11 In Hopes to Find Her

The fire was playing a game of survival with the howls of the wind that were crawling through the cracks in the walls and in between the wooden boards that were sealing the said cracks in the merchant's modest house.

It wasn't much, the house. All it had presented was how much of a lonely estate it truly was. It conveyed forgotten paradise that was once shared with a loved one, now somewhere far away. Orchard stopped calling it a home ever since the incident.

The fire was strong and kept dancing, making the two pilgrims and a big old man relatively warm. Next to the sounds of a colder night, the fire and the wind, one more sound was involved. It was the restless munching of the boy — baked beans, bread and a cup of water were more than enough to turn off the boy's ignited hunger.

Ryohu was watching closely, just as he finished his bowl of milk.

"Meow…"

"Maybe, but if we waited for lunchtime in the hospital, we might've not had a chance to escape later on. But to be honest with you, I would've eaten it all, even if it was disgusting hospital food!"

The merchant was sitting on a rough, wooden crate while carefully observing the boy.

He automatically noticed the grey patient robe and the linings on the left side of his stomach as soon as he saw him. He watched him eat the food he served him for awhile and then started talking with the deep voice he had within him.

"What happened, dirt bags? I thought your whereabouts would've been different by now."

"They did change. We just traced back."

"Hard to believe — you kept ranting on about having a couple of months left for something important. All your bloody mouth talked about, either way."

"We traced back unintentionally. We've now got very little time, but first we must find Eivör."

"Who in the damned man's hell is that?"

"She's one of the seven."

Orchard made a sudden pause before letting out more words. At first he thought he heard something else.

"Your asses searchin' for one of the seven? Do you want to die?"

"Not really. She's a very nice person, Orch!"

"I don't know what you're talking about, but it's not safe to travel anywhere now. Hell, I'm surprised your asses made it, wherever you were, and back!

Will ya finish that already so I can put it off?"

By Orchard's command, the boy licked off the bowl which once held baked beans, emptied out the cup of water and fully swallowed the crumbling bread. Then he remembered his last visit here. A sudden thought of his popped out.

"Hey, Orch… Last time your wife put away the dirty dishes. Where is she now?"

"She's gone."

"Where'd she go?"

"She's dead, you fool."

The boy sat in silence.

He also sat in disbelief. Throughout the last number of days he had witnessed great pain and heard about death countless times. It would seem that the mad spree of resonance was still following him.

Ryohu was in a lying position, preparing to fall into slumber. Orchard left the dishes on the barely stable counter, returned to sit back on the rough crate and continued the depressing conversation.

"Cara died a couple of months ago. I-It was supposed to be an ordinary day, y'know?"

"Orch…"

"Yeah, an ordinary day… S-She went over to the fields to get more fruit for the shop. But she wasn't coming back home… I went to search for her and found her there. She was lying on the ground, s-shot… Shot by the rifles of the military."

A certain dose of stopping and cracking could be heard in his deep voice. No doubt about it, that was true pain coming from the heart. The boy felt severe empathy and sorrow whilst listening to the merchant.

"It was all because of those military raids and their filthy disciplinary camps… After Cara and all those poor people that got executed one way or another, they're commencing the raids yet again… They just don't know when to stop."

"Disciplinary camps…?"

"You haven't heard about the Lord's purge and the military raids?"

"I don't think I did."

"It's a damn dictatorship we live in! That bloody bastard thinks he can control us and manipulate us all. But ever since the magical seven, more and more people continue to break free. That's probably what he didn't see coming.

Over the months, the number of revolutions among the citizens of the districts against the rotten dictatorship of a system slowly started increasing. Eventually, the number got so high that it started posing a threat to the authorities and the Lord, so he arranged the military to do his dirty work. The objective is to create fear, so they started wiping out people at random, revolutionaries or not. They raised camps just outside of districts and started torturing people inside of it, namely for disobeying the Lord's law, even if some are completely innocent of it."

"But why would they kill Cara?! She's done nothing wrong!"

After hearing the news and getting fully updated, the boy had to ask. Sadly, Orchard's answer was not even a drop merciful.

"This is Stoth's and Hythwin's military we're talking about, God damn it! As long as they're paid, they have no problem with killing innocents. I don't know how much money they get, but I heard that Woolcot is in it as well. Given their economical and financial status, I bet loads are involved, and that's what motivates the military, be damn sure.

During Cara's visit to the fields, the raids seemed to have just begun. If only I knew earlier… If only…"

"—"

The boy decided not to say anything. Not because he didn't have anything to offer, but because he thought it was the right thing to do. He thought nothing that he could say would make things better. And it was true.

"Now they're at it again, only this time they're doing inspections inside residential objects. If they find something they don't like or something that's against the rules, they take away that person. There's nothing guaranteeing that they won't come this very moment. That is why you two will have to leave first thing in the morning, for both yours and mine safety."

"We will, thank you for the food and a place to stay. However, Orch, we need one more thing."

"Eh… Spill it out."

"Has there been any word about the seven being seen in this part of the district?"

"You still goin' on about that?! They must've drugged you in that hospital, or wherever you were!"

"Come on Orch, you know the news!"

The boy was being highly persistent — nothing unusual coming from him, though.

"Sheesh kid… The oppression of the Lord and the goddamn military raids are enough to cause a fine dosed ruckus; the seven being seen or engaging combat somewhere in the district or even around it would be too much. However…"

"…?"

"I've had one customer complain to me about seeing a man successfully leading a wolf with him. He's a fair man, even has a family. His only flaw is that he talks too much, but I don't think that he would lie."

"Was it one of the seven?!"

"Calm down. He said he believes it's the third out of the seven, but he said that he saw him masked with a robe and hood over his head so he couldn't see him fully. Then he kept glorifyin' and praisin' himself on how he really saw the Wolf… Fool."

Then the boy remembered something crucial.

[I was on the ground when someone said they're splitting… Then it must be this wolf guy! Wait, is he the one that…?]

"Where did he see him?!"

"Beats me. I stopped listening to him since I wasn't interested. Yeah, I said I thought he would never lie to me. For everything except that, though. Didn't believe a thing his darn mouth was sayin'."

The boy sighed in despair. However, the information was fairly useful to him — it only recited that at least one of the seven was relatively close by. A single question started sliding across the surface of the boy's puzzled mind.

How do I reach him?

The blanket was only halfway removed from his whereabouts, the rest was still covered in a mystery. No doubt about it, he was somewhere around the area, but the exact location still had to be found out. Ever since then, the boy kept thinking about it heavily.

2

Five in the morning.

The dark black sky was slowly turning into dark pale blue, lightning up by every passing minute. Orchard was deep asleep on his wooden bed — no mattress, just the boards. The discomfort revisited every night, so a routine it became. The hardness of the boards and the pain in the back and neck was something Orchard got used to a long time ago.

The boy was on the cold (slightly warmer now, because of the cracking fire) ground, Ryohu right next to him, both peacefully sleeping. If it wasn't for the wound that needed to rest and the fatigue that kept beating him down, the boy would have had a hard time falling asleep, since his thoughts were all over the moldy room.

Out of a sudden, two knocks came blasting from outside the merchant's house. The boy and Orchard quickly found themselves in a sitting position.

And there it went again.

Knock.

Knock.

They were all as silent, hollow figures. Just who could be knocking so disturbingly at five in the morning? Orchard quickly stood up. It was obvious that he was in a nervous panic. The boy looked at him with a confusing stare. Ryohu just woke up as well.

Orchard then proceeded to walk as quietly as he could towards the wooden boards and started peeking through one of the holes. He saw two military officers, the third one was most likely the one knocking. He then exploited a couple of whispers to the boy and his cat and the both of them started moving in a hurry.

A couple of seconds after, Orchard is opening the shrieking door.

"Sorry for the hold fellows, I was asleep so" —

"Colonel Walt Rafnkell, here to undergo an inspection."

An old and grim voice walked into the ears of the merchant. Without a second to think or courage to resent, he had to let them into his humble home.

"Alright, come in."

His big, dark brown boots echoed around the whole house, or in precision, both of the rooms — the living (if you can call "this" living) area and the dining area.

His military suit was quite frightening. A strict white line on the back of his jacket, eight buttons and a symbol for the Lord almighty on the front. The maroon colored jacket itself was made from high quality leather, as well for the big boots and the black gloves he had covering his killing hands.

None of the personnel were given permission to wear anything on top of their heads and would be discontinued on the spot if they did so, however rules didn't apply to this colonel. Walt was wearing a straw hat with no details on it — fully blank and tedious, per say. The uninteresting straw hat was swallowing his long black hair, and fairly enough, hiding the pores on his forehead.

He started pointing fingers to the other two officers, sliding the tip of his wrinkled fingers across the table and checking everything there was to check (and know that there was not much to look around, given the circumstances the merchant lived in).

There was nothing.

No one.

All that was left for them to inspect was the enormous closet made out of oak wood. One of the three approached the closet and instead of opening it cautiously and slowly like any rational officer would do, this one almost smashed the loosely handles of the doors.

What they saw in the closet was nothing out of the ordinary — a bunch of old clothing pieces, loads of soap and some handy tools. The only thing that was slightly unusual to see, and therefore suspicious, were the two dresses in his closet.

The officer turned his look to the merchant. With a sore throat where spit started gathering, Orchard spoke a couple of hard words in a form of a reply.

"They belonged to my wife. She was killed in a… An accident."

After these words, the officer left the closet open just like an uncultured swine and all three of them let themselves out, with Orchard closing and locking the door behind them. He then stood against the door for a couple of minutes and mindlessly kept inhaling and exhaling deeply.

After the realization that he was in the clear, he turned towards the closet and ordered the boy to come out.

Behind all of the pieces of clothing was a thin wooden wall, more like a thin board that was easily movable. Both the boy and Ryohu were hiding behind it.

They removed the board, got out of the closet and put it back in.

"They really did come… Phew, that was intense."

"You two dumbasses will get this old man killed…"

"Why did you say it was an accident?"

"Hm?"

"When you said that the dresses belonged to your wife?"

"If I said that they killed her, they would automatically register that I hold a grudge against them. I don't want them to know that, the bastards would get harsh. But… I almost said it."

"You almost said it…?"

"Whenever I look at those beautiful pieces of clothing of hers… I remember her, and what she often used to say. "If I don't get to see the beauty of the end of culture, then at least I've seen the culture of the end of beauty."

When I saw the dresses just now, and that rotten fool standing next to them, I saw her face, her grief and sorrow, and remembered the words. But then again, it's better to be smart than righteous, huh? Nobody likes a dumb, persistent hero nowadays."

The boy was emotionally struck. Familiar words flew in awe, his thoughts once again, baffled.

[Better to be smart than righteous…]

"Orch…"

"There are a lot of officers around the area now. Once they clear up in an hour or so, you two should get going. Guess this is a "good morning" to all of us."

"We'll… We'll even be gone before that. We'll try and sneak past them like it's nothing, right Ryohu?"

"Meow!"

"But hey, Orch…"

"—?"

"Thank you for all the help. Because of you we might even fulfill our goal."

"It's nothin', you dirt bags. When you leave, you can even take this bag. I'll fill it up with a couple of" —

Bam!

A single shot from a pump-action shotgun came from the wooden boards, breaking through them and making a giant hole in Orchard's forehead. The old man merchant's huge body fell to the ground lifelessly with a surprising impact.

The insides of his head, including hemispheres of his brain, all spilled out in a lake of blood on the cold and dirty floor.

Ryohu stared in shock. The boy was trembling with pupils shrunken terribly.

He quickly grabbed Ryohu, carried him under the pit and rushed to the corner of the wall to stay hidden, since one of the boards is now destroyed and anyone could see inside. The boy's first instinct was to scream Orchard's name in despair, but when he thought about it for a second, that would've been a disaster — an unknown number of officers were surely lurking not just around the house, but the whole street instead.

Then the need to vomit attacked him. The boy persistently kept holding it in, remember — even an ounce of noise would make the military realize that there was someone else in the now dead merchant's living area.

Voices started appearing from the outside. The first one to pop out was the colonel's.

"Damn pig, you can clearly see that he's a merchant. Never liked those, they were always frauds in my eyes."

"He's with his wife now, you did him a favor! Now that he skipped the camps because you killed him, should we rob him? I'm up for some loot!"

The boy's anger and despair grew by the second. But, fear as well.

More and more voices started appearing in the boy's ears, only exposing the fact that there were now dozens of officers raiding the area. The boy glanced over his shoulder and noticed the bag. He grabbed it with a swift movement and quickly put panicking Ryohu in there. He then realized that there was no more room, neither time for him to put anything else in.

So he closed the bag and put it on his back.

Colonel Walt started entering the house once again, with the shotgun in the safety of the grip possessed by the black, leather gloves.