NoGift

"What, you seem disappointed?  You don"t like the gift I gave?  How sad.  To think that I spent so much time preparing it," she said.  But there was no disappointment in her voice, instead, it was full of mockery.

Limos who heard this almost didn"t blow up on the spot.  How shameless was this person?  She looked out of the window and her knees almost buckled when she saw an image of a woman floating on the direction of the Holy Temple.  If they could see her at this distance, that meant that this image was quite big.  It wouldn"t be surprising if all the people in the city could see this.

"Y-your Holiness, t-that..." she mumbled pointing outside the window with trembling fingers.

Before she could say more, the sky over there suddenly turned dark and flashes of lightning could be seen from here.  Just looking at those dark clouds and the bright and clear clouds on their side, it"s obvious that those dark clouds were made by someone and not caused by nature.

Lucern, of course, also saw all of these.  His gaze that was usually filled with gentleness and kindness was now dark and filled with unknown emotions.  He turned to Argent.  "Do you know what you"re doing?"

"Of course, I won"t do it otherwise," Argent said, without even a hint of regret.  "Do you really expect that I won"t retaliate after what you did to my mother?" she snorted.  "You act as if you know me so well and yet you didn"t even see this one coming.  Now I"m the one who"s disappointed," she added, not forgetting to mock him.

Limos really couldn"t take it anymore.  She couldn"t even care about that strange thing that"s happening at the Holy Temple right now.  "You-!  Stop disrespecting His Holiness!" 

Argent turned to the woman and looked at her as if she"s crazy or something.  "He kidnapped my mother and then ordered you to use your Gift on her.  He"s even blatantly manipulating me to gather those three sacred artifacts.  And you"re asking me not to disrespect him?  Do you have a few screws loose in your head?  Or are you just thoroughly brainwashed you think your Pope is a G.o.d who can do no wrong?  Then I could only pity you."

Limos" whole face turned red in humiliation.  She glared at the duke.  How could he understand what His Holiness meant to her, to all of the Apostles?   How could someone like him, who had an almost perfect life, ever understand?  Unknowingly, her Mana started to gather around her.  But before her Gift could be released, she felt a tight grip on her wrist.

She looked up and saw the Pope looking at her sternly.  "Your Holiness--"

"Stop and compose yourself," he said with warning.

Limos bit her lower lip, grievance filled her unfocused eyes.  She couldn"t understand why His Holiness could take all the insults coming from the duke as if it was nothing.  She couldn"t even feel a little bit of anger from him.  Knowing him for years, this was not something he would do under normal circ.u.mstances.  Unless, in some way or another, the duke meant something different to him.  Something special.  That kind of answer was probably something Limos would never ever be able to accept.

At the end, she could only look down and put all her emotions away.  "Yes."

"Aw... look at that, you hurt her feelings," Argent said with pity in her voice.  But if you would look closely, you could clearly see the gloating in the depth of her purple gaze.

"I take it, you have no intention of giving the sword to me," the Pope said instead.

"Of course, I don"t.  You said it yourself, it doesn"t matter even if I surrender the sword to you or not.  But don"t worry, just like you wanted, I will gather the three artifacts.  Then I will open the closed Mythos continent.  Just don"t expect everything that will happen after that would be the same as you wanted."  She looked straight at the Pope, her face devoid of any emotion, just to show how serious she was.  "Because I will do anything just to prevent you from reaching your endgame."

The Pope didn"t shy away from her gaze.  "Sadly, that"s something I will never allow to happen."

"You should know by now not to underestimate me."

"Oh Argent, I never did.  I know just how capable you are.  But on this matter, I could never allow you to succeed."  

Argent snorted.  "What makes you think you could stop me?"

"Because my conviction is stronger than yours."  Yes, it was something that fermented inside him for hundreds of years.  A dream that slowly became an obsession.  "I wish things could have gone differently for the both of us.  But I could never give up my goal."

"You know, if you didn"t involve me and my family in this s.h.i.+t, I would never give a single f*ck about any of your diabolical plans.  But you did.  And that"s your biggest mistake.  Because now, I"m even more determined to destroy it," she said with a dark smile on her face.  "You said your conviction is stronger than mine?  My conviction would definitely not lose to anyone.  Because once I decided on something, I make it to a point to finish it.  Even at the cost of my own life." 

Silence filled the room.  Then the Pope spoke, breaking it.  "Do you hate me?" he asked out of nowhere.

"Do you even need to ask?" she said in a tone that"s telling him just how ridiculous his question was.

She didn"t know if it was just her illusion, but a flash of sadness appeared in the bottom of his blue eyes.  Then, it was immediately gone.  As if it hadn"t been there in the first place.  "Too bad, because I could never hate you."

Lucern wished sometimes that he could.  He truly did.  But everytime he even tried, he always failed.  Everytime the darkness in his heart overwhelmed him, all he could think about was destroying Argent.  But at the end, a bigger part of him would refuse that idea.  

"That"s your problem, not mine."  Argent bent down and picked up her sleeping mother easily.  "It"s time for us to go.  Try not to die from heart attack once you see what happened to your Holy Temple."

Then she jumped off from the window, which for some reason, Harlequin opened.

Limos" eyes widened at that.  He stared at Harlequin unbelievingly.  "What did you do?"

Harlequin pointed his palm at them, then some kind of gas suddenly came out of it.  A barrier of light appeared between them and the unknown gas.  It immediately contained the gas into a ball of light.  Then it slowly turned smaller and smaller until it completely disappeared along with the gas.  

A ray of light went down from Harlequin"s head.  He quickly dodged it but it still caught the mask on his face.  When the mask fell, it completely shocked Limos.  Because the face it revealed didn"t belong to Harlequin.  It was a man with heterochromatic eyes - one sky blue, another forest green.

"Viper, I pressume?" the Pope said, not even appearing the least bit surprised.

Viper grinned.  "Nice to finally formally meet you, Your Holy-s.h.i.+t-ness."

And then he dashed and attacked.