I had accepted Sophia's proposal. I had accepted it, just like a coward, leaving everything behind.
When I accepted, I thought I had made the right choice. I was scared of the great war, of devils and their cruelties, of how everything I seemed to be doing always resulted in screw-ups.
Once, when I was younger, I had tried to hang myself. I had wanted something definitive because the pills, fortunately or unfortunately, never seemed to work. I had tied the noose around my neck and jumped off a chair.
Regret had bloomed at that moment faster than I ever could have imagined. My body, my soul had desperately yearned for release, to continue living.
The rope had snapped at the noose, and I had lived. That fear, that instinctive regret I had felt that day had been identical to what I felt when I realized the choice I had taken.
Even with how hard things had seemed, even with how chaotic this new world had been, there had been things that had made it more than worthwhile.
I had gained a family, people who would follow me to the depths of hell with a smile, who would lay down their lives without hesitation for me, and I had given all of that up.
The last thing I had seen before falling had been Sophia's face, Sophia's disappointed face as if I had failed a test, as if I had failed myself. She was a mirror, and it had felt as if I had truly betrayed myself, betrayed everything Rias Gremory was and could have been.
I chose, yet never had something felt so bittersweet, so soul-breaking. I was free and falling. I was free and wanted to skin myself with my fingers.
I fell somewhere, somewhere empty, devoid of life. I knew that my fall hadn't been a silent one, that it was more than likely that it had attracted a lot of attention.
I didn't care. Since I was younger, I always had days, sometimes weeks of what I would call emptiness.
It wasn't depression or something similar, I think. Could be wrong. In those moments, I felt nothing. In those moments, everything stopped being something worth caring for.
I didn't care if something hurt. I didn't care if something happened to me or someone close to me. I didn't care about messing up my relationships with family and friends. I didn't care about living or even dying.
This emptiness had disappeared when I became Rias Gremory, at least, this is what I thought until now.
I don't really remember much except sleeping and my demonic energy acting weirdly. Maybe I would have normally.
I was woken up from my sleep by the presence of Death. It was faint, more an echo of an echo, but I had felt it.
I had woken up because I had wanted to die. A part of me had hoped for such because I was too emotionally messed up to either try to go forward or take my own life.
I had woken up to disappointment. The moment I had opened my eyes and saw him, I had understood that.
He had been more than an open book to my eyes. Just looking at him, without any metaknowledge, I learned everything about him, about his past, his fears, his hopes, and his burdens.
What I had felt had been the elder wand. A tool I knew unless wielded by something akin to a god would be worthless against me. My essence hadn't even reacted, confirming what I already thought.
He called me Morningstar, and I wonder if he knew how both right and wrong he was. Morningstar had been the name, the title of Helel, my ancestor. It was also the title of the Satan Lucifer, of my brother.
Dumbledore I could see in his mind hadn't seen through this angle. No matter how sympathetic he may have been to muggles and muggle-borns, Albus wasn't one.
He wasn't taught since his childhood hymns and chants in the name of a tripartite god. He wasn't taught of the story of the son of a virgin woman, an aspect of the divine.
It's not that he didn't know but Albus saw as much interest in those beliefs as a physics major with philosophy classes.
He had called me Morningstar because Venus had been considered by Pagan religions as the Morningstar.
Venus also represented Aphrodite, daughter of the sky born of sea foam, goddess of love, beauty, war, and so many other things. Aphrodite, a new name given to a goddess once called Ishtar.
I had fallen from the sky. My demonic energy had created around me a city it wouldn't be wrong to call Roman when in reality, I realized it was a failed replica of the false world in the home office of my brother.
My brother, one I left behind without hesitation. Oh Sirzechs, would you be angry if you knew? Disappointed? I loved him even though I was nothing but an imposter, even though those feelings I inherited weren't truly mine.
I loved him because he made it so easy to do so. I loved him because I don't think anyone has ever cared as much as he did. I loved him and I would have gladly lived forever without telling him that I wasn't the sister he loved so much.
Akeno, would you notice something's different? Would you be happier with this better Rias? Would you love her more? I wanted to be jealous. They were my brother, my queen, they were…they were.
I had made my choice, and I wished I didn't. I was thankful for once for this emptiness inside because I knew I would have broken myself and maybe the world around if I could have felt.
Dumbledore had called me Morningstar because he had recognized me as something more. He had called me Morningstar because he had thought me a deity of beauty.
'It was flattering,' a little part of me thought. That part was swallowed immediately after by the emptiness inside.
Dumbledore wanted to use me. I could see it clearly. I didn't need to ask him to know it. He saw in me a means to end the things he feared.
He proposed to me to become a teacher at his school, and I accepted. He wanted to use me. I accepted because he gave me an opportunity.
I was too cowardly to end my own existence, but what I could do was create a silver bullet. Dumbledore wanted me to teach, and it is what I will do.
I will make his students, the soldiers of his future war, strong, stronger than anything he could imagine, so strong that with their magic, they'll be able to do what I couldn't, allow me to finally rest.
I'll make them strong and ask them to give me the rest I wished for, and if they refuse, heroes always slay villains and monsters dion't they?
As we can see, Rias isn't fine at all mentally which is understandable. Hopefully, she'll get better. This chapter with the previous one were supposed to be one but things happened and it wasn't possible. Hope you like it. Got a
p.a.t.r.e.o.n.c.o.m / Eileen715. You could support me with one dollar a month or not do so if you don't want to or can't. It's fine.