Chapter Text
...
...Ugh. Why was everything so hazy and blurry? It was like she got hit by a truck, except she didn't actually have any idea what getting hit by a truck would feel like. Probably something like this though, she would assume.
But the point was, she felt like garbage.
And the scary thing was, she had no memory of what happened to leave her like this. If she tried to remember it, her head just responded by pulsing in pain more. It already hurt, so it was so much more painful. She could feel tears trying to claw their way out of her eyes and she didn't have the strength to stop them. When she had came to, the first thing she had done was open her eyes to see a blurry scenery and it wasn't getting much better.
She could only detect a muted light from above and the soft sound of someone's voice. It didn't sound familiar, and she didn't think it had anything to do with her memory problems.
She remembered the Demon Lord, Vampy, and Mr. Oni. She also remembered that Ice Dragon, and Guli-Guli, who was healing it. She remembered her and Vampy were fighting against Mr. Oni, but something must have happened during the battle, because she didn't remember blacking out. There was a lot of nothingness in her mind, and she couldn't fill in the blanks enough to figure out what was happening now.
But she might be injured, and maybe someone was healing her now? It didn't feel like that though. Healing Magic felt different, and maybe all this rambling meant she was really, really worried.
And who wouldn't be?
Hello, she passed out and woke up in a strange place!
Blinking, she attempted to ask a question, but her mouth refused to cooperate. Her muscles felt like jelly as she tried to move her lips the right way to speak, and she didn't exactly have the strength to try for long. She was really tired at the moment.
Her whole body... it felt off.
Too small and stuffy for her to fit in comfortably. Everything was so blurry and spinning around her and the light above her hurt. She apparently wasn't using her power to strengthen her eyes - she was albino, so light was painful to her eyes sometimes, even if it wasn't sunlight. It was annoying, but she could live with it.
Probably.
Her head was pulsing with a heck of a headache that was beginning to make her sick. She tried to rub her head, but couldn't move her arm enough to reach her forehead.
Gah, she'll worry about this nonsense tomorrow, she decided as she closed her eyes and tried to drift off to sleep. Beneath her eyelids, a bright yellow light shone down on her. Wherever she was, it was soft and even somewhat warm, like she was wrapped in a blanket, and it felt empty other than the person holding her. There was whites and greys around her, from what she saw when her eyes for a moment. She felt way too tired to try using any of her skills, so she was just going to rest instead.
The gentle noise above her continued, so she tried to block it out by putting her hands over her ears, her fingers brushing again the side of her head. She of course failed, but it was worth a shot, right? She wanted that person to stop. Maybe even now?
She made a noise of protest, her jaw muscles still weak. She was even weaker than before she got her powers back! And she couldn't even sleep now - what a pain, she almost wanted to cry. It wasn't like she even understood what the stranger was saying anyways, so why would she listen to her blabbering? It sounded kind, but she was in pain and it was just irritating her. She just wanted to sleep now.
She crossed her arms and heard laughter from the woman holding her, who was oblivious to her suffering. She said something else to her sympathicly, gently patting her head. She had actually regained some of her sense of touch while this whole thing was going on.
...how was this person holding her anyways?
She was the size of a high school girl. Unless this woman was a dang giant...
Then again, considering how many other things D had created with the system, a friendly giant wouldn't seem that off. No weirder than all the things from Norse, Greek, and other mythologies than existed on that world. She herself had been an arachene, based on the woman cursed by Athena.
A giant, huh.
Sure.
Everything was starting to get fuzzier and heavier. The voice was starting fade away as exhaustion finally overcame her. Gods, she felt like garbage - so tired and her head still hurt. Had she hit it on something? Was that why she couldn't remember...
Where was she anyways?
Was it in the Demon Territory? Maybe this was in a hospital or something, not that she knew if that place, or the world, even had hospitals. It seemed to be either Healing Magic or death in that place. Why was she still awake anyways? Was her headache that bad? She'd probably pass out at some point though.
Step, step.
She opened her eyes as she heard the sound of footsteps, wondering who was there, then heard the sound of a door opening slowly. It was old enough to be creaking as it slid open as someone walked in.
A blurry figure that so tall, towering over her, over them. Two large, clawed hands reaching out for her as she was suddenly lifted up into that stranger's arms.
Not human...
Huh?
Ugh.
Who the hell was shining a light in her eyes? It hurt. Her eyes were forced open as someone shone something into them, and tears started forming at the corners. The hand against her skin felt human and like it was covered in plastic.
It was annoying.
She lashed out at the hand, swatting it away as some tears started dripping down her face. Why did she feel so ticked off at it. Well, because it in her face and she didn't like it. It was weird reasoning, but she felt like garbage at the moment, so she was allowed to be annoyed by this stupid stuff. Everything was pretty annoying when she felt unwell.
There was the clatter as something hit the hard floor, and someone's surprised voice, tinted with amusement.
A man said something to her, patting her head.
Yeah, yeah, shut up.
Luckily, he didn't bother shining his annoying light in her eyes again. It was probably medical related, but it so annoying she didn't care. Someone could just use some type of Healing Magic on her and she would be fine. At any rate, she was going to sleep again.
The place behind one of her ears felt painful.
Reaching up, she attempted to rub it, but someone pushed her hand back down. They - she, actually - tucked her hand under the blanket around her. That was annoying, but she was still pretty tired.
Good night, annoying person number two.
Reincarnation.
Well, her second reincarnation.
This time, she was reborn as a human being in the care of strange woman. It probably wasn't her mother though, since her voice was so different from the first one's. This one wasn't the second one she was in the care of, but she seemed to be the one that would raise her. She had met a few other woman wearing similar outfits during a few day period, but now, about a week later, she was here.
With some other kids she didn't care about.
She was a baby, okay? Give her a break! All she could really do was eat and expel waste and lay in a crib. That was it. It was pretty boring, but that did give her time to think about the situation that she wound up in. Her apparent death and her next reincarnation with her memories. She had been under the impression that people were reincarnated without their memories, but here she was, thinking about the Demon Lord and everyone else.
It was... pretty scary to have her faith in the hands of a stranger, helpless to do anything. Her powers seemed to be unusable at the moment due to her emotions being out of wack. It was probably because she was in a baby's body now. Yah know, hormones controlled emotions, even if she was technically a high schooler on the inside. A spider's emotions were none existence, so her emotions could just barge on in and do their thing. Yeah, that was what happened, for sure. No way that would dampen her emotional range or anything like that~
Heh. Nope.
But seriously, her emotions were going crazy. Once she understood this, they became easier to control, but before... The less said the better.
She still had control over Dark-attribute magic, as well as thread creation. Neither of them sounded like a good idea to practice in a situation like this. She didn't want to risk hurting the other children here, and a baby suddenly making thread would be really weird. That being said, she had used it in place of her hands. Her arms were too weak to do much and she wanted control over her own body as soon as possible.
But other than those two, she couldn't do much.
Well...
"Ergh."
Her muscles started burning as she gripped the thread hanging overhead then slumped back down, breathing hard. Maybe she shouldn't be trying to exercise so soon though. She was literally about two weeks old at most. Heck, even Vampy was around year old before she started training her, and that was with the help of stats and the system. Under the system, one could grow so far stronger than a normal human on Earth.
Which she was pretty sure this was.
The language sounded similar to either Latin or English. Some European language, no doubt. She had heard the woman say stuff to them as she cared for them. Said woman was pale with western facial features and black hair. She wasn't sure of what she herself looked like, since she didn't have a mirror. Her vision was still a bit blurry at the moment, but she was sure that would improve.
Her other senses were better now, at least.
Heck, even her muscles were a lot stronger, even if she couldn't actually grip her thread to exercise and had to make it sticky. Her tiny hands had basically no grip, but her thread could easily be made sticky enough to grab whatever.
What?
She hadn't addressed the fact that she probably wasn't going to see the Demon Lord, Vampy, the puppet spider sisters ever again?
She already had plans to ditch the planet from the beginning, so why she should she care if it was a bit ahead of schedule? She had planned to tell them she was leaving, as she remembered deciding in a recently recovered memory. She wasn't sure why she had had memory problems, but maybe she had hit her head before dying? At any rate, it had only been two weeks anyways. She could probably just teleport back if she really wanted to.
Which she didn't really feel like at the moment, but she did want to be able to control her ability to expel... waste.
Forget all that emotion nonsense - her being able to control her own body was way more important than those people and whatever they thought! Yeah, she valued her own feelings above other. What of it?
She'd admit it - she was selfish.
If given the choice between the world and herself, she would choose herself in a heartbeat. Most people would probably at least consider the world, but not her. Even if everyone else died, she wouldn't care.
She wasn't heartless, but she was selfish.
If she had the power to do something about something, then she would consider it. She wasn't going to go into a helpless battle to give someone else a chance to live. If she had a chance, only then would she consider doing something like that.
She was selfish... but she somehow got the Ruler of Charity title.
Not that she had good affinity with the skill; it had cost a whole 5,000 points, and it had somehow increased, if she recalled correctly. No clue as to why though. It was a mystery that would never be solved. It probably didn't have anything to do with the fortress she knocked down, or the criminals she ruthlessly slaughtered like pigs or anything.
Heh, naw.
That would be silly.
...step...
Oh? She could hear someone.
Someone was walking down the hallway towards the room. She could pick out that sound clearly despite the fact that it was coming from the other side of the wall. The wall that was covered in plain wallpaper that enhanced the olden, not quite modern or medieval feel of the building. Somehow she was lending towards modern, considering the bright, artificial-seeming, and blinding light she had seen.
Step, step, step.
It was the woman.
Was it feeding time? She didn't like having to be fed, but she did like food, so it probably canceled out somehow. The other babies in the room didn't seem to notice the footsteps, but she did.
The door creaked open, and a relatively young woman entered the room, hair tied back in a bun. She could see the small smile on her lips as she walked in, closing the door after her quietly to not disturb the other babies here. They were all sleeping peacefully and it was better when they weren't awake; babies were noisy and annoying. She needed so much more sleep now, and these guys were interrupting it.
She herself was already awake at the moment.
She yawned.
The woman looked over at all the children in the nursery silently, then walked over to wherever the food and bottles were. She found herself getting excited as she felt one of a baby's six emotions - happiness due to food.
Soon, she found herself in the woman's arms, drinking milk from a bottle. She had tried to hold it herself, but she didn't have the strength and gave up. Slumping down, she rested her head against the woman's arm as she drunk down the milk greedily. She then preceded to ask for more, but all that came out was a babbling noise. And then she drooled a bit.
The woman just wiped her mouth with a small towel, then patted her back.
She looked at the woman blankly and grumbled.
Laughter.
She seemed to find her annoyance funny.
Ugh. Whatever.
But she did wonder...
Why did the woman look sad?
No matter what anyone else said, she wasn't lonely.
She didn't miss anyone from before.
Got it?
Okay.
A happy face smiled at her.
"Hello!"
Hi to you. For the one millionth time.
She still ended up waving to her orphanage-sister, since she was super pushy about it sometimes. She seemed to have gotten the clue that she was a loner though, so most of the time she didn't even bother with that kind of stuff. But she wanted to be polite, so she mutely greeted her when she did, just to be nice. At any rate, the younger girl seemed to be content with that answer, even when she didn't talk.
She was nicer than a few certain people she had known from a lifetime or two ago, so that was nice.
Her orphanage-sister beamed at her and cheerfully said, "My name's Emma, you know." It was probably because she had told her her name a while ago - she course had remembered it even after all that time. That happy face was hard to forget. She hadn't seen that many people with normal hair and eye colors since... never, actually. She never had been Hiiro Wakaba, but she did have memories from Japan.
She nodded silently.
The girl's emerald eyes seemed to glitter when she confirmed that she remembered that, and she reached forward to grab her hands - she frowned and leaned back. For a second, Emma seemed confused then her light skin was tinted pink. She was also a bit of a scatterbrain, forgetting that she didn't like to be unexpected touched by people like she just had.
"O-oh," she said, sounding slightly hurt and confused. "Do you not wanna hold hands?"
She really did look sad, but she looked like she would back off if pushed far enough. But she wasn't going to be that mean. The only problem was that now she was forced to respond verbally, since the answer wasn't a yes-or-no type.
After a moment, she answered, "...not now."
Emma seemed to cheer up at that response and nodded firmly. She wiped her eyes, but she probably intended for it to look like she was just rubbing them - her emotions were too plainly written on her face. She was super soft and kind to everyone here, including her. Which was weird because she had been trying to ignore most of the people here, before promptly giving up after a few months.
Everyone here was too nice.
"Do you wanna hold hands tomorrow?"
Two green eyes stared at her.
"...okay."
"Blagh!"
"You shouldn't eat so fast," one of her other orphanage-sisters told her as she hovered nearby. Despite her chiding tone, she sounded worried for her. She didn't bother coming any closer to her though, understandably.
She was currently throwing up on the floor, after all.
Even now, she had a small stomach - what a curse. Why was her body now so similar to her one in her past life? It must be that Evil God's fault! She sure was the worse - she was going to punch her in the face one day, even if it was the last thing she did!
Her ranting was interrupted by her stomach heaving again, spit and vomit dripping from her lips as she stood there, legs shaking. This wasn't a common scene, though she tried to avoid it. Throwing up her meal wasn't fun, nor was tasting her meal coming back up. So, yeah, she tried to avoid overeating. It was pretty hard to do, since their meals were sized according to their own individual needs.
But leave it to her to do it anyways.
She spit some more, then looked up at the children around her, all looking at her. Gilda glanced at one of the other children nervously, then back to her, then to Mom.
"Oh dear..." Mom muttered softly, walking forward. Turning to the boy her orphanage-sister had looked at, she asked, "Could you please clean this up?"
The boy nodded, then when to the kitchen to grab some supplies.
Mom leaned forward and placed a hand on her back, gently steering her towards the dining hall exit. Slowly, she walked towards there, slightly leaning against the older woman and out of the way. She was still really weak and not able to use all her powers, even now. Not simply because she couldn't figure it out, but because her energy was seemingly drained after her second death.
Gods could die, apparently.
And get sick and vomit their meals all over the floor, she thought, her face heating up slightly.
Poor kid, having to clean that mess up. He returned with a bucket and some damp towels in hand, giving Mom one of them. With the help of the others, he began cleaning it up.
She looked away.
Mom simply wiped her face gently and asked her if she was feeling alright. Silently, she had nodded, and she had been told to go get some rest. She sure seemed worried about her, but she couldn't entirely bring herself to accept it.
Because her gaze was really warm and kind...
...and sad and calculating.
She silently returned to her room, alone and surrounded by walls. She was a lot older now.
But right now, she felt like sleeping.
Half because she felt like it, half because she kinda needed to. But she did have something to do first.
She know many things about herself now, and the most important one was that she looked exactly like she did in her past life. It wasn't just that she had albinism, but her eyes were the same as they were - multiple pupils swam around in her eyes. Her albinism, like last time, didn't seem to affect her eyesight though. If she wanted to, she could even avoid any and all sunburns, but since everyone here was a normal human, she refrained.
That being said, she did still mostly hang out inside, mostly by herself, sometimes with a few others. She used just enough power to avoid getting burned by the sunlight coming through the window, but not much more.
Mom was the most worried about her condition.
That woman wasn't her mother though, just the head of the orphanage. All the children here, and even her after some time, called her that. It was easier than thinking of a nickname for her.
The same when for Emma and a few others.
She did use a nickname for her at first, but she just ended up using her name, since she went and introduced herself by it.
Firecracker.
Emma's hair was red like fire, and she was pretty energetic, so it fit nicely.
Good job her, for thinking of such a good nickname.
Suddenly, she heard footsteps coming down the hall.
...speaking of Firecracker.
"White!"
The door was pushed open as Emma and co. waltzed right on in without even knocking. Two green eyes peered at her as she quickly walked over to her and asked loudly, "Are you okay? You threw up..." She was so loud at times - but seemed to realize when to hush. When she was worried or passionate, she got loud. Well, she was only seven years old.
Everyone here, other than Mom, was pretty young. At this orphanage, not many kids got adopted older than ten or eight.
She fidgeted with her shirt collar.
Silently, she nodded.
Norman and Ray gave her worried looks. After a moment, the later said, "White probably just has a small stomach, Emma." He paused thoughtfully. "She often gets stomachaches and doesn't finish her meals anyways, so it's not too surprising."
The amount of food she should be eating and could eat often didn't overlap.
But, yeah, leave it to Ray to deduce this kind of stuff.
He was the edgy cool type, like a detective or something. Super cool, but he was also seven and she was even younger. That was excluding her past life and her memories as Hiiro Wakaba. He was a bit too young.
Also, she didn't really feel those type of feelings anyways.
He was so edgy, he even had wild spikey black hair that went every which way. His attempts to tame it were usually rendered null after a few days at most, so he just gave up. Emma especially, didn't seem to mind his weird hair. But luckily, his cuteness as a little kid canceled out the edginess factor.
Emma seemed to consider this, tapping a finger on her chin, then she nodded and looked back at her. Geez, this girl was hyper. Charming, but hyper.
"Are you feeling better now?"
She nodded.
Before she could pester her anymore, Norman said in a quieter voice, "I think White's tired."
"Eh?"
...thank you.
Before either of them could do anything, Norman ushered the other two out of the room, giving her a tiny smile.
Well, that was abrupt.
As Norman was pushing her out the door, Emma managed to blurt out, "Night, White, love you!" before she disappeared behind the doorframe. The old wooden door closed with a thud and she was left in silence again.
"...good night."
Those three stuck close to each other.
Emma was the alethic one, Norman was the smart one, and Ray was the other smart one. Well, Emma was also super smart, enough to keep up with the other two. The reason she knew this was because the kids here took some type of daily test, with those three getting perfect scores.
Those kids were crazy smart!
Scary~
...what was she going to do again?
Oh, right. Thread making.
She looked at her fingers for a moment, then used her powers to make spider thread come from her fingertips. Focusing and altering its properties, she moved it towards the door so she could block it. It would be pretty bad if someone barged in and saw a tiny four-year-old girl creating thread with her mind, or anything like that.
Sticking some thread to the door and the wall, she disconnected it from her hand and began working on something else.
Woah.
Woah.
She hadn't believed it when Emma - Firecracker - had describe it to her. Because, well, this world seemed pretty low tech. There was the stuff in books and all that, but it was pretty surreal to see all this high tech stuff in front of her like this. It wasn't that big of a deal, but this place didn't even have vacuums. So why would they had all this stuff? It was pretty weird, if she was being honest.
"Nervous?"
She flinched at the sound of Firecracker's voice - yeah, she was calling her that - and whirled around.
Those green eyes stared right at her while the girl gave her a curious look, When she realized she going to take a while to respond, she scratched her neck awkwardly. The side of her neck that had the strange tattoo.
She had a theory about that.
"It's futuristic."
Firecracker frowned and asked, "How can it be futuristic if we're in the present?"
She shrugged, unable to explain. Well, she could, but she didn't have the time to.
The silence continued, until her orphanage-sister patted her on the shoulder, flashing her a small smile. She lead her over to the empty desk beside hers, and she slowly followed. When she sat down and stared at the technology in front of her, Firecracker reached over to the power button.
The screen flickered to life.
"Just put in your number," she told her, pointing her her neck, "and put on the headphones. You'll do great!"
O-okay.
She typed in the numbers that were branded on her neck - seriously, she had a very bad theory about that and now, about this test - and placed the headset over her ears. It seemed like normal Earth tech, but just a bit too developed. Just a tiny bit, and she could be mistaken.
The robotic voice suddenly sounded in her ears and she flinched.
Eep!
What?
U-um!
Let's do this!
The first question appeared on the screen, along with a timer, and she realized one thing:
She was screwed.
When the other kids had said the practice test were harder than the real ones - wait, this was harder, she only had a few seconds! She barely had time to run these calculations!
Let's see...
Multiple this, carry that, there's a zero there...
"Question Two."
Oh!
She glanced around her, then preceded to do something that would be frowned upon.
She cheated, and slowed down her perception of time. The millisecond part of the counter slowed down.
Safe!
Now, she could take the time to do the test. She probably could do it in the time provided, but her thoughts were too muddled up for her to concentrate. She took a moment to calm down, and went to work.
On question three.
Also, she might have looked into the future once or twice.
...
...done.
She sighed loudly, then shoved off the headphones and placed them on the desk - she had to do this every day for now on, right?
She glanced down at her score.
Only five questions wrong.
Not bad.
"Woah, you did really good!" Firecracker, Emma - yeah, she switched back and forth - said, staring in amazement at her screen, startling her and causing her to jump. That girl...
She seemed to notice as she blinked sheepishly, muttering an apology. Lowering her voice a bit, she added, "You're really smart."
Then she smiled.
That smile was so genuine, she felt guilty.
After all, she had cheated on it.
Trying to ignore the strange feeling, she promised to study harder next time.
Mom looked really happy that she did good on the test...
...and relieved.
"White, White!"
Now what?
She was sudden pulled into a hug from behind. With her powers, she could tell that it was Emma wrapping her arms around her so tightly, heart beating against her back. Norman and Ray were linger close behind her, watching the scene and doing nothing to help her. How cruel!
Norman chuckled at the sight, then said smoothly, "I don't think White likes it when people surprise her like that, Emma."
"Whoops," she said, belatedly remembering. "Sorry, again. I was just really excited."
She was released, only for that traitor to go and drape an arm on her shoulders, and she looked at him with her eyes open. For some reason, no one here seemed to mind her weird eyes. Some of the littler kids were a bit scary at first, but Emma had been quick to tell them that she was super nice. Well, of course she was, but she was tempted to throw some one the kid in a pocket dimension some times.
She had come really close.
Emma was super touchy-feely.
...well, Firecracker it was, then.
"I just wanted to know if you wanted to play a game with us."
Hm?
She tilted her head.
"Indoor Hide and Seek!" she exclaimed loudly, looking really excited by her idea. When she just tilted her head more, Firecracker explained, "Well if you have trouble playing normal Hide and Seek, we could just play it inside, right?"
Wouldn't that hinder everyone? Everyone knew every nok and cranky of the house.
Huh, was this really the same girl who outclassed basically everyone else in terms of alethics, who was the first outside most days?
...yeah, it was.
Firecracker was like this. Like the Demon Lord - she really cared about her family too. Except she really was a little kid!
She kinda felt like patting her head, so she did that.
"Uh, is that a yes?"
She nodded.
"Yay!" Firecracker cheered. grabbing both her hand and Norman's, a huge smile on her face.
"Are you sure you don't want to come outside and play?"
She nodded.
"Are you sure you're sure?"
Another nod.
"Aww..." the small boy whined.
"It's okay," Emma told him, grabbing his hand. "I'm sure White would like play outside with you too now, but she burns really easy. She can't go outside now." To her, she said, "Have fun reading books!"
"I know..." The boy said sadly.
Emma, now ten, waved at her before starting to leave.
Then she turned around and held her arms out.
...okay.
She hesitantly wrapped her arms around her, hugging her. The other girl hugged her back tightly for a second, then let go.
Then she waved again and left.
...Emma.
She sure was something. She had tried not to get attached, but she had known her for seven years now. So she just started going along with her games and stuff. She had a plan, and befriending people would interfere with it.
Because while she was selfish, she couldn't help growing attached.
Push come to a shove, she could break ties, but she didn't want to have the chance to regret it.
But Emma, and Ray and Norman, they were...
Darkness.
But her clone could see through it all; after all this time, her night vision was perfected.
How did she get the clone? Don't ask.
But... she saw it.
Alongside Emma and Norman, she saw it.
That body thrown in the truck, pale and drained of blood, skin like ash. That bloodied flower.
The reason behind Mom's hidden expressions.
She suspected it.
She saw the house, and all the others from the sky.
But still, seeing this...
Seeing one of her orphanage-sisters bodies like this-
-seeing look on Emma and Norman's faces-
-she sort of wanted a time machine, so they wouldn't have seen this.