WIEDERGEBURT Act III: Chapter 17

A year had passed since I returned from that floating island off the coast of the Rotfang Forest. The Sekbeists continued to attack villages and towns, the many Sects of the Northern Plains continue to fight them, and the world continued to turn.

I wouldn’t say I forgot about the man who had emerged from that coffin, but I had long since put him out of my mind. It didn’t look like he planned to reveal himself any time soon.

“Impressive, innit?”

At present, I was standing in a small workshop with Kari and Immig. The Dweorg Rune Master was grinning, his chest puffed out with pride, as he showed off the item he had made. Beside him, Kari also appeared quite satisfied.

“So this is… what did you call it again? A storage ring?” I asked curiously.

The item Immig was showing me looked like a small ring. It was a thin metal band. Decorating the band were numerous Runes that had been inscribed onto the surface. I recognized many of them like Fehu, Raidho, Ehwaz, and Othala. However, the manner in which they were arranged confused me.

“Does this mean… space?” I asked.

Kari was grinning as she explained what this item was. “It’s a storage ring that creates a pocket dimension to store items. If you want to know the technical translation of these Runes, it would be translated as ‘A space inside worldly possessions.’”

I had absolutely no idea what a pocket dimension was, which must have shown on my face because Kari went into an explanation.

A pocket space was apparently something similar to a realm like the nine realms our world was composed of, but it was smaller, attached to an item like that ring, and unstable. It couldn’t be used to store living creatures. However, it could be used to store supplies such as food, weapons, provisions, and the like. According to Immig, this particular storage ring had the capacity to store five years worth of food inside of it.

I stayed with Immig for awhile as he told me of his plans to make more of these and sell them to the high-ranking members of large sects like Tungsten and Erica. He asked if I would be willing to speak with them. Of course I agreed. Not only did these storage rings sound useful, but I thought it was a good idea. In return for helping me, Immig decided to give me the storage ring, stating that it was merely a prototype and he wanted to make a better one.

After leaving Immig’s workshop with Kari, the two of us traveled through the halls of the Brave Vesperia headquarters. We bumped into a few officials here and there. Everyone bowed and greeted us as we passed, and we returned their greeting with a smile.

“So this is what you two have been working on all this time, huh?” I asked, staring at the ring now on my index finger.

“Yes.” Kari nodded and smiled. “I mentioned to Immig how it was sometimes hard to transport supplies, especially supplies that spoil easily, and that it would be easier if we had some way of storing it all inside an object that would be easy to carry around. After that, he got the idea to create a pocket dimension and attach it to a ring.”

I listened to Kari as she explained some of the concepts behind the ring and how it worked, but while I was fairly good at Runes these days, I had nothing on her. Half of what she said went right over my head.

“By the way, where is Kayli?” asked Kari after she finished talking.

“She’s playing with her friends,” I said.

Kayli was over two years old now, and she was a very intelligent child. She could already speak with relative clarity, had impressive coordination, and was awfully charismatic for a toddler. She’d already befriended every other child close to her age in Capestrania and become their unofficial leader. Felicia had once joked about how Kayli was going to start her own sect and call it something like The Toddler Alliance. Everyone had laughed at the time, but it really did seem like she was the leader of a sect these days. I even once caught her giving orders to the other children like the leader of a sect might.

Of course, all she’d done was order them to play tag, but it was still impressive.

We were just about the reach our living quarters when the entire building suddenly shook. The floor rumbled, the glass windows shattered, and several people screamed as they crouched low and covered their ears with their hands.

Kari and I bent our knees to avoid being thrown off balance. However, once the shaking subsided, we rushed over to one of the windows to see what had happened.

“E-Eryk… the city… it’s…”

“It’s burning,” I finished for Kari.

The city was on fire, or that was how it seemed. However, these flames were not red, orange, or even blue. They were black. Flames darker than the night sky spread across numerous buildings. Even as Kari and I watched, a black sphere struck another building and annihilated the structure entirely. All that remained was a crater.

“Mobilize our forces and have them begin evacuating the city!” I ordered Kari quickly.

Kari didn’t even question my orders. She didn’t stop to ask who I thought was attacking the city, if I thought it was the Sekbeists or some other group of people, because she knew it didn’t really matter. With a nod, she rushed down the hall and began grabbing the people who had fallen. She gave them orders to help her gather their Spiritualists and left. Meanwhile, I raced into our living quarters, grabbed the Dragon’s Tail Ruler, and raced back out of the room.

I didn’t bother descending to the first floor and leapt right out of the window, landing on the ground in a crouch and taking off into the city. Everyone was panicking. People were running every which way, screaming and crying as they fled everywhere and nowhere at the same time. They were like decapitated cockatraces.

Not that I could blame them.

Even as I rushed into the city, searching for Kayli, a massive cylinder of destruction slammed into a building several dozen meters on my left. An explosion of black energy erupted. Numerous people were flung through the air, but there were many who’d also been engulfed by the flames and instantly turned into ash. It looked like these flames were created from the darkness element. However, I’d never seen anything this strong before.

“Kayli! Kayli!”

I shouted my little girl’s name as I traveled to the park where she liked to play. Since the city was so safe and I often tasked three of my Spiritualists to watch after her, I normally didn’t worry about Kayli being kidnapped or anything. Now I was regretting that decision. Where was my daughter?!

“Daddy!”

I soon heard Kayli’s voice above the din and turned around. My daughter was still in the park, huddled together with several other children as three Spiritualists protected them. She stood in front of the other kids, her eyes on me. I felt relief rush through my body as I began making my way toward her.

My relief was short-lived.

Before I could even consider using the Flash Step to reach her, someone appeared between us. I instantly recognized this man with the otherworldly beauty, crimson eyes, and malevolent aura. He turned his head left, then right. Soon, his eyes found me.

“So, you survived,” he said in a strange voice. It sounded like two people were speaking at once. One of the voices was light and gentle, while the other was dark and filled with malice. “It seems you are far more difficult to kill than I had realized. I’ll have to rectify that mistake today.”

I found myself frozen with indecision. What should I do? Should I attack? I didn’t know who this man was, or what he was, but he was clearly hostile. The Spiritual Aura surrounding him matched the aura I felt from the black flames engulfing the city.

“D-Daddy?”

While I was waffling in indecision, Kayli called out to me. The being before me turned to Kayli. His eyes widened in astonishment.

“So there is another half-breed here? No, you are more human than anything else. Still, I sense great potential in you. That makes you a threat.”

My blood chilled the moment those words left this being’s lips. The man raised his hand and aimed it at Kayli, who suddenly stood frozen with wide eyes. Her three guards moved in front of her to protect her. Meanwhile, I was gathering Spiritual Power to use the Flash Step.

I was too late.

A massive beam of darkness exploded from the man’s hand, engulfing the Kayli, the Spiritualists, and the children behind her. This beam tore through the park without relent. It continued on, blasting building after building to pieces, destroying everything in its path, before finally dissipating. When it vanished, all that remained of the area in front of this man was a trench several meters wide and well over a kilometer long.

However, I could have cared less about that.

“K-Kayli…?”

I dropped to my knees, my shaking legs unable to hold up my weight, and stared at the spot where Kayli had been.

“Kayli?”

She wasn’t there anymore. Kayli wasn’t there. Why? Why why why?! I stared at the spot I’d last seen her, my mind and heart refusing to believe what my eyes were telling me. There was no way. There was just… there was just no way she could be gone!

And yet, even as my mind and heart tried to deny it, the fierce pain that stabbed into my chest forced me to accept the truth.

“KAYLI!!!”

My daughter was gone.

***

“KAYLI!!”

I shot up and stretched out my hand, my eyes wide in horror as my fingers clenched and unclenched like I was trying to grab something that wasn’t there. Sweat poured down my face. Fear shot through my body as the vision of my little girl, my only daughter, being killed played right before my eyes.

A second ticked by. I soon realized that I was not standing in the middle of a burning park, that my daughter was not being killed in front of me again, and that what happened had merely been a memory, a dream. A nightmare. Instead of standing in a park burning with black flames, I was sitting on a large and soft bed with a canopy.

Two women surrounded me; a dark-skinned beauty with modest breasts and a snake-tail lower body was on my left, while a fair-skinned women with fiery red hair and cute freckles slept on my right. The snake-woman, a member of the Lamia race, was not wearing a single stitch of clothing. Her perky breasts were bared to me. I looked at her nipples, which would have normally made me horny, but I wasn’t in the mood right now.

While Lin only stirred at the sound of my shouting, Fay jolted and sat up. Her nightgown slid off her shoulders, baring some of her fair skin. She looked around with bleary eyes before they landed on me.

“Eryk?” she muttered, blinking. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine.” I smiled at her. “I just had a bit of a nightmare. That’s all.”

Fay didn’t seem convinced, but I placed my hand on her shoulder and pushed her back until she was lying on the bed. I leaned in and kissed her. Fay sighed into my mouth as she kissed back. I think she was still half-asleep. She wouldn’t have so readily kissed me without blushing at least a little if she wasn’t. After gently nibbling on her lower lip, I retracted my head and stroked her cheek.

“It’s still early. Go back to sleep.”

“Mmm… okay…”

I felt a little bad for not being completely honest with Fay, but as I watched her fall asleep, I knew I was making the right choice. No one should have to suffer from these memories except for me.

Just as I was about to fall asleep as well, I realized that someone was missing from the bed. Where was Kari?

I looked around for a moment and finally spotted the woman in question. She was standing in front of the window and staring at the city outside, her arms wrapped around her shivering body. I thought she might be cold at first, but then I noticed her reflection in the glass, along with the crystal clear liquid falling from her eyes.

Worried, I extracted myself from Lin’s grip, climbed out of bed, and made my way to Kari. She had already noticed my presence. However, she didn’t move. I could see her staring at me in the window’s reflection.

Closing the distance and wrapping my arms around her, I pulled Kari close and rested my chin on top of her head. She didn’t resist. Leaning back, the beautiful blonde woman released a sigh and snuggled herself closer to me. The shivering of her body stopped. Even so, I could tell that she was still shaken by something.

“What’s wrong?” I asked after several seconds of silence.

“I had… another dream.” Kari shuddered almost as she said this. I pulled her even closer as if doing so could somehow protect her. With a shaking breath, she continued. “The city we lived in was covered in black flames, the dying screams of others echoed through the streets. People were killed in droves. It was all so vivid. So incredibly vivid and real that even now, I can still feel the heat searing my skin and the scent of burning flesh filling my nose.”

While I didn’t say anything, her words shook me. She’d clearly had the same dream I just did. The dying screams of people, the city consumed by black flames. Her dreams had been about the moment when Capestrania was destroyed, the day when she and our daughter died.

Taking another shuddering breath, Kari continued. “I remember rushing outside of a building with group of Spiritualists. We did our best to protect the civilians as they fled the city, and then I tried to find you, but when I did… our daughter. Our daughter, she…”

Kari choked back a sob and tried to stifle her tears, but it was absolutely no use. The tears continued to flow.

I turned Kari around in my grip and hugged her even tighter, allowing her to bury her face into my chest. She wrapped her arms around me. Her fingernails scraped against my back as she clutched at it, her silent sobs causing her body to shake against mine as her tears dripped down my bare chest.

Though it was still too early in the morning to be up, I didn’t allow myself to worry about things like time, and instead held Kari close, gently stroking her hair in an attempt to sooth her. I shoved my own feelings aside. Right now, Kari needed to be comforted. Unlike me, she did not know what was happening to her, didn’t know that these dreams were memories from a past life. I was sure her emotions were all jumbled together.

“I don’t… know what’s happening to me,” Kari muttered.

“I think… I might have an idea,” I said. Kari sniffled a little as she lifted her head and looked up at me in curiosity, eyes still red, but I shook my head. “Let’s wait until Lin and Fay are also awake. I believe they deserve to hear my thoughts as well, since this involves them too.”

“Okay…”

Since the two of us were already up, and I didn’t think either of us could go to bed after that nightmare, we decided to stay right where we were. Kari tucked her head back under my chin. I closed my eyes and leaned into her, allowing her soft, warm body to bring me comfort.

The sun began rising. Light started shining through the window. As it did, Fay stirred again and slowly sat up, yawning cutely as she stretched her arms above her head. Blinking several times, she looked around the room for a moment before her eyes landed on me and Kari. There was an awkward silence as she studied us.

“Are you two okay?” she finally asked. “You both look like you’ve been crying.”

“We’re okay,” I said for both of us. “But I have something to tell all of you once Lin wakes up.”

Fay nodded as though she had somehow expected me to say this, which made me wonder if she was also beginning to suspect something. Like Kari, Fay also had dreams about her doing things she’d never done before. I was surprised since I was sure she had died from Spiritual Poisoning, but maybe the dreams she had were of the time she was fighting against it.

Lin was the last to wake up. As always, the cold-blooded girl was very lethargic as she sat in bed and rubbed her eyes. Her mouth opened wide as she yawned, allowing me a glimpse of her gleaming fangs.

“Darling? What’s going on?” she asked. “Why are you and Big Sister all the way over there? Come back to bed. This princess is cold and demands you two snuggle with her.”

The girl’s words caused Kari to snort as she withheld her giggles. I also felt like laughing, though I held it in. Leave it to Lin to make us feel better with her completely oblivious attitude.

Since this was going to be a long conversation anyway, I led Kari back to the bed, climbed in, and moved so I was sitting in the very center. I leaned my back against the headboard. Kari sat on the left with Lin nestled between us, using our body heat to warm her up. Meanwhile, Fay was sitting cross-legged on my right and staring at me as she waited to hear what I had to say.

“What I have to say is going to sound crazy,” I began in a halting voice. “You might not even believe me, but I promise everything I’m going to tell you is completely true.” Kari, Fay, and Lin continued to stare at me with rapt attention, curiosity and worry filling their eyes. I took another deep breath. “I come from the future… well, I come from a future. The future I lived in was very different from the one we’re living in now.”

That was my opening line as I launched into my story. I told them about my past, about how I was from a past in which Nevaria was destroyed, where everyone except Kari and I had died, and where the two of us had leaned on each other for support. I tried my hardest to leave nothing out. I told them about how we fled to the Endless Desert, how we ended up in the Northern Plains, how we fought the Sekbeists, and how the Great Overlord of the Seventh Plains killed Kari and Kayli.

While I tried to remain strong, I realized soon after I began talking that keeping myself from crying was impossible. I wasn’t sure when I started crying. It might have been at the part where Kari and I fled into the Endless Desert with a few survivors, but it didn’t really matter. At some point, I could no longer contain my tears.

While I cried, Kari, Fay, and Lin held me close. I felt the warmth of their embrace wrap around me. I closed my eyes and shuddered as tears continued to fall, until all my tears were spent, and then I just laid there, emotionally exhausted.

Despite my exhaustion, despite the turmoil plaguing me, the warmth from the three women helped keep me from breaking. If I hadn’t been in my current frame of mind, I was sure I would have kissed these three as a thank you.

“Thash sho shad…” Lin was crying. Her eyes were red, there was some fluids dripping from her nose. She wiped at her eyes and hiccuped several times. I’d seen her get emotional before, but I’d never seen her like this. “Thish princessh… this princessh never knew you had faced such hardships…”

I didn’t really know what to say to her. Fortunately, I didn’t have to.

“That is a very far-fetched story,” Fay admitted. Out of three women, she was the least affected, but even her eyes were slightly red from crying. “I’m not saying I don’t believe you, but it is very hard to believe. I’ve never heard of anyone being able to travel through time.”

“Supposedly, there are a race of beings who controlled time,” Kari told her. “I read about them in a book. These beings had god-like powers and existed before the Catastrophe. The story went on to say they, along with seven other races, saved the world from disaster, but then something happened and they all disappeared from this world. No one knows what happened to them.”

“Well, Eryk is clearly not one of these beings,” Fay said.

“Maybe not, but what he said does make sense.” Kari placed her hand against her mouth and furrowed her brow. “I’ve always wondered how Eryk was able to know so much about me. Even when we first began talking, he seemed to understand me on a level no one else did, not even my parents. There is also the incredible amount of knowledge he has,” she added. “Eryk knows things about Spiritualism that no one else in Nevaria does. How could he possess such knowledge if he wasn’t from the future?”

Fay nodded slowly. “This is true. I’ve always been impressed by how much knowledge he possess and wondered why he seemed to be the only one who had it. Back when we first met, he recognized that I had Spiritual Poisoning and was able to cure me when no one else could.”

“He also created all those pills for the Alchemist Association,” Kari added.

“And he talked about the Endless Desert like he’d been there before,” Fay continued.

“Darling also knew about Lamia,” Lin sniffled a little and rubbed her runny nose. “Everyone else in Nevaria panicked when they first saw this princess. They thought she was a Demon Beast, but Darling knew what this princess was immediately after she regained her true form.”

As the three continued to list all the things I had done that no one else could have done, Fay came around to the idea that I was from the future. I was pretty sure she already believed me. However, the idea that I’d gone back in time was so far-fetched she probably had trouble accepting it. Now that she dfid, there were only a few more questions they had.

“Can I ask why you waited until now to tell us?” asked Fay.

“Isn’t it obvious?” I said with a shrug. “Who would believe that I was from the future?”

Even though I said this, I wasn’t sure I could be from the future anymore. History had changed. In the past, Grant Leucht had been engaged to Kari, Fay had either been dead or crippled, and Lin was killed by a pack of wild boars. The future had changed, so did the future I came from even exist anymore?

“There is another reason I’m telling you this now,” I admitted after a few seconds of silence.

“And that is?” asked Fay.

“All of you have been having dreams, right? Strange dreams about things that happened to you that you know didn’t happen?” Kari, Fay, and Lin nodded, though Lin made a face when she did. “I think what you are seeing aren’t dreams but memories from your past life.” While Fay’s face scrunched up, I glanced over at Lin and placed a finger on the Runes that were visible on her chest. “Every time we have sex, these Runes show up. I think they somehow connect us together, and maybe even connect you to your lives in the future I’m from.”

I had no basis for this theory, but considering the circumstances, I believed I was correct. Kari, Fay, and Lin all had strange dreams. Whenever we had sex, those Runes appeared on their chests. This had happened in my previous life with Kari too. My theory was that these Runes were somehow related to my non-human half.

“I wonder why Lin is the only one these Runes have not disappeared from?” Kari questioned with a frown.

“I’ve got a theory on that as well,” I said. “When Lin and I first met, she bit my hand.” I held up my hand where the Ring of Marji was displayed clearly for them to see. “When she gave me the Ring of Marji, she injected some of her blood into me and also took in some of my blood. In other words, ingesting each other’s blood is the key to permanently activating the Runes. These Runes, because they link us together, we can use each other’s elemental affinities. However, I think it does even more than that. You all know how I can use Lin’s elements, darkness and earth, right? I think the reason I can use them is because these Runes are connecting our spirits together.”

I believed my theory was sound. Blood was often a powerful catalyst in alchemy, and there were even some Runes that required to use of blood to create. I didn’t know much about Blood Runes, but Immig mentioned that they were Runes which only activated for the one whose blood had been used. I was sure this was a Blood Rune of some kind.

“So, in other words, we need to drink each other’s blood in order for the Runes to activate?” Fay tilted her head. “So it’s like when we get married?”

“Yes. It is exactly like when we get married,” I confirmed.

“So when we get married, the Runes will appear on me and Fay?” asked Kari.

“I believe so,” I answered.

“And we’ll completely regain the memories from our past lives and not just these forgettable fragments?” she continued to question me.

“Probably.”

Kari took a deep breath, held it in, then released it. “I’m honestly… not sure I want to remember. The memory of what I dreamt has already faded from my mind, but the pain I experienced is still with me.”

“Do you… wish to not go through the wedding ceremony?” I asked carefully.

“Of course I’m going to go through with it,” Kari said, her voice now adamant. “You’ve been suffering from these memories all on your own, right? There is no way I’m going to let this continue.” She reached out and grabbed my hand. “I am going to completely regain those memories so I can become your pillar of support. I refuse to let you suffer alone.”

I blinked the tears from my eyes. I didn’t want to cry again.

Now that we had gotten this far into our conversation, there were a few things we needed to go over, like whether or not we should ingest each other’s blood now or later. It was decided that we wouldn’t just yet. We already had so much on our plates already that adding the memories from our past lives would just make everything more complicated. According to Kari and Fay, we would drink a glass of each other’s blood during the wedding ceremony, and then they would regain their memories anyway.

I think they were also both afraid of finding out more about their past.

A knock suddenly sounded on the door.

“Um, excuse me, Master Eryk, Mistress Kari, Mistress Fay, Mistress Lin,” Jessie said from the other side. “I, um, I was wondering if you were awake. I don’t want to interrupt your sleep, but, uh, the Spiritualists are all waiting outside for you to begin training them.”

We stared at the closed door in shock. Right. We had to begin training again today. Well, Kari and Fay actually had to attend the academy, so it would just be me and Lin, but I wasn’t going to get into those kind of semantics right now.

“Let’s shelf this discussion for now,” I said. “We have to focus on the present, not the past.”

“I agree,” said Kari.

“Me too.” Fay sighed as she twirled a strand of red hair between her fingers. “I am a little curious, but I am also wary. I somehow do not think my past life was very kind to me.”

With our decision made, everyone stood up and began getting dressed. As I was putting on my chestplate, I noticed that Lin was pouting about something.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

“This princess cannot believe she was killed in her previous life by a pack of stupid boars,” Lin mumbled as her cheeks swelled like a chipmunk with too many acorns in its mouth.

Up until this point, the situation had been intense, emotionally exhausting, and left me completely drained. However, in the face of Lin’s words and pout, I felt all the tension and negative emotions drain out of me. I couldn’t help myself.

I laughed.