"She ordered the beating?" whispered Ratella, in disbelief of his situation. The said woman lay at his feet, her face facing away from the boy. "I was just a toy she bashed against the wall in hope of discovering the treasure within me."
A sense of despair wrapped itself around his mind, a deep fury nestled in between the cracks. The feeling began to swell into a deeper and deeper corruptive force, destroying all his senses and replacing them with an uncontrollable desire to inflict pain on those who wronged him.
Luna eyed the boy, not interfering with his emotions until she deems it necessary for their future relationship.
Ratella kicked the limp form of Tila lying in front of him, the impact repeatedly bruising and caving the woman's skull inwards. Crimson spilling from the multiple wounds inflicted by Ratella, his bare foot being covered in blood, painting it scarlet.
The six wings attached to his body darkened slightly, dimming the lilac shine colouring emanating from their feathers. His divine light corrupted, turning malicious, mirroring his desire for bloodshed.
"It'll be okay," said Luna, her tone soft and ethereal.
Embracing the boy, lifting him out of his misery and causing the return of his unblemished wings.
The six wings of the two Seraphims conjoined onto each other, turning into a ball of feathers.
"You'll be fine. We can be your family; you are no longer an orphan. Remember this every time your mind delves into the depths of misery."
Ratella burst into tears within the ball of feathers, clinging to the woman and sobbing into her shoulder, desperately seeking comfort in her warmth.
Their embrace lasted a few minutes before Ratella finally stopped crying and released his grip on the woman and her wings. He stood tall, looking downwards at the letter crumpled on the ground next to the corpse of Tila.
Ignoring the sight of the two contributing factors to his despair, he walked out of the room, followed by Luna.
Walking through the halls of the ruined orphanage, he saw the corpses of children and adults who once tormented him every day.
At the bottom of the stairs was the stern instructor still grasping at her neck, blood pooling underneath her. The wound was dry of any blood, her spark of life long since snuffed out.
Ratella eyed the woman with indifference, feeling no sorrow for her demise. Her awful attitude, which she once showed to the boy, was one of many factors for his indifference.
He decided his continued trip down memory lane was poisonous to his well-being. He quickly averted his gaze and headed towards the orphanage's exit, no longer holding any empathy for its denizens, seeing them as conspirators in his misery.
Whether these were his true feelings was lost on Ratella; he could not reach them. Overwhelmed by the situation, his mind buried all reason beneath heavy emotion.
Ratella eventually stepped outside, breathing in the crisp air of the night sky. He saw a small figure on the stairs of the entrance. The child's appearance was familiar, and the wings nestled on its back, outspreading their owner's arrogance.
Luna grasped her blade, pulling it out of its sheath, watching the boy as he noticed their appearance from the orphanage, cast into silence.
"Tila, is that you?" asked the boy, looking towards our direction. "I did as you asked and beat Ra -"
The child standing in front of him was Derek. Apparently completely oblivious to the surrounding death littering around him, although this wasn't exactly true, his eyes were devoid of any intelligence; the once beaming boy was reduced to a husk, eyes welling with terror at his surroundings.
Whether his mind was overwhelmed by the sight, reducing it to the intelligence of a chimp, was of no concern to Ratella.
His fist clenched after Derek's statement. He didn't run like he normally would at the boy's appearance. Instead, numbness settled in, dulling the usual bursts of anger or sadness. It was as if he were watching from a distance, strangely removed from himself and everything he felt.
Derek's fate was set in stone; airing his grievances to the dead would be pointless. His executor was standing behind Ratella after all.
"Ratella? Are you responsible for this carnage!" shouted Derek, approaching the boy, ignoring the obvious signs of his imminent death looming behind the boy. "Huh, you've got wings?"
Derek peered at his silver and lilac wings.
"Why do you have six wings, only Se -"
Derek's eyes drifted onto Luna, who appeared as a large mass of blinding divine light to the boy of lower power.
"What is that!?" shouted Derek, pointing frantically at Luna. His eyes were welling with tears in the face of the light.
"Your Seraphic Executor," stated Ratella, locking eyes with the cause of his broken form earlier in the morning.
"Huh."
Derek never got to finish his sentence before Luna burst forward, slashing the boy's throat and thrusting her extra sword into his ribcage, piercing his beating heart. Like with all the other people she had slain today, she clipped his wings after the light escaped his eyes.
Ratella sat on the bottom step, away from Derek's corpse and the others at the orphanage doorstep.
Luna swiftly joined the boy, flapping her wings, releasing a couple of stray feathers. Her eyes stayed covered even when flapping the other four, not moving them an inch.
Apparently, covering them was important to the woman.
"Why do you slice their wings off?" asked Ratella, intrigued by her unusual way of mutilating her victims.
"To sever the stream of divinity entering their bodies and for its eventual return to the Primordial Light. With no divinity coursing, their healing factors are rendered useless."
"Rather barbaric, don't you think?" asked Ratella once again, unsettled by the woman's way of speaking. Her tone is casual and unfit for their current predicament.
Ratella could only turn a blind eye to the deaths of his acquaintances at the orphanage because of their less-than-savoury history with each other.
Tila's death still looms in his mind, fury burning through his grief and misery weighing heavily, the two emotions warring inside him.
"I suppose so, but that is all I've known for aeons. Being his executor."
"Thats rather sad, don't you want a life outside of killing?"
"No, I am content for now, and it's not like I'm alone. The other Seraphim are with me most of the day."
"How many are there?"
"Three, no four now with your appearance."
"Are you sure I'm even a Seraphim?"
"Mhm, I'm not sure to be totally honest, but you fit the bill."
Luna's casual way of speaking was unbefitting of the highest of the choir in Ratella's opinion.
"What did you mean by 'His'?"
"You're quite perceptive. I suppose I slipped up, but it shouldn't matter in the grand design of the Choir's continued existence," said Luna, her eyes covered, but Ratella could sense her gaze was distant and unfocused, looking into the smoke looming over the village ruins. "The Primordial Light gives us orders, not Michael. Michael is more of an overseer, not the actual ruler of the choir."
"Michael?"
"Oh, sorry. The Seraphic Imperator, I got too comfortable and reverted back to the way I talk with the others."
"Don't worry about it."
"Ratella, tell me, have you thought about my proposal earlier?" asked Luna, turning her head towards the boy. Eyes still covered by the snow white wings, her lips turning into a half smile.
"I decided to accept your proposal. Luna, I will be your apprentice," stated Ratella, looking back at the woman. Her smile grew wider, and she placed her left arm on his shoulder, jolting him back and forth slightly.
Inviting a little chuckle to escape Ratella's mouth, lightening the pain he felt within his mind.
With Nova's desolation, there was no longer any place he could call home; refusing would mean joining the others in oblivion. Although his mind was cast into darkness, he still didn't wish for death.
"I'm glad to hear that," said Luna, an unknown feeling lurking in her tone.
Muffled coughs came from the fading smoke lying in front of the two. Luna clutched the pommel of her sword, the sound reminding the warrior of her duty of execution.