42 Chapter 42 - Ignorance Is Bliss

Dante

Caroline held my hand, as we walked through the butterfly garden. My heart wouldn't stop beating like a hammer. And all around us the butterflies of different color and the flowers that only amplified her beauty overwhelmed my senses.

"Are you okay?" She asked me, the worried expression on her face made me smile.

"I'll live." My voice sounded far away and I realized that my senses were overriden by her voice, her eyes and her smile.

"So, do you like it?"She gestured at the flowers and the butterflies that flew everywhere. There were roses, violets and sunflowers in every direction.

"It's beautiful." For some reason, it reminded me of the sea.

"My father used to take me here when I was young. He'd read me stories about damsels in distress and princes." She sat down on a patch of grass and was careful not to step on any of the flowers. "One day he told me that some day, perhaps a prince would come and sweep me off my feet."

My mind was going haywire. The flowers, the butterflies and Caroline, all of it combined to create a vision of Eden I knew I would never see again in my lifetime.

"And has he come?" I asked.

"Has he?" She countered with a smile.

I was speechless and that only made her laugh.

"Sit down and we'll talk about it." She gestured at the grass.

I don't know what came over me, perhaps it was my body just reacting to the suddenness of things but I sat beside her despite of being the awkward thing that I am. Our shoulders touched and to my wonder she didn't move. I was happy then, like everything and every moment of my life that happened had lead me to this.

"You are the love of my life." And that was that. A declaration of love poured out from the thing in my chest that I thought no longer had the capacity to do so.

Caroline's eyes grew large, and her lips parted in surprise. "I-I don't know what to say." She held her head down, confused and worried. "Isn't it a bit too early for you to say such things?"

It was my turn to hold my head down. "I know. I know it's too sudden but I couldn't help myself. Like a moth drawn to a flame, I had to. I know, we barely know each other but I can't deny this aching feeling that fills me up whenever we're together."

I dreaded looking at her, perhaps it was the confused and fucked-up kid in me, brought up from the surface of my being. Then I felt her head in my shoulder and her hand grasping mine and I felt my heart close to bursting. I had become a boy in love.

We sat side by side, her hand in mine, her head resting on my shoulders. We stayed like that for a while and I finally understood what first love felt like.

Mephisto

There were four of them left. All indifferent to the death of their three comrades who were now scattered in purgatory. They anticipated that I would transport them here to avoid tampering with reality. What they didn't expect however is the fact that I would lock them in.

I stared at the one I talked to earlier, the one who seemed to be in authority.

"You don't know what do now, do you?" I was pretty sure he wouldn't miss the mockery in my voice.

Even beneath the mask I could tell he was pissed. His body language betrayed him. He was trembling, not in fear but in anger and frustration. But it was only for a moment, he regained his composure almost immediately.

*Keepers of the balance indeed.*

"You've left us no choice." The foreboding on his voice was unmistakeable. He drew his daggers once more and his two remaining companions did the same and without so much as any hesitation, they all stabbed themselves in the heart and I realized too late what they were doing.

The earth drank their blood to the last drop. And as they fell to the ground, the leader's mask fell away, showing an unremarkable face of one who has given himself to duty and he was smiling at me triumphantly. The ground trembled and from the depths of purgatory rose one of the Tainted. An ancient creature that roamed the bowels of purgatory. A humanoid made up of various flesh of supernaturals and lost souls who were unfortunate enough to encounter it. It towered over me, a blind creature that was 15 feet tall and functioned mainly by reacting to smell and sounds. A mesh of flesh that only had one purpose, to consume.

I had never fought one before. During the old days, it was considered a waste of time to spend resources exterminating one of its kind. Demons and angels alike didn't bother in dealing with them. The most practical approach is to redirect its onslaught towards the opposing side. It was common practice to bait enemies towards their lairs, that was until the Archangel Michael started to exterminate them from the face of the earth. Being the scavengers that they were, they consumed the dead and would continue to grow in strength and size. Michael probably thought they would become a decisive factor in battles and since heaven disdained in the usage of such creatures from limbo, he decided to remove them from the equation.

The Tainted in front of me looked to be one of the remaining few that still roamed purgatory. Under normal circumstances, I would've escaped back towards reality and left it to its own devices if not for the mark on its head. The shape of the eternal flower, glowing with a sinister light.

*Blood compelling magic.* It was one of the few magic left in the world that still worked. A sacrifice of life that compelled any creature to your bidding. *And of all the creatures in purgatory, they had the luck to pull out one of the Tainted. What are the odds?*

I assessed my surroundings. It was an exact replica of reality where Dante and Caroline were, a distorted echo that was left behind in the space of time.

The creature made a snorting sound, and it grew silent. I couldn't tell which was which. I only knew it had a mouth and an ear somewhere amidst all the flesh and the claws. And to my surprise it began to vibrate, and my biggest fear was realized. It was beginning to transport itself towards reality.

*Are they out of their fucking minds?* I didn't have much of an option. A Tainted transported into the real world was unheard of and no one in their right mind would break the ancient balance that kept everything intact.

Concentrating, I called upon my curse and without further ado flew at it before it could fully transport itself. I tried hitting at it with as much force as I could. I wanted to bring it down as quickly as possible. I must've slashed at it with my daggers a dozen times. Black blood began to spill out of the wounds I had dealt but the thing didn't seem to be hurt. It just stood there, bent on moving from this plane to the other.

*Now this is really bothersome.* The blood continued to spill but it merely resumed its act of warping and I knew that everything was fucked.