Chapter 57
Yet the shadow of Nebetu'u remained, clinging firmly to every inch of space, haunting the conversation no matter how hard it was diverted.
The silence left behind by Shaqar felt like a shield, an invisible wall rejecting every effort that sought to be extended.
Shaqar stood in a stillness louder than any scream.
His aged yet solid figure was like a pillar forced, constantly commanded to support a fragile structure, reflecting the entire burden stored for years.
The old hands still retained the memory of the clenched fist, a symbol that could not be erased so easily by sweet tales of victory over Ophistu.
What meaning had success, if every time the name Nebetu'u arose?
There was nothing but an ancient wound, one that no achievement of any team could ever close.
His gaze reflected that conviction, that memories of downfall were far more honest, more pure than recollections of triumph.
The victory of subduing Ophistu was indeed recorded as a great moment, a form of glory among many entries in the history of Xirkushkartum.
A figure of an angel nearly stripped down to the core of its identity, with Olyspharta defiled and no longer whole, stood as proof, as strength, that the hands of Shaqar and his subordinates were capable of toppling something the satanist people deemed impossible.
But that victory was merely a glimpse, a fleeting light illuminating only briefly a corridor long drenched in shadows.
Ophistu had fallen, and that could not be denied.
And there was Nebetu'u, roaming freely without restraint, sowing terror solely within memory.
Still embedded, signaling Shaqar, who continued to wrap his face with stiffness so rigid, as though his team's victory had never, not once, touched the deepest layers of a heart long fractured.
A smile never appeared, not even the faintest, for the triumph felt like a torn scrap, a spark in the middle of a darkness that refused to fade.
Every fist, every stare, all remained shackled, colored solely by the shadow of Nebetu'u that gnawed from within.
Leaving Ophistu as nothing more than a pebble along the long road of suffering.
His subordinates might nod, might consider that moment a grand achievement.
But for him, it was no mere event, a sequence that could never erase the stain of wounds.
Apathy regarded the situation with a heart increasingly uncertain.
There was a push within him to keep speaking, to not let silence become a chasm that swallowed sanity.
Pausing for a brief thought, Apathy then acted, spontaneously raising both his hands upward, leveling them with his shoulders, a small gesture that suggested both supplication and helplessness.
His mouth then opened, attempting to tether sound into the room growing denser, as though the air itself refused to grant breath.
The words he uttered were simple, suggesting that Shaqar needed rest, merely a pause for a mind too cramped, too long stuffed with a single cursed name that never departed.
Not without reason did Shaqar close his eyes, allowing darkness for a moment to replace the stifling heat of thoughts that still plagued him.
Those words had not sprung from the lips of a hated angel, but from a comrade-in-arms, one of the same satanist race who had long borne, long shared the heavy weight of duty and endured a harsh life together.
Sensing it, the grip on the staff in his left hand slowly slackened.
The staff did not fall, it remained within his grasp.
But the pressure that had long conveyed stubbornness now eased, like a great stone finally moved from his shoulders.
He let his eyelids close, not for full rest, but for relaxation, merely to drown himself in reflections impossible to avoid.
Behind closed eyes, Shaqar saw the path, how swiftly months had passed in his role as head of Xirkushkartum.
How often he had restrained anger, hid wounds, caged weakness, all to ensure subordinates never lost their grip.
But behind it all, the farther he walked, the farther he drifted from the closeness that once was.
Five steps—that was how the feeling measured—merely steps that distanced him from the bonds of family that should have flourished.
The position he bore, the weight he carried, seemed to uproot him, slowly tearing him from the roots of warmth, replacing it with duties rigid and thorned.
It had all begun from a single resolve, a conviction born in the chest of a man in his thirties, long before his hair turned white and his gaze grew laden with burdens.
At that time, Shaqar was already a father, had even witnessed his only daughter step onto the wedding platform, leaving home for a new life of her own.
Not long after, his first grandchild was born, a sign that his lineage would continue.
But instead of spending his days with the family he loved, Shaqar chose another path, binding himself to Xirkushkartum for a greater purpose—protecting the satanist people from the assaults of the Cursed One's minions.
That will was unshakable, firm even when questioned by many, for to him the world could not end at the walls of his home.
As the path stretched forward, the lonely road began devouring little parts of him.
Victory after victory in exorcism lifted him, raised his name into higher ranks, making him more respected, even feared—but at a cost that grew increasingly bitter.
Each rank was not merely a title, but another wall, another barrier pulling him further from the warmth of kinship.
His house slowly became a station, no longer a harbor.
The smile of a grandchild learning to call "grandfather" was news heard from afar, not laughter spilling from tiny lips.
As his hands clutched tightly the staff of leadership, the embrace of family grew harder to reach.
The dark village sky bore witness, a mute observer, as Shaqar's steps became ensnared, bound solely to duty that knew no mercy.
He had just set foot upon the first day in foreign soil, far from all warmth that had once embraced life, when the most bitter news pierced the fortress of his soul.
The wife who had long been his anchor, the silent support in prolonged solitude, had passed away.
She had fallen as mortals can fall, yet not entirely vanished.
There his consciousness was pulled, swept along into the whirlpool of paradox, pulsing between being and non-being, spinning until silence itself could not name it.
Crossing into the realm that rejected names, a foundation Ishikarakarta itself had shaped as a home for being and nothingness, it was no wonder time seemed to halt, to freeze in place.
Regrettably, duty knew no pause.
Eight days passed without permission to turn back, as though the universe itself had locked him, chained him into a corridor filled with dust and cold, refusing him the final chance to hold the hand now frozen in nothingness.
Shaqar could only inhale the grief alone, layering it with façades learned from a lifetime of battles, feigning calm while carrying the staff of leadership that grew heavier each passing minute.
When at last he returned, it was not warmth of home that awaited, but a chasm stretching between himself and his own blood, fingers severed from the grasp that should have bound them together.
In that instant, his only child looked upon him with eyes aflame, rejecting any defense he might offer.
To her, Shaqar was not a father, but a foreign shadow, a man who knew only the pursuit of team glory, willing to sacrifice even family as the price demanded.
That gaze was sharper than any sword, stripping Shaqar bare from within, exposing that every reason about fighting for the people was mere echo, hollow to a child who had lost her mother.
From that moment, there was no more room for words, for every sentence had become a wall, thickening the hatred all the more.
To be continued…