Published on
Wed, 25 May
The year 2022
Previously On Curse Of Latido:
Eren and Mikasa had finally expressed their feelings for each other, promises had been made and dreams shared. Now it was just a matter of waiting for the day to pass them by. Connie thought he caught Ymir talking to a not-so-welcome friend, he warned her and left her with her conscience. Eren almost go berserk on Gabi. He discovered Armin's plans were based only on theories, yet still trying to find out where he was keeping the 3 stones. Petra surrendered to her fate, and Jean got the chance to say goodbye.
A/N: Please, point out any repeated paragraphs, I revised this twice after moving the text from One Note, but I was too tired perhaps my eyes have missed some, point out any typos if you may.
Chapter 49 | A Vow Of Forever
(Part One)
"Thought I couldn't find you, brat? I'm afraid this hide and seek has to end now." Kenny grinned grimly as he tightened his grip on Petra's throat. She rattled.
The tunnel was pitch black except for the small light emanating from a single fire torch hanging above them. Kenny tilted his head, the shadows dancing around his feet, and smiled cruelly. "You know you had to take her place someday, yet you ran from responsibilities like a useless insect. Now where are my stones?"
"I don't... know where they are," Petra gritted, she could feel the air getting thin, and felt a panic rising in the pit of her stomach as she choked, tears welling up at the corner of her eyes.
He chuckled lowly. "Didn't think so," He sneered, then let go of her throat and she fell to the ground coughing and gasping for breath.
"Armin Arlert had the earth stone within his reach, sir. I couldn't find it," Eric said as he stepped forward to stand under the dim light of the fire torch. Eric? Petra glanced up at him in shock.
"Couldn't find it? Couldn't find it??" Kenny turned around with a rather menacing expression on his face. "You couldn't do anything you worthless pich! I sent you to get the stone from the undergrounds and what you did? You let them have it!" The anger in his voice was palpable.
Eric bowed slightly. "I apologize for failing sir, but when I git there, it was already gone."
"Gone?," Kenny scoffed, his lips curled back into an amused grin. "All you did was send a fake letter to keep the boy away for a while, but he's back isn't he? And you done nothing. I'm going to give you one last chance, both of you." The way he said that, made the hairs on the back of Petra's neck stand on end. "If you can't being those stones by tomorrow morning, then your lives depend on it."
"Yes, sir. But she'll never do a word she's told, lord. She'd grown stubborn the past four years, gained some courage... and she had her back covered," Eric said slowly before glancing over at Petra. She only cowered her head down in fear, not even daring to make eye contact with anyone.
Kenny glanced down at Petra, "Interesting, who's the unlucky person?"
"Levi Ackerman, sir. She's his lover, and he'd do anything to protect her."
A sigh of disappointment escaped Kenny's mouth. "Poor little thing, always ends up alone every single time..." He crouched down slowly. "Oi, orange bug, let's play another game, shall we?"
Petra's gaze narrowed, she lifted her head and spat. "Just kill me already. I won't do a word that you say. I'd rather die clean than stained with your sins."
Kenny chuckled in amusement, "and who said your sins had been forgiven? Oh," he paused, "he told you that, didn't he? I wonder from whom Levi learned these wise words..." Kenny's smile died down and was replaced with a look of rage. "If you didn't get me the stones in three nights, your end will be the saddest of them all. Let's see if he loves you that much then, Petra Ral..."
"Yours will be nothing different." Petra snarled in a shaky breath, the corners of her mouth twitching downwards. Kenny's eyes widened slightly, he stood up quickly. "Mine will end with glory and greatness you fool, ignorant wench! You don't know because you won't be there to see it."
"Lies, you keep telling yourself lies. Yours will end with the most tears and misery, cause those who aspire to power die servile."
"It seems your life isn't that valuable to you. How about I'll take his if you didn't oblige to my commands?"
Levi snapped out of these visions, and as soon as he ran out of breath, he rushed for the surface to gasp for air. They buried Petra, Jean, and Yumi in Lake Selene in the hope that it would bring them back to life, but mostly so that they could visit them whenever they missed them.
His eyes flicked over to the shore where he could make out Hange running towards him. He crawled his way to the land, water dripping out of his suit while he tried to catch his breath, until he finally reached the sand and collapsed on the wet ground panting and shaking.
"Levi are you alright?" The brunette asked as soon as she was close enough. But there was no reply from him, just a shaking motion of his head, and the next thing he began to tear apart. "I... I lost the kid, Hange... I lost-" Hange sat down beside him and pulled him in her arms, her hands brushed up and down his back as she bit her lip.
"and Petra... they're both gone, Hange. They're both gone." He groaned against her shoulder in frustration and anger, I will find you, Kenny. I will rip you limb from limb, if that is what it takes.
It was getting colder as the moon shone above, and with a sigh, Eren wrapped his arms around himself tighter, the lake water still lapping at his bare toes, and the wind whistled through the trees almost sounding like soft laughters of the dead. He could've sworn he heard Jean laughing among them, finally resting from the cruelty of this world. But then no one would've believed him, they'd call him a madman.
He felt a hand on his shoulder and glanced up, eyes meeting Armin's and he frowned slightly before looking away. The blond pulled his hands back, "Hey, you okay?" He seated himself down beside him. But still no reply, just another gust of cold air blowing through the branches and a soft whistle echoing.
"Once back at school, you told me the stones are the source from which we get our bending," Eren said. "Now I ask myself what happens when someone absorbs the stones," he paused to answer himself. "They become the source, am I wrong?" Armin remained silent for a second, his eyebrows furrowed in worry. "Where are you going with that?"
Armin has always known Latido had tried to absorb a stone before, but it had never worked. And he refused to believe it wasn't possible. He couldn't say anything about that to his friend, either, they might not be friends anymore if Eren found out that he had attempted something similar and never told him. And he didn't want that either; maybe they'd grow apart but Armin just couldn't bear losing his best friend. But then the next words shook him.
"You feared the blessings would be taken away from you," Eren said. Armin looked at him, shocked and offended, Eren kept his gaze on the lake instead. "For a stranger to have the power to grant it back to you or take it away any minute if he wills... You craved the power to yourself, too," Eren turned to look at him, "Armin."
"That's not-"
"Tell me, all of this... was it to stop the war? Or was it to stop the blessing from slipping off your fingers?"
"Are you drunk? Do you even hear yourself?"
Eren jerked to his feet. "I know the stones aren't stolen, Armin. A man of taste who loves shiny things, clever creature, aren't you? Wouldn't you agree, huh? You knew Kenny would come for them. You set this all up. Let's check the beach first, have a nice walk, a nice break before we go to the capital... start the mission, and then what? We lose a soldier or a two... hundred... it's fine, we can afford that. No biggie..."
"I didn't mean for anyone to die-"
"But you knew--the consequences! You knew! That's the problem. There. Highlight it... and yet, you still go with the plan anyway..."
Armin jumped to his feet, the words coming out of Eren's mouth were more than shocking, but enough to make him realize he was careless. But there was no other way, was there? "Alright, I might have set this up... I did set this up. I did plan for the four of us to hold the stones. But I never craved power, Eren. I thought you knew me all along. Thought you trusted my intentions would be good, but this..." He gestured wildly between himself and Eren.
"Jean died because of your selfishness!" Eren yelled, "I saw him dying right in front of my eyes, and you know why?" He pointed accusingly. "Because Eric tried to steal those fucking stones you made us wear!" he ripped the necklace off his neck and hurled it across the ground.
"Because you kept everything to yourself. So, don't you dare talk to me about trust, Arlert... it had long since gone the moment you decided to stop telling me things. Thought there were no secrets between the three of us??"
Armin's limbs stiffned at the words. He, he didn't mean for any of these to happen... his legs buckled, eyes staring blankly at the floor. He would've came up with another plan if he knew people were gonna die, yes, yes, he's not a monster. How have he let things escalate so far?
"What were you thinking gambling with our lives like that? Jean died because of you!" Eren shoved him roughly. Armin stumbled backwards. "Just you!" he shoved again and again. "And if anyone ever died, the blame's on you, Armin. Everything happening is because of you and that stupid fucking plan! Stupid fucking stones!"
Armin's mouth parted, the air rushed in and out of his lungs rapidly. His vision began to blur, black spots starting to appear before his eyes as he reached with his arm down to seat himself on the floor.
"Say... if it happened," Eren paced around, "if y'all became the element source... say you stopped the war for now, can you stop it forever?"
"No," he answered himself, "there will always be bad people seeking for revenge, Armin. There will always be hate and blood and.... GOD, it's like a curse! You can't stop a curse, can you? You can't stop people from turning bad... Unless... Unless..." Eren trailed off, running a hand through his hair, and his eyes widened at a random thought, like he solved some kind of riddle. "Unless, maybe, we can stop the bad from existing." His voice lowered into a whisper.
Armin blinked at hearing that, repeating the words in his head. It's like a curse, his hands lifted to cup his head. And they can't stop a curse. But... "You're right," he said. "You're right. The hate will never stop. In fact we shouldn't have had the powers at all. It was all a mistake caused out of ignorance."
Eren turned around, a hint of anxiety building up in his chest. "What?" He blinked, staring at him a few steps away. "Repeat that again, the last part... what was it?"
"The curse can not be lifted," Armin said, more to himself to hear than intending to answer the question. "It can only be broken. We'll have to break the stones."
"You, you're not being serious now, are you?" Eren panicked. Break the stones? He's nothing without his firebending... how can he protect Mikasa without his bending?
"But it's a curse," Armin glanced up.
Eren bent down, grasped him by the shoulders to lift him up slowly and managed to speak in a calm voice. "No, no, no, that was a metaphor. I didn't literally mean it to be a curse. It's a blessing, to be granted with such powers to defend ourselves from threats, it's a blessing, Armin." He shook him slightly as if to make sure he got it.
"The girl was sick, died of a heart disease," Armin looked into his eyes. "Everyone dies, except with different reasons to justify the cause of death. But her parents didn't accept that," he pushed his hands away, and walked around, eyes searching the floor of sand as if picturing the things he read in the latido book. "They wanted more time with her and brought her back."
"What's wrong with wanting more?"
"Everything is wrong with wanting more!" Armin turned, glaring. "There's no balance in life, in nature, in here..." he said, tapping his index on Eren's chest.
"You're telling me you wouldn't have wanted more time with your grandpa? That if the same thing happened to you, you wouldn't have brought him back to life?"
That caught him off guard. He didn't want to admit it. Even though he had been aching for so long now, that there was still a part of his mind that refused to let go of the hope that maybe, just maybe, they could find some way to return his grandfather to life. "I'd lie if I told you I didn't want more time with him. But that's how life supposed to go. No one was supposed to wake up from the dead, Eren. It's all tales until mad people decided it's not. And that, that's a devil's doing,"
Sucking in a long deep breath, Armin rubbed his face with his hand. "I'm tryna tell you it was never a blessing in the first place, it's a curse. Look at us. We were humans. Strip everything off. Name, age, color, race, gender, religion... still humans, all the same."
Eren shook his head, frowning. He had been trying to change Armin's perspective for the past fifteen minutes, while he on the other hand kept repeating the same things.
"We brought these powers into our world. And what's next? Let's brag about who's most powerful, let's bet who's stronger, who can take the other down, no? Let's threat, let's showoff. Let's pick a new name so we could stand out, new wardrobe, new motto, because we're different, right?"
It's started to make sense to Eren, but still, he can't give up the stones, there must be another way to stop the war.
"Let's degrade one another; because we're so─So much better─worthy of elevating above other humans. Let's kill those who don't look like us, if not by blades then words are much more sharper." Armin said. "See? Division. Social stratification. Racism. Sexism. All the shit you could ever imagine... piled up in one. Latido were desperate, mad, greedy people."
"Greedy? All they wanted was... time!"
"More time. And then more of this and this and that! And they never stopped ever since, have they? Wanting more is what made us cursed in the first place."
Useless. Armin's not changing his mind. Eren glanced down at Armin's necklace. If he at least kept one safe, no one's gonna lose they're bending. He'd be able to protect Mikasa as well.
Eren reached to snatch the necklace, but Armin batted him away. Sand fogged the place, and the trees leaned back with the force of the wind.
"You, you can't do this without consulting anyone. You can't just take it away like some... some... Armin, listen, it might be a curse. But it's the only thing we have to defend ourselves with. If you ever thought that if such stones never existed there'll be peace, then you're wrong. People will always find a way to not stay vulnerable."
"We're getting things back to normal. What's wrong with being normal? Is being human not enough?" Armin knew now, Eren is never going to allow such thing to ever happen.
"God, it's never enough! It's weak and pathetic and helpless...! I... I... A child stabbed me, Armin. No physical strength. No bending powers. If you ever think it'll be safe to live in a world where even the little and the innocent shed blood. Then you must reconsider the way you think."
Armin couldn't say anything, what could he do when everything around them was crumbling before him? Justice, peace, all his dreams were falling apart, just as they always will. This time he would be the one to take Eren down with them. "You think you know better than everyone else, don't you?" Armin asked, voice quieting. He had lost all of the hope he once had in him, the one he believed he could have become better, but only getting worse day by day.
Eren looked away from Armin, knowing that if he stayed near him for too long, he'd get hurt somehow. They both know it. "And you think you're always right. You know, it's funny I've always used to believe you're the most honest, trusted, wise person."
"And I used to believe we were friends," Armin said. "Friends were supposed to trust each other, and if you can't trust your best friend then maybe this friendship isn't real."
Painful silence fell upon them after that statement. The two were now staring at each other, neither one of them wanted to speak, until Eren swallowed down. "Take that back. Take that back right now." His hands clenched at his sides.
But Armin went on. "Remember that walk on the beach, when Mikasa said if we'll ever stay friends when we become older... wiser... and you said we'll always be no matter what, expect if she had a reason not to..." He paused before continuing. "How ironic, it's you who gave the reason in the end. You hated the fairytale-like endings too, didn't you? You just got that," he said and walking back with his legs before turning around to leave.
Eren followed behind him and grabbed Armin's wrist, stopping him. "Armin," his voice softened, "I don't wanna fight my best friend."
"Then don't let me stop you," Armin snatched his arm and walked away from Eren, feeling more pain than he thought possible. I don't wanna fight you, either. But this is the only way.
Eren stayed at the lake for a few more minutes, mad at himself for fighting with Armin, and he wondered if their friendship was really over, whether he meant all the words that slipped out of his mouth... or just blurted them out in a moment of anger. The words Armin said, the looks his eyes held, it hurt like hell. He felt like his heart had been ripped out his chest by those words. Those cruel words.
Could Armin be right after all of this? Was breaking the curse the only solution to this war? And just as he stared at the lake water, his mind wandered back to the time when their house exploded. When grandpa Arlert got slaughtered and they ran like little rabbits, hoping to hide in some hole away from all the bombing and fire and sharp whips of water, trying to keep ahead of death's teeth.
He remembers the night miss Hooks almost squeezed him inside out, it was almost as if he could feel the pain that coursed through his veins and limbs just by thinking back to it, the cruelty those bloodbenders were capable of.
The time Eric buried him alive, it had always been that easy to die, to be swallowed by the ground, sliced with the water, whipped on the back, or even stabbed to death.
How? How was he supposed to protect Mikasa when the least he have is his firebending...
and Armin still want to take that away.
This endless cycle. This war that was dragging everyone's lives down into a never ending spiral. I'll put an end to all these madness.
"Eren, are you okay?" Eren heard Sasha call out to him, concern laced into her voice, but his attention remained fixated on the coldness that has been growing inside of him all day.
He turned around to look at Sasha who had stopped walking beside him, she was staring at him with such worry etched on her face.
"I'm fine." Eren replied quietly.
"Then, let's get inside, we're about to start our meeting." He knew Sasha wanted to say something else, probably another round of reassurance, but the auburn girl simply smiled and continued to walk forward.
Eren took one last glance around him before returning his gaze to the water before him. He saw his reflection. He looked tired, not just because of everything that was going on with the war, but because of himself.
He looked worn out and he knew that whatever he does next, it will only make things worse for his relationship with both Mikasa and Armin. But again, it was for the best.
• • •
T
he team gathered around a table of sand with maps and papers spread out around them. Sticks of wooden torches stabbed into the sand ground, flickering and crackling in the cold air. Soldiers and warriors gathered around sitting down cross-legged on the floor as they waited for the captain to enlighten them with the official plan.
The air was filled with chatter and the noise from various conversations surrounding them. With crossed arms and narrowed gaze, Eren had his back leaned against a palm tree, watching over his friends as they spoke to one another.
He could tell there was something on their minds but that it seemed like no matter how hard they tried to think about it they just couldn't figure it out. They were either distracted by their teammates or simply too focused to bring their ideas to the table.
The captain slammed a hand down on the table startling everyone around him, causing them all to jump up and scramble to look at the map he had pulled up. "Alright. Listen up. The Judge is on that mountain," he pointed to some mountain over the map.
"As far as we know we have a day and a half before we find their base. The Judge can sense vibrations from the ground from any distance and is known for using his abilities to locate his victims, so we're taking the sky route." His eyes scanned the table looking at each of them in turn. "Armin, Sasha, Niccolo, we're going to need more than one flying bison to carry the fire-troops."
"Consider it done, sir," Niccolo nodded.
"Hange, Connie, Ymir and Yu-" Levi stopped himself, not getting used to Yumi's death, yet. He swallowed before going on. "We're gonna distract them, pull their attention to the sky, then you can strike. Take down the mountain if you can, and don't be surprised there will be benders of all kinds showing up from the mountain foot to greet you, so stand your ground and keep your eyes open."
They nodded.
Eren shifted his position so he could see over the table better, his eyes narrowing slightly as if contemplating their plan. Then he glanced up at Armin, seeing him all focused and serious. But he knows that look more than anyone. Armin must be preparing another plan in his head right now.
Levi turned to Armin. "Gather them and meet me shortly at the shore, let's hope your plan works." Armin averted his gaze, nodding then glanced up in Eren's direction.
Meet them at the shore? Eren narrowed his gaze at him. Armin's wearing the earth stone. He blinked then glanced at Mikasa. Red necklace. Wait, if they're all wearing opposite colors to their bendings... then, Where's the blue one? He shook his head, all he needed was to keep one stone so the curse won't break, and he already knows how to get it.
Good thing no one knows about Armin's change of plans, except Eren and him of course.
Slowly straightening up, Eren turned around. He gestured with his head to let Mila and Floch know he wanted them, then walked away somewhere quiet so as not to draw attention to them.
"Master," came Mila from behind and put a hand on Eren's shoulder.
"Boss?" Floch nodded, waiting for orders.
Eren took a deep breath and then released it, looking at them seriously. "Listen very carefully. I want you both to go and inform the Water Tribes, the Earth Kingdom and the Fire Nation that the Judge has stolen the four stones and intends to break them."
Mila and Floch both exchanged worried glances before looking back at Eren.
"And tell the underground city that the Judge has the three stones in his pocket and plans to steal the power once he gets his hands on the last stone. Let everyone know his location, on the Butterfly Mountain."
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Copyright © 2022 Salva Ibraham
Author: SalvaIbraham
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ext: A Vow Of Forever - Part 2 (OUT NOW!)