She followed his presence until she reached the basement, where that place was where Sakura has practiced magic for more than half her life. Gray blinked a couple of times in bewilderment.
"The boy's in there, isn't he?", asked Add. He seemed interested to know how his mistress would cope with this situation. She'd heard the rumors popping up all over London about the shadow on Big Ben. But she was more interested, specifically, in what his taste for high places meant for Assassin.
That pause Assassin made earlier puzzled her so she opened the door and found the servant sitting on the magic circle he was summoned by. She understood this action of Assassin's because of one of the recent classes she had received from her mentor. By being in the place where he was summoned, Assassin could regenerate or save mana more effectively. It was a good idea, certainly.
"Do you want to talk?", was a question based on what happened earlier. Assassin didn't seem to want to talk, but she still decided to. She appreciated that gesture.
"Yes. With your permission," she took a seat in front of the servant. They both looked into each other's eyes under their dark hoods that hid their distressed faces.
She took her time to think about what to say. Silence didn't bother Assassin so there was no reason to rush. She knew nothing of what Assassin did when she wasn't looking. As a result, the Big Ben rumor spread through London like gunpowder in a thunderstorm.
In that respect, Assassin was a winner. By getting his hands on a new legend, it would increase his power by a small measure. With a new legend about him circulating, his story would not die, in fact, it would be strengthened.
"What do you usually do when no one is with you?", that question suddenly came up shattering the silence in the room. Assassin nodded ready to answer.
"I usually walk around the city to learn about this time in history. Reading books also helps, but it's better to experience things for yourself."
"But that doesn't explain Big Ben, does it?" the tone of her voice gradually lowered the more words came out of her mouth.
"I already said it, I like high places. It feels good to be on top of everything."
"But... I feel like that's not all."
Assassin suddenly pulled out an earring from the paper seal on his ankle. It was the same shape as the one already in his left ear, or was it the right? What mattered was the mystery surrounding these accessories.
"There are things about the world that I don't know. There are coincidences that baffle me. There are sensations I cannot explain", although he was saying a lot, he wasn't really saying anything. He wasn't explaining anything Gray wanted to know. "Like for example this earring. I don't know why Sakura-sama had it in her possession."
"Normally, relics pass scattered throughout the history of the world", she didn't want to sound arrogant or like a know-it-all, but these were words she had already heard from her mentor. She wanted to understand more from this conversation. "Relics passing through different hands until they reach the present day. Surely Sakura got that pendant by that method?"
It was reasonable, but Assassin didn't understand something. Gray, however, didn't know what. In fact, reading him like an open book was impossible. If you constantly contradicted yourself, hiding your reactions under the darkness of a hood, it would obviously be hard to know what you would be thinking.
"It's best to forget this. Right now I want to save as much mana as possible", he said, closing his eyes. He was now holding a Buddhist meditation pose, though it was only the posture Okamitsuki had taught him for gathering nature chakra.
"If you lack mana, why not ask for it?"
"For the same reason you don't volunteer for it. Neither of us disagree on that score. At least I just see the action as a way of not disappearing. It's different for you."
Gray wanted to speak, but stopped herself. She thought deeply this time. It was true. Every time she offered to give Assassin mana, even if it had only been twice, she always regretted it in the moment. She was embarrassed to perform such an intimate act with someone she barely knew.
"You two are boring me, you know, always talking almost in whispers, like depression is crushing you to the ground", Add suddenly jerked inside the cloak. "Act more romantic. You're so stiff, do you two hate each other's guts? Hell, you're really infuriating! Young people nowadays don't even know how to socialize! And yet you two were quite close on that occasion!"
Assassin interjected. "If you're talking about the Castle of Separation thing, I did what I had to do. I fused my existence with Gray's body to grant him the use of my magecraft. If I hadn't, it would have taken us a long time to end that whole charade", he said, his tone monotone monotone. His silver eyes seemed to glow under the hood.
That reminded Gray of something. In fact, she inwardly thanked Add for bringing it up. Maybe with this she could get Assassin to answer the main topic of this conversation.
"That Bounded Field you used," she muttered. "It was like watching all the souls of an entire world imprisoned in a crimson abyss."
"Because it is," he replied curtly. "Or at least, I think it is."
"How can you not know something as basic as your own magecraft! You're so strong, but you're also so pathetic" Add snorted "So... you won't use it again?" This time the talking cube wanted to know if it could devour those delicious souls again.
"I'll use it when needed..."
Add celebrated that clarification.
"Listen, kiddo. You too, Assassin boy. You two are bound by a mana pact. You must get along. If the two of you keep acting so awkward, this relationship will never work. You will only continue to suffer the consequences of your own differences", Add stepped out from between the cloak thanks to Gray and looked at Assassin. "Boy, a man who hides a lot will also be a man who suffers a lot."
Assassin reacted to that. He ducked his gaze somberly.
"You talk too much. Better shut your mouth."
Add chuckled. That was enough to make Gray even more suspicious.
'A man who hides so much...' she thought deeply, storing all that information in the confines of her brain. She was having a hard time processing so much so fast, but she wanted to ask a question. "I feel like I've changed in all this time..."
"I think so too," Add said.
"But I'm still very much like my past self...", she hugged Add's cage gently. "This isn't like me. Interrogating people like this. Normally it would be the opposite. Everything would be different, but... in these two months everything has been so different from my usual life in my hometown. Sakura has helped me a lot. Miss Reines too. Even my mentor. Everyone has supported me like never before...", she closed her eyes.
She remembered her village. She thought of the present and also of her destiny. At some point in her life 'Gray' would disappear to make way for King Arthur. "I wonder, when that's over, won't I be forgotten?" She raised her gaze to look at Assassin.
He was thoughtful and expressionless. He was thinking quite a bit, as if reminiscing about his entire past.
"I wondered how you felt when you died?"-someone who dislikes what is dead, but yet still walks among the living.
-¿?-
There were bottles of different brands of liquor scattered on the floor. There was cigar smoke floating across the ceiling and ashes of the same on the carpet next to an ashtray. A light was coming through the window, the light of the evening sun. On the sofa was Biserka, leaning back with a glass in her right hand and a cigar between the index and middle fingers of her left hand. In front of her was an old, dust-covered piano and, in the doorway of the room, little Alek Gusev watched as his mother destroyed herself.
Biserka knew Jasha since they were children. She had loved him since, practically, forever. But Jasha never felt the same way. Although when Alek was born he acted like a loving father, over time that slowly faded.
The two of them married to unite two important families. Basically it was a marriage for pure monetary gain. But Alek didn't know any of that. He just thought his mother and father started hating each other for no reason.
He is still a four-year-old boy, with an innocence worthy of a child his age. He doesn't know so many things about the world and about life.
He walked away from the door to the kitchen. He took a glass of water and met one of the maids. She was the closest to little Alek. A woman with black hair and eyes of the same color. Dressed in a common maid's uniform. The woman was approximately thirty years old.
"Master... Would you like something to eat, something sweet?"
The child looked at the maid. His eyes lit up and he flashed a smile.
"Yes!", he replied excitedly. The maid also smiled at him and from the fridge took out a cake.
"Go eat at the table. We don't want it spilled on the carpet."
"Yes, m'am. Right away!"
"Fufu. You don't need to call me that."
"Yes... Madame Frederica."
The boy put the plate with the cake on the table and Frederica helped him into the chair. Thus the boy tasted the cake with a smile until he finished it in less than a minute.
"Thank you, Madame Frederica. I'll go wash the plate."
"No, wait! I'll do that."
"Are you sure?"
"It's my job" replied the maid. Then Alek nodded and walked away from the kitchen.
Frederica watched Alek walk away. She closed her eyes praying that this whole business in the Gusev family would be settled as soon as possible before this child was also affected by the conflict. Someone like Alek should not be exposed to such a world at such a young age. He is just a child. He shouldn't be meddling in the affairs of adults, not yet.
***
Sakura watched the weeks pass in front of her eyes. Alek, every time he saw his mother in that room, he felt how something inside him kept breaking more and more. She could even feel how that child felt.
This was not healthy for him.
And it only got worse...
At the age of five, Alek had managed to solve an equation that high school kids would have a hard enough time with. He was always someone smart, like a one-in-a-million genius. After reading and learning so much, his brain was increasingly nourished with more and more knowledge.
Excited by his accomplishment, he ran to his mother to show her. The woman had been more than a year the same way. Although she still ran her businesses from home, she was no longer interested in leaving the house much. Although she sometimes went out with her associates to various events because that was her obligation, but when she came back it was always the same.
"Mother, look, look, look, I did it! I was able to find the answer! It was so easy!"
The child showed her a notebook scrawled with the most horrible numbers and letters anyone had ever seen, but the woman's eyes widened in surprise. It was true. It was correct. The boy had done it.
Even with regret, even with a hint of motherhood rising from the depths of her stone-hardened heart, she nodded and said, "Amazing. Well done."
Sakura's heart squeezed as she watched the boy's smile grow bigger with the most radiant and kindest expression of all. He got a compliment from his mother! She could still be proud of him!
But from there everything changed. Thanks to the warm emotion Alek felt at being praised by Biserka, he ran off to study even harder. He went almost like a tornado into his father's study and grabbed as many books as he could. He turned on the PC on the desk and started typing with his little fingers to learn even more.
Anyone would think that's an adorable gesture. Indeed, it is, but for a child who had been ignored by his mother for almost a year, that was not at all adorable.
From there Alek became obsessed with getting praise from Biserka. So he studied day and night without sleep. Even if he fell asleep at his desk, he woke up to continue studying.
A whole week went by... Alek had hardly eaten more than what the maids brought him, almost forcing him to eat. None of them could get him out of his studies. The boy insisted that he had to do this to make his mother proud.
"She will be proud of me. She will praise me a lot. I want her to smile again."
With those thoughts he finished studying. There were books scattered on the floor and desk. The PC was on with many windows open. Alek took care of cleaning all this up by putting the books back in their place and turning off the PC.
He immediately opened his math exercise notebook and started doing a difficult college-level equation that filled three entire pages of the notebook. Sure, the numbers and letters on the paper were still horrible, but that didn't matter because Alek got it right. He solved the equation in record time. In just two hours of hard work.
With very noticeable dark circles under his small face, he searched for Biserka throughout the mansion, finding her asleep in her bed. She was wearing an untidy red one-piece dress. It looked like she had come from somewhere and had thrown her heels on the floor and then thrown herself face first onto the bed. On the bed was a bottle with some strange pills that Alek recognized as antidepressants. Seeing that, he clenched the notebook and whispered to the woman.
"Mother... I did it... I figured it out. Look", he held out his little arms with the notebook open.
The woman then opened her eyes and sat up in bed. You are very disheveled and seemed to have been crying. Looking at the child's notebook, she literally didn't understand anything that was written there. She just saw a bunch of random numbers and letters that had no meaning to her.
"What is this garbage?", she asked.
"It's an equation with a lot of difficult mathematical laws they teach in universities - I solved it all by myself!"
The woman looked at the boy with disgust and took the notebook from him. Alek got excited because he thought his mom was going to check the equation. He was already expecting praise from the woman and maybe a smile from her, but the notebook flew past Alek's head.
"You're wasting your time showing me that shit. Leave me alone, you fucking brat."
"Huh...?", his eyes widened. He was cold and standing in front of her. "I'm sorry...," he put on a crooked smile. "I'm sorry for bothering you", and that crooked smile quickly turned into a genuine smile full of hope.
That smile this woman began to hate....
"What are you laughing at?", she asked causing Alek to stop smiling.
"What? I don't-"
Again... just like a year ago, a loud slap resounded. Alek fell to the ground because this time, unlike a year ago, the woman had put all her strength into her hand.
"You're laughing at me!", she knelt down in front of Alek and grabbed him by the hair.
She dragged him across the room until she made him crash against the edge of the bed, causing Alek to run out of air, falling to the floor. However, the woman did not stop. She grabbed the heel lying on the floor and threw it in Alek's face. The heel hit his forehead, causing blood to start flowing.
Scared, in pain, almost on the verge of tears, Alek crawled on the floor trying to get out of the room, but Biserka kicked him in the abdomen, propelling him to the exit next to the notebook. There Alek took the notebook in his hand and struggled to his feet.
He was apologizing, over and over again. He admitted guilt for everything. Crawling out of there he left to get up and go to his room, but on the way he fainted.
With his mind fading, the boy kept apologizing. Ending with, "This is my fault..."
'He just wanted to make you smile... he just wanted you to praise him, he just wanted you to be proud of him', Sakura whispered seeing the boy lying on the ground.
There she understood that the boy she saw at the beginning of all this was this same boy. She understood that this was the explanation of the dreams she has been having. And she understood that this would be the 'truth' for her.
...
...
This was the tragic story of Alek Gusev, the messiah of a dying world.
To be continued...