Interlude: Ich Liebe Dich

Author notes:

I am back! Yup, managed to finish the newest chapter in my free time, it's also quite a bit longer than usual too! It has been an interesting one to write about but I am sure the next one will be much more interesting! After that, something will becoming to light and Sardegna will be under much more scrutiny than usual. It will also give a chance for Belka to try something they couldn't before.

Other than that, we now welcome our newest supporter! Private ThrilledAxis! Hope you have been enjoying the story and I apologize for the short delay.

Now, onto the story!

P.S: Can you guess who's the narrator in this Interlude?

P.S.S: Still taking questions for a separate chapter!

Fashion Week

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I slowly wake up to the sound of rustling leaves as a cool breeze caresses my face... Or was it?

Opening my eyes, I register in the sight of a girl... Perhaps it would be more apt to call her a young lady. A fine, young lady at that. Nonetheless, it's a person that I know very well, supposedly, and her fingers are tracing a line on my cheek lovingly. I can ascertain that much, as per usual. With practiced ease, I focus my sight on the lady's face. Such a charming beauty she is.

The young lady, both familiar and unfamiliar, has short gray hair. Despite being in the shade of a tall tree, her hair and white skin seem to glisten a healthy shade of pale, unlike mine. Her eyes, heterochromia in the color of ruby and gold, with her left being an odd golden iris with a ticking clock face, shower me with her poisonous yet addicting affection. Poisonous, because my heart wrenches in despair, in anger, in jealousy, for I may never be able to experience it when I wake up again. Addicting because every time I go to sleep, she is the only person to accompany me, giving me the strength to toil for another, utterly hopeless day.

But I digress.

Going by the usual pattern, she will say... "The others are still playing. Do you want to join them?" Right about now.

And then I will respond with... "I don't wanna. Being here is enough." That's right, right now, just being with you is enough. "Sister, can you pat my head again?"

The gray-haired sister giggles. Her voice, oh her voice is everything I need to keep on going. "Well, you're always partial to a lap pillow and head pats." Feeling her hand on my hair, I smile before my vision is shifted outward.

There, in the playground of this verdant park, are my best friends... sisters in anything but blood even. Without them, I would have withered away... For it's because of them that I must endure.

A shy young girl with dark blue hair that fades into purple at the tip and blue eyes is watching a pair of twins playing around. Next to her is another girl with an even shorter height with her grey hair tied into two short drills. The short girl's gray eyes twinkle in delight despite her otherwise expressionless face while hugging the shy girl's arm.

The twins, one with sky blue hair and purple eyes while the other has pink hair with light blue eyes, are performing a two-person comedy skit. Despite the deadpanning of the blue-haired twin, the pink-haired twin just carried on exaggeratedly, bringing out a soft giggle from the shy young girl spectating.

Supervising the girls in the park, is their senior by a year of age, a girl with long gray hair and ocean-blue eyes. And although she is crossing her arms while heaving an audible sigh at the pink-haired twin's antics, a smile can be seen gracing her face. She is then joined by another pair of girls, the first one sports a similar gray hair, only cut short, with yellow eyes. The last girl has her dark purple hair flowing freely to her waist as she darts her purple eyes to search for us.

"They are having fun." The sister stroking my hair said.

I nod, feeling the edge of my lips lift up. "That they are."

As if hearing our discussion or finally noticing us, the purple-haired girl looks over to us, waving with a smile.

I can't stop myself from responding back with a wave of my own. "I wish days like this could carry on forever." That was my heartfelt wish too...

But that is never meant to be.

As if punishing me for ever being so hopeful, the surrounding fades into sparks of amber and flames as my vision blackout. Once I manage to regain my sight, like many times before, I am greeted with pure destruction, and absolute anarchy all around me as creatures that I've come to learn as Demons and Zombies ravage every which way I look. And as much as I would like for those not to be here, I know that there are many, many deceased all around me.

I simply refuse to acknowledge their existents, that's all.

Instead, a gruesome, heart-breaking scene has etched itself in my retinas, my very soul.

Lies ahead of me, a mere step away, and leaning on a broken wall is the sister that has been giving me those precious head pats and lap pillows all those while back. What have I done... Again?

My sister, my dear sister... I can feel my body crouch down, not due to grief, not for mourning. Rather, to finish the job.

With a flick of my fingers, a white lance materializes and pierces my sister in the stomach, further pinning her into the wall. "Ack...! Hah!" She breathed out sharply, struggling as a foreign object was lodged into her body.

"Hoh~!" I can hear it, my voice. My hateful voice has taken in a tone of superiority, one that is built on suffering. "For an annoying cheater, you're surprisingly resilient. To not scream out in pain nor for mercy, I think you have just earned the opportunity to die by my very hand."

I can feel a sickening smirk appear on my face as I lean in, saying in a mocking tone despite my incessant struggles. Every single time... "Any last word, insect?" I can feel my palm grasping the lance. No, not again!

"Three words..." With a weak voice, my sister muttered.

"Heh? Have you given into your fear?" I said with a mocking tone. No more, why must I keep treating her like this? This is not how it should be!

I lean forward, knowing that my sister is living on borrowed time.

Those three words, those hurtful, but touching three words will grow to define my very being. "Ich... liebe dich."

I love you... Sister. I love you, the sister I have never come to see. And I am sorry... For I can't stop myself, once again.

"Tsk! All lies!" With a sharp shout, I twist the lance, causing the last shred of life my sister still has to fade away from her. Her hand, one that she has struggled to raise to pat my hair, now falls limply on her bloodied lap.

I am sorry! I am sorry! I am sorry!

Why!? Why!? Why!?

She doesn't deserve to die this way! So why, God!?

"YOU!" A rage-filled scream came from my right. Ah... It seems like I have reached this part once more.

My body turns, allowing me to see a familiar girl, one with short gray hair and yellow eyes. "You ruined everything!" Her body, despite her small stature, exudes an oppressive aura that makes me take a step back. From her back, a pair of golden wings of light sprouted, then, the color gold was mixed with an obsidian black. Her wings, combined with her dark gold halo that has been broken into four symmetrical parts, denounce her heritage, or at the very least her abilities that are related to the divines.

Despite my body being dissuaded by the intensity of her aura, I still speak up, still maintaining that holier-than-thou tone. "I merely took care of the trash, my dear. Soon, all obstacles will be gone and we will achieve our happily ever after. Don't you find that a worthy cause for me to flex my muscles? You should be glad, dear."

The girl, hearing that nonsensical explanation, trembles not in glee but in obvious fury. "Be glad...? You have taken away our sister...! My sister! My honor! My pride! My life! I was an experimental reject! Doomed to waste away in a dungeon! Yet they brought me into their fold, treated me like I was their own kin! They were my everything! My sister was my everything..." Tears can be seen falling from the heartbroken angel's face as she gazes at her older sister's corpse. Alas, she passed away with a small smile and her eyes closed peacefully.

I am sorry... I am so sorry...

"For you to deprive me of everything I've ever come to cherish... Allow me the opportunity to take yours." The gray-haired angel said, and with a glint of hatred in her golden eyes, she charged with blades of light.

Before I can react, or scream, I am shaken.

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I feel a sense of vertigo before I snap awake, my throat burns, trying to take as much air as I can get. With labor breaths, I slowly regain my bearings. I am now in the bunk room I share with my bonded sisters, my real sisters in reality.

"That dream again... God, why are you showing me that dream?" But as much as I hate the ending, I've come to cling to its beginning like a fish in the water.

Expanding my spatial sense, a... perk that I've come to accept as a part of me. One of many that have been acquired by surviving many, many inhuman experiments. One of many that I have hidden from the 'orphanage workers', as she and her sisters have called them. But I must focus...

Concentrating on my spatial sense, I can see that in this bunk room, my sisters are still resting soundly. Bronya and Seele, are cuddling with each other, hugging a weathered teddy bear given to them by the orphanage's mother... One of the few to treat us like their own. Liliya and Rozaliya, the twins, are also on their own bed, with Rozaliya drooling on Liliya's chest.

And Bella... She is in my bed, still sleeping soundly, thankfully. I was afraid she would be woken up by my scared intake of air. "I never can get used to the dream."

"So, let's see what's on the agenda today."

I expand my spatial sense even further, encompassing this pocket dimension that Seele has come to call it. Though I think it's the second personality inside Seele that named it so first.

With my sense expanded to its maximum, I can glimpse inside each room, locked behind keys or not. I can review each scientific research paper, hidden in their warded cabinet. I can see the 'coffins' that the Sardegnians use. The ones that drain the life from hundreds of souls just to have a chance at creating a superhuman, a Crusader. I can even hear the discussion, the planning, and the rumors from every corner of this dimension. The information overload was jarring at first, but I've come to learn to filter them out. Soon, I have been able to spy on the 'orphanage workers' in charge of our itinerary for the day.

"So another relocation of this dimension... Bronya will be used to calculate the numbers. Seele will be used to keep up the camouflage. And I will be the one to move the entire pocket elsewhere, again. At the end of the day..." I then look at the sleeping Bella, my fist clenching subconsciously. "They will be injecting Bella, Liliya, and Rozaliya with those hateful things again. Can't they see that their bodies are breaking down? Or that is their intention in the first place? Is it possible for me to take on their quota again?"

After a few moments, I then sigh. "Still no news on Sister Kallen and Sister Natasha. Are they ok out there?"

I sigh, slowly closing my eyes. "Every day, the dream brings me both hope and despair. Their polarity is slowly tearing me apart at the seam... And with each living day being this bleak, I am not sure how long I can hold out, God. I am not sure how long I can stay strong for my sisters."

"My sister... Hah." I wistfully said. "Ich liebe dich."

May we meet again in our next dream, sister.