A/N: Arakiya is one of my favorite characters in arc 7. Such a deep and mysterious character. I might revisit this SI in the future. No name intended. Next up is probably a Typhon, Carmilla or Daphne SI.
chapter two: i don't speak to dead people (arakiya SI)
Life is bizarre and extraordinary.
She knows this much, from before, back when she was someone else entirely and (fully human, she isn't anymore).
She remembers everything fully when she was with the wonderful, kind, and amazing princess.
One night, she dreams of a house on fire, and of a girl, terrified and cowering in the corner.
She was calling for her dog, a beautiful lab that she loved named Charlie, because the fire starts while she's home alone, waiting for her mother to come home from her vacation.
The flames were there, surrounding them, she caught him and rescued him, took him outside, and then all of it went black for her.
She thought she could hear a voice, thanking her for being so kind to animals, and then it went black.
Then she found herself surrounded by two talking voices, only to find herself looking at two dogs standing upright and speaking, speaking, and upon seeing furries were real, she had immediately screamed as a baby puppy would.
Her name now is Arakiya, apparently, and a princess finds her and gives her a better life than her natural parents did. She acts too weird for them, too much like a human. Plus she does weird things to the spirits and no one likes it when she explains that she just wants to use their powers and sets fire to things.
Apparently, people here worship spirits and only the strong are worthwhile and worthy of acknowledgment.
She must work hard to survive.
Strength is what matters.
Serving Princess is all that matters.
No matter how cold Princess may be, no matter what harsh words she uses towards her, no matter how nasty the looks from her half-siblings are, she will prevail.
She kills her first human when she's young and throws up at the sight.
Yet she feels nothing for the human but irritation. Contempt has replaced any sympathy she once felt for humans, after all the mistreatment she's been subjected to now.
She never asked to be what she is, and now she sees the awfulness of humanity.
So as the knife sinks down into another person's skull, another evildoer out to wrong Princess, she lets herself go.
Down into the killing, down into the mind games.
She's not one to talk to her dead self, she doesn't talk to dead people.
That's weird.
She relies on Princess as a security blanket.
When Princess-Prisca, disappears, her whole world falls apart in the blink of an eye.
Notagainnotlikemyparentsnotmyfatherdon'tleavemealonedon'tleavemealonedon'tleavemealone
She joins the Nine Divine Generals through her skills of eating spirits, and is highly acclaimed for her ruthlessness and her killing ability.
She's only living for one reason and one reason only: finding her.
When she sees she's in the Royal Election of Lugunica, her heart breaks. Why betray her country? Why, why, why, Princess, you were supposed to be the Queen here, and Vincent took it away.
She hates Vincent, she hates him. He made Princess suffer.
But he's the Emperor, so she must listen to and obey his commands.
There're other annoying humans, like that stupid, stupid boy who won't ever shut the hell up and moves at the speed of sound. When she finds him shrunken on the island, she has no fucking idea what reality even is anymore, but then she awakens from her dream on the carriage, convinced she had a bad dream, a bad dream where that boy was covered in blood and she blew the heads off of others on the Guinanhive island, which is weird as they never even got close to it.
It hurts so much when Princess cuts her side and insults her. But at the same time, she's acknowledging her, seeing her as mattering.
Arakiya wants that, needs that, desires that so much.
It matters not if she rejects her, she will still love her.
She will still be by her side.
As she faces the island and prepares to swim across with the weird knight man with horrible fashion sense, and the weird old guy who's creepily observant of her every move, she thinks only of princess.
"The Princess is dead."
Those words shattered her very fabric of reality.
She cries for days, before getting over it and hardening herself.
She hates this man named Todd.
She hates his cruelty, his annoying way of speaking, and everything about him.
She was kidnapped by him and now he acts like they're friends, which they're not. As soon as she swallows another spirit, she's burning him alive and calling it an accident. She only pretends to offer him a high rank, she can see right through him. Perhaps she wouldn't have, had she not the memories of a past life reminding her of her boyfriend in high school who acted the exact same way as him, right before he started hitting her and calling her foul, evil words.
As she faces down Yorna Mishigure and Princess, her eye is always on one thing: Princess.
It matters not what the old way of doing things was, because she is Vollachian now, and she is always strong, always brave, and always, always, always doing everything for Princess.