Cross and Conflicts

CHAPTER XIX: Again, After Fourteen Years

There was a man in front of Noumenon’s very eyes. He looked old but not in any way senile. From head to toe, he appeared the politician he claimed to be—beguiling, confident yet not exactly forthright. However, she didn’t know who he was, and she felt that she hadn’t seen him in her entire life. He addressed her “Honey”—the endearment she longed to forget and never wanted to hear ever again for this had been associated with the person who murdered her mother and traumatized her for years.

At that point, in her mind, there were flashes of unpleasant memories—these involved the very first man she loved, yet peculiarly the mental images did not show a vivid view of his face. Her father—she, again, realized that she couldn’t remember his face, and she forgot even his name.

Before this man who triggered unwanted recollections of her past, she was troubled—troubled in a way that she couldn’t remember, and troubled that Vice Mayor Manica Diamond strangely resembled the man she never desired to see again.

The fear which she thought she managed to keep away crept back to make her shudder. She gulped, and with a resolve that she was afraid may crumble, she lifted her head and looked at him.

“W-Who are you, sir—really?” She asked, barely composing her words.

Manica had a subtle puzzled expression on his face, but he then replaced it with a smirk when his eyes landed on the extern sister beside her. “I see,” he said then stood from his chair and gingerly approached Sister Lita. “This is your doing, isn’t it, ‘Lita’?”

The extern sister couldn’t look at him and kept her head down.

“I also heard about what happened to my boys guarding you. They can’t remember a single thing about why they were there. What powerful divinity you have there!”

He clapped his hands as a way to display sarcastic awe. “As I see it, you can still be very dangerous.”

The extern sister felt the attention of everyone in the room focused on her especially from Pyrus and Gravis—her former fellow members of the Order. She wondered why they were here and on the payroll of the wicked Intramuros vice mayor. The reptilian who attacked them at the hospital ward wasn’t present, yet the horned person who locked them up inside that windowless room was there. She finally decided to look up at the politician. Apparently, it’s unfortunate that they’re acquainted with each other.

Four years ago, the Order, for a reason she wasn’t told, sanctioned her to erase the aggregate of his memories. This was the very mansion she infiltrated where she disguised herself as one of his maids and introduced a fake identity.

It was around three in the morning; he was still sleeping, sound and defenseless, in his king-sized bed when she sneaked into his room. He appeared a lot younger then—starkly contradicting how he looked in the present.

So carefully, she reached for his forehead just like how she has always been used to. Her mnemokinesis, nevertheless, works when either of her hands makes contact with basically any section of his target’s head.

Plap!

Yet it was at this moment that she knew she shouldn’t have expected this to be easy. Manica had awakened, and he caught her right hand. He was dead furious, and if looks could kill, she could have died on the spot as he glared at her.

“Well, well,” he said and gritted his teeth, “If it isn’t my new maid.”

Sister Lita winced as he twisted her hand.

“Are you here to kill me? Who sent you?!”

She refused to answer, but she had to get away from there immediately.

“Tell me!”

She acted fast. With her free hand, she pulled out the knife tucked in her skirt and without further ado, she stabbed it through his abdomen.

“Aaarrh!” cried the politician.

She was released from his grip. With haste, she ran and smashed her body through the huge window pane in his room—making her escape without looking back.

Blaaaak!

Definitely, she failed that mission, and she also missed to witness that the stab wound she inflicted healed within seconds after Manica removed it from his body.

That was their first meeting and in their second, the vice mayor took out a gun, aimed it between her eyes and smiled like he wasn’t plotting anything bad.

Noumenon then, at Sister Lita’s side, could only gasp in horror.

Bang!

The vice mayor pulled the trigger, planted a bullet through her skull, and ended the life of an adoptive mother. Slowly, she dropped on the floor; her blood decorating it red.

“Maaaaaaa!” screamed Noumenon as she rushed to her.

In utter shock, she just held her in her arms. It was way too inconceivable. Initially, her tears weren’t present. She could hardly process the reality laid out before her, and still, she didn’t want to accept that Sister Lita was already dead. She was still warm as she embraced her. She still felt alive.

Noumenon wanted her to envelop her with her arms too and assure her that everything will be alright, and they’ll go back to their monastery and continue a cloistered life. On the contrary, she now knew it was impossible since she’s not breathing anymore.

“Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!” She wailed. Her agony reverberated inside the lavish room.

The vice mayor’s men pitied her, yet they didn’t allow their faces to express how they felt towards her loss. Even Gravis who looked extremely bored at the scene before him was sorry for what transpired; nonetheless, he expected this after the politician caught sight of her Nay Lita and asked him who she really was. He never forgets any of those who were once after his life.

“Why?! Why have you done this again?!” She angrily asked.

Manica smirked knowingly at her. She finally conjectured who he was.

“Why, Noumenon? Honey, she needed to die.”

Her tears continued to pour. “You monster—I hate you so much! You demon! I never wanted to see you again. Why are you doing this to me again? FATHER!”

The vice mayor laughed out loud in return. Her words fueled his amusement. Suddenly, he grabbed Noumenon by the arm and rudely peeled her off Sister Lita’s corpse.

“Now, now, honey, since I’m your father, I can’t possibly be that merciless towards you,” he told her. “Try to escape from me this time, again.”

She wanted to move away from him, but his masculine strength overpowered her totally. Something like this had happened before. Again, after thirteen years, he will chase after her while she will run for her life.

Garnering what might she could manage, she shoved him and pulled herself up. Circumspect, she looked around her. These strangers that surrounded her were intently staring at her—at the battered girl with an unkempt short and wavy chocolate hair. They were observing and waiting what she will do next.

She was given a path to get out of there, and the double door behind her was opened.

“Now, Noumenon, what will it be? Are you going to just stand there and die? Or will you take—”

She didn’t want to hear what more he had to say, so she dashed towards the opened door in desperation. Her lament for her adoptive mother’s death transformed to fear. She didn’t want to die. She has to be alive for both her biological mother and Sister Lita’s sake.

Darkness blanketed the sky outside, but unlike that harrowing night, there’s no rain. Only her tears kept pouring. Past the door, no one from the politician’s henchmen bothered to go after her.

Manica, the one she conjectured as her father, leisurely walked in the path she traced and aimed his gun at her. A flashback from that night occupied his mind, and as if re-enacting that scene, he fired.

Bang!

And the novice collapsed at the gallery.

“Aack!”

There was a bullet wound on her left calf. Her eyes widened. It couldn’t be a coincidence that her father shot her on the same spot.

She quailed at the thought that this will be the end for her. She forced herself to get up, but it seemed that her feet wouldn’t cooperate. She was filled with fear to the brim that her lips trembled as she pathetically dragged her body. Her tears made a wet track on the floor along with the blood on her calf that draw a sloppy red line on it.

On the other end, Manica relished in the suspense of it all. He was grinning like a madman as he walked towards her.

“Honey, are you alright?” he mockingly asked.

She gripped the rosary around her neck. “Oh, God,” she pleaded and sobbed. “Please, help me. I don’t want to die yet.”

She halted. She knew it was futile to hang on to her motivation to live. The footsteps of the vice mayor sounded near, and now she only curled her body and continued to cry. It was all over.

Kraaak! Blaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaak!

It was either that God answered her prayer, or that death decided yet again that it wasn’t her turn today. All of the windows of the house shattered dramatically and the broken pieces of glass formed a drizzle of sharpness before their eyes.

Noumenon had an arm to cover herself and the henchmen were defended by Gravis’ divinity as he pulled the shards down before these could hit them. These fell like grains of sand that were tugged by gravity. However, in this confusion, he failed to include his boss.

Manica gained wounds by being pierced with several pieces of glass all over his face and body. Nonetheless, as if those were nothing, he pulled them out of his flesh, one by one.

Tak! Tak! Tak! He dropped a shard on the floor one after the other.

“So,” he then said to the person who arrived, “You’ve finally shown yourself to me.”

Not further scathed, Noumenon couldn’t help but look behind her. She saw that there was a man standing between her and the vice mayor. She rubbed her eyes, for she couldn’t believe who it was. Just like before, he—she’s certain—didn’t come here to save her.

“Welcome to my house.” Manica smirked. “Cross.”