A Time Left Behind

~Weep not for roads untraveled

Weep not for sights unseen~

It was windy as always on the mound. The sun unusually shone on Valhalla. A strange sadness permeated everything, the kind of sadness you get when rain water dries up.

I was certain now, more so than ever, that it was all over. Now there was nothing I could look back on. Because in this current world, I had learned something which I never knew before. I had moved past the point of returning. As I was, even if I redid everything, I wouldn't be able to trace back to the original reality. I had been rewriting this world for far too long.

"Power of negation", Lady had said later on, when it was just Chopper, her and me, "We began to think it was that when you negated Deli's knowledge of her children dying."

"How'd you know it was that?", I asked, without a ripple in my expression.

"We checked her mind. Her magical wavelengths weren't showing anything strange. So why would she not have heard her old man when all of us did? It just didn't make any sense. And there was only one variable in that situation", Chopper explained.

"My power..."

I didn't feel the need to tell them the true nature of my power. In the end, I was just going to replace them someday. What did it even matter?

"In any case, Lady, why did you lie to me?", Chopper said, with an annoyed look.

"Whatever might you be talking about?", Lady shrugged, smirking.

"Don't get smart with me. I asked you if you were Iris Bergmeier."

Lady laughed, "I didn't imagine that you'd figure it out so quickly after we'd met. But you said you hated Iris Bergmeier so I had no choice."

"And you said you would never lie to me, didn't you woman?", Chopper squinted his eyes just a bit.

Lady chuckled, "I said that after I was done lying. So I haven't gone back on my word yet."

"Tch", Chopper pulled out a cigarette and pressed it between his lips.

Back when we were all still in the main hall of Valhalla, Lady had admitted.

"Iris Bergmeier was the last person I killed in the war. She was just some woman from a lowly village, who had run away from her abusive husband. She was young and easy on the eyes. So she managed to sleep with some officers but later started blackmailing them. She said she'd reveal the truth to their families. Ruined reputation is a vile curse in the state of war. So I was told to kill her. I shot her in the head, in a room full of officers."

"That day, I stole her life and her name. I heard she had a child. By the time I found her home, it had died of pneumonia. And her husband was a changed man, with a new family on the way. That Iris Bergmeier was just a nobody with a name. That was all there was to her. A name. That was all we could salvage off her. And so we did."

No one commented a word on her explanation. And I'm sure she wasn't expecting anything.

As for me, when they told me about my father and about Annaisha, I cried. Before I knew it, I had let all the walls come down and I had broken down in the doorway of Valhalla. And I remembered what I'd done. But the realization that I couldn't undo it, nor could I create a reality for my sister, was heavier.

And at the same time, I feared that without knowing it myself, I may have destroyed many realities. I may have erased so many existences. Perhaps the wailings of my mother were right. Those cries that had filled my room that day while the whole village searched for an Annaisha, but I had been too foolish to know what they were about. She had begged my father to kill me. That would have been the nobler course of action, but it wasn't the path my father took.

He let me have a chance I didn't deserve. He was dead now. I was almost certain about that, even without having heard anything. And his death meant my home was gone. I had contemplated leaving Valhalla after Prophet died but now I had nothing but this place.

And all the while I cried, thinking of my father, of Annaisha, of Lady, of the world now lost, I was filled with a guilt. I understood my sin now. I understood what I had to atone for. I now knew why I was here in Valhalla in the first place.

That was this morning. And now as I basked in the sun, and the cool breeze that ceaselessly blew through my hair, I had the feeling that tomorrow wouldn't be the same as today. Whatever today was, ended today.

At this point, what more could I do but close my eyes to every reality I had overturned. I needed to seize the one that was sprawled right in front of me this very moment. And someday, I knew, I'd have to revisit all the pages that I had closed without reading to the end.

I headed inside where everyone was seated for food. With my eyes still a bit puffy and red, I stood in the doorway, poker faced. I couldn't see myself being a part of any world, even if I didn't want it. I was just there on the edge of their world, waiting for the right time to blot it out.

But...but still...a hope reared its head when I looked at them. If Valhalla existed...as long as Valhalla existed, I could keep on going. In another world, in every world, I could still keep on going.

"Seraph!", Lady called for me, pushing Chopper out of the way who was sitting right beside her to make a place for me.

Chopper struggled back, as she grinned. I heard myself chuckling just a bit, as I caved in and joined everyone.

~May your love never end and if you need a friend,

There's a seat here alongside me~ *