Diablo in A world of infinite possibilities

Reminiscing about the past

Torne Village

Louie was in one of the village's stone windmills, curled up and crying in fear. The moment of Monochrome's first attacks, Louie had been on his way back home.

Thankfully, due to having been away from the festival crowds, he hadn't been targeted by the monster, and had made it out completely unhurt.

Nevertheless, the sight of the burning village had terrorized him into a panic, spurring him to run for it until he'd stumbled upon this windmill on the side of the road.

Going inside it had been no mistake. It did a good job hiding Louie from Monochrome's gaze, and it was too far away from the other houses to catch the fire.

However, this place was nothing but a dead end for him. Though it kept him safe from the immediate danger, he would instantly be burned by the fiend if he went out. The mill was both his shelter and his prison.

"Ohh..." he cried, all curled up in the corner.

The resounding cackling of the monster terrified him to no end, and the solitude made him feel helpless, but more than anything, he couldn't stop worrying about his mother, who, he thought, was still at home.

"If Dad were here, he'd..."

He'd save us just like he did back then, he thought. This actually wasn't a situation that Shijima could have handled, but young Louie wasn't in a state of mind to consider that. Like the child that he was, Louie just wanted his father to save him. The boy had adored Shijima ever since they'd met four years ago.

Being his savior and an ultra-strong Master, the man was a real hero to him. However, Louie's admiration was the kind you'd direct at superstars or famous sportsmen; Shijima definitely wasn't a father figure to him. Because of that, he didn't know how to feel about Farica and Shijima getting married.

The boy's heart was rejecting the idea that Shijima was his dad now.

His love and respect for the man was there, but not his ability to see anything fatherly about him, which was perfectly normal for a child whose mother had just remarried.

That sentiment made it hard for the boy to idolize the man like before, and it started to create an awkward distance between them.

Shijima began living with them, and Louie behaved around him like a stranger, rather than the family they'd now become.

Neither Farica nor Shijima said anything about that. They believed that, regardless of how the boy went about it, Louie had to find the compromise by himself — by his own will. Because of this, Gringham and Juno were soon acting more worried than the parents.

After a whole month of awkwardness, the family came across a turning point — a visit to a certain grave at the capital. It was the death anniversary of Louie's biological father, so they went to clean it up and decorate it with flowers.

The man had been a plain Carpenter who'd lost his life slipping off a roof and falling to the pavement below. The angle at which he'd hit the ground was so unfortunate that he'd died in an instant, not giving any time for healing magic to save him.

After cleaning the grave, presenting the flowers, and giving a prayer, Louie and Farica left the graveyard and prepared to return home, but that was when the boy realized they'd left their cleaning tools back at the grave.

"Wait here, Mom, I'll go get them!" he told Farica before speeding away.

Back at his father's grave, Louie found someone he hadn't expected. It was Shijima, the man they'd parted from after traveling together to the capital. The man had told them he had business to attend to.