A trail of blood dripped to the floor, staining the pristine white tiles.
Another kick to his jaw splattered blood across the white, cold floor and a red, worn-out scabbard. It wasn't enough, thought the man, tied, bleeding, and kneeling to the ground. It wasn't enough to kill him. He looked up at his aggressor, who wore dark armor circling him.
Seeing the damage he did to the man, the soldier left. Figured. All he had to do was to disable him. He was put here to be questioned, not executed. At least not yet.
He raised his face toward the golden seats, where dark figures whispered. The voices talked about a man who shouldn't have survived. The gazes behind their pale, animal-like mask rained down on him, pattering. Until one of them near the center spoke up.
A man with a pale Lion mask.
"Introduce yourself."
The man answered despite knowing that the Council Of The West already knew, "Moon. Index of the Hand Of The West." None of the council members scratched their heads about this.
"The others?"
"Dead."
"The Hero of the West."
He took a moment to pull up his teeth from biting each other. "Dead." Saying that felt a lot different than seeing it firsthand. He still could've tasted the ash.
Whisper again.
"And yet, you are alive."
They were right to be concerned about this. The war should have killed everyone. Should there be a survivor, it'd be the Hero Of The West, not him. Yet, here he was. With the hero's sword.
The council grew unrest, their silent voice louder. The truth of the war can't get out. They wanted Moon dead. In which they can't freely do. Since earlier, the whole world has made a mistake.
"Why is everyone so busy thinking?" Said an aloof boy at the right of the seat. A mask of a Peacock. He was sighing while painting the air as if it were a canvas. "Paint him the color of the air."
Spider, a woman on the left side, scoffed, "How creative of you. How long have you stayed indoors after our last meeting?"
"I'd only go out if there is a meeting. So eight months ago."
"And you're proud of that?"
Lion interrupted them, "Executing him, even quietly, is out of the question.
"Not after he walked in the city with that sword."
The blood on the scabbard was gone now after boiling it to gas.
Moon closed his eyes. He could still hear them screaming the Hero's name when he limped through the gates. He hadn't meant to deceive them; he was just trying to get them home.
He continued, "Unmasked."
Moon had black eyes and hair. A sign of poverty in the West. His face, though bruised now, bore no scars despite being on the battlefield since fourteen years old.
On the other hand, the Hero Of The West never took his mask off. Aside from his hair being black, his origin is kept secret. What set the Hero apart from any other hero was his sword, which glows even at night.
"Everyone thought of him as the Hero Of The West. It hasn't even been a day, and a painting of him is thrown up to heaven and flies all over the Compass.
"The first hero to show his face," he coughed out, chuckling.
The boy ahh'ed, "That's what it's about earlier. I had thought the world had lost its art literacy when they were celebrating a third-rate painting."
"That's not the problem," the woman said, "Don't you see? Unless we tell the world that they have been mistaken, our hands are tied. And we can't do that either."
"Then we'd better come up with an idea."
Ideas were thrown around in whispers, and Moon caught some of them. Kill him and make a new hero wearing the old mask? Tell the world he got poisoned? He retired? He disappeared?
As time went by, the voices disappeared.
They have failed to find a way that does not drill a hole of vulnerabilities in the West.
They needed The Hero Of The West. With him, no one would dare to wage war on the West, not at the cost of losing their own Capital Hero.
There was no more voice. Until she spoke.
"Why don't we use the Law the Center gave?"
A white, long-haired that Moon once adored. Her face is a pale mask of an owl. Her silver eyes pierced through it. She sat on the left side and was the closest to the center seats.
When all the council members pointed their faces to her, she continued, "Let the Index of the Hand 'be' the Hero Of The West.
"Tie him with the Hero's sword, Day. Keep him unmask. And we send him to deal with one of the five demons that breached the wall after the war—another problem of ours. An index of the Hand is not trained to fight a High Demon. So he will die.
"And when he did, no one would be left questioning. The hero kills the demon, the demon kills the hero. What we don't want the world to know will also die with him.
"Our Capital Hero fell after combating a High Demon within the Compass's wall. The Center will honor him for protecting us from invasion, won't they?"
The Lion, "The Grace Period."
A rabbit sprang up and clapped, "What a wonderful display of intellect, oh, our great Academy Director!"
"Oh, thank you," the Owl chuckled as if embarrassed, "I just spoke up a little quicker. Surely all of you have the same concrete idea."
The other members start nodding.
"Lina…" Moon said under his breath, staring at the Owl. His fist tightened, and the nail started digging into the flesh. "What makes you think… I'd just play along with that plan."
"Oh, Moon, you already are playing in it."
She took out a straw doll that wore the same hair and clothes, exactly like him. "An artifact." She smiled.
As if to demonstrate its power, she squeezed the doll with her small white hands.
And Moon fell on the floor, coughing, choking, dying.
She stopped.
"Fascinating, isn't it?" Lina the Owl wiggled the straw doll around as if a child playing with it, "Don't worry, no matter how hard I clench it, all you'll have is a thousand needles pricking all over your flesh.
"But it's a different story when your own heart stops beating. I have heard the explosion is enough to take down a single High Demon. That is how this will end."
She gave Moon a moment to bring himself up again.
"I can tell, Moon.
"You want to die, don't you? Then at least have the decency to die rectifying one of the Hero's failures."
Lina asked if anyone else disagreed with the plan. A plan that covered a lot of their problem. There was no sound made.
The Lion nodded, "Then it has been decided. We will go with the Owl's plan. Is there anything else you'd like to add?"
The Owl looked up, "Uh… now that I think about it. I would like to send someone with him."
"Who could it be?"
Lina smiled, "My niece."