107. Retrospective of an Unfilial Child

Tasian Paleoi.

The time I spent with her, ironically, gave me nothing but reasons to despise her.

Because the happier the dream, the more agonizing the despair of waking reality.

'Answer me, Mom. Why did you abandon me and leave?'

The more I waded through rivers of blood, the more love twisted into resentment.

Even though I should have grown numb to years of slaughter, the warmth I felt in her embrace...

The things I could call "love" that she gave me—they felt like hope. Hope that even someone like me could find a path to salvation.

'Was I wrong? Or did you just purely want to see me suffer?'

It was only after I became an adult that I grew exhausted by that hopeful torture and killed my own heart.

Only after rising to a position where no one could stand against me was I able to cast off that fragile sentiment and accept the true nature of the world.

In an era where people die like trash wherever you go, an orphan who has lost their parents is as common as a pebble on the roadside.

"...Yes, I have no mother anymore."

And a parent—once the whole world to a child—is merely someone an adult must leave behind.

Realizing the time for childish clinging had long passed, I swore to myself again and again to cast off her shadow.

'Forget about her. From now on, live for yourself...'

That was why I chose the path of a Hero.

If the path of a slayer was taken because of her, then to forget her, I thought I needed achievements so great they would make me forget I was ever a slayer at all.

To live with my head held high—a figure of terror to all—I felt I needed to destroy a calamity worse than myself with my own hands.

'Tasian... do you remember me?'

But what was the reality?

At the end of a journey upheld by so many, why did the one who started that story appear now, of all times?

'It's fine if you don't remember. I didn't come here for a leisurely chat with you either.'

When the power she planted inside me resonated—

only in that moment could I not keep my composure. I poured all my hatred into the blade I aimed at her.

'I'll make you regret abandoning me. Damn you, Mom.'

I suppressed even the lingering attachment born from that love with the convenient justification of a Hero's duty, and boldly swung my sword.

Resolved to die in this place.

Forgetting my mission as a Hero, aiming only to kill her.

'With that much power, you could have simply run away.'

But why?

Why did I, who only needed to swing my blade in a frenzy, feel such sorrow from her roar?

'They are a race you have no need to protect. They are foolish and arrogant, believing they are the masters of this world simply because the fools exhausted by living disappeared from it! That is the race you were trying to protect!'

Yes, sorrow...

That day, I felt grief in her cry.

To others, it might be nothing but a monstrous howl, but I still remembered the days I spent with her.

'Do you think they will feel gratitude for you? Do you truly believe those who piled every burden onto you and drove you into a death trap are worth protecting to this extent?'

Those memories of the past merged with the present, and I felt them giving meaning to her current roar.

I wondered—were these words a sermon to lesser beings, or simply hatred and rage directed at the one who had troubled her...?

'...Yes, I think there is.'

The moment I realized it was, in the end, a scream, I felt my murderous intent toward her dulling.

I too had let out such screams countless times ever since she abandoned me.

Even if the one before me was the cause, if what I felt right now was a scream, I could not help but empathize—no matter how much I hated it.

'Because I, raised by a being like you, learned I am the same as them.'

But even in that despairing world, had I not met people who supported me?

And because of their support, did I not seize the chance to break free from my past?

'I came to know that they have character, beliefs, and lives.'

Having been given the chance to die a human thanks to them, there was no way I could back down now.

If that feeling remained, this fight had to be for a cause, not revenge. For someone else, not myself.

'I learned that they fight because they have different ways of thinking, but humanity is also a race that knows how to understand such differences.'

Even if that obsession could not erase all hatred, it made me feel a sense of kinship with the one before me.

That kinship contrasted my memories with the current her, leading me to see her through the lens of human circumstances.

'I felt love from you. The same kind as the people who took me in afterward....'

How would the person who gave you their heart react, if they saw you falling apart right before their eyes?

I tried to imagine what a being who had lived for over ten thousand years would feel, showing a mere instant of their existence to their own daughter.

'...Maybe you ran away back then simply because you were clumsy and inexperienced. No matter how many ten thousand years you've lived, raising a child would have been your first time.'

You must have been scared.

Having lived so long, the first experience would have been all the more bewildering.

So you needed time to calm those feelings.

And when those foolish warmongers would not even grant you that time, you went berserk.

'A human like me believes I understand you.'

Having read that immaturity, I could no longer see the one before me as a calamity.

What makes her a calamity?

If everything was truly caused by that immaturity, then the feelings she held for me could surely be defined as "love."

'Give me a chance.'

Even though I resented that mother, in the end, I chose not to swing my sword but to appeal to her heart.

It does not change the fact that she is a monster who burned the world, but if there exists a heart within her that a human can understand, she would never let these words pass by.

If that heart truly existed, I—who came here to die as a human—must not ignore it.

'A chance to prove that the beings you have viewed as insignificant until now have value to survive in this world.'

Those were the words I chose not as an avenger, but as a Hero.

And with that as my last, reaching my limit, I laid my exhausted body down on that spot and quietly closed my eyes.

-Thud.

Hoping the confusion felt by my clumsy mother would be broken by this dying wish.

Hoping my pitiful life—that of a mere slayer—would leave some meaning through the philanthropy shown at the very end.

****

-Clang, clang.

A life that should have ended then, I realized, was being extended by the sound of hammering that began at some point.

My ego was rapidly awakened when I fully grasped it, but the memories forged by her before that moment still existed.

The memories of the being called Tachia Piloi who became my origin, and the heart of the one I call mother who forged that soul into a weapon.

'When you are complete.'

Tasian Paleoi.

Why did she refine the soul of the daughter she killed with ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠her own hands, and create a being like me?

'If the day comes when you stand before me again, as you did back then... will I finally know what this feeling inside me is?'

She never once gave a clear answer to that question.

She simply imbued her hands with magical power and brought the hammer down on the anvil.

She simply, silently, focused on forging my body.

-Clang!

But the emotion carried in that hammering was conveyed to me.

The memories I had held since birth were teaching me the heart of the mother who killed her daughter, as she forged me.

'Kill me.'

A time that is near a lifetime for a human, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠but a fleeting instant to beings who live for eternity.

And for the dead who should have no reason to remain, enduring a pain that ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠must feel like eternity itself.

Waiting only for the day to pay the price for her sins during all that time—I, being forged by her, knew it all too well.

'Don't forgive me for abandoning you.'

'Even after killing you, do not forgive me for refusing to admit that sin.'

Each time such feelings were conveyed, I felt all the emotions I had for her converge into a single path.

Love, resentment, the fervent wish to sublimate the misery of life into a heroic ending...

And that the reason for creating a being that inherited all of this was nothing more than atonement—to acknowledge the sins she committed.

-Splash, splash.

Yes, this was the reason I was born, and the wish of the mother who passed her memories on to me.

If I truly loved the mother who gave me life, I had a duty to depend on those past memories and live up to them.

-...Splash.

After facing all those memories, I, who did not lose myself,

could finally set foot once more before Philoi, whom I had visited that day.

"......Philoi."

A clumsy child, no different from a newborn, who merely inherited the memories of a woman who wanted to die a Hero.

"Can you talk with Daddy?"

And to the being I call my daughter, who, having nothing to do with that fate, still sees me as her father.

To the one I call my daughter.

****

-Swaaaah.

Of the lake I visited to wash off the blood.

In a space created to project that memory, I felt the pouring rain washing away the blood on my skin.

Just as the feelings for the person who came to me in this moment were leading to a change in this space.

"The person who passed her memories to me... in the end, tried to die not as an avenger, but as a hero."

As I felt the blood slowly wash off my body, I finally wanted to share with him the memories that formed my foundation.

The story of the woman who pitied her own life, and the rebellion she staged at the end of that life.

"Because she knew that fighting for revenge would not bring comfort to her life. Because she knew that even the mother she considered trash had maternal love."

Love and hatred for her mother, the desire to break free from the past, the calling of a Hero awakened from it... and even the expectations of the mother for the one who inherited such memories.

I wanted him to understand that all of it led to the conclusion that she must stop the mother trying to destroy humanity.

"So I have to kill her. Because I love her, I have to live up to my mother's expectations."

But even that was, in the end, a result achieved as if pushed along.

I am merely enduring it because I have no choice; not for a single moment did I think it was okay.

I doubted every moment whether this was truly right.

Whether it was right to rely on the memories I was born with, and kill the mother who created me.

"Then why...?"

But if I had to do it anyway, I wished someone would appear to drive in the wedge that would erase my hesitation.

Not my mother, nor the past me... but if a third party, unbound by this fate, came to drive in that wedge, I thought I could carry out the mission of killing her without any hesitation.

"Why didn't you come to the same conclusion as her? If you had just agreed with her easily, you would not have to suffer."

I wanted that person to be my father.

If he—the one she chose and the one who awakened me—would do it with me, I could make the decision with an easy heart.

"Just... at the very least, if you had left me forever, you would not have to be in such pain now...."

But at this moment, merely facing him—who came to me in a tattered mental state—made my heart feel overwhelmed.

It had to be that way.

I am a being who established an ego by meeting him.

With memories that craved love mixed into that established ego, it was only natural to feel a special affection for a father I had no reason to hate.

"Then why did you come before me even after ending up like this?! Why on earth!"

Having turned away from the one who craved such familial love, I committed the atrocity of making him just like my past self in the end.

Yes, twisting the heart of someone you care for without realizing it—this is how agonizing and painful it is.

Because this is the emotion my mother felt, she refined her daughter's soul and created a being like me.

"......Because I haven't heard it yet."

Even as I felt that kinship, he was still moving his feet toward me.

Pushing through the rain that pours down harder as my emotions intensify, instead washing away the blood staining his body, closing the distance between us.

"What...?"

"I saw your memories... but I haven't heard what you want yet."

At the end, my father stood before me, bending his knees to meet my eyes.

Keeping silent like that—surely it was because he was waiting for my answer.

"What I... want...?"

"Yes, what you want...."

He did not scold me for closing off my heart.

Even though his mind and body were ruined just getting here...

"Philoi. I...."

Rather, based on those memories, he tried to show understanding for the mother he had faced.

"I... don't think what Tachia-san gave me was a lie."

I felt my desire to find someone to embrace me in this harsh world grow stronger by finding someone who loved me.

"If you truly felt ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠love from Tachia-san, then I don't think what she felt for me was any different."

Yes, if someone says they love you, you must protect them no matter what.

I knew all too well that such sincerity was expressed through the act of stroking my head.

"...Really."

Because we have been together until now.

Because I was with him and felt the heart with which he—who awakened my ego—lived in this world.

"You won't... kill Mom? Even though you saw all my memories...?"

"That's why I came all this way."

Having maintained that heart all the way here, he still did not break and tried to state his will.

"So tell me, Philoi. What is it you want?"

Love, hatred, and the mission I was born with.

Even as he retraced my fate—which concluded all of it must lead to killing her—he hoped to intervene.

"...A family."

Even doubting if I could answer.

Before I knew it, my lips were moving as if drawn by him.

"I want... a family."

There was no way I could endure.

In my past life, I reluctantly accepted that reality, but now I was in a state no different from a newborn child.

The past me knew better than anyone how painful it was for an inexperienced child to be forced into such a thing.

My still-growing, clumsy mind collapsed at the question from the one I loved, making me pour out my true feelings.

"Under Mom and Dad, I want to know what it's like... to become an adult."

I do not want to kill her.

The mother who, foolish as she was, truly loved me.

I do not want to let her commit any more sins because of me.

"...If that's what you want, I'll do it with you."

As if he was ready to accept even such stubbornness, his hands slowly cupped my head.

More than just experiencing memories—even as he fully accepted my being into his inner self.

"Let's go and tell her together. Philoi."

He conveyed to me his resolve that he would never lose himself.