A/N: So this chapter took longer than intended to get done, for various reasons, but I will get into the why at the end of the chapter for those interested.
Thank you to ArchmageNaoki for proofreading this chapter.
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Darkness, no matter where I look, all around me there’s only darkness. Not limited to my sight, I can’t feel or sense anything either. It’s like I am floating in a black void, I can see and feel my own body, but otherwise there is nothing else. This is what I imagine death is like, so does that mean I am dead?
“No, when you die Naofa decides what to do with you and sends you on your way. Only in special cases do the dead retain their awareness, usually because Naofa wants something. In those cases, she has this little office she made and it’s really quaint, she even has all these different outfits depending on-. Right, I’m going off track and we do not have much time together. Getting to the point, you aren’t dead.” From the void all around me, I hear a voice, it’s a calm almost melodic voice, but at the same time it’s also excited and erratic.
Well since the voice from the void answered a question I never voiced, it’s probably safe to think that my thoughts are being read. If my thoughts really are being read then I have a question, who are you and where is this?
On cue with the question I've asked in my mind, the voice starts speaking again, “Almost correct, but I can’t see anything that’s not being actively thought of. Tampering with memories is also possible, but that is mostly limited to inserting myself into someone's memories to make my presence seem natural. Though, that’s not what you asked about, right, getting off track again.
I am the Goddess of Change and Balance Karia and I have my reasons for not revealing myself. As for your second question, where we are isn’t important. Now because time is getting short, we shall have to hold the question and answer period next time.
So, for now, I shall get to the point, when you wake up you will be in a safe place and in good health. It’s ok to entrust yourself to the people who will be around you, but the choice to do so is yours to make. Also, I decided to try playing around with your ‘Limiter’ skill, so your status is not quite how you left it, sorry. Now it’s time to wake up.”
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Waking up the first thing I can feel is that I am laying on something soft and comfortable. Taking that into consideration, the fact that I am in a safe place like the voice of the goddess told me is probably accurate.
Sitting up I decide to quickly gauge my body's condition before taking in my surroundings. Briefly probing my body with my mana informs me that I am in perfect condition, if not even better than before. There are two anomalies, though, the first being that my tail is curled around my waist like a belt and is currently considerably blunt. The second change is that they got bigger, I’m still the same size, but they are definitely larger.
Deciding to leave my physical changes for later since they aren't detrimental in any way, I inspect the space I am currently in. First inspecting the bed I am sitting in, it’s huge, someone could comfortably fit three of me in it. After I am done inspecting the bed I start looking around and find that I am in a rather spacious bedroom that, by the looks of it, was furnished in the gothic era. While I am looking around I hear the sound of a door opening and sense the mana of an unknown person. I turn my head to the side and lock eyes with a girl that looks to be in her late teens.
I get plenty of time to examine the girl because she freezes like a deer in headlights the moment we make eye contact. Looking her over, the girl could probably be considered quite beautiful by most. Wavy sandy blonde hair that falls a little past shoulder length, a very well balanced face, she has a very good figure, her skin tone is slightly pale and she seems to be about 5.6 feet tall, though, she wasn’t very lucky when it came to chest development.
It doesn’t take the girl very long to snap out of her stunned stupor and she quickly runs off closing the door behind her. Considering I know nothing about the residents of the place I am currently in, other than the appearance of the girl who just ran off, it probably wouldn’t be wise to wander around by myself.
After coming to my decision I don’t have to wait very long before I hear the sound of a girl talking loudly in an excited voice, “Hurry up daddy, she’s awake, she’s awake!” I hear a male voice answer her, though, it sounds rather muted through the door, “Slow down sweetie, even if she is awake she isn’t going to run off and if you're too excited you might scare her.”
“See? Look! She’s finally awake!” the girl is still rather excited as she opens the door to the room and enters while dragging a man in behind her. As the man gets dragged into the room I notice he is very muscular and the moment I acknowledge that fact, my body instinctively retreats as far as possible while remaining on the bed. After managing to distance itself as much as possible my body starts trembling violently.
Noticing my reaction right away the girl turns around and starts pushing the man out the door, “Daddy you're scaring her! go find mommy and tell her to come instead!”
Despite his protests, the girl manages to push the man out of the room and once he is gone she gets on the bed. She slowly approaches me and as the girl reaches me my body is still trembling violently, so she slowly sits down beside me. Without saying anything she starts gently stroking my head. Even though it’s a rather foreign feeling, it’s also really comfortable and after closing my eyes for a bit my body finally stops trembling.
“It seems not intervening really was the best option, but you can’t just start petting someone without asking them first. With what your father told me and from what I saw when I got here, the girl was in no condition to answer a yes or no question. Then again you're not listening to me at all right now are you?” hearing a woman's voice I open my eyes, and standing at the edge of the bed I see a woman who greatly resembles the girl who’s currently petting my head. The woman, however, is taller and gives off a much more mature ageless feeling. Her hair is also pale silver instead of blonde and her skin is also much paler.
Since the girl doesn’t seem to have noticed the woman was talking to her I reach over and shake her a little while saying, “She’s talking to you,” it seems to work because she turns towards the woman and starts talking excitedly, “Mommy, look! She’s finally awake! But she got really scared when she saw daddy. Then after telling daddy to go get you I remembered that when I used to get scared when I was little that you would pet my head and it would calm me down. So I decided to try it and it worked.”
After the girl is done talking the woman gives a wry smile and says, “Well if she has calmed down enough I would like to talk with her, but you will have to wait outside the room with your father.”
“But I … fine,” the girl tries to protest, but the woman quickly gets her to agree with a stern look. After the girl is out of the room with the door closed behind her, the woman fixes her stare on me and starts talking, “I have heard a lot about you, with most of it being quite unbelievable, but since my source was a goddess I will just have to suspend my disbelief.
When we first found you I was convinced you were already too far gone to save, but here we are now. You wake up like none of those injuries even existed in the first place, even if she already told me I want to hear it from you, what are you?”
What am I? If she really did learn about me from a goddess, then she probably already knows I am a chimera. In that case lying about my race won’t do me any good, then again in my past life I abhorred lying and that fact hasn’t changed. The best way I can think of to handle this situation is simply being honest and telling her the things I was called during my eight years in the lab.
The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
Having decided I look at the woman and answer, “Chimera, Experiment, Monster, Freak,” after getting my answer, she stares at me for a bit before letting out a sad sounding sigh, and sitting on the edge of the bed. After sitting she pats the edge of the bed beside herself to beckon me, and after I move to sit beside her she starts talking again, “I didn’t ask what the people who raised you thought, I asked you. So once more, what are you?”
Receiving the question a second time I realize that I’ve only ever accepted what others told me. I have never stopped to think about what I am myself. In my other life, what I was, who I was, those were questions I asked myself all the time. So thinking about it right now, what and who am I? Unlike my other life I am not a human anymore, then again I was never really a human, to begin with, but in the end does that matter? Does it matter what my race is? Does what other people think of me change anything? In the end, I don’t really think it does, whether those researchers thought of me as a monster or simply a weapon, in the end, nothing changes.
Having come up with an answer I look at the woman and say, “I am just me,” a brief smile flashes across her face after she gets my answer before she says, “A rather unconventional answer, but that is just fine. Now we did tell the goddess that we would take care of you, but how we care for you is your choice. If you wish we can supply you with some knowledge of the area and enough money to get by for a year. If you ever needed help, you would be able to come to us and if it is within our power to help we will. Conversely, you can stay here and be our second daughter, but no matter what, the most important thing is that whatever you decide is what you want..”
What do I want? I am not sure what I want, in my other life I used to do most of what I did for others, but I never really took the time to get what I wanted out of life. Even in this life, I have been raised only to fulfill the goals of others, since I start this life I have only ever wanted to one day escape, but I never thought of what I wanted to do after I escaped. How should I live from now on and what should I strive to achieve?
Also, did she just offer to adopt me? In my other life, I was always somewhat estranged with my family, not to mention others, because I would never voice my desires. Unless they reached out to me, I would always quietly mute myself and await the next time I was needed. In the end, I never even told most of my immediate family about how much I despised the fact that I was born male.
Not to mention this life, the closest thing I have had to family so far was Rebecca and to her, I was probably never anything more than her only successful experiment. A tool to be used so that she could reach her goals, so I guess while Rebecca may be my mother in a sense, but truthfully I have never actually had a family in this life. Then again do I deserve a family? I am just a creature born and raised to be used as a weapon, so does something like me, a weapon meant only to kill, really deserve a family?
“You’re thinking about this too hard, so let's make it simple. No more thinking, time to answer, what do you want?” the woman jostles me from my thoughts by tapping me on the head with the back of her hand.
Confronted with her sudden demand for an answer I barely manage to choke out, “I want a family.”
As I give the woman my answer I feel something slide down my cheeks, and land on my hands which are currently clenched shut on my legs. Looking down at my hands I see that what fell onto my hands are tears and with that realization, like a dam that has built up pressure to the point of bursting, I start crying.
I feel the woman gently pull me into an embrace and start stroking the back of my head. For some reason, even though ‘Heat Immunity’ should be active, being hugged like this feels really warm. While trying to bury myself in this feeling of warmth I start crying even harder.
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I’m not sure exactly how long I cried for, but I have finally calmed down now. Letting go of me, the woman looks down at me with a gentle smile and pushes my hair away from my eyes while asking, “Feeling better now that you’ve let all that out?”
After I answer her with a meek nod the woman gets up and walks to the door while talking, “Now even if you have already met, I should formally introduce you to my daughter, since she is going to be your new sister. There is also myself as well as my husband to introduce, but considering your earlier reaction, we will save my husband’s introduction for later.”
After opening the door and ushering the girl inside the room, the woman has her sit beside me on the bed before talking, “Now there are some things that need to be taken care of before this is completely official, but you can let us take care of everything on that end. What I want from you two is that you get to know each other. I know that this is amazingly sudden, but since you are going to be sisters from now on I hope you two will be able to get along.”
Unsure how the girl beside me will react to this news, I try to take a tentative glance at her, but I am hugged from the side before I get the chance to. While she is hugging me the girl is also talking in a very excited voice, “You mean she is going to be my sister from now on?! I always wanted a sibling and now I have an adorable little sister. It’s going to be so fun, I can show you around the house and later we can train together and-.”
“Now now, calm down for a moment. You haven’t even introduced yourself to the poor girl yet, so how about you start with that,” interrupting the girl hugging me the woman brings up a good point, I don’t know anyone's name yet and the girl now realizing this, stops hugging me long enough to introduce herself, “Mommy is right we don’t even know each other's names yet. I am your new big sister, Rin Natsumi.”
Using Rin’s introduction as her cue the woman also introduces herself, “I am your new mother … actually, you can just call me mother, or better yet you can call me mom,” after the woman's, well I guess I should try to start thinking of her as my mother from now on if I am really going to be living here. After my new mothers self introduction, Rin voices a question I have been dreading, “So, what's your name?”
“Don’t have-,” interrupting me as I am about to say that I was never given a name, my new mother answers for me, “The goddess chose your name herself, so I am sure she would be devastated to hear you say that you don’t have one. You are called Kitten and from today on you are my daughter, Kitten Natsumi.”
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A/N:So I had trouble even starting this chapter which is in part why it took some time to come out, that and I caught a cold. My body reacts in a silly way to a simple cold, I go from small amounts of restful sleep to sleeping 12 hours and waking up completely exhausted, which really saps my will to do anything.
But the biggest hurdle for this chapter, and possibly for chapters yet to come, is in the nature of the problem I actively seek help for. Thanks to my problem, I often manage to mentally degrade myself to the point that I lose the will to continue a variety of things, but this story is something I hope, that with the help of my therapist, I will be able to see through to completetion. Both for myself and for those that find enjoyment in reading it.
Mostly what I am trying to say is, please bear with me as I try to write this story and while I will try to get chapters out in a timely fashion it may not always be possible for me to do and for that, I can only apologize.