Chapter twenty: More of Afërdita's memories revealed, and the big question that we've been waiting for.
It's been a day, and so far… I didn't know what to do. I kept looking online, to see if there was something to do while I was stuck in France, but I couldn't find anything. Plus, to make it worse on me, most of the things were in French and I couldn't understand most of it, which caused me to curse at myself for not learning this language instead of learning German. I sighed at this, and got off the computer once again. It was still morning; Ayanami went somewhere and told me to stay in here. This confused me because I knew that there was nothing to worry about because of the fact that Afrim didn't know that I was here with him, so why did he told me to stay here? I closed my eyes to calm myself down with these thoughts, but I ended up falling into a deep sleep.
"Afërdita…" I tried to open my eyes but I couldn't, which worried me greatly. "Afërdita… Afërdita… Afërdita!" That's when I opened my eyes to see a battle ground, which confused me. "Wh-What the…?" I looked around to see that mom and dad weren't around. I looked at myself to see that my hair was longer, reaching to my stomach, and my clothes were torn up and covered in blood. This made me worry even more as the fear start to rise within me. Then I felt an energy that was tainted and evil entered and was behind me. I turned around in a fast rate to see a demon. I took a couple of steps back as I tried to summon my abilities, but they weren't coming out! "Wh-Who are you?" No response. "What do you want? Why are you in here?" He smirked at this, which confused me. "So, you're the girl that the king wants." I took another step back when he said this. I knew that demon weren't to be trusted and they can easily trick you to do things that you know that it was wrong. "Why don't you be a good little girl and just go to him?" I glared at him when he said this. "Get out of here! You're not welcomed here! I order you to get out of here at once!" That's when he disappeared and the ground started to shake with tremendous force, which caused me to try my best to stay standing up. "You don't know who you're messing with! We've been around your family before you were even born!" I continued to try my best to stay standing, but I soon fell backwards. It soon stopped when I felt my wings sprout out, without me even knowing that this was happening, and I flew up in the air. I start to look around to see that the ground was starting to crack a bit. I was confused by this, but then I realized that it was turning into grassland. Then I start to hear someone crying. I looked around to see that it was me when I was younger. I was covering my face with my legs, and was hugging myself. I was more confused by this. "Hey," no response. That made me to look at my hand to see that I was transparent. "Afërdita!" I looked at my side to see that it was Ayanami in his younger self. This made me notice that he was kind of cute even though he looked serious. He ran up to me and looked around. Was he expecting danger to come? "Afërdita, what's wrong? Why are you crying?" My younger self looked up at him, and wiped her tears. "A-A man said that h-he'll take me was from momma and papa!" I widened my eyes at this. Wh-What the…?! I was in shock at this because I knew that I didn't remember this, so was the demon making me see this? "Don't worry Afërdita!" He tried to look tough, which made me smile a bit. "I'll make sure that no one hurts you!" That's when my younger self stood up, hugged him, and gave him thanks for what he said. "How can this happen when I don't remember seeing this?" I tried to make sense of it, but I couldn't. Then the wind went through with some dust brushing against me, which caused me to cover myself with my wings. Sadly, that led me to fall into the ground. I groaned in pain, stood up, brushed the dust off of me, and looked around to see that I was at my childhood home. "Okay…?" I took a step forward and stopped when I heard some soft crack. I looked down at my feet to see that it was a soft layer of snow. "P-Please! Don't go Ayanami!" This caused my head to go up to see my younger self being held back by Blume. Ayanami was walking to a car as Blume did this. "Blume, let me go! Ayanami!" He continued to walk ahead to a dark car and looked sad. "Ayanami, Ayanami! Remember our promise!" He stopped at this. "P-Please… Can we make another one?" I was confused at this. Why was I seeing this? What was going on, and why was this happening? Ayanami turned and looked at my mom. That's when she gave a slight nod and said, "Blume, it's okay. Let her go." That's when she let me go, I ran straight into Ayanami's chest, and hugged him. He hugged me back with a somewhat tight grip. "Sorry that I broke our promise." I could see that tears were forming within my younger self eyes. "I-It's okay. I-It wasn't your fault." His grip tightened a bit. Then he pulled back and made his hand into a form into a pinkie promise. "What promise do you want to make?" My- No, I thought about it and then I said. "That we'll protect each other and that we'll always be there for one another!" I tried to smile, but tears formed and rolled down my cheeks. His face went to sadness, and wiped my tears. "Okay, come on." I smiled this time and made the promise official.
I sat up straight and looked around as I pant a bit. I-I'm back at the hotel…?! I could feel the sweat on my forehead and my heart beating in a fast pace, which confused me a bit. I held my head for a bit as I tried to make sense of it all. Was it my memories that I've forgotten as well? I sighed at this and went to the restroom to wash my face. Then I laid on the bed as I tried to think of a way to entertain myself, but I couldn't think of anything. "What am I going to do?" I closed my eyes and tried to continue to think, but I ended up getting a headache from thinking about it.
"Afërdita," I opened my eyes and looked at the door to see that it was Ayanami. "Yeah? What is it?" I sat up and tried to pretend that I was asleep, but it didn't work because it didn't faze him. "Let's go out." I blinked a bit so that I made sure that I wasn't hearing things. "Wait, repeat that again." He sighed at this. "Come on, get dressed. We're going out. I'll be waiting in the lobby." That's when he left me while I was in shock. I guess I should be happy that I was able to go out now, but why do I have this feeling that he was doing this for a reason? I pushed it off though, and put on different clothes that seemed to be good to wear for the outdoors because it was autumn in France.
I soon went to the lobby once I finished changing into comfortable clothes, but stopped when I felt demons nearby. Wh-What the…?! I couldn't tell how powerful they were, but I could feel my body shivering a bit. I gripped onto the edge of my sleeve as I tried to calm myself down. Then I slowly poked my head out to see Ayanami was waiting for me by the door, but there were a couple of people nearby the side of the building talking to one another. I took a deep breath, and walked to Ayanami. "U-Um, I'm ready." I could feel a couple of heads turn towards my way when I said this. I guess the French didn't like Americans, but there were only just like two heads turned towards me. Luckily, Ayanami was one of them. "That's good." That's when he wrapped his arm around my shoulders, took me out of the hotel, and walked into the streets.
"There were a couple of demons nearby when I came out of the hotel room…" He stayed quiet for a bit, which worried me a bit. "I know. That's why we left, but we'll go back in a couple of hours. Till then, want to walk around for a bit?" I blushed a bit when he said this and leaned against him. "I don't know… I never have been in another country before besides USA, but I grew up there. So I don't know where to go." He chuckled at this. "How about we go to the Eiffel Tower?" I smiled a bit when I could feel my blush brighten a bit. "Okay, let's go there." That's when he gave me a faint smile, and led me to where the tower was.
We soon got there, and the sight was breathtaking. I walked to the edge of the tower and looked around in awe. "Wow… It's beautiful." I smiled at myself. Ayanami was watching in the far distance, which I didn't mind it because I knew that I'll be safe as long he was around. "Man, no wonder why they say that this place is the city of love." I giggled at this as I knew that I was just made a dumb comment.
"Afërdita," I turned around to see that Ayanami's face expression was different, which made it harder to tell what emotion he was in. "Yeah, what is it? Is something wrong?" I tilt my head a bit when I asked this. I was sure that there were no demons nearby, and felt no demons. So why was his face expression like that? He took a couple of steps forward, stopped in front of me, and pulled out a black box. I was confused at this, and slowly took the box in my hands. "What is this?" I looked at it for a few moments. "Why don't you open it to see?" I looked at him, and then back at the box. I was curious of what was inside of it, so I slowly opened it. I widened my eyes in shock because inside of the box was a ring, but not just any ring. It was an engagement ring.