[|||| =LEVEL 8= ||||]
Claire and I raided a camping store and hotwired a nice Mercedes on our way out of the outskirts of New York, where I made a small scene crying over my motorcycle, which I put in my soulspace as soon as it was out of Claire's sight. Then came looting.
Most of the good stuff at the store was gone, but there was some okay stuff to loot. I had a few knives and some good clothes, Claire had clothes, two axes, and a climbing pick, and between us we had two of everything we thought would be useful except campfire fuel and food, of which we had about three bags of dried campfire food.
I demanded we stop and got some decent ingredients at a few small stores. They would spoil, but I had enough preserved stuff to make good meals for me and her. Claire had her head in the clouds, probably coming to terms with the apocalypse and didn't argue with my looting. Surprisingly, the water was still running and I was able to collect some in bottles and a large plastic box I found.
I wasn't sure how widespread the zombie plague was but it had taken New York within hours. It was probably an engineered plague, too, since zombies were a big leap of evolution, so it might have been released in every major city.
"You know, humanity just got sent back to pastoralism," I said absently, looking up at the starry sky from my sleeping bag. I was a bit uncomfortable since we were in a tree at the moment. Claire didn't want to sleep on the ground where a zombie could get her.
"… Yeah," Claire said, her voice small.
"Well, actually that might be an exaggeration. Bodies rot quickly, especially in warm weather. It takes about nine months in all. Maybe longer if the bodies keep enough organ systems running. They've got a heartbeat, after all. Otherwise they wouldn't be able to move. They breathe, think at a primal level, eat… do zombies need to poop? … Ugh." Claire snorted but it was wet. She was crying, probably.
"So zombies might last longer than nine months, we'll have to see. They might produce a preserving enzyme, after all. But the body's a complicated thing. Viruses are sorta blunt. They hijack and reproduce. They're doing delicate stuff; definitely genetically engineered. I doubt that they could do this sort of thing as perfectly as us original humans. Hm, maybe we should go south instead where they've got farms and food? Nah. There's less people in Canada if you get to the right place. It might take longer, but not by much."
I fell silent when Claire didn't respond. Then I heard a small sniffle. "Do you need a hug or something?" I asked.
"No!" she protested, her voice thick.
"Uh huh," I said, unconvinced.
"Ugh!" she groaned. I heard her roll over. "I'm gonna go to sleep. Goodnight you weirdo."
"Oh I'm definitely weird," I agreed. "And why not be? It's a big world and it just got a whole lot bigger. Why wouldn't you do what makes you happy? For better or worse, people are going to be doing that. Be weird if you want to. It's better than being stressed out. It's the apocalypse. Don't be one of the people who cry and moan. Be the person who laughs and parties the night away before you die."
"It's not that easy," she said weakly.
"It's impossible," I said. "Who would be happy when everyone's dead? But you have a life to live. Smile and bear with it and it'll be genuine soon enough. Things like this take time. Time and therapy, but you'll have to content yourself with the first one. Luckily there's still the power of friendship to handle the second." Claire chuckled nasally.
"Well, that's enough from me. I'll let you sleep now. If you need a sleeping pill I grabbed a bottle from that pharmacy we looted. That and a LOT of strong antiseptics. It's over the counter stuff but it'll help. I figured you might appreciate it so it's in your pack. Goodnight." Claire waited a moment and shuffled around. A zipper opened and I heard the plastic bottle open and her dry swallow one.
[|||| =-= ||||]
I felt a little better as I left the dimension to play games in DxD until I felt sleepy enough to go to bed. Consequently, that was when Kuroka got back and we watched a movie together.
"So how was your day?" I asked her.
"Meh. Cao Cao was a jerk again. Something's got him in a bad mood," she said casually, her head on my lap as I scratched her ears lazily. "Vali was super happy, though. Something about his old man. I didn't ask since it made work easier. You?"
"I got bored and went to another dimension again. Esdeath's doing the boring part of managing armies, I don't want to be clingy, and Harry's pretty self-sufficient now. Not to mention how the residents of his universe get all their problems solved by Helen, bless the lady."
"Cool. What kind of universe?"
"Some sort of zombie apocalypse one. I'm not using magic or superhuman abilities, of course. Just skill and magic to do mundane things like fake my ID and not leave my motorcycle sitting in a parking lot. I walked around New York and left with a girl named Claire, who's kind of a bitch, with plans to go to Canada."
"Wouldn't the zombies rot slower up there?"
"Not by too much. I'm not sure if the zombies rot anyways. They move and stuff so it might just be a neurological disease in that universe. I'm having a fun time, though."
"Hmm… so is Claire another for the harem?"
"Nah. She's like fifteen or seventeen. Maybe eighteen or nineteen but I kind of doubt it. Highschool age."
"Do you think she'll care? It's the apocalypse for her. You're a hot guy and pretty nice. Not to mention that she'll rely on you." I frowned. That did sound like a recipe for disaster.
"I'll have to make things clear if she makes a move," I muttered.
"Just so you know, I'm not totally against sleeping with a younger girl if she's at least seventeen. I know I made my own decisions at seventeen and an apocalypse kinda wisens people up."
"Yeah…" I made sure to scratch the spot just to the left of her right ear and she purred a little bit.
"Oooh, nice," she said, her voice having a natural purr to it. I hummed and just listened to her purring for a minute. "You know, I could just fall asleep here," she said.
"Sure," I replied. I was comfortable enough as I was. Kuroka sighed and adjusted herself and I leaned back a little more and closed my eyes. Things were nice as they were. I might have some issues with finding things to do but the problem was easily solvable. It was nice, not having to worry about anything for once. All I had to do was eat, sleep, keep my obligations to Esdeath, Kuroka, and now Claire, and enjoy myself. After a moment of thought I couldn't recall a single moment I had to do anything I really didn't want to since I left Remnant…
Coming to that line of thought brought to mind Ruby and Raven and my mood plummeted. Some memories drifted through my head. Christmas with Ruby, her putting a santa hat on her head and passing out alcohol to some poor bandits was the first to come to mind. Then it was watching her steadily grow with her scythe and all the time she spent making Rose Eclipse. I even missed Roman to a degree. The only person I didn't miss was Jaune. Screw Jaune. I messed up with him badly, but he really was a dick now.
Softly massaging Kuroka's ears a little more helped set my mind at ease again and I tried to clear my thoughts. I'd gotten pretty good at it with meditation and I felt sleep comfortably take me. I had been up for eight hours more than Kuroka with my foray into the zombie world, after all.
When she almost silently got up and took a shower I had the presence of mind to teleport to the zombie world and adjust myself in my sleeping bag. I missed Kuroka on my lap but I was tired and wanted more sleep. I could go back later and have some shower sex when I was more awake.
[|||| =-= ||||]
"Good morning," I said, flipping the tiny frying pan over the portable campfire. Claire groaned quietly without really opening her mouth and blinked at me. "I'm making scrambled eggs. Get on up. That branch can't be comfortable." She nodded woozily and stood up.
"You're naked," I noted. Claire's eyes widened and she pulled herself into the sleeping bag.
"Don't look, pervert!" she yelled at me, finding a surprising amount of volume considering she just woke up.
"I've seen breasts before, Claire," I said reasonably.
"Then why are you looking at me?!"
"It's polite to look at people when you're talking to them." She snarled fiercely and grabbed her backpack, still covering her breasts under the sleeping bag. I rolled my eyes and caught the stick of deodorant she threw at me. I tossed it back to her where she threw it at me harder. I caught it and tossed it aside.
"Close your eyes!" she ordered me.
"Claire, quit playing the blushing virgin and go put on some clothes. We can take showers later if we pass a lake or something. I'll check a map later. Now if you don't get dressed you're not getting breakfast." She was silent before she scoffed and rolled out of the tree. I looked down at the eggs I was making. Cooking scrambled eggs with a portable stove was a bit below me as a frankly fantastic chef, but I did consider that a truly fantastic chef could create a wonderful meal using poor ingredients in sub-par conditions. So I cooked.
Claire stormed back to the tiny camp and sat down in a huff. I offered her a little plastic bowl of eggs and she snatched it and a plastic spoon grumpily as she dug in.
"What'd you put with this?" she said around a mouthful of eggs.
"Chives, green peppers, and cheese," I answered, already done with my food and using a little water and a rag to clean everything. Ideally I would use unclean water so I didn't waste the potable water, but we only had potable water and if things got desperate we could just collect rainwater.
Claire was finished quickly with my eggs and I took the bowl from her for washing. "Wow, you really hated those eggs."
"They were terrible," she said without humor. I shrugged and we were silent.
"So… about last night," Claire said leadingly.
"Yeah?"
"Were you trying to say something with the whole 'free world' talk?" I shook my head at her.
"Did you think I meant that crime was fine?"
"Uhh…"
"Looting doesn't count. With everyone dead, somebody else is going to loot everything if we don't."
"Sure." She nodded with my logic. "I meant about, like, stealing and stuff." I looked up at her skeptically. She said nothing.
"Well," I said. "I'd rather avoid stealing unless I have to. I could, of course. I'm sort of a badass and I have a gun. But why would I betray my fellow man? There's a ton of loot right now that anybody can take. Nobody's going to be a dick for a few months at least. Maybe in a year when things get scarcer that stuff will get more common. Right now it's more likely that people will go for power plays like pressing people into their groups, hoarding guns, and making group structures. I personally wouldn't feel happy in a group bigger than six. At that point people need a clear leader and I would be in the running because I'm handsome, smart, and really competent. People would look up to me and I don't want that responsibility."
"How humble of you," she said dryly.
"Believe it or not I had to work pretty hard for my skills. Admittedly I was pretty good looking even before I started working out, but the skills and knowledge came through hard work," I pointed out.
"Some people have no shame." She shook her head in exasperation. I sighed and finished the dishes with a few swipes of my cloth. I didn't stack them neatly and just tossed them all in a plastic bag to use later tonight if we couldn't get a working stove or anything.
"Come on," I told her. "Do you want to learn how to drive?"
[|||| =-= ||||]
"Hey, Draco," I said, passing the kid in the stony walls of Hogwarts on my way to the Gryffindor dorms, where Harry was running late. The blond kid let loose a girlish screech and spun around with wide eyes. The few people around us looked at us in surprise.
"I-ah, Mister Granite!" he said with a stretched smile.
"Any reason you're as tense as a spring?" I asked casually, ignoring the people loitering around.
"Anyone would be when faced with a wizard of your power," he said. I thought that was a part of why he was afraid of me, but it didn't seem like the root of the problem.
"Sure, and the real reason?" I asked, seeing no need for subtlety. I flexed my power a bit, projecting towards Malfoy. His breath hitched and he gulped, looking pale.
"I-I… nothing!" he squeaked. I narrowed my eyes.
"Now, Draco, you wouldn't have anything to hide now, would you?" I rested my hand on his shoulder and smiled coldly. "Now I'm not accusing you of anything, but with how nervous you are it almost seems like you have something to hide, and doing so with a shameful lack of tact. So I want you to know this." I leaned down a little, looking straight into Draco's eyes unwaveringly. His were filled with fear.
"If you are having any problems at all that may endanger somebody I want to know. Be it dementors, dragons, Dumbledore… Death eaters." Draco barely held in a whimper and I smelled something unpleasant from beneath his robes. "If you or any student is having that sort of trouble I consider it my responsibility to drag it into the open and annihilate it. After all, how else will people feel safe?" I let my cold smile stretch a little farther.
Draco looked near tears. For a fourth year it was a little pathetic, but I had just threatened his family and put it on his shoulders to ward off anything the death eaters tried, all while maintaining the thin facade of telling him I was available to help. I didn't want him to break down in tears so I lowered the intensity of the magic I was letting loose to let him calm down.
"Hm," I stood up and pushed him lightly away from me, getting a little distance where we were just two inches short of kissing before. "Goodbye, Draco, and good luck with your lessons. You did a wonderful job when I first came here. I'd hate to see such talent gone for some trivial violence." Draco nodded hauntedly and I wondered whether he was seeing some sort of threat in my final words where there actually wasn't one. I was just being cautious about Death Eater attacks and a repeat of the original timeline.
I walked away with a pleasant hum, feeling that if there was any Death Eater threat it was well and truly stomped out with my intimidation of Draco. The organization had no spies besides maybe Snape, whatever he was doing, and probably wouldn't risk trying to abduct Harry for some sort of ritual anymore.
Yes, life was easy in the HP-verse. In fact it was getting boring. Harry was a lot less interesting than I thought he'd be. I was hoping for some sort of unique magical ability or a person with personality quirks. Instead he was just a normal guy, albeit with a lot of untapped magical talent and some serious bravery, trying not to stand out too much and failing badly. I was working on making him less dull, though.
I arrived at the Gryffindor dorms and the door opened for me courtesy of Helen. Harry's friends Ron and Hermione were flicking their wands silently with frustrated looks on their faces on the couch while a few other Griffindors sat around the lounge. I could feel the magic in the two friends not moving with their wands.
"You're doing it wrong. Push magic into it," I told them. Hermione jumped at my voice but Ron didn't seem surprised by my presence.
"It doesn't work!" the girl said in frustration. "You can't just… just wave your wand and have something happen because you say so!"
"Why not?" I asked, feeling confused.
"Because magic doesn't work that way!" she said angrily. "Wizards have spent hundreds of years discovering wand motions, finding the right words, and - and studying! Every book I read said that you can't just flick and make things happen!"
"So what? You're clearly wrong and those books are too," I said as though it were obvious. The girl grew red in the face and looked about ready to yell at me, so I continued before she could. "Books are just paper containing words. It doesn't have to be correct or particularly knowledgeable material inside. Writing a book is recording what a person knows and people often think they know something when they don't, leading to books having incorrect information all the time. As for the studying and ministry mandated books saying whether to flick your wand daintily or with poise I have to say that it's entirely bollocks." I took a few steps towards a stunned Hermione and plucked her wand from her hands.
"Wingardium leviosa," I said, swishing and flicking the wand as I remembered from the Harry Potter movies at one of the several closed books next to Hermione's feet. It rose up in the air steadily, coming to a standstill as I stopped moving Hermione's wand. I was just using motion affinity to move it, but nobody had to know that. I had read enough magic theory in the forbidden section when I was bored to know what I was talking about.
"See? It worked fine," I said. I dropped Hermione's wand into her lap and the book stayed in the air. "Now, umm, winner, winner, chicken dinner." I pointed at another book with my pinkie finger. The same effect happened as when I used the wand.
"Now, the same effect happened because the magic did the same thing as before. Having a wand didn't change a thing. It's not the wand that makes an effect happen. It's not the motion or the words or how hungry you are. It's willpower and belief. Magic works because you say so. It's the authority to bypass traditional physics, the natural order, and substitute your own. Studying something as fluid as belief and will personified is foolishness that tries to normalize something abnormal. Now quit trying to do whatever it is you're doing and do it."
Hermione pressed her lips together and picked up her wand. I took it from her hand wordlessly and she glared at me. I remained unimpressed and she looked at the books I had levitated. Her magic moved a little bit and she waved her hand. Nothing happened. She waved her hand a few more times, her magic moving less each time.
"Nothing," she said bitterly. I hummed, looking pensively at the girl. I decided then to do something a bit immoral that would probably help her in the long run. I'd call it tough love. If it didn't work I'd feel terrible and apologize, but I was pretty sure I knew what the problem was.
"Not surprising. You're hardly an exemplary witch," I said, a little mind magic going into Hermione. I put some aura in the spell with the intention to make it glow a bit and a bright little brownish green stream flowed into her from me that everybody could see but her, a facet of the mind magic I was using on her, though it faded from sight after a few seconds.
"I-wha-I get perfect grades!" she protested.
"So?" I asked callously. "Magic is important but what have you really done? Harry's killed a basilisk, stolen from a dragon, killed Voldemort, and so forth. Ron's been with him through it all and is probably one of the most loyal people in Britain. Draco battled with the demons I summoned with a bravery you sure haven't shown and has probably studied more dark arts than you've ever heard of. Even nervous little Neville has a green thumb to the point that Professor Sprout noticed. What do you have?"
I felt Helen trying to tell me to stop but I was getting closer. She was getting more unstable, her magic swelling. She was concerned for her kids, I knew, but a little pain now would help her in the long run to be more powerful. She wouldn't have to feel insecure about being less powerful than Harry or strive to catch up. Family was worth the pain, no matter how much, and I had already screwed Harry over. I could help fix this a little, drive his friends closer to him and stop being jealous.
"I'm one of the smartest witches of the generation! Everyone who's not a bigot has said so!" Her voice grew a little more vicious, a little more fearful that I was right. I pressed that. Ron tried to say something but I forced him to sit down magically and stilled the air around his mouth to silence him.
"Really? If you're so bright what have you done to stand out above the rest? Who's attention have you gathered? How many people talk about you? You've been nothing but Harry's second best friend. The sidekick of the sidekick. A tagalong. And even then they just tolerate you. How much have they complained about how bossy you are?" Hermione's upper lip quivered and her eyes looked a little wet but she didn't cry. I could feel anger, fear, and sadness in her, all in large quantities.
"I-I help! I'm not a hero but I can help!"
"Oh really? How?" I asked. She hesitated and drew herself up to look more stubborn, or so she probably thought.
"I helped them escape devil's snare in first year! I know more spells than them! Everybody knows it! They couldn't do their homework without me!"
"Oh my, missing homework. Harry was probably busy saving lives and fighting evil. Ron was right there beside him, watching his back to the end. And devil's snare? Truly? It's common knowledge that it doesn't eat still victims. It's in the first year textbooks, even. Harry and Ron panicked a little but they would have been fine as they always are. They've done their best when you weren't there, after all. Use that memory you have to recall the basilisk, beating the trials to the stone, making the friends you'll never have…"
I felt like a massive dick already, this was taking longer than I expected, but I felt her magic. It was writhing, pulsing, and growing. Her world affinity was beating like a heart, stirring up her magic even more. Some objects around us shook ominously. She just hadn't hit that critical breaking point yet.
"Who cares about the variety of spells? Harry has nonverbal magic now, remember? The skill you just fail to understand. He can do so much more than you and your efforts here just show how you're falling behind, becoming less important. Just the third wheel trying to act important as a bossy. Little. Know-it-all."
"NO!" she screamed, her emotions blowing past a boiling point. Her magic exploded out of her, waves of mana, affinity, and raw, strong emotion tearing from her. Immediately the mind affinity I was using on her to heighten her emotions changed, reinforcing the memory of this feeling for her to the point that it would always be with her.
The magic crashed against the common room like a physical force. Cups went flying away from her, students were pushed mightily from their chairs, falling to the floor or being forced against the wall. Ron went tumbling over the sofa and even the books next to her were tossed across the room. I was the only thing in the room unchanged. My void shielded my skin, keeping myself from being affected at all.
I clapped politely and watched Hermione look around in horror, her eyes red and puffy, a few tears even falling from them. She tried to stand up but I grabbed her shoulder and pushed her back down. I gave her some mana and hoped her affinity was up for just a little bit more work. She had clearly strained it in the wave of force.
"Pull on your magic. Remember the feeling, the raw power of it. Remember how it rushed outwards like a dam breaking. Make that breaking dam a stream. Harness it. Control it, and will this book to rise. No wand." I pulled the same book I had levitated earlier in front of her to the floor at her feet.
The whole room was silent, even Ron, as Hermione stared at the book. She raised a shaking hand and her magic responded like a new limb; a little unstable but controlled. Some mana and world affinity fused and were moved by Hermione's will, weak as it was. In front of everybody's eyes the book shimmied a little into the air and shook a little. Eyes moved from the book to Hermione's bare hand.
"Good," I said approvingly, feeling proud that she had achieved something few could hope to achieve. With her insecurities settled in her new power, her relationship with Harry might be fixed. "Now you can do something with ease that even Harry can't. I hope you learned-" Hermione's hand suddenly stopped and the book fell to the ground with a thunk. Her feet pounded on the carpet as she fled the room, faint sobs audible as she ran.
The room was silent. Then accusing eyes turned to me in the wrecked common room. I looked at each person in the eye. I suddenly realized how I was alone in the room, not a single eye happy with me. In fact, I watched as Ron got to his feet and marched to me. He didn't hold back as he slammed a fist into my gut. I didn't move and he looked up at me with fury in his eyes.
"Leave," he snarled. The accusing eyes agreed and I wondered if I should explain why I made her so emotionally unstable. Accidental magic was harder to draw out later in life, but it was magic at its purest, rawest form. But I looked around and decided they wouldn't see my reason. So I walked solemnly away from the common room, leaving Harry behind.
[|||| =-= ||||]
I was sitting on top of the school. It was bright and sunny outside but I still felt crappy.
"She needed emotion. She needed to touch magic," I said calmly. "If she didn't find that spark, that source, she would have fallen behind. Wandless magic isn't her book fare, or a swish and a flick. She doesn't have that gut connection like Harry does. I had to make one." Helen was silent. I could faintly feel her emotions but they were in turmoil and she wanted to spend some time away from me. So I just spoke aloud and assumed she would hear me. I just wanted somebody to know why I did what I did. It was grisly and left a lot of hurt feelings in my wake, but it was for the best.
"… Do I need to say more? Justify myself? I can't stay here forever. I won't. There are places to be, people to see and responsibilities I have. I can't play mother hen forever like you can. They have to grow up. I was only focusing on Harry, but he was leaving his friends behind. I know what it's like to be alone. He's sort of my pupil, you know? I wouldn't leave him to abandon his family or stop learning. He has potential, so much of it. But he won't draw it out alone. He needs guidance." I took out some vodka and a shot glass from my soul space. I felt like drinking right now. Helen didn't stop me as I poured a little.
"I guess I've been pushing him hard. Nonverbal magic at, what, fifteen? Fourteen? He's stronger than most. He's still stupid and inexperienced but that'll change. I can't give experience, after all. But letting him do that alone? I wouldn't do that." I took one shot straight down and sighed at the faint burning feeling that went down my throat. I swallowed again and poured another, taking that one too before I went back to talking.
"He needs his sister and brother, his Ron and Hermione. They'll help him. I wouldn't condemn him to only having me around. Seriously, travel around with a guy like me? He's still bright eyed and happy. I don't think he's ever lost people and I don't want him to have my less than savory traits rub off on him. Power's one thing. But learning other stuff? Pah." I took another shot and let myself hear the silence of the rooftop. A faint breeze went through and ruffled my hair lightly. My ears twitched and I felt a little cold despite the warmth in my gut.
The silence didn't feel stifling but rather encompassing. It was larger than life as I looked out over the Scottish countryside, the sun setting slowly to my left and the lake rippling softly. I had the idle thought that if I wanted to I could end it all. I could decimate the countryside, hell, the entire country. I didn't have to flood the place. I was a magical nuke, a gateway to the greater void. I could be cthulhu and rip the life from the very air, leaving Helen dead in an instant and rending the souls of the students to nothing.
The grass would wilt without natural affinity around as saturated in magic as it was. And when I had scoured the land with void to a barren wasteland I could destroy more. I could barrage the stony walls with lightning, tear the ground beneath the castle out from under it in an earthquake, split the skies to rain fire from above. I could end it. Just leave Harry and his problems forever. Or return later in a different dimension, let Hermione drift away from Harry and his power and laugh as I knew that I was right, that I was justified to show her how magic truly was.
Another shot went down my throat. And then another. And a third. I leaned back and looked with hooded eyes at the countryside, other dark fantasies going through my head. I could do horrible things. I could rape, kill, torture, and dominate without care. I could savage bodies and relish as the ignorant dreams of others were crushed.
What were they worth, anyways? There was always another reality. I could devote my life to wretched things and it would change nothing. A billion, a trillion other Abysses would be doing the same thing. Septillions. Novem-whatevers of me. And as many others would be sitting happily on Remnant watching Jaune crack a joke and Ruby snort orange juice. She'd spit and make a grossed out face and blow her nose while Pyrrha, Jaune, and I would laugh. In all those realities that very scene was going down. And when our laughter had died down, our smiles settled, Ruby would look at me, Jaune, and Pyrrha, and smile, her eyes bright knowing that it was forever, that the future was bright because we were together, because family was stronger than anything.
And I would see Summer smiling through her.
The bottle half empty shattered on the side of the tower. I threw the bottle aside and downed the next shot violently and slammed it down on the roof. It shattered and I gripped my hands around the shards. They didn't even break my skin, being crushed to dust before they cut me.
I looked beside me, seeing Ophis looking at me without judgement, her eyes not glassy and without emotion but deep and empathetic even as her face was stoic. Her soul, an eldritch thing beyond even mine, seemed to be all around me, like a hug made of void. But it wasn't warm. It wasn't cold. It wasn't anything. It was just there around me, holding me.
"What's the FUCKING POINT?!" I yelled at her, my eyes stinging. "THEY AREN'T HERE! NOBODY'S FUCKING HERE!" I slammed my hand on the tower roof as hard as I could. It broke under my strength, dust floating around. An idle desire made a strong wind blow the dust away but it was too strong and tore the roof further apart. I gave up and iced it over instead.
"Ruby's DEAD!" I yelled from the rooftop out to the hills of Scotland. "Jaune's DEAD! Pyrrha's DEAD! Even fucking SALEM'S DEAD! Dust fucking knows about Raven! She's probably out drinking away her sorrows like Qrow! Just another sad fucking person drinking away her problems! Who even cares anymore?! I'm not there and I was everything! I relied on them and they left me just like I left them! So fucking what if I didn't have a choice! I should have been prepared! I could have been prepared! I would still have my family and everything would be fine!"
Another bottle came to my hands. I drank it for a few moments, not using a glass. It burned.
"I lost!" I yelled again at Ophis. My soul roiled with fury and it pushed her soul away. "They were everything! Fucking all I had! I don't care about anything else, don't you see?! THEY WERE ALL I HAD!" I felt a wetness on my face. I drank more and gasped a breath in.
"I-I don't want to be alone!" I sobbed. Ophis was closer now. I grabbed her and held her to my chest. "I just don't want to be alone! I don't care about my freedom or my happiness or pain or my magic! I don't care about Harry or Claire or Kuroka or fucking Esdeath! I'm friends with a serial killer and fucking a terrorist! They're more well adjusted than I am! I'm here… crying on the shoulder of a goddess with a dead soul, a fucking emotionless doll who spends more time crying about PEACE AND FUCKING QUIET than real people problems! Fuck…" I pulled her closer. She was too short to properly put my face on her shoulder so I pulled my knees upwards to push her up. A few seconds were spent breathing heavily. Then I pushed her away and took a tissue out of my soul space and blew into it before tossing it off the tower.
I sat in silence sniffling a little bit and feeling the mass of bitterness and anger in me.
"You don't mean it," she said softly. "You love them."
"Fuck loving them. I love Ruby. I love my family. They're not family. They're a character from a hentai trying to be an anime and a murderer with a personality that you can sum up in two words. Cute sadist. Fuck them. I had people to care for and they're shallow replacements," I snarled.
"And me?" she asked. I was silent. "Do you hate me?" she asked again. I refused to answer her. Silence went across the countryside. Even the birds weren't chirping. The silence was suffocating again but I had my knees at my chest and I ignored it.
"Abyss… what do you feel about me?" she asked again.
"You're a fucking dragon god. You're not human. You don't feel. You could travel dimensions and get a million more of me if you felt like it," I snarled weakly. My soul struck again, biting at her. She took it without comment, though her soul recoiled slightly, seeming hurt. Fucking liar.
"Yes I do,"sShe replied. "I feel hurt. I feel pain and I feel fearful sometimes… I love you." I was silent. Ophis was silent too as she wrapped her arms around me, this time pressing her face against my shoulder. The silence felt a little lighter. I continued ignoring it.
Then I heard a sniffle. I looked to the side without moving my head and saw Ophis' face looking down. Her eyes were the tiniest bit red. Small tears were welling up in the corners of her eyes and she was frowning. Our eyes met. The silence became a little more meaningful and I stopped fighting her soul. Ours meshed a little, connecting in a strange way and I felt a stillness I never had before. It wasn't very different from our hug, but more personal. Ophis cried silently on my shoulder, something I hadn't thought was possible, and I felt sad for it.
Reluctantly my arms stopped hugging my knees and I hugged her, feeling badly again.
"I'm sorry… I shouldn't have said what I did," I said quietly. I felt regret and tried to convey this through my soul. "I don't hate Kuroka. I don't hate Esdeath or you or Harry. I don't even hate Claire." Ophis' sniffles died down a little and we hugged quietly. I could, very faintly, feel her heart beating. I didn't know she had a heart.
I silently drew on the void, the connection to it I had through Ophis making it smooth beyond belief, like pivoting more than taking a step, and we arrived on the couch of Kuroka's apartment. I grabbed the familiar blankets and tossed them on the couch. I stripped myself with space magic, not wanting to let go of Ophis. She closed her eyes and did something, becoming completely naked. I didn't really care. I wrapped us in the blankets somehow and we just hugged. I didn't fall asleep but I did close my eyes and Ophis did the same.
I didn't think she fell asleep either but neither of us moved for a long time. When I heard the door open and Kuroka come home I didn't open my eyes then either. I felt her try to fit onto the couch with us, bringing another blanket with her. I squeezed against the cushions and opened the blankets. She didn't react to Ophis but pressed against her, wrapping her arms around me. I shifted a little to get the three of us more comfortable and sighed deeply. It felt right.
Then I fell asleep. I liked to think that Ophis did too.
----------------------------------------------------------
If you like it please drop some POWER STONES