CHAPTER 69: TO CHANGE ONE’S BLOODLINE

Just a quick note here, I may be retconnin some of Kanas background here. Don’t know if I already mentioned anything about it but wanted to let you know now to hold off any confusion if it seems like I’m changing anything, because I am!

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~Kana POV~

Once the ever unsettling feeling of being teleported away ended I opened my eyes and looked around my new surroundings. I wasn’t quite sure what I expected but I can honestly say that it wasn’t this. This was because I recognised this room, in fact this is the very same room that I spent many years in frowning up. After all if was my bedroom from the orphanage that I grew up in.

It was small barely big enough to fit the small single bed tucked away at one side, the thin threadbare shite sheets that lacked any emotion stood stark but neatly made. I remember that the director would smack anyone with her cane if she found any beds not made up properly causing a phantom pain which made me rub my bum in remeberance.

Past the simple wooden bed their was a small wooden chest, it had a simple iron latch which could have been locked if we were provided a lock and key but that was not a luxury that any of us had. That was the only place in the room to store any spare clothing I had, not that I ever had much, the orphanage was quite poor and most of the children were only provided with 2 maybe 3 outfits that we were responsible for cleaning and repairing if they got damaged or dirty.

And that was about it, as basic a room as you could possibly find, the walls were a drab off white turning to gray with years of accumulated grim. The faded marks of fingerprints and various scraped and scratches that came from previous occupants of the room before my time.

It was these marks on the wall that allowed me to know this was my room, after all I spent much of my childhood within these 4 walls, I would hide away here to stop the bullying I would receive from the other children for being a ’dirty half bread’. I shook my head, children really can be the worse at times. After I had observed my surroundings for a while a screen popped up before me.

[You are challenged to undertake the trial of bloodline renewal.

You must face your past if you ever want to progress into the future. Relive your past and come to peace with your present to unlock your future.

Objectives

-face your past memories

-learn why this must be done

-(Optional) unlock the bloodline renewal]

’Oh’ I really don’t like the sound of this challenge. My childhood was not a happy time for me and I was not all to eager to relive it. But it seemed that I wouldn’t be granted that reprieves the world around me began to melt way. It was as if the room I was in was naught but a painting being washed away leaving behind a swirl of colour that soon began to spread out to paint me a new scene.

This was one I both dreaded but expected to arrive.

When the scene finally coalesced it showed a dark street with a clear moonless sky draped in the twinkling stars of a dark night. I was standing, or floating? I didn’t appear to have a body right now and was apparently just to be a silent observer, maybe I should be worried but I felt strangely detached right now.

A figure wrapped in a dark cloak rushed up the street. It was holding a bundle of blankets in its arms and I idly wondered if this was my wayward mum or just some random person she got to dump me at the orphanage. But it was then that I noticed how the figure moved, it was not the basic movement of any regular person, nor the precise walk of a warrior or hunter. No, this was the walk of a noble, excite the person who was walking was also limping as if injured.

Feeling an uneasy curiosity at this sight I tried to move closer to get a better look at the person. To my surprise the my viewpoint seemed to flow as the world around me rotated until I was looking at the figure from the front. I could better tell that yhe figure was female but was still unable to see her face in the shifting shadows. I was also able to confirm that the bundle in the woman’s arms was in fact a baby and I could only guess that baby was me.

The woman soon reached the door of the orphanage, I had always imagined that I was dumped on the doorstep and left to be discovered by the orphanage staff but I was actually pleasantly surprised when the woman extended a fist to knock on the door.

What I was less happy about was the blood that dripped down the arm that she extended. What happened to this woman to leave her in such a state? Why approach this particular orphanage when I knew that their was a much nicer one across the city from the one she grew up in.

After what could have been a moment or an hour the door swung inwards and revealed the elderly form of the director who looked upon the scene before her with a mix of shock and concern. "¥}%*~• what are you doing here? What happened to you?" A strange distortion scoured when the director spoke what I assumed to be the injured woman’s name which caused a small spike of pain to ping through my mind for a brief moment.

"Nadalia there is no time, please you must look after my child." The scene began to fad right as what I can only assume to be my mother passed me over to the director.

My mind blanked out for a while as I tried to understand why this was shown to me? And how this was shown to me, how is something that I by no means should be able to know being shown to me and what exactly does it mean. Before I can really come to terms with this fact a new scene begins to bleed into view before my eyes.

However, instead of a scene of me as I expected it instead focused in on the same woman as before now running through the streets, my mother. My vision seems to be fixed now simply following along at a distance as she runs. As I’m wondering what exactly she is running from it soon becomes clear, she is being chased.

4 figures in dark clothing race after her, they are firing off spells arrows and any other number of attacks towards her, yet without fail she manages to block dodge or redirect the attacks back towards her pursuers. The skill and speed of the pursuit is incredible and I can hardly keep track of what is going on but I am enthralled at the skill that is on display.

Then the scene begins to bleed away again. Now it shows my mother once more by herself and she appears to be hiding now, I can still not make out her face as it is hidden but her pink skin is covered in dust, blood and scrapes everywhere that it is visable. She appears to be tending to her wounds.

Scenes like this rapidly come into focus and then move on showing a passage of time. It shows her recovering, then traveling to a new city. Her getting ambushed by bandits or assassins but coming out on top each time. Over time a pattern becomes apparent, she seems to be searching for something or someone. Time passes with her traveling to numerous city’s covering vast distances and all along I can never make out her face.

Eventually though she meets a man, this is the first person apart from my mother who’s features are also blanked out making me wonder who exactly he is. But I think I soon find out as he joins her on whatever mission she is in. They grow closer until it shows them kissing, then in the next scene my mother is pregnant. And in the next the person who I can only assume is my farther is dead.

My mother who by this point in time is heavily pregnant arrives at the latest place they were staying to find him lying on the bed with his neck slit and a singular gold coin placed on his chest. Then more scenes pass showing my mother fleeing again whilst being pursued by faceless assassins. Until finally I am born and for the first time I see my mothers face.

She has bright pink eyes that glitter with kindness and love when she looks down at my infant form. Her every feature radiates earth and love towards me and I can feel my heart beating faster and tears forming in my eyes as I finally behold my mother for the first time in my life. However, this scene too lasts far too short and soon she is back on the run only now with a baby me wrapped in her arms. She travels to a new city one that I recognise and she runs down familiar streets until she arrives at an all too familiar door, upon knocking on that door it is opened by an all too familiar elderly woman.

Then this scene too fades away as a message appears before me.

[Now you have seen your past. You must now come to terms with your present.]