Chapter 115 – Aria (2)
It wasn’t that I never thought about it.
If I became possessed by Arya, where did the original self go?
She wouldn’t have sunk to the ground, nor would she have risen to the sky.
In fact, it was a question that did not come out even after thinking deeply, so I kept it in a corner of her heart and put it off.
Then it became a forgotten question.
It was a fairly important item, but I couldn’t help it.
At the time, I was too overwhelmed to even deal with the things in front of me.
Anyway, I was confronted with ‘Arya’, which is supposed to be the original.
“Really, you.”
At my words, she gave me a dry smile.
“What do you mean by real?”
“What hidden meaning could there be in what you just said? I mean, I’m asking.”
I took a breath, caught her breath, and stared at Arya.
“Are you really ‘Arya’?”
She looked at me for a moment and responded in a soft tone.
“Oh, you talk like it could be fake. Aren’t you Arya too?”
“… I am.”
I was speechless.
The words she uttered were difficult to refute.
From her outward appearance, she was no different than an identical twin.
I shed an aria with a slightly mysterious gaze.
Then she smiled softly.
“Or do you want me to call you XXX?”
XXX.
I opened my mouth slightly.
Because that was my real name.
How do you know that
No matter how hazy I am, I know that those words are not going to come out of Arya’s mouth.
Beyond being dumbfounded, it seems that he was hit with a blow.
I felt dizzy.
Her head spins, she says.
“You don’t look good, kid.”
I calmly brushed my face.
My heart was beating wildly, like someone who had had a heart attack and was lucky enough to wake up.
See aria
I felt like I was moving on the other side of the mirror, and I felt sick to my stomach.
Words seldom fell.
“What, how do you know that name?”
“Did you forget all this? You have to explain again.”
It was a languid, languid tone.
Was Arya originally a person with that kind of feeling?
I don’t know.
All I know is the aria from the beginning, not the aria from the second half.
“By the way, did you see it for nothing?”
I just saw it
That meant talking about an experience up until now.
A nightmare that creeps up inside slowly emerges.
Terrible memories.
Painful memories.
Memories I want to erase.
“…”
Just thinking about it made my mouth dry.
As I kept her mouth shut, a cluster of white light appeared in the real Arya’s hand.
“You said I couldn’t handle it. Doubts are to be moderated. As an example, you turned white too.”
She pointed at my head with her index finger.
Specifically, her hair.
Her actions naturally brought her gaze to my shoulder.
The hair that fell down her shoulders, which was obviously black, had turned white.
I wonder what sign this is.
“You put on a look of curiosity and that’s it. You’ve awakened A little earlier than planned.”
“…”
I didn’t ask what you were talking about.
Didn’t Karelin speak in Aria’s memory?
It is said that saints and warriors awaken through excessive stress.
Perhaps it is of that kind.
“Since you seem to be somewhat conscious, shall we change the mood?”
Shit.
As Arya clapped her hands, the white space changed.
In the form of a room.
Dark gray wallpaper and a fairly large floor space.
Comfy leather couches appeared, wall-mounted TVs appeared, analog clocks appeared.
Other than that, small furniture items came out.
What would you do to hide
It was the living room of my house.
Not ‘Aria’, but a modern ‘my’ house.
“What.”
As if amused by my bewildered reaction, Aria raised the corner of her mouth.
“What are you so surprised about? It’s not the first time you’ve seen it, is it?”
It’s not the first time I’ve seen it, so I can’t help but be surprised.
Because it was a landscape that could never exist in the world I came from.
Arya said as if to confirm.
“This is XXX’s house.”
My house.
A place where memories are now blurred.
As if to disprove the dimness, my house was not in a very clear state.
It was a mixture of noise and intermittent cuts.
Involuntarily, my hands trembled.
If this is a mental attack.
It is terrifyingly detailed and deadly.
“I made it because I thought it would be more comfortable for you, but is it rather uncomfortable?”
Don’t be uncomfortable
It was more uncomfortable than I could have imagined, and I even vomited.
Arya casually sat down on the leather sofa, and she motioned for me to sit on the leather sofa opposite.
There was a strange power in her actions, so I sat on the sofa without being able to resist.
“You look confused, don’t you?”
The situation is out of control, so shut up for a second.
… It was impossible to say.
I quietly nodded my head.
“Sit calmly and you will remember. It’s okay, because I have a lot of time.”
As she said, time flies.
It was neither too long nor too short.
It was still an incomprehensible situation, but the agitation subsided a lot mentally.
“Looks like you’ve calmed down a bit.”
“Looks like it.”
“Yes. At first, you were trembling like a deer that found a wolf, right?”
It was an explicit expression.
What can I do about being scared though?
Can you remain calm when someone with the same face as you talks to you?
“So will you believe me now?”
At her words, the forgotten memories came to mind little by little.
For what reason did I come to experience her experience as she had.
The beginning was a suspicion of this girl named ‘Aria’.
No, an aria is an aria.
Show me such a terrible memory that I had some doubts?
And just because she shows those memories doesn’t prove your existence.
I replied bluntly.
“What.”
“It is too much. It even reminded me of memories I don’t want to recall.”
Arya acts as if she was deliberately hurt.
It was a memory that is hard to describe.
Although that purity of despair and frustration has now faded as if diluted with water.
I replied cynically.
“Until now, I didn’t see a single face, and then suddenly appeared and said, ‘Something big will happen next. So you have to act this way and act that way’, wouldn’t anyone have any doubts? I dare you to ask. Why did you just show up now? Couldn’t you have told me from the beginning?”
It is true.
There were always enough situations for her to appear.
It must be difficult only when the church is tossed around.
But after Ain saved me, wouldn’t she always be okay?
Reluctantly, she could have appeared even in a dream.
“That was the case. You weren’t in a state of awakening, and I didn’t have many opportunities either.”
“People who make excuses often say that. It had to be. That’s how it was. I don’t know unless you elaborate. Do you know how much I suffered all this time?”
Arya let out a sigh of relief.
“Know. It’s what I’ve been through.”
It was seething.
Cheat.
Mind.
The resentment and hatred that had nowhere to go went toward one person.
“If so, if you know!”
“XXX.”
She calls me by my real name.
I stopped talking as if I had been electrocuted.
Arya gave a sad look.
“Do you think I didn’t want to help you?”
She didn’t avoid my gaze.
I didn’t immediately respond and waited for her next words.
“You have seen all of my past. I’ve been through it too.”
I bit my lip and furrowed my eyes.
“So what is it, since you also suffered the same pain as me, are you asking me to move on?”
“No way. I want you to understand my situation.”
Whoops, whoops.
He took a deep breath and glared at Arya.
In fact, I still couldn’t believe it.
That there is such a future.
“… Are you saying that it really happened?”
Edelis dies.
Azazel is broken.
A future where Arya herself is destroyed and ends her life in the end.
“I have nothing to say if you treat that as an illusion.”
It was an aloof, detached look.
If it hadn’t been for the words that followed, I would have felt that way.
“Well, if you don’t admit it, then you’ll be following the same train as me.”
It was like saying that it was actually going to happen.
Arya punched me in the head before I burst into tears.
“First of all, I have to explain that I was in such a condition so that you will understand. Otherwise, I don’t think I’ll have the confidence to suppress your resentment.”
I stopped right before I got angry.
Curiosity was slightly greater than anger.
“… You want me to explain?”
She gently nodded her head.
“Because I called for that.”
“… Let’s try it.”
For now, listen quietly.
“First of all, you must have seen me dead.”
“You must have committed suicide.”
I just thought I’d listen quietly, but I immediately hung up on her.
Am I an idiot, the moment I was about to seriously think about it, Aria trembled.
“It hurts because the words are sharp. But if XXX were in that situation, would it survive?”
“No, I can’t stand it.”
I answered immediately.
She’s me, and I don’t think she’s much different from her.
I couldn’t stand the seeding in the first place.
“First, let me tell you about what happened after I died. Knowing this story will help you understand what I’m going to say next. To put it simply, Einstein couldn’t defeat the Demon King. It sounds obvious, but it was because I lacked strength. The hero and the saint are one and the same.”
The hero and the saint are two of one?
I was curious, but since I had cut off the story earlier, I decided to ask next time.
I answered by touching my shoulder.
“So?”
“It would have been fortunate if we hadn’t just been able to defeat the Demon King, but unfortunately, Einstein fell into Karelin’s hands. She was a boon to Karelin, who was obsessed with getting his body. She soon proceeded with a ritual to overlay the personality of the first hero on Einstein’s body.”
“Hasn’t Ain already endured it once?”
“Even Einstein, who would have endured it originally, must have been quite shocked that I committed suicide.”
“That means that the ceremony Karelin was going to perform was a success.”
Arya stopped her words.
Then she shook her head.
“No. It failed, after all.”
What.
Did you fail?
Ain couldn’t stand it?
Isn’t that a success?
I looked at Arya’s expression with a look of disbelief.
Even though Karelin was saying that she had failed, her expression didn’t look good at all.
It was dark, and there were only shadows.
“If Karelin failed, isn’t that good news?”
“It’s not all that good. The wandering moon god descended on Einstein’s body.”
The wandering moon god.
I was also familiar with her memory.
“He descended through the medium of Einstein and rebelled against the settled sun god. I guess a big war broke out after that. They say the war lasted a long time. In the end, the new seat was replaced.”
“A change of throne?”
It was only a few minutes ago that I promised not to ask.
I wanted to slap these lips that were spitting out random questions.
“The god of the sun, who stayed in the throne for a long time, was dragged out of his seat. The reverse was a success.”
It was so absurd that I wondered if it was explaining some kind of founding myth.
But I knew better than anyone that this was no mere bluff of a braggart.
“What if the throne changes?”
“It depends on which type of god occupies the throne. If the settled sun god has been in charge of order, rules, and settlement, the wandering moon god is in charge of chaos, ruin, and wandering. Perhaps it has become a difficult world for humans to live in.”
I noticed something in her tone.
“… That’s a guess.”
“Because I haven’t seen it that far.”
I guess so.
It must have been after she died that such a mess happened.
“If that’s true, did you even regress?”
“Similar. The sun god made a decision. I was trying to make me, the cause of Einstein’s fall, return.”
As I listened silently, my doubts soared.
“… Why is it you? It’s a bit embarrassing to say this, but Arya is incompetent. Even if I could go back in time, there would be no means to do anything. Wouldn’t it be better to return Ajin?”
“The sun god must have wanted to do that too. But Einstein was already eaten by the Wandering Moon God, so there was no way. So the country just chose the second best.”
“…”
As I listened, I realized something strange.
‘I was trying to make me, the cause of the fall, return.’
The fact that it did was proof that it did not happen.
“Aria. You.”
“Yes. Did you notice?”
“You rejected it, return.”
“Because it was hard, and because I couldn’t believe it.”
Can’t you believe it?
Who?
Arya laughed bitterly.
“I couldn’t believe in the god of the sun, the goddess of eroticism.”
