novelraw Chapter 98: Lover of Flowers Among Blood
Chapter 98: Lover of Flowers Among Blood
That dream was a memory from the past, beyond his understanding. It wasn’t about Arturo this time, but about someone he had met not long ago.
As he sank into the darkness, he heard a woman’s voice, then the voices of two little girls, and finally, the screams of dozens of people.
That’s where it began...
He loved flowers in all their colors and forms. Always surrounded by a beautiful field of radiant hues under the sunlight, the young man smiled as he looked up at the clear sky. In front of him lay a woman in a light, white, one-piece dress, wearing a straw hat.
She smiled at him gently, though her face was blurred. Even so, deep in his heart, he loved her madly. There was no one he loved more, yet he also loved flowers like no other. Still, his heart had always belonged to her.
"Nothing is more beautiful than seeing her run joyfully through the field... There’s nothing more perfect," he told himself as he watched her.
Suddenly, the memory was replaced by a torrential downpour unlike any other, washing away the blood dissolving into the earth. Around him lay hundreds of corpses in a field of shattered flowers—those beautiful and delicate flowers, stained with crimson liquid, marked the beginning of this massacre.
The man looked at himself in a puddle of water...
His hair was long and ash-colored, and his eyes were silver like the moon. He wore light black clothing that concealed much of his identity. In his hands, he carried twin daggers that had already slain dozens of soldiers, and his entire body was covered in cuts and blood.
Without further hesitation, the man took a step. Weakened, he nearly collapsed, but he steadied himself and kept going. Soon, he reunited with his squad—knights in broken armor and blood-stained swords, wounded mages, fearful archers, bleeding horses, death spilling everywhere.
This is war.
Tired, so very tired, the man charged to the front, and his body faded, shrouded in ash.
The enemy panicked—an ironically identical squad to his own.
Soon, in the darkness of the night, the shadow of ash manifested, cutting, cutting, and cutting... again and again...
Blood splattered endlessly, screams and groans of agony filled the air as the number of corpses kept rising. In the background, the clash of swords rang without cease, and spells exploded one after another.
In the end, the man stood over the enemy’s corpses. His squad looked at him in silence, as if he were a monster—a necessary evil. However, the memory distorted once again.
Now he lay in a small room in the village. He stood before a bed where that woman held two small beings in her arms. She smiled gently at the adorable little girls.
"Come closer. Meet your daughters, Gawain..." she said.
Gawain, nervous, knelt beside the bed, where she allowed him to see the two little ones. He reached his hand toward one of them, and the baby grasped his finger.
He felt the warmth of that small life in his hand, but almost instantly, he saw the blood spilling over his hands. The expression on his face changed, showing unease, but the woman smiled at him.
"Are you afraid, Gawain? Do you fear not being what they expect?"
He remained silent. He couldn’t answer.
"You’ll be a great father because you’re a man who keeps his promises, and they will always love you as long as you don’t forget them."
She brought her hand to Gawain’s cheek.
"I know things haven’t been going well for you lately, and Prince Arturo’s leadership leaves much to be desired in critical moments, but I’m sure you’ll overcome it. So when the war ends, come back home and be a good father."
"I..."
"You can do it, my love. I’m sure of it, because there is no man stronger than you."
Gawain wondered if that was true.
Then, the memory distorted violently. Time passed, and the war seemed endless.
At the very front lay a young boy with golden hair, holding his powerful divine sword. That "child" led everyone in the war with the voice of a true leader, yet the blood of the brave was spilled in vain under his orders.
Misfortune seemed to follow the prince wherever he went. At the same time, Gawain crawled among the corpses. His body was filled with arrows, his mind fading the more he tried to move forward.
At that moment, he could only think of his wife and daughters.
’A man who keeps his promises...’ he thought, and then he stood up.
A mysterious energy filled his body and gave him enough strength to fight with everything he had. Thanks to that—to that mysterious ability—he survived and managed to return home months later. But when he crossed the door to that room, there lay his wife...
She... was dying from an unknown illness.
He didn’t even have time to say goodbye. Days later, the woman he had loved so deeply died with a sorrowful expression on her face.
Gawain couldn’t understand why this was happening to him. Kneeling in the flower field, beside two straw baskets where the nearly one-year-old girls slept, he looked up at the sky, calling out to the gods in lament.
"Why her? Why not me? I’m the killer... I’m the monster! Why won’t you kill me instead?!"
His screams woke the little ones, and their cries became the answer.
Gawain looked at his daughters and saw in them the reflection of the woman he loved. They were the gift she had left him in this world so he wouldn’t lose himself in the darkness of spilled blood—the blood he had always seen in the flowers since the first time he killed someone.
That day, he decided he didn’t want to be a monster anymore, and he left the war forever.
Now, he wanted to become a father his daughters could be proud of.
"What a tragedy..." Mitsuki whispered as he suddenly opened his eyes.
A pair of tears ran down his cheeks, as he realized that he had killed the daughters of the one known as the Lover of Flowers Among Blood.