Hello there!
I'm not dead, nor have I abandoned this story! Truthfully, I've been having extreme burnout and the motivation to write just wasn't there for some time. Even now, I'm still struggling with it quite a bit.
However, I've got a good amount of content here for you! While this chapter is significantly shorter than ones I've posted as of late, it's only because it's been split up!
Essentially, this is how it'll go. I have a total of 4 chapters for you. Two are done and the other two are in progress. I'll be trying to release them consecutively every week.
I'm pretty excited to get through this arc with you all. Special thanks to Sam (qwerty19) for helping with everything! This would've likely not been done on time if it weren't for you!
I look forward to hearing your thoughts on this and the coming chapters!
Chapter 11: Pandora — Just Pandora
~A Millennia Ago~
"Woah," Subaru uttered, his tone low and quiet as he slowly digested all of the information that he had just received.
The girl at his side didn't move her head, keeping it angled down toward what could be considered the floor, the darkness around it doing nothing to decorate her eyes. However, she used her eyes to look at him in a side-glance. "Are you not going to say anything?" she asked, tempting him to do just that.
Subaru laughed, but it was hardly humorous. "I don't think I can, really," he said, his head turning to the side, looking at her with a sympathetic expression. "You've been through a lot."
"Mhm," she hummed, nodding her head just a little bit.
In all honesty, Pandora had no idea as to what Subaru would think of her now. After revealing her entire life's story, along with many of the atrocities that she'd committed over the course of her four-hundred-year-old life, she greatly believed that he'd go back to detesting her.
"I can't say, 'I'm sorry you went through all of that stuff'," he said, much to her expectations. She'd also expected him to follow up that statement with an insult, but, instead, he said something else. "That kind of response would be really cliché and unmeaningful. It wouldn't be right for your situation."
As Subaru humorlessly chuckled at his words, Pandora moved her head to better look at him. Her lips slightly parted in a show of shock but soon closed when he refocused on her.
"Honestly, I don't blame you for some of that stuff. If I was in your situation, I'm sure I might've lost it, too," he admitted, looking down at his free hand. In the moment of silence, he clenched and unclenched it as if contemplating the possibilities in his head.
"You do not… think it is bad?" Pandora asked him, the hesitancy clearly shown in her voice as she looked at him nervously.
"Oh, no, it's all pretty bad," he responded, his eyes trailing back to her. "A lot of the stuff you did was messed up in ways I'd rather not say. That, I can't deny."
Pandora's expression quickly became downcast. She knew it. He would denounce her next, leaving her to suffer alone once more.
"But," he suddenly said, making her perk up, "like I said, I understand. I get why you became that way." He paused, taking a breath of whatever 'air' was in the void with them, "Plus, I know that wasn't really you."
Confusion overcame her in that moment, unsure as to what he was talking about. Tilting her head, she asked, "What do you mean?"
A small smile appeared on his face. "Well, just look at yourself. Does this," he used his free hand to gesture to her, "really resemble how you were back then, or even when we first met?"
Pandora didn't answer right away. Her eyes lagged, shifting themselves around to various random areas as various thoughts crept into her mind. Eventually, she found the answer that she was looking for.
He was right.
She considered herself foolish. How could she not have realized it sooner?
No, that wasn't right, was it? She did realize it — she did know — but she never wanted to face it. When she fell and decided to walk the path of the Witch, she never wanted to believe that there was a way out for her. She never wanted to believe that there was, or could be, a difference.
"But I am still a horrible person," Pandora quickly attempted to counter. While her words were directed at Subaru, challenging his conclusion, they were also directed at herself. A part of her still tried to deny it, despite seeing the truth which laid before her. She continued, "Does that not dissuade you?
To her surprise, Subaru let out a light chuckle, "Nobody is ever born bad." His face shifted something akin to neutrality yet resonated a small, yet sad, smile, "Usually, it's one event or another in someone's life that puts them on that type of path."
Pandora thought that, perhaps, Subaru was comparing her situation to others who had fallen to such paths in his world. When he had told her of his world's history, she could not help but liken the more catastrophic events to her own conquest, which did not help her gain a positive view of herself.
But still, he'd told her many stories over the course of their time together. Notably, he'd described tales of heroes and villains from his world's fiction. Pandora liked those stories and, whenever possible, would request that he tell her more.
Many of them stuck with her.
In particular, she found a special connection with tales in which the hero became the villain. A force of the light becoming a servant of the dark. She could not help herself but to compare those scenarios to her own.
When one such hero turned into a villain, it was typically because an event, or multiple, triggered it to occur. Betrayal, abandonment, neglect, tragedy, torture, the need to save someone whom they loved; they were all reasons as to why they may become, for lack of a better term, "bad".
Interestingly, there were cases where those villains would become good again. That was what truly boggled her mind. If you became evil — if you committed such horrendous deeds — didn't that lock you into that path forever? Wasn't there little hope of redemption?
Or was that wrong?
Did those types of scenarios even apply to her?
"You're thinking about those stories I told you about, aren't you?" Subaru asked, or, more accurately, confidently stated, with a small smile.
Pandora's face has involuntarily gone red, a bit embarrassed at the fact that he'd read her thoughts so easily. "How were you aware?"
"I've just become more of an expert at understanding you, I suppose," he revealed with some pride. Pandora actually pouted a bit, which made him laugh. "Well, I also saw that look on your face. You had the same expression when I first told you some of them."
"Ah." Well, that explained it. She shook her head, averting her gaze to the side. "And what of it? It is not as though they matter."
"Really? I believe that they do, and I'm sure you believe so, too."
Pandora scoffed at that, but she still kept her face pointed away. It wasn't because it was untrue, but because he'd, once again, perfectly read her like an open book. It was a new feeling for her, in all aspects. She wasn't used to people… understanding her.
"How?" she mumbled, her voice just barely loud enough for Subaru to hear it.
"Let's think about it," Subaru proposed, looking at her despite her eyes not looking back at him. "You lived in isolation during your childhood because of your Authority, not that it really helped with what it caused. You never had a solid grasp on your emotions or feelings. Things were out of your control. Then, well, tragedy struck. All of those things got rolled into one."
"And what meaning do those details have?" Pandora finally directed her eyes toward him, urging him to answer the question.
Subaru didn't answer. Rather, he kept his thoughts to himself for a moment, deciding to wait before speaking again. Pandora didn't know why.
In all honesty, his argument was beginning to frustrate her. However, her actual frustration wasn't really at him, nor was it at the words that he was saying. In truth, she was frustrated at herself for being unable to understand the message that he was trying to convey.
She continued to ask questions, trying to prompt him into responding, "Can you not answer that? Those details change absolutely nothing about me. I slaughtered the entire village without care."
He nodded, acknowledging those deeds as she said them. Finally, he verbally responded, "You did. I'm not denying that."
"Then what difference does it truly make?" Pandora fired back.
"You broke," Subaru immediately responded, his voice low and foreboding. "What little things you held onto were taken away. Then, to make things worse, the things you experienced after completely shattered your mind."
The door to a rather simple home was forcefully kicked down, with men of various stature securing the premises. Some wore expressions of fear and nervousness, while others looked angry and filled with fury. A few of the men carried their own makeshift weaponry, all of which were pointed directly at what appeared to be an ordinary, teenage girl. However, the men were not to be fooled, quickly surrounding the girl and holding their weapons out in precaution.
The girl sat on her knees, her face blankly staring ahead at two motionless bodies: a man and a woman, holding one another in an embrace, dead and cold.
They were her parents. The girl knew this. How could she not? She was the one that killed them, after all.
They'd sheltered her, cared for her, despite the hardships that she had brought since her birth. They'd kept her safe against the many people after her head. They'd helped her try to learn, to live a somewhat normal life, yet this was where their efforts brought them?
They saw Pandora as their daughter, yet she killed them.
Pandora didn't understand anything. She constantly questioned everything, trying to understand what happened and why. But nothing that ever came to mind stuck.
The only thing she could understand was that it was her fault.
She killed them. It was all her fault.
The fact that she shed no tears upon seeing their bodies, or even upon remembering their kindhearted goodness to her, only further proved her vileness to the men around her.
One man struck her in the head with the blunt end of the tool he carried, causing her to reel back and hit the floor. She didn't resist.
They wasted no time in whaling on her in almost every fashion they could. They kicked her, punched her, elbowed her and repeatedly struck her with their weapons. The men which possessed sharp weapons sliced her body in multiple different areas of her body, causing shallow and deep lacerations alike.
Though her mind was already dazed, the overwhelming pain of their inflictions drove it to become blank. She could hardly think or register anything anymore. Only two sensations remained.
The intense feeling of cold, only ever interrupted but the warmness of her own blood, was prominent. The immense want — desire — to die in that moment would stick with her forever.
They wanted to torture her. They wanted her to feel their anger and pain over her very existence.
At this point, she started to believe that she deserved it.
She didn't want this. She didn't want any of these things to happen, but the curse she was born with would always make it so.
She didn't notice when they stopped beating her.
They had someone with an affinity for water magic present, so they healed her. Not fully, of course, but just enough to where she was able to gather a sense of mind again.
Her brain could barely focus as they yanked her up and forced her on her feet. She was made to walk out of her home, outside into the evening air. The wind was fierce, almost making a mark against her through the strips of shredded cloth she now wore. The still wind stung, but she kept moving.
As she walked, her eyes wandered. The small village in which she lived was ever so lively, an audience having gathered to witness the next transpiring event. The girl even noticed a few kids cowering behind their guardians for protection, looking at her as if she were the devil.
She couldn't feel her legs, yet she mindlessly walked until they reached the village center. A hastily built stake had been erected in the roundabout, the men forcing her up to the podium and quickly tying her in place.
There the girl stood, bruised, battered and vulnerable as many surrounded her. The breeze constantly brushed against her body, yet she never shivered or grit her teeth. Instead, she just stood there, her head merely flicking up to those around her before lowering back down.
The village elder stepped forward, his face laced with a strange eagerness to proceed. "At long last, we rid ourselves of the devil!"
The audience yelled in agreement, shouting slurs and insults without fear of repercussion.
"No more will we be made to endure the hardships caused by her curse!"
They cheered.
"No more will we suffer from the curse of this Witch!"
They excitedly cheered.
"No more will we starve! No more will we injure or perish at the hands of the unnatural! With the death of the accursed devil, our lives will prosper once more!"
They vigorously cheered.
A young man with a lit torch approached, handing it to the elder before stepping back down into the audience. As the elder turned around, making his way toward Pandora , she couldn't help but reflect on her life.
She had been an unnatural baby, seemingly unable to cry even at birth. After her birth, her curse became vastly prominent. The village became drowned in misfortune, numerous disasters striking and causing the residents to suffer in various ways.
Storms would tear houses off of their foundation, collapse trees and destroy everything. Mabeasts would stray off of their unusual hunting trails and forests to attack their village. Trade routes would mysteriously become blocked or lost, leading to a loss of food and supplies. Many people sustained injuries, suffered and died.
As she was the only baby born there in years, all while possessing a foreboding aura, the blame for such events was obvious.
Despite everything, her parents had cared for and protected her. Her curse had killed them. She had killed them.
As the elder tossed the torch and the fire burned, it spread and set her body ablaze. The coldness of the breeze completely vanished, replaced by a suffocating heat that consumed her whole.
She screamed, her head reeling back as the flames caressed her skin. It hurt. It hurt so much. She wanted to die.
But then, suddenly, it didn't hurt anymore. The pain vanished. The heat vanished, replaced by the chilling cold that she had felt earlier. It seemed as though she would get her wish.
The girl took her last breaths, her mouth agape while her eyes endlessly stared into the smoke-filled sky.
She died.
Then, she was back.
It was jarring. She held no understanding of the feelings that she had just experienced. Everything she felt then was just suddenly replaced by nothing. Her mind was filled with an intense sense of clarity.
The girl's mind had fallen apart. The feeling of death had tainted her.
She stood not too far from the cheering circle of villagers. They hadn't noticed her, but she noticed them. When her eyes landed on the elder, his words ran through her head once more.
Devil. Witch. Those were the names he, and many others, called her by, were they not?
With her mind as haywire as it was, the clarity turned into an unbridled and unrestrained focus. The girl who held care and regret was gone. Instead, she embraced those names.
If she was truly a devil, a Witch, then she would play the part.
A joyless smile grew upon her face, her feet taking small steps forward until she reached the closest man. Her arm thrust itself forward, interrupting the man's cheers in favor of choked and bloodied gurgles.
The action gathered the attention of the people next to him, inciting a chain reaction which alerted the whole crowd. The girl's arm penetrated through the man's chest, his heart held in her hand which stuck out his other side. With one squeeze, it exploded in a burst of blood which splattered on him and those nearby.
Screaming and panic ensued. As the girl retracted her arm, letting the body fall lifelessly to the ground, others attempted to flee. Despite this, the girl hardly cared. Her empty, joyless smile persisted nonetheless.
The slaughter began. The girl went, one by one, to each and every villager, mercilessly ending each of their lives. Men, women and children… none were spared.
Pandora grabbed their heads, digging a hand into their back and ripping out their spines. She remembered disemboweling a woman before strangling her husband with the intestines she'd just ripped out. She remembered tearing the limbs off of a child before ending with his head.
Anyone that tried to escape into the surrounding forest would end up coming back, always seeming to enter a maze with no exit except the entrance. They were always met with a brutal death upon their re-emergence.
Anyone who attempted to hide was snuffed out. People betrayed one another, giving away hiding positions or throwing other people into the Witch's path so that they may be spared. It changed nothing.
Anyone who attempted to fight back did not stand a chance. It was not that they failed to strike her — no, each time they did, she always came back. Any injury she received was nothing to her. If they managed to kill her, she would only reappear a second later and kill them with their own weapon.
When night finally struck, the village was painted red. The only light which remained illuminating the village was the moon and the fire which caused her first death. In the darkness, bodies littered the soil and watered the grass with their blood.
After so much carnage, her body remained clean and untainted by the impurities which stained the world. Not even the grains of dirt stuck to the soles of her feet.
The girl's expression never shifted. When all was done, she found and tore a simple cloth from its stand and used it to cover her form.
The breeze attacked her, though ineffective, as her legs moved on their own. Her body moved toward the treeline, crossing over and into the woods within.
The Witch of Vainglory was born in blood, now set loose upon the world, with many more atrocities to follow.
Pandora let out a wavering breath, shaking her head as if to rid herself of the memories. "I still do not see the point of this," she begrudgingly commented. "I mercilessly slaughtered those people. Everyone. Even the children. I felt nothing when I ripped them apart, piece by piece. I felt nothing upon their deaths. Nothing."
She intentionally spoke those chilling words, trying her best to waver his resolve. Subaru stayed quiet, however, with Pandora unsure as to what he was thinking.
She had not shied away from any details when telling him her story. She was honest, almost brutally so, specifically describing everything that she'd done that night to him in ways that would stick with him forever.
"Is it not despicable?" Pandora mockingly inquired. "I am a detestable being. I am unworthy of my very existence — a villain unworthy of redemption, contrary to what those stories often describe."
Subaru was still silent for a good while. It wasn't as though Pandora actually expected him to respond at all, or at the very least, if he did, she would've thought that he'd agree with her statements.
However, he did the opposite, breaking the silence by simply saying, "I disagree."
"How?" Pandora quickly asked in return, her tone snarky in a way that showed her blatant disagreement.
"What you did was wrong, there's no doubt about that," Subaru admitted, casting a single side-glance to her before he decided to continue. "But you were never actually bad. You just had some… rather unfortunate circumstances."
Pandora resisted the urge to scoff at that. "Unfortunate" was putting things lightly.
"I mercilessly slaughtered an entire village of people," she reiterated the point once more, as if to remind him.
Subaru stayed silent, choosing to reflect on her previous words with the ones she'd just spoken. Though, by Pandora's expression, he could easily tell that she was not done yet. Of course, there were a lot of things he wanted to say, but he thought it would be best to keep quiet and hear what else she had to say.
"What they have done to me does not make it excusable," she retorted quickly. "And what of the children? They were innocent, were they not? I still made sure to eliminate them just as brutally as the rest."
Subaru sighed. He gathered his words, genuinely asking her, "Do you really believe that was you? Do you really think that you are the one that did all of that?"
"Yes."
"I don't."
Pandora was appalled at that response, "And why would that be?"
"'I felt nothing'," he quoted. "That's what you told me. When you killed them, you didn't feel a thing. But, now?" He almost laughed at the obviousness of his point, "You're regretful. You say your actions are inexcusable, and you feel guilty. That's a hell of a lot different than feeling nothing, in my book."
His words took a moment to register with her. However, when they finally did, she froze. Her mind went blank as those words bounced aimlessly within her head, as if unable to comprehend them.
"You're speaking to me about it with regret; with remorse," he further specified. "What you described to me earlier reminded me of an emotionless machine. Something that kills for nothing more than a mission, incapable of feeling any kind of emotion. Yet, here you are… sad, guilty, and, most of all, remorseful."
Pandora could only blink, her mind taking in all of those words. She held them close, deeply clinging to them out of fear that they'd go out of reach. Her lips couldn't help but tremble, "I… do not understand…"
As she trailed off, Subaru fixed her with another small, gentle smile, "The you that I'm talking to right now is not the same person from back then. You're different." He paused for a moment, gathering some of his thoughts, "You deny the potential to change and blame yourself because you really believe that it's what you deserve. I know how you feel. I've been down that road a lot, too."
Pandora couldn't help but shake her head. Something in her mind, while desperate to believe, remained in denial, "But that was still me. I still committed those sins. Me. It is still always me."
Subaru's eyes looked upon her with a soft, sympathetic gaze, "I'll say it outright. Your Authority was likely the primary reason you fell down that path. It affected your mind and emotions to such an extent your whole life and when everything happened to you it just… took control. I mean, even when you were a kid, it was so powerful that you unknowingly affected the environment and events around you."
She knew that he was right. Her Witch Factor was bestowed upon her at birth, which led to her life being anything but normal. Her mind and emotions were always abnormal.
As far as she was concerned, she was, and always will be, a sociopathic freak.
She shook her head again, as if to get rid of those thoughts. She was still reluctant to accept that Subaru was right.
She acknowledged the fact that he knew more about these types of things than most. It was mainly due to his own knowledge and experience with such situations, which always showed when he gave advice to her.
Still, even with that in mind, Pandora hadn't expected him to be so… thoughtful.
"That was only the beginning," she spoke in a low tone. "I have committed many more atrocities over the course of my long life."
"As you've told me," Subaru said, suddenly fixing her with a stern look. She quickly noticed the change in expression, words following soon after, "Look, Pandora, it only takes one bad day for someone to go down the wrong path; to make a wrong choice. Things like that happen to even the best of us. But what really matters is what we think and do after all of that."
She tilted her head, slightly confused. "I am afraid that I still do not understand…"
Subaru sighed, "Take Meili, for example. She was an assassin. She hurt, tortured and killed people. But, in the end, she was remorseful. She made an effort and changed her ways, even becoming something like an adopted daughter to me."
Pandora, still a bit lost, questioned, "Then, what would that example entail for me?"
"I believe that you can change."
"…"
"Well, to be more specific, I think you already have changed. You just need to realize that and make an effort to stick with it," he told her without any hint of hesitation present in his voice. "If you let the dark side of you win — if you don't try to fight it and make an effort to change — you'll never climb out of the darkness and into the light."
When he smiled at her with a sense of encouragement, Pandora could only stare. Something stirred within her, both from his words and the smile itself. She had no idea as to what those feelings were, but they were unusually enticing.
Natsuki Subaru. He was able to make her feel things that she never felt before.
She snapped herself out of those strangely alluring thoughts, reminding herself that he was right. He was always right, it seemed. But… that wasn't really bad, was it?
Did she even deserve to change? Despite being capable of doing so, did her sins outweigh the path to redemption? Pandora believed so. Of course, the village massacre was still only the start.
She recalled manipulating the fates of each Witch of Sin. It was her who had entrapped the Witch of Gluttony within an endless loop of the desert, leading her to starve and perish. It was her that planted the idea of the Priestella water trap into the citizen's minds, which later had been used to ensnare the Witch of Pride.
It was her that led to the death of every Witch of Sin, all so that she could gather their Witch Factors.
She had a part to play in the Great Calamity. She had manipulated Satella, the lover of the former Great Sage, into taking the Envy Witch Factor and destroying half of the world.
She'd hijacked the former Witch Cult, reforming it into a violent organization of death. Pandora had granted them the freedom to run amok, uncaring for what they did on their own as long as they followed the gospel's command.
She'd even given her Archbishops the Witch Factors that she'd previously stolen, or coerced them into absorbing it themselves.
There was also the confrontation in Elior Forest, where Pandora had mentally tormented the half-elf girl which Subaru himself held so dear. She had taken away the girl's parental figures, turning them both into insane and ruthless killers. In a way, she believed that some sick and twisted part of herself enjoyed that day.
She was even involved with the death of the former Sword Saint. Pandora remembered her part in that battle, revoking Theresia van Astrea of her Divine Protections and bestowing them upon her grandson before brutally eliminating her. After that, she brought her corpse back to the world of the living so that it may serve within her cult.
All of those incidents accumulated to the death of innocents. Some were directly killed by her own hands, while others were through the effects of her actions.
She'd kept her emotionless smile through it all, unwavering since the start.
It was all for her goal.
The very same goal which made her go to Natsuki Subaru in the first place. She'd gone to him directly in that dungeon, immediately ridding the area of interference and offering her hand in hopes that he'd join her willingly.
He took her hand, only to intentionally seal them both away within a prison of his own making. An eternal, abyssal void with seemingly no end, yet the space they shared was always limited to the box they sat in.
Thus, they were forced to talk. He'd shared his story, so she shared hers.
Natsuki Subaru knew all of those things about her, yet believed that she could change. Or, more accurately, believed that she had already changed. He knew of everything that she'd done in her life, yet he still believed that she could become better.
What an odd individual, she thought.
When Pandora looked at him, she would sometimes be reminded of her old goal. But, at the same time, she wasn't.
"I know you're scared of opening up, too," Subaru considered with an understanding tone. "People have tried to use or manipulate you before. I really do understand if you have trouble trusting what I'm saying."
What he said was not inaccurate.
During her life, especially at the beginning, there were always people who tried to manipulate her. She always knew better, though. Such people that attempted things like that were always executed.
She'd grown tired of being on the receiving end of such treatment, so she became the manipulator herself. She used her curse, or more accurately, her Authority, to her advantage. She's experimented with it, figuring out each of its little tricks and gaining control over all of its core aspects.
Most notably, she would use it to change her appearance to whatever suited her. She'd used this many times over the course of her life, ensuring that nobody who knew of her presence could accurately ascertain her actual looks. It always kept her true nature under the radar of people so keen on looking.
She'd utilized her Authority's natural aspect of attraction to her advantage many times, changing her appearance to a beautiful woman with golden locks. Truly a goddess' form to suit her Authority's natural appeal. It suited well for seducing some individuals, or even coercing them to join the ranks of the cult.
Because, surely, if a goddess chose them for a task, they'd follow, right?
During the attack on Elior forest, she'd merely made herself shorter to seem more approachable to the half-elf Emilia. Surely, if the half-elf believed that she was someone of similar age, she could be more easily convinced to do what she wanted more easily, right?
She'd long since forgotten her original face. The form and body which she had been born with was forever lost in her memory. The earliest form she could remember taking was that of a petite adult woman, sporting abnormal platinum-hair, big ocean blue eyes, and possessing a special radiance that naturally attracted others.
In fact, it was the same form in which she had approached Subaru with and the one she took now. Having been the earliest form she could remember, she considered it her "original". Any other such form were altercations of it, made bigger, smaller, or completely different depending on what circumstances called for which.
But, now, in the midst of her identity crisis, she couldn't help but yearn to know her true original form. It was a strange desperation and necessity that she couldn't explain. In a way, in the form she took now, she didn't feel whole. She did not feel like herself.
… Perhaps what Subaru said held a lot of merit, after all.
Pandora snapped herself out of those thoughts. She'd derailed from her previous mindset. Though, if anything, the thoughts concerning her form and identity made her wonder why he was inciting her potential lack of trust in him instead of it being the other way around.
"I trust you," she said, her tone soft. Pandora was surprised at that; she'd never heard it so light and gentle before.
He gave her a light smile, "I'm glad."
She knew that he was being genuine. She'd learned enough about him to know that he wouldn't lie about something like this nor would he try to manipulate her.
She felt as though she could deeply trust him, despite having originally hated him after their initial sealing together. They were forced to open up to one another, to talk and share their experiences in order to delay the inevitable fall to insanity. He was always honest with her, despite the initial hesitancy.
After a while, she began to feel strange in regards to him. She didn't understand it at all. Something about him was just so… appealing and likable.
Her emotions erupted in ways that she couldn't possibly understand. When they'd joined hands for the first time, despite being unable to physically feel the contact, Pandora's heart raced seemingly all on its own.
Soon enough, she found herself more and more enthralled by him. She wanted to know more about him, out of complete genuine interest. She found herself both interested and nervous over his thoughts on certain things, caring about his opinions and feelings on each subject at hand.
Pandora never had this happen to her before. She knew that, yet she embraced it.
That was why she was so scared after revealing everything to him. Her feelings, though as unknown as they may be, were strong and largely gravitated toward him in a sense she couldn't fathom.
Though… she was never sure if he felt that way, too.
Pandora had to snap herself out of those thoughts. She was getting distracted, resolving herself to figure out her own feelings later.
For now, she looked at him with uncertainty clear in her gaze, "How are you so certain that my Authority will not thwart any attempt I make?"
With one simple look at her, he responded, "You don't think you can do it."
Pandora continues to look at him, a bit confused. She believed that her question was logical and sound — something to be reasonably concerned about. Subaru, however, chose to look deeper within and found the true meaning behind her question.
"How did you…"
"Your expression," he stated simply, surprising her. "You look sad, scared, worried…" he trailed off, but his lips once again curved into a confident, sure smile, "It's full of emotion."
She stiffened. He was right again, wasn't he?
Even in her own attempts to push his resolve to the edge, she couldn't help but keep proving herself wrong.
"You see it too now, can't you?" Subaru asked, almost pleading. "You're different, because this," he poked her chest with his index finger, "is not who you said did all of those horrific things."
"Then…" she trailed off, looking at him with questionable eyes. "Who am I?"
"You are whoever you want to be," he said back. "I know you think of yourself as the villain of the story. I think of myself the same way, sometimes. But you have the power to turn that around." His eyes softened, looking at her with a certain aspiration for her as he continued, "You don't have to be the hero, or anything like that, but you can definitely be better than the villain you believe you are."
Her eyes widened as a sense of realization finally struck her. When those words reached her ears, she held onto them with the intent of never letting go. Her heart skipped a beat, her mind constantly bouncing multiple different feelings through her head. Those words meant everything to her.
But still, she held doubt. Pandora narrowed her eyes at nothing, slightly shaking her head from side-to-side, "I do not think that I can do it. I have been alone for my entire life. I have nothing to hold on to and I have nothing to keep me from losing myself again."
"Then you won't be alone," he reassured her, raising their conjoined hands into view. "I'll be by your side, every step of the way. I'll be the anchor that holds you down. We'll stick together through thick and thin."
A sense of hopefulness swelled within her, something which had never happened before. The feeling was foreign, but she liked it. She wanted this feeling to stay.
Maybe this was what she needed after all of this time.
With her eyes conveying that newly found hope, she desperately asked, "You will not leave?"
"I promise that I won't." He kept smiling at her as if to once again reassure her that he was confident in his words and wasn't going anywhere. "I know that you, who I'm talking to right now, is the real you. If I have to, I'll remind you everyday until it sticks."
Pandora simply nodded with a show of acceptance and appreciation, "Thank you."
"You're welcome," Subaru responded. "Now it's your turn to promise me. Will you make an effort to truly change?"
Her mind rapidly contemplated everything that led her to this moment, her head averting while her eyes continuously stared ahead. After a few moments of silence, she snapped out of her inner thoughts. She clung onto the words she wished to say within her head, but she struggled to get them out.
At long last, she found the will to speak the words she'd long since desired to say. The words which would pivot her entire life from now into the future flowed from her mouth. "I promise. I will do my best to become better."
At that, Subaru smiled in such a way that could brighten the eternal void around them. "Great! It's set in stone now, no going back. You're locked in."
Pandora didn't exactly know why, but she felt her lips begin to curve up. It was nothing like the cold, emotionless smile she had possessed in her past. This one was genuine, full of feeling and life.
It was another one of the many things she'd never done before, with many more to follow.
With that, something inside of her just felt… lighter. After hearing his vow to stand beside her and making her own promise to better herself for the future, it was as if a huge burden had been lifted from her.
She felt… free.
She gazed over at his face, getting another view of his smile. Strangely, her heart fluttered. She could feel a strange sensation of heat flow throughout her body, with her cheeks being the most prominent. Her chest gaped at the sight of him smiling so nicely, a sense of longing filling the hole.
When she looked into his eyes, which would be considered frightening by many, anything revolving around her old goal was thrown away, forgotten in favor of what she saw in them. The passion and care that he held in those eyes of his sparked something within her.
Natsuki Subaru: the boy that was able to change Pandora. Not for the worse, but for the better.
He was unique, unlike anyone she'd ever encountered before. His wise words to her moments ago let her see a new light within her internal darkness, one that she never knew was there.
Again, her heart fluttered and her stomach churned with a wistful sense of longing. It was then that something in Pandora's head clicked, finally holding some understanding of what she was feeling.
With all of the stories Subaru told her, some of them included the sense of love, as well as what it felt like. Subaru himself had even detailed those feelings to her.
Nevertheless, the tales of villains becoming better because they found love, choosing to change mostly because of them, held their own sense of fascination for her.
Though, she ever once believed that to be possible. Pandora largely believed that such events were purely the work of fiction, as the stories told. Such things would be outlandish and implausible, especially for someone as vile as her.
But, now?
She couldn't help but think otherwise.
…
Was this what it truly meant to love someone?
~Present Day~
Hardened eyes looked toward the exit of an alleyway, the light from the exit shining upon the snarling face of a platinum-haired girl within. She stood there unmoving for a few moments, her expression unchanging.
She could feel her own tears trace down her cheeks. It was a foreign feeling, one that wouldn't stop. They just kept coming, and coming, and coming. She felt them as they dropped from her chin, either staining her clothes or splashing onto the ground below.
She took a step. Then, another; and another. She walked forward, her stance wobbled and her back slouched as she made her way toward the light.
"W-Wait! Where are you going? You… You can't leave them here! Not like this!"
The sudden exclamation made the girl stop. Her stance remained frozen, the sounds of her uneven breaths being the only thing heard in the alleyway itself. Then, suddenly, her back straightened.
CRACK!
In the blink of an eye, the girl appeared in front of the blonde one. A loud and pained gasp erupted from the other girl's mouth, hitched breaths immediately following.
She whimpered, her expression dawning one of fear as they gazed upon the expressionless face of her attacker. She began to cough and choke, red liquid spewing from her lips as it became increasingly harder to breathe.
Then, there was the sharp pain in her abdomen. The crack she had heard was the sound of her own bones breaking and shattering from the impact.
She was barely even able to look down to see the girl's arm reaching right into her stomach, covered in her own blood. The sight almost made her faint. She could feel it inside of her, digging around her insides and grabbing hold of something it was never meant to grab.
Then, it was pulled out. It was slow, drawn out in a way that would inflict more pain. The blonde girl had to watch as the bloodied hand made itself visible again, her own intestines locked in its grip. She could feel the very moment it disconnected from her body.
Her head was light and the pain was near intolerable. With her eyes open, she collapsed to the ground with an audible thud. She quickly lost consciousness, her mind agonizingly fading into the realm of darkness.
The blonde girl was dead.
The platinum-haired girl showed no reaction. She merely looked down at her enclosed fist, staring at it for only a second before choosing to crush the intestine within its grasp. It exploded under the pressure, excess blood spraying across the alleyway.
She barely paid it any mind. Any blood that stuck to her skin vanished soon after. The only thing which remained stained was her clothing. In a way, it continued to bring sadness to her otherwise emotionless heart. Her tears, similarly, would never cease.
Though, she supposed the blood acted as a reminder. It was something which would always tell her who she was, and always would be.
Her eyes glanced back to the light. The shadows of people walking by were apparent, but doing near nothing to phase her. In fact, to her, it was a good thing. She quickly began to continue her march forward, coming ever so closer to the exit.
She could feel nothing, but yet she felt so much pain; so much sadness. Her heart ached, tormenting her as it churned longingly in her chest.
The one who could make that pain go away was gone. He was wrongfully taken away from her.
He promised… didn't he? Yet, he was still gone. He left her. She was alone, now.
Was she not allowed to be happy? To love; to care? Was she always destined to follow this path?
Her urge to die had only grown, as did her desire to make them understand. She wanted them to feel her pain; her anguish.
Soon enough, both wishes would become true.
They would all feel but a mere fraction of the pain she currently suffered. That would be her scant mercy to them.
Then, after that, she would find peace in death. One way, or another. Her beloved was waiting for her, after all.
As she stepped onto the streets, a villain emerged reborn.