Chapter 40 Chapter 40 You will start to imagine...will there be...
This time, the assassin broke through the magical barrier. Michel stumbled back, falling to the ground. The sword was immediately before him, but just as Michel thought he was about to meet his death, Elio twisted his wrist and deftly plucked the ring from his finger with the tip of the sword, flinging it aside.
The tarnished ring rolled away. Mitchell quickly reached out to grab it, but Sujie's eagle immediately nailed it in his path, almost cutting off his fingers.
"Don't move," Elio said. "I don't want to kill you."
Mitchell looked up grimly. If he'd said he'd anticipated this, he'd be lying. No middle-aged man in his position could have imagined that one day he'd be crawling at the feet of his son's best friend, his life or death depending on the young man he once looked upon with condescending pity.
And that was the way Elio looked at him now, though, deep down, the assassin didn't want it to be that way.
"Leopold, your son," Elio said, squatting before him, gripping the hilt of his sword. "He was my best friend. He loved you more than anything in the world. Although I cannot understand or imagine it, I can understand and imagine what it must feel like to not have a father like him."
Mitchell, hearing his subtext, looked a little stunned. Elio used his free hand to remove his hood, revealing his true face. The man squatting there seemed to be the same young man Mitchell had met before, patted his shoulder, and encouraged.
"...I have no father and no mother. I know that feeling all too well." Elio stared at him. "I don't want Leopold to know what it's like. I don't want him to lose his father again, even if he's a criminal."
Not far away, Red Hood was sheathing his Great Caste Blade. He watched all this in silence, not saying a word. Without him noticing, the sparkling little ring, as if with its own mind, rolled to Red Hood's feet and gently tapped his heel.
Then, with a most deliberate thud, it fell to the ground.
"You shouldn't be soft-hearted, young man," Mitchell said. "You're too naive."
At this moment, the defeated Templar's gaze towards the assassin returned to its former state, the same gaze one would have towards a younger generation, gentle and compassionate.
"...that ring," Mitchell said. "I wouldn't say it influenced everything I did. I'm not that kind of a coward. But it triggers the deepest desires in you. Even if you hid it in the deepest trench of the earth, it would dig it out without mercy. And then, you start to imagine...if you did that, if you used its power, wouldn't there be a possibility..."
As he spoke, he turned to look in the direction the Ring had rolled away. Elio followed his gaze and saw Red Hood bending down to pick it up, carefully examining the small, glittering ring.
"When you say that, old man," Red Hood said, "you're a coward."
For a moment, he held the ring in his hand, but then, with a soft snort, Red Hood casually tossed the ring to the assassin.
"Here, assassin," he said, "this is yours."
Elio raised his hand to take it—and the Ring fell into his hand—
Mitchell watched it all intently. His cloudy eyes gleamed with brilliance. Never before had he so swiftly leaped from the ground, swooping down like a snake at the dynamic curve. Never before had the assassin's fingers missed what they had already grasped.
This is almost impossible. You know, the assassin's lock picking and pickpocketing all rely on their dexterity of hands, not to mention how much they rely on them when climbing! Those hands are almost the entire focus of the assassin's livelihood and work, so it is almost impossible for the ring to fall from his hand.
Unless, that's also part of fate.
The golden thread woven by the will of the Ring slipped from Elio's fingers like soapy water. Mitchell knocked Elio over at the right moment, and this young man, who was several times stronger than Elio, snatched the Ring from his hand.
The golden light reappears!
The assassin and the vigilante were mercilessly knocked over by the magic power and had to crawl away to hide.
"I told you, Elio," Mitchell said loudly, "you really shouldn't be soft-hearted. Not with me, but with it."
Even Elio couldn't help but curse loudly. Crouching beside him, Red Hood calmly drew his gun and even glanced at him curiously, "You can curse, too."
Elio glanced out and immediately retracted his head. "You'd better scold me."
"I wouldn't do that." Red Hood cocked his rifle. "Trust me, Assassin, I've messed up far more than you have."
Elio glanced back at him, and Red Hood nodded. They wasted no time discussing the matter, but immediately regrouped and prepared for battle. But this time, their enemy collapsed much faster than they had anticipated.
The first thing to dissipate was the magical golden light. Then came Mitchell's cry of pain. Elio poked his head out from behind the workbench and saw the Templar, one hand gripping the wrist of the Ring, kneeling on the ground with a savage expression.
"What's going on?" Red Hood also poked his head out. "Has the golden light disappeared?"
“…No, it didn’t disappear,” Elio replied automatically, shocked. “It just got inside him…”
At least, that's how it seemed. Mitchell radiated a golden light so intense that they could clearly see the Templar's veins throbbing like golden snakes beneath his clothing. Elio rushed forward, reaching out to snatch the ring from Mitchell's hand, but even then, Mitchell couldn't let it go.
At the critical moment, Elio raised his hidden blade and cut off Mitchell's fingers without thinking.
The ring hanging on the broken finger finally fell to the ground and lost its luster. Mitchell fell into Elio's arms, gasping for breath, his eyes losing focus.
"Medicine..." He stretched out his bloody hand and struggled to crawl in that direction, "I need medicine..."
Red Hood followed the direction he pointed and took out a cold storage box from the cabinet. When he opened it, Red Hood was stunned.
"That's just glucose," he said.
"Give it to me!" Mitchell bounced up like a shrimp. "That's the medicine that can restore my Isu bloodline! As long as I have it, as long as I have it... I can continue..."
Red Hood received Elio's gaze and shook his head helplessly. He injected Mitchell with a needle. Mitchell breathed a sigh of relief when he first touched the needle, as if he was getting better. But soon, he found that the pain in his body was still there.
"I told you," Red Hood shook the syringe in his hand, "this is just glucose."
He recognized it the moment he opened it. Not because he scanned the contents, but because he recognized the transmitter at the bottom of the box that looked like a decoration but was actually affixed by him.
"It's a fake that Alvin and I slipped into their deal," Red Hood said to Elio, "and somehow got here. No wonder there's been no signal."
Mitchell screamed miserably, "Who did this?!" His life force was visibly fading away.
Who else could have done this? Elio wondered.
"Mitchell finally found a way to master it..." "He got the safe potion..." "I'll find a way to make things difficult for him..."
From among the countless fragments of memory, Galahad's words jumped out from Elio's memory - the only one who knew what Mitchell was doing from beginning to end, the one who was trusted by him, and the one who had the ability to do something -
"…someone who couldn't stand your actions, an 'assassin' who's hiding his true identity," Elio said. "That's it."
As they watched, the Templar, whose potion, crafted from the blood of innocent men, had once stolen the Isu bloodline and the supreme power, died without a single word. The assassin slowly lowered him to the ground and closed Mitchell's open eyes.
"Rest in peace," he whispered in Italian.
This was the end of the Grand Master of Blüdhaven. Like all Grand Masters of the Templar Order, he once stood at the pinnacle of power, once dictated the direction of the entire city... He had used this power for so much good, and in his final moments, for so much harm. The same gale of power that had carried him to the pinnacle of life would also bring him down to the bottom.
He died from them.
It seemed like the matter was over. Elio, a college student who had been struggling for work just a few months earlier, had thus completed his revenge against the entire Blüdhaven Templar system. Under the cover of night, he and Red Hood climbed out of the mines, where Alvin, who was waiting there, took them away.
"We have to celebrate this properly," Alvin said, turning the steering wheel. "Mitchell is dead, and you weren't seriously injured. The Templars in Blüdhaven have finally been wiped out, and the few that remain can't cause any trouble."
Elio sat in the back seat, silent. He stared out the window, perhaps because the car was jolting, the road trembled as well. The sky was dark, as if a storm was brewing. Red Hood remained silent, but as if he knew what Elio was thinking, he reached out and patted his shoulder.
The other shoulder.
"If you want to talk to someone," Red Hood said, grabbing Elio in his arms. "Just call me. I understand."
Something hit him, and the car shook, and the unsuspecting assassin fell into the arms of the Red Hood. He climbed up awkwardly, nodding repeatedly.
The subject seemed to drift away. But Red Hood didn't miss the assassin's instinctive grip on the necklace. He knew what the assassin wore around his neck, and Alvin also caught a glimpse in the rearview mirror.
It's the magic ring.
Only Elio himself was distracted and didn't notice their gaze. He looked out the window again, Mitchell's voice echoing in his ears like a spell, "It will trigger the deepest desires in your heart..." "You will begin to imagine... Is there a possibility..."
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Author's Note: *The scene where Alvin and Red Hood exchange potions appears in Chapter 11.
**Galahad's three sentences appear in Chapter 37.
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