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Mid Morning - Mid Winter : 100 Kilometers East of the Coast | Eastern Bahamut

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- Krystallo Ragnarok ~

An instant. A period of time that passes by so fast you can only react after it's passed. Depending on the scenario, its length can vary, perhaps being longer if your mind is dulled or shorter if your senses are sharp.

However, sometimes, that instant passes so fast you can't even react to it... Like a light switch being flicked off.

One moment, you're gliding over the water, trying to sort your thoughts.. and in the next, you open your eyes from what you believe to be a blink and find yourself staring into a stone fireplace.

-H..Huh..?- Upon opening my eyes, the crackling of burning wood filled my ears, and the lustrous flow of fire filled my eyes. -What.. happened...-

Going to lift my head, I tried to read my biological clock to see how much time passed, only for pain to completely rip through my body. "ACK-!"

"Krystallo! Don't move!"

Hearing Hera's panicked voice, I froze and tried to relax, only to start noticing the mess of unusual sensations throughout my body. "What.. happened to me..."

Running up to me in a hurry, Hera was quick to use her aura to reposition me a bit, before speaking more calmly. "You got attacked by a few gods out on the water. Thankfully your injuries are all treatable, but you have a huge hole in you right now..."

Suddenly noticing that one of my front legs was clamped to the side of my body, seemingly with bandages, I froze, instinctually realizing it was the source of my pain. -Wait, but.. if I got this injured...- "What about brother? Is he-"

"He's fine." She spoke bluntly. "He may as well be immortal so don't worry about him, just focus on resting and healing, okay?"

Nodding with the slightest movement, I felt heat spread out from my shoulder while using my aura to look for his presence.

But it was nowhere to be found. -He didn't get super hurt trying to protect me.. did he..?- My gut churned in an instant.

Hera was quick to continue though. "He ran back to Atlas to speak with your mom about your treatment. While he is certain he can save your arm, it's not exactly a shallow injury, so he wants to use an elixir."

-Huh?- Trying to get my mind off my anxiety, I turned my head just enough to see Hera inspecting my side. "Why would he need to ask mom about that..?"

"It'll likely turn some of your scales black, more than just the damaged area."

-What's wrong with that?-

"Anyway, please just focus on resting... I'm standing guard, so there won't be any more Asgardian bastards showing up."

-Asgard?- "What reason does Asgard have to attack me?" -Was I not just caught in the fray..?-

Going silent, Hera rebandaged my side before backing away and giving me a slightly angry glance.

She never said a word.. but I knew exactly what the answer was. -I was their target because I'm his weakness...-

Feeling my chest start to burn with anxiety, I turned to look back at the blazing fire in the fireplace with a mix of fear and despair.

I was once again a burden...

At that moment, a part of me wanted to force myself through the pain and roll myself into the fire, at least that way, I wouldn't be a burden to him any longer.

But at the same time, deeper in my chest, behind the sickening mass anxiety, there was a flame that was being fueled by my fear of inadequacy and failure; A blaze of determination unlike anything I had ever felt.

However.. at that moment, it was being suffocated.. and as I closed my eyes, trying to distract myself with the warmth flowing from the fireplace, I really had to reconsider my decision to follow Brother's footsteps.

Little did I know though, that decision was nothing more than an illusion. After that moment, my path to the bottom of the mountain was destroyed.. and I had nothing left to do besides trek forward...

The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

Even if that path was the most grueling one I could have taken...

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Late Afternoon - Mid Summer : The Forest of Altair

- Elizabeth Valia ~

*Tap* *Tap* *Tap* *Tap* *Ruslteee* Hearing the sounds of my steps ring through the forest while a familiar, steady breeze rustled the canopy, I held my nose up to take deep breaths with a wide, uncontained smile. -To think I'd come back to where it all started...-

Lowering my gaze with a relaxed breath, my eyes landed on a tiny, familiar clearing with a small hut at its center, and an indescribable wave of nostalgia blew over me. It was my home, not just in this life, but in many past.

In this life, it had only been a few years since I had been there, but as I walked out into that clearing, it felt as if it had been eons.

. as if the countless lives I had retrieved the memories of were returning for the first time since they were young as well.

-To think the mementos of my first few lives were all here. . right under my nose...-

The building was my home in nearly every life I could remember, the birthplace of countless reincarnations, where I was raised under the care of a close friend or family member from my previous life; A reality I previously only ever discovered on my deathbed, after they had already passed.

But while it was odd.. in almost every reincarnation I could remember, it was a decision they made on their own.

And in this life, it wasn't any different.

"You know, this isn't a place people just wander into." Feeling Grandfather's presence in a tree behind me, I pulled off my hood and looked back at him with a smile.

"H-Huh?!" He almost instantly jolted. "Elizabeth?!" *Woosh* Hopping off the branch somewhat carefully, his confident, young stance shifted to something I was more familiar with. "What are you doing here?!"

Feeling the ebbs and flows of light magic around him, my smile warmed and a motherly pride flooded my mind. "I simply realized I forgot something. I came back to get it."

His eyes instantly went wide, but after a moment of thought, he seemed to shake it off. "Well, let's continue our talk inside then. I'd like to hear all about what you've experienced in the outside world so far!"

"Haha, of course!" Turning back to the house, I smiled rather wide while thinking back to the day we met in my last life. "Do you have any gold-leaf tea to talk over?"

He instantly stopped in his tracks as his eyes went wide. Gold-leaf tea was what I asked to drink after I had reawoken my memories.

But he was quick to shrug it off as coincidence. "I-I do. I didn't expect you to become so spoiled in your short time away from home."

"Hoho, it's not that I'm spoiled," Continuing inside, I casually made my way into his room before turning to his desk and picking up a book.. one of my old diaries. "We just have a lot to discuss."

Almost immediately, the grizzled old man in the doorway behind me froze, letting his eyes turn glossy with tears before the light magic around him wavered and warped. "You.. remember..?"

Gently lowering my gaze, I turned to look out the window, watching as the grass in the clearing waved in the wind before letting out a quick breath.

"It's a long story, but..." Gently nodding as I turned back to him, the magic around him ceased, removing his grizzled look and revealing a much healthier-looking man beneath the overgrown beard.

-But it looks like time takes its toll on every species. ..-

While he looked quite good, especially for being nearly a thousand years old, looking just like his father, wrinkles had started to appear on his face.

But.. perhaps those wrinkles were from his stress. "You.. are you.. dying..?"

Seeing the horror wash over his face, I was quick to correct him. "No, no. I'm actually better than I've ever been. For once, I actually have the chance to break the cycle."

Knowing exactly what that meant, he froze. "Y-you know it's not that simple, right..? Every time you've awoken some of your memories in the past, whether someone told you about them, or you stumbled across a diary.. it was an omen for your death..."

"But it isn't this time." Trying to speak confidently, I leaned onto the desk. "This time, I was guided across this world to retrieve all the mementos I left behind in the past by a god, and reawakened those memories myself."

Getting nervous, panic seeped into his eyes. "I've done more research on reincarnation than anyone in this world... Breaking this cycle won't be something that easy..."

"Of course, but it's not just anyone guiding me, you know. It's one of the strongest beings to ever walk this world."

His curiosity exploded in an instant. "Is it the god you'd always speak of when you were young?"

"No, no." Shaking my head, my gaze slowly drifted to a nearby bookshelf where I found an old book; a bible I had tried to write from memory when I was young.

"This time I'm not following some ethereal entity.

" Thinking back to the day I watched the mountainside explode, I felt a chill of both fear and awe pass down my spine.

"This time, I'm choosing to follow a god that can properly guide my fate.

.." Relief quickly overtook my expression before I looked up at him.

"It's finally over, Anamoni... You're finally free. .."

His eyes immediately darkened with thought.

"You no longer have to take on the burden of trying to change your mother's cursed fate... You can do anything you want-"

"Do you.. still view me as your son..." Cutting me off, he sat down on the edge of the bed and squeezed his hands while his gaze drifted.

"To you, you might think the last thousand years have been torture for me.

. watching my own Mother, clueless of her identity, grow up, and grow old before realizing who I really was.

.. You must think having to live through that has made me disconnected from you.

. as if time had separated our relationship.

.. But for me, you are everything I have.

.. I have dedicated my life to breaking you from this curse.

.. Just to see you and Father smiling again.

.." Pausing, his expression turned pained.

"So.. even if you no longer see me as your son. . please.. don't throw me aside..."

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