Chapter 42 Chapter 42 The cruel thoughts it provides...

After realizing this, Leopold suddenly shook off Elio's hand.

"That's impossible!" He raised his voice. "I just called him a few days ago!"

Leopold turned around and subconsciously began pacing in circles. The wind ruffled his hair and his clothes, causing them to flutter wildly in the darkness. "This can't be real!" he shouted at Elio. "You must be mistaken, Elio!"

But Elio looked at him with a solemn sadness.

"It's true," he repeated. "I saw it with my own eyes."

Leopold stopped. A foot away, the Templar stared intently into the Assassin's face. His expression shifted rapidly, his facial muscles twitching, sharp pain throbbing through his temples. Rage, pain, absurdity, disbelief—all these emotions mingled, making Leopold look less like a human than a machine on the verge of overload, or perhaps a beast on the verge of madness.

"...This can't be true," the beast, on the verge of madness, suddenly laughed dangerously, his tone soft. "You almost fooled me, Elio."

"This is--"

Before the assassin could finish his words, the Templar punched him in the face.

To be fair, Elio had at least five ways to dodge this all-too-fair punch, and that was assuming he was unarmed. If you count the weapons hidden in his sleeves and pockets, and take advantage of the environment, the Assassin had twelve ways to perfectly avoid the punch, even easily defeating the Templar—but he didn't do it.

The assassin's only resistance, if it could be called resistance, was to close his eyes.

"Bang!"

Elio's vision suddenly became a riot of color. The spot on his nose screamed with pain in his brain. He took a few steps back and groggily touched his face, finding his hands covered in blood. The Templar didn't give him time to breathe. He grabbed him by the collar and pressed him against the railing. As if protesting the weight, the railing creaked, but no one paid it any mind.

Elio breathed softly, and Leopold held him, carefully looking at the face that was once so familiar to him.

"…Because 'someone' promised me not to kill him." Leopold said softly, "And this person - if I remember correctly - seems to be my 'best friend'!"

He practically roared the last few words into Elio's face. Along with them, the Templar's tears fell. A brief silence fell. They stared at each other, neither speaking. Wordlessly, Elio raised a clean hand and gently wiped the water from Leopold's face.

"Why did you do that?" Leopold whispered. "Why did you betray me?"

"I didn't do that," Elio said. "I tried to save his life, but—"

"Then tell me who did it! Elio, give me a name!"

"…It's the Piece of Eden, Leo."

Of course, it wasn't the Artifact of Eden that killed Mitchell, at least not entirely. If Elio didn't even know the father and son, he would only sneer at the Templar who was killed by his own desires and cravings, because it was entirely his own fault! Not to mention the countless crimes committed by the deceased Templar. If that was all he knew, no one would fail to say that he deserved it.

But Elio knew them. He knew what kind of man Mitchell had been, or at least he thought he knew. Even though it was far from him, a complete jerk couldn't teach Leopold, a young man with such a bright future and such a good character and academic ability.

And this young man, who had helped Elio so much, was considerately silent and never said anything.

'I owe him,' Elio thought, looking into his sad eyes, 'I'm afraid I'll never be able to repay him in my lifetime.'

"It's the Artifact of Eden," the Assassin said, gently grasping the Templar's fingers that were holding his collar. "It killed your father."

Leopold looked at him. The young man, who had just lost his father, said nothing, but simply stared at him quietly. The raging flames of anger gradually subsided, and his tears shed more and more, mixing with blood and dripping into Elio's collar.

"…He tried to use it, but it can only be manipulated by carriers of high concentrations of Isu blood," Elio said. "But you know, Mr. Mitchell doesn't have that. I tried to stop him, but he…" Elio paused, his eyes dropping, avoiding Leopold's sorrowful face. "In the end, it burned away his life instead."

Leopold remained silent. Elio had no idea what he was thinking at that moment. The Assassin only knew that the Templar's fingers slowly loosened their grip on his collar, transforming the restraint into an embrace. He buried his face in Elio's shoulder, and then, more tears soaked the Assassin's lapel.

·

The feeling of being soaked by warm tears seemed to linger there. Elio subconsciously touched his shoulder and turned his head away.

"Take it." Alvin said briskly as he walked up to him.

Their discussion on the Ring had concluded. Alvin brought the Ring over and pressed it into Elio's hand. The cool touch startled the dazed assassin, who instinctively grasped it, but looked at Alvin with a confused expression.

"What do you mean 'take it'?" Elio asked.

“Literally.”

Alvin said this, glanced at Elio's clenched palms, and put his hands in his pockets. Under Elio's puzzled gaze, Alvin breathed a sigh of relief.

"Bludhaven is about to get into trouble," he said. "We've decided to stay here and clean up Abstergo's mess. We can't risk leaving this ring here, so we need you to take it with you."

"So this is a mission?"

"Our destination is New York, where our technical advisor is." Alvin scratched his face. "It's not too far from here. I don't think you'll encounter too much danger..."

"Wait," Elio asked, "we?"

"You and your sister." Alvin shrugged. "As for her, you can consult our technical consultant. He and his team have extensive experience in dealing with brainwashing issues."

Elio looked at him for a moment. Alvin tilted his head, his eyebrows raised, as if asking if he had any more questions. Elio certainly had many questions, but after a mixture of emotions, he didn't ask any of them. He just laughed softly.

"…It's not a 'mission', is it," Elio said.

"Of course this is a mission, and a very important one, Assassin." Alvin coughed and pretended to be serious. "You must protect it and prevent it from being taken away until you deliver it to the technical advisor. As for asking them how to solve the problem of Willow, it's just by the way."

But as he said this he winked at Elio, and that playful wink destroyed any seriousness, if there had ever been any, between them.

"Yeah, just by the way." Elio smiled. But the easy smile quickly disappeared from his face. "But I'm not sure I'm the best person to do this, Alvin. I'm sure you must have noticed."

"What?"

Elio raised his hand, palm open. The Ring gleamed between them, a faint glow no brighter than the room's light, but it played strangely on the assassins' faces; and when Elio held it out, Alvin seemed drawn to it. For a moment, no one spoke.

“It speaks to me, Alvin,” Elio whispered. “You know it. It speaks.”

It will speak of its own power. It will speak of all the things it could have done for you, of all the things that should have happened but didn't, of all the things that shouldn't have happened but did, of the blood and the tears and the shouting, of the mud and the rain and the graves, of the fire and the explosion and the loss...

In those few seconds, Alvin went through his life again.

Why could one man have so many regrets in his life? Why could one man carry so much pain? Why, after all he had endured, had he chosen his current path—a path far too kind, far too forgiving for what he had endured—instead of going on a killing spree and freeing the world's Assassins from having to worry about the Templars?

Why not do that?

A fiery golden light suddenly shot up. It shone dangerously in Arwen's eyes as he gazed into it, revealing all his hatred, all his anger, all his fear. The Ring whispered, "Find them... kill them... slaughter them all, as they have done to you and your people! Give them back what you have suffered, for they deserve it!"

"...You are more experienced, you will be more suitable than me..." Elio whispered softly, coaxed by the ring, "You can take it..."

Alvin reached out his hand, and for a moment, he touched the ring in Elio's palm.

How much trust did this young man whom he had picked up trust in him, that he was willing to hand over such a weapon that could destroy the world to him! - The light of the Ring grew brighter and brighter, and it looked at all this with expectation - this foolish, naive young man! Just because he had been generously received when he was desperate, he was willing to hand over the supreme power in this way!

Had he never thought about it, never realized what kind of person his mentor was?

The hand that reached out was getting closer and closer, and the Ring was almost taken away by him -

Then, darkness covered it.

Alvin held Elio's fingers and put them back together in his palm. When he raised his eyes again and looked at Elio, the latter was shocked to see that Alvin had tears in his eyes.

"…I can't, Elio," he whispered, almost begging, "Please, take it away. I can't—I can't."

Elio didn't have time to say anything. Alvin gave him a deep look, a look that seemed to be asking, and also full of apology. Before the tears could flow, Alvin turned around and fled away.

Elio didn't call out to him. The assassin, left there, remained silent for a long time. He had never so clearly realized the difficulty of this "mission", nor had he ever so clearly understood that when Alvin said he was the one with the strongest will, he was not just saying it casually.

From that moment on, all the looks Elio had noticed from other people took on new meaning. The Ring whispered constantly, prodding the heroes in the tenderest, most bleeding wounds of their hearts, and the most terrifying thing was that the cruel thoughts it offered were not ones they had not considered—deep down, they all knew it.

Maybe it was just… not today. Maybe they just hadn't had a worse day yet. They struggled to let reason take over, instead of emotion.

And on that day...

What would you do, assassin?

As the news on TV played, Elio slowly opened his closed hand. The Ring lay there, seemingly dull.

"You never really chose me, and I know that," Elio whispered, "because I never had any truly 'big' ambitions either. All I longed for was a simple place to stay, a life that didn't require me to worry about everything and run around all the time, where I could call the people I cared about and who cared about me; they had their own lives, I had mine, and our lives would intersect when we wanted to. That's the best life I could imagine. You'll never understand."

"It must be difficult to tempt someone like me to take power, isn't it?"

Elio threaded the chain through the ring again and tucked it into his collar. When it touched his skin, he clearly heard the ring snort.

"You're deceiving yourself, little one," it pointed out sarcastically. "Even if that's what you say, someone has completely destroyed your 'simple' ideals. Remind me, how did you become an assassin?"