My reason to live
A.N: Hi! Tom, once again, is here with fresh meat!
How are you, guys?
As you can see, I've uploaded again another fic, this time about Rem.
I have to thank Mr. QWR for giving me the idea. I really appreciated it, and, as you can see, I like to reward someone that has been so kind with a new writer, without harsh comments. :)
This is also an occasion to test my writing skills and see if I can put myself in the shoes of my own characters.
I also thank Deathenglegamers1144 for the compliment.
For a better context, I recommend you to read my first fic, Article about the forgotten hero, before this one.
Once again, I used ChatGPT to help me with the translation process, but I still gave it a view and corrected the mistakes.
About my plans for other fics, I'm starting to work on a much bigger fic, with a more complex plot and relationships between characters, but it will take some time, so you'll have to wait.
Other than that, maybe I could write some one-shots, but that's not confirmed or anything.
That's because I'm also writing a whole new original story in italian, which will be my mainline project.
So, yeah, I won't be consistent with the updates, but who knows.
As always, I really appreciate all the comments and criticisms that are respectful, so feel free to tell anything you think about the fic!
Disclaimer: all characters belong to Tappei Nagatsuki
I'm not sure when I started living.
Biologically speaking, I was born 17 years ago, no, wait, 19 years ago? 20 years ago? I'm not so sure anymore... Anyway, I was born in the Oni village, but I think I started living much later.
It was a place... unique in its way, both literally and metaphorically.
Probably, my village was the last one that the Oni ever inhabited, and it's a good thing because they had some truly terrible traditions.
In this peculiar environment, I thought I could find my place, my role, but that wasn't the case.
A normal person would say that life in the village was relatively simple and standard: the farmers grow the food, the fishermen fish, the intellectuals study, and the chief assigns tasks to the others.
However, for me, living in the village was never simple.
I've never managed to fit into that natural order of things, so simple and yet so beautiful, for one simple, stupid reason.
I am a twin sister, which was an enormous sin in my village because being born as twins implies being defects that ruin that order so precious to my people.
But I was saved, or at least I believed so until recently, by my sister Ram.
You see, there was a law in my village that decreed the death of every twin because they have only one horn instead of two, and therefore their children would also inherit only one horn.
However, my Nee-sama was not an ordinary twin at all. She was the Reincarnation of the Oni God, a prodigy of nature with immense power, who was destined to lead my people. On that fateful night, when the village chief was supposed to kill me, she protected me with her magic.
At first, I thought I had been blessed by this choice, that a burden like me didn't deserve such grace.
Now, however, I believe that I was deprived of salvation that day.
In this way, I had to live a life where I could never feel fully accomplished, without being able to seek a clear purpose in life.
I was greatly despised in the village, and rightfully so.
My Nee-sama was praised by everyone for her extraordinary gifts, while I was barely considered more than waste.
She succeeded where I failed, and she had what I lacked. At first, I tried to get others to accept me and to find something I was good at. I tried to accomplish the same feats as my sister, but then I decided to compensate with other qualities.
I was truly foolish. I wasn't better at anything than my sister, and even now I'm not.
That's why I've never forgiven her for not being able to do the one thing that I knew how to do well.
Even though my sister was better than me, she never treated me badly. She always took care of me, watched over me, and loved me. The Reincarnation of the Oni God decided to favor only a worthless being like me, who clipped her wings for a brighter future.
At that moment, I thought I had found my place in the world, which was behind my sister. I had begun to live.
I was supposed to just support her and witness her rise, but even that was taken away from me.
It happened on an ordinary night. As always, the worst things happen at an ordinary time.
I was sleeping peacefully when suddenly I woke up... and saw the ashes of my future.
My village had been attacked by the Witch Cult.
At that moment, for the first time, I had a glimpse of the evil that plagues this world.
I remember very well the events of that night.
Killings, screams, fires, rapes, necrophilia... for everything a child should never have seen, I had a front-row seat.
But what I remember most clearly was the smell of those bastards.
For the first time in my life, I discovered that I could do something that Nee-sama couldn't: I can smell the scent of the Witch's Cultists.
I didn't know what to do. Everyone was dead. If they were dead, how could someone like me survive?
But, once again, I was saved by my sister when it shouldn't have happened. And for this, she paid a terrible price. She... she lost her horn, along with all her powers, to save me.
And do you want to know what my first reaction was? Relief.
Finally, everything that suppressed me was gone forever: my village, my family, all those people who judged me, my sister's horn. Now that those weights that anchored me had dissolved, I could have lived.
But then came the regret and guilt, because I gained what my sister lost.
I would have tolerated and accepted this loss from anyone else except for my Nee-sama, who had cared for me.
If she couldn't have freedom, then neither would I.
That night, we were both saved by an extremely powerful man, Roswaal L. Mathers, who decided to hire us as his maids. The world he introduced us to was very different from that of my village.
Many people with different mindsets were welcomed by my enigmatic lord and engaged in conversations on various topics.
However, I never cared about my lord.
My way of life never changed. I continued to have a servant's role in society, but this time I was much more motivated to do not only my part but also Nee-sama's, who had done so much for me. I no longer had to do just what I knew how to do, but also what she would have done, without rest.
My debt was too great to repay, and my efforts would never be enough. My task was to make her life the best it could be, and that was all.
Then, a few years later, changes began to happen in my life, the best ones I ever experienced.
One day, my lord decided to welcome a girl as a guest. This wouldn't have been a problem for me, except for one thing: she was a half-elf with silver hair and amethyst eyes. A true likeness of the Witch of Envy, the main cause of my sister's suffering.
Of course, for many months I was quite suspicious of her, even though she didn't emanate the Witch's Scent. However, she always treated me with respect and consideration. She surely did this because she never knew our circumstances, but the fact that she could kindly treat a piece of trash like me made me appreciate her over time. In some way, she always treated me with understanding and mercy, even though I had never behaved well towards her.
But she wasn't who changed my life. The person who freed me from my chains was someone else, someone I never thought could shine so brightly for me.
It was May 13th. That day, Emilia-sama had gone out with Nee-sama to run some errands. However, while she was out, her Jewel was stolen. She searched for it all day without finding it.
Until, by asking passersby and the people of the slums, she managed to trace the house of the little girl who had stolen the Jewel. There, she encountered the Bowel Hunter and would probably have died if it weren't for my hero, who risked his life to save her.
As a reward for his gesture, Emilia-sama brought him back here to us, and I had the chance to meet him.
I'll admit it, my first impression of him wasn't the best, but I always tend to make wrong judgments, so I guess I should have expected that. He had a very eccentric personality, almost more than my lord, which I thought was arrogance, but instead, it was kindness of heart.
He had a terrifying, almost wicked look, one that I would give anything to see again, and, most importantly, he smelled like a Cultist.
At first, I hated him so much for that. I thought he was a monster like the others, but instead, he was my prince. Luckily, I didn't act on impulse as I usually do, with nothing to show for it, and I never had the chance to attack him, even though I wanted to with all my heart. I used to think there was nothing worse I could have done, but now I wonder if that action could have saved him from the fate he suffered so unjustly. God, I miss you so much... Why...Why did you do this to him?
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Back to us... From the very first days, he showed exceptional qualities that I still didn't want to acknowledge. He decided, as a reward for his deeds, to become a butler, lowering himself to my level even though he was a hero.
He knew how to do everything a butler needed to do from day one, whereas it took me three weeks before my work wasn't a complete disaster.
I started to see him in a different light after he saved me and the entire village from a Mabeast attack, something that maybe even Nee-sama wouldn't have been able to do. He proved not only to be skilled manually but also in intelligence and strategy.
In my eyes, he was truly the perfect man who, despite not knowing how to use magic, was able to perform miracles. And do you know what he did as soon as everything was resolved? He thanked me. He told me that I had saved him and that there was a future for me, a place for me too.
From then on, he became my second immovable pillar.
He made me rise like a phoenix from the ashes during the night we were attacked by the Cultists.
For him, I would have done anything.
I would have traveled around the world if he had asked me to.
I would have jumped into the Great Waterfall if he had asked me to.
I would have saved him from every Cultist attack...
I had the chance to prove my loyalty to him right away, during his legendary campaign to bring down the White Whale.
During that time, no one believed in him, not even Emilia-sama, except for me. Even after his confrontation with the Sages, I took care of him and loved him to the best of my ability.
At one point, while we were staying at the Karsten Estate, he had a sort of panic attack, which I never understood.
He told me that he hated himself and considered himself a useless idiot who couldn't do anything except pretend to try hard and act like a champion, but I brought him back on track and promised him that I would help him start over from zero. And so it was.
After not even a day, he managed to accomplish another of his miracles, doing something that no one had achieved in 400 years, not even the Sword Saints. He orchestrated a perfect plan to kill the White Whale, demonstrating in the field a fantastic spirit of observation and courage. If it weren't for him, the campaign would have failed by now.
Unfortunately, that was the last time I saw him alive.
I had begged him to take me with him because only with him I have value, a role to play.
But once again, he chose to prioritize my well-being and sent me back to the Capital, while he went to kill the Archbishop of Sloth. Unfortunately, during the return, we were attacked again by the Witch Cult, and I couldn't do anything. But I decided to make one last act of faith. I told them that one day the hero I loved would free us from their presence. My act of faith was not only in my hero, who kept his promise and accomplished many other feats worthy of being written in a history book, making the world a much better place.
No, my act of faith was also in his allies: Emilia-sama, Crusch-sama, and all especially Nee-sama.
I did it because my hero never works alone, and he taught me that it's okay to ask for help and sometimes pass the baton if needed. When I faced them, I knew well that I couldn't win, but I tried and decided to rely on someone else for what I had always done.
And they repaid me and my hero in the worst way possible. After my defeat, I slept for the next 3 years. I was forgotten by the world, and no one could do anything about it. But he always took care of me, making sure to visit every day a nobody who now couldn't even do the only thing she was good at: supporting him to the best of my ability. He gave back the love that I had for him, and I realized that he was the first to do something like that, even more than Nee-sama, who had forgotten about me. The others, on the contrary, did not do the same for him. For the first year of his absence, things went very well.
I had everything recounted to me by the Royal Guards, because no one else had the courage to do it. Right after killing the Archbishop of Sloth, he liberated the Sanctuary, killed the Great Rabbit, and made a contract with Beatrice, all within a single week. Just like I expected from my hero.
Then he trained for a year, and he was invited to Priestella, where he managed to defend it from the attack of 4 Archbishops simultaneously, even killing the Archbishop of Greed. This feat earned him the title of "Hero of Priestella," but he was betrayed by the same people he had saved a few days later, when a second Archbishop of Gluttony stole his name.
Unfortunately, he wasn't as lucky as I was, because no one had his back. If I had been with him, that Roy fucking Alphard wouldn't have stolen his name, because I would have protected him with my life, if necessary.
But this time, not even the others protected him.
He, who saved everyone, didn't receive the same treatment. Not even from Nee-sama.
She could have saved him. But she didn't.
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WHY DIDN'T YOU DO IT, RAM? YOU HAD EVIDENCE TO CLEAR HIS NAME, BUT YOU CHOSE TO REMAIN SILENT.
HE SAVED US, BUT YOU CHOSE NOT TO BE AS KIND AS YOU WERE WITH ME.
HE DESERVED TO BE SAVED, AND YOU SPAT ON ALL HIS MERITS, CONDEMNING HIM TO DIE.
WHY?
WHYYY?
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When I woke up from the coma, Nee-sama was beside me, sitting with a cup of tea in her hand.
When she saw me, she cried tears of joy and apologized for forgetting about me, explaining everything.
At first, I was happy. Nee-sama had finally cried for me; it had never happened before.
But then, the taste of her tears changed with my question: "Where is Subaru-kun?"
At that moment, she screamed in pain; it was heard throughout the mansion.
The only adjective I can use to describe her crying is agonizing, but later I discovered that it was crocodile tears. At that moment, Frederica arrived, running, and turned pale when she realized that my Subaru-kun had been unjustly arrested.
From that moment on, there was chaos.
When Roswaal-sama understood the situation, he told us to prepare immediately and flew us to the Capital.
But it was too late... I was too late.
From that moment on, my world turned gray, devoid of any color.
The following week was a real hell. I was too far from him, suffering too much for him.
I couldn't live; I was a wilted flower without my sun to warm me.
There were two things that kept me alive and somehow allowed me to suppress the pain in my heart: Nee-sama and self-harm.
I began around the third day after waking up. It was a terrible feeling, waking up and immediately needing to do such a shameful thing, but less terrible than having to think about him.
I could afford to do it without being discovered by Nee-sama because I can heal myself, but unfortunately, I couldn't heal the emptiness that plagued my life again more strongly than ever.
My life had frozen again... until a week ago, four days after I began cutting myself.
I was doing my duties as a maid near Roswaal-sama's room when I heard my Nee-sama crying.
It was a very common sound in those days, especially from me or Petra, who continued to work as a maid thanks to Frederica.
At one point, between sobs, I heard her say she had found a butler's uniform a week after the trial, in Subaru-kun's room, which could have proven his innocence. At that moment, everything became clear to me, and I erupted in blind fury, worse than when I transform.
There is no longer any reason for me to live.
There is no one who can give me a reason to exist or a role to fulfill, not even Nee-sama.
I have never been able to truly express what I felt about myself and my surroundings, not even to my sister, because I didn't want to make her suffer.
I didn't want to make her feel guilty.
But now I no longer care about anything, which is why I am writing this letter.
Now I have decided to reach the person I could confide in and make me the best version of myself.
My only way to find my reason for living is to die.
I'm looking forward to seeing his smile again and telling me that everything is fine.
Soon, I will be with you, my hero.
Just wait for me, ok?
I love you, Subaru-kun.