Chapter 91 - 89

We both knew it, and soon the whole population too.

Why keep this place up after all? So much trouble for such lowly citizens… Why put the lives of Citadel grand citizens on the line? They can just run from it all after all… And I can't deny that I had a similar line of thought, thinking that it would be easier to just take Asher away from here, jump over the wall, kill some ghouls, and be done with it, leave this place and its people behind and all the worries that came with it.

Only that… I thought too long about it, and considered that maybe I should take Takamori away as well, I had enough arms to do so. Or perhaps that Connor guy too, the kind soldier that got me in the first place, he helped me twice already after all, would be ungrateful to simply leave him behind, and his crush Julia too, he would be angry at me if I simply left her behind, no matter how weird that girl was.

But then there is the group of soldiers that serve Asher… he would be mad at me if I left them too, though that Gunner guy I'll make sure to glue at the front gates for the ghouls to get to him quicker.

That's when, even though I knew deep down and still tried to deny it, I came to the conclusion that I could not leave, that at some point I started caring, that I could not simply let it go and abandoned this place and its people.

And that makes me depressed, just don't know if because of the feeling or because of the situation this town is in right now.

That's why, the next time we get back home and do the same tired routine of eating poorly and only taking a nap before going back out to the chaotic city for another day of stopping riots and putting out fires, sometimes literally.

At this stale living room, where only Asher's breathing can be heard, I clench my fist and stare at nothing, annoyed by my lack of help and the increasable deteriorating situation.

So I sneak out, which would not have been an easy fit if Asher had not been dead tired from the past few days, and with one last glimpse at his figure stretched out on the sofa I close the door softly behind me.

But out here, against the chilly night air, I'm left to stare over the roofs of the now very gloomy city.

I do not intend to help him out with the humans, I'm not good at anything delicate as negotiating, and I bet beating the shit out of them would not help, so instead I think of a few other possibilities.

Such as, simply going out there and killing as many ghouls as I can, but the fact that the Queen Snake may have many more in hidden makes me hesitate, not because I'm afraid of them, but because I would not only be exposing myself as a monster but would be leaving the city unguarded.

And perhaps that is what she wants all along, with that quantity of ghouls going against tired humans… they would not stand a chance, I'm like a second wall keeping her efforts at bay.

The other thing is temporary, but… I could always enter the Golden Circle, now mostly empty beyond the private guards and their mechas, and steal their supplies.

Count on the fleeing Citadel citizens to leave their rotting goods guarded.

Only that things may get messy with those robots, and now, after so many days around humans and with a few of my memories coming back, I could tell that it is even more difficult with the cameras all around that I had ignored the first time around.

Clicking and clacking, my brain smashing around, I'm finally want to just do something and move but, before I manage to put my flawless plan in action something halts my movements, a sound, not too far, something that should have been easily ignored and yet caught my attention enough to stiffen my body in place and make my eyes wander in search for it.

Curios like a cat I sneak my way over the rooftops, but once I get close I do not feel the need to hide anymore and drop back on the road, a path hidden behind walls as square paper red lanterns make a path alongside them on the floor, guiding me towards whatever that chiming and chanting was.

Clink clink, a small bell would move, and mumbles in a strange yet familiar language were a constant in the background, a calling.

And I'm answering it.

The road narrowed, but I did not mind, not minding even when it started from a dead end, clearly meant for a being like myself that did not need to walk on roads, but I was not scared of anything these humans could try to do to me, I was confident that they would fail.

So I follow, follow until other chimes join the first, when the chanting grows more feverish, some low drums to put a rhythm, still I follow as the paper lanterns turn into stone ones, a flame flickering inside, follow until I reach a tall red gate with two strikes at the top, guarded by two stone feline creatures, snout frown in a snarl like a warning, and yet staring with peaceful eyes.

Only then did I stop, engraving those images in my foggy mind, trying to recoil what I was doing prior to this.

A person with a shaved head and strange tunic like clothes with many overlays on top of it gestures for me to enter, saying they were expecting me, but his words are lost as I glance at the landscape that unfolds before me, staring at this hidden temple right inside the city, looking at the alluring red paint over wood, at the curving up rooftops, at the golden detail, only to be opened by a stone path among the garden of very crooked old beautiful trees.

There are many people here, kneeling forward and chanting, only to bow from time to time at the big feline statue at the front, a pure muscle creature curving its body in a show-off matter, claws and teeth apparent, curved eyebrows and mane crafted almost as if an invisible wind brushed against it, a wooden box in front at its feet and a big bell on top of it, a thick rope down been moved from time to time to chime the big bell.

However something odd in that statue caught my attention, something akin… that the feline had two front legs, in a total of six limbs.

Just like myself.

As I stop at the center of all of that, however, staring up at that statue, all sounds cease and the bell stops, only for some monks to step forward and put collars of braided rope around my neck, as they too join the others in kneeling, now keeping their bow down, head touching the floor.

But I soon realize that is not for the statue this time, not for me, but for the figure that came forward from inside the building, that one that sueges after guards and servants pass and open the door for them.

"We have been expecting you."

That's when I look up to meet their eyes.