How are girls created?
Sugar, spices and everything good.
And some black magic.
When the young sword fairy, who had not yet been given a name, rose from the cold and wet altar, she was greeted by a pair of red eyes. Meanwhile, the sword fairy was still trying to regain control of her body. Her body looked very strange, as if she was in a body that did not belong to her and was covered in blood.
“Mother?” she said instinctively.
She could see that her own hair was white, she didn't know how she knew, but somehow the knowledge that her eyes were red was in the back of her mind. Something told her that they were the same as the young girl in front of her.
The girl with white hair and red eyes, the witch, answered her. “Emily?”
Who was Emily? Was she Emily? She didn't know.
“My name is Emily?”
But she was going to find out, because when she repeated the name, memories began to flash before her eyes.
---:---:---:---:---
She was in a man's embrace, she could feel his sweaty breath. It was a bumpy ride, the bumpiest of all the rides she had ever taken. The man was wobbling, sometimes bumping into walls.
“Yurine... Yurine, hold on, everything will be okay...” He kept promising her, but what exactly would be okay? “I'll fix everything.”
She wanted to ask him what it was he was going to fix, but a more important question was on her mind right now.
“Yurine? Yurine who?”
As she continued down the stairs in his arms, she could feel something happening in her body. There was a wound on her back that was about to take her life and blood was pouring out of it. Normally she would have died much faster than this, but the mana in her body was working on its own to keep her alive.
Her hands and feet were cold and she wanted to hug the person carrying him to keep them warm, but she lacked the strength to do so.
He was shouting words at her and continuing down the stairs when suddenly they found themselves on the floor. He had fallen and knocked her down too.
“Yurine! Yurine! I'm sorry!” Yurine's body stopped at the corner of a wall. He kept calling out as he was dragged towards her. “Hold on! Hold on! We're going to get out of here!”
She didn't even know where this place was. He picked her up again and started running while she was still unaware of what was happening. It felt good to be near him and it was satisfying to be a being with that feeling.
“Rubble? Where is Sivina?” The man started talking about things she didn't understand. “SIVINA! SIVINAAA! IS ANYONE THERE?!”
He was shouting. The sound of the bells ringing all the time was disturbing enough, but now he was shouting at her and disturbing her impending sleep. She opened her mouth to tell him to be quiet because she wanted to sleep, but...
“Yurine!”
What came out of her mouth was blood that only served to worry the man more.
---:---:---:---:---
“Papa!” She ran cheerfully down the wide corridor to the entrance of the mansion. She was a cat, even though she leaped like a gazelle. “Papa! Papa! How's my top? Mama said it was very good, Mama and I sewed it together!”
She spun around as she showed her father her pink dress. The dress reached from her shoulders to her knees and had a hole in the back for her yellow tail to pass through.
“I wish you were this excited when you talk to me,” said the woman standing behind Emily. She was Emily's mother.
Her mother, unlike her father and Emily, was not a half-human. She was a noble human with blonde hair and reddish brown eyes. She came from a branch of the Long clan, but according to the story Emily had heard, she was ostracized from her clan for marrying her father.
“That’s better this way,” she couldn't help thinking. “If it hadn't been like this, we wouldn't have this happy life.”
She knew it was selfish, but since her mother smiled, it shouldn't be a problem. She was sure her mother was happy with this life too.
“Hah! Emily is her papa’s daughter, of course she will treat me differently.” Her father puffed out his chest proudly and wagged his tail behind him. “But you better not make your mama jealous, then she might get jealous of our happiness and try to drive a wedge between us.”
Emily hugged his as her father leaned over and kissed her on the forehead. “Mama wouldn't do that.”
“No, she won't.” Her father picked her up and put her on his shoulders. Here she could look down on everyone. “But let's take precautions.”
As her mother smiled slightly at her words, Emily remembered once again how much she loved her family. Her life was so wonderful and she wanted it to be like this forever. After all, as a child, she could find nothing else to want.
Her father and mother loved each other, her father and mother loved her. Her father worked very hard for them and her mother took care of her every day. They lived in a big mansion, their every wish was met by friendly servants. Their family was full of love, Emily was full of love. For her, every particle of love was scattered throughout this life.
Love was the only thing Emily needed.
“Come on papa, give me back my daughter.”
Her mother approached them and put her arms around Emily. Emily didn't want to get off her father's shoulders, but she loved her mother too. So when her mother put her hands under Emily's armpits and took her away, she just held her close.
“But papa has just come... I want to stay a little longer.”
“You can stand on your mama’s shoulder too,” her mother said as puffing out her cheeks. She was a sweet woman.
Then her father squeezed Emily's cheek. “Besides, I have to go.”
“But you've just come now! Papa!”
“Don't worry, I'll be back soon,” her father said. “I have someone to see. Besides, I told you to do your homework, not to sew. Have you finished your homework?”
Emily ignored her father's question. “Who are you seeing?”
“It is work, I'll tell you tonight. And don't dodge the question, are you finished?”
“I'll do it with mama,” she answered with a sigh.
At this her mother started laughing. It was good to see her laughing because she liked it very much. She put her head on her shoulder and hugged her, she was not on her shoulders.
“You have fun with your father, but you do your homework with your mother?”
“Playing with papa obviously more fun,” her father said. They didn't talk any more as her mother mewled and her father left the house as he had come.
---:---:---:---:---
“Yurine, hold on, girl.” The bells kept ringing and the man kept running as he spoke pleadingly.
All the way down the stairs she could tell from the way he was talking that they had escaped from somewhere. He was still promising her and telling her that everything would be fine, but she knew deep down inside that things were not going well.
But was that a problem? Right now, not even knowing who she was, she felt sweet sleep and happiness. It was very satisfying to experience life as such a being.
“SIVINA! WHERE ARE YOU?!" He called out again the name he had called out before and woke her up. “ANA! LINK! KİGARO! CORNELIA! WHY IS NO ONE THERE!”
He kept calling, but his voice echoed in the tower and did nothing but lull her to sleep. Her sleep was restless. She was tired, cold and wanted to rest.
“YURINE! DON’T SLEEP! DON’T SLEEP!” This time the man called directly to her not to sleep. She still didn't know who Yurine was, but she understood that he wanted her not to sleep.
But was it possible? Sleep was so sweet that running away from it seemed like a mistake she would regret. She wanted to let sleep envelop her.
“What's this?”
When she saw the chain between her and the man, at first she thought it was a hallucination from sleep. A short white chain was between their chests. She could feel the flow on the chain, as if her soul wanted to leave the current form of her body.
“DON'T CLOSE YOUR EYES YURINE!” She opened her eyes again, which she had squinted when the man shouted again. “LOOK AT ME! SAY SOMETHING! YURINE!”
She had to say something, but she didn't know what to say. What could she say that would make the man who carried her happy? What she had to say had to be directed towards that. It was not an obligation, but she longed for it and was afraid to say something that would not make him happy.
When she felt the wind against her body and shivered with a slight chill, she realized they were no longer where they had been. It was brighter here, but the brightness was overshadowed as soon as they left, and there was a flash of lightning.
“NO RAIN!” shouted the man carrying her. “THERE WAS NO RAIN! THERE WAS NO RAIN LAST TIME!”
He was furious. His anger was transmitted to her through the chain between them and made her feel the same anger. The anger was exhausting and made her sleep more. Moreover, with the anger, the intensity of the chain between them increased and she felt the supernatural energy leaving her body, as if her life was being taken away by the chain itself.
“THERE WAS NO RAIN! DAMN IT!”
As the man continued shouting, he suddenly stopped, and they almost fell once more. The man pulled himself to his feet and changed his running direction. She didn't bother to understand why, but the source of the darkness enveloping her cells could have been the reason for this change.
“It's exhausting to have all these feelings build up, why can't I just be happy?”
Feeling the anger or the pressure from the darkness around them made her tired, but she thought that feeling happiness would neither make her tired nor bother her in that way. She wanted to be a being who only felt happiness all the time.
They stopped again and this time the man threw himself to the ground. She felt something bright, hot and red passing by them. He lay on his back and held her in his arms to prevent her from falling to the ground, but the movement must have hurt because he let out a scream of pain.
He stood up again and started running again.
“DON'T SLEEP, YURINE! WE'LL GET OUT OF HERE! THIS TIME WE WON'T DEAL WITH ANY OF THIS! DON'T SLEEP! DON'T SLEEP! DON'T SLEEP! DON'T SLEEP!”
It was not possible. Why didn't he understand that it was impossible to escape from sleep? If they had switched roles with each other, he would have understood how sweet sleep is and how hard it is to escape, and he wouldn't have shouted to stop her from sleeping.
---:---:---:---:---
She didn't like math, but with her mother's help she somehow managed to finish the assignment.
“Sewing was more fun,” she said.
“I think so,” her mother replied. “But your papa wants you to know these things too.”
“The cook's son said ‘this is men's work, girls sew.’” She liked sewing more, partly because she was afraid of being masculine. “Why does papa want me to know these things?”
Dealing with numbers was boring. Even though she was doing it with her mother, her head had a hard time picking them up, but using her hands instead of her head was more fun for her and she was more skilled at it.
“Cook’s son’s words are very wrong, I'll pull his ear later.”
Someone was going to get hurt because of her, should she feel guilty about that? She believed the answer was no. Her mother wouldn't have punished him if he didn't deserve it. What he had said must have been wrong if her mother to decide that she had to punish him.
“Why do I have to know these things?” she repeated his question.
“Because you must be a smart girl.”
“Why?”
Her mother thought for a while before answering this question. She must not have expected to be asked such a question.
“Because if you're not a smart girl, they can stole this legacy we're going to leave you,” she replied. “People can hurt you and break your heart. Most people in this world only think about themselves, and you need to be smart to defend yourself and your loved ones against selfish people who only think about themselves.”
“What does legacy mean?”
“Legacy, inheritance, this is what you leave to your loved ones after you die,” her mother answered.
Emily didn't want to die. “What if I don't die?”
“These are the facts of life.” Her mother stroked her cheeks and lowered her hands. “Emily, when you grow up you will be responsible for many people. You need to know these things and grow up.”
“Can't I just be strong like sister Rie?” Her father was smart and sister Rie was strong. Rie was better at protecting herself than her father when that werewolf attacked them. “I think she protects herself much better. I want to be like her, and maybe then I won't die.”
The concept of death was frightening to think about. So she simplified it in her mind and did not dwell on it, turning it into an enemy that could be defeated.
Her mother shook her head. “It's better if you don't ask for it.”
Emily sighed as she puffed out her cheeks. Rie was so cool, what was wrong with being like her? She wanted to understand why her mother was against it, but she decided to do it in a roundabout way.
“But sister Rie said I could be a wizard too.”
“Rie talks too much.”
“What's wrong with being a wizard?” She was trying to understand what disadvantage there was in being a wizard. “Do bad people attack us when we become wizards?”
Her mother pulled Emily onto her lap and took her hands in hers and began to rub them. She must have been thinking about the answer again. She breathed in her scent and let her play with her hands while she thought about the answer.
“There's nothing wrong with being a wizard. I mean, there is, but there's nothing to go against.”
“So what's wrong?” Emily asked.
Her mother's answer was cold. “The problem is being like your Rie.”
Emily felt her skin crawl. Why had her voice sounded like ice? Of course if her mother was against it she must be knew something, but Emily still couldn't stop caring about Rie the way she had stopped caring about the cook's son. She was too cool and she wanted to know why her mother would think such a thing.
“Is it about being cool?”
“No, Emily...” Her mother chuckled gently and kissed the top of her hair. “I just don't want to put my little girl in the middle of dangerous things.”
It was sad that she couldn't be like Rie, but she wasn't going to try to be like Rie because her mother had given her a valid explanation in her eyes.
“Okay, mom,” she said. “But from now on, instead of telling me not to do something, explain why I shouldn't do it.”
This time her mother let out a strong laugh and gave Emily a long kiss on the cheek. When she pulled her lips back, Emily's white cheek was pink.
“I will.”
She was happy to make her mother laugh, but she sensed some sarcasm in her laughter, so she was hurt. She took her mother's hands and rested her head on her chest. She was about to start talking when her stomach growled.
“When will papa be back?” she asked. She had to wait for him because they couldn't eat dinner without him.
Her mother stood up, holding Emily in her arms. Although Emily was growing up now, her mother was a tall woman and had no difficulty carrying her.
“He'll be back soon, let's go out in the garden and wait for him.”
They left the living room of their mansion in the Mora, crossed the hallway decorated with flower pots, and a servant, seeing them coming out, opened the door of the house and gave way.
When they went out into the garden, Emily saw that the sun was about to set. It was time for dinner, but her father was still not here.
“Let's swing while we wait,” she said to her mother. She was pointing to a swing hanging from one of the trees in the garden.
“Yes, but on one condition,” said her mother. “Meow.”
“Hmph!”
Her mother thought it was so sweet that she wanted her father and Emily to meow all the time. Emily puffed out her cheeks and her mother kissed her puffed cheeks.
“Oh! Okay,” Emily said. She actually liked meowing at her mom, but she didn't want her mom to think of her as an easy girl, so she played coy. “M-meow, meo~w...”
Her mother laughed and kissed her once more. She was about to take her to the swings when the door to the mansion opened and instead of going to the swings they stopped where they were. A blond man with cat ears walked in first, it was her father. The girl behind him had white hair and red eyes.
“Sister Rie is here!” she shouted excitedly. She jumped off her mother's lap and ran towards them.
First she climbed onto her father's lap. Her father was used to this greeting, but Rie was surprised to see for the first time how Emily greeted family members when they came home. As Rie's surprise turned into a smile, her father picked Emily up and kissed her on the cheek.
Normally she would have wanted to stay on her father's lap, but she got down to meet Rie and stood in front of her.
“Welcome, sister!” she shouted again.
“Welcome,” said Rie.
Emily studied her body. Her body, still in puberty, was thin and her face was dotted with red spots. She also had...
“Have your boobas grown?” Emily asked.
Rie immediately looked away. “E-Emily! What are you talking about...”
“They were smaller last time, they've grown.”
“Emily!” she heard her mother's displeased voice. “Don't bother the guest.”
Was she bothering her? She didn't think so. She took her by the hand and began to walk briskly into the mansion. She asked Rie, her face still red, just in case.
“Sister, am I bothering you?”
“No, Emily.” Rie's voice was forked, then straightened. “You're absolutely not bothering me.”
She could ignore her mother's displeasure as long as she didn't bully her. She understood her mother's objections, but she wasn't going to try to be like Rie, she was going to obey her mother because she said so. Still, she loved Rie and wanted to play with her.
As she led her into the mansion and into the parlor, she asked. “Sister, why do you have red things on your face?”
“They're pimples,” Rie replied. “They appear on people's faces when they are teenagers. You will get them too.”
“They look ugly, I hope not.”
She heard her mother click her tongue. “Emily, don't be rude anymore.”
She didn't think what he said was rude. She was about to ask why it was rude to state an existing fact when Rie spoke up.
“You're very straightforward.”
“Yes,” she said, puffing out his chest. She took it as a compliment. “I'm a straightforward girl.”
---:---:---:---:---
The bells kept ringing. The man picked her up and put her on a leather-covered chair, high off the ground. The man carrying her disappeared for two seconds and then came out from the other side of the chair.
“DEH!” The man's voice was followed by a click and she felt movement. The man kept yelling. “RUN! RUN! RUN! RUN! RUN, YOU FUCKING HORSE! RUN!”
The more he shouted, the more something snapped and the faster they moved. As the rain beat down on their face, he grabbed her, pulled her up and put her on her knees.
Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
“Don't worry, Yurine!” he shouted. He spoke so fast that it was hard to separate the words. “Everything will be fine, I promise! I promise! I'll save us! Hold on... I beg you, hold on...”
He began to feel different warm drops in the rainwater falling on her face, but she was in no mood to question what it was.
The journey was even more bumpy than before. They were constantly jumping, unable to stay in their seats. She had trouble falling asleep because of the uncomfortable journey. Every second she spent without sleep, sleep attacked her more forcefully.
She wanted to surrender to sleep. She had already lost control of her body, unable to realize what was happening around her. If she slept, when she woke up she could think and try to comprehend what was happening.
“Yu-Yurine? What is this?”
The man put his hand on her chest and pressed lightly. Her chest abnormally collapsed, he immediately withdrew his hand and the black smoke from her chest rose into the sky.
Different sounds came out of the man's mouth. They sounded like moans and wheezes, but they were definitely not words. He tried to speak, but every attempt failed.
Finally he shouted. “YURINE!”
“Yurine... Is it me?”
---:---:---:---:---
“I'm telling you this will have bad consequences,” said Rie, whom she called her sister. Her voice got lower and lower as she spoke.
After dinner, her father, mother and Rie took Emily out of the room to talk business. Emily was curious to know what they were talking about, so she didn't go far away, but hid behind the wall and listened to them. She had cat ears, so she could hear what they were saying at this distance.
“It is your presence that will bring about these bad consequences.” There was undeniable anger in her mother's voice. “If you had never come-”
“Eri, getting into these matters won't help.” This time it was her father speaking. “We'd better assess the current situation.”
Her father sounded like he was hurting. Emily wanted to run to him and hug him to make him feel better, but if she did that, he would stop talking and they would go on talking where she couldn't hear them.
“I didn't want this to happen. I'm a victim like Emily.”
She tried to remember what the victim was. Her memory told her it was the animals offered to Azer, but Emily was not an animal. Even though she had cat ears and a tail, she didn't think of herself as an animal.
So what was Emily a victim of? Were they going to kill her to offer her to Azer? That would be terrible, she didn't want to die. Why did Azer want her to be sacrificed? If she saw Azer, she would have something to say to him.
“My daughter is not a victim!” There was a brief silence after Rie spoke, but her mother suddenly broke it by shouting. “I will not give her to anyone! She is my daughter, mine!”
“I am not saying anything about give her to-”
“SHUT YOUR MOUTH!”
Emily almost screamed when her mother shouted. At the last moment she drowned out her own voice and took a few steps away from the wall, frightened.
“Erina!” It was the first time she had heard her father shout, and he had used her mother's full name. “This is for Emily's sake. No one wants her to get hurt.”
“But they want...” Her mother's voice trailed off as fast as it rose, she could hear her sobs. “They want, they want to take her... They want to take our baby...”
“Who wants to take me?”
This was never discussed with Emily. She didn't want anyone to take her, she didn't want to leave this place. She wanted to stay with her family forever, to live with them.
“I'm not asking you to give her to me, and I never claimed to be capable of taking care of anyone, I'm asking you to run away.” Rie's voice was stronger now than before. “Run away, leave this place, and go to Rolderhelm. It is safer there.”
“I won't leave this place,” her mother said. Unlike Rie's, her voice was weak. “This is our home, this is where we sacrificed so much.”
“I know, but it's for Emily's sake. This whole mansion, this whole life is not worth more than her. Even without this place, we'll still be a family.” Even though she couldn't see it, she was sure her father was hugging her mother right now. “We will always love each other, Eri. It's not where we are that matters, it's that we are together.”
Her mother kept sobbing. “I know.”
“And why Rolderhelm?” her father asked.
Rie replied. “My master said the people there are stronger and the security in the country is better than in Mora. The adventurers are also stronger than here, you can hire them to protect you.”
“The adventurers here can't do anything,” her mother said.
Emily agreed with that. They had hired a bunch of adventurers to protect them, but when that werewolf attacked them, if Rie hadn't been there to drive the werewolf away, they would all be dead.
“I'll go with you. There are places there where I can study magic, and I want to study there so I can kill what's after me and get Emily out of this. Then you can come back here if you want.”
Who did Rie want to kill? What did Emily have to do with it? She moved closer to the wall again to hear better, but they didn't talk about the things she was curious about.
Her father asked. “Do you have money to pay for the trip?”
“Yes, I have things from my master.”
“Eri, what are you saying?”
Her mother sniffled. “For Emily... It's okay...”
So Emily's family decided to leave Mora.
---:---:---:---:---
Their car was shaken by a pothole on a road they were crossing and she would have almost fallen if he hadn't held her.
“YURINE! YURINE!”
The man continued to shout, but she could tell that the conviction in his voice was fading. The initial anger and determination was giving way to uncertainty and despair.
Their vehicle shook once more. This time it was not strong enough to make her fall, but her eyes opened once more and a bright light filled her vision as if to wake her up.
Although the chain was now more visible, the chain was not the cause of the light. The light emanated from the chest of the man who carried it. She could feel the weight of the star, being pulled towards its center. It was so bright, so dazzling, that she could not take her attention away from it.
And it was hot.
“AAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH!”
The man shouted. He shouted very, very, very, very loudly. If even he could feel the heat of the star, who knows how much it hurt the man carrying it? For a human being to come into contact with such a hot object would certainly have undesirable consequences.
“Don't get hurt,” she thought to herself.
Something told her that she could stop him from hurting if she wanted to. She tried to raise her arm to ease his pain, but it fell back to the ground and she could not move it again.
“NO!” The man shouted again. “No! Don't waste your strength! Just stay awake! JUST STAY AWAKE!”
She struggled to raise her hand again, but she didn't have the strength in her arm to do so, nor did he give her permission to do so. He held her hand to keep her from lifting it and when he did she felt a warmth that she liked.
“GOD DAMN IT!”
The man started swearing again. Meanwhile he sweated, feeling a big red ball passing just above them and the heat it gave off. Considering that her body was getting colder and colder, she could tell that she was enjoying the warmth. She felt a wonderful warmth, especially in her chest.
---:---:---:---:---
Leaving her home hurt her more than she had prepared for. They hurriedly sold everything and set off for the harbor, but problems awaited them on the way.
“Emily!”
As the carriage they were riding in shook, her mother fell on top of her, her father was beside them, holding Emily's hand. Even though they couldn't see what was happening outside, Emily could feel her body tingling, a tingling that signaled a threat.
She shouted. “Sister Rie is out!”
“Don't worry, she'll take care of it.” Her father continued to hold Emily's hand. “Everything will be all right, don't worry.”
“But Papa! Outside-”
“Emily.” Her mother didn’t let her talk and pressed a kiss to the top of her blonde hair. It should have reassured her, but it didn't, “Let's not think about the outside. We will go to the harbor and get on a ship, and then your papa will take us to a very beautiful country.”
Her mother was talking to comfort her and Emily was crying. No matter what they told her, they could not stop her crying and worrying because she could feel the darkness outside. There were bad things waiting for them outside the car.
“Arak Pura!”
Rie's adolescent voice came from above their vehicle. She didn't know the meaning of the two words, but after she said them she heard the sound of something exploding. Their car shook a little more, they had run over something again.
“Mama! Mama!” She grabbed her mother by the shoulders and shook her. “I want to look outside!”
“No!”
It was the first time she had received such a direct and harsh response from her mother. She could understand her seriousness, but she felt she had to see what was happening outside. As she was torn between her curiosity and her mother's words, their car was shaken once more.
The next jolt of their vehicle was stronger than the previous ones. Their vehicle tilted sideways and Emily slipped out of her father and mother's arms and fell to the ground. The car righted itself again as her father tried to lift her off the ground, but it was short-lived, the car now tilted to the other side. Her mother fell off the seat and hit the door of the car, the door broke and her mother got out of the car.
“ERI!”
As her father shouted, the vehicle continued to tilt sideways and eventually rolled completely on its side, flipping over as the two of them rolled inside the vehicle. Her father's head came out of the broken door of the vehicle, and when the vehicle tilted once more, he was caught between the vehicle and the ground.
As Emily cried and screamed, she didn't even notice her father. She only noticed him when the car came to a grinding halt. Her father's head was stuck between the vehicle and the ground and he was not moving.
As the blood spread across the grass, Emily was speechless, unable to open her mouth. She had no idea what to say, what to do, how to describe what she had seen. Emily wet herself.
Hot urine ran down her legs and covered her father's lifeless body.
“Ah... Uh... AH? AAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!”
As her scream shook the wooden walls of their vehicle, she heard Rie, still outside, screaming too. Then a curse spilled from her mouth.
“Fuck!”
It was the first time she had ever heard Rie swear, but of course she was in no mood to condemn it. Emily continued to scream as she looked at her father's corpse.
---:---:---:---:---
“Yurine...” She was about to remember who this name belonged to. “Yurine, my name is...”
He kept on calling her Yurine. His scream was mixed in with her name, and it hurt her heart to hear it so painfully.
She was now caught in the gravitational pull of the star, she could feel herself orbiting it. She was getting closer and closer to the star and it was becoming impossible to get away from it.
“These sounds are very disturbing,” she thought about the sound of the bells still ringing.
“YURINEEEEE!”
As she tried to close her eyes, he shouted again. He was still trying to keep her awake when sleep was so hard to resist. Trying to resist sleep was as hard as trying to escape the gravitational pull of his star. The urge to sleep grew stronger and stronger. She couldn't even open her eyes fully anymore, only a little as her whole body went cold.
「Was it nice?」
The voice she heard stopped him from falling asleep once again. It was strange, she felt like she knew the voice. It sounded so familiar that the owner's name was immediately on the tip of her tongue.
「Living with my body? To live the life that is rightfully mine?」
Yes, it was her voice, but at the same time it was not her. It was the voice she had taken from someone else. The way the owner of the voice spoke, it was clear that she was not happy to give it to someone else.
「Is it nice to be a false being?」
If she hadn't been sleepy she could have given her long answers, but in her state she couldn't even think of what to say. She didn't even know what life she was talking about in the first place. Had she lived a life? She thought her existence was only this moment.
The man shouted once more. “YURINE!”
“Uh... Yes, my name is Yurine.”
---:---:---:---:---
Still sitting on her father's body, she didn't even know what had happened to her mother. Their vehicle had been smashed by the attack a moment earlier and she could now see outside.
They had to go through the city to get to the harbor, but they were not in the city, they were standing on a green meadow. There was a forest in the distance and part of the stream beside them was dyed red with bodies. In some parts of the water there were only black pools.
“Young lady, we have no intention of harming you. Wait until your time comes.”
He was twice as tall as Emily, his body was big. His red body was covered in black tattoos, with red spots on his red body, and blood dripped from his mouth and long black horns.
Rie had told her that wizards should keep their distance during battles, but the demon was too close to her. Rie tried to put space between them so that she could attack from a distance, but her opponent's speed would not allow it.
She dodged the blow of the demon's clawed fingers by somersaulting backwards and, without even moving her hands, she solidified the shadows in the air into a purple spear, and she threw, the demon merely stood still and opened his palm towards it.
When the spear struck his palm, flames appeared, the spear melted and disappeared as the demon continued to stand still.
“Emily!”
Rie looked at her as she continued to jump back. Emily continued to cry as she sat in the same position. She was holding her father's body.
Rie suddenly leapt into the air. Immediately after Rie's leap, a ball of flame passed beneath her.
She spread her arms wide before landing on the ground and the crystal spears she had created shot downwards. Emily couldn't see where the person throwing the fireball was, but she hoped that the scream that followed the spears landing was his.
When Rie landed on the floor, her clothes were sticky with sweat and her white skin was visible. She brushed back the hair that stuck to her forehead with her hand and began to gather more shadows around her.
More enemies were gathering on the devil's side. When Rie realized this, she approached Emily's side and pulled her behind her. “Don't worry, this will all be over.”
For Emily, who continued to cry, these words had no positive meaning. She didn't want her father to be left behind, she didn't want her mother to be left behind, and she didn't want their happy life to be left behind. The only reason she wasn't screaming insults at Rie right now was because she couldn't do anything but cry.
There were new enemies joining the devil. Beings that looked human but radiated darkness in every direction.
When they started to run at her, Rie stopped breathing and threw the spears she had formed at her opponents. All but one of them managed to dodge the spears.
At the front, like a storm, the demon pounced on Rie. If Rie retreated, it would come straight at Emily. So instead of retreating, she stood her ground and formed a crystal sword in her hand. She dodged the devil's claws and attacked his leg with the sword.
Before she could cut off the demon's leg, her hand was grabbed by a demon in human form. Rie tried to hit the head of the demon holding his hand but her height did not allow it, instead she ducked and another demon's sword attacking from behind cut off the head of the demon grabbing Rie.
“Idiots!” shouted the demon in front of Emily. “Don't do anything to kill her.”
Rie was surrounded by the remaining five demons as the one she had escaped melted away. The demon grabbed Emily, who was still crying, by the arm and lifted her into the air.
“That's it.”
---:---:---:---:---
“I am not a false being,” she said.
「You are. You took the life that was mine.」
“I didn't take anything. I wasn't asked anything.”
The rain had intensified and Yurine could feel her body decomposing. Through her wet eyes she could see black smoke rising over her flesh.
“YURINE!” Yu shouted, calling her name. “IS ANYONE THERE?! HELP!”
Each time his cries for help went unanswered. It was through the heat of the spell that Yurine realized they were passing another fireball.
「You don't deserve this life, give it back to me!」
Emily screamed and Yurine felt her body ache. She could do nothing against what was happening entirely in her mind, her soul wanted to leave her body and escape this argument.
“This is my life... I lived it... I loved, I was loved.”
「They loved you for being me!」
She didn't want to argue with Emily. There was no point in arguing with her because she couldn't win an argument against herself. But Emily didn't shut up and kept talking.
「Impostor! Liar! GIVE ME BACK MY LIFE!」
Yurine started to cry. She was not a liar, not an impostor. She was Yurine. Her father had given her that name, he loved her as Yurine Valarfin. She accepted herself as Yurine Valarfin.
“Yu... Yu tell her something...” She begged Yu. HShee couldn't silence Emily, she kept screaming inside her head. “I can't take it, tell her I'm not a liar! Tell her I didn't steal! Yu!”
“Yurine...”
When she locked eyes with Yu, she saw that he was crying. Yu couldn't take his eyes off Yurine, so he didn't see what was in front of the carriage and it flipped over.
---:---:---:---:---
She was laid on a stone altar with four other girls. The stone was cold and as soon as she lay on the altar she was speechless and her body could do nothing but tremble. She was scared, she was shaking, but she couldn't get up and run away. The other girls were just like her, even the older ones were scared but could not get up from the altar.
“LET ME GO!”
When one of the girls managed to shout, Emily heard a man laughing. She was tired of the darkness, but his laughter brought it back. The demon appeared above her head and shadowed the moonlight on her face. His eyes were red.
All Emily could feel was fear. Her heart was beating fast, her body was shaking like it would never stop. She wanted to leave, she didn't want to be here. Emily screamed like the other girls as the demon's mouth opened wide and black smoke poured out of it.
She coughed as the smoke entered her screaming mouth, she wanted to vomit, but the smoke kept her vomit inside. She couldn't breathe, her skin was burning from the smoke and so were her swollen lungs. After her lungs, her other organs began to swell, then her limbs. She was about to explode.
“Aaaah... AaaAAAAAAAHHHH!”
There was a scream and the left side of Emily's body was covered in blood and flesh. Emily realized that her eyes were swollen with bloody tears. She wanted to raise her hands to hold her swollen eyes to prevent them from bursting, but she could not move her arms. As another solution, she squeezed her eyelids tightly shut, but that didn't work either, her eyes exploded and her world plunged into total darkness.
“Tch...” The demon clicked his tongue and the footsteps moved away from Emily. “Looks like the big one will make it.”
Emily didn't hear anything else. In fact, she was lucky, she lost consciousness before she felt her whole body being blown to pieces, and like the girl to her left, she too was blown to pieces.
---
How are girls created?
Sugar, spices and everything good.
And some black magic.
What was happening? Who was she? What had happened?
She looked around, there were five altars and only one was not covered with pieces of meat. The altar where she was, though, no longer had pieces of meat on it.
When she looked at her body, she saw a black smoke enveloping her. At first she was afraid of the smoke, but then she realized that this smoke was what was binding her body together. The smoke subsided and came in through the slits in her body and made her one piece.
She looked up and looked at the girl standing in front of her. She was still not out of puberty, with pimples on parts of her face. The stretchy clothes she wore to make it easier for her to move were sticky with blood and sweat. She was not old enough to be her mother, but she was the first being she had ever seen.
She asked, “Mother?”
She could see the white hair falling on her shoulders. For some reason she was also aware that her eyes were red. She looked like the girl in front of her, so she instinctively said the first word that came to her mind.
Girl replied. “Emily?”
“My name is Emily?”
She shuddered as memories of Emily suddenly began to penetrate her mind, she got up completely from the altar and tried to walk towards the girl in front of her, but she couldn't control a body that didn't belong to her.
Still unable to understand what was happening, she fell to the floor crying. She didn't want to remember any of this. She wasn't Emily and she didn't want to be her. As she took deep breaths, the words she wanted to spill out of her mouth pooled in her throat and as a result she couldn't make a sound.
She just cried.
“No,” said the girl in front of her. When she picked her up and hugged her, she saw a small book burning behind her. “You're not... You're not her...”
The girl who gave her this life also cried.
---
Her name was Rie, as in Emily's memories. She had just turned seventeen when she created her. She was a very intelligent and strong girl, she called her Neko, and she tended to think of Rie as her mother. She even called her mother all the time.
She had a happy life as Neko. Being Neko was better than being Emily. Neko was not Emily, as her mother confirmed, and she didn't want to claim Emily's memories. She was different, a sword fairy.
But their happy life had come to an end when her mother's desire, which she did not know exactly what it was, made her want to go first to Rolderhelm and then to a place called the Sigma Tower.
After a few years together, her mother was an adult, more beautiful, more graceful. It was a pity to say goodbye to such a beautiful being.
“Mother!”
When she saw the clouds of dust gathering around her, the only thing she was worried about was her mother's life. Leaving Sharley, who meant nothing compared to her mother, she dived into the dust clouds.
She hadn't found her mother, but when the dust cleared, she saw someone she would love even more. He was scarred but still handsome. He looked about the same age as her mother. He was wearing a different, thin outfit. His white skin was scarred and his brown hair was disheveled.
There couldn't be a girl whose heart didn't flutter after seeing his amethyst violet eyes. She didn't want to admit it at that moment, but when she saw him, she was like a girl in love with her father.
Father. Even in that very first moment, she wanted to say that, just as she had called Rie ‘mother’, to make up for the absence of a father. Emily had a mother and a father. Neko, as a child, also needed a father.
“Neko! Run now!”
Then she heard her mother's beautiful and agitated voice. Rie had jumped in front of Neko, Yurine, and thrown the purple orb in her hand towards the man Yurine had met.
In fact, her target was not the man, but the monster they were fighting, but fate, with a bittersweet joke, had made Yu Valarfin fall there that day.
The purple orb came out of her mother's hand, grew bigger and bigger, and when it reached a size that could contain them both, it hit both the hunting gorilla and Yu Valarfin.
.
.
.
“Oh no!” She screamed when the purple light disappeared and her mother realized what she had done. “Who was that?! Where did he come from?!”
She rushed to the man lying on the rubble, behind the monster. Yurine followed her. She didn't want to say it, but she too was frightened by what had happened and wanted to think that he wasn't really dead.
The man had burns on his face, but his clothes seemed to have been spared. Rie put her ear to his heart and listened. Neko realized that he had died because of her mother.
“His soul still hasn't left,” Rie said. Her eyes filled with tears. “It's so white... How can he have such a white soul?”
With the help of the Hunter's Blessing her mother carried, she could see invisible things. This included mana and the souls of people. So she could also see the soul of the person she killed and what color it was.
“What do you mean it didn't leave?” Neko asked. “He's dead, it has to leave.”
“The souls of the dead do not leave immediately,” Rie replied. “First they prepare to be cleansed. We don't have much time, I don't want to have killed someone like that. I can't let him go.”
Her mother occasionally told her whose soul was what color, and she had never mentioned a white soul before, except for a baby's. Yurine knew today that the soul was not white at all, but knowing Yu, she was glad that her mother had gotten it wrong that day.
“What are you going to do? Please don't do what I'm thinking.”
Her mother did not respond as a yellow glow appeared above her body. The glow grew and began to take a certain shape.
“No! Mother! You can't!”
Neko grabbed her arm to stop her, but she wasn't strong enough to stop Rie. Her mother seemed hypnotized and when the yellow light above them took the shape of a grain of wheat, she leaned over and kissed the lips of the young man she had killed.
“WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!”
She might have liked him, but she couldn't handle it at that moment. The touch of her mother's lips on a man's body, especially his lips, made her roar like a cat and her tail erect. If she was all cat, she would have raised her waist too.
But her mother kissed him. Then she parted her lips and put her ear to his heart again. She smiled as she wiped a few tears from her eyes. “It beats...”
After that it was already clear.
---:---:---:---:---
She was once again in Yu's embrace and she still couldn't understand what was going on around them. She could only realize what was happening to the person closest to her, and that person was Yu.
Her sweat and tears were falling on Yurine along with the raindrops. The raindrops were so violent that Yurine felt her body being torn apart as they hit her. Each drop contributed to the formation of cracks that let a little more smoke out of her body.
“Yurine...”
When Yu realized this, he hugged Yurine tightly and tried to protect her from the rain, but it only hurt her more. As Yu wrapped his body around her, the slits in her body opened a little more. Each crevice was emitting more and more smoke.
“YURINE! YURINE HOLD ON!”
Yurine didn't answer and Yu started screaming for help once more.
“HELP! HELP! ANYONE! HELP! I'LL GIVE YOU ANYTHING! I'LL DO ANYTHING! I BEG YOU! I BEG YOU...” Yurine saw several purple crystals pass by them, then Yu gasped, spat blood and they fell to the ground together. “I beg you... Help me...”
Yurine's body had suffered further damage in the fall. She had lost all feeling in her limbs and could barely move her head. As the dark magic holding Emily's shattered body together slowly dissipated, she realized that it was useless to resist.
“Yurine...”
Yu crawled on the floor and, after leaning his back against a wall, gently pulled Yurine into his arms. As much as he wanted to hug her, he couldn't for fear of hurting her.
“Yurine... H-I...” Yu's sentence ended as it began because he hiccupped. “E-every... Everything... Everything will be okay...” Seeing the tears flowing from his eyes and the shape of his lips that she only wanted to smile only brought more pain to Yurine at the moment of death.
Yurine opened her red eyes as wide as she could, tears glistening on her face. “You don't have to lie anymore, Yu. Nothing will be okay.”
Yu trembled, as if he couldn't breathe. Yurine realized that she had broken his heart and felt pain once again for breaking his heart.
“Oh... Oh, right...” Yurine remembered the chain. Yu's chest was still glowing, the chain was now fully visible. “The chain that will bind me to Yu, which will allow me to turn into a sword.”
She knew what it was, she could become a sword through this chain. She could be Yu's sword fairy.
“But no.”
The chain broke.
It was Yurine herself who broke the chain. She knew that if she really wanted to, she could become a sword for Yu, a sword fairy. She knew that Yu also desired that.
But she couldn't.
Because she knew that no matter what she did she would die, that the wound she carried was more than a spear wound. It was attacking the dark magic that made her up with another dark magic and directly damaging her integrity.
And the sword fairy or her owner, if one of them died, so did the other. Yurine's transformation into a sword now would only ensure that she would kill Yu along with herself. She didn't want that to happen, she wanted Yu to live. She wanted her father to live.
It was a sword fairy's natural inclination to want the one she loved to be happy.
Yu also saw the chain shatter, his eyes widened and he looked into Yurine's wet eyes, unable to react.
“Father,” Yurine said at her last words. “I...”
She could not continue because her throat had lost the ability to make a sound due to the black magic that had dissipated.
“Ah...” Yurine sighed. “I couldn't say it again...”
Yurine Valarfin lost her strength and let sleep envelop her.
---
“Yurine...” Yurine's eyes closed and Yu could do nothing but call out to her. “Yurine... Hey? Yurine?”
He shook Yurine, but this caused the fumes in her body to spread faster. When he realized this, he stopped to prevent her body from falling apart.
A chain had formed between them and Yu had felt the two-sided flow of energy in that chain. Even though he was far from magic, he could understand what it was. This was the chain Yurine had to form to become a sword fairy. Yu had accepted the chain and wanted to be connected to her.
But the chain was broken. And so the bond between them was broken.
“Yurine?” he said again. He was afraid to take his hands off her body, afraid that if he did, her body would fall apart.
“Yurine? Yurine? Open your eyes...”
He didn't want to believe it. He didn't want to believe that she had closed her eyes forever. He brought his head closer to hear the sound of her heart and put his ear to her chest, which was starting to fall apart. There was no sound.
His lips trembled, more tears than ever flowed from his eyes and entered his lips, but no sound came out of his mouth. His clenched tongue would not allow him to let out the storm raging inside him.
The rain was fast. Thunder rumbled and the bells kept ringing.
Black smoke was rising from Yurine's body and pieces of flesh were being torn off where the smoke rose. Yu saw blood pouring from between her eyelids.
The parts of Yurine's body that made up her whole began to wither and swell, swelling as if they were going to explode. The more her body swelled, the more it faded and the more it smelled, and if he had been paying attention, he might have noticed that his hair and fingernails seemed longer.
But he couldn't pay attention because the rotten smell that was beginning to emanate from Yurine's body was burning his eyes.
Yu thought she was going to explode but she didn't, pieces of her body kept falling off. By this stage the black smoke had completely covered their place. Yurine's body turned yellow and began to collapse inward.
Then it blackened and the blackened pieces completely separated from the bone.
When the magic around her bones dissipated, they fell to the ground, leaving a few pieces of her bones in Yu's palm.
Yu didn't know what to say.
He didn't know what to do.
He wanted to scream, but he couldn't make any sound except sobs.
His eyes were open, and after a few seconds, only dust was left of his daughter in the palm of his hand.
He cried.
He cried and cried until he fainted.