Chapter 426: Have you ever seen a weapon having children?
Chapter 426 – Have you ever seen a weapon having children?
"I am back, Cass," Isolde said as she took Cassius into her arms, hugging him tenderly, almost nervously, as though she herself couldn’t quite believe that she was finally standing in front of him.
That finally, she was holding him the way she had imagined doing so all this time.
Cassius himself didn’t respond to the hug. His mind seemed to lag embarrassingly behind, as though, at that instant, he had lost everything that made him Cassius Desdemona — the Angel, the Lightbringer, the man who had pulled off two Heists in a row and blown up the Church of the Lord of Death.
At that instant, he was none of those things.
Everything had been stripped away from him like ornaments being removed one after another, leaving behind nothing but bare flesh, nothing but the man underneath all those titles and accomplishments.
And that man could do nothing but stand there, unable to even blink as he was held by the wife he hadn’t seen in so long.
Eventually, however, his mind returned to him. His eyes blinked once, then twice, and by the third time, Cassius had no choice but to believe that this was not a dream.
"You...are truly back?" He said, slowly lifting his hands, wrapping them around Isolde, "you are back, Isolde?"
Isolde chuckled, feeling underneath his tone so much longing that her heart was filled with love, and was about to spill over, "What?" She said, taunting, but her voice was only tender, "is that so surprising?"
"How did you know I was here?"
"You are famous, Lord Angel." She replied. "It’s easy to know where you are if you don’t hide yourself."
Cassius only stayed silent, about to speak after gathering himself, but Isolde was faster in her words.
"Do you really have such a hard time believing that?"
"I usually don’t believe things without proof, you know."
"Proof? What kind of proof do you need when my body is plastered on you?" She said, breaking the hug slowly, facing him, looking at his two eyes that were glowing like two suns and his stunning beauty.
"The kind that will leave no doubt inside me." Cassius said with a smile, and before he said the next words, Isolde’s lips crashed on his own, devouring them with a kind of hunger he hadn’t known she had within her.
The kiss didn’t last more than 3 seconds before they broke it.
Isolde’s lips still hovered sensually above Cassius’s own, smiling, breathing a bit heavier, "Is that a good enough proof now?"
"Maybe. But you know, three is my favorite number."
"Don’t be greedy, Cass." Isolde chuckled, "You will have more than enough opportunities to do whatever you like with me in five days."
"Whatever I like?"
"Whatever you like."
"Dangerous thing to propose to me. You don’t know the things I can do."
"Maybe that’s all I want."
Cassius chuckled, his heart still beating hard inside his chest. He looked at Isolde seriously, from up to down, noticed how the pupils of her eyes had changed, noting even how her very presence had shifted.
Isolde felt dangerous. There was something around her that made him feel that fighting against her would not be as easy as it was before.
And that thought made him smile, but also made him worry. It was not easy to make him feel threatened.
No matter how hard she was trying to hide it, Isolde’s eyes were heavy and exhausted, a darkness hiding behind silently, like the eyes of wolves.
And no matter how much she was trying to cover her body fully, Cassius could still see some scars jumping out here and there.
Even her face.
Scars that Isolde didn’t have the last time he had seen her.
"Don’t start." Isolde said, knowing what he was thinking seeing his eyes, "it’s too early for that."
"Did all of this happen to you in the Damned Village?" He asked slowly.
"Not really." Isolde said, sitting beside him, her back on the tree. Wanting peace and privacy, she waved her hand and hid the two of them in a layer of invisibility.
Cassius watched her power work in silence.
"It’s quite the long story," Isolde continued, settling down beside him, "but to make it short, I was attacked by the Crimson Daggers before I reached the Damned Village. That’s why I couldn’t contact you, my phone was broken."
"Oh." He whispered.
"Yes. But I managed to escape my pursuer and get inside the Damned Fractured Land in time. I cleared it after...hm...after some minor difficulty that I will tell you later, I promise, and got some interesting power at the end."
"You killed them when you got out then?"
"I did." Isolde said, "but I was saved by a woman because there was one more left."
"A woman?" Cassius turned to look at her, arching an eyebrow, "who? I must thank that woman for having saved you."
Isolde’s face darkened slowly, and stayed silent for a moment. Then she exhaled, shaking her head, "I killed her."
"Killed...her?" Cassius said. "I mean okay...but why? There must surely be a reason for that?"
"Yes." She breathed, "For you."
"For me?"
"Your life has been targeted lately, I have heard. A group of people who wanted to take your Dragon Eye?" Isolde said, and Cassius’s eyes widened.
"Don’t tell me..."
"Yes." Isolde chuckled, herself finding it quite hard to believe that she met one of those people. Fate? "I have met one person of that group and I killed her because of that."
She paused, then leaned her head on Cassius’s shoulder, she said,
"Can I confess, Cass?"
"Yes."
"I feel a worm of sadness for killing her. You know me, don’t you? You know I don’t usually feel like that. But that woman was...similar to me. She wanted a friend, Cass. She wanted something I have always wanted since I was young and only found in you."
Cassius chose silence in front of that statement.
"And you should have seen her, she was ridiculously happy that I had accepted to be her friend. And I was happy too, a bit. Except you, I don’t have someone I can call a friend." Isolde continued, taking the right hand of Cassius into her own, "but the moment I heard that she wanted to capture you and kill you, I lost basically all my senses. Before even I realized it, I had killed her."
"Do you regret it?"
"I don’t," Isolde said. "I just wanted to get it off my chest. And..."
She began to tremble slightly as the memories of everything she had gone through these past few days returned to her, and her hand tightened around Cassius’s.
"...I am glad to be with you again, Cass. I...I fought hard, you know? I did my best. I truly did everything I could to see you again, to be your wife and keep my promise."
"I don’t doubt that, darling."
"But...my body isn’t the same anymore." Isolde shook her head. "There are scars everywhere now. Even on my face."
"I can see them," Cassius said, looking directly at her. "And they don’t diminish your beauty in my eyes in any way."
"Look at me, Cass."
But Cassius was already looking at her with so much love that Isolde felt her heart tighten painfully. She took a deep breath.
"What if...what if I can’t have children?"
The question caught Cassius so completely off guard that his body actually spasmed for a heartbeat, his mind struggling to understand where in the hell that had come from.
But this was clearly not the time to ask.
"What if you can’t have children?" Cassius repeated. Then, trying to sound as casual and unbothered as possible, he added, "Not having children never killed anyone, did it?"
"Would you not hate me for it?" she asked meekly, her voice so low that the words might as well have never been spoken. "You always wanted children."
"I don’t believe there is anything in this world that could make me hate you, Isolde." Cassius frowned. "But I need to understand why you are suddenly saying all of this. Goddamnit, Isolde. We just met again and you’re already trying to make me pass out."
Isolde smiled wryly, knowing she probably should have waited a little longer.
But she couldn’t.
Ever since discovering that she was not human, but a weapon, a Soulblade, the same questions had been returning to her mind over and over again.
Could she have children? Could someone like her ever be called a mother? Could she still have the family she had always imagined building with Cassius?
Because beyond becoming the greatest Assassin, beyond all the strength and greatness she wanted to achieve, Isolde wanted something painfully ordinary.
She wanted a family with him.
And when she imagined that family, there had always been children in it. Little lives that belonged to both of them, little voices calling her Mother and Cassius Father.
Now, for the first time, she wondered whether that future had ever been possible for her at all.
Isolde looked at the man she loved and saw the nervousness, fear, and apprehension already growing on his face. She hated herself for putting them there, but the question had lived inside her for too long to remain unspoken.
So, with her hand still trembling around his, she finally asked:
"Have you ever seen a weapon having children?"
—End of Chapter 426—