The Paradox of Balance
Chapter 4: Hell Hath No Fury…
I still don't really understand what made me say these things back there…
Do I really think that way? Yes, deep in my heart, I… am resentful towards him…
But I have to get over it. I promised Alouette that I would accept her death. I mean, I really do understand that I can't entirely blame him. But I guess that deep within me, I…
I hate him…
I don't want to go back there, I don't want to hate him… I don't want to see that part of me ever again…
- - - - - - - - - -
"I don't understand how you can tolerate being so ugly Hermes."
Standing, or rather floating into the nothingness that was this alternate dimension-slash-prison for the Mediator, Iris stared at Hermes' "human" form. Beings like them could take on whatever form they wanted. Hermes liked to become some rather huge "thing" in the human world. Iris never understood how one could stand being ugly. Even in this dimension, Hermes was "ugly". He had taken on the appearance of an old man, whereas she was a beautiful, if she could say so herself, young blonde woman.
The two of them had been in a staredown for what could be compared to more or less a human week, which means, not a long time for those two. They had been staring at each other in complete silence for all this time, Iris' small comment being the first spoken words ever since the abduction.
"This appearance makes me invisible to most eyes Iris."
"Of course… who would want to stare at gray hair?"
"You always liked being the center of attention…"
They went into silence, but this time Hermes was in deep thoughts. Iris… she had been his old mentor back before he had been appointed as the human world's Mediator. This, of course, was so long ago that it was impossible to calculate using human time references. Iris, being more advance, had been selected to become his teacher, and a good teacher she had been, even though at some points in her training, she had mislead him in order to remain the strongest out of the two. But when the title of Mediator had been appointed, Hermes received it, at Iris' surprise.
"You still haven't let go of the fact that I got to be the Mediator, haven't you?" realizing too late that he had just crossed the line.
"I should have been the Mediator!" she screamed, pointing her finger menacingly at Hermes. "But YOU had to get it, even though I…"
"Here we go again," he thought as he mentally blocked out Iris temper tantrum that he had already heard many times before. He just crooked his head and faked interest at Iris' speech.
"Iris," he finally said, "we've been over this millions of times before. What is left to say? You didn't get to be Mediator because you were lacking something that I have", he concluded using the same term that the Goddess had used to explain the situation once.
"Ah ha, this might be true… but this time… I'll have the last word… and even the higher forces with me."
He had known Iris for a long time, but he had never heard her say something like this. Regaining his concentration, he noticed Iris' look on her face. In all his life, he had never seen such a look. It was a look of certain victory, a look that said: "You are in deep trouble" but not in a scolding way. He understood that for the first time in their eternal quarrel, Iris might be on to something.
"I always knew that you were a bad Mediator, but now I have the proof," she said in a satisfied tone.
"What did I do that is so bad Iris?"
"You poor miserable fool…" she said looking up at him, "you don't understand?"
He could see that she was surprised, but what got on his nerves the most was the look of pity in her eyes. She crossed her arms and closed her eyes, pensive.
"Hermes… you made it possible…"
"Spit it out Iris!" he said, annoyed.
"The destruction of the world," she said with a smile.
- - - - - - - - - -
Not losing a moment after Eclair's revelation, Salade instructed Sister Olive to let Culotte, Eclair, and himself go after Prier using his "special method", which turned out to be your common carriage.
"Wait…" blurted out Culotte, "why haven't we ever used that for our missions?"
A nervous Salade simply backed away in anticipation of retaliation. Culotte was Prier's brother after all… And Salade still remembered what happened the last time he brought upon himself the "wrath of Prier", although he must admit that Prier only managed to hurt him because he was busy with Alouette's own wrath at the moment. Prier was good, but she was still aeons away from matching him.
"This is great! We'll find Prier in no time with this!" said Eclair, desperately trying to switch the conversation topic. "Let's go!"
So the trio departed from Pot au Feu in a hurry. Salade was the driver, while Culotte and Eclair hung in the back.
"Have you noticed," she said, "even though mister Salade isn't part of the church, the Sisters still listen to him."
"Of course, no matter what, he'll always be Father Salade to the church."
The rest of the ride was made in silence.
-.-.-
At nightfall, they found a small cabin near the side of the road. As Salade stopped for directions, the two young demon hunters jumped out of the carriage, ready to regain some feelings in their legs.
"It's starting to rain here too…" Eclair said.
"Great… more dampness…"
"Alright," Salade said as he returned, "close to here is the village of Porte, but we need to stay out of that area, it seems that the village is not the place to go."
"Why not?"
"Well, the man and his wife there told me they ran away from this place. Most people there are rather strict about their beliefs…"
"The Church of the Goddess Poitreene?"
"Yes…"
They all silently nodded in unison as Culotte and Eclair went back into the carriage while Salade resumed his duties as driver, as rain poured down on them.
- - - - - - - - - -
"Well, since we can't burn her…"
It was the "tradition" in the village of Porte to burn the carcass of heretics since they believed that the body of the victim could still bring forwards small calamities and disasters. But, since heavy rain was pouring down upon them, all thanks to that witch, they couldn't exactly burn her.
They were all staring at her corpse. Once again, it had been another weak woman who fell into Calamity's ruse of power. If they hadn't stopped her, she would have probably tried to corrupt their minds with her charm, especially the way she was dressed. Before the torches went out due to the wind and rain duo, they managed to get a good look at the witch. What kind of man wouldn't resist to a woman wearing such tight and skimpy clothes? She was probably there to steal children from the men's insides only to later give them to Calamity. It was a good thing they killed her. And it was a very good thing that this demon killer, Croix, was working for them.
Most of the villagers had regained their houses trying to get out of the downpour. The elder, Croix, and a few of the Porte elite remained at the mob scene. The subject of their impromptu meeting was the disposal of the filthy being that was before them. With incineration out of the way, no other method seemed possible without contaminating the village. Finally, after a rather small discussion, it was the elder who found the best solution possible.
"You want to dump the body in the river?" questioned Croix, arching an eyebrow. "But aren't you going to contaminate others while doing so?"
"Well, the nearest village is Carreau and they are not followers of Poitreene," he said, failing to recognize the puzzled expression on Croix's face. "Let them have Calamity's curse. Maybe then they will finally understand the necessity of following the Goddess", he finished, surprisingly sounding rather angry with an invisible matter.
So, grabbing the body's arms, they dragged her to the river and proceeded to push her in where she floated away in the current. Tired and wet, they all headed back to their respective homes as if nothing had happened. The only exception was the demon hunter who decided to stay behind just in case her death might have already summoned curses for Porte. Tired and annoyed, the elder found nothing to say against that logic and hurried home to get dry.
As soon as they left Croix's already diminished, due to rain and darkness, field of vision, he walked along the riverside. Although the rain was starting to get the best of him, he kept walking and listening, although he couldn't hear much due to it. He kept walking for a minute or so before he finally heard what he was waiting for, well… more or less what he wanted to hear…
"I-Hate-You-Croix-Raoul," a muffled female voice broken by heavy breathing managed to say.
"Hello to you too, Prier."
She had managed to drag herself near the shore, but this effort had drained her of her energy. She was lying down in the mud, with barely enough energy to keep her torso above the ground to stare at him by resting on her arms. Although he couldn't really see her, he had the vague impression that she was beyond mad, and that if she could move…
"What did you shoot me with?" she moaned out weakly.
"Blanks, but at that range, even I'm surprised that you're not that hurt…" he said, not seeing the look on Prier's face.
"My chest is on fire!" she said before crashing to the ground.
Croix went up to her and lifted her up into his arms, ignoring her outraged moan. No matter what the situation, it seemed that Prier would rather die then let a man help her. He carried her away from the freezing river. She was in a pretty bad condition: the entire upper frontal part of her dress was ripped and burned, and he could only imagine the damage done under it. Fortunately, the darkness prevented him to view it.
"You got lucky that it was dark and rainy or else they would have noticed the lack of blood."
"Lucky!" she tried to cry out outraged, "You shot me, you dumped me in a river while I was unconscious… Heck you almost killed me, and you say that I'm lucky!"
"Hey!" he said, Prier's tone getting on his nerves, "It was either that or you would have been lynched. You decide!"
They simply stared at each other in pure fury. Both of them were getting progressively mad at one another. Prier was furious, for all obvious reasons, while Croix was starting to lose his temper due to Prier's reaction. Of course, it would have been stupid to imagine that she would have been ecstatic after his intervention, but she could at least understand what he had done. He really felt like dropping her there in the middle of the village and letting her deal with her problems. If she didn't appreciate what he did for her, well…
But he didn't. In a silence only broken by Prier's random labored breathing noises, he brought her back to what she referred as "an old shack", which was actually much better once inside.
Still angry with each other, Croix simply dropped her there and went back outside for a smoke on the front porch. Ignoring him, Prier, who somehow managed to stand on her feet, simply headed towards what she thought was the bathroom to examine the damages.
She was in a pretty bad shape. In fact, after the few steps she took, she felt unable to stand up on her own. The combination of her injuries, her pain, and her overall fatigue made it hard for her to stay on her feet. With the wall as her only support, she proceeded to remove her clothing to uncover the truth about her wounds.
Well, from what she could see, and feel, her torso had been burned. Her clothing managed to prevent some damage, but her superficial burns were still very painful. When that blank connected with her, it felt as if she received a Mooboo's hoof at full speed in her chest, which send, and still sent, throbbing pain through her entire body and knocked her out. Her trip down the river managed to cut and bruise the rest of her body, though to be quite fair, had brought very light pain when compared to her previous injuries. When she had woken up in the river, she had used her leftover power to conjure a "recovery" miracle. Although her healing abilities were sadly limited and she couldn't exactly heal herself, it did managed to prevent possible infection and it limited the pain. She still felt like hell, but it was actually tolerable. The effects wouldn't last very long, but it was better then nothing, and it did made her realize that she might want to work on her healing.
She tried to slowly get away from the wall in order to go in search of bandages and the likes, only to find out that her body decided to stop responding.
And as she crashed onto the floor, her only thoughts were about how the night would be long… Very long…
- - - - - - - - - -
Unable to see due to the rain and his fatigue, Salade decided that it might time to stop for the night. Happy to oblige, Culotte and Eclair jumped out of the carriage, only to realize that they were rather stuck to sleep inside of it anyway. Stuck in the middle of nowhere, not a single hint of civilization outside of them, they came to the conclusion that they would spend the night rather cold and wet.
About halfway through the night, Salade woke up alone in the carriage. Both Culotte and Eclair seemed to have disappeared from their place. Although he did have to admit that the carriage was not the most comfortable place to sleep, he was quite surprised that they would rather venture out in the rain.
His main plan was to step outside and find them, but it quickly became more drastic. After a few minutes of walking in the rain, using his coat has a makeshift umbrella, he heard what he thought was Culotte screaming. Not losing a moment, he dashed towards the muffled voice, but nothing could have prepared him for what he saw.
Culotte was kneeling on top of Eclair, his hands at her throat. Eclair was using the last of her strength to try to fight Culotte off, but with no avail. Salade, momentary paralyzed by what he saw, finally headed towards them in a fury in order to separate them.
But before he even reached them, sparks shot out from the sky and landed on the boy, who reared up under the pain. Using that moment, although Salade didn't exactly saw how, Eclair pushed him off. Then, she hurled herself at Culotte, tackling him to the ground and proceeded to punch him in the face over and over again.
Both of them got immediately separated as Salade ripped Eclair away from him and forced Culotte to his feet. He simply stared at them, confused. Eclair was still wheezing and Culotte was holding his right leg in pain. "That wasn't made by the lightning or her last attack," he thought. Looking at Eclair, he noticed that she too was wounded more seriously then she should have been. "What's the matter here? How long has this been going on?"
But he never got his answers as they both grabbed him and hurled him away, right before returning to their fight. This time, both of them were locked in what could be referred as a battle. They just attacked each other; not even a word of hate was exchanged.
Salade, getting up, felt as if it was time to use physical persuasion to get through. He got up and slowly headed towards the two of them, clenching his fist in anger.
But then, it hit him. How could two kids hurl him to the ground with such force? Even Prier couldn't do that, and she was clearly stronger then Culotte and Eclair combined. And while he was at it, why in the world would he think of getting physical with the two of them? Sure he would sometimes throw a punch or two, especially at a certain red-hair girl, but he would never attack them. In a confused state, he simply stared at his fist. And he saw it.
His fist, for some odd reason, seemed distorted. Usually, people like him could spot these types of things rather easily, but for some reason, he just couldn't now. Focusing on his fist with great intensity, he saw that his entire hand was covered in semi-transparent black flames.
Trying to remain calm, he looked at the two fighters. Both of them were completely engulfed by the black flames. But how?
He kept staring at his hand and he noticed smaller flames forming in his palm. And then, he got it.
"By the Goddess… No, anything but that!" he said, staring at the sky.
This was a bigger problem then he originally thought.
Pff, I actually had to cut the chapter in two for this one. And, just to notify, the next update could take a while. I'm now entering my end of session exams, so the fics are going to wait. Sorry, but biology is more important then Prier. Plus, since I don't have the net at home and the library is always closed near Christmas, I won't be able to upload unless an exception arises. So… umm… Happy Holidays, and don't touch that fruitcake if you know what's good for you!