Chapter 33: Nycta's POV

(Heavy chapter again. Get ready, gang.)

I hate Lily.

I hate Yui.

I hate Yuno.

I hate Lily for the strong connection she has with him. She has always been helping him after his practice.

I hate Yui for the intellect that she can provide him. She has always helped him with his studies.

I hate Yuno for the ability to lighten up the air around him. She has always helped him cheer up.

I hate the three of them because they have many things that I do not possess.

Oh! The irony!

My life has always been a big irony!

The girl who possesses others, can not possess what the others have. What a joke! I am a joke, a laughing stock, the material for standup comedy!

There is pain whenever I think about what I do not have. Never has it been bearable. All the time, the pain has been heart-wrenching, like someone was crushing my heart down to bits countless times. That pain is just what I have to accept for the things I have done. I deserve it.

Still, I am envious. I do have the right to be envious, don't I?

I am envious of their courage to be there for him, to care for him, to be able to say that he can depend on them, that he is not alone.

I am envious, of their vision that can look at him! The way they look at him is different than the way I look at him.

Because mine does not work!

They can do whatever they like when they are around him because they can be true to themselves. Unlike me, who can only use someone else's eyes from far.

For me, just the thought of facing him brings my heart to a stop. There are no words that can escape my mouth. I do not know what to say or what to do.

He has always been in my mind. But I just can not cross that border myself. I can not show the feelings I have for him.

I am afraid of losing Sam. I am afraid of committing to him and losing him all over again.

In my heart of hearts, I know that I am the one who needs to change. Yet changing is just hard.

So. Damn. Hard.

This is me who is a coward.

Looking back, I was not always like this. Born with talents, I created a stir in the community. The Void Magic Affinity I was given could be the highest that anyone has ever seen. Even rivaled that of the Hero.

Void Magic, or Dark Magic, is not necessarily evil. Its usage is just everything not within the normal elements. It can be used for various fields. From manufacturing to researching. It is not a devil's power.

Yet I became the devil because of it.

I was the joy of my family thanks to the talents I had. They were so confident about my future that they gave me the name that meant the night, Nycta. I was often the topic they would say when they had anyone coming over.

She would become the next apostle, they said.

She probably is the apostle, they said.

Until one day, I lost control of my power.

Kids were always told to not use their magic without the supervision of adults for a reason.

It is similar to lifeguards at the swimming pool telling the guests not to run on the edge.

Because they would trip, they would hit their head on the concrete floor.

I tripped.

Provoked by the kids in the park, 3-year-old me did not know what to do but to show them that I really had the power.

They even told me to try hitting them with whatever I had at the time as they conjured up an icy shield in front. The boy who challenged me acted tough.

And so, I did what he asked.

There was no major spell that I knew of. I just gathered all the power in my body and threw it at him. My power came out very disturbing.

It was a hideous flame. The dark color, the miasma that it took shape was like tentacles. Everything about it was hideous and disgusting.

I made a loud yell as I threw it. The disgusting flame moved very slowly, but everything it touched on the ground all withered and died instantly.

The boy who provoked me was pale as paper. He ran away as fast as he could. Yet my flame did not stop. It was moving towards him whether he liked it or not. It would never stop until the power has all been used.

I heard my parents calling for me. The sight of them rushing towards me scared me to tears. Their eyes were full of worries and they were shining in yellow light. To me, they looked like heroes.

"Stop! Please stop!" I remember my voice trembling in tears, begging the flame to stop. Not knowing what to do, I ran straight at the dark flame, trying to put it out like a normal fire.

My parents pushed the boy out of the way but did not expect me to come so close to it. My magic did not care who friends and foes were, it just wanted to destroy until it died.

A black tentacle got into my eyes.

That was it.

Lights out.

I screamed in extreme pain upon the touch of the black tentacles. It was so severe that I fainted immediately.

After that, probably a few hours, probably a few days, I woke up.

"Where is this? Where are my parents? Papa! Mama!" I yelled. There were bandages on my head covering my eyes.

"Don't worry! Shhh! You're fine. You are safe now. You are at the hospital. Your parents are fine too! They are going overseas for the moment, Nycta. Don't worry, okay?" I remember a calm voice reluctantly answered.

"Who...who are you? When are they going to be back with me?"

"I'm the nurse, missy! I'm afraid they are going to be there for a while..."

I started to remember what happened, and started to cry.

"*Sniff* It is because of me, isn't it? *Sniff* Because *hic* Nycta did not listen to Papa and Mama."

I could not hold it in.

"No! No! Sweet dear. It was not your fault. It was just an accident! Anyone could have been in that situation." She hugged me.

After that, I just started crying out loud. Holding her figure in the darkness, I was scared, I was lonely.

I knew what regret felt like on that day.

My grandparents then took me in to take care of me. As I was too small to understand anything, everyone lied.

Like one day I would get my vision back, one day my family would come back. I kept on believing in it. Hoping that one day, I would see the clear blue sky again, I would see my parents smiling at me again.

Back in those days, I got to know a fellow patient named Sam.

I needed to get frequent eye checks at the hospital, and Sam needed someone to take care of his wounds. To improve my mental status, the hospital put me and Sam in the same waiting room with the same visit schedules. They hoped that Sam could be my friend while I waited.

He was an energetic guy, always causing harm to himself. From a young age, he was already aiming to be a strong person. When I asked him what a strong person was, he would always say: "A strong person can defeat anyone in this world."

He asked me what kind of affinity I had, to which I replied with Void.

The boy looked sad. He told me he did not have a strong affinity to any elements. But immediately, his eyes changed.

"That's why I'm going to become a strong magic user on my own. I'm going to prove that even with low affinity, I can still do it! I will never give up my purpose, just like you Nycta! Never lose hope, okay?"

I believed in him. I truly did. While I was unable to look at him, somehow I felt he was emitting light. In my everlasting darkness, there was a sliver of sun.

Sam was my sun.

Time, after time, after time. After the incident, everyone stayed away from me. I became an outcast. For three consecutive years, Sam was my only friend, my dearest friend.

I was 6 at that time.

Sam was always coming to the hospital with a tattered body. He told me he was practicing magic.

I just loved listening to him. I wanted to hear more about what he was doing all the time, how he figured out a certain spell, or how he was able to use candle fire, everything he said to me was just fascinating. Without my eyes, I could still 'see' his vision through his words alone.

It was a beautiful world, and Sam was showing me all of its beauty without care. We shared our feelings like lifelong companions.

"Although I'm not getting what people are saying, I'm still working on it."

He was aiming for his goal. He never lost hope. I too did not lose hope.

Suddenly, my world shattered.

"And you know what, Nycta. My friend told me to marry her in the future! Isn't that cool?"

No, Sam. That was not cool. That was not cool at all!

"Whoa!! Really! You must be a lucky guy!"

"Hehe! Thanks, Nycta!"

I could hear his voice being a little off because of his shyness.

As for me, I did not understand the weird feeling I had inside of me back then.

But now, I do. I was jealous.

From then on, everything he told me became her.

Marie.

I hated it. Every single second of Sam talking about another person was like hell to me.

But I could not bring myself to tell him about it. I just could not break it to him that I valued him more than she did. My cowardly self could not be true to him.

And one day, it happened. The truth about my eyes and my parents was revealed accidentally to me.

When my eyes were lost, I started to focus more on my other senses. The hearing became the way for me to navigate the surroundings. If I focused, I could listen to people talking in another room if the door was not closed.

I took great pride in it and then experienced regret for the second time in my life.

"When are we going to tell her the truth?" The doctor told my grandparents.

"She...she's just too young."

"She deserves to know! We can not keep this away from the patient. It is unethical!"

"Please...doctor...she is but a child!"

"She needs to know her vision is permanently damaged and her parents are gone forever. The longer we delay this the..."

I could not hear anything else after that.

Run. Run. Run. Just run. If you hit something, just ignore it. Just run again.

It has been a lie.

It has been a lie all this time.

Every one of you lied to me. The nurses, the doctor. You, Sam. Why? Why did this happen to me? What did I do to deserve such pain and grief?

It was because of me. All because of me.

I ran through the door of the hospital into the yard. As I kept wailing, I stumbled and fell. The knees were scraped badly yet I did not feel the physical pain anymore.

My arms frantically touched the cold thing in front. It was something everyone knew. It was the altar of the Goddess.

Please, Goddess, take this wretched curse away from me. Bring back my parents, I beg of you!

Take away the talents you gave me, take away the pain.

Please.

Please...I can't take it...any longer...

I bowed to the statue, many many times. The skin on my head was broken open as I kept hitting it on the ground.

"Nycta!! Are you okay?" Sam called me. He saw me crying alone in the garden where there was a statue of the Goddess and ran up to me.

"STAY AWAY FROM ME YOU LIAR!!" I pushed him away.

"What's wrong? I've been looking for you. Everyone is worried sick! Let's go inside, you're bleeding so much!!" He did not get what was going on.

"JUST STAY AWAY FROM ME! *Hic* I WANT NOTHING FROM YOU PEOPLE *Hic*!"

"What did I do?"

"You lied to me! *Sniff* You said that there was hope! You said that there was a chance for me to see my parents again! *Hic* WHAHWOULDYOUDODAH?!"

My voice was broken completely, no longer intelligible.

"I'm sorry, Nycta...I didn't know...I'm sorry..."

"Sorry?! *Sniff* CANSORRYBRINGBACKMYPARENTS? CANSORRYBRINGBACKMYPAPAANDMAMA!? *Hic* YOU JERK!! STAYAWAYFROMME! STAYAWAYFROMMEPLEASE!"

"She's over here!" Someone said.

I remembered nothing from that point. I just remember crying myself to sleep, then getting up then crying myself to sleep again.

I did not eat. I did not drink. I did not want to see anyone, even Sam.

Any time he came to see me, I chased him away. Sometimes, I would say harsh words or even try to throw objects at him.

I was mentally dead.

There was something inside of me that changed.

From that point onward, I swore to myself to not let anyone lie to me, to not let them control me ever again.

With nothing left to lose, I started practicing magic in secret.

I wanted to know if I could see again if I forced magic into the eyes. So I did some experiments. Of course, it did not work out.

Then I thought about another thing. If I could not see with my own two eyes, what if I borrowed someone else's vision?

There is a reason why Hero can not use my magic even though he has a total affinity. He can not visualize the spell that I use. The requirement for Mind Control to work is that you can not see anything as it would be conflicting with the target's vision.

You need to be seeing absolutely nothing. Not even light and dark.

Coincidentally, I was blind. There was no light or dark for me. Thanks to that, my experiments worked out in the end. Some of the people that I tested on got some extreme headaches as consequence. That was a small price to pay for progress.

A few months later, I started to 'see'.

The first thing I wanted to do, was to look at Sam.

I wanted to say sorry to him.

It was not his fault, yet I took all of my anger on him. He was my only friend and I chased him away like that. Sam must have been hurt because of me.

It was always me.

I wanted to let him know that I regret doing that to him, and I wanted us to be friends again.

I wanted him to tell me about his days, how the sun was above the sky, how the moon shined with twinkling stars, ... all of that once more.

He was the only light that could light up my paths.

So I started following Sam to his school.

Going back to school was not hard for me, since I could just borrow the vision of someone in class. As long as I used their vision only, I would be fine and no one would suspect a thing.

Sam, being the king of the simp, never really noticed me coming to his school.

As for me, I did not have the guts to tell him the truth.

All that I could do, was to follow him.

He was always the same, always struggling. He fought back fate, while I just got consumed by it. Not once did he cry that life was unfair, not even when his bones got through his skin, or when his entrails dropped out a little.

His fists, still aiming forward.

His head kept up high.

He was still Sam. He was still my sun.

Slowly, my feelings changed.

I killed people. Not many, but I did. In the name of love. If I can not have him, then they can't. Only those too close to him that I can not kill. Lily, Yui, and Yuno were those people. They were similar to me. They also killed in the name of love. That was good. That was how I knew they were worthy of him.

I never wanted to keep him for myself. I did, but he deserved much better than me. He could have anyone he liked. Just letting me be on his side was enough.

I have sinned, Sam.

The blood from my enemies tainted me.

It became what it is today.

Twisted, distorted love.

Just.

For.

Him.