Chapter 503: One’s Truth
"CECILIA!"
Arkai’s heart didn’t just drop, it plummeted through the floor of the helicopter, through the earth’s crust and into some bottomless abyss.
One moment Cecilia was harnessed behind them, her eyes fixed on the vortex above. The next moment she was unclasping the harness and simply gone. Over the edge—
"It’s fine, it’s fine, focus—we need to stabilize—" Eastiel’s voice was preternaturally calm, his hands steady on the controls even as his lion tail lashed under him.
The helicopter had shuddered from the sudden weight shift, but he corrected with a subtle adjustment of the collective pitch, his eyes never leaving the instruments. "She can still hear us, don’t yell!"
"You—!" Arkai stopped himself, his claws digging into the armrests of the co-pilot seat. He had been about to scream, about to demand Eastiel turn the helicopter around and leap out after her himself.
But something in his younger brother’s voice stopped him. He wondered at the strange dichotomy of Eastiel Edengold.
This man could fall apart over jealousy and insecurity, whined and pouted and threw pillows, and yet, when the world was ending with the sky tearing open and his pregnant girlfriend had just jumped out of a helicopter, he became too controlled for the sane.
"Where is she going?!" Arkai was physically itching now, his wolf instincts screaming at him to at least see where she was.
"No, no, let’s not interrupt the airspace." Eastiel shook his head. "We must stay stationary here to avoid hitting her—" He groaned, a flash of his usual dramatic self breaking through the calm. "CECILIA, YOU LITTLE—tell me your position now!"
The comms crackled. Cecilia’s voice came through, slightly breathless but never indicating she had just done something crazy at all. "Sorry, I saw the gods and I had to see them!"
Silence filled the cockpit.
Arkai and Eastiel turned to look at each other. The rotor blades thumped overhead and the black leviathan still thrashed somewhere in the clouds above.
The two beastmen, one wolf, one lion, stared at each other in bewilderment.
"...gods...?" Arkai repeated.
Cecilia saw the flash of light reflected off the mirror Bunny was holding, cutting through the bruised darkness of the storm. They were clearly trying to get her attention. They were basically holding the giant mirror while standing on a rooftop like flagging down a taxi.
Appearing just now, where had they been this past month? She had searched for them with the System. She had climbed the stairs to their empty apartment multiple times and pressed her ear to the door only to find nothing but silence.
And now, in the middle of an apocalypse, here they were, waving at her. What were they trying to tell her?
She couldn’t wait to find out, so she popped the cork on a mana potion, drank it in one gulp, and launched herself from the helicopter into the screaming wind.
Closing in, she saw Momo waving at her with a big smile on her face. That smile, bright and warm, unbothered by the black leviathan thrashing in the sky above, was so incongruous that Cecilia felt something loosen in her chest.
This. In this situation. The world was ending, and the goddess was smiling brightly. She didn’t know why, but seeing that smile, she felt... relieved.
Then she landed on the skyscraper’s rooftop, and Momo’s face changed instantly.
"YOU RECKLESS GIRL! COME HERE!" The goddess grasped her arm and yanked her away from the ledge with the wrath of a thousand suns.
Cecilia immediately shrank, her brief relief evaporating. "W-what? What’s wrong...?"
"YOU’RE PREGNANT!" Momo yelled. Beside her, Bunny shook his head with a stern face that was somehow more terrifying than all three of her husbands glaring at her simultaneously.
"If you are not worried about yourself and the baby, at least think of your mom," Bunny said, his golden eyes hard.
Her mom. Summer Silver... The Cassian Queen... and Momo... How many mothers had she already lost? How many more would she disappoint?
Cecilia stuttered, "I-I... this... I’m okay! After all, I’m not ’actually’ actually pregnant. I’m still Cecilia. This baby is just this scenario’s—"
"Stop lying to yourself." Momo grasped her hand tight. "You keep cutting and undermining your emotional bond with the baby. Are you even serious when you think you want to sacrifice your pregnancy, or are you just being a chronic martyr syndrome patient again?"
Cecilia’s eyes faltered. "I’m not—!"
"Cecilia!" Momo snapped, and Cecilia flinched.
Suddenly, everything was silent.
The chaos above, the rumbling sky, the roars of the tearing heavens, all of it faded into a distant, muffled hum, as though someone had thrown a blanket over the world.
Only the three of them remained, standing on that rooftop, the wind tugging at their clothes and hair.
Cecilia... trembled.
"But Oathran hates it..." she whispered.
Momo looked right into her eyes, her blue gaze piercing through every layer of defense Cecilia had ever built. "Even if he hates it, what about you? Be honest."
A single tear slipped from Cecilia’s eye. It traced a slow path down her cheek, catching the faint glow of the vortex above.
"If I give birth to the baby... what if they hate their father?" She asked. "What if they hate each other?"
"I am not Kirana, and they’re not Ierofey and Raden—"
"I don’t want anyone to hate Oathran. I don’t want anyone to hate my husband, Mother..." Another tear fell, then another. "And if I don’t give birth to the baby... wouldn’t they go straight to your embrace?"
"Wouldn’t they... be safer with you?"
A child’s question. A believer’s faith. To calculate the safest place to send the ones she hadn’t lost yet... only those with such conviction could do.
Bunny exhaled. Then, without warning, he stepped forward and scooped both women into his arms, crushing them against his chest exasperately. "Alright. Alright. You want an embrace? Let’s go to the Sixth Realm together with us and stop suffering."
Eh?
G-go to the Sixth Realm... together?
Cecilia forgot her own churning emotions for a moment and blinked up at the handsome god, her tears still wet on her cheeks.
[Oh no... Cecilia, we’re screwed!]
E-even the System was squeaking in panic in the back of her mind.
"Bunny." Momo glared at him from somewhere inside the tangle of arms.
"You’re always the soft one. Now you want to give them tough love? Who are you? Where’s my wife?" Bunny glared right back at Momo.
"What about you? When did you become so soft...?" Momo pouted, though the effect was somewhat undermined by the fact that she was still squished against Bunny’s chest.
She shook her head. "No. We can’t protect them forever. Like you said, they can grow stronger and solve their problems themselves, and we shouldn’t worry. We... have intervened too much, alright? No more entering worlds to meet the babies in the future."
"Fucking..." Bunny hugged them tighter, his chin resting on top of Cecilia’s head. He sighed. "Fine. Fine."
He pulled away and rubbed Cecilia’s head with one large, calloused hand. "Hmph. You took after your mom too much. Be more selfish from now on. Like me." His golden eyes softened. "Take everything as yours and conquer the Seventh Realm. I’m counting on you, child."
"I don’t understand what you guys are talking about..." Cecilia shrank again, her shoulders hunching. "Didn’t you usually... withhold information like this so my head won’t explode?"
"No." Momo smiled gently. "You’re good enough now." She reached out and pressed her finger against Cecilia’s chest. "Once you awaken it, you will be able to know everything. Including ’why you.’"
Cecilia’s eyes widened.
Including... why her?
The exact question she had been asking herself since the System first appeared?
BOOOOOOOM—!
The sky fractured. A brilliant blue light erupted from somewhere deep within the vortex, cutting through the bruised black clouds.
The black leviathan screamed, less a roar and more a tear in the fabric of reality itself. And the helicopter’s comms crackled back to life as the world rushed back in.
"Cecilia, we must abort."