[Chapter 08] - Hooded - Part 3

The three intruders walk slowly towards the kitchen.

— Come on, Kahyu !

Kalui takes her friend's hand and takes her running through the other exit from the kitchen. The intruders only watch the two children passing by in their sight. The boy stops with his friend and crouches next to Whiger , trying to wake him up.

— Come on, Whiger ! — He says as he starts to cry. — Somebody help me!

Zack starts to laugh and says:

— Calm down, boy. Everything will be fine.

The child holds his friend with one hand and drags Whiger by the arm with the other, to the corner of the room.

Kahyu still in a panic, just standing there crying without making sounds; Kalui crying screaming and Whiger passed out.

The black-haired child grips his friends' hands tightly and watches the three invaders walking towards him. For him, each step of them lasts an eternity, each meter close to them, is one meter closer to death.

Kalui's fear gradually becomes despair. He starts looking at every corner of the house, looking for a solution, but what he realizes is Bend's body, on fire, in addition to the firelight of something else.

Memories take over the boy's head, remembering all family gatherings, with and without Roldi; all the laughter, jokes and scolding from the parents of your friends. Little by little, with each recollection, despair turns to hatred. Along with his fury, the air begins to circulate through the room and everything gets heavier. The invaders feel the strange weight and stop moving, being three meters from the boy.

— Hey, are you two feeling it too? — Asks Zack.

Rayrin widens his eyes in fear and opens his hands towards the boy as he screams:

— He's dangerous!

Alice and Zack grab and quickly raise the arms of their companion, throwing the flames of fire towards the ceiling.

Kalui is startled, making sure he doesn't die of luck. At that moment, the remnant of fear that remains is gone , leaving only hatred. The boy gets up and raises his arms, his eyes red with crying.

— Calm down, little boy ... Don't try anything you'll regret. You will not be able to hurt us with this vent -

The black-haired child screams with all his might and quickly lowers his arms; along with the movement, the three invaders fall to the ground with their broken legs forward. Lying on their own legs, they scream in pain. The child continues with his arms lowered and the eyes of the three bleed, next to their noses and mouths. Their bodies start to break and compress, being crushed, as if there is a gigantic stone on top of them. The floor starts to crack below them, next to the ceiling above. Meat, blood and clothing are the only things visible from the three intruders. The boy screams with even more force than before, with eyes full of water, at the same time that the ceiling in the area where the killers are, collapses.

The crash of the collapse is heard by the other men, who head to the front of the house. With everyone gathered, before the group entered to verify what happened, another bewildering sound began to be heard echoing from the forest. An oppressive sound, loud as giant steps.

Away from the confusion, inside their houses and at the end of the street, people simply watch and amazed.

The men raise their guards. The two metamorphics put their swords in the ground and take their clothes off, throwing them away. The first begins to modify its bones, muscles and skin, transforming itself into a two-meter black gorilla and, after finishing the transformation, thick bony plates — like those of a crocodile. — to form in his chest and wrists. The second man transforms his legs, arms, shoulders and chest, gradually increasing them, becoming extremely muscular; after finishing, the man removes and imposes the two swords stuck in the ground, preparing for battle.

As the sound of footsteps becomes louder and louder, one of the six men outside approaches the forest and throws a jet of fire from his hands towards the trees. His fire is much weaker than Rayrin's , both in volume and in heat.

— It's coming, get ready! — Exclaims one of the elementals.

Seconds after starting to hear the loud sound of footsteps, Roldi emerges from the forest, leaping fifteen meters at high speed, flying with a knee directly on the head of the muscular metamorphic and landing on the ground on top of his headless body.

He stands with his back to his enemies, with reddish skin and large bulging veins; wearing only loose black trousers, with long wavy hair tied in a ponytail and two giant curved daggers, like crescent moons, wielded in his hands.

— Hey Hey hey! Is this guy Roldi from Stron !? — Shouts one of the fortifiers.

— Who?! — Answer one of the elementals.

The gray-haired gentleman looks into the eyes of each of the men in black, opens his legs slightly flexed, leans down and punches the floor repeatedly with all his strength; the great impacts raise a cloud of dust that takes over the place completely.

Bearing in mind where his enemies are, Roldi advances ferociously towards the fire elemental that set the forest on fire, immediately kicking his two legs very hard, dislocating his knees and decapitating him as he fell to the ground. No screaming, no sound, an efficient and quick death.

Before the blood gushing from the elemental's neck reaches his feet, Roldi sets out towards Gorilla, who punches him in the chest with a punch before he can attack, knocking him down.

"I didn't expect him to see me in that dust ... Maybe he heard me? Anyway, I underestimated Gorilla. " , Thinks Roldi.

The instant the gray-haired lord is knocked down, the big gorilla strikes his opponent's torso consecutively. On the seventh punch, Roldi grabs the beast's arms and pulls it down, striking his forehead with his head. The strong impact breaks your neck back. The sound of the headbutt was louder than the animal's fall.

Hearing the little fight ahead, the last elemental hurls a small portion of water into the sky. By moving your hands, the amount of water increases — The equivalent of a glass turns into a bathtub. — and then a large ice spear forms and is launched in the direction of the sounds.

At the same time that he lowers his arms next to the ice spear, Roldi appears in his vision, running with the daggers prepared for the cut; before it can react, the large blade is passed through its throat.

"Only the two fortifiers are left ... " , thinks Roldi.

The tension in his shoulders eases and the gray-haired man shouts:

— Kalui ! Are you okay?!

Hearing the cry, the remaining men begin to surround their opponent at high speed. One wields a long sword and the other holds an iron with claws that jump between his fingers in both hands. The dust curtain has already been lowered and the view is now clearer. The kidnappers are already able to see the bodies of their friends on the ground, but they are still just circling Roldi.

"Did I arrive late? Be well, children! " , Thinks Roldi.

Impatient, Roldi advances at full speed against the sword fortifier, crossing his stomach with the black blade.

Choking on his own blood, the man asks:

— How is it possible?

Taking advantage of the breach, the last man jumps and strikes Roldi's back using the weight of his fall, but the thick, pointed and sharp claws of his knuckles break when he hits Roldi's reddish skin.

The gray-haired gentleman turns slowly, imposing his frightening size difference on the last survivor.

Perplexed by what he just witnessed, the man stumbles on the ground as he picks up his friend's long sword. Roldi approaches him slowly. The hooded man perceives the shadow of his enemy on his back and gets up swiftly turning the sword, using all the force of the swing to strike the reddish lord's neck, but his sword is ricocheted by Roldi's skin, as if he had hit a sword. stone.

The man falls, crawling backward with his back on the floor.

— What are you?! He asks, desperate.

Roldi keeps his daggers in the scabbard around his waist, approaches his enemy, picks up the long sword from the ground and sticks it to the hooded fortifier's thigh.

— Wait here. — Says the gray man.

He runs into the house and stops in front of Laruel's body , still burning.

"It looks like I was really late ... I'm sorry."

Just ahead, he finds Bend's body.

"Please forgive me ... Be well! Be well!"

Upon entering the room, he sees Kalui and Kahyu crying embraced and Whiger passed out. His body returns to normal, his eyes fill with water and his face contorts to keep from crying. He crouches down in front of them and hugs them saying:

— Everything will be fine. Everything will be fine. I promise. I love you, everything will be fine.

He gets up with angry eyes and says:

— Wait here, please.

Returning outside the house, Roldi jumps, falling with his legs between the last hooded one. He removes the sword from his thigh and exclaims:

— You will die! Don't think otherwise. The question is, when are you going to die? Suffering too quickly or suffering too much for a long time ?! It's your choice! Start talking about why you are here!

Lying in a pool of blood, trembling in pain, his face pale, the man replies:

— We overheard an old man's conversation with the Guild. He sold two Haast eggs , so we broke into the document area and stole his sales record. The idea was to try to buy the kids, but something went wrong ...

"By the record, this scum discovered the real salespeople ... The Guild's incompetence is also to blame. " , Thinks Roldi.

— Is there anyone else with you? Who are you! — Roldi asks as he spins the stabbed sword.

The man screams in pain and after a few seconds he replies:

— No, sir ... The three elite members ... They were inside the house ... Since you ... I imagine they were killed ... They were ... Elite members ... The commanders of mission. We are just ... Subordinate ... The organization has no name ... We are just mercenaries from Elfen led by a guy who also doesn't know the name ...

"The children sold the eggs ... I was naive to think that they would obey me. Why didn't the parents tell me? Didn't they know it too? " , Thinks Roldi.

— So the scum came to kidnap two children, murdering their parents. Do you think this deserves forgiveness?

— I am not to blame, sir. I just obey orders ... We were just reinforcement. We didn't do anything, sir.

Roldi removes the sword from the man's thigh and strikes his leg in the same place repeatedly while shouting:

— Do you really think you are not to blame for their death !?

The right leg is pulled out and soon after it starts hitting the other, at the same time that the man screams desperately.

— They were ... — Roldi shouts. — They were great people!

The other leg is pulled out and he goes off to hit one of the arms, while the hooded one cries, in silence.

— You don't deserve the opportunity to live!

The right arm is amputated and he starts to hit the last member of the man with the sword, but the life of his eyes is gone.

— You fucked up those kids' lives!

After separating the left arm from the body, Roldi repeatedly strikes his chest with the sword.

— You are monsters! Monsters! You bastards! Damn you!

He tosses the sword away and throws himself to the ground, with shaking hands and his body completely soiled with the blood of several men. Sitting next to the dismembered body, he screams with all his soul to the sky.

After a few minutes of looking at the floor, incredulous of what happened, Roldi gets up.

"I need to compose myself. Children need me."

He wipes the blood from his feet on the face of the dismembered man; his face and hands, he wipes on the black clothes that are lying on the floor and then he enters the house.

The three children continue in exactly the same way as before. Between them and the bedroom door, blood begins to flow from the stone debris on the fallen ceiling.

He crouches in front of them, wipes the tears from his eyes and says:

— We need to get out of here, kids . Kahyu , give your hand to Kalui and come with me.

He picks up Whiger and leaves the house. The blue-eyed boy holds on to Roldi's baggy pants as he follows him.

"What should I do now? " , Think Roldi.