"There is someone I hate with all my being..."
It was a boy's voice speaking to her inside a black void, echoing with a deep echo that spread through the confines of her mind. This in turn caused her great pain, as if the voice was vibrating throughout her body, causing her a throbbing ache.
Everything is dark. Everything hurts. It's all so lonely. All this makes her suffer.
She repressed that pain for so long. She repressed that suffering deep in her heart and hid it from everyone else. So no one will see her weakness. So no one will abandon her.
"I hate you..."
The boy's voice again. A brittle, sad, depressing, lonely voice. That voice brought back that feeling of emptiness in her heart. An emptiness so deep and dark, an emptiness she can't escape from. There is someone talking to her, someone asking for help in tears, but no one will ever help him. Instead of those words of help, that person just kept repeating over and over again:
"I hate you..."
With uncontainable hatred.
An overflowing sadness.
An anger that burned deep in his soul.
A mixture of depressing emotions that expanded inside that black void.
"I hate you..."
... It was a story being projected in her mind. The story of a tragic hero....
"I hate myself..."
***
She opened her eyes hearing voices talking at her side. She blinked a couple of times to focus her blurred vision and breathed heavily. She felt pain all over her body, as if her muscles had been torn by blows. She was also dizzy, with nausea that made her quite uncomfortable, but she still found the strength to squirm into her bed.
She clenched the sheets in her hands and looked to her side.
Those silver eyes were looking at her again.
"Toru..."
She let that name out as if she had let out the last of the air left in her lungs. Seeing him, she again felt that emptiness in her heart.
"You're making this problem even bigger, you know that?"
That monotonously bored voice. She looked up at the ceiling.
"I'm sorry."
"It's too late to apologize now."
He said. He stepped aside after that. He gave way to Waver and Gray, who were waiting for the girl to wake up. Waver just approached her quietly and sat down in a chair at his adopted daughter's side.
"Father..."
She turned her gaze to the man. He just mentally prepared himself for this.
"This is something we both knew would happen..."
Sakura smiled. Both of them, liars afraid of getting hurt, looked at each other. They both smiled regretfully.
"This is unfair, Sakura, why did they have to do this to you?"
"I don't know. I guess it's all part of the life of a Magus. In the end I accepted that without complaint."
She had hoped that everything would turn out all right. It didn't. These writhing monsters devouring the inside of her body prevented everything from going well. All this stupid pain that she hid, even knowing that her father would already know about this, was causing problems right now.
"What should I do...?"
Waver clenched his fists tightly. That time his brilliant mind had no answer. The only way to heal Sakura from this horrible ailment was to return to Fuyuki and ask that person on his knees to release her from this curse. But that is not a possibility. He practically kidnapped Sakura. The Matō would do anything to get their property back.
"Wait..."
Sakura just wanted to wait.
"I didn't think this would move so fast. I didn't think this would hurt so much. I never really thought anything of it. Now I just need to wait..."
Waver just ducked his gaze upon hearing that.
It's an unfair situation. Sakura never did anything to deserve such a punishment. She's innocent, so why do something like this to her? There was an answer to that. It was quite simple. This is the world of Magus, and in this world Magus are capable of sacrificing their own children in order to achieve even a small fraction of what they desire. Tōsaka Tokiomi was willing to do that, hence the reason why he handed Sakura over to the Matō family.
Now they could do nothing. What Sakura said was right, for now it only remained for them to wait for the inevitable. During the night, the worms began to eat Sakura from the entrails. Nobody knew why this was possible since Toru had calculated at least one year as life expectancy for his master, but he was wrong. He did not take into account his own presence. In his materialized form his body consumes mana. In any case, he must recharge that mana.
'Born to suffer a curse...'
Gray saw herself reflected in Sakura. She had no idea that Sakura was suffering from something so horrific. She always smiles, she's always kind. She always talks to everyone, and although a bit shy, she's quite sociable. She is a good girl. Studious, intelligent, beautiful. She had a perfect life, but in the shadows of that story something horrible was going on.
'She doesn't compare to me...'
Because unlike Sakura, Gray thinks of herself as someone who shouldn't even exist.
"Master will die at any moment if those monsters feel like killing her. It's best to say goodbye to her before she dies. I'll have to find myself another master."
Waver's eyes widened in anger. He stood up abruptly and threw the chair down hard. He advanced three steps towards Toru and grabbed him by the knot of the scarf, however, he did not manage to move him a single centimeter from where he stood.
"Professor, calm down!"
Without releasing the cage from his right hand, Gray grabbed Waver's hand and tried to pull his hand back. The latter didn't move as he gripped Toru tighter.
"Why do you always act like you don't care about anything, why do you always look at everyone like you don't feel anything, Asahi Toru!!!"
He finally lost his patience about yesterday. He blurted out everything he was thinking with shouts while Sakura watches her father's concern silently. She felt how this situation had become quite worrisome because of her. Deep down she regretted many things.
Waver continued:
"You... always so bored of everything, always so depressing. What can you possibly know about everything that's going on! Do you think I'll let my daughter die! Do you think I'll let you talk about her as if she's already dead!"
Assassin looked at him coldly.
"And what can you do about it? She'll die whether you want her to or not. Say goodbye to her and stop crying. At least you'll get to say goodbye. You should be grateful."
"You fucking bastard!"
"No! Professor!"
Waver raised his fist and punched Toru in the face. The latter took the blow all over his right eye, but he didn't move an inch. Instead, Waver received the damage from hitting Toru, as his fingers crunched and he grunted in pain as he felt his own foolishness fall on his head. Even if Gray had told him to stop, he simply let his emotions get the better of him.
He looked down and whispered:
"I...in all this time I haven't changed at all..."
Hearing her father so despondent with sadness, she closed her eyes and asked interrupting all this drama.
"Toru... Is there anyone you hate?"
He looked at her as if confused by that question. He tilted his head and grabbed Waver by the wrist. He released his grip and then sat up and let go of the man.
"There are a lot of people who hate me. Your father joined my list. Who do I hate? There really isn't anyone I hold a special grudge against enough to hate."
Sakura smiled. She somehow felt that Toru was lying. She heard him, heard that voice inside her dreams. It was the voice of someone who hates himself.
It was Toru's voice...
...
...
"You said my father would indeed get a chance to say goodbye. That means in the past you didn't get to say goodbye to someone, right?"
"... That's not something important right now."
"Answer me, Toru. That's an order..."
He closed his eyes and scratched his head regretfully.
"What an annoying order."
He looked at Waver and Gray before answering.
"Yeah... There was someone I couldn't say goodbye to, are you happy now? So you should say goodbye to her, Waver Velvet. Don't go regretting it later."
"You're still at it."
"But what I'm saying is true. I'm not lying. She's going to die. You can't do anything about it. Even my master knows it and doesn't deny it. What's more, she seems to accept death easier than I thought."
No. He is wrong.
Sakura whispered...
"I don't want to die..."
To which Toru immediately looked at her.
"I... I don't want to die... not yet... There are too many things I have to do before I can even think about resting from all of this. There's too much I have to see... there's so many things I want to learn..."
Sakura looked up at the ceiling and closed her eyes.
"There's so much I want to know about you, Toru..."
And from one moment to the next, she fainted. Waver rushed to her immediately, but all he could do was silently wail.
He watched this girl's room in silence until he met Gray's gaze. She didn't seem to be so afraid of Assassin's presence anymore, whose name she discovered thanks to her mentor, but there was something in her gaze that caught Toru's attention.
'She'll be sad too, huh...'
This place, full of memories for a father and daughter. This place, where Gray now stood. This place, where his master will die. This scene, which brought back a small moment from his past, was quite nostalgic because he remembered his end in the Shinobi World.
Everything is so boring for him. Nothing matters to him anymore. This is a monotonous and depressing life, so depressing that it wasn't worth even trying to do something to change it, because the result will always be the same. The same misfortune over and over again. Maybe this was his 'fate', but even he didn't know if this would be true.
"I was reading your books last night, Waver-sensei."
A sudden interaction after a long silence. His voice murdered the silence in the place giving way to a new topic. He made up his mind to do something as this whole situation already had him tired.
"There were things that interested me quite a bit. It was a good read. Most of those books were new. I guess you bought them to find a way to save my master."
The Lord clenched his fist. He felt offended.
"For someone who made me lose my composure a few seconds ago, you calling me 'sensei' doesn't make me feel any better."
"Fuhahaha."
Suddenly, Add's laughter was heard. It was followed by a few more words.
"This servant always makes things interesting! I can see it coming! He's going to do something really crazy like in that castle!"
And he's not wrong. He can read Toru better than anyone else in this room. I don't know about anything, but he could know a lot about this boy during the fight against the yamabushi in the castle. What's more, he could know a lot more about him the moment Gray let him melt into her body.
"You have those crazy bright eyes. If what I think is true, then you know how to save that girl, right? But look at you dragging the whole situation out with that cheap drama... you like to cause Chaos among people and, even if you deny it, it's something I've seen in you. You like to cause Chaos..."
"You... talk a lot..."
Toru didn't have much to say.
"Hahaha. Look Gray, I told you. This guy is perfect for you. Plus they complement each other really well, don't you think?"
"What, ahhh?"
Gray's reaction somehow calmed down this whole tense scene. Waver again turned to Toru, this time leaving all traces of anger in the past. Inside he was begging for help. This was timely in some bizarre way.
"Do you know how to save Sakura?"
He asked already resigned to throwing it all away. Toru then approached Sakura by lifting the chair off the floor and sitting next to her.
"In theory, I can imbue the inside of my master's body with my element (shakuton) to burn the insects, but..."
"The lady might die in the process."
Add said. Gray thought about that, but somehow it didn't make sense so he asked.
"How would you know which places to burn to kill the parasites?"
Toru blinked and his eyes changed. The X inside the iris as a pupil; the flashy colors that looked beautiful and mysterious to Gray.
"Because I can see them."
Waver then touched his head painfully.
"And what did you say all those things for before?"
This time the Assassin didn't answer, but Add did know, so he just laughed as Gray tried to shut him up.
"The point of all this is that I could try, but it's a pain in the ass. Although anything is better than going back to the Throne of Heroes or finding another master. I just wanted to know if you guys are willing to give it a try too. She will die anyway, so speeding up that process with this would give the same result. If it goes well, you'll have to find yourself an elite healer in any case, as you'll have to heal the internal burns. So..."
With his mysterious eyes, he looked at Sakura. She has the final say, so this was all or nothing. 50/50 chance. Take or leave. But now she won't be able to make that decision herself so, as her servant, Toru made that decision for her,
He took Sakura's hand and squeezed it gently, but as he did so, he felt something strange. It was as if he remembered this hand, only a little smaller, like the memory of a sensation, as well as the sweet and cloying taste of bread, like blades grazing his skin or Uchiha Madara stabbing his chest with his hand.
Something no one could see happened. A small tear crumbled down Toru's face. No one could see it and Toru could not understand the reason for this. However, now he felt he had to act, for some strange reason. So he stood up with his back to everyone.
"We must not wait any longer. With every passing second my master's life is slipping from her hands."
This girl's life is in his hands; the hands of an assassin.
To be continued...