Rade's Demon Elimination Service

Chapter 40: Between Carys and Rade

Going back to what was actually happening in the reality, Kalleid was still on the bed, his head was aching and his body felt hot though it was cold to the touch. He wasn't stupid and he knew what was happening outside when New York said that Rade has finally arrived and when Carys went out of his apartment.

They would fight and that event was for certain and as inevitable as the arrival of another demon manifestation.

Kalleid tried to get out of the bed, groaning when his body tried to hoold him back down on the softness of his matress, but New York pressed him down with a hand, gently pushing him until he was, once again, lying comfortably on the bed.

There was a scolding expression on his face that was all too familiar with Kalleid, his arched brows were knitted and there was a frown on his face that told Kalleid there was simply no choice but to follow what New York wanted.

"Stay down," New York told him, commanded him rather, his hand was still on Kalleid's shoulder which prevented him from moving away from the comfort of the bed. "You're not well. Wht happened between those two shouldn't include you. You're not part of their past so f*****g stay still, you idiot."

"I know, but there is one thing that keeps in bothering me." Kalleid eyes were fearful and that was seen by New York who finally loosened up and sat beside Kalleid who was now not being hard headed and just simply lied down.

"What is it?" he asked Kalleid.

"Carysia Haeven..." Kalleid paused, his lips pursing. "Carys doesn't have any aptitude to become a hunter. His holy weapon, the Cuare or Slaughter, absorbs his own spiritual energy to supply it with artificial bows. If he is only a tiny bit weaker than that kind of holy weapon, it would only—"

"Feed on himself an absorb him, I know," New York continued for Kalleid. "I have heard of such weapon before. What's the i***t doing with the Slaughter? It will literally slaugther him."

"That's not important now, New York!" Kalleid contrasted, panic and a sense of urgency were both very evident on the way he spoke. "What happens if a mortal person wields such a powerful holy weapon?" he asked, coughing as he did so.

Kalleid's hand was on his mouth, and when he looked at his hand, there was a mouthful of blood on his pale hand. They were both very alarmed with this and knew that the progression of the Spatial Void from the Deep Manifestation Dimension was rapidly happening and with that came the progression of the power of the demons.

In regards of thhe question, the both of them knew the answer to Kalleid's question.

What happened to a mortal person who wields a powerful holy weapon like the Cuare? It consumes them, just like Nina has said to Kalleid.

Meanwhile, just as London has ordered Rade, she brought the fight out of the compound and did not bother any of them or make an audience out of them. True to London's words, not Kalleid nor New York went down to revoke the orderb of execution.

This was when Rade realized that London was not joking when he brought down the order to Rade and as someone who has known Carys for over half of her life, Rade was very muchh conflicted about what she must do about it.

Sweat dripped down her cheek as she ran towards an unpopulated part of the city, the scimitar Aíma was on her hand with only her palm's blood to decorate the hiltless blade.

Behind her, Carys was still pursuing her unrelentlessly. The reason that he has drawn the attention of none other than the head of the Aldeia clan was because of his rather careless way of fighting, Rade could understand that. Carys could mimick anyone with his moves, almost imitating a hunter's feint and attack, speed and flexibility, but only a top-class hunter would be able to tell that Carys has a hard time breathing and that his reach wouldn't be able to reach its maximum because he lacked the talent of fighting and a hhunters' experience. Although it seems like Carys could imitate someone else's movements, that was only because he was observant enough and intelligent to do so, not because he was gifted in some manner.

His moves could be deceptive but it would not be able to fool Rade since she had known him for a long time.

Like a cheetah circling its prey, Rade made sure that Carys would be able to catch up to her no matter what since he could not outrun her in hopes that he would be able to draw Rade herself to a halt. But Rade never stopped until she arrived on an empty courtyard. Just around the front was a little chapel and because the sun has actually went down already, there wasn't anyone around the place. Not even a pastor or a sacristan who would witness this confrontation.

Rade thought it would be a great place to talk with Carys. If not talk then it would certainly be a fight.

For life or death, Rade was prepared to face Cary, though she was uncertain whether it would her or his life.

Even in combat, Lauri has a hard time facing Rade despite how gifted she was. It was not that Rade was underestimating this Carysia that she was facing right now, it was just it was easy to know what were Carys' limitations. But the problem with that was not that the Carysia Haeven that Rade was familiar with was someone from the past so even when she knew what kind of person Carys was, that was in the past. It was almost over a year now since she met Carys and she was still uncertain what were the difficulties that he has to go through that would push him to be furtive about his own state of being alive.

Everyone was fooled and to fool the whole hunters' society that you were dead would take an awful amount of effort. As the only living Haeven child, Rade knew that Carys' death went on a vigorous investigation of thhe highest level of hunters, the Elite Cohort. And to evade the Elite Cohort, Rade can't even imagine how Carys managed to do that.

Carys has already drawn a barrier around, the gradient blue to green barrier that looked like pure glass spread from his hands. With a little difficulty, the protective boundary flowed around, trapping both Rade and Carys within the boundary. The boundary created a dome above them, occupying the sky with the blue and green gradient.

"Your boundary still needs some work," Rade told him and pierced right through the boundary as easily as she could to a human person's body. When the boundary should have kept anyone out of the dome and the space inside that the boundary encompassed, Rade could go through it so easily.

Rade wasn't really one that have a lot of knowledge about magic, but she was powerful enough to force her through most boundaries without any struggles unlike some hunters who has to have an extensive knowledge about spiritual energy and magic before being able to do it. Because of the power that her ancestors gifted to her through what others called as the cursed bloodline, it was enough for her to be ignorant of any of the things that was related to magic.

"You have always been..." Carys started to say but his head was bent down.

Rade let him finish, but he never did, only looking down on his feet while holding his bow with an arrow nocked on its string. The things that happened in the past were only memories of the past and there was nothing more to those than just the enmity that Carys felt. Lauri was gone and she will never come back.

What was left behind of her departure was only the pain that her death has caused the people closest to her.

A heartbeat passed and a few dozens rounds of powerful arrows made out of pure energy from Carys himself. Despite being more inexperienced from Rade, Carys' handling of the bow was extremely skillful, drawing at least three arrows from his own spiritual energy all at the same time while going to strategic places in order to hit a shot on Rade.

While the advancement of Carys' skills could not be considered as mediocre, Rade had also improved and gained more insights on her own skills.

Rade slashed with her own weapon at the direction of those arrows, catching them and cutting most with the blade or deflect it away from Rade's body not to create any physical damage on her body or on Carys. It glowed faintly and even made the blade glowed faintly as both the blade and the arrows made contact. Feeling the power that surged through her, Rade realized that her suspicion that there was some kind of physical enhancement on Carys' body was proven correct, only that she was unable to pinpoint what it was exactly.

"The never ending arrows to your bows, what is your source of those? How did you make them?" Rade asked, deflecting another shiny arrows.

Bur Carys was not having any talks and even just a word while he was fighting. His advances were continuously coming to the point that it was not just exhausting Rade as she stepped back and delfected the arrows away from creating harm to theh both of them but it also caused a significant depletion of energy from Carys himself.

"Carys!" Rade shouted and instead of just stepping back again and again, she began to advanced against him.

This took Carys a moment to adjust, not wanting to back down but also not wanting to just let Rade close the gap between them. He seized firing at his target and looked at Rade with pure sadness, the hatred has turned and melted into sadness.

"W-why?" he asked then repeated that particular question over and over again.

With every question that Carys throws at Rade, was another set of arrows directed at Rade but his aim was getting sloppy and sometimes the arrows would be way off, indicating that his focus was getting scattered with the influence of his emotions.

Rade closed her eyes at the plain and pure agony on Carys' face. The first question was begging her, the second was actually asking her, the third was from pure anger, and the fourth and last question was for his desperation. In a split second decision, Carys went ahead and engaged Rade on a hand to hand combat though it was apparent to the both of them tha Carys was a strategist and not a fighter. He would be better off fighting in a higher altitude and not in close quarters.

He was slower than Rade would have expected, but the Cuare supported his setbacks. When the holy weapons Aíma crossed with the Cuare, sparks flew and the animosity between the holy weapons thickened.

"I heard that you killed Lauri yet again recently," Carys spat back at her, his eyes were full of regret, bitterness, and hatred. "You never stop, do you? You just have to kill her again!"

"Listen to me," Rade said. Her eyes became blurry and she didn't even realize that she was crying before she couldn't see anything anymore. "I have killed her with my hands, I've killed Lauri twice now. But she wasn't just your sister, she was also mine!"

"Don't you dare utter her name!" Carys shouted at her, it seemed like the mild-faced Carys was finally losing his mind. His long blond hair that was originally on a ponytail was now set loose, being blown by the wind. "You have no right to speak of her name in front of me! You gave up on that right when you killed her! You abandoned me! You abandoned not just me but also Lauri, Rade!"

Rade jumped backwards, doing an elegant somersault, and it felt as though something was being ripped out of her chest forcibly. Instead of speaking, she shut her mouth to listen to Carys' words and laments because despite all the hatred and sadness, Rade knew that Carys was righ. What right does she have to utter the name of the person that she killed twice now?

So she took on a defensive role again and stepped back.

But it was Carys who didn't let her go and pursued her. Rade was worried that it might be too much for Carys if she faced him straight on. Aíma was still beinhg brandished to take care of those dozens and sets of arrows being thrown at her. One single mistake or misstep, Rade would certainly be impaled by those high velocity arrows. The arrows were running multiple miles per hour with the help of the spiritual energy being provided by Carys, they were so slender that their silhouette only came in a blur. It takes a great accuracy for both Rade and Emma to just catch each and every one of the arrows.

Rade didn't dare to attack Carys when he was being this reckless. The fatigue was evident now more than ever, it caused Carys's moves to be slowed down considerably and for many holes on his defense to appear. Rade could finish the job on one attack, penetrate through his defense without any difficulties now that Carys was already spent but she didn't. She realized that though she doesn't have any rights to disobey her orders from the Aldeia, she does not truly care any longer.

This was Carys Haeven and he was her brother, still her brother.

"When Lauri died, I was all alone with father!" he continued to shout. "I am being blamed for not being someone they'd like! I am being blamed for being me, Rade, but you never even looked back at me! One year, one year passed and if I didn't personally sought you out, you wouldn't look back again to me! Where you've gone to? Why did you abandoned me? Did you think..." Carys paused, heaving a deep breath of sigh. The Cuare was lying on the ground of the courtyard, forgotten by its wielder. "Did you really think I would blame you for her death? Have I not known you enough to know that you would never kill our sister? Was I too innocent in your eyes to the point of retardation?"

Rade didn't know what to say to Carys. Whether to comfort him or give him her own reason, she wasn't entirely certain what to say.

"You never... blamed me?" Rade croaked, like a frog, and asked him, rather speechless with Carys' words.

"The Rade I know would never kill Lauri just because she wanted to," Carys said and Rade could finally see the same purely innocent boy who loved crocheting and cooking within this saditic-looking and cold person in front of her. "But they went on the Haeven manor and I have to do so many things just to ensure that you and I will both be aliveat the end. And even if I tell you everything that hapened to me in the passed year, what good would it do, Rade?"

"Carys..."

Rade wanted to protest to him. It wasn't fair for her, she would like to say but it was also not fair for him. The world was never fair for those who were weak and that included herself and Carys.

"Was I supposed to just... cry over spilt milk?" Carys asked and closed his eyes.

"But you are here and I'm here, there must be a reason why would you be here," Rade said, founding her courage to say it.

Would Rade be able to tell Carys that her hands have been tainted with more red than she could ever redeem herself for? Can she ever do that to this person? Would Rade be able to tell Carys what had happened to her in the past year?

It wasn't any easy for me too! Rade thought and the idea of them suffering apart from one another further broke her heart further.

I killed so many people that I could not even memorize all of their names, that I cannot even see my skin under the blood I have spilled on my own self, Rade wanted to say.

"I'm sorry," she instead said. "I let them took you because I became weak. I thought... I thought you will never forgive me. I thought that it will be easier for you since you're dead."

Carys put both of his hand on his face. Rade heard him sob and when he spoke, it was muffled due to him covering his face to hide his spilling tears. Carys' knees trembled and not a momet later, he was forced to kneel on the ground. He was exhausted, both in mind and in body.

"I promised myself that I would be stronger than you. I am so angry at you that I want to kill you and I want to blame you for letting them do things to me. I want to blame you for everything. Why? Why did you left me, Rade?"

Rade let her scimitar imprint on herself yet again and slowly walked towards him. The cardigan he had sewn for her was already dirty but it provided her enough warmth to feel as if she was being embraced. And that was what Rade did.

"I apologized for not being by your side at the hardest time of your life," she whispered to him, wanting to draw him closer to her arms but he took many steps back. Rade heard him sob and she also sobbed in return. "I never would have thought that they would ever incude you on anything. I underestimated them, I'm so sorry, Carys."

"I can never be a hunter, can I?"

Rade nodded at him. Looking at the now familiar face of Carys of the present. There were lines that have been etched on his face that can never be erased. There were scars and callouses on his hands that Rade would never be able to just wipe and pat away. When he finally look at Rade straight in the eye, Carys wasn't the past Carys but he wasn't also the one with the anger on his eyes.

He was just him.

"I have never envied you and your power," Carys told her, "I have never expected myself to stand beside my sisters, but when you two went away... I have never felt so cold. The order of the Aldeia clan, just do it now."

Rade shook her head, "I think I'll wait until you're not willing anymore, Carys."

"You'll be punished for insubordination."

Rade only smiled at that statement.

"That's better than doing something that I will later on regret."

She has done a lot of things that she regretted, even when she was only ordered to do it all.

Though there was an extremely heavy weight lifted off from both of their shoulders, that relief was short-lived. The Cuare suddenly acted up, tentacles- like ropes emerged from the holy weapon.

And those were reaching towards Rade herself.