Chapter 114: Chapter 114: Their Choices

Kato trained his gaze on Simone. “I hate being told to pick a side. Good and evil? All I can think is whether each side has a reason for doing all of this.”

“For a man put down by her, you are quite neutral,” Simone said, his voice laced with steel. “You were there when she had summoned demons.”

“She was not summoning demons,” Kato said, his voice quite toneless. “I was there. She’s after something else. I think the tunneling technique that she is trying to make will revolutionize the world.”

“If a world is still around by that time.”

“You speak of the future while not looking at the present. I am not defending her. And I can speak what I saw and you must have heard what Sir Hawke saw when they invaded my mind and dared to question it.” Kato growled like a beast. “I don’t like being told that one is good and one is evil. Please, don’t bring that kind of garbage in front of me, Simone.”

“Intentional or not, she summoned demons into this world,” Simone pointed out.

Kato snorted through his nose. “It means nothing. I don’t know what you intend to do to make me want to put a bullet in your head, but regarding her, I don’t want to involve myself.”

“You have talked?”

“You can say that.”

“Then are you already on her side?”

“No.”

Kato liked her. Loved her enough to commit sins and blacken his soul. Become a monster that would behead those who would dare to point their weapons at her. It was natural for him to protect her. In this world, where he knows she walks. He would do so. At least he thinks he will. The disparity between the Katey he knew and the Gia Silva that he knew was far different. Kato knows he is more likely to join her, no matter what.

“Then you sit on the fence.”

“I refuse that kind of argument and I will not be told that I am a fence-sitter for not daring to put my foot down. I can choose for myself and I refuse to be told that I am evil because I don’t agree with one side. You know this better than anyone.”

“Perhaps,” he said to Kato. “CASE is neutral until you summon demons into the world. Personally, I’d rather not point our blades on the lady herself, but she is a woman of certain talents. The world would be a fool to put down a woman that could improve the world. Good or not. We accept that part of her because she is useful to the world.”

Kato bit his molars quietly. “And you speak as if she stops being useful. She’d be a threat that needs to be eliminated. I don’t buy into that. I think you are more afraid of the demons than her.”

“I am. You have seen what a devil could do. Their mere words could make one kneel if you don’t have enough spirit and you think that the demon princes and their forces walking this earth would make it less? When a demon walks the land, the world will take notice and not even the spells can stop the people from knowing of their existence.”

“Enlighten me then. Why shouldn't we let the world know that they exist?”

Simone settled back on the bench with loose shoulders. “Will is power. Fear is power. And if they walk this earth, then they can use that will to power themselves. Think of it this way. These demons would walk the earth with their source and our source as their power. Perhaps we can injure these monsters with our weapons, but sending them back to hell requires a colossal effort. And effort comes at the price of the lives of others. It will be a turning point for humanity.”

“How so?”

Simone opened his dominant hand. “They would believe that they are aliens. Invaders that come from another universe. Travelers that prove that outside our solar system, there is a place that these monsters exist. What humanity does when faced with something different from us: we kill them or we try to talk to them.”

Kato nodded. Simone flicked his finger and lit a small flame on the tip of his finger. Kato massages his forearm and travels his gaze on the 200-year-old instructor showing the kids they speak and perform a spell.

“And the appearance of the demon makes it somewhat impossible for society to accept. Think about it. Even now we hate our own kind because of the color of their skin. If such creatures that are called demons appear before us. It would create a spark. This desire in the heart would create a demand to kill them all.”

Kato acknowledges that humanity has this certain bias that makes them trigger-happy. At the face of the unknown, humans run or hold their ground. If they think it is more beneficial, then they try to talk it out. The thing here is, will they even think of the demons as intelligent humanoid creatures?

“I guess there must be an event in the past that makes you so sure.”

“The Crusades’ goal was to take Jerusalem, but there are stories that there were movements during the crusades that were expunged in historical records. Christians and Muslims wielding their weapons against a demonic tide led by a demon prince. Legends say that it was through the combined efforts of these forces that they sent the demon back to hell and saved the middle-east from a demonic incursion.”

“And you believe that if they come to our world. We can’t beat them again?”

“It is not a question whether or not we can win. It is a question of whether humanity’s arrogance will provoke a thought that will lead us into this damnation. If the world finds out that there is a place in this universe that has land and a place full of alien resources. What do you think would happen?”

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“Greed.”

“Exactly.”

“The worst enemy of mankind is its greed. Back then, they had a thought of capturing hell. The Knights Templar and the Saracens dared to march into hell with their blessed swords and shields only to return into this collection of molded flesh compressed into a ball the size of a football.”

Kato rubbed his nose. “So you don’t want humanity to find out the demons exist and lose their minds trying to kill them all.”

“No, there is even more. They would believe in the bowels of hell. Humanity would think that they can find the most despicable individuals in that hell and pursue them. Which leads to more questions, such as whether other creatures from different locations are in hell. Or is that hell simply a trash bin of the most terrible humans?”

Simone’s eyes followed a leaf flying eastward. His voice has a certain tiredness that only a human that had lived long enough could muster.

“Demon Princes… and the Devil himself. We are dealing with creatures that have mastered the arcane. Creatures that would relish if we dare to enter their domain. There are beliefs within our side of the world that truly think that the reason demons do what they do is that it is their sustenance. We believe that hell is a place that people go when they die. If Hell becomes a place that can be reached while living. What will stop the world from thinking the same with heaven? We all die. That is the definitive answer of life in this universe, and where we go depends on our luck and fate. How we live this life. Where we go depends on certain actions that are taken.”

Kato cracked his neck. “Forgive me, but you confuse me with all of this.”

“Perhaps. Heaven and Hell exist and we cannot let humanity bore a hole to it. Humanity is too weak to handle the angels and the demons of the beyond. It is our salvation that such heavenly creatures intend to believe in goodness.”

The threat of demons walking the lands was not the worst scenario. The genuine threat is that humanity might get lost in its own hubris and dare to believe that they can slay gods and demons. Which leads Kato to question how the millennium bug affected these creatures.

“They might have bothered, but their world is separate from us. It’s best to believe that they live in a separate time and place. Think of their place in this universe as a naturally occurring sanctuary. Like this place, but on such an unimaginable scale. Larger than the dominion of Agartha that Silva conquered. “

“So the fear here is that you want to stop the idiots from going to hell?”

“And to prevent the enslavement of mankind. The materialization of a demon is one thing. But I fear that if they come, we will not have enough men and women who do not have fear,” Simone said, his voice slow. “Truth is that I fear that the world has become prey to the arcane. And yet there is this arrogance in me that believes that all of what we have right now can slay these demons as well. A hundred years have passed. Throughout the years that I live in our world. I came to realize that I am not a gambler”

Kato realized he wasn’t planning to persuade him at all. He is simply speaking out what he believes and why he stood on that side. Realizing this, Kato felt disarmed, and couldn’t help but feel like Simone was reading him thoroughly.

It is a feeling that turned creepy. Kato had experiences living with the ancient individuals back in his home world. Men and women without flesh left in them. Constructs that have resisted the call of rot and remained in power. Simone had that feeling in him. Kato wonders if this is Simone’s own arrogance. A confidence built around the years of living in this world?

His age should be around 130 already. And despite that, he feels like he didn’t get the wisdom that comes with age. He thinks that he’s simply lacking the valuable experiences that made Simone this way. He lacks the experience and responsibility that weighs the shoulders of the people he has known. What is he other than an ignorant child?

Not wanting a demonic invasion is a very valid reason from Simone’s point of view. Kato releases his fingers and realizes that in a way someone truly biased for his former wife. He understands Simone’s point of view, he truly does, and he agrees to it. Kato isn’t running with morality and logic. His emotion has a tight hold of his reasoning and it brings dread to him. Better men would decide for the greater good. Greater men would not hesitate to side on the ‘good’ and label Gia Silva, accident or not, as the woman who summoned the demons to this plane of existence as well.

It can’t happen. Kato truly understood that. And yet he was a sentimental fool who was on the side of the folk he cared about. The world is enormous and he can only fit so few in his heart.

Kato looked down. He forced him to find the words and the right choice. His head couldn’t find the right choice. Inaction was pathetic, and yet he couldn’t find a reason to spite Simone or even dare think of being on the side against Katey.

“And here I thought the world was simpler.”

“It is not, unfortunately. Sometimes, the person we tend to think of as evil can be the loved one of another. If only the world’s black and white, then I wouldn’t be speaking of such things.”

Kato nodded. He looked to the direction where Simone was looking and saw a figure that eluded such a charisma that even Kato can’t look away from her bountiful appearance.

And despite that bountiful appearance and charm.

She grinned like a madwoman at the sight of him.

Kato’s instinct screamed at him as the woman named Leona drew her sword and threw herself like a predator finding prey towards Kato.

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