A Painful Past
The physical exams went smooth other than Rita's accidental meeting of Ethelred, even though he was wearing a disguise Rita could feel the same power she felt whenever she was near a hunter. That dreadful and dangerous aura no matter how hard they try to suppress it, it would leak out occasionally.
"Why are you here?" Rita asked cautiously, but Edmund ignored her as he was marking some grades he was assigned by Welt. Although the two were the only ones in the spectating room Rita did not want to pick a fight she couldn't win.
Rita kept staring at the man, unable to spectate the exam, worried because if she left him out of her sight she might die.
After a while Edmund still felt her gaze on him, he let out a breath before setting down his pen and turned to the side.
"Is there anything I can help you with Madam Rita?" Edmund asked with a polite tone accompanied by a small smile.
"Please do not play dumb with me Mr. Hunter, I can tell that you are a hunter because of your aura. Although normal valkyries such as students wouldn't notice it. I wonder if all you hunters use schools to hide yourselves?" Rita spoke in a calm voice, her small smirk that had an underlying mischief.
"How was your meeting with Duke, I trust you've made a decision of how you will continue living this life," Ethelred asked, his hand interlaced with one another as he waited for Rita's answer.
"Wha..what are you talking about?"
"I'm sure Duke told you about it. Our little divine toy that we hunters use to stay one step ahead of everyone," Ethelred did not waste any words as he knew that Rita knew, but Duke did a soul contract so that she would not speak of this to anyone outside the hunters.
"Do you perhaps know the reason why the villagers framed you? The real reason. Not that stupid reason that you'd destroy their village," Ethelred asked again, Rita who was staring at him with a neutral expression was slowly frowning.
"The villagers were Fire Moth's. They were tasked with getting information out of you, but thanks to the contract, no information was spilled and because of the intense trauma your body suffered and experienced that day. You lost that part of your memory," Ethelred explained, he soon stood up and walked to Rita. "Now I ask you, do you want to remember that day?" Ethelred asked in a calm voice, his eyes staring down at Rita waiting for an answer from her.
"It will be painful, but you'll remember. You'll remember the hatred that sparked in your heart. The anger, the pain, the despair. You'll remember it all. Even if you do not remember it, your soul does. That resolution of not wanting to feel that kind of pain again drove you into this path. A path of servitude, to make sure you'd be able to do anything your master wishes…" Bending his body down so his mouth was slightly beside her ears he whispered. "So you do not need to suffer the consequences for not being able to comply with an order," Rita bit her lips as her whole body tensed. Although there was no pressure nor an aura excluding him it still made her feel tense.
"At first it was weird for me to see someone wanting to become the perfect maid, but after remembering your past and speculating on why, this is the best answer I could come up with, please do tell me if I'm wrong," Ethelred straightened his body back up as he looked out the window, he saw that it was Mei's squad that was participating, so he sat down and Rita do her job.
"Now we can't have our dedicated maid fail her duties do we now?" Ethelred taunted her, he knew she'd be here and he knew what her mission was.
"Are you hunters all this arrogant? Do you all really think you can handle the final Herrscher when it descends?"
"We've dealt with the Herrscher of End once, but it was an incomplete form, and it almost cost the lives of our Progenitors," Ethelred shook his head, denying her second question.
"We are all arrogant for a reason. Besides, you've never met Escanor. He was the pinnacle of a prideful hunter, A man who's arrogance would never be outmatched," Ethelred smirked as he had a reminiscing look.
"But if the Herrscher of End were to descend now, it would require the joint effort of everyone in the world to repel her back, because this time she would not descend in a half assed form,"
"Why do you hunters all hide and work in the shadows? You could've come out and help us, you could've united the world together,"
"Diversity is a better option. If we hunters were to come out from the shadows and help you all. There would never be a term for Valkyries, flame chasers, or any other kind of warriors that existed in the past. Having this diverse type of organization would be more beneficial in the long run. This is something that we hunters would never be able to achieve alone. We needed other organizations to be born and the main reason we hid is because we needed you all to grow. To grow more powerful and independent until you do not need us," Ethelred explained to her why the hunters chose this way.
"What do you mean until we don't need you?" Rita asked, turning to her with a somber smile Ethelred spoke.
"In the end you are all the same. Valkyries, humans, fire moth, mantis, flame chasers, anti entropy, schicksal. You all strive for survival, that is what makes us different from you all. We hunters wouldn't think twice to let ourselves go extinct as long as we did our part. As long as we assure humanity's preservation," The similarity of his and Duke's answer made Rita frown.
"You hunters were ready to die from the beginning weren't you? You never had any plans of continuing your existence when all of this is done," Rita stated and Ethelred shook his head.
"Those who have people they love would be given the choice to continue living on, but the hunters will stop to exist. One of the other reasons we chose to hide ourselves. So that one day when all of this is over we can blend into society and no one would even notice us," A wistful and longing dream some hunters had when their mind was clear and not filled with madness. A wish for some rest.
'Besides, when the Herrscher of End comes. We've already developed one last ditch effort. Project Ichor. A mix of every Herrscher blood that would be injected into every hunter that volunteered themselves to fight the Herrscher of End,' Ethelred was one of the people that volunteered to do it, and he hadn't told Fu Hua about this yet, because she is the reason he had volunteered and backed down many times. The thought of leaving Fu Hua alone in this world tormented him, but the thought of backing down and possibly letting the world come to end steeled his decision to a certain degree.
"Don't worry. We've seen the end of this world more than once. If we're still calm then all is good. But when you start seeing us anxious and frantic, now that's when you worry," Ethelred joked as he watched Mei slice a Honkai beast in one swipe which made him satisfied because it was at least a templar class one, and with her skill currently she should be able to do a bit better.
"Why didn't you tell Duke?" Rita shifted the conversation, but also hoping some of her curiosity could now be satiated.
"His emotions. If I were to tell him about you, who's to say he won't barge into Schicksal and just grab you and drag you to God knows where and hide," Ethelred stared at her deadpan, she held out a finger wanting to refute, but put it back down as it was how Duke was. He would let his emotions take over rather than his brain.
"When you died. Duke nearly killed himself. But the 0th generation gave him a purpose. A promise to try our best to revive you after we save the world from the Honkai. It was wistful thinking and an empty promise, but we had Otto's crazy ideas to thank,"
"We preserved your body and during the time where we had nothing to do. We experimented on some stuff and failed all of them, but when Otto was born, the experiments he did to revive his beloved aligned with ours so we did some sneaking and eventually managed to revive you. And if you're asking us to revive Kallen for Otto we can't do that as it would affect the future,"
"What do you mean it would affect the future?" Rita asked with curiosity, but Ethelred smirked and placed his finger in front of his mouth.
"That's a secret," He stood up, seeing as the exams were over and Rita who noticed this and cursed as she had to review the exams through recording. But she was slightly curious about something so she took a deep breath and spoke.
"How about a wager?" Rita wanted to use their battle freak traits to her advantage and to her expectations Ethelred turned around.
"You have my attention," He said, but did not turn around just yet.
"A spar between us, no killing and crippling, but no holding back,"
"Just you would be.."
"Me and Durandal against you. If you agree I'll set up the stage without anyone knowing about this wager,"
"What do you want if you win?" Ethelred inquired as he closed his eyes, his face turned thoughtful for a moment trying to guess what she wanted.
"I want my memories,"
"Oh? I didn't expect that," He turned around. "Now you have my interest," He smirked and took a few steps forward.
"If I win you will break Duke for me. I want you to hate him, to despise him, and when he finds out that you are Lucia. I want you to blame your death on him," Ethelred had a smirk that didn't express anything, she couldn't read his intentions.
"Do we have a deal?" Ethelred took out his hand, but Rita slapped it away. She didn't even want to.
"See. No matter how hard you try to hide it. You will still love him deeply," Ethelred spoke matter of factly and left the room.
Rita gritted her teeth in frustration before calming herself down. She still had to meet with Theresa after this and she needed to act normal.
The next day Ethelred could be seen taking some blows from Mei and Fu Hua, since Fu Hua already found out about his apprentice he had no problem training them at once and besides he could handle them both.
A sword went past his temple as a fist collided with his abdomen.
Ethelred was once again pushed back. He did allow them to use mental communication, but he did not think that the two were hell bent on hitting him where it hurts.
"Shit," He cursed when Mei shot a powerful thunder attack that struck his left arm rendering it useless.
"Alright playtime is over," Ethelred appeared next to Mei with his right hand he punched her waist and made her stumble . Soon he turned around and caught Fu Hua's fist and immediately kicked her in the abdomen, sending her back a few feet.
"I know I told you that you didn't need to hold back, but you two were really trying to kill me weren't you," Ethelred focused some energy to regenerate his arm and turned to the two who were gasping in pain on the floor.
"Take some rest. I'll be away for a few days for some business. Good luck on your next mission Hua and stay safe," Ethelred departed from the training area, the darkened room around them soon became brighter as they returned to reality.
The two took a while to recover from the blows Ethelred dealt to them respectfully and when the ache on their bodies subsided they stood up and walked or limped back to their dorms.
"Still hurts?" Fu Hua gave Mei an ice pack as she herself held one against the spot Ethelred kicked her.
"That man hits hard, one of the reasons I focus more on my speed," Mei muttered as she took the ice pack and compressed her waist.
"To dodge his attacks? You know that the pure shockwave each of his blows produce won't matter that much if you manage to dodge right?"
"With my current speed yes, but in the future I can maybe dodge him entirely,"
"Mei hunters are trained to adapt in any situation. Even if they are outmatched in strength, speed, or in any other aspect or even in all aspects. They'll at least still be able to tear one limb off before they are to lose,"
"And you should be wary of hunters that have nothing to lose. Those kinds of hunters are the most dangerous amongst all other hunters. They won't mind ending their own life for the fun of it,"
"How long have you been with him?" Mei asked Fu Hua.
"He and I have been on and off, but he and I got together for the first time fifty thousand years ago. Whenever there was a joint mission between Fire Moth and the hunters. I would always be paired up with him, at first I thought it was a coincidence, then I thought he was a stalker at one point, but when I asked why we keep on getting paired up together he gave me this answer," Closing her eyes she tried to remember before finally opening her mouth to speak.
"Fu Hua, in all my years. I've never seen anyone wrapped around in death's embrace as tightly as you are. I've seen your deaths over a hundred times, until I felt pity for you. The first time I received the divination of your death I didn't know who you were, until we were paired up the next day," Fu Hua recited what Ethelred had told her years ago.
"From then he kept having more divination of my deaths that haunted him. It made him care for me, he saved me so many times. But another question came up in my mind. Why? Why did he save me? He could've just let me die and stop all those divinations," Fu Hua continued, but when she started to ask why. She sounded like she was questioning it as well, as if she still hasn't gotten the answer.
"What was his answer?" Mei asked before drowning her throat with cold water.
"He didn't know. He said he just felt the urge, like it was his duty to do it," Fu Hua explained
"He said it was how hunters find their love, they watch the ones they were destined to love die over and over again until they care. A cruel method, but that was what made the hunters anchored to this world. What made them loyal to humanity," Fu Hua shrugged, she herself also thought that something was wrong.
"Are you implying that someone did this?" Mei asked her with slight curiosity.
"It's just speculation, but the hunters have a belief that their Progenitors were the one that caused this, but their Progenitors all have experienced painful experiences regarding love, but again this is not certain. Many hunters have fallen in love in the same way, some with fellow hunters, while some had to search for their other half. Some found them in time, while others are less fortunate,"
"I see, I never thought being a hunter was that cursed. It seems like the curses of being a hunter outweighs the blessings," Mei frowned as she digested the information Fu Hua had just given her, painting herself going through what a hunter had to, just to feel love.
"Unlike valkyries and many in the past, hunters mostly consist of males, as for why, I need to become a hunter to know that," Fu Hua and Mei stopped discussing this topic when they saw the door open and revealed Kiana, Bronya, and Himeko sensei. The two were greeted and both of them smiled warmly in return.
Mei cooked some dinner for them and they all gathered around the table to eat together before they finally chatted amongst one another.