"Is this… what happened?" Mabel shook her head as they moved forward.
Now finding themselves walking through an alley made with tall and wooden walls of nearby houses, all of them held their mouths shut at the moment they saw the other group of souls in the distance. Mabel, Arnel, and Dimitri continued to tread on the cold and dusty ground in silence until they were met with what was supposed to be an open spot around a little old chapel, now populated by more than a dozen huge military-like tents like worms pestering a wound. Those flimsy buildings that had its walls made up of sewn human skins flapping along with the gentle breeze had trampled all over the church's field of white aster. The sweet and light smell that should've permeated their surroundings had been tainted with the scent of rotting flesh and blood as well.
Mabel moved towards Arnel as they continued on their now seemingly arduous journey, gazing at the souls that these feeble homes housed. She looked at her left and saw some other dreaded people losing a few limbs as they sat around with the lifeless bodies of their comrades. The ones on her left presented a view of the others, being laid over a shabby wooden table and being tended by a couple of people that were in the middle of fixing a man's leg.
"When I blurted out what was the convent doing…" Mabel muttered, lowering her gaze as she pressed her trembling hands over her chest with a whimper. "I didn't mean… I didn't want to see this."
"Those… accursed sons-of-bitches, we've never even hurt anybody—" Arnel cut his words short, pursing his lips as though he just realized something. He clicked his tongue a moment after and there, he added, "We've been doing our best to live our lives quietly… why did this need to happen?"
"Mother Clarissa reported that they had won… what the fuck…" Dimitri shook his head with a slow and pained chuckle. He could not help but affix his eyes on the man's left leg as another man sank a needle deep into his flesh as he proceeded to sew a severed leg into him as the others held him down.
"These poor children..." Mabel followed his lead and looked as the wounded person on the table groaned and wriggled in pain, but she found herself looking away with a newfound sense of dread even before a second could pass.
Seeing this, Arnel stepped forward while looking beyond the operating table, only to see a metallic bin full of severed arms and legs. He swallowed his saliva and after a second, he said, "They're onto us… we need to do something about this quickly."
"A-are you sure that we could do it?" Mabel asked, looking around once more before she turned her attention to him.
"Ye—"
"The reports just said that this time, our frontliners fought against a group of four reapers. We didn't even get to know who they were," Dimitri interrupted Arnel with a heavy heart. "I was told that some squad leaders came in to take care of those four but… I figured that it might be too much… but, these…" He laughed and followed it with a sigh. "This site has fewer wounded men and dead bodies than I expected."
"And what of the reapers?" Mabel asked, facing the paved road until they made a turn. It enabled them to see a part of a huge chapel sitting in the distance.
"All of them were killed and we took their weapons, we could not risk letting them live, after all," Dimitri replied with a broken smile.
"I still believe that we can win," Arnel declared with a proud yet heavy breath.
"I'm sorry?" Dimitri raised his brow.
"We can win. This is not the first time we had our squabbles with that little witch, and there were times that we were able to win. We've successfully killed some of her men too, especially that time-stopping reaper among the others and now, that teleporting bastard," Arnel followed without even turning to face him. "We could win… I was the one leading the front lines back then and now, one of the guards, a mere peon was able to kill a reaper that was strong enough to be a part of that child's group. The council has its better and stronger fighters now and if my boy could defeat one of them while fighting four, I have faith… I believe that we can win."
With a wavering grin, Dimitri replied, "Well, Uncle Arnel, aren't you a little…"
"I'm perfectly sane, boy, I don't need to answer to a man that carries a patch of dirt on his trips. We are strong and everyone knows it," Arnel shouted as they moved out of the sea of tents and faced the thick and dark wooden doors of the chapel. "We've been fighting against that Milkman and that fat bastard they call the Vendor for the longest time, and I am fairly confident that we could kill them. So, do what you have to do, boy, open that door and let us meet this priest so we could go, and get this over with."
Dimitri chuckled and swallowed his saliva a moment later. He felt his gaze falter at the domineering dark figure that was drawn in front of him. Its surroundings, still being a part of the church's field of aster, was draped by a layer of violet lilies in full bloom, acting like a small fence that told its visitors where they should walk. He met three empty arches at the church's front, making him eye the closed entrance that was reinforced by its metallic frames as it fastened itself on its sides with the help of four rusting hinges. Following the wall's carved horizontal lines that defined the chapel's mossy and rough surface, he found his gaze being ushered upward until it was fixated on the huge tilted bell that was darkened by age sitting above them.
"Well, Dimitri?" Mabel asked with a concerned tone, squinting as the man in front of him fixed his eyes on that bell.
"Oh, I'm sorry, Grandma Mabel," Dimitri replied as though he just woke up from a strange dream. There, he took another deep breath and took a step forward with his hand about to touch the church's door. He closed his eyes and pushed it open and at the moment he tried to look at what's beyond them, he saw a man without limbs suspended in the air while screaming in total silence.
Mabel, Arnel, and Dimitri held their breaths and without uttering another word, they moved on and entered the chapel. The door let out a heavy creak behind them as it closed, forcing them to straighten out of their backs and assume their most confident expressions, except for Arnel who just kept his eyes on the woman below a large ashen cross on the other side of the room.
"Oh no, they started the sad pinata party without us, Dimitri," Mabel frowned as soon as she saw Arnel look down and place his hands together with his eyes closed.
Dimitri clenched his jaws and gazed at her with his pursed lips, doing his best not to let out a laugh. "They're offering up someone to quell the anger of those who had fallen or lost their comrades; they're having a mass, Grandma Mabel."
Beyond the pushed out long wooden chairs piling at the corner of the church's interior and following the red carpet that took them through the middle of the room, they said no word as they looked at a woman draped in a white cloak in front of them. She sat there behind a long table with a smile, resting her chin over the back of her hands as though she was serving her head on a platter with her forearms acting as its pillar. The woman still seemed unmoved as the other people in front of her, that wore the same clothes, clasped their hands together and circled around a limbless man while uttering a prayer that seemed foreign to their common tongue.
"My, my, you guys are here already?" the woman muttered sweetly, finally breaking the buzzing sound of the other's words that permeated in their ears. "Such a shame, here I thought that you would take your time and arrive at least half an hour later, also, is that a piece of shit in your hand, Dimitri?"
"The thing is, Mother Clarissa, the boss called for a meeting with all of its council members at the moment we heard the news about Valencia being killed," Dimitri replied after a sharp breath, pretending to not notice what she just said. "He d-deemed that this should not be treated lightly and so... I was asked to bring you three there as soon as possible."
"Hm, It's not my fault that that whore got herself killed, however, I do feel sorry for Mr. Arnel's loss. I could already assume why he's here but why, Dimitri, I'd like to know why that, especially when you just saw the damage that we've suffered on the hands of those reapers, why force me to comply with such meetings?" She scoffed as she stood from her seat, revealing her white thick robe, almost looking like a blanket, covering her head down to her toes. The only thing that they were able to see was her blood-red lips and a mole at the left side of her chin.
Dimitri and Arnel both fell silent. Mabel looked like she was about to say something but Clarissa interrupted her as she continued, "Do not get me wrong." She chuckled as she walked in the middle of the room, cutting into the line of the other souls that circled the man without even breaking their rhythm. "Like Grandma Mabel here, I know how it feels and I fear losing my children too but unlike her, I do not treat my men as though they were like cows suckling on my bosom. My men are out there dying, and it pains me to hold such prayers every now and then but despite all that, I wholeheartedly believe, unlike you, Arnel, that we cannot win."
Arnel furrowed his brows. "You…"
"I have ears around me… this is my convent, after all, if that's what you're going to ask or say," Clarissa added, entering the circle where the man hovered above her and cutting out of the line of the other souls without even taking a pause as they went around them. "Though, you could say that I was just teasing you. I am planning to come, however, you could treat that little provocation of mine seriously as well." She stopped and faced the three with her hands clasped over her chest and with her widening grin. "You should know that I am against an all-out war, but I would be wishing for a thing that might suit your plans. If you could understand that, then, let us go, Dimitri."
Dimitri gave him a nod and led the way outside. Arnel followed him without a word and Mabel, as though she got riled up by her words, scowled at her and whispered, "I do not understand you, Mother Clarissa."
"Well, Grandma Mabel, it is simple, really," Clarissa replied without even turning her head to look at her. She then raised her hand and snapped her fingers a moment later, making the limbless man that was hovering in the middle of the chapel fall at a great speed that flattened his bones and flesh into a paste. Then, taking a second to let that sound of meat hitting the floor as though it fell from the tallest of towers reverberate in their ears, Clarissa let out an elated smile and added, "I want to get some blood on my hands because I'm simply just angry."