(2)->REINCARNATION-II
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--Seiya Ryujn POV--
As soon as I opened the door, the scene that greeted me was that of the two seated ladies looking towards me. The look on their faces was more than enough for me to figure out that something was very wrong because while they were not crying, their eyes were filled with pain and sadness. I racked my brain thinking what could be the cause for them to be feeling so sad but even after thinking about it for a moment, I still couldn't figure it out so instead of just standing there staring at them pondering about the issue, I decided to come inside,
"Ah! Two of the most beautiful women in all of Olympus are sitting here! And here I was hoping that someone would welcome me back after saving the world and all. Looks like I hoped for a little too much!", I sighed and said in a sarcastic tone, trying to lighten the mood in the room but it seems that it didn't work, instead it made things worse.
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--3rd Person POV--
Ariadao, who was sitting on her chair, looking at Seiya merrily announcing his arrival and greeting them, couldn't control her emotions anymore and tears slid down her face, and she started sobbing lightly hiding her face with her hands. She usually wouldn't lose control of her emotions even in the most distressing of times, after all, as a Goddess, she has to have the ability to stay calm in any given situation but it seems that even she was not aware of this weak-spot she had in her heart for Seiya until today.
Seiya was dumbfounded when he saw Ariadoa, the woman who always held a small but gentle smile on her face even in the most difficult of trials. Not even when they lost their companions, which had greatly angered him at the time and they almost had a fight over it. And here she was crying in just because he made a small joke!
Not understanding the situation present, he hurried over to her side to hold her into his arms. He could not bear to see her in such a state. After calming her down for over a minute, he looked towards Ishtar hoping to make some sense of this situation who in turn was looking towards them with the same gaze as Ariadoa along with some self-blame except that she was not crying like her. She wouldn't cry or rather she couldn't because she knew that someone here must be there to look after these children and who else would do that but her, after all, she was the 'God-Mother' who looked after thousands of Gods as her children in their good and bad times. She then started to speak,
"Seiya, I must ask you to sit down and calmly listen to what I have to say.", hearing her Seiya could do anything but stay calm, still, he did sit down to listen to what she had to say.
"The day you were transmigrated from your home-world to Olympus, i.e, ten years ago according to Ixphoria's timeline or ten days ago according to your home-world's, there was a world-shaking event in your home-world. That day two hours after you were transmigrated, all the eighteen anti-matter reactors in the world exploded simultaneously resulting in the deaths of 100 million people at once. The dead included your parents as they were in the vicinity of a town near one of the reactors for some conference.", Ishtar stopped here for her words to sink in.
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--Seiya's POV--
At first, her words did not register and I just kept looking at her but slowly as her words started sinking in I felt as if the world started blurring. I did not even realize when my eyes started tearing up. This was not the first time when he lost someone dear to him as he had lost most of his companions on his journey to defeat the Demon General but the pain he felt this time was many times manifold than that. Tears were flowing continuously and I did not know how to stop them. I slowly got up and headed out moving without a clear destination in my mind. I just went wherever my feet dragged me to without any care of my surroundings.
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--3rd Persons POV--
Watching the scene of Seiya standing and walking out with tears in his eyes, Ariadoa again started tearing up and wanted to follow him, but was stopped by Ishtar.
"He needs to come out of this himself by coming to terms with it. We cannot help him with this as this is the only way to make sure that this incident would not leave a permanent emotional scar in his heart. Moreover, he also needs to understand that life and death are part of a cycle if he ever wishes to attain godhood, also, I need your help with something. If we are successful, we may be able to give him new hope.", when Ariadoa heard this, she immediately stood up, wiped the tears off her face, and bowed in front of Ishtar,
"Whatever it is, Ishtar-sama, I am willing to do anything to give Seiya-san this new hope!", seeing her determination, Ishtar smiled and assigned Ariadoa her mission.
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--Seiya' POV--
-A week later-
It took a week for me to stop my tears and come to terms with my parent's deaths. Trust me when I say this but coming to terms with the deaths of your loved ones especially your parents is one of the most if not the most daunting emotional challenges that a person faces in their lives especially when they are not natural deaths. People eventually come to accept them, all that differs is the time needed to do so. Being separated from my parents for 10 years would make people think that it would be much easier to cope with it. They couldn't be any more wrong because I missed them every single day in these past 10 years and longed to be back with them. My motivation in defeating the Demon General, at first, came from my desire to return home back to my parents. It was only after I met Ariadoa and came to love her when I got my second one. Now realizing that I will never meet them again, it feels as if half of the effort I did during these years ended up for naught and I thought about committing suicide more than once just so that I may see them again but Ariadoa's face reminded me of my promise of protecting her.
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=Flashback 4 years ago=
--3rd Person POV--
Ariadoa and Seiya have been on the run for two whole weeks now. One of the four demon brigadiers of the demon general set up an ambush for him and his companions while they were traveling through a mountain pass. After escaping with Ariadoa, he has been on the run ever since not knowing whether their companions were alive or not. During these two weeks, they have been attacked multiple times and have been heavily wounded after all these battles.
"Seiya-san, you should just leave me here and escape. I will occupy these demons so that you can get away. The way we are going now, we will eventually be hunted down and killed. At least this way, one of us can leave out of here alive and continue to fight these monsters.", Ariadoa proposed even though she knew that he would not agree, she still had to give it a try, as things were looking bleak and their chances of survival were constantly decreasing.
"Not in seven hells, no! I would never even think about sacrificing your life or anybody else's life for that matter, just so that I can save my own. If I did this then I would be just like these scum who are hunting us around right now and I would rather die than do that.", Seiya vehemently denied such a proposition even before she could continue to pursue him. She knew that he would deny it but still, it brought a slight smile on her face knowing that, even in death, her chosen Hero would continue to stand by his ideals.
"Seiya-san, listen to me! You don't have to worry about me. I am only an avatar and I would not truly die as my real self is still in Olympus. Our priority right now should be getting you out of this ordeal so that you can recover and continue on this journey to complete your mission.", Ariadoa used a much aggressive tone than before. Of course, she wouldn't tell him that, even if she is but an avatar, she would still experience the pain of dying and this would hurt even her real body and it would take many years for her to recover fully. But she did not at all expect Seiya's reply to this,
"Ariadoa-san, I will only say this once! For me, even your avatar's life is much more important than my own and no matter what happens, as long as I have even a single bit of life present in my body, I would never stop protecting you so promise me that you will never mention sacrificing yourself again! If you do, it would be an insult to my warrior's heart and my determination to protect you!", of course, Seiya did not forget to include 'love' in that last part but did not say it out loud, after all, this was was a promise to protect Ariadoa, not a love confession which he would surely give in the future.
But for Ariadoa, it was another matter. She knew that Seiya liked her, as did many others before him and, to be honest, she too felt attracted to him, but she did not expect it to reach a level where he could even sacrifice his life. If it was someone else, they would use this opportunity to add their love confession with the promise, making the other party who would be emotionally shaken, due to the promise, lower their defenses and would inadvertently accept their proposal when, originally, they would have been hesitant or straight out rejected them. But, Ariadoa was a Goddess and was not born just yesterday, and therefore she knew about such tricks. But, Seiya not doing anything of the sort, made her believe that he was indeed sincere about his promise and, as a result, the last barrier, which was keeping her from answering to Seiya's approaches, broke. That was the day when their simple yet sweet love story started.
As if to say that fate herself had blessed this couple, they did not come across any more demons and were able to successfully escape from the mountain ranges. A month later they finally reached their destination, the place that would give them the hope to finally defeat the demon general.....
=Flashback Over=
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--Ariadoa's POV--
A week has passed since then and Seiya has not come back. One of the outer guards informed us that he saw Seiya over at the Saint's cliff where he had been standing doing nothing but staring up at the sky. More than once, I lost control of myself and wanted to run there to be with him when he needed me the most, but, at the last moment, regained my calm and again started going through these documents as this help him more as compared to me being there with him because the sooner I finished this work, the sooner Seiya would recover.
-Three hours later-
'I finally found them! These are what I have been searching for the entire week and I finally found them!'
I immediately left my desk and started running towards Ishtar-sama's office. In my excitement, I even forgot the fact that I could have just opened a portal and entered there directly. Without even knocking on the door, I directly opened it and rushed inside her office. She looked startled, after all, nobody usually opens her door without knocking and getting her permission. Even I did not ever imagine that I would behave this atrociously. It's as if all the mental calm and maturity I gained after all these years quickly went down the drain but right now I couldn't care any less about it.
--3rd Person POV--
Ishtar quickly recovered when she saw that Ariadoa was the one who entered her office and she had an inkling about what she might be here about that caused such a reaction from her. As for barging through the door without her permission, she directly ignored it, not even minding it for a bit.
Ariadoa quickly arrived in front of Ishtar and gave her the two documents in her hands who looked over them. Then she took out a bottle of special ink from her desk and started writing something on the two documents simultaneously using both hands. As soon as she finished her writing, both the documents shone with a golden yellow light after which she lowered the documents and looked over at Ariadoa with a relieved smile and gave her a small nod after which Ariadoa quickly bowing to her left the office and opened a space portal which she did not do in the office because it is restricted there for security purposes.
--Ariadoa's POV--
Receiving the nod, I finally sighed with relief as this nod made sure that Seiya could reunite with his parents. Without wasting any more time, I quickly gave a small bow to Ishtar-sama and left the office. Exiting the office, I quickly created a portal to take me to Seiya's location. This time I calmed down quite a bit after receiving the good news from Ishtar-sama and as such was not running recklessly like before.
Stepping out of the portal, I looked around myself, only to see myself surrounded by smaller peaks all around me. This was a remote part of Saint's cliff where due to its gloomy nature. Turning around I saw Seiya standing at the precipice, but, he was not crying now, instead, he had a serene look on his face and it seemed as if he was reminiscing about something. Throughout the week, many people like Seiya's friends and acquaintances came to meet him and offer their condolences after learning about what happened to his family but he just stood there with tears falling down his face and looking at the sky upwards as if desperately for something.
Without making any noise, I slowly approached him and stood beside him looking at the same thing that he was looking at: the horizon. Both of us just stood there without doing anything. I did not say anything as I still remembered the words Ishtar-sama had told me a week ago. After who knows how long, Seiya finally said,
"Did you know, the last time I talked to my parents, we argued with each other about them going to their conference leaving me alone for my 18th birthday the very next day. They tried to tell me that they had to go there so that they could get some new investors for their business which had been down for quite some time but, for me, an 18-year-old kid, celebrating my birthday was far more important than my parents trying their hardest to earn everything they could so that I could lead a more comfortable life. Honestly, I would have punched and beaten myself breaking down every bone in my body if I would have been there instead of my parents. And as if this was not enough, when they were leaving the house, I screamed that it would have been better if they did not exist at all in my life. Right now, if I could return to the past, I would have shot myself right in the head just for saying these words to my parents.", Hearing these words I think back to the time when Seiya was first summoned to Olympus. He was just as he said, an obnoxious and ungrateful brat who had been chosen because of those underlying qualities that he now possesses. But he cannot be blamed for this as he was still immature at that time, after all, one's age does not equal maturity. Before I could reply to him he again started speaking,
"You don't need to console me Ariadoa-san. During this past week, I relived through all my memories of my parents whether they were good or bad and it reminded me of their love for me and it was this love that made me realize that they would always be with me in my heart. As long as I live, they too will live inside of me and I must live this life in a way that they would be proud of me when I meet them in the afterlife. I just wish that I can be born as their child in one of my future lives so that I may give them the love they deserve that I never was able to give in this one.", I knew the reason for his wish as the chances of them being his parents in his future lives, while not impossible, was highly improbable.
Hearing him talking about the next life, I just couldn't help myself and asked him,
"What if you ascend to godhood and achieve and become immortal ?"
"I will not be able to reach godhood, at least, not in this life because to become one, I should have no mental or physical shackles binding me to the realm of mortals and these shackles would not break as long as don't repay the debt I owe to my parents.", he replied in a serene voice. I just stood there listening to him without saying anything waiting for him to continue as I knew that he still had something to say.
"Ariadoa-san, originally, I was going to go back to my home-world and live with my parents along with you, and finally when they pass away then I would try to reach godhood to then spend my remaining life with you. But as you can see that it is no longer possible, still, if you allow me then I would like to spend my remaining life protecting and caring for you.", he looked at me with a gentle gaze filled with love and gave a small smile. Seeing his loving gaze, I could not hide the truth from him anymore,
"There is a way for you to meet your parents again in your very next life and you can even reincarnate before living your age out.", saying up to her I paused and looked over at him to see his reaction, and just as I expected, he had his mouth agape.
"Wh-Wh-What....?"
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Author Note: BOOOOOOOOOOOM! This chapter ended up being way too longer than I expected. Well, what can I do? Once I start typing, I just go on without stopping and when I do stop, I realize that I wrote much more than I intended to. Even this version had to be skimmed through just to shorten it this much. Anyway, after the next chapter, the chapter length will be similar to that of the first one or even shorter. I mean I can only add so much to the already established canon and not change the plot too much and the only reason I could write this much is that it was wholly up to my imagination, which sometimes makes me wonder whether I should write my own novel.
Anyway, as you may have noticed, I did not add pointers in this chapter for the paragraph-based author notes. Well too many things in just this chapter, if I added points for every one of them, A/N would be longer than the chapter itself. So bear with me for these 2 chapters and if you have any questions, just ask them in the chapter comments section, and I will try my best to answer them whenever I am free.
(1) So this chapter was one whole of an emotional rollercoaster with cringe-worthy and heavy dialogs. If anyone feels that it's unreal (which it is) then I am sorry and as I have already informed you, this is my first literary work ever and I would be grateful if you could provide me with some advice. Also, the reason I wrote so much for the 3 beginning chapters was so that I can establish a backstory for our MC as well as his behavioral patterns so that you can understand the reason and motivation behind his actions. Something which I have seen only in some of the exceptional fanfics.
(2) For those feeling that Ariadoa and the MC do not look like a natural pairing, I am sorry to say this but this is the best I can manage with them as I do not plan on writing whole chapters just for their romantic development, I mean this is a fanfic, remember! At the same time, if you can advise me on how to get develop them even more without too much bs and cringe talk, then please comment.
(3)For those feeling (too many feels), that there is not much action and MC's awesomeness (other than feels) for a fanfic based on a shounen manga, the first 3 chapters are the prologue and is not meant for any action. I will add as many action scenes as possible ( first timer remember!) and please support me while writing those as well (I am willing to rewrite them).
(4) For people thinking (no more feels) that perhaps the fanfic is too boring with nothing really happening, then start from chapter 4 onwards up to chapter 8 and if even then, you think it's shit then you both are just not meant to be(bad PJ intended).
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