Chapter 413: Kozue’s dream
Kozue was dreaming again, and somehow she already knew this wasn’t going to be an ordinary dream the very moment everything around her faded into darkness. It felt like she had wandered back into a memory from the past, or maybe it was simply a nightmare stitched together from memories she wished had stayed buried forever. Either way, it felt painfully familiar, and that alone was enough to make her heart feel heavier than it already was.
The surroundings were dark, unbelievably quiet, and filled with a suffocating sense of fear that seemed to cling to every corner. She had absolutely no idea why she had ended up in this place again after all this time, but seeing it made something inside her immediately sink. It wasn’t just a location anymore. It was a reminder of something she desperately wanted to forget but somehow never truly could.
She hated this place with everything she had.
Simply laying eyes on it again, even inside a dream, made countless unpleasant emotions rise back to the surface all at once. It felt as though every painful memory she had locked away was patiently waiting for an opportunity to crawl back into her mind. It honestly felt like her own subconscious had decided to ruin her sleep for absolutely no reason, which was pretty rude if anyone asked her.
Her mother was there.
She hadn’t realized it back then, but her mother had already been dying from an illness that nobody seemed capable of explaining. Looking back now, all the signs had been there from the beginning, yet she had been far too young to understand what they actually meant. All she had seen was a loving mother who smiled every day despite looking more exhausted as time went on.
Even smiling at Kozue seemed to drain away whatever strength she still had left. Her breathing looked weaker. Her movements had become slower. Her body looked more fragile than Kozue remembered.
It almost looked as though something invisible was slowly eating away at her life little by little, patiently waiting until there was nothing remaining. The woman standing there looked alive, but at the same time, she already looked like someone who was quietly preparing to leave the world.
Back then, Kozue believed her mother had simply been unfortunate enough to catch some strange disease.
The truth couldn’t have been any further from that. The reason her mother was dying had never been because of an illness. The person responsible had been her father.
That truth had completely shattered everything Kozue believed she knew about herself. In reality, Kozue was a fallen angel. Well, that wasn’t exactly accurate. She wasn’t a fallen angel herself. She was the descendant of one.
More specifically, she was a half-breed born from the union between a demon and a fallen angel.
Something like that should never have existed.
A former guardian of Heaven and a demon were never supposed to have a child together. From every perspective imaginable, whether biological, magical, or even ethical, such a thing simply shouldn’t have been possible. Countless people from both races would have insisted it was completely impossible without even giving it a second thought.
Yet somehow...
She existed.
The reason behind her birth wasn’t some miracle born from destiny or forbidden romance either.
There hadn’t been love. There hadn’t been affection. There hadn’t even been mutual consent. Her father had violated her mother, and Kozue had been conceived because of that horrifying event.
That was the ugly truth behind her existence.
Even after everything that had happened, her mother never chose to abandon her. She never chose to erase her before she was born. Instead, she carried Kozue inside her womb for an entire year until the day she finally gave birth.
Despite everything her mother had suffered, she still decided that Kozue deserved a chance to live. That alone was something Kozue could never fully understand. Anyone else would have probably hated the child that reminded them of such a traumatic event.
Her mother never did. She simply loved her. She raised her with warmth. She protected her. She smiled for her.
As the years slowly passed, Kozue continued growing up under her mother’s care.
Unfortunately, her mother continued growing weaker.
At first, the changes were difficult to notice. Then they became impossible to ignore. Simple tasks left her exhausted. Standing for too long became difficult. Even speaking for extended periods seemed tiring.
Little by little, her condition continued worsening until it became painfully obvious that something was terribly wrong.
Kozue herself had always been considered impossible from the very beginning. Children between demons and humans already existed only in incredibly rare circumstances. The same could be said for angels and humans.
A child born between a demon and a fallen angel, however, was something that should have never been capable of existing under the natural laws of the world.
She was an anomaly. She was living proof that something impossible had somehow become reality. Naturally, reality demanded a price for that miracle.
Her mother had unknowingly paid it.
Because Kozue possessed both demonic power and holy power, the holy energy inside her had constantly flowed into her mother while she remained inside the womb. Somehow, giving birth allowed her mother to survive instead of dying immediately, but surviving wasn’t the same as remaining unharmed. The holy energy never truly disappeared. It stayed inside her body, quietly growing stronger every single year alongside Kozue herself.
As Kozue became stronger...
The holy power became stronger too. Her mother’s body wasn’t meant to contain that kind of energy forever.
Eventually, it simply reached its limit. She couldn’t endure it anymore.
Then...
She died.
Inside the dream, Kozue watched her mother’s final moments all over again.
She watched her mother’s breathing slow. She watched the warmth gradually leave her face. She watched the woman who meant everything to her quietly take one final breath before everything became still.
She cried harder than she had ever cried before. She screamed until her throat hurt. She begged for someone to save her.
Nobody came. Nobody answered.
Life simply continued moving forward as though nothing had happened.
That same day, she also learned the truth behind her own birth. Everything suddenly made sense.
Everything finally connected together.
From that day onward, Kozue grew to hate men with every fiber of her being.
One man had destroyed her mother’s life. One man had stolen away the person she loved most. One man had become the reason she grew up alone. Her mother had loved her more than anyone else ever could. She had raised Kozue despite knowing the terrible consequences of giving birth.
She had continued loving her despite the horrifying circumstances surrounding her conception. She never once blamed Kozue. She never treated her differently. She simply loved her until the very end.
Because of that...
Kozue couldn’t forgive men. As far as she was concerned, they deserved nothing. Many of them deserved to disappear forever. Many of them deserved to die. That hatred stayed with her for years.
The dream eventually faded away, and Kozue slowly opened her eyes. She quietly stared at the familiar ceiling above her bed while trying to calm her breathing.
Her chest still felt heavy. Her heart still hurt.
Even though it had only been a dream, everything had felt painfully real.
It honestly felt less like remembering something and more like her brain had decided to replay the saddest movie ever made at three in the morning without asking for permission first. Whoever was in charge of dreams clearly had questionable entertainment choices.
She let out a slow breath. Why had she dreamed about that now of all times? She hadn’t thought about those memories in quite a while. Seeing them again felt strange.
After remaining silent for several minutes, she slowly realized there was probably a reason her mind had dragged those memories back to the surface.
That reason was Kouhei.
For almost her entire life, she had believed every man was exactly the same.
She never bothered giving any of them a chance.
She hated them before they even opened their mouths.
She hated Kouhei the moment she met him simply because he happened to be another man standing in front of her.
She had honestly expected him to disappoint her sooner or later.
Instead...
He didn’t.
For reasons she still couldn’t fully explain, Kouhei turned out to be different from everyone she had expected him to resemble.
He wasn’t cruel. He wasn’t selfish. He wasn’t someone who hurt others simply because he could.
She couldn’t confidently call him a saint either because nobody was perfect, but she genuinely believed he was a good person.
Maybe...
Just maybe...
That dream had been reminding her of something she had refused to accept for years.
Some men were truly horrible people. Some deserved every bit of hatred directed toward them. Some destroyed lives without feeling even a hint of guilt.
Others, however, weren’t anything like that. Others simply existed without carrying the same darkness inside them.
Kouhei might have been one of those people. Kozue didn’t spend much longer thinking about it.
Her feelings were still complicated, and she wasn’t ready to completely let go of the hatred she had carried for so many years.
Still, for the first time in a very long while, she quietly admitted to herself that perhaps the world wasn’t as simple as she had always believed.
Perhaps one terrible man didn’t automatically represent every other man she would ever meet.