The Butterfly Dream

Meteria

She was dreaming.

Not the usual nightmare, but a dream from long, long ago—the days when she'd walked hand in hand with her grandfather, small enough that his palm swallowed hers whole.

"Grandpa, Grandpa."

"Hmm? What is it?"

"What did my mommy and daddy do?"

"Hoh. Curious already, are you?"

"Yeah!"

What is this?

There had been a saying in the East, she was fairly sure, for exactly this kind of situation.

...Huh? Something about that feels wrong somehow.

It was a garbled memory, and sadly, neither in dream nor in reality was there a single soul—deity included—to correct such mangled scholarship. Not that she went around quoting it to people anyway, so no harm done.

Regardless, her current situation was precisely that situation. Was she watching her young self from outside, or had she become her young self? She had no way to tell.

Separate from all that, her mouth was moving without any input from her thoughts—the old memory playing itself back, it seemed.

"Your parents, you say... Simply put, your father was a hero unmatched in all the nation, and your mother a beauty peerless under heaven."

"Nashun-unmatshed? Pee-wess beauty?"

The words were too hard, and her pronunciation slid right off them. Honestly, even now, saying them aloud would tie her tongue in knots.

Why on earth had Grandfather used such difficult words with a child that small?

"'Course. Your father was a lad who braved perilous adventures at my side—a comrade, and a hero who pulled off feats that stunned even me! Truly worthy of the name 'unmatched in the nation'! (Though nowhere, not even in whole kingdoms, was there anyone like him...)"

The rest was lost under his breath, but her father must have been quite the man, then. This was the same grandfather who was normally so stingy with praise, after all.

"And your mother was a woman like a single, pitiable blossom, with hair white as yours. Her beauty was nothing short of nation-toppling! (She nearly brought down something greater than a nation, too.) The one flower your father staked his entire life to win—calling her a peerless beauty was no exaggeration at all!"

"Ooooh...!"

She was oohing and ahhing, but she'd understood less than half of it. She was ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠probably thinking something like, So Daddy was amazing and Mommy was pretty~

How do I know? Because I'm having that exact thought right now! What was any of that, seriously.

Still, she trusted this account more than the last one. Grandfather's standards for beauty were brutally strict.

He'd once told the kindly neighbors ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠something like fine character, but a real shame about the face, and gotten punched for it.

So Mother was a beauty.

The description leaned suspiciously hard on her looks compared to Father's, but for the child she'd been back then, that alone had been joy enough.

She hadn't known, in those days. What death was.

Even when she was told her parents had passed away, she couldn't connect it to the fact that she would never see them again.

Whether she truly hadn't understood, or simply hadn't wanted to—she still didn't know, even now.

And yet, she...

"Um...?"

I...

"Um, hello...?"

I... um, what was it...

Shake, shake. Shake, shake.

"Mmmm..."

"Eek—oh no, I think she's waking up!"

Someone had forcibly hauled her up out of the groove she'd been sinking into.

The girl who'd been walking hand in hand with her grandfather was, at some point, sprawled on a sofa staring at the ceiling.

She raised her head to face the story of herself that had just been given its full stop.

She turned her head, and white hair caught her eye. White hair—just like her own.

For an instant she thought it was hers, and ran a hand through it. All fine. The soft sway of her own hair traveled up her fingertips, unmistakably hers.

"...?"

"...?"

When she tilted her head, the other person tilted theirs. The whole room seemed to fill with some indescribably fluffy, marshmallow-soft atmosphere.

What should she even call this? Like two rabbits staring each other down, that squishy, cotton-ball energy seemed to chisel her momentum away in great crumbling chunks.

Not that she'd had any momentum to begin with. It just felt that way.

What is this sweetness? I can't handle sweet things.

"Hello!"

"Ah—yes, hello..."

Charging straight into conversation even in this situation—talk about a strong mentality~

How to put it—a my-own-pace type? The first person of this particular breed she'd ever met.

Someone who swept you along in their current, yet somehow left you feeling none the worse for it.

Who is this person?

"I'm Meteria!"

"Ah, I see. I'm..."

He opened his mouth to give ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠his name—and then, abruptly, came back to himself.

Oh, right. I've been flung into the past.

"I'm... Ve... Ve..."

"Ve?"

"Ve... Vesta. My name is Vesta."

A stranger, so he'd considered giving his real name—but no. He still wasn't ready for that.

Guilt stabbed at him again and again for the sacrilege of borrowing a goddess's own divine alias as a name, but alas, the water had already been spilled.

"I see! Looking forward to working with you, Veveveve-Vesta!"

"It's not Veveveve-Vesta. Just Vesta."

"Looking forward to it, Vesta-kun!"

"Yes. Likewise, Ms. Meteria."

How to put it—a person who drained the life out of me in a completely different way than Miss Aiz does. If I had to compare... someone like Miss Tiona?

While he was still reeling from a more-than-lethal dose of sparkling cheer, the woman called Meteria was staring right at him, grinning ear to ear.

"Um... did you, by any chance, need something from me?"

"Ah, sorry! Was I bothering you?"

"No, not exactly bothering..."

It was simply that being looked at with such unmistakable interest was, well, uncomfortable.

Being made into a spectacle was one thing, but he was sensitive to gazes—and the emotions riding on them reached him undiluted.

The blazing curiosity brimming in her eyes was an enormous burden.

"I'm Meteria!"

"...? Y-yes, I heard you just now...?"

"Ah, right, I did say that! Then... uh... hmm..."

Watching her reintroduce herself out of nowhere and then immediately start squirming in agony, he could only feel dazed. What is this person.

Deciding it would be rude to poke her, he left her be and went looking for the Jagamarukun he'd failed to finish yesterday. Sure enough, it was sitting right on the desk—the woman called Meteria apparently hadn't touched it.

Thank goodness. Skipping breakfast means no energy.

"Mmm... mmm..."

While the woman groaned to herself, he slipped out a single Jagamarukun and ate it. Mm. Delicious even cold. Honestly, was the Jagamarukun not a complete food in its own right?

"Umm... name... already covered... Familia... no go... age... absolutely not... so, safe option here, weather talk?"

The woman called Meteria was still muttering away to herself.

She's muttering something with tremendous intensity, and it's tremendously terrifying.

"Lovely weather today, isn't it?"

"Ehe, thatsh right...? (Yees, I suppose it is...?)"

"Oh! Were you eating something? I'm so sorry!"

(Chomp, chomp. Gulp.) "No, no—the apology's mine."

The energy was almost too much to bear, but watching her—every little gesture beaming, a face you couldn't spit at if you tried—he felt all the tension drain right out of his body.

...Somehow, yesterday's gloom had scattered to the winds. It felt as though her sunshine might just infect him too.

"What... did you say?"

"W-well, you see... Miss Meteria isn't in her room, so..."

At the Hera Familia home, in that very moment.

Alfia—who had gone to the trouble of securing her beloved sister's favorite sweets for a cozy afternoon together—felt her expression cool by several degrees in the space of a breath.

The low-ranked member who received that frostbitten glare (eyes closed, and yet somehow she could feel it) hunched her shoulders and broke out in a cold sweat.

Low-ranked or not, she was a Level 5, welcomed with open arms anywhere in the world. The reason she cowered like a condemned prisoner even here—in this den of monsters called the Hera Familia—was that Alfia ranked among its very strongest.

Where Meteria lay bedridden with her frail constitution, Alfia was the sole member who could cross blades with the Empress herself. Pile her lone-wolf, my-way-or-the-highway arrogance on top of that temperament, and she was classified as an even worse human being than the Empress.

The only one capable of beating that temper was their patron goddess, the Hyper Ultra Hysteric (Ultra-Cataclysmic-Destruction-Impulse) herself. Naturally, most of the Familia—especially the rank and file—walked on eggshells around her.

And now the one person she cherished, her own twin sister, had vanished? If you could live to see tomorrow's sun, that would be nothing short of a miracle.

The frost in Alfia's gaze seemed to carve straight through her from the inside. Fitting for the woman whose epithet was Silence—that quiet, yet unspeakably merciless stare had the low-ranker already halfway across the River Styx.

Mother... I want to see you...!

"Come out."

Without warning, Alfia said this. It was not her mind but her body that moved first—the pure lunge of a human being who wanted very much to live.

She ducked into Meteria's room, and found it utterly, completely empty. She wasn't hiding—there was no reason she would be. Which left exactly one conclusion.

With a slow breath, the intruder lifted her head and looked in a certain direction. The mere act of it made fatigue come flooding in, but that wasn't what mattered now.

"Was this your doing?"

"Your doing? Did you just call the captain of this Familia you?"

At those words, the air itself rippled, and a woman stepped out of the warped space.

"C-Captain!"

"Hm? You were still here? Off you go, then."

"Y-yes, ma'am...!"

The member fled her post at top speed. She was exhausted ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠beyond words today. She missed her parents back home something fierce. Maybe she'd request some leave and pop home for a little visit...

"Tch. Young folk in the springtime of life meeting each other, and you keep butting in with your sermons. This is exactly the kind of thing that burns hotter the more you try to smother it."

"Is that the whole of your dying testament? Then tell me where Meteria is, and die."

"Ha. Someone really does need to beat some sense into you, you rotten wretch."

The space around the two of them warped and buckled, closing in to swallow them both.

"Come at me. I'll put you down today."

A short while later.

KOOOOOM—!

The Hera Familia home collapsed outright.

Morning, same as any other. In a certain male god's Familia, someone spoke up.

"Come to think of it, haven't seen Cranel around."

At those words, a hulking figure flinched. Zard, keeper of the kitchen.

"Gone?"

He leaned out of the kitchen and swept his gaze across the dining hall. Sure enough, that perennial slacker was nowhere to be seen.

Now, it wasn't as though the whole Familia ate at the same hour. Some skipped meals entirely; some trained late and ate after.

But Cranel was a different case. No breakfast, no energy was practically his creed—he never, ever skipped the morning meal. And he wasn't nearly virtuous enough to train of his own accord, either, so the odds of him being off training were slim.

Which meant... no. Don't say it.

A chill swept through him. An ice pick buried itself in his chest.

"...Where's the old man?"

"Uh... Lord Zeus is over there."

At that, Zard hurled aside his apron and sprinted straight for the god. His fellow cook shrieked in protest behind him, but the food was not what mattered right now.

What mattered was Cranel—where, with whom, doing what.

He prayed his suspicion was wrong, but knowing full well it wouldn't be, Zard approached the god's side praying instead that, just this once, his prediction would miss.

"Hmm? Oh, it's you, Zard. What're you doing standing behind me all of a sudden? Forgotten already that only beauties are permitted behind me?"

"Old man, I'm in no mood for jokes. Straight to the point. That boy. Where. Is. He."

At Zard's words, the old god flinched—then turned his head away with masterful nonchalance.

"Hmmmm? Zeus doesn't know anything about thaaat~"

"You rotten bald bastard!!!"

"A god-on-god assault, just like that?! Gods don't get male-pattern baldness!"

"Shut up, is that what matters right now?! Where did Cranel go?!!"

In an instant the dining hall was in an uproar, every eye snapping toward the eye of the storm. Among the crowd, the quick-witted went white as sheets, and some, envisioning the future that awaited them, could be seen scraping out everything they'd just eaten.

Among them was a man even more massive than Zard—the captain of the Familia, Maxim the Colossus, included in that pale-faced, stomach-emptying count.

"No, well, look... he's in his prime, and the boy's old enough to know everything there is to know..."

"You—! You raving old coot! Are you hell-bent on dragging this Familia to its grave?!"

"Oh, settle down! I've dallied with women a time or two—I know how it goes! Flip the heavens about five times and most everything gets forgiven!"

"That's because the heavens put themselves back together after they're flipped!!"

The lower world, once flipped over, is described in a single word: scattered to the four winds. In other words—ruined.

Which meant the current situation, summed up in one phrase...

"We're fucked."

Into that terrible situation—where a single phrase captured every heart in the room—one follower, as hopelessly tactless as the god he served, raised his hand and piped up.

"Um... pardon my ignorance, but is it really that serious?"

"You. Say the Black Dragon smashed into Orario right now. How would that be?"

"Uh, catastrophic? Like, Orario flipped completely upside down?"

"Then how does Hera Familia invading our home sound?"

"KYAAAAAAAAAH!!!"

The member collapsed foaming at the mouth from sheer imagination. But not a soul blamed him. It was more than justified.

That was exactly what it meant to cross blades with the Hera Familia.

"Move! Find Cranel this instant and offer him up to Hera Familia!"

"Yes, sir!!"

Thus did the followers of a male god casually resolve to sell out their own comrade. Brotherhood, camaraderie—none of it remained. All that survived was a savage, primal will to live.

That day, Orario's two greatest powers—Zeus Familia and Hera Familia—turned the Labyrinth City entirely upside down.

And astonishingly, with the lone exception of a certain rabbit, everyone accepted it all as naturally as breathing. Just another ordinary day.