Chapter 61: One Rain, Two Storms (Part 2)

An hour passes. Two hours pass. The rain doesn't stop. It only grows heavier. The darkness of the clouds makes that rain grow sadder. The instances of the storm that were seen before disappear and the raging winds silence themselves. Two men with storm raging within their hearts had silenced themselves. But then,

Abgere: "Why are you still here in this rain?"

Abgere asks as he looks up towards the sky.

Bronzer: "I was wondering if the raindrops would be enough to quench my thirst."

Abgere: "Ha!"

He chuckles and says,

Abgere: "What answer do you have after all this time?"

Bronzer too looks up as he answers,

Bronzer: "They only made me thirstier, greedier and more flawed."

His hope is being lost.

Abgere: "I see. They made me sadder, I think."

His death comes near.

The rain tells it all, who will live, and who won't.

Abgere: "What is the cause of your despair?"

Abgere asks with a serious and terrifying voice. Bronzer replies in a serious and terrified voice, but not terrified of Abgere, terrified of fate.

Bronzer: "There are some people who want me to lead them in a war, and make them win it. They are so weak in that it's almost pathetic, and pretty much impossible to accomplish."

Abgere does not interrupt. And so, Bronzer just continues,

Bronzer: "They want me to somehow make that impossibility possible."

He says, and then stops. And so, Abgere asks,

Abgere: "Why not tell them it's impossible and that you all should start running away from whoever you are supposed to fight this war with?"

The fact that a war is waging that is keeping Vermillion busy is a good thing for Abgere, yet he finds himself giving such an answer to Bronzer, for an innate reason he may never really understand himself.

Bronzer: "I want to run away. I really do. But,"

The rain doesn't just fall from the sky; it falls from his face as well.

Bronzer: "But whenever I look at them, those poor creatures who could do nothing but feed on human blood for their survival, I feel compelled to give them a victory."

Abgere stays silent, for he has never felt like that for anyone.

Bronzer: "I feel compelled to show them that we are not just postponing our end, but we are conquering it."

Then, the two stay silent. They stay silent. They stay silent. They stay silent and then,

Abgere: "Looks like the rain is going to end,"

He says as he takes out his mask and bathes his face in the rain,

Abgere: "Because the storm is coming back."

The storm gives no signs of returning, yet Abgere says so. And so, as he hears this, a smile surfaces on Bronzer's lips.

Bronzer: "Yeah, the storm is returning, and it is going to take the rain away."

No matter how small storm is, it is still a storm, and it will overpower the rain.

Bronzer: "I have spent enough time here."

He says as he gets up from the bench.

Bronzer: "I should go now. The rain needs to be stopped after all."

Abgere nods.

Bronzer: "And so, I should go back to them, and tell them that we are going to win this war. I should tell once again, but this time, say it from the heart."

Abgere: "Yeah, as long as you have a heart, don't ignore it. It becomes really impossible to hear it after you lose it."

Abgere, the man whose heart died the moment he took his first breath, says in a calm voice as he too gets up.

Abgere: "The rain needs to be stopped, alright? And if that can give one's life significance, then why not do it ourselves?"

Abgere turns to the direction Bronzer came from and starts walking. As Bronzer looks at him, Abgere waves his hand and says,

Abgere: "Adieu!"

Bronzer chuckles at that deliberate use of outdated term and says,

Bronzer: "Yeah, goodbye."

Bronzer turns to the direction Abgere came from and starts walking.

They move in different directions, away from each other until the point that they can only see a speck of the other if they look back. And at that point, they stop. The both of them stop and look at the sky.

And they see the storm finally approaching.

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Near a house, no, near a wreckage of a house, many men and women in black suits are present. They are all just plainly looking at the wreckage that this house has become. It used to belong to a person named Julius Rome. But now, it has been destroyed. Julius Rome is dead and buried under the rubble that this house has become and his daughter and the prostitute he was with have met the same fate. Since they have been buried like that, it will be pretty hard for the authorities to find out what happened before this house was turned to rubble. However, for these men and women in black, it won't be that hard. They can smell blood, because it is their food, and the ones who have trained themselves can even smell cut marks on a skin.

Bronzer: "I see you all are already here."

Bronzer says as he walks towards them with hands in his pocket. Hearing so, without even turning back, the leader of the many vampires present there says,

Reid: "Yeah, all of us arrived here before the guy who called us here did."

Bronzer smiles a bit as he hears that response and says calmly,

Bronzer: "I apologize for the tardiness."

Reid: "Tsk! What were you doing in the first place?"

Reid asks as he looks at him from the corner of his eyes.

Bronzer: "Having a chat with death!"

Reid: "Ha?"

Reid scoffs at his response.

Reid: "You and your bullshit!"

Bronzer smiles at that.

Reid: "You remind me so much of him, just that you are even worse."

Reid says as he turns back to look at the rubble.

Bronzer: "Do you mean Barry?"

Reid: "Who else would I mean?"

Bronzer smirks and,

Bronzer: "Yeah, fair point."

They stare at the rubble, and from their sides, Darcy joins them as she says,

Darcy: "You probably already know this somehow but this house belonged to Julius Rome, a Hellfire."

Bronzer closes his eyes and replies with a smile,

Bronzer: "Yeah, I do know. I also know that he is only second in the line of the bodies that are going to pile up soon enough."

Darcy and Reid look at him, not in surprise, but asking for why he's so confident about that.

Bronzer: "It's because that man has nothing that holds him back, nothing that stops him from fulfilling his 'purpose' in life."

His smile grows wider.

Bronzer: "The fact that his chains were loosened when Ro Garland died, the fact that the one who killed Ro was Ethan, the fact that we saved Ethan's life back when he was a kid, I think you all should know by this point that our karma isn't going to betray us."

He says as he steps forward, opens up his arms and looks back at the two of them.

Bronzer: "We are going to get what we deserve!"

From the bottom of his heart, he says what he truly believes,

Bronzer: "We are going to win this war!"

And as the two in front of him hear him say that,

Both: "Of course we will!"

There is no room for doubt or uncertainties anymore. The Vampire Kingdom will fight and they plan to win.

And then, the storm and rain both disappear, and the sun shines through.

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