While at her house, the girl took all the money she had and her sword, which she rarely used. His argument was that the sword hindered him in his thefts. During the trip back to his faction, Hidana told the young woman a little of her history, of her entire past; and she told him your name. Her name was Laura. Hidana explained to him how he had been betrayed by a member of his own faction and of some plans he had for expanding his business, in order to make it even bigger this time. Something never seen in Hollen before.
They spent the night at a cheap inn. She took a relaxing hot bath in a round wooden bath. Activity that he liked to do when he had the opportunity. Hidana, by choice, decided not to take care of herself or bathe. Although her foul odor bothered her all night and throughout the journey, she did not bother him - namely - on purpose. In fact, she wondered to herself that there was a reason for that attitude. He preferred not to disturb him and see where it was going.
When the sun reigned in the center of Nomina's sky, the heat in that city was even more visible on the faces of its inhabitants. A dog was breathing hard with its tongue hanging out, looking for some shade to lean against. When he reached his pot of water to drink, he found it empty. Many people walked on the street carrying, on their heads and shoulders, large wooden buckets of water to help support the day and their chores. That day, few peasants had gone to work in the fields, due to the immense heat that had exceeded all expectations. For some, perhaps the hottest day of the year. The city was close to a small desert; very dry region. However, not as big as the other deserts on that continent. The back of the former Hidana faction faced this desert.
Upon reaching the city, Hidana and Laura went around, crossing that desert. The members of his former faction were eating and talking, near the back window. Despite the heat, the climate between them was pleasant. Little by little, the members of that faction saw something that seemed to be a hallucination for them. The former owner came in the distance, accompanied by a thin, blonde woman; as if it were some entity of divine justice, reporting on some unjust pending occurred by the attitudes of man. Definitely scary.
— Stay here — said Hidana.
— Will they recognize you? — She asked.
Laura recognized that Hidana was determined to do justice with his own hands, or rather, with the sword he had borrowed. Seeing that the faction had already noticed their presence, Hidana and Laura stopped walking. At this moment, they both stood, staring and watching from a distance. On the one hand, the faction with the guy who betrayed Hidana. On the other, only Laura, who had returned with Hidana. He was slightly ahead of his mate.
Hidana saw her traitor come out with a sword at her waist and look at him with a hard expression.
— Shit... — said a faction member, looking out the window.
Hidana then started walking towards her traitor. A strong wind blew and Laura's hair was gently tossed forward, covering her face a little while her face expressed a serene stillness, watching that scene. Hidana had Laura's sword in her right hand. Coming with her drawn, far away on the horizon. His wrinkled face appeared to be that of someone who had been brutally mistreated. Completely dirty, his clothes were torn. On his head, he carried an enormous volume of hair that seemed to have grown for years without cutting it. Sticked with dirt and pulled in all directions. Its odor was unbearable. Her toenails and hands were huge. His appearance was all disfigured. That figure so different from what it had once been returned to settle accounts with its former faction; being seen walking on the horizon under a vaporous fog of unbearable heat. A person that many thought had died came back suddenly and with that appearance that Hidana showed; even worse, that look ... That alone was enough to make many inside tremble.
The avenger started to speed up his pace even more. The traitor seeing him started to walk faster too. The avenger then started to run. The traitor started running, too. The avenger now ran desperately to attack him, leaving a trail of sandy smoke from that desert behind. The traitor, also running in despair, gave an indignant scream with both hands firmly holding his katana, vertical to his face. They both jumped to attack violently in the air.
Belter and Hidana run in both directions from each other to face each other. Their swords clash, compelling both of their forces. They pull their swords again and at the same time try to strike each other. This time the impact of their swords simultaneously throws them backwards.
In an attempt at a violent blow in order to cut Belter's head, he ducked, avoiding Hidana's blow.
After this moment, Belter jumped forward with the sword, striking a blow vertically on Hidana's face, who in turn, supporting himself with his left arm on the ground, defended himself by suspending his body in the air by kicking him with both legs.
Hidana, after moving away a little, returns to the fight running on top of her opponent, hitting him violently with her right arm trying to cut him in the roughest and most direct way possible. By the intensity of the force with which he struck, Belter did nothing but retreat while dodging his multiple blows.
At the end of the retaliation, Belter withdraws a little to guarantee his guard and soon afterwards he advances again to attack him and his swords once again clash and are closed. Belter tries to trip up his opponent. Hidana jumps and tries to hit him vertically with her sword. Failing to hit him with the sword, Hidana punches Belter directly in the chest, who in turn, had such an impact, felt the blow like someone who receives a stone in his chest. After what happened, Belter tries to defend himself against more blows from Hidana, who always seemed to attack him as if he were a machine to deliver blows. Belter kicks him, pushing his chest back.
When the movement was over, both were face to face again. They were both panting. One looking at the other.
After the brief pause, Belter feels the blood slowly trickle down from his forehead, which ran between his eyes. Frightened and irritated by what he had just witnessed, anger arises from inside his heart.
— I will kill you! You weren't supposed to come back! — said Belter, panting.
— I gave you an opportunity.
— Taking orders and risking your life while you keep all the faction's profit, prestige and recognition?
— This was just something you had to deal with.
— All I did was chase endlessly money that is not mine.
Hidana remains silent.
— Do you know what comes before the ruin, Hidana? Arrogance ... She is a trumpet that announces a fall.
Hidana had answered nothing and did not move even a part of his muscles. Holding tightly the sword that was in his domain, with his two strong hands, staring at whoever had betrayed him in the remote past.
— You are a cold and damn thief! You only want things that are not yours.
— Be careful what you say — replied Hidana.
— Your ego is like an ocean, Hidana — he said in a demonic voice exhaling hatred as blood dripped down his face.
Hidana, nonetheless, remained continuously quiet.
— And one day it will still kill you!
Changing his posture and looking down with his eyes wide at Hidana, Belter raises his sword. Hidana, showing no discomfort or excitement, remains in her same solid expression staring at Belter. Suddenly, the two run against each other to attack each other. After crossing their swords, only Belter is wounded from the collision.
Young Belter falls to the floor. Soon after, a pool of blood begins to appear beneath him. At the feet of your enemy, a sword falls. Hidana starts walking and moving away from the body. After walking for a while, the man stops and remains silent, as if pondering something.
Then, without delay, he begins to dig a hole, as if no one is around him or watching him, completely ignoring the possible opinion of any likely person who might be watching him in relation to what he was doing.
Being seen by his former faction, Hidana finishes digging an extensive hole, being seen walking in the distance and seen through a heat swell from the midday sun, his appearance was extremely dirty and his hair was horribly disheveled, he was amazed by so much ugliness. His brows were furrowed and his mouth was dissatisfied, as if it had bothered him. Limping in the distance, Hidana places Belter's body in the dug hole of desert sand. Then his sword is thrown as well, thus burying the man who betrayed him. In the desert sands that faced the back of his former faction. Now resumed
...
Empire of Benevur, Mahaa
5:49 pm
That was a rather strange time, when society was discouraged due to its own reality. Hollen's country, once an entire nation, had gone through a severe recession in the post-war period. After the failed return of his campaign and participation in the war, the country was divided territorially into two distinct countries, one remaining in the northern part and the other in the southern part, creating a strong rupture between the sides, thus becoming two distinct governments . The military power of the North continued with its original name, Hollen, where the military ruled the country. In the southern part, a monarchy was established, coming to be called Benevur Empire. Both had a very close relationship and hardly anyone crossed the border.
The northern part was what had been most affected by the crisis. It was not surprising that people found it very difficult to find work in that country and the currency was totally devalued, since the economy had been totally torn apart. The streets were dirty, the alleys of the suburbs deserted and abandoned, but occupied by many homeless people at night. From time to time, some would gather around a metal brass at night, where it would warm them with the fire inside. The military police round was almost never seen, even in the early hours. It was a time when taxes oppressed in such a way that the black cloud of calamity that permeated that society was very noticeable, since most people who barely got a job, those who had a job, usually worked without any stimulus and appealed. for cigarettes and other drugs as an escape valve.
However, it is said that there was a very poor family in the city of Mahaa, located in the Benevur Empire. The head of this family was a man named Demalter. He had a sword shop and he had been forced to declare bankruptcy and close the establishment due to the crisis. After the establishment was closed, Demalter used to go to the end of the fairs to pick up fruit and food left over, to feed his family. Often, they fed on what people gave him and dressed in the clothes that people gave him. If it weren't for the goodness of the chance of eating leftover food, they certainly wouldn't have survived long or would have been worse off. Demalter's wife was called Sesi. Her family, in the house where they lived in Mahaa, had Sesi's mother, called Nívea and four more children: Yetso, Sol, Asla and the youngest who was still a baby named Esa.
One day, on a Sunday afternoon, Demalter called the family and gathered them in the almost total darkness, where all the lighting in the room came only from a candle placed on the table, which softly illuminated the whole room. Revealing that he had saved, with much sacrifice, a sum of money, he decided to send his sons Asla and Esa, even the second being a small baby, to the best school of the sword art of Hollen, called Franco Del'Mor. Hoping for the welfare of the two youngest children and avoiding hunger and more misery, he wrote a letter to the school, claiming that he was the former owner of a newly closed sword shop and explaining the situation of his family, to that out of pity, they would receive and care for them. Although the Benevur Empire was the most prosperous region between the two, the Franco Del'Mor school was the best of both sides, located in Hollen. The expectation was that his children would have a better future and who knows, one day, he might not get them out of that situation.
Finally, the plan was to help the youngest son to cross the dam where the borders that divided both countries are, so that the son could take a train where he would drop him off near the school. Although a selection process was necessary to study at this school, it sometimes had, in times of prosperity before the war, as one of its education projects to help some people in need by giving them education and housing in a boarding school, where they lived in a dormitory complex on the property. In order for his children to have a better future, and as a consequence, to relieve the family expenses, since his financial situation was difficult and Demalter had lost his job and practically his last savings, what he had proposed in your heart. And so, finally, he communicated to his family what he not only wanted, but how he was already doing it at that moment.
Upon being aware of the facts and what was heard at that meeting, the poor family hugged and cried a lot, especially the brothers. For the moment, it was uncertain whether they would ever see both boys again. Esa slept in her mother's arms. And so it was, that sad late Sunday afternoon, for an unexpected farewell.
...
— FRUFFF! — Emerging in the morning, coming from a frightening uproar caused by hundreds of black birds that flap their wings and clash with frightened, assaulted by the scare they have just taken.
As they flew roughly over the skies, the darkness became light. Its dense black cloud of birds was leaving. Thousands of them were out of sight. When looking at the sky, they are already far away, flying through the rising sun. Then silence prevails again that morning.
The mountains in the landscape were covered with snow. It had been a very cold dawn and it had snowed a lot. But for the moment, nature decided to stop snowing. When looking at the mountains, you could see the expressive color of the soft brownish rock, covered by snow as if it were a syrup over it.
In the mountains of the Alpes De La Mare, part of Hollen that bordered the Benevur Empire, it was close to a government establishment, where there are known beautiful rocky mountains. So incredible they were, that you could dazzle their beauty and see them from afar.
Just like the trees beneath it. Before the beginning of this mountain, there is a forest. Even that winter, the trees of the Alpes De La Mare seemed to be as imposing in the cold as they were firmly rooted in the earth. Giants in its length had enormous trunks. It took several people together hand in hand to be able to fully embrace them. Stretched imposingly like skyscrapers, their leaves were constantly high. For those looking at it from below, it was difficult to see the end of these trees.
Within the forest, a moose that was near a small stream, in the middle of rocks, comes close to it to drink some water, lowering its small animalish head. He thought he heard something and then raised his head, nodding, attentively. He stared somewhere in the forest. For some reason, astonished, the moose runs off.
Early that morning, the sun rose gently on the north side. Striving to want to shine in that winter's cold, his heat burned hotly over the mountains. Its half was seen out of the horizon and the black birds of yore, flew together towards it.
In the southern part, it was still possible to watch the moon, which had not yet set fully, in the opposite direction to the sun. It sounded quite transparent and almost faded.
In that cold, a subtle wind blew constantly. His cold breath was not at all unpleasant. And in the forest of this place, there was also the silence of the early morning.
Early in the morning, a colonel in Hollen's army, resident in the part of the country's border called Modim Dimas, was little known to the population. He wandered alone at dawn, as he had not been able to sleep very well. He frequently turned over in his bed, suffering from insomnia. The colonel was temporarily living in a security complex responsible for government immigration traffic that extended to a city called Pomar Arcoverde, where the territorial division between Hollen and the Benevur Empire was part.
In order to cross from one side to the other of that border, it was necessary a legal authorization, foreseen in law by both sides, in which only this way it was possible to pass without an unexpected attack by the border guards. However, permission to cross was often denied and uncertain, due to the attempted entry of criminals and clandestine factional activities that could result in yet another conflict between both parties. During this time, the colonel often argued with his wife and there was a lot of military work to be done under his wing. Early in the morning, the colonel finally decides after getting up from his bed, walking around the complex, which was close to a forest.
By this time, little boy Esa was in a crib being carried by his younger brother, Asla, who had already said goodbye to his family. Walking around with his father, who gave him instructions on how to catch the train that would pass at a station on the other side of the border, so he could get to Franco Del'Mor school - the best academy in the art of sword. Demalter placed a letter written by him in the boy's small crib. Crying for the school to accept the little boy and his brother, they had a map with markings for him not to get lost, in the pocket of a robe put on him, as a way to improvise a coat. And in a backpack he carried all his trusted savings.
Esa, when saying goodbye to her father, even unconscious, the boy cried a lot because something was bothering him, and his brother Asla, was a little tense. After the long hug with the father, the tears of longing started to run down his father's face. After the farewell, the boy walked alone, to cross the border between Hollen and the Benevur Empire, in an illegal and hidden way, while his father accompanied him from a distance. As he got far enough away, Asla disappeared over the horizon with his brother in a small cradle, between the trees in the forest and his father's field of vision.
After some time walking alone in the forest, the boy had his arms crossed inside his robe, holding his brother at the same time and wearing a hood in the cold that morning. As he walked slowly, he left his footprints on the floor. He was looking at the ground, his eyes practically closed in contact with the cold breaths, following a trail through the forest.
When he felt a presence in the distance, that presence somehow bothered him to look up, even though he was quite distant from that presence. Stopping walking, still with his arms crossed, he opens his eyes and observes that there was no one else in the forest, besides him. However, one person was a few meters ahead. Right there in front of you. On top of a riot, Colonel Modim dressed in his officer uniform in synergistically dark colors.
The boy was silent. Staring at the guy, breathing a little breathless with nervousness, puffing out a cold breath that came out of his mouth. Standing where he was, he began to feel a fear for that man who apparently had not seen him. His presence exuded a posture of what they called the iron neck. That is, unconvincing and difficult to please. Their short trip across the border had been interrupted. Even though he was afraid, the boy challenged himself to walk again, because he knew he had to get to where his father had told him to take a train.
Outside the compound, there was no one around. Everyone was asleep. Because it was very early in the morning, and because of that, the place was also quiet outside. In the huge desert and the vast courtyard of the complex from which the colonel had left, some flags were raised in the middle, clearly raised, waving in rhythm with the wind. Coming near the threshold of the fort, on top of a small hill, on his walk, when he saw a boy walking alone coming from the forest, he stopped his walk. It was unusual for someone to come from that forest. Watching in order to see where the boy was going, he did not express any feeling of empathy, as usual.
Seeing that the military man had fixed his gaze on him, the boy began to feel strange and felt somewhat threatened. However, seeing that the boy's intention was to cross the border, the colonel shouted:
— Hey!
The boy threatens to run like someone who has been scared and cornered by being prey to the threat of a predator's gaze. Asla, however, with wide eyes and a witty frightened expression, like a battered stray dog that is angry at anyone who comes close to him, ran away. In the opposite direction which he intended to proceed.
The colonel, however, seeing that he appeared to be only a child, deliberately let the boy go. After the boy is gone, the colonel lights a cigarette and continues his lonely walk in the cold that morning around the government compound.
...
As far as the eye can see, the calamity of that society's period of decline was continuous in pure potential. In the deserted streets of Sunday, at the end of a long deserted alley, two people stood facing each other and talking and being seen in the distance. There was water pouring out of a fire hydrant on the street in a pile of trash and papers piled up on a corner. A skinny dog was tearing up a garbage bag. When he found a piece of meat almost spoiled, the hungry man began to devour it. Under a marquee, people gathered around one of the brass cans that burned to warm them around that desert Sunday and early evening.
Misery was something that lay in Hollen's Pocco neighborhood. People seemed to have settled in with the situation, looking at poverty as normal in some neighborhoods and beggars circled each other and discussed frivolous things like:
— What will be the best thing they will invent?
When night came in this neighborhood, abandoned houses left little by little, prostitutes and prostitutes. A harlot stumbles while walking in an attempt to sensualize and after a lame, continues her walk waiting for customers just around the corner. A homeless person laughs and laughs when he sees the woman limping. In his merely happy laugh, the moment he opened his mouth, he noticed that he was missing a tooth in the left row of his mouth. Although in this neighborhood the bad winds of that time hit everyone, people still continued as primordially human beings are: tribalists.
Many people have come together naturally because of the scourge. However, among tribes and tribes, this fact was pointed out as concerns of different universes. Among the beggars who questioned ordinary things, two drunk and lying under a marquee on a pile of shabby and dirty pillows, argued among themselves without any judgment and with their mental health totally deteriorated due to drug use, which one of them said:
— Who is on our team?
The other beggar, jokingly, immediately looked with open mouth and a puzzled expression at his companion who had asked him, with such importance on the questioning.
However, the years have passed. In imagination, in the dark and in the unknown, a light out of so many colored lights travels and is symbiotically integrated with time in a voracious way. As you go through it, in the clarity of your ideas, it is as if everything were at the same time now. That is, time has moved once more, as usual in our ephemeral existence in this world and we do not realize it. Just as the Earth moves, and we don't feel it. And then, seventeen years passed.
To the surprise of fate, Esa had been accepted into the school to which her father had sent her. Now grown up, he studies the art of the sword and provides services such as cleaning and any kind of maintenance at school, together with his brother, Asla. By this time, Hidana had already taken revenge, recovered her faction and managed to expand it as agreed with Laura. His faction was popularly predominant in South Hollen. South Hollen, however, was close to the border with the Benevur Empire.
The Franco Del'Mor school was the most prestigious institution of sword art between Hollen and the Benevur Empire. In this gym, in the student dormitory complex, Esa's room was very high up, and from her balcony it was possible to see the stairs of other buildings and windows in other rooms.
An image is contemplated by the young man who was sitting immersed in a huge school chair that had been placed in his room. With bare feet and supported on a high bench at the same height as the armchair, your fingers intertwine against each other on your belly. The left side of his face, as a profile, would be the first image that anyone would see if he immediately entered his room, which was made of wood and was completely clean and tidy. Such an image contemplated by the young man is that of a cloudy, gray sky, as it should be on a cloudy day. The clouds move slowly, coming together little by little. It was late afternoon where the sun could hardly be seen. Empty, the streets had a soft shade of blue, in a late afternoon with a somewhat nostalgic air, due to cloudy weather.
A huge leaf on a tree was swaying, almost imperceptibly with the wind blowing. And as it moved inspired by the wind, a few drops begin to fall on it. Without delay, several seconds later, several drops fell as if they were needles of water, transparent and very fast on this leaf, crashing the skies once and for all in a thick rain. From the view of the street floor, the rain comes in the distance like a sweep, immediately covering the whole city with such heavy rain. And then, it starts to lightning.
A drowsiness began to take hold and to dominate the young Esa, while he watched the rain fall.
Interestingly, there was a very large tree which had been planted on the schoolyard floor. It was very long and there was a bird's nest on top of a branch that you could see from Esa's bedroom window. The rain was so strong and the wind was blowing so intensely that you could hear the pounding of leaves and other things on the tiles outside the room.
Around the house, there were several plants in very large pots of gray stone which were ornaments with drawings and figures carved on them. Almost all the school had coconut trees and plants that did not bear fruit, only plants that just bloomed. They were all wet, leaving the green of their leaves shiny.
As the rain increased, now more ferocious and already swinging the window of Esa's room and the trees, Esa gets up to close one of the windows that hit the wind. In the intensity of the rain, she saw two birds trying to prevent their little nest from falling. They seemed to be a couple. As one came from time to time to put more straw in the nest, for a few seconds the young man was watching and witnessing that sad scene. I felt that at any moment the nest could fall. Anyway, the young man soon after closed the window and went to his table, which was close to the balcony, to have a cup of coffee, as he was already too sleepy. As he took the kettle and started pouring coffee into a cup, he glanced at a balcony through the window.
Something caught his eye and then looked away from the table, continually below him, watching his cup fill. However, when he finished filling the cup, his gaze immediately turned to what had caught his attention outside. The young man takes the cup and puzzled, walks to the balcony to look out. He dared to walk and slowly faced the rain, to try to see better what was catching his attention. Passing the balcony, he watched a young woman, with a rickety umbrella, climb the stairs of another building, from outside, while fighting the rain. Arriving at a place in the building where she had more coverage, the young woman closes her umbrella and shows her face, with her hair soaked, while adjusting her bag slung over her right shoulder and her coat.
His black hair in contrast to his white skin sucked the attention of his insides, and his face had enchanted him a lot. Esa had never seen a creature like that. Taken by that moment and the beauty of the young woman, Esa continued to contemplate her, totally ignoring her coffee, which by the way already had rainwater falling into it. Suddenly, your moment of charm has a break. The young woman enters a room and then closes the door behind her. Although I had not realized that I was being watched, it enters quickly.
After that moment, Esa had a photographic memory of that scene in her mind. Still thinking about it, the young man goes back to his room, sits in the armchair as if he were lying and immersed in it, extends his own again on the bench and with the cup of coffee he had not drunk, puts it on floor, next to your armchair. Looking to his right, watching out the window, the rain falling outside, sitting in the armchair with his feet on his desk and his fingers interlaced again, resting on his belly. However, Esa fell asleep in the same position in which she found herself.