Chapter 2 - God's Eyes

The girl fell to her knees before the mirror as the aching pain overtook her mind. It might have only lasted a few seconds, but the pain was worse than any headache she had ever felt in her life.

It felt as if her entire mind was being split open, and her brain was being poked with hot rods that caused it to melt. Calling it painful would be an understatement; it felt as if she was dying.

But the second the pain vanished, all thoughts of death vanished from her mind, and she was embraced in a warm and soothing feeling. Her mind became clear within a matter of seconds, and her eyes fluttered to a shot as she allowed the feeling to wash over her.

Slowly, she felt something entering her mind. No, it wasn't just something; it was rather memories. It was the memories of the girl she had woken up as, memories of herself.

The memories weren't complete, but they were better than nothing. It seemed like they mixed with her current memories, the memories of her past life, and made her both people.

She wasn't Serah as she was called in her previous life, nor was she the Seraphine she was in this life. She was somewhere in between both; she possessed pieces of both memories and both lives.

In her past life as Serah, she was a normal girl. Average was the best way she could be described.

She wasn't good-looking, nor was she ugly; she wasn't smart, nor was she stupid; she wasn't rich, nor was she poor. She had average grades in school, she lived in an average household with parents who neither adored nor hated her, and she had friends who were neither too close nor too distant from her.

She was a normal person; she enjoyed normal things and did normal things. She liked eating food, watching anime and movies, reading novels and mangas, hanging out with friends, and much more. 

Her life couldn't be considered grand, but it wasn't bad. That was why she neither felt any strong attachment to it nor did she feel any sort of longing to return to it.

She enjoyed the memories of it; she would miss the people she was close to, but she didn't feel any longing to return to that life she once had.

And the main reason for that was the other memories that lingered within her mind.

Seraphina Augustina Willows.

That was the full name of the person she currently was reborn as— no— that was her full name.

Seraphina, or Sera as she had been commonly called by her family, was born as a member of the Willows family, a noble family that belonged to the Asterion Empire.

To be exact, her family held the noble title of Duke within the Empire, which was second only to the Royal Family; as such, she had always had a life of wealth, privilege, and honor even before she was born.

"Asterion Empire, a world of fantasy and magic, and more?"

Her memories weren't complete, or rather, they were fractured as pieces of both sides of her memories tried to overlap and piece themselves together in places they shouldn't be.

Maybe it was because of an incomplete fusion or a mistake that occurred. However, she wasn't able to properly remember all the things she should be able to remember. That included both lives.

One thing the memories made clear, however, was that this world was nothing like her previous one. Magic, swords, and even cultivation existed within this world.

It was a weird mesh of concepts from both Western and Eastern settings that she remembered from stories, all mixed together to make this amalgamation of a world.

From what she could tell of her family and Empire, it was one that followed the pathway of knights, or as it is called in this world, Aura Training.

She wasn't exactly sure about the history of why this was the case, or even much about the history of her world in general, due to her previous self, Sera, not taking the time to learn it. Still, she was sure of the fact that her family possessed their own powerful knight method.

But that brought her to a key part in her memories that she wasn't pleased with, her inability to learn this method.

Not only was her family restricting her from learning it due to their own traditions, but also because this body she possessed was born much different from her siblings, or rather, much different from most people on the continent.

She was born with a very rare alignment known as 'God's Eyes.'

As the name would suggest, it was a very rare alignment that would manifest itself in the form of the eyes of the person upon birth, giving it a somewhat bright color and glowing hue that made anyone who looked at it feel drawn in, as if looking into their soul.

Each one is said to be born with a unique gift that allowed the person who used it to grow in power or outright be much more powerful than anyone else around them. 

Making them a target of fear, envy, honor, and more. As they were often hunted or killed before they could grow to their true potential.

It is said that no two people born with the eyes have the same ability, as it is completely unique to them upon manifesting.

However, due to how extraordinarily rare being born with the eyes is. There are only records of there having only been 3— aside from the girl— in the hundreds of thousands of years of history on the continent, and this has never been truly confirmed.

And while that may seem like a good thing, if only some of the tales were to be taken into account, it was anything but a good thing. This was due to the other name the alignment possessed.

'God's Curse.'

It is said to be a curse above all else because those born with the eyes die at a very young age, with very few even living to adulthood due to the strain the eyes put on the body and mind of the person.

It is said— no— it is known that the eyes constantly drain energy and life from the person from the moment they are born. 

This constant drain not only makes their body weak and unable to train in any form of martial arts, cultivation, magic, or even aura but also slowly degrades the person's mind and sends them into a form of insanity until they end up either getting killed or taking their own life.

It is due to this that the eyes are considered a curse above anything else, even with their abnormal abilities having been shown twice in history.