Chapter 156

  Festival of Sins (VII)

  "Mama, read it again, read it again!" Light laughed brilliantly, kicking her legs back and forth while nuzzling against a kind-seeming woman whose lap she was occupying. The latter chuckled helplessly, patting the top of her head and slowly pulling the pages back to the beginning.

  "There are other stories, Little Light," her mother said. "Some more interesting than this one, too."

  "No way! Nothing is more interesting than the story of how you and Papa beat up that bad guy! Nothing!"

  "Ha ha, really?"

  "Really! Especially when Papa jumps down and picks you up, and then you two fly at him together!"

  "Ha ha ha," the woman laughed freely, and Light laughed with her, feeling more at ease than ever before in her life.

  This was where she belonged.

  "Ah, speaking of the handsome hero," the doors to her little room swung open, and a truly stalwart figure walked through--the man loomed like a giant, dressed in rather leisurely clothes that seemed more reminiscent of a servant than a king. He had long, black hair and a pair of twilight-colored eyes that Light herself inherited.

  She jumped off her mother's lap and ran over full speed, jumping at him.

  "Papa!"

  "Hooh," he crouched and grabbed her nimbly, lifting her up in the air. "Did my little Princess miss me?"

  "Missed you! Missed you tons!"

  "Ha ha ha, I missed my little princess too, you know? Tons and tons!"

  "He he~ sit with us, Papa! Mama is telling me the story of how you two beat that bad guy Shi!"

  "Oho, is she now? Ha ha, well, let's hear it. Do I come off as dashing as I remember being?"

  **

  ... it's depressing, to be honest.

  I don't recognize that girl.

  That laughter. That smile. That light in her eyes. For the first time, I kind of get why they named her 'Light'. Thus far, she was the antithesis of the name--glum, silent, apathetic, cold... yet, the little girl was hanging onto every word spoken as though it were gospel, her arms desperately trying to dig even deeper into the skin of the ones she loved... she was light.

  There were voices wrestling in me, some of which were yelling at me to just walk away. To close my eyes, pretend I didn't see anything, turn around, and just... leave.

  I knew that there was something in her that was broken--I didn't need to be a board-certified psychiatrist to know that a girl who just lost her parents and is seemingly feeling just about nothing over it has some issues under the surface. Yes, she was broken, but a part of me always felt that, with a bit of time, I could help her heal.

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  But look at her.

  Do I really have the capacity to make her laugh like that? To make her smile like a six-year-old child should be smiling?

  It's not even the question of whether I can 'raise her', but simply... am I qualified, in any capacity, to look over a child so broken that even the godly talents she has aren't enough to not fall into the simplest illusion?

  Because, honestly, even a blind person could see through this shit--the room itself was largely fine, but there was nothing outside of it. Just some vague colors that roughly resemble some buildings and a white void.

  But none of it mattered.

  She has stayed in that room, being told that same story over and over and over and over and over again, for hours now, laughing at it each and every time. And her father would come and leave for duties, and the cycle would just repeat. This was her world, all she ever wanted.

  ... but she was also six.

  And this was a lie.

  A haphazardly crafted lie. But also... I get it.

  With every fiber of my being, really. If somebody showed up at my door a day after Yas died and handed me over some VR device that would let me just relive my life with her over and over and over again... I'd have been trapped in that dream until I died, too.

  While the river of life always flows onwards and never back, sometimes, for a brief moment, it stops. The pain and the anguish pile up into such a thick dam that it takes a while to unclog.

  In time, though, I got... better. Not well--God no, I was miserable and pathetic until the very end--but... better. For the first month, I barely left the house. I remember Misha and Lark coming over and cleaning the apartment while I lounged around like a corpse.

  So, I get it. Wanting to crawl back into the familiar warmth. Into something that you will probably never feel again.

  ... but I also get why I can't turn around and leave. There's a whole life ahead of her left--as there was one ahead of me. Yas died when I was twenty-nine... about a third of the way through the (average) life. And I just stopped living, then and there. Now, I got lucky--I got this world and these kids and a new chance at it, but somehow I doubt she'll have the same.

  So, I stepped out. I walked through the white void and opened those doors, and as she turned toward me, likely expecting her father, her smile froze.

  "Who are you?!" her 'mother' angrily shouted, but I didn't even glance at her, locking my gaze with that of a girl that was breaking.

  "What did I tell you, Light?"

  "..."

  "That I'd always be there, no matter what."

  "... w-w-who are... you?" She squeezed out, looking away. Instead of backing out, I entered the room and walked up to the bed, all under that mirage's shouts, crouching in front of the trembling girl on the verge of tears.

  "It looks like your mama and papa love you very much," I said. "More than anything else in the whole world."

  "... y-yes..."

  "Then, you must know," I smiled faintly. "They wouldn't want you to be like this."

  "..."

  "They'd want you to live," I continued. "To go out and see the world. To grow up and grow old. To one day have a family of your own, so that you could understand there wasn't a thing in the entire world you wouldn't do for them. They loved you for every moment they were with you, and they love you even more now. And though they are gone... really, parts of them always stay. Their voices. That song that you can never forget. The warmth in your heart when you remember them.

  "Yearning is part of who we are, and I wish, with all my heart, I could give you this. I wish I had the power to undo time or to bring back the dead, because, I promise you, I'd drive a dagger through my own heart to give you this life. But... I can't. Nobody can."

  "T-t-this... this can..." She spoke rather weakly, her voice barely a hum... and I still couldn't recognize her, this feeble creature shaking. No... it was her. It was always her. It was just that I never truly bothered to look.

  "Can it?" I asked. "Would your mama ever allow a complete stranger to stay this close to you? Wouldn't your papa have come by now and beat me like he did that bad guy in the story?"

  "..."

  "Light," I reached out and grabbed her hand gently. "The only person that can give you this is you--it'll always be in your mind and your heart, this perfect moment. But they would not want you to stay trapped in it. Rather than looking back with sorrow, look at this tiny little fragment and understand that, under the heavens, there is something so pure and so beautiful that can never be taken away from you."

  "... I, I miss them." Tears began to roll out. "I miss them... so, so, so much..." Her voice cracked, and she began to openly weep as the figure of her mother began to vanish like smoke in the wind. She fell forward into my arms, openly crying and screaming, her fingernails digging so deep into my skin that I began to bleed.

  All I could do was stay silent like a statue and hold her as tenderly as I could.

  And I thought being kneed in the balls hurt.

  Oh boy, was I wrong.