I lay on my bed, eyes tracing the ceiling, my thoughts drifting back to my conversation with Isadora earlier after we got back in the apartnt.
By her own admission, this single week might have been the most enjoyable stretch of her entire existence.
Given her personality, nothing about her behavior had struck as unusual. And yet, looking back now, there was sothing quietly remarkable about those days.
She cleaned without being asked, kept the apartnt in order, even cooked for , as if these ordinary tasks were second nature.
I vaguely rembered her explaining it once, her tone casual, almost detached. She said she felt strangely at peace performing these mundane chores.
Things she had never done in her previous world. Back then, she was always on the move, drifting like a phantom with no destination, no reason to pause.
From the mont of her birth, her life had been a constant journey, following the man who had given her form, moving from place to place, never lingering long enough to put down roots.
And yet, despite the man's unyielding compassion.
His endless attempts to cheer her up even after many years.
She had always been unsure of herself, unable to fill the empty void that had haunted her for decades. Even fragnts of Ankh's mories offered no connection to her, no solace.
The only day she had truly shown any slight change, was the day he reached his final monts. Still, he tried to cheer her, his only regret is the unfulfilled wish of seeing the one he had been pursuing one last ti.
What followed left her reeling. She felt nothing but disgust, confusion, and anger at herself after committing what she now recognized as one of her gravest acts.
Absorbing the body of a dying man that took care of her just because she desires emotions.
She kept asking herself.
Wasn't she a monster? Wasn't she supposed not to care?
Then why was she crying?
He was just an idiot, an idiot who never knew how to stay still when people were in trouble.
As his essence and mories flooded into her, she broke down. She cried until there was nothing left, until the weight of it all threatened to drown her completely.
For a month, she watched the sea, his words echoing endlessly in her mind.
If there's a hand reaching out for help, and I don't reach out when I can, the regret would make wish I were dead.
So I reach out my hand, because I don't want that.
Following that, a hooded man appeared out of nowhere. He never gave his na. He simply offered her sothing she couldn't easily refuse—
Sothing that stirred the greed buried deep within her.
A sense of purpose
He brought her elsewhere, to a place steeped in darkness. It only began to lighten when she saw a familiar face. Younger. Unscarred. His smile was the sa as ever, unchanged from before his journey began.
She watched him beco OOO for the first ti. Watched him fight the Greeed. Watched him throw himself into danger to save others, even when Ankh refused to give him the dals. Every ti he heard the cries of the helpless, he ignored his own safety without hesitation.
Seeing those mories was nothing like rely knowing them. Experiencing them was entirely different.
Even before he wiped out the Greeed for good, he never changed.
He was always the sa man.
He even changed a stubborn Greeed, allowing it to experience the very satisfaction it had been searching for all along.
When the hooded man told her she would be sent to another world.
A place where danger lurked at every turn. His voice carried the sa weight as before. Once again, he presented the offer, unchanged from the last ti.
She didn't hesitate to accept.
After witnessing how that man saved the world, she asked herself a single question:
Would I be able to make him proud if I did the sa?
That was the mont she decided to follow his path.
A wide smile spread across her face as she stared down, feeling the warmth of the broken Core dal resting in her hand.
========
Several days after our visit to Mato, I was back at it again—but this ti, in a remote, well-hidden cave. I was currently in my Tatoba form.
"HAAAA!" I shouted, swinging at the spider-like Shuuki crawling above .
Even after returning to work, I hadn't stopped training myself to get used to the suit. With Isadora watching from the sidelines, the Shuukis simply refused to co near her.
"Try this," she said, tossing a yellow dal my way.
I caught it and saw a cheetah etched into the dal's surface. With a flick of the wrist, I swapped it with the grasshopper dal I'd been using.
[𝕋𝕒𝕜𝕒]
[𝕋𝕠𝕣𝕒]
[ℂ𝕙𝕖𝕖𝕥𝕒𝕙]
Light enveloped once more, but nothing seed to change. Except my legs, they were now the sa golden yellow as my torso.
Testing it out, I ran at the sa pace I used with the grasshopper form. but the speed was several tis faster.
I darted around the cave, dodging every attack with ease, weaving through the Shuukis as though I were dancing. They couldn't even hope to catch .
Having tried most of the dals, I discovered an incredible variety of abilities: the lion dal could summon a blinding beam of light, the gorilla dal granted pure brute strength, and the praying mantis dal summoned sharp bladed weapons in both hands. Each dal added a new twist and lots of possibilities for each situation.
___________________
Author's Note:
Welco to Derry
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