108 What Will You Choose?

"...Grrrrr..." Aoi grumbled impatiently and angrily as she waited for Ren just outside Myriel's bar. "Waiting here in this hot and dusty place even though I can wait inside just fine...this is truly outrageous! Why in the world do I have to wait here with this woman...?!"

A few minutes ago, Lerish complained of breathing difficulties due to overexposure to the alcohol fumes coming from Myriel's extensive liquor collection. While Lerish's condition was treated immediately, the fact that Aoi was tasked to still monitor her despite her being okay already has taken a huge chunk from her patience.

"...What should I do now, I wonder? Should I flay some pathetic lady alive for the time being?"

As she said that, her gaze abruptly shifted towards Lerish, who's sitting on a crate not far away from her. Sensing a dangerous stare aimed at her, Lerish couldn't help but to look down in remorse.

"...Hey you, are you alright now?"

"H-Hwehh?!" Lerish unconsciously looked at her.

"... Haven't you heard me?! I'm asking you if you're alright."

At that moment, Lerish couldn't hide her surprised expression from Aoi. Trying to calm herself down, she replied:

"N-Nn, I am somehow feeling better now, Miss Aoi. T-Thank you very much for the concern..."

While it's not the first time Aoi had shown concern for her, Lerish would always get surprised whenever it does occur. It might be because she's still not used to the fact that the Death Goddess—the epitome of darkness and despair—also has a tiny sliver of humanity in her.

"...I-I-It's not because I'm concerned with your health that I asked you if you're alright, do you hear me?! I mean, I will be in deep trouble if your condition became worse!" Aoi angrily pointed her finger at her.

Despite her usual facade of indifference towards her, however, Aoi won't hesitate to save Lerish from dying if her condition does get unexpectedly worse. After all, the young lady still has a lot more potential to unlock, and it would be too much of a waste if she let her die too soon.

'More than that, I know that drinking too much alcohol could kill humans...but dying just because of its smell? Is that even possible? What an embarrassing way to go, if I say so myself...'

"...Still, you should've told us beforehand if you have a health condition like that," Aoi continued to lecture her. "Unlike you, who—despite your status and talent—is still an ordinary human through and through, big brother and I don't succumb to disease that easily. Needless to say, there's a great chance you might slow us down if this were to happen again in the future..."

"Slow...you down..."

Like a serrated blade, Aoi's sharp words pierced right into her soul, sawing and ripping away her composure of not being a burden to them. 'Miss Aoi is right,' she thought to herself, 'no matter how much I strive to become powerful, the difference between our strength is just too much for my efforts to compensate...'

"If it is impossible for me to keep up with Miss Aoi and Ren, then I will...I will—"

"Aren't you being too a bit too harsh to her, Aoi?"

"--?!"

At that moment, Ren came back after his one-on-one discussion with Myriel has ended. Noticing the heavy atmosphere between the two girls, Ren immediately tried to calm then down.

"Good grief," Ren slowly shook his head while pinching Aoi's cheek. "I just went away for a moment, and suddenly here you are adding insult to her injury, Aoi. Can you be more considerate to other people even for just once?"

"...I-I-It's not my fault that this sheltered lady over here has a weak body constitution! I'm just trying to tell her the obvious!" Aoi retorted.

Ren then looked at Lerish. Clearly because of what Aoi has said to her, Lerish acted quite fidgety as she tried to avoid making eye contact with him.

Sighing for a bit, Ren asked, "Are you okay now, Lerish? I was worried seeing you in such a pained state earlier..."

"N-Nn. After taking some medicine my condition became slightly better...—eek?!"

To her surprise Ren placed his left hand on her forehead, and then immediately the mark on his hand started to appear with a bright white glow, indicating that he's using the [Fool] Arcana on her.

"...Big brother?! What are you..."

"This? Don't worry Aoi, this won't hurt her all."

'Ren's hand...so warm...' Lerish thought to herself. She doesn't understand what Ren is doing, yet she believes that he won't do anything that will harm her.

Moreover, she's too fixated on looking at his face to even notice the changes going on in her body, if there is.

"Okay, done," Ren said with a satisfied look on his face a few moments later.

Touching her forehead while still feeling confused by his actions, Lerish asked him: "J-Just now, Ren...what did you do...?"

"I took your asthma away from your system," he nonchalantly replied.

""Y-You...you can do that?!"" the girls looked at him in extreme shock.

The [Fool] Arcana is capable of devouring anything there is in the world, including diseases. With that in mind, Ren thought that instead of keeping her away from the things that trigger her asthma—which, in her case, the smell of alcohol—the best way to prevent it from triggering again is to remove the disorder completely from her body.

"Even I myself still couldn't believe that I can do such thing, but I'm glad everything went without a hitch. Hehehe..."

"Ren..."

"Eh? Lerish, your face...is there still something wrong? Did I messed up with my Arcana?"

"H-Hauuu...?!"

In front of worried Ren, Lerish touched her face. It felt hot, and her heartbeat's going faster at the same time. 'This is embarrassing,' she thought, 'I caused trouble to him again...'

"...Well, I don't see anything wrong with her. For sure she's grateful now that you cured her breathing problems permanently," Aoi shrugged her shoulders.

"Uh...okay..."

"...By the way, big brother," Aoi quickly changed the subject. "What did you talked about with that woman? Did she do something to you?"

"N-No, silly! We just talked about something, that's all..."

"...Something, you say..." Aoi's suspicion grew bigger while seeing Ren's body suddenly becoming fidgety. "Like what, big brother? Tell me."

"Ughh..."

Ren contemplated for a moment, then—

"I-It's a secret."

"...Why you don't want to say it to me?!" Aoi yapped at him.

"Because a secret is a secret!" Ren yelled back at her. "A-Anyway, let's not waste any more time here. We still have things to do."

As Ren walked away from them in an awkward way, Aoi clenched her fists in seething anger as she spoke:

"...I'm sure that woman instilled something strange into big brother's mind, that's why he's acting strange. I have to investigate, or else—"

"P-Perhaps we should respect his wishes and not delve into the matter for the time being," Lerish suggested. "Whatever it is, I am certain that there is a good reason as to why he is hiding it from everyone. We should wait first, then confront him when the time is right."

"...Muuuu..." Aoi puffed her cheeks in disappointment. "But, I hate waiting..."

"Hehehe...our sentiments are one and the same, Miss Aoi. I am also not good with just doing nothing," Lerish replied, as she looked up at Ren from afar.

The young man who changed her life many times over, the one she chose to befriend and support with everything that she have—the ever-mysterious Ren Mortel...

When will he reveal all of his secrets to her? She's dying to know. However, she doesn't want to ruin the impression he has for her just because of that.

There's still a lot of time, she thought. And if there's time, there's also opportunity. Being a princess, she won't run out of opportunities, which made her relatively calmer as compared to Aoi.

Calmly, confidently—she'll definitely get what she wants.

-----

After taking a warm bath and finally changing into my personal custom-made t-shirt and jogging pants, I hopped right into our room and lie down on the bed that I shared with Aoi.

"Haaah...so many things happened today. I don't think I'll be able to endure all of it if this were to happen everyday..."

I raised my left hand, and looked at the back of my palm. Right now, because I'm not using the [Fool] the mark on my hand is hidden from sight, but I can see clearly with my imagination what design it has.

"The [Fool], huh. Now I kinda understand why it's named that way..."

Suddenly, I remembered what Myriel has told me this morning:

'If I tell you right here and now that all the Arcanas in your body are slowly trying to kill you at this moment, would you believe me?'

Because of Aoi, I always believed that the [Death] Arcana is the poison in my body that does harm as it help me, but that's not the case after all. To my surprise, that ominous-sounding Arcana is actually a lot more safer compared to the [Fool], 'the one that devours anything'. Being influenced by that one Arcana, the other two Arcanas in my body have also started to eat away my body from inside out. The same process goes on with all the other Arcanas, until the only thing that'll be left from me is a shell completely devoid of things that make me, me.

But then, I don't care at all about that. As long as Aoi and the people around me are safe, I don't mind taking one for the team...

...or that's what I believed.

'That little girl...you know that she's relying on you to maintain her already scant divine power, right?'

'Yeah. She told me that there's an invisible link connecting us that allows her to channel her divine power stored in my body in case she needs it in battle, and store it back when she isn't.'

'Nn. Until the time when you finally unlocked the potential of the [Fool] Arcana there is a balance going on between the rate at which she takes divine power from you, and the opposite way around. However, that balance you unknowingly maintained with her has already started to disintegrate.'

I have three Arcanas, she only has one: I am now taking divine force from her at a faster rate compared to how much she could take from me. If I get more Arcanas that disparity will continue to grow bigger until—

'Aoi's divine force will completely run out.'

'So you understand it now, boy. The more Arcanas you have the more damage there will be in your body, and at the same time the faster you will deplete that girl's reserves. However, you can choose not to have more Arcanas, but [they] will immediately come here and hunt you and the Death Goddess down, perhaps even more if they also found out you're an outsider of this world, an anomaly. Tell me then, boy—which option will you choose?'

'K-Khh...!'

I see, so it's a 'damned if I do, damned if I don't' situation for me and Aoi. Whatever option I'll choose, life would find its way to hit us with a big L in the end.

Good grief. How did things ended up like this...

*knock* *knock*

"...Big brother, are you there?" Aoi asked from outside the room.

"A-Ah, yeah. Is there anything you need from me?"

When I asked that, Aoi came into the room carrying a tray with cups of tea on it. As it's already close to bedtime her blue hair is completely loose which, together with her long white nightgown, gave off an atmosphere of a pure and mystical nymph.

"...I know that big brother worked too hard today, that's why I brought some tea for us to drink together. Lerish taught me how to brew it for the first time, so you might not like the taste."

"Are you serious, Aoi? Of course I'll drink it," I smiled at her as I hurriedly got up from the bed. "Come, let's drink it while gazing at the window."

With our teacups placed on the window sill, Aoi and I immersed ourselves looking at the night skies, searching for any star that catches our attention with the help of the Rainen household's telescope. We also looked for constellations—though different from what I'm familiar with, they are still spectacular in their own right.

"...I never knew stargazing could be this fun, big brother!" Aoi said happily.

"Well, since you enjoyed it that much we should do this more often, especially when the skies are clear."

"...Nn! I'll look forward to...it..."

"Aoi? What's wrong?" I asked as I noticed her face turned gloomy suddenly.

"...No matter how much you hide it, your heartbeat tells me that you're in a pickle right now, big brother."

Dug-dug, my heart start pounding like crazy when she said that. She must've sensed it, since her lips formed a smug grin at the same time.

As always, my heart's a one big snitch.

"...If there's something I can help you with your problem then I'm more than willing to listen...but if you don't want to talk about it, I—"

"What will you do if you're forced to choose between two evils?" I asked her.

"... B-Big brother, what do you mean by that..."

"Just a hypothetical question, Aoi. What will you do if the world seem to go against your way, that whatever option you choose you'll only get hurt in the end? If that's the case, is it right to choose the 'lesser' of the two?"

I only realized it just now but I'm grabbing Aoi by her shoulders, while looking intently at her eyes. I've became too eager to hear her answer that it looked like I'm forcing it out of her mouth.

"Tell me, Aoi! What option will you choose?"

Biting her lips while looking down, I thought at first that the situation's became too unbearable for her, but—

"...Neither."

"A-Aoi?!"

"...Yes, you heard it right," Aoi answered. "I'm the Death Goddess, so it's natural that the world is my enemy. That said, it doesn't matter if I choose any of the two 'evils', since the odds are all against me to begin with."

"T-That would make sense...—"

"...But that's not what big brother would definitely do."

Eh?

"...My beloved big brother, he will stick onto his guts and continue moving forward, even if that's a very bad decision. Thanks to those bad decisions, he released and took care of a monster despite the world saying 'no'; he saved a princess' life, even though he knows that he has nothing to do with her, and lastly; he kept on working hard to protect everyone despite the limits of his own strength. Life may be too hard now for big brother, but one thing is for sure: his heart tells me that he doesn't regret all of it at all."

She then stood on top of a chair, and gently placed her hands on my cheeks.

"...Whatever happens, the big brother I know and love will never choose 'neither'. He will either choose one of the two evils, or make a new option instead. There is only one way but forward! That's what I learned from you all this time!" Aoi said with tears in her eyes.

"Aoi..."

"...That's why, if you ask me what's my choice—I'll choose to have the same as yours!"

"Do you really trust me that much? You might regret it in the end," I warned her.

"...No worries! Even if you mess up real bad and stumble, I'll be here to help you get on your two feet again!" she replied.

For real, this girl...

"Alright, I've made up my mind. Thanks for your help, Aoi."

"...Nn! As long as I get to see big brother smiling, it's all worth it!"

We continued on our stargazing not long after that, before going to bed. Thanks to her, it didn't seem like I won't stay all night overthinking things.

Ahh...I'm very lucky to have a nice little sister like her.

'Moving forward, huh...somehow I'm also learning things I don't realize I'm doing all this time,' I muttered softly as I watch Aoi sleep.