A World With/Out Home

Chapter 36: Breaking through. (Part 4)

Kalvara could barely breathe but still let out a struggling smirk, "Go ahead. I don't blame you."

"You bastard!" the urge to squeeze harder rushed through him. To end Kalvara's life. As he was now, it would be all too easy to snap his neck and unlike the Ever-Garden's mercenaries he'd never come back. But through it all Kyle couldn't do it and instead his grip loosened. "You made me kill them! Again and again you kept putting me in that damn pit. I'll never forget their jeers. The pain of killing people just like me, people who had no choice but to fight and yet- and yet-... I can't do it."

He had them. The memories of Estile as her original self. The pain of close to a century's torment. How she chased Kalvara down. How she ended the devil's oppression with the others and finally as she had Kalvara right where she wanted him, how she couldn't end his life. The reason wasn't simple, but in the end, if it weren't for Kalvara, Estile would have died a long time ago. In his own messed up way he had protected her from the other Archdevils. Her fights in the pit continued to push her but were never impossible and slowly with time she grew powerful. In the end Kalvara released her with a smile, confident she would be able to live. At the time there was no way to know if she would return to life after death. For all of that, the Estile back then and the Estile now, the boy named Kyle, couldn't kill Kalvara.

"Kyle!" the moment in time ended as Lillia pulled him off. The girl herself too shocked to have reacted sooner. "We need him alive."

Kyle fell to the floor his hands shaking, "Sorry... I just had a rather tense moment."

Kalvara rose back to her seated posture and rubbed her neck, "That's fine. I can tell it hasn't been long since you realised who you are. The memories are strong. Truth be told that's half the fun when I meet you. I always have to wonder if it's the last time."

Still shaking Kyle managed to sit back on the couch, his breathing irregular. With a foreign compassion unknown to them, Kalvara stood and taking a jug of water from the shelf poured each of them a drink.

"Thank you...," Kyle couldn't look her in the eye. "So, why are you here? This isn't quite your cup of tea is it?"

She laughed and took a drink from her own cup, "No, this whole thing has been a rather eye opening experience. Truth be told it all started exactly as you probably would have expected. The world was going to shit and I saw an opportunity. I could kidnap as many people as I wanted and raise them to worship me. So I did."

"You're a real arsehole," Lillia had to comment.

"True I was," Kalvara smiled reminiscing the past. "But then I made a mistake. The people I kidnapped, those I could find, they were children and the elderly. The plan was perfect. The old ones would die off and the young ones would treat me like a god." Her expression skewed, "In the end however they never treated me like a god... they treated me like a parent." A tired but pleasant sigh escaped her lips.

"And then you grew attached...?" Kyle asked, not sure how to react at the sight of this different Archdevil.

"And then I grew attached!" Kalvara repeated oddly exasperated. "In the past I would have ordered my servants to do it for me but thanks to you lot I had none! At first I was harsh, cruel even but then overtime...," her voice grew softer, "overtime I got to know each and every one of them. Then the years passed and they had children of their own and I looked after them as well, so on so forth yada yada, the story is as sappy as you'd believe."

"Do you regret it?" Kyle had to ask.

"No...," Kalvara smiled only for it to fade. "But when I think back all those years ago, what I did to you in that pit.... I know nothing I do will ever make amends for that time. But I wonder what would have happened if I had been kinder, if I had helped you, where would our relationship have gone?"