13 Lifeless

Rose's eyes met the clouds as a cold shower of rain approached her face.

She hated this.

"Mom!" A pained scream ran towards her and clutched her dress.

"...Lily?" Her voice lacked strength, and came out of her in a whisper.

Lily's pale, shaking eyes roamed over her mother's body. She was shot in the chest. There was too much blood. 

Her eyes met her mother's.

"You don't deserve any of this… my sweet Lily," Rose cried as she thought about her daughter's future. How would she survive on her own? Would she survive? Would the Nobles take her?

She shuddered. She hated this.

She didn't want to die.

She wanted to raise her child. Soothe her pains and sorrows. Make her laugh. She wanted -

"Lily, was I a good mother?" She wanted to know. All this time, she had been scared to ask. She had no idea where her daughter's scars and traumas came from. She only hoped it wasn't because of her. Because of something she did.

Lily stopped herself as she heard that question. She saw the sorrow in her mother's eyes. She realized then that she never truly let her know how much she had meant to her.

Her comfort, her happiness, her home.

Her everything.

She held her mother's head with her small trembling hands, stroking Rose's hair carefully, afraid to hurt her.

Just as her mother often did with her.

She kissed her mother's cheek.

"...The best," she whimpered by Rose's ear as she held her closer.

Rose's eyes brightened, and a smile emerged on her face.

"Is that so…? I'm so glad…"

Lily's tears did not seem to stop. Her dress and hair were wet, and the red on her cheek was washed pink by the rain as it fell in droplets down her chin.

A weak hand touched Lily's pale face, stroking a strand of her hair.

"Hush, hush, it's… okay…" 

—-------

Sometime before Lily was born.

"What's got you so upset?" Michael asked as he lay beside Rose.

Rose's brows furrowed. She turned over to her husband, and hesitated.

"Do you think…" Rose started, "Do you think I can be a good mother? Someone like me? I don't know the first thing about raising a child… I barely know the first thing about anything."

Michael smiled.

"W-what? It's true! I don't know anything. They don't raise kids in the Holy Land, they raise monsters! I don't want my child to be -" She began to break down as Michael edged closer to her, pulling her head to his chest.

"Hush, hush, now… You'll be a great mother. See, all you have to do is this," He began stroking her hair in comfort as she calmed herself.

Rose relaxed, then paused as she hit his chest, "You're treating me like a child!" She pouted and looked up at him, puffing her cheeks.

"Right, just treat your child like a child," Michael looked down at her with a teasing grin.

A pillow met his face as Rose began to smother him.

"Ah, ah! Wait, you'll kill me! H-how about I buy you some books for it, okay? S-stop!" Michael struggled beneath the pillow, and Rose showed him mercy.

"Get me all the books you can. I need to do my best…" She said with a small sigh and a smile of anticipation.

She would give all of herself to her child.

—-----

"...Hush… hush."

Rose's hand fell limply by her side. Her smile at her daughter's words fixed on her face.

The rain became a heavy downpour. The bubbles shattered.

Lily remained still, her thoughts and feelings too erratic to process. Her eyes met the golden pistol not far away, then at the fat man who had his face planted in the mud.

'Kill…' Her inner beast only had a word to whisper, and she soon found herself walking with the pistol in her hands.

Splash. Splash.

Her socks were soaking wet as her shoes stepped through nascent, shallow puddles.

Splash.

She stopped in front of the unconscious fat white-clothed figure, and aimed the gun down towards it.

Click.

*BANG*

"Aaaaahh!" St. Lard woke up with a jolt of excruciating pain as a bullet pierced his belly.

He looked up, and a flash of blue lightning in the sky illuminated cold, predatory, lifeless green eyes as they stared down at him.

*BANG*

"AAAAAH! What…" 

*BANG*

"AHHHH… Stop! I am an important person! A god! You -" 

*BANG*

He collapsed face-first into the mud again, feeling his strength leaving him.

He was a god! How could a mere human treat him like this? Didn't the ignorant whore know that he was not to be touched? Not to be disobeyed?

When had he ever suffered such pain?

Splash. Splash.

Lily approached and bent her knees slightly, pulling the man's head from the hair at the back of his scalp, meeting him at eye level as she held the gun to his head.

St. Lard's eyes shook. His face went pale as he felt a primal fear.

"N-n-no wait! I'll give -"

Lily's small hand pulled the trigger.

*RUMBLE*

The following thunder caught up to the prior lightning flash and shook the air, and its sound hid the last bullet as it dug between the noble's eyes.

Splash. 

Her hand released the pistol as it fell into a puddle.

She limply made it back to her mother's corpse. She simply sat there for a long while in the heavy downpour, caressing Rose's hair as she repeated her words.

"Hush, hush, it's okay… Lily's here…"

A long time passed.

Lieutenant Brannew was the first to stir awake. He looked around him at the dense crowd of bodies lying in the mud.

His eyes scanned the scene, confusion furrowing his eyebrows. Then, he looked at the little girl in the distance, holding her mother's head in her lap, mumbling to herself.

Splash. Splash.

His boots sunk into deep puddles. The rain had drenched his uniform and his afro. He loosened his collar and removed his heavy marine coat as he approached the small child.

Then his eyes glanced over her, and he froze.

'... Shit.'

There was a puddle of red beneath the body of the Celestial Dragon. He hurried over to it, ignoring the child for the moment.

He crouched down, inspecting the body, and the patches of red leaking from its clothes.

He confirmed the man's death, then looked back at the girl who was still mumbling to herself.

'...Shit.'

He scratched his head, unsure what to do.

"My wife and child, help them out later, would you?"

Michael's voice echoed through his mind, and he attempted to shake it off.

There was no way he could help the dead wife, and as for the child…

He looked around at the fainted bodies littering the Grove, then at the dead World Noble, then back to the girl.

'Why did I have to give my word to that lunatic?' He thought in resentment. He really wanted to change divisions. He would put in a request at HQ after giving his report here. 

Maybe some cushy desk job would be more his speed.

Splash. Splash.

He stopped in front of the child and cleared his throat.

"Girl, I'll be honest here, you've done a very bad thing…" He started, his voice becoming harsh unconsciously.

The girl didn't seem to hear him, as she continued mumbling to herself.

He shook his head, and crouched, meeting her in the eyes. They were hollow and lifeless.

His brows furrowed.

He continued in a softer tone, "You should go hide. I'll take care of things here…"

The girl flinched.

"I'll… arrange for your parents to be buried together, so run off now, okay?" He said as softly as possible. He really didn't know how to talk to children.

Even though he had loosened it, he still felt his collar was too tight. He thought about getting a more casual shirt next time instead of wearing his usual marine outfit. He would need to transfer to a division that wasn't strict on dress codes.

The girl's eyes flashed with recognition, "Parents?"

Brannew sighed and he ran a hand through his wet afro.

"Just run, okay! You can't be here when everyone wakes up, or you'll be hunted down everywhere you go! A wanted criminal! Your parents wouldn't want that for you, right?"

There were no eyewitnesses to the murder. He could still try to cover it up somehow if the girl was absent from the scene.

A marine admiral would be on his way once this incident was reported, and the girl had to be nowhere near this Grove by then.

He didn't want to subject the child to any more suffering than she already had. And there was that bastard criminal's request echoing in his mind too.

Lily nodded robotically, barely registering the marine's words. She then got up and walked away from the Grove without so much as a glance at him.

She wanted to go home. 

Maybe her parents were waiting for her there.