Chapter 102
His voice came out no longer as a burdened whisper, but with a flatter, more technical tone, as if he were shifting the subject from inner wounds to something more concrete.
He posed a question to Apathy, who remained steadfast behind the wheel of the massive vehicle.
The question was not about tactics or navigation, but about a promise.
An oath he wished to bind between them, a vow to be fulfilled later, in a "someday" that felt painfully abstract amid such a critical mission.
It was Shaqar's attempt to find an anchor, a point of light in the future that could become a reason to endure—not only for himself, but perhaps also for the one beside him who had borne too much in silence.
"Is it really that important, Captain? Important enough to bind the two of us with a promise, in the middle of a mission like this?"
"Very important. Not just for this mission, but for our lives afterward.
There is meaning waiting at the end of it—and I don't want to miss it again."
The steel cabin, resonating with the constant hum of the engine and the low conversations of the soldiers in the back, suddenly held an intimate silence between the two figures at the front.
The pale glow of emergency lights painted shifting shadows along the metal walls, dancing in rhythm with the vehicle racing through its flight.
Apathy's chuckle sounded not as mockery, but as a sincere question from someone who had too often seen promises shatter on cruel battlefields; a small sting of doubt born of experience, thrown into the stifling air thick with diesel fumes and unspoken tension.
His question lingered there, simple yet sharp, asking about the weight of an oath amid uncertainty looming like the darkness beyond the windows, amid a mission that offered no guarantee they would even breathe tomorrow.
Shaqar's tone shifted instantly, like a spark igniting within a dark oil barrel.
The passion that had been buried beneath layers of regret and spiritual exhaustion suddenly burst through his voice, now clearer, brighter, piercing the fog of despair that had briefly enveloped him.
He spoke of meaning, a word that had nearly become foreign in the vocabulary of their lives, filled as they were with orders, tactics, and bloodshed.
These words were no longer the wounded whispers of a father, but the declaration of a captain who had rediscovered his compass.
An affirmation that beyond all this chaos, a shore awaited, a life "afterward" worth fighting for, a reason to endure that was more personal than blind loyalty to an order or a task.
The promise was the thread he wished to spin, the anchor he cast into a still-vague future, so they would not be entirely swept away by the current of darkness they were plunging into.
"I don't mind, Captain. If this is just a promise between two friends, I can accept it. But there is one condition."
Fhuuuuhh!
"You speak first. Tell me what promise you want to bind with me, and only then will I answer."
The air inside the cockpit, which moments ago had been filled with Shaqar's declarative fervor, suddenly grew calmer, cooler.
Apathy did not change his posture, both hands still firmly gripping the iron wheel, his eyes piercing the darkness of the empty road ahead.
A soft breath, almost inaudible amid the engine's roar, escaped his lips.
He did not object; there was no refusal in a heart long accustomed to bonds far more complex than a simple promise between comrades.
Yet in his world, everything required clarity, a concrete definition so it would not turn into a painful illusion.
His condition was simple, direct, and logical—just like the way he worked.
Before consent could be given, the content of the promise had to be revealed.
This was not mere bargaining, but a request for transparency, an acknowledgment that even the most personal oath required a form that could be understood, so it would not become an ambiguous burden in the future.
His voice, flat yet firm, cut through the space between them, demanding substance from the passion that had just flared.
"I promise, after this mission is over and I return still breathing—whatever my condition, wounded or not—I will speak directly to Miara.
I will stand before her, not hiding, not running away."
Hoooohh!
"I… I will… apologize for being a bad father after she got married.
A father who chose responsibilities outside the home, but failed to be there when she needed me."
Shaqar's voice cracked amid the constant hum of the engine, like fractured glass inside a soundproof chamber.
His speech faltered, hoarse with the weight of time and regret stored for far too long.
These words emerged not as a strategic plan, but as a tortured confession, an explanation attempting to bridge the gulf between absence and intent.
He revealed his resolve to finally face Miara, his own daughter, no longer as a shadow behind a door, but as a father begging for forgiveness.
His promise was to utter the word "sorry" that had turned to stone in his throat for years, an admission of his failure as a father during the crucial years after Miara's early marriage, even before Shaqar himself reached thirty.
In the tremor of his voice, there appeared the panorama of a young household he had left behind, where Miara and Absyumura struggled to give birth to and raise a child—his grandchild—under the shadows of poverty and terrifying uncertainty.
His reasons burst out like unbearable pressure.
Not for a calling of the soul or personal ambition, but a bitter, forced choice: sacrificing his presence as a father and grandfather to save them from the grip of malnutrition and collapse.
The world they inhabited, a world seized by satanic followers after the defeat of the Almighty, was not a friendly place for ordinary families.
As a satanist himself, the remaining path was often dark and dangerous.
He sold his seat at the dinner table and his grandchild's embrace to become an exorcism specialist, confronting the cursed minions of Esa such as Angels and Holy Beings that still roamed—a profession that paid dearly but demanded a wager of life each day.
Every badge he earned from Team Xirkushkartum might mean a sack of stale rice, a bottle of contaminated milk, or a leaking roof for Miara's small family.
In his halting confession was painted a silent sacrifice, a love expressed through painful absence, an effort to become a support from afar when he could not be a protector up close.
He reaffirmed his resolve with an increasingly firm tone, though still laced with pain.
The promise would be fulfilled when this mission ended, when he managed to return home, whatever his condition, even if his body was riddled with wounds and his soul utterly drained.
That return was no longer merely the completion of a task, but a pilgrimage back to a home he had both built and destroyed, a journey to reclaim the titles of "father" and "grandfather" that he had pawned for the sake of bare sustenance and fragile safety.
His words hung in the stifling cabin air, an oath that now possessed form, weight, and a tangible deadline.
This was an admission that true victory did not lie in how many Holy Beings he had defeated, but in the courage to finally stand before his daughter and say, with all his fragility, that he had been wrong, that he loved them more than anything, and that all his dark sacrifices had ultimately been for the small light shining in his grandchild's eyes.
To be continued…