent once again.
Liona calmly lowered her hand and let Reiji go, lowering her gaze and speaking with a quite calm voice, "We're just warriors, not saints with the capability to bring salvation. No matter how much we try, no matter how many ways of salvation we try to figure out, it will never change. Every single step we put is just some mere attempts for salvation, or shall I address this as a foolish dream of ours to reach salvation? If the mortals can never change from the depth of their heart, what could be the way of salvation? Destruction? Never, you can never destroy what was meant to be rooted inside their soul."
Liona slowly shifted her gaze backward to her own way and froze herself, then narrowly looking behind to Reiji to speak once again, "The death of the ones with negative emotions can never be a way of salvation. If someone has to meet destruction and death just for the sake of salvation, then this is not salvation; it's just the foolishness of the mortals to fill their stupidity and baseless belief."
"I don't have any intent to stop you, nor do I have any interest in informing others about all these. But the choice is yours at the very end. Surely I could stop you with my strength, but I won't. But perhaps you should kill me to prevent me from informing others?" She added. Then suddenly she smiled widely but carelessly, "But mortals don't have the faith to believe in themselves, and I'm a part of them."
"You're going to understand this soon enough, at the moment when your soul will burn down to ashes because of your own conflict over your choices and belief; you'll remember my words on that certain day." Liona concluded her words, for the finale.
Liona stepped forward on her way, careless as she appeared to be earlier. On the other hand, a certain sentence kept resounding in Reiji's mind. "But mortals don't have the faith to believe in themselves, and I'm a part of them."
The sentence coming from Liona kept resounding in his mind, kept bothering him. His hands were trembling without a pause as he was barely holding the crimson red sword in his right hand.
He lifted his left hand upward to the left side of his face and shaped his fingers like a claw, then immediately drew a long scratch throughout the left side of his face. Fresh blood erupted from his face and completely covered it. He was in an attempt, an attempt to stop himself from killing Liona.
But it was never enough. Holding his crimson red sword in his right hand, Reiji flew ahead to Liona and stabbed her from behind.
The appearance of a fading smile erupted on Liona's lips, along with appearance of some blood coming out from her mouth.
"You couldn't trust me….I'm regretting again for being an unworthy candidate to be any of your friends, I've failed to be."
Her figure fell to the ground right onward, her soul fading away immediately. Liona's story failed to continue further, like a fallen flower that was meant to grow even more.
While for Reiji, he was standing expressionlessly, keeping his sight intact upon Liona's soulless figure.