Chương 116: CHAPTER 113 - Emerald Depths

A thousand aromas spread through the wind filtering through the crevices, accompanied by a shower of multicolored flowers. The entire laboratory area had colored itself like a garden: the cisterns covered in green vines, the benches and machinery caressed by thick whitish petals, and finally what remained of the walls, kissed by roots. Jeanne sat beneath the gigantic tree at the center of the space. At first she had failed to notice it, but the entire laboratory was gigantic.

With only that room now spanning a couple of hundred meters.

"Perhaps it's because of Hel … It didn't seem this big at the beginning." The plump man in front of her set his cup down on the table supported by roots. Delicately, he brought his handkerchief to his chin, wiping away a singular drop.

"It wouldn't be the first time." Her cheeks moved to form a smile, while she nervously tapped her fingernail. The man in front of her, an enemy, was adjusting his worn, dirty suit with ease, without even letting the slightest trace of wickedness show.

"Ed Guin. He's a Kontrolle like me… He uses his own bodily residues to manipulate the surrounding environment. All these plants are multiplying." Her frame was beside her, yet whenever she thought of drawing it, her mind flew back to that conversation.

"What flowers do you like?" Ed spoke, smiling as the small table disappeared, dragged away by woody tentacles. Jeanne furrowed her brows, stopping the tapping. She tilted her head and smiled slightly.

"I l-like sunflowers." She murmured, twirling her hair around her index finger. Ed nodded, snapping his fingers. Everything at their feet became covered in the golden crowns of those massive flowers.

"Excellent taste! I liked them very much too." He rose from the wood where he sat, turning toward the gigantic tree behind him, which in the meantime was regaining more and more color.

"Why p-past tense?" Her voice arrived trembling from behind him. Ed straightened, making the vine tremble.

"I think you know, but sunflowers turn their heads toward the sun. Without that light, their heavy heads would wither, and the many children they carry inside that golden crown could never experience that warmth." He raised his hand gently, with all five fingers spread.

"Yet that's exactly what makes them horrid. They desperately try to cling to something superior to themselves, like men. What sense is there in desperately trying to turn your head toward something that doesn't even care?" He tightened his grip, and immediately all the sunflowers withered, returning to ash on the floor.

"All plants need light to live, yet they don't seek it as these do. They are humble in their essence, which is why I started hating sunflowers for sharing the same weak faith and admiration as man. I read such fascinating names for this phenomenon… Heliotropism and Phototropism, yet they are just grand, embellished terms for something we do too. Devoting oneself from a young age to chasing something and then fossilizing on it is… Deplorable."

Ed snapped his fingers again, causing numerous blue and red leaves to erupt from the ground.

"I only called you Witch, and even though I know your name… I'd like a formal introduction if you'll permit me. I am Ed Guin, enlisted of Changeant." Jeanne swallowed nervously, feeling her cheeks harden to maintain that smile.

"I am Jeanne Goghette, recruit of NOIR." Ed nodded, reshaping the wood where they sat to form chairs. From the back of Jeanne's chair sprouted an immature sunflower, small, with green still covering the petals.

"Just because I hate them doesn't mean you should too." Jeanne giggled, squeezing the flower.

"Come now, tell me a bit about yourself… Relax, I don't appreciate violence." A strange perfume poured into the cold air, greasing her lips and forcing them into the motion of forming a word.

"I-I don't remember much about my life before NOIR… I was with mom and dad, then dad disappeared. Maybe I hated my father? I don't remember. Surely I didn't hate my mother." She chuckled as she spoke, one hand playing with her hair while the other scratched nervously at the wood.

"And why not both?" The plump man smiled, adjusting his jacket.

"Because my mother died smiling." Ed nodded, extending his hand as if to urge her to continue.

"I painted and still do, though the subject has changed. Now I paint my roommate, though lately I've been a bit stalled." She swayed left and right, ignoring the blood dripping from her finger.

"Would that be Lance Klint? The same one we're looking for?" Jeanne nodded, sketching a smile as a strand of hair stuck to her reddish cheek.

"Why do you want to take him away from me?" Despite her blissful, calm expression, Ed felt the hairs on his neck stand up. All the plants straightened their bodies, mimicking him.

"I have no idea. I'm not very interested in the client's plans, nor do I have information to share." Ed relaxed his shoulders, stroking the wood.

"And forgive me… He's a person, not an object of yours." Jeanne fell silent, merely smiling. He laughed, showing all his yellowed teeth.

"You really are a splendid girl! My reflection from youth." His flabby body toughened, while he widened his shoulders to take a breath of the perfumed air.

"I have more than a century behind me now. I lived in the capital even before the war. When children laughed in the groves before greed devoured everything." Jeanne stopped scratching the wood, stopping to listen to him.

"I don't remember much about my family. I only know that my mother had to sell me to pay a debt, and that I found myself working for an old nobleman." The laboratory started to fade, and a strange hum resurfaced from his memories. The hot summer sun pressed down on old Bayork. While many sought pleasant refuge in the foam of the beach, many others continued to work. Drenched in sweat and with his knees now adapted to the rough ground, Ed Guin pruned in silence.

Droplets slid from his sharp nose and bent the purplish leaves. Diligently, he transplanted the stems and stored the remains in a small bucket, hoping to use them as fertilizer or grafts.

"It sure is hot…" He murmured, smiling as he held a whole plant in his hands, ready to be planted.

"It really is! Today the summer is heavy! My bones tell me so." He turned, almost blinded by the light, barely recognizing the figure: a tall, heavyset newcomer with a thick beard and dressed in a simple shirt stained with sweat.

"Mr. Vecchi?! You should go back to rest. You have that important meeting tonight, and you should rest up." The man laughed loudly, sitting down beside him with his sleeves rolled up.

"Too boring, that rabble isn't for me. Those who think themselves superior because of what they have instead of thinking about how beautiful it is to sweat for the same project… How they anger me!" His wrinkled hands moved nimbly among the plants, pruning quickly.

"I prefer to spend my time working with you rather than counting money with them!" He huffed as he laid the roots in the pot.

"You'll only age faster this way." Ed murmured, only to be met with a violent slap on the shoulder, strong enough to make him stagger. The gentleman laughed heartily; one would never have guessed he was at the end of his senescence.

"Everyone ages, son! Might as well do it while doing something you like!" Ed immediately recovered, feeling his muscles swell and recover from the blow.

"Forgive me for saying so, but you are… Strange." He stopped, pausing to stare at a leaf before smiling. Ed didn't understand. From the moment he had been taken under his wing, he had always thought that man was different, different from the people who controlled the capital's sea.

"You're absolutely right, Ed, and I'm proud to be strange! Being human means being strange, and I assure you I'm extremely strange!" He pointed his curved thumb at his chest with the classic old man grin. He stood up, watching the seagulls flee from the airships' smokestacks.

"Parliament, nobility, wealth… I care absolutely nothing about any of it. Redwing and Bluewing, they're called that because they belong to a bird, yet I've never seen a bird fly with one wing! And what is a wing without its feathers?" He clapped his hands together to remove the soil, coughing for a few seconds before heading to the entrance. Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website.

"You did a fine job… My wife loved petunias." Vecchi grabbed the cane leaning against the marble fountain, smiling as he listened to the chirping of birds comforted by the cold water. Now Ed was alone, trying to find a spot for some hibiscus. He stared at the petals in silence, lifting them to the light. As he did so, a bee landed on his finger, using it as a perch for its drink. Satisfied, the insect buzzed away.

"No matter how hard one tries… All the petals of this flower are identical. They hold onto the same stem. Like all of us, we grow, play, cry, and die treading the same ground." One day, Ed was named heir and only son of Mr. Vecchi. The news left him confused, leading him to wonder if he truly was the right person. Could a bullied, abandoned orphan really run a mercantile empire? His father understood his doubt, but instead of answering, he opened the window that gave onto the balcony.

Old age brought him pain, but no creaking joints could keep him from basking in the work of his family: the garden left to him by his wife.

"A man who created this is certainly ready for greater endeavors." Before him, extending almost to the street, was a lake of swaying petals, dancing branches, and colorful fruit. The aroma was so intense that even the city seemed to thank the gardener for that life every night. Ed stared at it in silence, lowering his head.

"It wasn't your mother. You never knew her. My wife Greta was strange, always detached from politics and city life… But with a heart bigger than her body could express, perhaps that's why she was taken from me. She was like a little bird in a cage, and when she realized the world was moving toward a place where her song would be ignored, she began to suffer." He turned to Ed, tearing up from the one good eye left to him, since illness had taken the tear duct of the other.

"I'm sure… She would have been moved to see the man you've become!" Ed spoke no words, merely sobbing in the embrace of that old man who had cared for him, raised him, scolded him, and above all understood him. His new life would have begun as Ed Vecchi, but the steel eagle of the sky would not permit it. The first bombs fell, and of the garden nothing remained but a bitter blaze.

"You know, when I saw my father's house engulfed in smoke, I felt a new emotion. It wasn't anger, nor sadness, nor anguish, and above all, it wasn't resignation." He clenched his teeth and hands as he spoke, staring intently at Jeanne.

"It was hatred. Hatred for all those who didn't understand the importance of life, hatred for all those who weren't like him, hatred for ignorance, and at the top of it all was hatred for myself. I burned my hands trying to save those flowers…" Jeanne had stopped tapping her finger, now dripping.

"I failed, of course. The bombs kept falling, and the capital and its flowers vanished in the smoke. I sought refuge, helping someone, but a grenade only blew me apart. I still remember the iron piercing my knees before I lost consciousness." He chuckled as he spoke, moving his plump cheeks.

"I should never have made it, and instead I found myself on the cold bed of a military shack in Sector II." Ed searched his memory for the sensation of waking. It was cold; a strange buzzing resounded in his skull along with a numbness in his chest. The tent was filthy, with rifles and ammunition scattered on the ground, and the wind carried a metallic scent. Once the buzzing faded, the incessant sound of screams and the march of war became unbearable.

"He's awake." Slick and horrid, the voice of the boy in the corner of the room resounded, dressed in perfect military attire and with a long cloak covered in metal plates painted for camouflage. The same voice of the being he would come to know as Malcolm Van Jir.

"Perfect, we need all available personnel." A young man entered, wrapped in a black coat with a single white line where the buttons were sewn. A fur cap partially hid his long hair. He approached the bed where Ed lay, sitting down with a smile. He extended his hand, wrapped in various bandages soiled with black, oily liquid. Ed was too weak to move, merely giving a nod.

"I understand… You've been in a coma for quite a while. For many, there was no hope, but I find you sprightly!" He smiled, tightening the bandages around his arm. Ed could have sworn he saw a finger bone beneath the greasy linen.

"Who are you…" Ed murmured with a labored voice, unable to rise.

"Me? The name doesn't matter! Know that, unlike you, I am a human being. You, on the other hand, are something more." He grabbed his hand, smiling. Ed tried to push him away, but instead of moving his wrist, a flower sprouted from his palm. Ed paled, losing the gift of speech as he thrashed.

"This is what I was telling you about. You are different now, but don't be afraid." The man squeezed his hand, calming him instantly.

"The time will come when you will shine and become the flower of a new era." Upon hearing that, Ed returned to sleep. The boy smiled, leaving the tent.

"Why did you treat him like that, - --- - -.?" What left Malcolm's lips was a distorted hiss. As soon as he heard the sound, the man grinned from ear to ear. In his half-sleep, Ed was sure that whatever he heard was neither a name nor a word, as if something had been erased from existence.

"People need, indeed, they have the right, to rationalize. What one doesn't understand must be rationalized, to offer a small foothold in the sea of chaos." He said this, raising two fingers, while with the other hand he adjusted his hat.

"Ed Guin is like us from Fortschritt, except he underwent an autonomous awakening. He is an enormous unknown for the future, and nothing could be more stimulating." He lowered his index finger.

"Besides, we're in the middle of a war. If the theories are correct, there can be no more fertile ground." Malcolm nodded, waiting for his interlocutor to fall silent.

"You know, I heard that Termìe has deployed its Elite Intelligence… Are you interested?" Without turning, Malcolm extended his arm and stroked a leaf. In a few moments, the entire branch fell to the ground, dead.

"Whether I intervene or not doesn't matter. An angel's destiny is to lose its wings." The man with the cap nodded as Malcolm walked into the throng of soldiers, with an unsettling smile. Returning to the present, Ed savored the dense aroma that had spread through the room, with a vague nostalgia.

"I never knew the man who had appeared alongside Malcolm. He only asked me to keep a low profile and improve myself. Frankly, I have never fully understood my powers. They derive from the need to build, to give life back from useless matter. Those who have too much should give to those who have nothing. Unfortunately, that ethical inclination has been lost." Jeanne felt the hairs on her body stand up, sensing something wrong.

"I've always been weak, never assertive, resigned to the idea that my mother had made the choice to sell me." Jeanne, this time with wide eyes, searched for the origin of that strange taste on her tongue. The same one that was now warming her abdomen and clouding her senses so much that Ed's voice became an echo and his figure a smear.

"Stramonio Concobitus… A rare plant used by the cultists of Sol." Ed smiled, watching Jeanne's eyes glaze over.

"The pollen does such wonderful things. Vision blurs. The mind fogs. And soon, you'll drift into a coma believing you're with someone you love." He tilted his head.

"It's a rare case of a plant adapting to singularities. Effective on people like us. I thought it would be... Merciful." Jeanne's skin was growing redder and redder, while her eyes filled with tears. Before she could even swing a slash, Ed vanished into the wood, reappearing on the roots of the great tree.

"I don't like extinguishing life." The wood in front of Jeanne became turbulent, as if something was stirring beneath the surface. A sylvan wave crest moved along the vine, while she staggered, feeling her legs as if they were slime.

"Move…" She whispered before a wooden explosion pierced her chest. A tentacle of multicolored shrubs erupted from the wood and began to spin like a drill inside her thorax. Shreds of lungs, ribs, liver, vertebrae, and a cardiac atrium slid to the ground as the plant retracted.

"I didn't use it as a vulgar tool, believe me, but out of mercy. Enjoy your last moments pleasantly, like a butterfly trapped by a spider. After all, interacting with you is useless. In either case, you'd become a murderer." Ed turned his back, leaving the pale Jeanne to bleed out while she was too trapped in her mind to even try to regenerate.

"Not… here…" Jeanne murmured, for a moment regaining sight in one eye, searching the room for something she could strike, something liquid.

"I need new... Blood." Her eyes caught the metallic cylinders near the tree. Trying her luck, she mumbled something before launching a couple of blows at the cisterns. Ed heard the metallic ring, immediately followed by the gush of stagnant water full of algae and strange condensations.

"Don't tell me…" Ed sighed as the entire room was flooded, sweeping away the artificial nature. The force was such that it broke some walls, exploding outward to pour into the void below. Only a large puddle remained, now colored intensely red and vaguely denser. Jeanne stood up coughing, as the liquid flowed around her, repairing, or rather painting, the lost organs. Now and then white splashes appeared, other times yellowish, as the hole left in her chest closed. Everything sealed, and even her clothes returned.

"I deduce that all that additional blood and the new organs diluted the toxin…" He clicked his tongue, placing his index finger and thumb on his forehead.

"Why do you get up when I offered you such a pleasant rest?" No answer came from Jeanne. The only sound Ed heard was the gears of the frame mechanically clicking and rotating to turn it into a scythe. The man nodded, and the gigantic tree began to transform the environment again: plants with sharp extremities, strange glowing greenish globes, and above all, the tree behind him seemed to move, reconfiguring branches into two heavy clubs.

"Now… Die." Jeanne's eyes flashed red as Ed saw himself distorted in the blade. Iron and wood collided, shaking whatever was left of the puddle, now enveloped in red.