“Aaaghhhhhhh!”
He fell to the floor with a deep pain in his brain.
“Yu!” Both Link and Ana leaned towards Yu, but both backed away when Yu swung his right hand hard.
He had hit someone, but he didn't know who. He just couldn't help but writhe in pain.
“Your Eminence?” Link turned his head away from Yu in pain and turned to Yurine. Yurine was crying.
And she was crying her eyes out, sobbing her heart out.
Yu wanted to go to her right away, but the pain he felt wouldn't let him. He was curled up on the floor, stomping because of the pain.
Yu's left hand was rotting. Yu felt the poisonous blood boiling in his veins and seeping into that hand as the hand he offered to the dragon swelled and blackened, just like his frostbite.
It was more than a feeling, the veins in his arm were bulging into his left hand and carrying blood there.
When his left hand turned completely black, he stiffened. He could no longer bend his fingers, but he could feel the pain. As he screamed and stomped around in pain, Yurine continued to cry out and those in the room didn't know who to help.
“Ana, you keep Yurine. Kigaro, you find a doctor, a healer! Where did Sivina go!”
Link gave orders to the others and sat on top of Yu. He sat on his stomach and held both hands steady, trying to keep him from convulsing.
“Ah!”
But he couldn't hold Yu's left hand because it was so hot that it was burning. It was this pain that made Yu scream. Yu brought his hand down and hit the floor hard.
When he did so, his hand shattered like a glass cup, bones and all, and Yu screamed even louder.
“AAAAGHHHHHHHHHHRHHHHHHHH!”
The black blood poured out in torrents, splattering everywhere as Yu waved his arm incessantly. When the blood hit Link's face, Link screamed and fell to the ground.
“CUT! CUT IT! CUT OFF MY ARM!”
This pain had to go and he didn't think he could endure it as long as he had his arm. So he wished that his arm would be amputated from the shoulder down, but there was no one in this room who would agree to do that.
They didn't amputate his arm, so he kept rolling on the floor and screaming.
“Oh, my God...” Looking at Yu's hand, Link froze.
The blood from Yu's shattered hand gathered and took shape. First bones formed and laid the foundation for a hand. Then the blood coalesced on the bones and turned into black flesh.
That flesh grew and spread over the bones that made up the fingers, and then a new tissue began to form on top of the flesh. The hard tissue resembled bone. When the transformation was finished, it turned into long, pointed, claw-like fingers without nails and with a bony texture.
He was still in pain and could not move his fingers, his head was buried in the ground. Yurine was still crying too. Finally she did something else besides crying, she pushed Ana away with her wind magic and jumped on Yu.
As Yu continued to scream and stomp, Yurine grabbed Yu's throat, but it wasn't a simple hug. It wasn't just a tight hug either. She was choking him with her hug.
Link and Ana tried to pull Yurine away when they saw Yu's bruised face, but Yurine was too strong.
“What outrage is this?” stormed the angry Aquarian Cardinal.
***
The water Yu was in could be called a hot spring. At least he thought he could call it that.
He sat with his feet stretched out and his back to the edge of the hot spring. The steaming water had turned yellow from the medicine they had put in it and the incense in the room smelled of lemon.
The curtains in front of the glass-covered windows were wide open so that Yu could see the daylight.
Unlike Yurine, the medicine they gave him was not meant to put him to sleep because they said Yu was an adult. Instead they gave him a strange juice with a sedative effect and carried him here.
He opened his eyes and bent his head to the water as the light of the sun from across the room caught his eye. He pulled his left hand out of the yellow water and looked at it. It was the blackest object his eye could perceive.
Just like the demonic sword he used to fight Yu Zao, it absorbed the surrounding light, and this bony black structure extended to his shoulder. Although it was hard, he could move it at will.
His fingers tapered as they progressed and his fingertips, without nails, resembled a claw. His fingers were slightly longer than the fingers of his right hand because they tapered towards the tips.
If he had seen it in an anime he would have thought it was cool, but on his own body he was just disgusted. He put his hand in the water to avoid seeing more.
“Because of the dragon...”
When his hand was torn to pieces, he knew it was because the dragon had said he could never have a hand again. He had thought that turning back time would break that agreement, but apparently not.
Yet he now had a hand that he could use as he pleased. If his hand had been torn off by the dragon in the first place, it must have been the poisonous blood in his body that restored it.
But if their deal with the Jade Dragon was intact, he might not have a hand in the next campaign, as they would rewind time to before the cursed blood entered his body.
“Fake bastard...”
He could see Keichi's face in his mind's eye and hear his voice in his ears. He understood that Keichi could turn back time and he thought he would triumph with everything Keichi knew.
But Keichi didn't even show up when Yu Zao and Yu were fighting. He hid somewhere and waited for Yu to triumph for him.
His breathing was getting faster, his chest was rising and falling very quickly. When he felt his heart begin to squeeze, he put his right hand to his chest and lowered his head further.
He shouted at length. “FAKE BASTARD!”
His breath hit the water and ripples spread to other corners.
Anger made his hands tremble. The anger inside him was so great that even if he directed it all at himself, he couldn't finish it, it would overflow out of him. Yu had to direct this anger at someone.
“AND THAT WHITE-HAIRED WHORE! AND THAT SON OF A BITCH WHO CALLS HIMSELF KING! AND, AND THAT SLANT-EYED MOTHERFUCKER! AND THE CUNT WHO'S BEEN NAGGING ABOUT HOW GOOD IT IS! I'M GONNA FUCK THE ALL THAT MOTHERFUCKERS'S MOTHERS!”
Elaine Jie killed Yurine with Yu.
Yu Zao brought that woman with him to kill Yurine.
Keichi had failed despite his great strength.
He believed that the person who looked at Yu and called him beautiful was the source of the lightning.
Cecilus was the one who started it all.
“I'm going to kill them... Every one of them... Every one of them...” It wasn't enough to talk inwardly. “I'LL KILL EVERY LAST ONE OF THEM!”
He splashed and splashed the water until his right hand turned red. Some of the incense was extinguished by the water.
“I will slaughter them as if they were animals... I will not forgive... I will kill...”
He closed his eyes, sprawled a little more in the water and rested his head on the wall that held the water together, the floor on which those who entered the room walked.
“How am I going to kill myself?”
No matter who he blamed, he knew very well who the real culprit was. Deep down inside, he saw Yu Valarfin, that is, himself, as the only one responsible for all these events.
Yu Valarfin was a weakling. Yu Valarfin was a failure.
He knew that. He knew it was a failure, a disappointment. The face he showed his sisters had never been his true face. He had only shown them the parts he wanted them to see.
He had always hidden what a vile, selfish, arrogant creature he really was.
The Yu Valarfin his sisters loved was not the real Yu Valarfin.
He had a headache. There was a pain in his chest, as if someone was crying inside his heart.
“Did I do everything to save the Witch?” Yu asked himself. “Why... Why is this lullaby playing in my head over and over and over and over?”
The lullaby he heard in his head was painful. The voice singing the lullaby sounded familiar. It sounded like Rie's voice, but it wasn't hers. It was as if it was someone he knew from long ago.
“Rie... I'm going crazy... I'm losing my mind...” Yu's eyes filled and he started laughing. “I'm doing all this to save Rie, to save her because Yurine wants me to. To save her in the end.”
Speaking of Yurine, he remembered Yurine jumping on him and hugging him so tightly that she choked him.
“Does Yurine remember? Why did she cry? Why did she hug me like that?”
She hugged him so strongly that if they hadn't separated them, Yu would have died at Yurine's hands.
“How many people remember? Just me? Yurine... She should at least have something from the past...” Suddenly it came to him. “Cornelia's love for me... Who knows how many times Keichi rewound time. I lost every time, I killed Yurine every time... And every time that time was rewound, Cornelia's feelings accumulated. That's why she fell for me at first sight... It wasn't really first sight.”
The question in his mind was how the feelings accumulated and why he remembered what happened this time. And what was the role of the star shining in his chest, or rather the Blessing? Did he owe it to Rie that he was remembering things?
“Sivina loved me too...” Was it a good thing that someone he would be with all the time was in love with him? “Her feelings must have accumulated and turned into love.”
Yu's head ached thinking about it and he still had a lot to think about. He had to think about the dragon incident, find out who the traitors were and go to Vermia.
“It's not realistic.”
He looked at the sunlight hitting his eyes. The sensation he felt when it touched his face would normally be a reflection of reality, but Keichi had rewound time by killing Akalda.
He couldn't accept that this was real.
“Like dragons are too realistic…” Yu sighed. “At least it rewinds time instead of going into a parallel world, I know that, I think. But what if I don't remember the next time it rewinds? How do I beat someone who knows the future, or do I have to start all over again every time it rewinds, wherever it is?”
He didn't want to think, but his brain wouldn't stop thinking. He cursed his own brain. Yu wanted to numb his brain.
The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.
“Hello, sir.” He turned his head at the sound of a woman's voice, emotionless but pleasant. “I was asked to help you.”
She was a half-human carrying a basket made of straw. She had black hair and a black tail. On the top of her head were fox ears and her eyes were dark blue.
There was nothing on her that hid her white skin. She had long legs, a round buttock and a flat stomach. Her breasts were not what one would call medium sized, but they were not small either. They were big enough for Yu to cup with his hand.
She walked with a slight sway of her hips, put the basket behind Yu and stepped into the water, facing him. Now she could see him more closely.
The rings on her breasts were small and pink, close to her skin color. When she locked eyes with Yu, her nipples hardened. The woman had a beautiful face, but probably because of her profession, she had no expression left on her face.
Still, she smiled as she spread Yu's legs and sat between them. “You have a beautiful face.”
Yu just looked at her face. He had physically approached women before, but this was the first time he was standing like this with a naked woman.
“What am I doing...”
The woman leaned towards Yu, her breasts touching his chest as the scent of her perfume hit his nose. The woman took Yu's ear between her lips and sucked a little. When she pulled back, she had a bar of soap in her hand.
She had taken it from the basket she had left behind Yu. She rubbed the soap on her hands and put them in the water. Then with both hands she began to wash Yu's legs under the water.
The soft touch of the half-human woman tickled Yu. He knew it was wrong, but when the woman took Yu's penis between her legs, he closed his eyes and leaned back.
“And you have a beautiful one there,” said the half-human woman. She was slowly moving her feet up and down.
By this time his stimulated penis had naturally hardened. When this happened she tried wrapping her toes around it and concentrated on the head of his penis.
Yu's eyes were still closed. He knew what he was doing was wrong, but if it would stop him thinking, why shouldn't he do it?
He didn't want to think, thinking made him tired and right now he wasn't thinking about anything. Actually, he was thinking about what the woman in front of him was doing, but other than that, nothing else was on his mind.
That's what he wanted, not to think about the things that exhausted him.
When she finished rubbing his legs, she pulled her feet away from Yu and sat up on her knees. After looking at Yu's face and smiling a little more, she leaned over him. Now she began to rub her left hand on his chest.
Her right hand caressed Yu's leg, going to his groin, gently rubbing his balls and then reaching his penis. She grasped it gently, stroking it up and down.
Yu couldn't help but moan as the half-human woman patted him. Needless to say he liked it, but what he really liked was that he wasn't thinking. His brain was completely drained and he wanted something else to drain too.
She lowered her head a little more and started licking Yu's chest. She was cleaning his chest with her tongue. Slowly it moved up his chest and came to his neck. From there it moved to his cheek and then back to his ear.
He kept stroking Yu with his hand while sticking his tongue inside his ear and licking it.
Yu was happy with the treatment in his ear. He had seen a lot of ASMR videos like this before and even though he knew there were people who were not happy about it, he liked it. It was especially great to get special treatment below the waist while it was happening.
Occasionally she would suck on the top of his ear, exhale and rub her nose. Then she started to move her breast on Yu's chest too.
It was one of the most wonderful moments Yu had ever experienced. He was making no effort, just standing still and thinking nothing. His ever-working, ever-talking brain was now completely silent, and control had shifted to another point.
When the half-human woman with the fox ears decided that they had come to the end, she sped up her hand and started stroking a little harder. She moved from his ear down to his neck again and started kissing and sucking his neck.
“Master, give it all to me.”
Hearing her seductive voice and words, Yu felt the pleasurable flow rising from his groin to the head of his penis, his shoulders shuddered and he expelled his cum under the water.
She stroked a little more and took her hand out of the water, taking all the cum in her hand. When she drained the water from her hand, only Yu's white seeds remained.
“Thank you master,” she said before putting it all in her mouth.
Then she took them all in her mouth, put them in her mouth for a while and stuck out her tongue and showed it to Yu. Then she swallowed all the seeds that Yu gave him.
When she did so, Yu felt an indescribable sense of satisfaction and power, but regret soon followed.
“Feel free to call me if you need me again, my name is Uhrimi,” she said before planting a final kiss on Yu's cheek. Then she stepped out of the water, leaving Yu alone with his regret.
On the one hand, he was glad for the ten minutes without thinking, but on the other hand he knew that what he was doing was immoral.
“Moral according to whom, there's that too... In modern societies-” Yu suddenly stopped thinking. “Damn it... I'm thinking again.”
He wanted to call Uhrimi again and ask her to take care of him again. What was the point of this short thing if he was going to keep thinking right afterwards?
He took deep breaths and tried to think about not thinking. Of course, that was another thought.
He thought of regret for what he had done, of how he would face his friends, of war and dragons and people he wanted to kill.
“Fuck it, fuck.”
After a few minutes of internal conflict, he stood up and prepared to get out of the water to call Uhrimi again. This time he wanted to go forward. Even though he knew he would regret it later, he would do it so as not to think about it.
“Oh, you were going out?”
He turned around and saw another naked person. This time it was not a woman, but a man he knew. Yu was standing naked in front of Link, who had entered the room naked.
When Link started to look at between Yu's legs, Yu clicked his tongue, turned around and went back into the water.
“No, Yu, I don't like men, I was just surprised that he was circumcised. Were you one of the worshippers of İselle?”
He thought about Link's question while Link entered the water behind Yu and joined him.
Actually there was not much to think about, he did not worship İselle. He just memorized what he knew about İselle. She was the Goddess of Darkness and the one who created the Seven Siblings of Sin.
Her creation, Gawain, who later turned into a sin and became known as Gawain of Gluttony, started what would become known as the War of Heroes.
“I don't worship anything. My mother had me circumcised when I was born, that's all I know.”
“Hmm, I think it's a very bad thing. They mutilate boys.”
“I don't know, I'm not interested and I don't want to have a conversation about male reproductive organs.”
He was sure that he knew more about human anatomy and organs than Link, and on any other day he would have liked to tell what he knew, but today he didn't want to.
“How is Yurine?” Yu asked.
“She's still asleep, she's fine.”
Like Yu, Link spread himself out in the water and leaned his head back. Because he was taller than Yu, his feet were further forward and his body was in a more crooked position.
“Yu,” Link interjected after sitting for a while. “What happened?”
That was the question he was afraid to hear. He didn't know how to answer it. He was torn between telling the truth and dodging it, but at this point it was clear that dodging would not work. He didn't think he could fool Link. Even if he could, he didn't have the energy to do so.
So he lowered his head and looked at the yellow water. “I lost it.”
“What?” Link asked. “Something about black blood? Then why Yurine and Sivina-”
“Sivina?” Yu lifted his head and looked at Link's face. His blond hair always came to his shoulders because he cut it regularly. “What happened her?”
Link was looking into Yu's eyes. “Sivina left the room while I was caring with you. When I found her, she was banging her head against a wall, her forehead split open.”
“Does she remember too?”
In the world he left behind, Sivina was in love with him. Yu Valarfin was not an idiot who could not understand these feelings.
“Do you know why?” Link asked as he continued to stare at Yu.
“I think so,” Yu replied. “But I don't know how to tell you.”
“You can tell it in chronological order, as if I wasn't here.”
Yu sighed and closed his eyes, leaning his head back.
“We got permission and set sail. As our ships sailed over the Jade Lake, someone or some people on one of the ships attacked the Jade Dragon flying above us. The dragon got angry and fought back, we lost a good part of our forces and I fell into the lake. When I opened my eyes, I was on an island and the dragon was there.”
He opened his eyes and looked at Link. Link was still watching him, but when he saw Yu looking, he leaned his head back and closed his eyes.
“I gave the dragon my hand in exchange for him taking me to my friends, and he told me I would never have a hand. Then he took me to the siege of Vermia. Yurine and Sivina were there too. We met Cornelia and began preparations for the siege.” He opened his eyes again and looked at Link. His eyes were closed. “Are you listening?”
“Yes, keep telling me.”
Yu exhaled a long breath through his nose. “Our siege was on the hill, we fortified the hill with wooden walls, you came, then the enemy came. The enemy besieged us and attacked us, and of course we were beating them... When the battle was almost over, the army of the Cathedral of Libra came. The Cardinal of Libra was in the army. He told us that a second enemy army had arrived and that Yu Zao was leading it.”
Link interrupted Yu. “How did he know that?”
“Because he lived,” Yu replied and continued. “We started preparations, united our armies and made our plan. There was a very powerful wizard in Yu Zao's army and bastard said we had to kill him. So we were going to go against them and fight a pitched battle. Our goal was to find and kill the wizard, otherwise the bastard Keichi said that the wizard's magic would kill us all.”
At the mention of his name, she felt herself getting angry again. If he were in front of him now, he would have thrown him to the ground and beaten him to a pulp.
“We attacked, but we couldn't stop the wizard from casting his spell... Lightning rained down from the sky and we lost our army... At least that's how it was where I was... And then...”
“Then what?”
“Then Sivina, me and Yurine met Yu Zao. We fought him. Sivina died first. Then a witch named Elaine Jie came to Yu Zao and Yurine and I had to fight them.”
“You fought Yu Zao?” Link asked in a calm tone.
“I wouldn't call it a fight. I got crushed by Yu Zao. That bitch Elaine Jie killed Yurine.” He was biting his lip and his fists were clenched again. Tears began to flow again from his closed eyes. “And then Keichi showed up after all!”
Realizing that he had raised his voice, he opened his eyes and began to take deep breaths. Remembering only and only made him angry.
“He had that Akalda whore with him, he slit her throat and then... Then I came back here.” Suddenly he rose, and as suddenly as he had risen, he suddenly lowered his voice. “The Libra Blessing rewinds time.”
After he finished speaking, he turned his head to Link. Link was waiting with his eyes closed. After a short time without either of them speaking, Yu couldn't resist and asked.
“Do you believe me?”
“Yes.”
“Don't be ridiculous!” Yu was angry again. “How can you believe such nonsense? Even I find it hard to believe!”
“Aren't you telling the truth?” Link was calm and still.
“Yes, but... but...”
“Then I believe you.”
Yu was getting angrier and angrier. What he said was true and he wanted people to believe him, but why did Link believe him so quickly? Why didn't he question it?
“Don't be ridiculous!” Yu said again, louder this time. He stood up. “Who are you?! Why do you suddenly appear and become my friend?! Why do you say you believe me without question?! Who are you?!”
Yu was out of the water above the knee, but Link was still in the water. He opened his eyes and looked at Yu, but the first thing he saw was Yu's dangling penis. Without reacting, he lifted his head up and looked at his face.
Yu stepped into the water again, his hands shaking. This time he was submerged up to his nose. He was ashamed that he had suddenly risen up and shouted.
“My name is Link Yachi Long. I am a man dedicated to the good of people. All I want is for people to be happy.”
Yu moved back to his old position to ask a question and pulled his lips out of the water.
“Why? Why do you care about people who don't even know you exist? They would drown you in a spoonful of water for a couple of pennies if they could. People are ungrateful, ignorant and evil. Why should you devote your life to them?”
“Because someone has to,” Link said.
Yu didn't want to say anything more in response. Link had convinced himself of an ideal and he knew that he couldn't argue with such people. No matter what he said, he couldn't convince Link that what he was doing was nonsense.
“I want to save a witch though... Witch... Rie... What have I done?”
The more Rie thought about it, the more he regretted what he had just done. Regret would accompany him to bed at night, but at least for the time being he could have a conversation to forget about it.
“Link,” he said quietly.
“Yes?”
“Why aren't there many fantastic beings in Mora?”
“Fantastic being?” Link didn't understand what Yu was saying.
“So almost everyone is human, that's what I'm talking about.”
Humans were the overwhelming majority in İlonya and Mora, and encounters with other races were rare. He had just seen a half-human and had thought to ask about it.
“Have you heard of the goddess Thea?” asked Link.
“Yes, she would be the one who create humans...”
What Yu knew was that humans were not created but evolved. That's why he couldn't believe that someone had created humans. The existence of Thea and creation was one of the mysteries of this world for him.
“Centuries ago, Ethalot was a vast empire that ruled most of the continent.” Link began without missing a beat. “The Ethalot Empire had an economic system based on wars, but when there were no more enemies to fight, the economy began to suffer. On top of that, the war-weary land lords and their soldiers still wanted war, so civil war broke out.”
Yu was like listening to a story. He even liked it when someone told something and he liked listening to it.
“There was bloodshed and the fighting was mostly between humans. When it became too much, Thea, the mother goddess of Ethalot, the creator of humans, descended from heaven with thirteen angels to stop the war.”
And that seemed like the right thing for someone who was responsible for human beings because she had created them. Still, it was clear that the story was going somewhere bad.
“I remember I have read they attacked half-humans.”
“Some says that, others says different story,” Link said and continued. “The Ethalothians did not stop fighting and took Thea and her angels captive when she begged them to stop fighting. They raped and killed Thea and the angels with her. Some stories say that even their dead bodies were raped.”
It was horrible and Yu had nothing to say about it. As he had said before, humans were evil beings. It was absurd that Link was still working for the humans even though he knew this story.
“And you still work for these people?”
Link did not answer him and told the rest of the story.
“Until then, other species had been living with humans, but this event was so terrible that everyone and all the other races were disgusted by what humans did. The non-human species did not want to live with these disgusting beings, so they turned away from humans and the gods sent the army of heaven to destroy the Ethalotians.”
“I've never heard this story before, even I'm interested in world history.”
And Ethalot was still a kingdom in existence.
“This story is not everywhere because people want to erase this shameful event from history. Nevertheless, it is in elven sources. The Ethalot Empire later collapsed and over the centuries different countries ruled the land. A hundred years ago a man came along and founded the Kingdom of Ethalot, claiming to be a descendant of the old Ethalot emperors.”
“Is that why people hate Ethalotians?”
“Yes, and even without that the people of Ethalot are not very lovable.”
Yu had heard several times that some radical racist groups used the word 'Ethalotian' as an insult. He had not felt the need to mention it before, as it was an everyday occurrence.
“Then the gods discovered that they were mortal outside of heaven and never came down to earth again.” He knew why the gods did not come down to earth. “At least most of them didn't.”
“I understand,” Yu said. “Thank you for telling me the story.”