Chapter 261: 'Gray and Transparent' Part-8
"Fuuhaha!", Add laughed. "That makes a lot of sense!"
The heavy atmosphere from before had been completely erased. Now, thanks to Assassin's very obvious answer, Gray forgot everything she wanted to know. She had always kept herself out of everything so trying to be up front by asking so many questions had overwhelmed her quite a bit. She felt a little annoyed at being taken for a joke, but it was what it was. Assassin wasn't going to talk. He never would.
"If that was all, they should just leave me here. In this place my mana doesn't get spent that fast. I'm going to dematerialize to cut the consumption in half."
Being overwhelmed at having followed Assassin for nothing, she ducked her gaze ready to leave the room. This, however, was something new to her. She stopped just before she passed through the door. She took a big breath of air, as if to fill her lungs with the courage she needed to move forward without stopping. She turned around and looked at Assassin. Almost in a burst of strength, as if her youth and rebelliousness had been born in that instant, the youthful impulse to do whatever you damn well please exploded in Gray. She knew what she was doing and understood the consequences of her actions. But something inside her was driving her to do this. Maybe she was tired of Assassin's mysticism. Maybe she was just stressed by the sudden change of environment her mind and body were subjected to. You could even say she was angry, as if a part of what she really kept deep in her heart had taken possession of her.
She grabbed Assassin by the shoulders and threw him to the ground. That done, she climbed on top of him and bit her finger, covering it with blood and saliva. Almost immediately she stuck it in Assassin's mouth, who didn't really move or refuse this. When she felt Assassin's tongue and consequently him swallowing the blood, she opened her eyes in disbelief at what she had just done. She broke away from him immediately falling backwards.
Assassin had remained silent, staring at the ceiling and breathing relaxed.
Suddenly, those words came out naturally. "You...", he sat down on the floor and looked at her. He seemed to be sure of something and then continued, "Why do you look like you're going to cry?"
Looking at her, Gray had a very different expression than usual. It was a mixture of annoyance and sadness. It seemed that at any moment she would let out tears of frustration.
"I feel anger...", she whispered, feeling very confused at the moment. "I feel pain and sadness...", but those emotions did not belong to her. "Every time I'm near you I can feel it. It's like a dark abyss pulling me into the depths of a false loneliness and I can't escape it. Those emotions... so much pain... all that belongs to you..."
Assassin said nothing about it.
"I felt something just now. It was that very thing, pulling me to you...", she hugged herself painfully. Right now she was afraid, fear ran up and down her spine like the claws of an invisible monster. In fact, she had forgotten that fear, but when she realized it, it was undoubtedly a ghost before her.
It was certainly rare that she could feel Assassin's emotions so intensely. Even with most ordinary ghosts she always felt overwhelmed and fearful, unable to move her body because of the fear that so many overwhelming emotions overcame her. But with Assassin that was very different. She could clearly feel every bit of negative emotion in him. There was a lot of anger, sadness and suffering, all of it hidden behind a mask of an expressionless face. Somehow this made her suffer as well. It was frustrating every time she thought about it. Sometimes that feeling vanished into thin air like mere vapor, for on those occasions she felt like she was talking to herself, or someone very much like herself.
"Well don't feel anything...", another response that felt like a joke. Still, it wasn't. Assassin's tone remained the same. Monotone and dull: as if he was sleepy.
"How can you say anything to if to anyone?", asked Gray, her eyes on the floor. She seemed to have simply been affected by the stress of having a servant around. Her impulse earlier was due to that. She knew it and understood it.
Since arriving in London she hadn't been being herself. She was changing as time went by, something that had never happened to her before. We human beings are afraid of change, something we undoubtedly feel helpless about.
"I wanted to know if you could stop feeling, but I see you couldn't."
More than mere words, that had a hidden meaning. If Gray knew Assassin, she would understand that tragic reference. But alas, she doesn't know him, so she could only be silently angry.
Assassin stood in front of her. He slashed and spoke to her, "Do you still need to cry?"
That even offended her more, but she said nothing. She simply sank into her own misery as she used to do in her hometown. This was nothing new to her. She just had to let her body and mind flow. Soon all this overwhelming feeling would calm down in her heart.
No...
That wasn't it...
This time she felt a deep fear rise. She looked up meeting the silver eyes of the Assassin, and so she felt even worse.
"Who are you?", the servant asked her. She opened her eyes and her body petrified. Her words choked inside her throat and it became impossible for her to answer.
She decided to do what Assassin always does. She deflected the question as if it were a knife slicing through the air at the speed of sound.
"And who are you?"
"An Assassin. I am that and nothing else. I can't be anything else...", Assassin, for the first time since he was summoned, changed the tone of his voice. It almost seemed as if he was going to smile. His tone was soft and gentle, but when she tried to see his face she realized he was still the same emotionless doll he always was.
This time Add didn't intervene. He knew this conversation was part of growing up for these two teenagers. Even though sometimes Assassin had more adult attitudes than he should, for things like making people shut up or deflecting questions, he knew he was still a kid. It wasn't that hard to notice.
Something similar happened with Gray. She is a country girl with a self-esteem with numbers similar to the temperature at the North Pole, i.e., below freezing. She doesn't trust herself and needs others to guide her to keep moving forward. She resigned herself to accept her fate as a vessel for King Arthur's soul, and as usual, she is depressed all the time even if she doesn't show it to anyone.
That was the real depression. Two teenagers pretending to be fine in front of others, but inside they are broken, screaming and crawling in search of salvation.
"If you hate me so much, if you're so afraid of me, why did you offer to help me in the first place? Was it compassion? Was it guilt? That I don't understand. I don't understand you."
It was very paradoxical. Those words she had already said to him, but this time it was he who said them to her. That only showed how far apart their hearts were and how broken their minds were.
"Whatever you thought at the time you offered me your help, you must have regretted it very much. And I told you so. I told you you would regret it. I don't know what kind of special talent you have to see inside me, to feel my emotions, but I wish you would stop doing it. Everything that goes on inside me is my problem, not yours. If you're curious about that, you should give up. I like to keep my privacy, even if it sounds contradictory."
His raised tone of voice was in stark contrast to his tone of a few minutes ago. The tone was louder and more authoritative, but you could tell he was forcing himself to raise the pitch of his voice. Gray, for her part, merely stared into Assassin's eyes. She was being scolded by a ghost. She was being scolded by that which annoys her most in the world.
"It would be disrespectful of me not to thank you for giving me a portion of your mana. So, for the last time, thanks."
After that, Assassin vanished in front of her eyes. She lay there on the ground, not causing any noise other than her steady breathing. She looked at the ground again, as if the stone under her butt held the answers to her questions. She found nothing, of course.
"Haa... and to think everything was going so well. You blew it, child", Add shook inside the cloak. "At least we know he doesn't hate you, but you hate him."
She looked up. Add told her, "It's not like you really hate him, but you have a lot on your mind. Come on, I'm a real jerk sometimes, but I can also say coherent things. In all these years, having passed from owner to owner, I've learned a lot of things about human lives. When I first saw you, you were just a little girl. I thought you were the most pathetic owner who had ever taken me in hand," he chuckled. "And I still think the same, but not quite. You'll go on whining quietly as usual... Just like Assassin boy does..."
This was only Add's speculation, but no normal man would be so cold and distant to others. No man would be silent in the face of such a simple question. No man would show a sad expression under a hood just because.
"They are so alike and different at the same time...," he said to his mistress. He jumped into his cage for her to pull him out. When she did, Add finished with a sentence she would never think he would say. "There's no use erasing scars with other scars, but if you can count them on the fingers of your hands, it could be said that you haven't done too badly."
The big difference between the two. Those scars Assassin keeps.
She picked herself up off the floor and held Add's cage silently. Suddenly, she started shaking it for no apparent reason.
"Wait! Nooo! I gave you good advice! Why are you doing this to me! Ahhhhhhhhhh!"
The frustration of it all led her to take it out on Add. In the end, she just left the place in silence with no desire to talk to anyone else.
-Three days later-
No one saw Assassin in the last few days. Sometimes Gray could sense that he was around, but he was no longer approaching anyone. This made her feel guilty. He hadn't regained mana for quite some time, so he should be with one foot in the Throne of Heroes.
Right now she was in her mentor's office while he was eating breakfast outside. In her hands she held a shiny shoe next to a black rag. Her hands were stained with leather shoe polish.
Certainly the smell of clean shoes relaxed her, as did the smell of the books in the library and the smoke from her mentor's cigars.
'It's been too long already...', she fell to realize that this was not a good sign.
Although she cleaned her shoes with great care, because she thought that was part of her job, soon her calm was interrupted by voices echoing in the lobby of the house. She recognized the voices. Her mentor and Reines. She couldn't deny that she was curious to know what they were talking about.
Unconsciously, and with guilt creeping up her back, she opened the door and walked slowly until she stood behind a wall. There she listened in silence.
Reines spoke about what beauty meant to Waver. Almost instantly, and anticlimactically, Assassin appeared sitting on the sofa to respond at the same time as Waver with, "The golden ratio."
Waver was startled because he did not sense Assassin's presence. Reines, on the other hand, smiled at the sight of him, as if she had plans with him later.
Gray poked her head out to see the servant, embarrassed by everything that happened three days ago. She noticed that the Assassin didn't look tired. He looked like he had the last time she had met him in the basement workshop. Well, it's not like Assassin could choose to look any different either.
Assassin started talking about the history of the golden ratio and many things related to mathematics that made Gray feel dizzy. Assassin knew so much about mathematics that no one could exaggerate that this boy was a genius in his time; a genius who was involved, one way and another, in the life of a ninja.
The conclusion was that. At the beginning of the conversation, Reines was talking about being invited to a high society magus event. After Assassin talked so casually about many complicated things, Reines picked up on that topic.
"It's about the meeting of the two princesses, eh... I see. I guess it's about time the gold and silver princesses of this era showed up", Waver lifted a cigarette from his metal pack and lit it. He took a puff on the smoke and let out a small cloud of smoke from the harmful tobacco.
"I would feel discouraged that, going to this social gathering, Trimm would be my only escort. I have no clue who else I could bring as a bodyguard", Reines looked at Waver after having been watching Assassin out of the corner of her eye. "I know you can be a great detective, but taking you along as my bodyguard would be a bit much. That's why I thought I could borrow Gray and Assassin's strengths for this."
Gray stopped breathing for a second. Being with Reines and Assassin around was like stepping into the lion's den with her body well seasoned. That was still a resounding no for her, but if Reines asked her, she'd have a hard time refusing.
"Why me?", asked Assassin, thoughtfully.
"From what I know, you can do amazing things that are enhanced when you're together with Gray. If I have both of you, I won't feel insecure at all."
Waver nodded smoothly. "That's reasonable. But you should ask that question of her herself. She's my student, yes, but I have no right to decide about her. If you want to have her on your side, ask her yourself. As for Assassin."
"I really don't object. I've been to London and the location of Separation Castle. There's a lot I don't know. Occasionally, something like an excursion among the magus high society would do me good. I'll be able to learn things", he paused. "And I won't be bored waiting for Sakura-sama to wake up."
Gray, tired of waiting and being talked about behind her back, came into the picture rather curious. Even the things they had mentioned about some princesses caught her attention.
"Gray!", Reines jumped on her and grabbed her hands. "My dear friend. lend me your strength!"
"Friend..."
That was a low blow for Gray. Assassin looked at her silently, causing her to avoid him. She thought about it for a second and then nodded, defeated.
"Then it's settled!", she celebrated. Although Gray wanted to ask about the gold and silver princesses, that would be for another time.
Until then, the life experiences and developing personalities of these three teens await in what would be a new mystery in the story.
To be continued...