Chapter 41: Unasked Torture

[Chizuru Belial POV]

The wind was moving slowly while letting out a cold breeze.

Just feeling the wind touch your bare skin can make anyone feel the joy of peace.

Being quiet on the balcony of her room; feeling the gentle motion of the air is what Chizuru is doing while looking at the city with a sad grin.

Knowing the fact that this exact city that she's standing on was built by Jarren Hotaru, made Chizuru feel uneasy, even feeling the wind made Chizuru felt despair.

The moment when she knew that the people who she has respected through her entire life were traitors all along, made her feel as if the citizens don't care for Hell.

"Everyone is powered by the Sins and Virtues, either if they're a God or not, the fate of using the two is inevitable."

People sin every day; people virtue every day, it's just an inescapable force that's bound in life. "There's no such thing as a perfect "being", everyone has an imperfection in them, even if they won't show it, or force people to believe that they're perfect, there will always be at least a person that'll see through their flaws-"

"What are you doing there Chizuru?"

Hearing the sudden question behind her, Chizuru noticed that it was Lucas who asked her that.

"Oh Lucas, nothing really... I'm just thinking about something."

"Really..? It's not quite like you Chizuru, to promise something."

"Huh? What do you mean?"

"I was talking about the promise you made with Haruki, hearing you say to us that you promised him that you won't let him see something like that again, made me feel something odd about you."

"Hehe." Chizuru said with a smug smile. "Are you jealous Lucas?"

"Please stop teasing me Chizuru!"

"Okay, okay, but yeah... I guess it's really my first time taking a promise to someone seriously."

"*Sigh* You know that what Ruri said is true right? And also, what you promise Haruki is not possible to do, especially in a battlefield."

"I know that! But even so, I still want to do it, even if Akemi and I are gonna have a hard time..."

"Why?" Lucas asked curiously

"Why? Because he's the current Ruler right? So it makes sense that as his General, I'll protect him both physically and mentally."

"You did change Chizuru, but I liked it, you weren't like this when King Jarren was the Ruler."

"What can I do Lucas? Ruri is indeed right that Haruki is really weak, so that's why I have to protect him. What about you Lucas? It was surprising that you agreed to make Haruki face death."

"Well it was indeed the first time I have done something like making a person fight against their weakness against death, but just as I said many times, I want to protect you and everyone, but I can't do that alone without everyone's help."

"Hmm... Anything else? Your answer is too bland."

"I said what I was supposed to say Chizuru, but if there's a second reason why I want to make Haruki stronger, it's because I have faith in him that he'll save everyone who has suffered, and his revenge to the Gods is gonna happen. So that's why I want him to get stronger because he can achieve what any sane person would call impossible."

"Ahh really... Do you really think that Haruki can save everyone?"

"Well... Not everyone though, but the majority of lives will do."

"*Chuckle* Haha! Seriously Lucas, you always say the dumbest things."

"What do you mean? I just said what I want to happen."

"If Haruki's gonna save most of our people, what are you gonna do? Help him? Betray him?"

"Of course I'm gonna help him Chizuru! I'm very loyal to the Ruler of Hell."

"Good... But if this battle would become very deadly, what would you do if everyone died? Because there's no way that there'll be no casualties."

"What will I do..? I-I'll-" Lucas couldn't answer Chizuru's question, because when he thinks about his friends dying he was tensed up. "I'll-"

"Okay stop!" Chizuru said with a smile. "Don't worry you can answer me that in another day, so think about it more."

"*Sigh* Okay..."

"*Sigh* Then I'll leave now. Faust and I still have something to do with Anya back at the lab." Chizuru said that as she leaves while waving her hand.

And before finally leaving she said to Lucas. "As long as you, the other third gen Generals, Luna, Dawn, the inheritor of the Archduke's names, Millie, and Haruki survived this upcoming bloodshed, then that's fine with me..."

Lucas was still on the balcony mesmerizing on the city with pain on his face, even if he thinks about it to himself many times, he can't find an answer to what Chizuru has said.

Even thinking about his friend dying made Lucas very tense. "I know that; I know that at least one of us will die..."

[Haruki Hotaru POV]

The wind was moving faster than before, and there are now insects here running and walking on the tall grass.

Just by opening my eyes, I immediately knew where I was when I saw the familiar scenery around me.

"I'm back..." Back at the tall grassy place where my peace belongs too.

In the distance right in front of me was a man casually drinking a cup of tea, and smiling at me.

It was him, the guy that gave me my father's sword, Lucifer.

After drinking his tea, Lucifer stood up and went closer to me slowly with a bright smile. "It's nice to see you again Haruki, did something good happen to you that you're making that face right now?"

Something good? I don't know what that word means when I saw what happened in the past.

"Hmm? I guess it didn't go well didn't it Haruki? *Sigh* I should've thought that giving you the sword of your father, will only engulf you in complete darkness."

"So you knew that it was gonna happen..."

"Of course, because I gave it to you Haruki."

"Then answer me Lucifer! Is all of that true! Are all of the things that the sword showed me is really true!?" I couldn't hold it anymore; my anger, my fear, my cowardice; just everything... I'm just afraid of knowing the truth.

"The answer's obvious isn't Haruki? Yes, everything that you saw is true. Your parents betraying Hell; Millie's parents betraying Hell; Yahweh giving Jarren the sword; the monstrosity that your father has become; all of that Haruki, is completely accurate to what happened in the past."

"..." It was painful to hear that everything I saw was true, the sword that my father has is already been filled with the blood of both good and evil.

People's blood and souls were consumed by that exact sword that my father used.

"So Haruki, I visited you again, because I wanted to know if you're gonna use the sword to fight the Gods, so are you gonna use it?"

"No... That sword has ended thousands of lives whether innocent or not, so my answer is no."

"*Sigh* Can I show you something for a bit Haruki?"

"Huh..?"

Lucifer just let out a smile and turned to dust.

It made me shocked that he turned to dust. "Lucifer where are you?!" I shouted

In front of me was the tall grass slowly changing, all of it was turning to black slowly; killing the grasses who turned dark, and the darkness that was slowly withering away the grasses is moving toward me.

I tried to run, but when I ran I tripped and can't any longer stand when I try to.

It was already getting close to me, and my head was starting to get dizzy.

When the darkness touched my foot, the entire place started spinning rapidly.

"Haruki, now let me show you the outcome of your future."

Pointing his finger in front of me, a large television appeared out of nowhere.

Seeing this made me wonder what Lucifer would show me, and when the tv turned on, I saw my friends.

All of them, Sora, Lucas, Shota, Akemi, Luna, Dawn, Millie, and every Archduke who I have met was on the television.

They weren't having a good time and partying, nor arguing, but instead, I saw all of them on the ground, dead.

Blood was coming out of their bodies, and flies were flying around their rotting corpses.

And most of all, all of their corpses were looking directly at me.

"Please stop!" I shouted in pain, seeing them die, seeing their corpses rot in front of my own eyes is making me insane.

My body was trembling in immense fear when I saw all of them dead, and I didn't notice that I was already crying tremendously from both sorrow and fear.

They were making a cracking sound, and when I looked at the tv again, I saw their eyes glow directly onto me.

Shota who was heavily burned in the tv started repeatedly saying. "Haruki, you let us die!"

Master Ifrit has marks of him that he was killed by an explosion of some sort and is also missing an arm. "You left us." He said.

Lilith was sitting on a chair, missing an eye, and has a beaten-up face. "Why Haruki?"

Sora was in the back beheaded, and his head was in tears. "I thought you were my best friend..."

Dawn is in the corner and her arms were outside of the tv; then grabbed me and pulled me inside.

There I saw Dawn with no eyes and was stabbed with a stake on her heart. "Do you hate us that much!?"

"No! No! I don't! I love you all!"

"Then why did you let us die Haruki!?" She screamed in a screeching voice.

I can feel then that someone was touching my back, and when I looked at who was the one who did it, I saw Luna with the wings of a fallen angel, but she only has one wing attached to her.

She has a lot of wounds also, and her scythe was broken. "You were my last hope, but it was stupid of me to believe that."

The moment she said that I saw everyone turned to dust, and vanished. "Wait-! Don't leave-"

"Haruki."

Hearing that voice from behind me, I turned my back and saw Akemi heavily injured.

"I thought you loved me Haruki..."

"No, no, no! Stop! Stop Lucifer!"

"Big brother..."

When I heard that voice, behind me I turned back in fear to see Millie who was shrouded in darkness. "Millie..?"

"Liar... You're a liar big brother... You said that I was your family; you left me like what my parents did to me."

I started crying tremendously that I also shouted in pain. "Stop! Stop! Stop!"

All of them started walking to me, and on the ground were dead bodies coming out of people I don't know.

But the moment I saw their bodies, I knew that they were the Archdukes who have died in the past war.

Everyone one of them, Millie; Akemi; Luna; Dawn; Sora; everyone all looked directly at me and started saying.

"Liar! Liar! Liar! Liar! Liar! Liar! Liar! Liar! Liar! Liar! Liar! Liar! Liar! Liar! Liar! Liar! Liar! Liar! Liar! Liar! Liar! Liar! Liar! Liar! Liar! Liar! Liar! Liar! Liar! Liar-"

They stopped talking and when I opened my eyes slowly, I saw a man in the middle holding Lucas' head, and behind him were Yahweh and five more people behind, who I can't see what they look likes because they're just shadows.

The man in the middle has lightning coming out of his body and he was holding a thunderbolt on his left hand.

"Who are you..?" I asked.

He just looked at me with eyes filled with disgust and left with the others who were with him.

After I saw all of them turned to dust right before my own eyes, I saw that I was back to the same grassy place before.

I didn't even notice that it was back to normal, and in front of me was Lucifer again; casually drinking a cup of tea.

He was still smiling at me. "So Haruki, what do you think?"

"Don't screw with me! Why? Why are they all dead? Did I do something for this to happen..?"

"I see that you don't understand what I'm showing you. *Sigh* Very well, then before I give you the answer, I want you to hold this." Throwing something on the ground, I saw that it was the sword of my father.

Hold this he says? How..? My hands are tremendously shaking from what I saw.

I don't want to... I don't want to touch something like this, I don't want to touch something that killed many people.

"So you won't even touch it Haruki? How sad... How sad that I made a poor choice choosing a candidate, then farewell Haruki."

Lucifer is leaving..? Is it because I failed both as the Ruler and as a devil that he left?

"*Tsk*" Even when I'm asleep I'm as stupid as Ruri said, I can never be something important in Hell because of my stupidity.

"Wa- wait Lucifer!"

Lucifer stopped walking away and looked behind to look at me; asking me. "What is it Haruki?"

"I, I'll try! I'll hold the sword!" What am I even saying? I'm shaking from fear because of the sword, but at the same time, I'm shaking because if I didn't use this sword that he gave me.

Everyone I love will be like what I saw on the television that Lucifer showed me.

I don't want that to happen! I want to be with them forever! I want to be with all of them who are dear to my heart! So, I'll face this stupidity of mine!

As I was saying that in my mind, I tried to reach for the sword, but something stopped me from touching it.

My whole body was tremendously shaking again from fear, that I can't even hold the sword, even if I forced myself to do it.

Lucifer looked at me with eyes full of pity. "Then if you want to hold the sword Haruki, then I'll help you Haruki Hotaru! Come forth my pride! Nightslasher!"

Unlike before, Nightslasher is just a sword and not a dragon, and when I looked at Lucifer for a bit, I was surprised that he was close to me, very close to me.

He was so fast that I didn't even saw his hand move up above me, and he was now thrusting the sword to my head.

I blinked my eye because I knew I was dead, but then suddenly his sword was taking so long to reach my head.

And when I opened my eyes to take a look at what happened to his attack, I saw my father's sword floating above me; blocking the Nightslasher's hit.

Lucifer smiled was filled with pride when he saw what happened, so he jumped back and prepared for another attack on me.

My father's sword floated in front of me; pointing itself to where Lucifer is and flew to him very fast.

Lucifer blocked the attack of the sword, and his eyes were glowing black and targeted me again.

The sword noticed that I was being attacked by Lucifer again, and teleported itself to in front of me; blocking Lucifer's attack again.

It then started spinning around; creating flames around it, and use it as a shotgun bullet and shot it at Lucifer.

"Nice try! But that won't do anything to me!" And just like what Lucifer has said, the flaming bullets that the sword fired just didn't affect Lucifer at all.

And he didn't even try dodging the bullet but instead took the hit.

"Even if that sword is weak, I can acknowledge the fact that it has the power to rival the old me, but I'm not that same person in the past anymore. I'm different! Soul Bound!"

With a step on the ground, Lucifer caused an earthquake about the magnitude of 7, and even if that's just the magnitude I was shocked to see that a stone wall appeared behind me.

And there were also stone pillars that were formed all around that has flames on top of it.

"Now, I'll show you the true power of the Fallen Angel Lucifer! Bountiful of the Devil of Pride: Activate!"

The flames of the pillars started to shone brightly, and all of the flames started to turn smaller and were combining above.

And when I saw it merging into one, I saw that it turned into a big ball of gas, more exactly, the thing above me was a star.

It started spinning very fast, and was absorbed into Lucifer's sword, he then looked at me with a stare filled with immense pride and ran up to me. "Now die!"

Nightslasher started to glow brightly, and it released a giant fireball directly unto me.

It was crazy hot and fast that it was frightening just by looking at the skill that Lucifer used.

Even if I try many times, my whole body was still afraid to move, so I looked at it getting closer to me and closed my eyes to accept my fate.

A familiar voice then said. "Conquest of Sins!"

When I heard the familiar voice said that, I felt that it was not hot anymore.

I opened my eyes slowly to see who was the person that saved me, and seeing who it was made me cry.

I've missed him very much, from the day we were separated, and when we got separated again, I missed him a lot.

Right in front of me was my father's sword, and it was not floating this time, but rather someone was holding it.

And the only thing I can say to the person who saved me was. "Father..."