The Emperor’s Angel of Death

Latest Website: On the way home, the two boys walked into a series of intricate back alleys and secret paths called "labyrinths" by adults. The boy stopped and stared at an alley, neither Dodging is not ostentatious, he just watches.

"what is that?"

his friend asked, but the boy didn't need an answer.

"Oh."

After a while his friend said:

"Come on, before they see us."

The boy stayed where he was, the narrow walls of the alley were littered with rubbish, and among the rubbish, a loving couple embraced, at least the man embraced the woman, who lay helplessly on the dirty ground, Clothes are in tatters.

Suddenly, she turned her head to the boy, and as the man moved on her, she looked at the two children with pure black eyes.

"Come on..."

His friend whispered and dragged him away, and the boy was silent for a long time, but his eloquent friend made up for the silence.

"Look like that. You're lucky we didn't get shot. Didn't your mother teach you politeness? You can't look like that."

The boy was still a little stubborn and said:

"She's crying."

His friend became impatient.

"You don't know, you just see it."

The boy looked at his friend.

"She's crying, Charles."

His friends fell silent after that, and they walked through the rest of the labyrinth in silence, without saying "goodbye" when they finally reached their living spire.

The boy's mother, who had arrived home earlier than him, smelled cooking noodles and heard her voice hum in the only room in the living room: a small kitchen with a plastic-steel screen door.

She rolled up her sleeves to her wrists as she walked into the main hall, which concealed the tattoos on her arms, but the boy never commented on the way she always concealed them, the code symbols tattooed on her skin marked her master, The boy at least knew that, though he often wondered if they meant anything.

"Your cram school talked to me tonight."

His mother nodded at the speaker—it was blank now, but the boy could easily imagine the Master's face on the flat, grainy screen.

"Just because I'm too slow?"

"Why do you think so?"

"Because I didn't make mistakes, I never made mistakes, so it must be because I was too slow."

His mother was sitting on the edge of the bed, her hands on her lap, her freshly washed hair was wet and dark, normally blond—a rarity among city dwellers.

"Talos, can you tell me what happened?"

The boy sat beside her and let himself into her arms.

"I don't understand the point of tutoring, we have to learn, but I don't understand why we have to."

"To be smart and smart and powerful, and then you can live on the fringes of the city and go to work somewhere...a better place than here."

She said the last words slowly, scratching casually at the ownership tattoo on her forearm.

"Is this really possible?"

The boy smiled for her, and she responded by hugging him, as she did every time she was beaten.

On those nights the blood on her face would splatter on the boy's hair, but only one thing had splattered on it tonight: her tears.

"Son, why do you say that?"

"I'll join a gang, like my father, and Ciel will join a gang, like his father, like everyone else, and we'll both die in the streets."

The boy seemed thoughtful rather than melancholy, and all those words that broke his mother's heart didn't move him in the slightest.

For him, facts are facts.

"The city fringes aren't necessarily better, aren't they? Not much difference."

She cried, like the girl in the alley, and the things in their eyes were so similar, the same hollow, the same numbness.

"Yes."

She admitted in a low voice:

"It's no different there."

"So why do I have to go to a cram school? Why do you pay for these books to read to me?"

She failed to give an answer for a long time, and the boy listened to her choking and felt her trembling.

"mother?"

"You can do something else."

She started rocking him like she would have rocked him when he was younger.

"If you stand out from other kids, if you become the best, brightest, brightest kid, you'll never see the world again."

The boy looked up at her, not sure if he heard it wrong or if he liked the idea.

"Leave this world? Then who will..."

He almost says "who will take care of you", but that only makes her cry again.

"Who will accompany you?"

"You never have to worry about me, I'll be fine, but make sure to answer your mentor's questions, it's important that you act smart."

"But where should I go? What should I do?"

"It's all up to you to decide where to go."

She smiled at him, smiling happily.

"Because heroes are free to act."

"A hero?"

The thought made him giggle, and his laughter eased his mother's grief—a change he was able to notice at his age, but to teach him how something so pure can make a mother's heart grow It's still too early to resonate.

"Yes, if you pass the trial, you will be taken away by the legion, and you will become a hero, a knight, with the stars, roaming in the dark night."

The boy looked at her for a long time, and suddenly said:

"Mom, how old are you?"

"Twenty-six revolutions."

"Is too old to participate in the trial?"

She didn't speak until she put a loving kiss on his forehead, then smiled, and the tension in the little room disappeared.

"I can't take trials, I'm a girl, and the Legion only accepts the best boys, but if you're like your father used to be, your qualifications will pass."

"But I've heard that the Legion always takes boys from the gang."

"not always."

She held him aside and continued stirring the noodles in the pot.

"Or it'll take some boys from the gang, but it's always looking for the best and brightest, and promise me you'll be one of them, okay?"

"Okay, Mom."

"Aren't you going to be silent in the remedial class?"

"No, Mom."

"Very well, so would you say that to your friend?"

"He's not really my friend, he's always angry. And he wants to join a gang when he grows up."

The mother smiled at him again, but the smile was even sadder, like a silent lie.

"In this world, everyone will join a gang, my little maid, that's just one of those things that are meant to be, everyone will have a family, a gang, a job...but you Not so, remember that there is a difference between a must and a desire."

She brought supper to the little table, her pale hands wearing little gloves to avoid burns from the tin bowl.

Then she threw the gloves on the bed, and when he took the first bite, the mother smiled, touched his head and said softly:

"Remember, Talos, you have to be a hero."

"Owner......."

Suddenly, Talos noticed something gently touching his face.

It was Octavia, and she was wiping the tears from his face with a silk scarf, her face full of worry, like a mother waiting for him to come home.

Talos touched his cheek, and he did weep, although he hadn't wept since Ciel died.

Makushen also stood on tiptoe and stretched out his hand, as if he wanted to touch the teardrops on Talos' chin, and then asked.

"Uncle Angel, why are you crying?"

Talos smiled.

"Because I saw you."

Octavia put away the silk scarf. Although she realized that Talos' emotions were very rich among his brothers, she did not expect that the other party would suddenly cry.

The sensitivity from her mother made her guess that this was probably related to Talos' past family, so she asked softly:

"Does it remind you of your parents?"

A bitter smile appeared on Talos' face.

"Ha, my father is a murderer, and my mother is a contract prostitute. The painful years have worn her away, and her face is always haggard...I didn't get what she wanted."

"I'm so sorry, I shouldn't have asked that,"

The boy couldn't understand the conversation between the two~www.readwn.com~ He just looked up at Talos with his small head raised, his pure and unsullied pupils reflecting the tired and scarred face.

"Uncle Angel, can I be a hero like you?"

"Anything is possible, boy, as long as a person has determination, will and courage, he has the qualifications to become an angel."

At this moment, the communication horn on the wall rang, and Valer's voice came.

"The Captain is here."

Talos straightened up and looked at Octavia.

"Ottavia, Septimus, thank you for bringing your children to see me, go back, go back to your comfortable and peaceful life, don't come again, now that you and your children are far away from the darkness and War, don't touch it again."

Octavia nodded silently, took Markushen's little hand and left the medical cabin with Septimus and the other two children.