Chapter 68: Crying is not so bad.

“Mhmmmrgggh…sleeeep…”

Urgh, I want to continue sleeping, body…

My head was feeling groggy due to my wish for more sleep I believe, or maybe I’m just been lazy about it. Sleeping is pretty comfortable. Well, massaging my temple for a few seconds is enough to soothe this annoyance.

As I slowly woke up, my ears could hear a crackling sound a few feet away from me. From recent events, I could only think of thunderbolts and electricity but the warmth that emanated from it made it clear that it had to be a flame or something similar.

Scrubbing the sleep from my eyes, I opened them as I wanted to know where I currently was as I couldn’t remember when I fell asleep.

“So, where-ARRRRRRRRRRRRRRGHHHHHH!”

“Hestia?!”

Pain! Pain! Pain! Pain! MY EYES! ARRRRGH, MY HEAD!

As I opened my eyes, something blue shined into and overstimulated them, sending extreme pain that felt similar to having a needle pierce into them and injecting huge amounts of information that overloaded my brain. [Absolute Pain Tolerance] was helping but I still couldn’t let go of my head at all, the information wouldn't stop streaming in!

‘Close your eyes, original mind! Hestia, close your damn eyes!’ parallel mind #1 screamed like a harpy as she ordered me to do what she said.

‘Stop screaming! Stop screaming already, arrrrrgh!’ parallel mind #2 shrieked in agony.

‘Please, original mind, close your eyes. It’s too much! We can’t process all of it!’ parallel mind #3 pleaded to me.

‘Stop it! Stop it! Stop it! Stop speaking, ihr Dummköpfe!’ (you idiots!)

The absolute chaos inside my mind was pure torture, not showing any signs of ending any time soon. I didn’t need my other selves shouting at me to do something. It already hurts enough without them going crazy!

However, their advice wasn’t dumb. Closing my eyes did help, all the blue disappeared. The information was still inside my head, but my parallel minds were doing their best to dump everything out, erasing them as if they never existed.

If only they could just stop screaming while they did it, then I would be actually thankful for them! I really love having headaches every time I wake up in an unknown place I don’t even know about, oh, who would have thought that I would awaken to such a weird fetish?! Right?!

‘‘‘Sorry…’’’ my parallel minds apologized.

‘Urgh, whatever. Honestly, guys…’

“Hestia! Are you ok?!” somebody called for me.

“Lady Hestia, I’m coming!” another shouted.

I was unable to see them due to my closed eyes, but my ears could clearly recognize their distinctive voices, any time, any day.

Saori? Tasianna? Isn’t that their voi-wait…urghhhh, noooooooooo!

“Stay back, stay back! Stay back! Please, step back from me!” I howled like crazy as I turned my head away from Saori’s and Tasianna’s voice.

Still closing my eyes, I crawled away from them as if I was trying to flee. Panic and confusion assaulted me as the memories of what happened before I fell unconscious quickly came back to me, being released from pandora’s box with a simple voice command.

The blood, the red-soaked viscera on the ground, and all the crumbs of what used to be living beings, lying before my feet in a puddle of my own handiwork. A normal girl would feel nausea from this revolting memory…but I, unfortunately, wasn’t one.

No fear. No terror. No disgust. Nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing. None of the bad feelings that should be there, was there! Why wasn't it there?! Where is my fucking conscience?!

“Hestia, stop! You’ll hit the w-”

Oof!

Ok, so not only did I wake up to a mind-numbing headache, but I also bumped my forehead and then landed on the back of my head? Goodness, gracious. This is a rude awakening. At least this won’t leave a scar or bruise.

“Lady Hestia, are you ok?!” a clear voice called for me.

“No, Tasianna! Stay….stay away from me, please!” I cried out while stretching my hand to stop her from coming anywhere closer.

“B-But Lady Hestia, I j-just wanted…,” the quivering voice of my fairy friend made my already confused state even worse, as I wasn’t sure what I was doing anymore.

“Hestia, is something wrong?” a careful tone from Saori came, asking me about what was happening right now.

“Wrong? Wrong…of course, there is something wrong. It’s me!” I stated.

“W-What do you mean by that?” Saori further asked.

"I-I…I'm dangerous," I said, still with closed eyes. "I'm dangerous to both of you. Haven't you two realize this?! I'm dangerous."

I’ve never thought about this stuff ever since the first month of my new life, having accepted my new identity as a dragon and that I needed to do so in the long run. Killing was normal, especially after I understood that I had to do so to live. It was literally survival of the fittest.

Feeling bad for every single animal that I kill, so I could eat, would have made me gone mad, so I didn’t. I guess, my mindset underwent a change due to becoming a dragon as that guilt for taking another’s life never resurfaced.

Until now.

“Hold on, what are you trying to say? How are you dangerous to us? Are you talking about what happened before you fell unconscious?” Saori asked, trying to understand the situation. “Hestia, we already checked everything there. That was just a bunch of monsters…you did not do anything to us if you are worried about that. We barely made it to the scene after you dashed off because of your [Battle Frenzy].”

“That’s the not the point, Sao-arrrghhhh, verdammte scheiße!” wanting to speak back made me instinctively look at Saori’s eyes, but that also meant that the blue screen came back.

Verdammt nochmal, have you guys found the damn cause yet?! Oh, you guys did? I spoke to my parallel minds, who somehow found the source for this annoying new sight of mine.

“Lady Hestia?! This is the second time you’ve screamed this loud. Please, you have to let me do something-I- no, maybe there is a tea that might help you with this?” Tasianna anxiously called out to me.

“No, no, I’m-I’m good. See? Nothing is wrong. S-Something just got into my eye,” I told them to reassure them.

[Mana Eyes] was at fault. “When did I get this skill?” is what my parallel minds are currently trying to find out but we’re pulling a blank here.

Mana Eyes

A skill that allows the user to perceive the flow of mana in the air. Requires tremendous cognitive abilities to process properly

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Disabling the skill got rid of all the blue from my sight, allowing me to see my companions clearly again…but also the place that I was currently in…another cave.

“W-Why, no, no, no, no, no! Why am I in a cave, AGAIN?!” I shouted, scratching my head in frustration. “Wait, that isn’t the point of this! Tasianna stop coming closer!”

"Eek! Lady Hestia?" Tasianna flinched backward after I shouted in her face.

“Hestia, what is going on with you?! This…is erratic, even for you!" Saori replied to my sudden outburst.

“I told you already didn’t I?! I’m dangerous to you two, so stay away from me!” I answered. “You’ve seen what I could do! You’ve also seen what I did when [Battle Frenzy(Minor)] hadn’t appeared yet! I’ve hurt you just because I wanted to get out of that damn cave. I-I could’ve done the same to you, just like all those monsters.”

“Calm down, Hestia, what you are saying is an ‘if’,” Saori began. “Neither of us were hurt and, besides, you needed to let your frustration out due to [Battle Frenzy]. We understand, everything is alright.”

“You aren’t understanding me! You aren’t getting what I meant by that, Saori!” I cried out in irritation. “I don’t care that I killed that many monsters and turned them in a smoothie. That by itself is already fucked up! I don’t have a sense of how valuable life is anymore. I’m killing monsters left and right for survival and experience, but I know that I had to do it. If I wanted to live then I had to do that, however, I’ve never in my second life killed without a strict goal.”

Survival and experience, those were always my main reasons to hunt and kill monsters in the Belzac forest. I’ve found fights to be exhilarating and watching my skills go up was a fun side activity too, but at worst, they were always a side product. They were never the reason for me to fight.

I don’t kill for fun. I don’t kill in frustration. I don’t kill for idiotic reasons. That is what kept me on the border of turning into a real monster. The idea of an Idol killing everything willy-nilly was what kept me conscious of myself.

However, what have I been doing recently? I was fully committed to killing the lizardmen for doing something like trying to survive, and I went on a rampage due to [Battle Frenzy].

While I didn’t act on my anger ‘cause Tasianna was my voice of reason, however, seeing what I can do in an act of rage made me tremble in fear. “What if I did that to Tasianna?” or “Could Saori stop me?”, all these different questions started pouring into me as I processed what happened.

“That was a revolting sight. Blood everywhere, as if we were in a slaughterhouse. There was no finesse, no plan, just pure cold-blooded killing. ‘Did I really do that?’, is what I thought when I woke up after [Battle Frenzy (Moderate)] expired,” drawing my head upwards, to looking in Saori’s eyes, I asked her one simple question. “Saori, would you be able to stop me?”

“Huh?” she gasped.

“I’m asking you if you could have stopped me in that scenario? If I had been consumed by my anger, would you have been able to stop me there, because I don’t think you could have. Even with Tasianna’s help,” I looked at them seriously, unwavering as I asked them that.

“‘Would we be able to stop you?’…I-I’m not sure what you mean by that,” Saori said with a pale face, obviously having already gotten the gist of my words.

“I mean, could you k-ki…ugh, could you ki-fuck, I can’t say it,” unable to say those words due to my own fear of death, I instead, let go of my head and dropped my hands on the ground. “I can’t say it. I-I don’t want us to get in that scenario, but I also don’t want to hurt you. I can’t be like those cliché people who can just say ‘Kill me if I go mad’. I can’t say it. I don’t want to die. I don’t want to fight you. I don’t want to hurt those that I care for. What am I supposed to do?”

“Hestia, you have to calm down first. I understand you’re scared but-”

Hearing that, I snapped my face back up, “Can you?! Can you understand what I’m going through, Saori?! Tell me…what am I? I’ve lost so many of my previous values already from becoming…this. Can you honestly understand what I’m going through? Don’t you understand that I need to stay away from you two for your own saft-HUH!?”

I wanted to vent more of my frustration onto Saori but before I could, Saori hugged me.

“I don’t,” was her first words. “I don’t fully understand what you’re going through. There are moments where the blood goes up my head and I act on the impulse, but I never had it as intense as yours. We were both reborn as monsters, but I would be lying if I told you that I could 100% understand you.”

I wanted to push her off me, but my shivering hands wouldn’t listen to my commands. They continued trembling in the air, moving not an inch from the spot. Meanwhile, Saori’s embrace became stronger, not allowing me to leave it.

“I know you are scared,” Saori hand moved to my head and began stroking it. “You don’t want to hurt us, but you also know that you can’t control [Battle Frenzy] right now. I also don’t want to fight you in earnest, Hestia. It would break my heart if that day were to come. You are my friend, Hestia. My complicated little friend.”

“Lady Hestia,” hearing Tasianna’s voice coming from the side, I turned to her direction to see tears dropping down from her elven eyes as she was still using [Elvenize]. “I-I of all people can’t tell you anything in this situation. I’m still scared of fighting, but I also know that I can’t be a help to you if I cower behind it. Watching you in this state makes me feel useless, I don’t want to see you in such agony.”

“Please, don’t say that we would stay away from you Hestia. What are you trying to say about being alone? Don’t you hate being alone? Don’t you like us being around you?” Saori barraged me with questions, all piercing my heart like sharp needles, despite how fragile it was from seeing Tasianna cry.

“No, no, I do like it, but what will happen if I go mad again. What if I can’t control it and go wild?” I told them.

“It won’t happen again because that was all my fault. I told you to control yourself because I was worried that the wyverns would find us. I’m sorry for putting your through all of that,” Saori apologized as she tightened her grip around me.

“No, I was being stubborn about it. You told me that I could break through the cave after I got [Battle Frenzy (Minor)], but I just said, ‘No, I can hold it in’ but I couldn’t. I didn’t get a skill to protect me from it and I blew up, and I-” I continuously spoke back before Saori started stroking my head again.

“Shhhhhhh, it’s alright. It’s alright. You don’t have to excuse me for my mistake. I thought it would be better to avoid the wyverns, but I didn’t account how much it would hurt you to hold it in. I was the one who made that terrible decision in the first place, a choice that negatively impacted you,” Saori said a somber tone. “I failed not only as an adult but also as your friend at that point. Leaving you to be tortured by that malicious status effect should have never been a choice in the first place. I could have thought of something else, but I was…lazy. I couldn't see anything besides the one path that I'd chosen."

I didn’t think she was being lazy at all. What other choices were there? The cave would have never survived a sparring session between me and my two companions, and we couldn’t even start one as the tunnel was too cramped.

Trying to widen the tunnel nearly caused the ceiling to drop down on us. If I had tried to drill up the ceiling, then what would have happened? I know mountains, canyons, and other natural landmarks normally weren’t that fragile, but I also never saw one nearly collapsing due to a lightning blade cutting through it.

“You know, I sometimes also question who I really am. Am I still the same ‘Saori Segawa’ from my past life on Earth or am I somebody completely different who inherited her memories. My change in behavior ever since I evolved into a cadejo has made my view on life so much more different,” Saori said with a sigh. “Then there is also ‘my’ business with that leviathan and all this birthright and history that my garm mother had. I…I don’t want to embrace any of it. It’s not the life that I wanted nor the one that I’ve chosen.”

Saori took in a deep breath before continuing, “However, so many events in my past life were completely random, too. I never wanted my father to die when I was still in high school. I never wanted to take care of my mother’s deteriorating health while managing our house’s financial situation as a college student. I never wanted to take a teaching position, instead, I wanted to travel the world or maybe write a thesis about certain historical era. But that is what I did until I died. I didn’t want to leave my sick mother all alone in Japan, who had little family anyways. I stir in my sleep as I wished that my mother was doing well. That is life, Hestia.”

As I was listening to her confessions, my tail suddenly felt something wet landing on it. The sound of Saori’s faltering voice made me lose all the agitation in my body, stopping my hands from trembling as I reciprocated Saori’s comforting hug.

"I've come to love many things while also despising others. I guess, you could call me a bit of a control freak? I feel most comfortable when everything works exactly as I envisioned it to be. I shouldn't impose my ideals on others, but I wished others would catch on," Saori stayed silent for a moment before continuing. "You told me on the day that we made our promise to each other that we would travel the world, right? I still don’t know if I should embrace my lineage or not, but I guess you’re on the same boat, right?”

“Lady Hestia, you’ve also told me that you would show me the world. That we would travel together as you journey to fulfill your dream. I don’t want to leave you, yet, so please don’t push me away,” Tasianna said while still weeping. “Please, don’t leave me. I know I’m not much of a fighter and that I’m a worthless maid for being unable to alleviate your problems, but I wish to better myself. I wish to gain the strength to soothe your mind. Your fear of hurting others, I wish to be the one to protect you from that. I wish to become your shield that would fend off anything that may bring your pain.”

“Dark and Ice. We are here when that time comes, Hestia. We might not have the strength yet to stop you with your full strength, but you also haven’t found a way to resist it yet, right? We’ll support you with that. I can’t allow my little dreaming Idol to back down from the stage, just after she found her conviction, right?” Saori said.

“I-I-I, you guys…sniff, no,” I said as something slowly flowed down my eyes.

“Shhhh, no, no, no. Let it go. You’ve been holding it in for so many years. It’s ok to cry. It’s ok to break that little promise of yours. Isn’t your current conviction enough to drive you forward? Even without that promise to hold you back, I will bet my dream to travel the world that you won’t back stop until you fulfill your dream,” Saori uttered warmly.

“Sniff…I don’t want to be alone. I don’t want to leave either of you two. I want to master [Battle Frenzy], to make it my own so that I would never hurt anybody I love. I’m terrified of hurting either of you, but I don’t want to become a burden…sniff… by isolating myself,” I confessed as a dam opened in my tear ducts, releasing nearly five years of suppressed tears. “I’m so sorry for making either of you worry about me. I’m sorry that I was hurting you by wanting to stay away from you. I regret losing sight of that for a moment.”

A puddle fell down from my cheeks, soaking Saori's fur-covered tail. I’ve broken a promise. An oath to myself to never cry until I could become a real Idol. I wanted to keep it up, but everything was pounding on it, like hammers breaking down a wall.

My chest hurt from breaking it but somehow, deep inside, something there was feeling relief as my voice was quickly drowned out by my wails. Frustration, fear, envy, anger, disdain; every single emotion that kept producing my tears ever since I made my promise flowed out of my eyes. My body was determined to empty my eyes from all of it.

My core wished me to forget and abandon it, now that it tasted this freedom.

“…Make another promise to me, Hestia. Tasianna guessed that we should be in the 11th month now, AutumnSun. We can’t confirm it until our ‘Ages’ change, but when that happens then it should be about a month until Earth’s Christmas, right?” Saori said as she kept stroking my back. "Would you…would you do us the honor of becoming your first two fans? I would love to listen to Hestia Atsuko's first Idol concert in this world. There is still a lot of time until you have to perform, so that should be plenty enough for you to prepare everything. What do you say? Promise?”

“I PROMISE! I’ll give you a concert that will instantly make you into an Idol fan. I will overwhelm you so much that you will scream for an encore. Saori and Tasianna, I will give you a concert that you will never forget!” I screamed. “I promise to do this on Christmas Eve!”

With that passionate promise, I kept crying and crying, showing no signs of stopping as my body lost more and more fluids. Eventually, my eyes stopped weeping at midnight. The fatigue of releasing all of my tears made my body weak, instantly knocking me out and sending me back into dreamland.

I could already imagine how dry my eyes would be once I wake up. I woke up in the morning and cried for a full day. It was an unimaginable amount of water, but something that freed me from another of my past life’s bonds.

I cried and I was proud of it.

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