Chapter 30 - The World Burn : Part 1

The morning sun was watching everyone as the president opened his office window widely. The breeze blew his neatly done red hair, messing it up a little. He brushed off the invisible dust on his suit before turning his back on the sun.

The man went over to his desk. The slow heartbeat in his chest was anticipating something to happen, something that he asked to happen.

His hazel eyes caught a picture on top of his desk. The image showed a wavy blonde woman holding a red-haired baby.

A sad smile formed on his face. The president diverted his gaze over to his wedding photo beside the baby photo.

He took the picture with his right hand, using his left hand to graze over the glass, trying to remember the day the world blessed him with the best woman in the world. His fingers stopped at the neatly written names of him and his wife.

Alfred and Isabella.

Alfred sighed after staring at the picture for a minute or so. He went to put back the image onto his desk. Though the man immediately stopped when he saw something tugged behind the frame of his wedding photo.

He opened the back of the frame and pulled the thing from behind. It was another picture that was folded and hidden behind the frame.

He straightened the picture slowly and carefully, trying not to rip it apart. The picture showed three young women hugging each other with Isabella in her wedding dress in the middle of the two women.

To Isabella's right was a woman with a short black bob haircut and two cold violet eyes. She hugged the bride awkwardly while the other woman to Isabella's left hugged the two like it was the end of the world.

Isabella smiled apologetically at the camera while holding a yellow rose. The woman to her left was smiling widely, eyes forming a crescent moon shape. Her medium-layered brown haircut was messy, probably after being too hype for the wedding.

There was a sudden change of atmosphere in his room. Alfred noticed a shadow in the corner of his eyes.

Without looking at the person behind him, Alfred put down the picture in his hand onto the desk. He fixed his tie, eyes still watching the unmoving shadow.

"You came." He stated, almost doubting at the presence of the person.

"Speak to the point. You're wasting my time." The person slammed close the window in the room, sending a blast of wind coming fast.

Alfred turned to the fully masked hitman. "Not even a hi?"

A gun immediately pointed at the president's chin as the hitman slammed his hand to the table behind Alfred, cornering the man to his own desk.

"Speak, or I'll kill you." The hitman growled, a noticeable tint of hatred latched in his voice.

The red-haired man stared at the masked eyes in front of him and raised both of his eyebrows. "Can't actually talk properly at gunpoint, can't I?"

The criminal took away his gun slowly as the president walked to the sofa in the room. Alfred sat and nodded at the chair before him, telling the hitman to come over there.

"Take a seat, Cain."

In a flash, the hitman begrudgingly took a seat in front of the president. The silence swallowed them while Alfred poured something into two cups and offered one of them to Cain.

"Tea?"

The hitman opened the mask that was covering his whole head, rolling it up to the top of his nose. He took the cup and brought it to his mouth before drinking all of the liquid until none was left.

Alfred's mouth tugged upwards. "You still can't say no to my tea, I see."

Cain slammed the cup to the table and glared at the president from behind his mask. "Shut up and get to the point."

Alfred sighed and put down the cup in his hand slowly. "Did you come to your son's family day?"

Cain's mouth formed a frown. "What?"

"Did you come to your son's family day?" The president repeated, intertwining both of his hands as he fiddled with his thumbs. "I came yesterday, and I saw you." He continued.

"Axel, right? The name of your youngest?" Alfred asked without waiting for an answer and continued. "He was with you and your other children. But it didn't seem like it was you."

"Why were you in his school?" Cain, instead of answering any of Alfred's questions, asked.

"Because that's where my daughter went." The red-haired man quickly replied the hitman.

"And apparently," The man paused, hazel eyes piercing right through Cain's masked eyes. "-my daughter is your son's best friend."

Cain looked taken aback for a second, flinching backward a little as he fiddled with his gloves.

Alfred noticed how Cain was surprised at the sudden information and chuckled in irony. "You don't know too?"

"Heh," The president snarled at the two of them. "We're a bad father, aren't we? I actually just found out I don't know anything about my daughter too."

Alfred raised both of his eyebrows at Cain. "It seems like we're the same."

"We're not." Cain gritted his teeth, biting at his words.

"Alright, whatever you say." The president shrugged a little, slumping his broad shoulders. "Back at my first question, were you in yesterday's family day?"

Cain tilted his head back slightly. "No, I wasn't."

Alfred bit his lips. "I knew it." He darted, taking the documents on the furthest side of the table. "It was weird. I don't think it was you. That's why I tried to contact you."

"You see, there was an accident occur on one of the buildings owned by my ministries." The president fiddled with the documents in his hand.

"There were two guards, one was a woman, and one was a man. They did something to the mirror in the place they died. I found out that you can cross the said mirror with some kind of special arrow."

Alfred took a photo of Lucas and Gina and slid it to the other side of the table where Cain sat. "They were found dead in front of the mirror. It was suicide. The man killed everyone before killing himself."

The president slid down another photo of a black roots mirror over to Cain. "There was another world across the mirror. I'm hiding it from the public so they won't panic."

Cain took all the photos and examined them. He was looking at the cracking mirror with black roots surrounding it with content.

"The other side of the mirror is a world of our replica. The difference is that those who live there are demons while we are humans." Alfred pointed at the picture in Cain's hand.

Cain looked up to see the president was looking at him with brooding hazel eyes. "And I think the person that came to the school was not you, but the you from the mirror," Alfred stated sternly, almost hauntingly.

A heavy silence surrounded the two men while they were having a staring contest with hidden thoughts on the back of their minds.

"And you expect me to believe you?" Cain finally spoke up. He pulled one side of his mouth up and back.

"Just-" Alfred sighed and threw the documents in his hand to the hitman, who caught them with ease. "Just take these documents I found. They were experimenting behind my back."

"I took a few notes too after investigating it myself, and there are so many things going on behind my back." The president added and got up from his seat, turning his back on Cain.

He glanced back a little at the hitman before going to his desk. "Be careful, Cain. You're still my friend."

"We know that's not true, Mr. President." The Vergessene retorted back, and Alfred felt something tugged in his throat. Maybe it was anger. Or perhaps it was guilt.

"We stopped becoming one since you sat on that chair," Cain answered coldly, and soon after, there was silence once more.

Alfred took a seat and looked up to where Cain was sitting. He was not surprised when he saw that the man had already disappeared. An empty cup was the only indication that he was here. And the two opened windows behind his back.

Someone softly knocked on the door and opened it wide, revealing his secretary with documents in her hand.

She glanced at two empty cups on top of the table in the middle of the room. She raised her eyebrows. "Mr. President, Who was in the room with you?"

"Just an old friend of mine," Alfred mumbled as his eyes caught the picture of Isabella and her two best friends with two thoughtful eyes.

"An old friend that I owe lots of apologies, and they still won't be enough."

✵✵✵✵✵✵

Cain tossed away the documents in his hand to the car seat beside him. He slammed close the car door and turned on his car engine.

The man took a short breath and stepped on the gas pedal, and drove at full speed.

He opened his mask fully, revealing a black wavy-length hair. He threw the mask to the back seat and blew some locks from his face.

Cain took a hair tie from his wrist with his teeth, eyes still focusing on the road in front of him with one hand on the steering wheel. His blue eyes darted over the side view mirror, seeing if there were more cars around.

He let go of the steering wheel when he made sure no cars were around. Cain quickly put his hair on a bun and changed his suit into his regular clothes.

He quickly put his hand back on the steering wheel when he arrived at a traffic light and moved his feet to the brake. The red light was shining in his vision, so he waited for it to turn green.

He may be a criminal, but he wasn't dumb to go over the traffic lights.

He glanced over to the rear-view mirror and saw a billboard with the name of this city on it. Cain looked at the words with a condescending sneer.

'Livedam City, the safest place in this country.'

Yeah, right.

When the light turned green, he moved the gear and drove away. He took one last glance at the rear-view mirror but quickly stopped the car when the mirror flashed onto something different.

The rear-view mirror showed a big sign with the words 'Madevil City, the safest place in this kingdom.'

Cain closed his eyes and opened them again to see the mirror was already back to showing the billboard once more. His eyebrows arched upward as he looked behind him to make sure he was not seeing things.

There were many honking horns from the cars behind him, and Cain immediately stepped on the gas pedal and swerved around the corner.

He stopped on the side of the road and took the documents beside him. He read through all of them intensely, frowning as he scanned over Alfred's notes about the demon world.

If his other self really came to Axel's school, then why did Axel play along?

Something bumped onto the side of his car, making his vehicle shake a little. He snapped his head to the window and quickly flinched away when he saw two red eyes staring at him.

The old man with two red eyes was hitting his glass window with two mindless eyes. He looked like he was not in his own mind as he slowly broke the car window.

Right before the glass broke, Cain backside flipped to the seat behind him and pulled out his gun. The hitman kicked the man's chest and quickly shot his head, letting blood spill everywhere, adorning the inside of his car.

He took a moment to take everything. He stared at the corpse in front of him with a vague terror in the back of his mind.

Cain realized he was still holding the document and looking right at the project DM-2. The project where they turned a human into a demon.

Cain snatched the mask beside him and put it on again. He adjusted his suit that he wore once more as he went out of the car. He shot the gas tank in his car and let the vehicle blow away alongside the person inside.

He stood there, letting the silence take over the surroundings as he watched his car burn.

A sudden loud explosion rang behind him, causing him to look over the scene. He widened his eyes when he noticed all the buildings were exploding one by one.

He noticed one of the buildings that did not explode and frowned. Being a hitman made him have the eyes of an eagle. He could see a flash of red porcelain mask standing on top of it.

He quickly ran to the building, jumped from the window on its side, and landed on the floor. He ran to the stairs and went up, trying to catch up with his daughter.

Another explosion went off, and Cain could not help but look through the window. The orange color of flames was dancing as the smoke danced with the air under the watching sun. There were red eyes people down on the street, attacking everything in their way.

The world was burning before Cain's eyes.

"Father," A familiar voice called, and the hitman looked back at full tilt to the person behind him.

Cain was startled when he found his secondborn leaning on top of the staircase lazily. The hitman looked at the mercenary, holding a remote full of buttons, staring at his masked eyes with two insane blue eyes.

"Are you proud of me?" Kiaran said with a dreadful alluring voice.