Chapter 112: Goodbye For Now
The next day, at sunrise, September, Junk, and April were both standing near the entrance of the once secret witch village of the Autumn region of the world.
"You know, I'll have to keep chasing you, right?" Bridget said to her big sister right before she could leave with the others.
"You are not forced to if you don't want to. You know that?"
"But I want to. I want to keep going after you."
"But why? We worked together. More or less. We defeated Lord Monsoon. For now. You are now aware that I am no threat to you, nor am I a threat to the rest of the village. I was in charge of the village once. Not too long ago," September attempted to explain this to her little sister, who was so determined in the ambition of competing with her and going after her. She didn't want to stop.
"You might have helped us to banish Lord Monsoon, but you are still a renegade. You are still a fugitive. You are still a murderer," the little sister, Bridget, reminded her.
"A murderer? What do you mean by that exactly? We are all murderers here. We kill monsters and defend ourselves against our enemies all the time," April immediately reacted to this and voiced her opinion. She wasn't wrong about that. Bridget, September, Junk, and April, all were required to defeat and kill enemies in order to survive. It wasn't about committing a murder. It was about primal survival at this point. It was about living or dying.
"To be honest, September doesn't kill a lot of people. That's why she has us. April and I take care of that most of the time. September doesn't typically want to dirty her hands too much. That works for me. I kind of like it," the young man voiced his opinion as well. Supporting September in his own, strange way.
"Big sister. You've murdered six of our witches during your rampage, as you abandoned us. You may lie all you want, lying to your followers, but we will never forgive you for what you've done. I will never forgive you for what you've done."
"Is your little sister telling the truth, Sep?" April asked her.
"You've murdered six of your witches in cold blood?" Junk was curious to know if Bridget was telling the truth about this or not.
"Bridget. I've tried telling you. I had no other choice. They were no longer like themselves. They… They had changed."
"Bullshit!" Bridget suddenly lashed out at her big sister. "We had countless investigators who came in, after the fact, and studied their dead bodies. Nothing unusual could be detected with them. Nothing! No magic detected. Nothing was out of the ordinary. And the fact that you left after murdering them and didn't bother to explain yourself only proves to me that you are responsible for what you've done here. You only have yourself to blame. You must be held accountable for what you've done," Bridget shouted at September.
"I left without being able to explain myself because I had no other choice. You weren't there at the moment, no other witches were with me at the particular moment, and the knights of the Halloween kingdom began attacking me. I had to defend myself. I had to leave. I tried. I swear. I tried everything I could," September tried explaining, time and time again. Bridget now had teary eyes.
"That's not what the knights said. They all said that you've tried getting them on your side during the coup and when you realized that they weren't interested in joining a coldblooded killer, you tried burning all of them alive. One by one. You were able to kill a couple of them, but there were too many of them," Bridget replied.
"That's… That's not true at all, Bridget…" she tried telling her. Her voice had become so weak and low at this point. September was whispering. She was now losing all hope of making her understand her and believing her. She looked down. Giving up…
"The only reason why I'm allowing you to leave is because of the respect I used to have for you. You are my sister, after all. Well… We were… But next time we met, I'll have no other choice to take you in. Dead or alive. Tomorrow morning, we'll begin searching for you again. Thank you for aiding us in defeating and banishing Lord Monsoon, but this is the end. We will never be sisters again," Bridget explained to the person, who, in her mind, used to be her big sister.
"Thanks for allowing us a day to create some distance between you and us," September nodded and thanked her little sister for the last time before, unfortunately, turning her back on her and slowly stepping away from the place she once used to call home, the witch village. April followed her. Junk did too. They accepted to go with her again. It would take a while before they could trust her again, but the healing process had begun.
"One more thing, Junk," Bridget stopped the Minotaur. He turned around, surprised.
"Yes?"
"We have a little something for you," she mentioned to him.
"Um? What is it?" Bridget turned her head around, nodded to a pair of her loyal and hardworking witches. The two witches came with a chest in their hands. Carrying it around. A large and heavy chest that they placed right in front of the Minotaur.
"Open it," Bridget told him.
Junk opened it.
Inside, waiting for him, was a new and ancient, magical, Halloween demonic armor.
"A new armor? Wait, it looks pretty different from the one I'm wearing now."
He was right. It was indeed different. It was glistening.
It was ancient, not necessarily new, yet, it had been restored.
Something that needed to be done to it because it was so old.
"Yes. This is one of the oldest armors this province has ever seen. We've made some minor adjustments to it. This is our thank you to you, half-demon."
"For what?"
"For considering joining us when you first arrived in our village and for helping April, and my sister, to stop, Monsoon."