The moonlight lit up the dirt roads, tracing, for anyone with the sense of sight, a pale yellow path.
With every step, a man drew closer to a structure whose small windows let light escape. He adjusted his eyepatch, his mechanical hand working alongside the one of flesh and bone, fixing the position of his dark overcoat. His one exposed eye, gray, did not react to the rustling of the bushes.
He turned his body and headed that way. Parting the vegetation, he found a man whose arm tattoos revealed an admirer of an old ideology responsible for exterminating countless innocents in a war that, despite the years and the changing of ages, had never been forgotten.
The man begged for his life, swearing he would never commit such a crime again, that he deserved to live. Slady, kneeling before him while the other dragged himself backward through the grass, grabbed him by the hair and answered that his ideals mattered little, that everyone was free to believe what they wanted, but a girl, a child, should never have been involved in that. The man thrashed in tears, screaming for help, and Slady reminded him they were far too deep in the woods for anyone to hear.
He threw him into a pit. The man tried to climb out, but a blade pierced the back of his hand, wringing out more screams and pleas. Without raising his voice, Slady warned that he would cut out his tongue if he screamed again.
Silence.
Sitting on the edge of the pit, he lit a lighter and brought the flame close to the man's wounded hand, melting his trembling as he let out a breath of smoke. He then told him that the child's mother had shown him everything, that he had seen the video of what they had done, and that he had not been able to stand watching more than ten seconds of the five minutes recorded. He said he understood human behavior driven by belief and fanaticism well enough, but he would never accept seeing a creature so fragile and innocent treated that way.
The man nodded again and again, admitting he was cruel, twisted, saying he regretted everything. But Slady, running his mechanical hand through his own long hair, asked where that regret was coming from now. Was it not him who had done the act, who had felt pleasure during the five minutes that, for the victim, had felt like hours, without feeling any disgust or remorse in that moment? Perhaps the conversation no longer had any point.
As he stood, the man stretched out his free arm, begging not to be killed, claiming he had a family. Swinging the lighter, Slady was just as direct. the child also had a family that loved her more than anything.
The lighter dropped into the pit. The flame caught, and the scream that followed only stopped when the vocal cords turned to char. Sitting in front of it, he watched the body writhe, the skin dry out and blacken bit by bit, until nothing more could be heard and the flame dissolved into the air.
He walked to a tree, took a shovel hidden in the shadows and began burying what remained.
Later, back at the same lit up structure, he hesitated before touching the doorknob and ended up knocking instead. Out came a figure covered in fur, its snout at the height of his waist, rubbing its face against his hand, licking and nibbling gently before leaping onto the sofa, belly up. In moments, the creature's dark shape shifted into something more human, though still keeping traces of fur.
Shaphira said she had missed him, and he returned the greeting. He asked if she shouldn't be in bed after so much training and demon hunting, but she refused, still full of energy to keep going. Sitting down beside her, he insisted that rest was essential, and that, no more excuses, it was time to sleep. She wrinkled her nose, wagged her tail, called him boring and ran off to her room, leaving him to mutter to himself about how someone already grown could still be so innocent.
Before he could reach a book on the shelf, he stopped at the sound of drops hitting the roof. What luck.
He grabbed an umbrella and went back out to the forest roads, the rain wetting his face. Halfway there, a thick branch made him trip, and, at that same instant, a portal appeared in front of him.
He fell.
And disappeared.
Landing on the other side, he felt his head sink into snow. He got up spitting out what had gotten into his mouth, facing a white ground covered in icy structures rising toward the "sky". The frigid wind cut through him without making him shiver.
He grumbled to himself that all he had wanted was to enjoy his night off, looked back and saw the oval portal still fixed in place, refusing to close as he watched demonic creatures advancing through it. He grabbed his weapon and moved forward.
He walked quickly, feet sinking into the snow, until he spotted two men and a woman fighting demons. One of them drove a sword through a creature while his companion brought down another with arrows. The woman, crouched, applied medicine over white bandages, alternating her gaze between the healing and her companions, until a humanoid being with an exposed brain leapt toward her, claws and teeth aimed at her face. The men shouted Mary's name as they noticed, and she raised her arm over her face.
But the deformed body toppled sideways before it could reach her, twitching, a bullet lodged in its brain, smoke rising as the organ turned to ash. Looking over, they found the man with long hair spinning his pistols and firing at the half dozen creatures still left.
Mary, still shaking, warned that there was something behind him. With a turn of his hip, Slady landed a punch on a kind of blood eagle, shattering its beak and destroying the rest of its structure against the ground.
Alex, Mary and Tokimo stood frozen, especially her, her shoulders trembling at the sight of the creature's crushed body. The two men took a step forward, but Mary moved ahead of them, whispering a soft "good heavens" before lifting her gaze to the man standing with his arms crossed in front of the carnage. She clasped her hands and ran to him, hugging him, thanking him, saying she had thought she was going to die.
He looked at her over his shoulder, expressionless, touched her head briefly and tried to pull away from the hug, saying it was nothing, that she was safe now. She stepped back, apologizing, saying she hadn't meant to make him uncomfortable. Alex laughed, patting his friend's back, and remarked that she was just a little shaken, thanking him sincerely for the help. Tokimo confirmed with a nod.
Shortly after, the group said their goodbyes, Mary thanking him once more as the men walked off. Slady spoke up, telling them to go home, train, and only come back when they were truly ready. Faced with the firmness in his voice, they all nodded and moved away. Before he could take his first step toward the horizon, he felt a touch, it was Mary again, her arms closing her heavy coat around her body, her face flushed. She hesitated before asking, hiding her face, if she could know his name, since she wanted to tell her mother.
He didn't answer right away. She was already turning to follow her friends when she heard his voice asking her to call him Slady. She stopped, smiled and thanked him before leaving.
Slady took a deep breath, facing the path ahead, still piled with demonic creatures. He straightened his clothes and went back to wandering.
***
Hours passed, and mountains of bodies built up over time, until Slady found himself in front of something resembling a heart. As he reloaded his weapon, he watched the tissue of the organ tear open, releasing more and more demons coated in reddish slime. The heart shrank with each birth, and the veins connecting throughout that whole dimension fed that muscle, which regenerated within seconds.
As soon as he had a clear shot, he fired at the ones advancing. The demons dissolved on the ground, claws trying to pierce his boot, but he stepped back and reduced them to fragments over the snow with a stomp. He fired again and again at the heart, making the whole dimension shudder. The demons roared, throwing themselves at him in icy shapes, and with every grab or bite, he dodged and struck back with blows from his mechanical arm. Gaining some distance, he leapt onto a block of ice and pulled two grenades from his pocket, throwing them at the heart and the army surrounding it.
The explosion covered his body in smoke. He coughed several times, waving his hand, and, stepping out of the toxic cloud, saw the few remaining monsters melt, becoming part of the frozen ground.
He grumbled, alone, that the Renkai Creatures were dead, the core destroyed, the Inferius empty, and that all he wanted at that hour was to be in bed.
He made his way back with slow steps, broken up by yawns. Silence filled his ears, the wind tangling his hair, until a white glow inside a cave made him quicken his pace. Stepping in, he broke off some bluish points hanging from the ceiling and touched the source of the light, identifying it as Renkata, remarking to himself about his luck. He stepped out for a moment, took in the whole dimension around him and went back in, raising his mechanical hand toward the white ore.
Outside the cave, a snap sounded.
In the forest, a leg emerged from behind the vegetation, and the body dropped to the ground, fragments scattering across the grass, the face sunk into a puddle of water.
With the umbrella resting on his shoulder, Slady watched the sun rise, his nose wrinkled with exhaustion. Arriving at the library, he took off his shoes, left the umbrella by the door and put the Renkatas away in a cardboard box under the desk, next to the pistols in the drawer. He rested his hands on the wood and lifted his face, feeling the smell of wet earth in his nostrils, a shiver running up his spine.
He opened the bedroom door and saw Shaphira purring against her own fur. He closed it again, slowly.
In the bathroom, he undressed, shaking out his clothes and forming small mounds of snow on the floor, his body stained with blood. Turning on the water, he pulled his own hair over his shoulders, watching red liquid run down the wood. He removed the eyepatch, covering the eye with his hand, and felt the warm water hit his scars, pulling a groan from between his teeth.
Suddenly, at the sound of a knock on the door, he heard Shaphira's familiar voice asking if he was already awake so early. He answered that it was just trouble sleeping, and asked her to go back to bed. She asked if he didn't need help falling asleep, and he assured her he would sleep well as long as she slept too. She agreed, and her footsteps faded away, blending into the sound of the water hitting his head.
Slady rested his forehead against the wall, his iron fingers sliding along the wood, and, staring for long seconds at the door before turning his gaze back to the wall, murmured that he didn't deserve her.
Coming out of the shower, he dressed quickly and sat on the bed in his room, his mechanical arm resting on the dresser, his eyes fixed on the stump. His daydream broke at the sound of Shaphira's voice, as she climbed into his lap and hugged him, saying she didn't like sleeping without him beside her. She held his face, noticing the dark circles under his eyes, and insisted he needed rest, threatening, laughing, to stop sleeping with him if he didn't. He asked, teasing, what else she would do besides that, and she offered, in exchange for his rest, to make him an amazing lunch the next day. He accepted.
He let himself fall onto the bed, his body sinking into the mattress. Shaphira curled up against his chest, hiding her nose in his neck, while he stroked her hair with his one hand, until his eyes lost their strength and closed.