BLADE

Chapter 5: He has always been resilient

  He watched the sunrise turn the night to day and watched the sunset turn day into night. The sun and the moon rotated it's spot, day in day out, turning days into weeks and weeks into months.

  Like an old man living out his retired years, Blade lived out his days in the cottage, surrounded by the cricking of the crickets and the howling of the winds, the rustling of the leaves always following closely.

While his heart was on the window, always hoping for when his father will come home, his current days could be said to be one of the best he had ever had for he could do the things that were in his heart which was reading. If it wasn't for his father's rifle on the wall of the cottage, hung there like a trophy, he wouldn't even remember that he was an assassin who had blood on his hands, be it guilty or innocent.

He was sure that the Citadel would have forgotten that he existed as Viper had fully taken over his responsibilities. 

Vesper never failed to give an update every week on what was going on in the Citadel. The boys that were smuggled into the Citadel by Elder Hans, were already green Caders. More like he was building an army for himself- In Vesper's voice.

He sat down on the swing he sat on as a child. He remembered that it was only once he sat on that swing, and that was when his father was trying to encourage him that he was not an abandoned child, back when he questioned his mother's reasons for dumping him in such a place.

Now that he had adapted so well, he wondered why he ever thought like that as a child. It was not as though his mother ever showed him the love he needed.

His mother raised him on the cold mountains, where snow fell throughout the year. Maybe that was why his mother's hair was pure white and her pupils were silver like that of a blind person, but noone had a clearer vision than his mother. She could see so well, that she knew when his speed was slower than usual.

She hated him to be idle. He was always on the field, dancing with a sword in the name of martial arts. His flexibility being worked upon was one of the worst days in his life, he remembered entering extremely narrow cracks between snow ridden rocks just to pick a pebble she had placed there the day before.

Days of him running after butterflies just to kill them with a sword, each day, he had to kill not less than twenty butterflies on the other side of the mountains which wasn't like the back of the mountain that was always cold. The land below the mountains had spring, autumn, summer and winter unlike the back of the mountains were he grew up. The days he failed to kill twenty butterflies, he wouldn't have any sleep that night. That kind of trained not only his speed but his nimbleness.

  He gave up on receiving love from his mother when she smiled at a baby in her arms and struck him with a sword when he tried to come closer to play with them both. He had always had the mind of a lone ranger ever since then and but as a child he still hoped that his mother will love him if he worked harder. So he worked himself like an ox, day in, day out, to the days of practicing with a gun, still, she didn't even bulge.

Finally, when she got tired of the 'unqualified child', she gave him to his godfather, who took him in, accepted him into the Citadel.

  "The Blue Caders are the newly recruited ones so their only missions is to train. The green Caders are the ones who go out to collect information from the powerful. They aren't allowed to kill anyone. The Red Caders are more skilled than the two Caders below them but they are not as fast and a little messy. They go through more vigorous trainings but not many get to advance to the next level. The Brown Caders are more skilled. These are the ones who kill ministers and Ceos in a neat and sophisticated way.