Tears welled in her eyes, spilling over and trailing down her cheeks.
Her chest rose and fell unevenly as she struggled to breathe.
The weight in her stomach made her feel like vomiting.
She crouched down, gripping her knees, and the sobs ca harder.
Her emotions churned without direction, like an ugly, relentless tide.
She cried for hours.
When the tears finally stopped, there was no relief, only an empty silence.
Her gaze fell on Vornaz.
She reached out, gripping the hilt and raising the blade toward her own neck.
"What are you doing?" the panda asked from the corner.
"I’m going to kill myself. If I keep doing it, then my immortality has to end at so point. There’s no way Witches are completely immortal."
Her eyes were dull, and hollow.
Vornaz shimred, shifting into the form of an owl, and leapt from her grip.
"Vornaz."
She stared at him.
"Co here. I need to kill myself."
He didn’t answer.
When she stepped toward him, Vornaz beat his wings and flew farther away.
Moraine’s hand twitched, and she turned toward the table in her room.
A small knife sat on the table beside the basket of fruits.
She moved toward it.
The panda appeared in her path, blocking her way.
"Witches can’t die."
She didn’t reply.
When she tried to step around him, the panda moved again.
Finally, he sighed.
"He made a contract with ."
That stopped her.
Her head turned slowly.
"...What?"
"I’m Severant. A demon. My Authority lets sever anything."
Her voice was quiet. "What was his contract with you?"
"He told that if he failed to reincarnate, I was to sever your mories of him."
"...What?"
"He wanted you to forget him."
The words landed like a blade in her chest.
"...He wanted to forget him?"
Her voice trembled.
The shock on her face sharpened into anger.
"Then he shouldn’t have loved ! He knew he was going to die, and he hid that! Did he ever tell anything? Devil of Tyranny? Who is that? What the hell was he doing all this ti?!"
Her screams were ragged, torn out of her.
"I... hic... hate him..."
"Moraine—"
"Don’t co near !"
Even in her fury, she glared at Severant when he moved closer.
She didn’t want to forget him.
No matter how much she hated the lies, the love was still there, unshaken.
"I... hic... hate him..."
She crumpled with her back against the bedfra.
She drew her knees in, and pressed her forehead against them.
"Moraine, severing your mories would—"
"It won’t do anything," she cut in.
She had to say it, in case the demon tried it anyway.
In her current state, she couldn’t stop him by force.
"If erasing mories was enough, Witches wouldn’t be in pain."
Severant had no answer to that.
After a long silence, he said quietly, "There’s another way. If I sever your mories, you won’t rember him, but you’ll feel like sothing’s missing. Then, we could create a clone. Since you wouldn’t rember him, you wouldn’t realize the clone isn’t real—"
He stopped when she lifted her head.
The bloodlust in her eyes made the demon instinctively step back.
"Never suggest that again."
"And then what?" Severant glared back at her, trying to swallow the fear he had just felt. "Are you just going to keep crying? What will that achieve—"
"I don’t know!"
Moraine’s voice broke as she scread.
She didn’t know what to do next, but she knew she would never agree to erase him.
Those years had been the happiest of her life.
For soone who had lived alone through eight long Eons, they had been the one ti she had company.
The two of them had laughed together, traveled to places they wanted to see, shared monts of warmth.
She refused to lose those precious mories.
Silence stretched between Severant and Moraine.
"He never killed an innocent."
Vornaz returned, landing gently on her shoulder.
"He didn’t find out until much later that he couldn’t survive the end of the Eon."
Moraine didn’t answer, but her shoulders trembled.
"Until then, you two weren’t together. But it was obvious you loved him. Leaving you wouldn’t have changed anything. So, he decided to stay and keep you happy as long as he could. He wanted to give you happy mories."
She stayed silent.
"But he never stopped searching for a way to survive. He broke into the treasuries of kingdoms, t great sages, challenged other Witches. He demanded knowledge from everyone he could."
Severant gave a dry chuckle.
"Even though it wasn’t his personality, he acted arrogant in front of all of them. If they refused to talk, he defeated them and threatened their lives until they gave in. That’s how he beca the ’Devil of Tyranny.’"
"...Just for that?" Her voice was faint, but curiosity slipped in.
"I wouldn’t say ’just’ for that," Severant replied. "Think about it from their side. They believed their king was invincible.
"Then one day, soone appears out of nowhere, destroys their kingdom’s defenses, defeats their armies, forces their ruler into submission, and then demand them to hand of their knowledge.
"If they refused, he beat them up again. To them, he was a tyrant," explained Vornaz.
"...He sounds like a bandit instead of a Tyrant."
Vornaz let out a laugh.
"He said you’d call him that if you ever found out what he did."
Moraine lifted her head, watching him. It was enough of a signal for Vornaz to begin speaking again.
He told her stories of what ’he’ had done while waiting for her reincarnation.
Moraine didn’t smile, but her tears had stopped.
She listened.
"He was over the moon when you accepted his proposal. He even went to et Hades."
"...What?"
"He wanted to ask for a na, so that when he asked you to marry him, he could give you one."
That made her freeze.
He had always refused to take a na from her.
She rembered their conversation.
’Just call Naless Death if you want to give a na.’
’Why?’
’My father is Hades. He didn’t give a na. So... Naless Death.’
’...’
’Co on. Don’t look at like that. It’s only temporary. I’m going to make him accept as his son, then I’ll demand a na.’
’Do you not hate Hades?’
’Well, that’s an awkward question. I do hate him. Quite a lot, actually. But I still respect him. I know he’s working toward his own goal. While I don’t like that he threw away, I understand why he did that.’
’You...!’
’Wait, why are you crying?’
’Shut up! I hate Hades! And I hate you for not hating that trash who abandoned you!’
’Hahaha!’
It had been a fight.
But rembering it now, it was a warm mory.
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