Red Sun Rising

Chapter 6: Regret and Anger

Steven:

I brought my fist down to Malachi's forehead... and flicked it with my index finger.

He gave me a confused look as I backed away from him. "It's all in the past," I said. "Don't blame yourself. If you hold on too much to your regret, nothing will get better." I offered a half-hearted smile.

A few moments ago, beating him to a pulp had seemed fitting, but what Benjin said got to me. Malachi blamed himself, torturing his mind for probably more than a year about it. He didn't deserve any more punishment.

"I couldn't have said it better myself," a familiar voice called from behind me.

I turned, instinctively pointing my stun-grappler at whoever was there. Ten feet away, two knights stood next to each other, their dark armor gleaming in the sun. The one on the right had the recognizable features of a samurai knight: a big and elaborate helmet I knew was called a kabuto and his chosen weapon, a katana, strapped to his side.

"Oh, 'Tudo. It's just you." I relaxed my stance, taking a few steps towards him. "What brings you here?"

The Knight of Regret grunted, coming over to us. "You may call me Hideo in the absence of enemies, Steven Rockwell." He obviously didn't like my nickname for him. "As for why I'm here, we knights have a knack for sensing our... emotion of expertise. When I recognized who the emotions were coming from, well I just had to stop over."

I narrowed my eyes. "So... Malachi's regret," I pointed at him before turning to the unknown knight, "and..."

"Anger most pure!" The knight exclaimed, pulling a war hammer out with a flourish. "Out on the field, I am called Ira. But you, my angry friend, can call me Evander."

"Evander," I repeated, trying the name out. If I wasn't mistaken, that meant the Knight of 'Anger most pure' was named 'good man'. Interesting.

"Yes. Evander Sykus. 'Twas the name I was given many years ago," Evander said, tossing his hammer up in the air.

"Paenitudo," Malachi said, stepping forward, "Crystal told me about you."

"Mm," Paenitudo said, slowly circling Malachi as if he was an interesting specimen. His eyes emitted a bronze glow under his helmet, just as he had done with Max the first time we met him. "Interesting. You don't have many regrets, Traveler and most of them are trivial. But this one..."

"Have you heard?" Malachi asked, clearly trying to change the subject. If he was uncomfortable with the knight's words, his face gave nothing away.

Paenitudo stepped away from Malachi. "That our master is yet again incapacitated? Yes, we have." The knight made what sounded like a sigh and crossed his arms. "I'm beginning to worry about the position as Mortem. The Tainted One has no love for the Hood who helped lock him up first-hand. His return will not bode well for us, that much is clear, but for Mortem most of all."

I frowned, not liking the sound of that. "But... what about the other members of the Organization? They helped lock Red Hood up too, right? So... why Crys— er, Black Hood?"

"Each member played a part in Red Hood's imprisonment," Malachi said, "but it was their leader, White Hood and the original Black Hood who put him in his prison."

"The present White Hood faces these problems too?"

Evander snorted. "Not as much. Her Ladyship spends most of her time in the Realm of the Organization. Besides, she's immortal."

"Immortal," I repeated.

"Yep." Evander jumped up and grabbed onto a low-hanging tree branch. He began doing pull-ups, apparently uninterested in our conversation.