CHAPTER 236: CHOICE

I appear in a white room with a table and several chairs, I am the first to arrive and this is where the meeting will take place, I am wearing a green and black top along with a light green skirt with black and gray that reaches my knee.

"..." I sit down in the chair and look around waiting until a hole appears in space and I see the first to arrive.

"Welcome Elzynara" I say knowing a lot about her now, she came as a compilation of thousands of information about her that represents destiny, she wouldn’t even imagine that this would be my future.

"You seem tense" I say to her.

"Yes...destiny is not absolute, I never thought you would become...this" She speaks calling me ’this’, although I don’t really know what she should call me.

"Eh...what’s my destiny now?" I ask curiously.

"I don’t know, your level is too high in importance, your future is far from what I can meddle with" She speaks with a not very good look for me.

"...I..."

"You don’t need to explain anything to me ’Shizune’ I know what happened, and it’s not something I should get involved in, anyway you’re too weak to kill someone, and too important to be killed, just like a tree" She speaks calling me a tree.

"...Great..." I say, well aware of the vision they will have of me, soon another arrives and this time it’s Nyzzoraleth, she gives me a strange look before just sitting alone at the farthest point.

I don’t greet her, it doesn’t matter if it seems ungrateful on my part when she helped me with my curse, she still killed Yui and that won’t change regardless of how much it helped me.

"..." A few minutes later in an uncomfortable silence, Nyarlisse arrives, as soon as she looks at me things seem to get tense, she has a gaze full of anger, betrayal and love.

’She’s really angry...’ As expected, considering that in the short time we were together I even accepted a little romance, she must have been full of plans, and shortly after I just ran off with her "rival".

’It seems the effects of the curse remain...’ Now I can see her aura, she is no longer able to contain it, and if Maya’s aura was disgusting, Nyarlisse’s is much worse.

They are like thousands of tentacles covered in blood covering the entire area and clinging to everything they find, it’s kind of terrifying to know that she hid this from me, her aura practically encompasses the entire gigantic area we are in.

And now with my new body I feel as if her aura is touching me, the tentacles cling to me, caressing me and staining me with blood and some kind of nasty viscous liquid.

’It’s just an aura...it’s just an aura...’ I stop seeing this and everything seems normal, Nyarlisse doesn’t say anything, she knows she can’t do anything to me so she just sits in her place and stares at me.

The gaze is uncomfortable, but I don’t do anything about it, in fact in a way I feel more comfortable feeling her anger.

Soon Sayuri arrives, she appears out of nowhere and looks at me opening her mouth to speak, but soon closes it and sits at the table, everything is very uncomfortable here so I decide to be quick.

"So, I believe that no one else will come, some time has passed and I want to start this so we can leave soon since no one here is comfortable" I say standing up.

"Recently a ’big’ event happened, and unfortunately Yui is no longer with us, I’m taking her place and will assume her duties and responsibilities...I believe that since this affects everyone, I needed to talk about it"

"Currently everything is stable, and problems caused earlier no longer affect existence, but it would be good for each of you to review your areas to see if any problems have arisen to be fixed"

"It’s a chaotic time, and stability needs to be maintained so please be attentive" I say nice words, but in short I’m ordering everyone to work properly to avoid problems like the ones Sayuri caused.

"Does anyone have any questions?" I ask everyone.

"Can I leave?" Elzynara asks, I just sigh and confirm, there’s no point in forcing her to stay.

"Thank you, I hope you do your job well, new tree" She speaks and disappears into a crack in space.

"I’ll leave too, everything is stable in my area, if anything a herald will send you a report" Nyzzoraleth speaks without looking into my eyes and without waiting for a response she leaves.

"I...I’ll leave for today...little sister" Sayuri speaks with strangeness, disappearing as well, her tone was very bad when she called me little sister, a mixture of bitter feeling, anger and guilt.

"..."

"W-Wait Nyarlisse" I say when Nyarlisse gets up to leave, I run up to her holding her hand.

"...What do you want, traitor" She speaks with a look of anger, she’s not wrong since I fled from her as soon as the chance arose.

’Again...damn...why do I have to be so cowardly...’

"I..."

"What, Shizune? You’re free, who you are now gives you a guarantee of being untouchable that no one would dare violate, I can’t do anything to you" She speaks pulling her hand.

"You lied to me, you fled from me even without me having done anything to you, you believed everything that damned chaos creature said, without even questioning" She speaks the truth, I kind of didn’t have any proof.

Nyzzoraleth just seemed quite convincing when talking about Nyarlisse and also gave me an offer that seemed good so I believed.

’When did I become so foolish?...I really destroyed my life with these bad choices...’ I look directly into Nyarlisse’s eyes, the feeling of betrayal in them is painful.

"So...how about one last chance?" I say leaving her confused.

"One last chance?"

"I...don’t have a curse anymore...I won’t die...and...I think...I need a little pain" Perhaps suffering a little in a relationship will help mask the feeling of knowing that Yui died because of my fault.

If I hadn’t trusted Nyzz, everything would have been better? I could have stayed with Nyarlisse, she’s skilled, she would have had little chance of really killing me and by staying with her, Yui would have stayed alive.

"So you’ll let me do whatever I want to you?" She speaks, without thinking much I just nod my head, it’s a problem if someone tries to hurt me, but it’s not a problem if I allow it first.

It’s also a problem to try a relationship with most beings, but it wouldn’t be a problem to be with Nyarlisse because she’s an eldritch entity.

"..." She slaps me, a hard slap on the face that makes an unpleasant dry snap leaving an immediate palm mark on my face, I don’t react looking down feeling guilty.

Out of "fear" I left her without reason, she hadn’t really given any reason, ok that she didn’t tell the truth and had even fed me parts of her body.

But I never even asked exactly what the food was, and it’s not like she needed to say what was in the food when I even praised how delicious it was.

"For real? You don’t even love me Shizune, you want to be with me even knowing you don’t feel anything for me?" She speaks coldly.

"I...know that..." I say and she soon grips my face making me look into her face, she’s so tall for my height that she makes me feel insignificant next to her.

"Then you masochistic traitor, you just want me to hurt you to feel better, you’re so terrible" She speaks making me feel worse, after all it’s like trying to mask the pain with another different and more acceptable one.

"That...is true..." I don’t deny being honest.

"..." She grips my hand tightly, hard enough to hurt while pulling me, soon we appear in her house, a place I recognize,

"So love, this is your new home, we’ll share our work, our lives, our bodies, everything we have, how about it?" She speaks while I hesitate, her smile grows becoming disturbing.

"You want help, but you don’t want the price? Don’t be a hypocritical bitch, you just want to be with me to feel better, I have every right to demand things since you want to use me"

"...Okay...I accept...I’m sorry I fled before, I...should have been sure before...it was unfair of me to judge you without even getting to know you better" I say as she pulls me.

"Let’s go to my office, that’s where you’ll be working now, you’ll also now sleep in my bed with me, your wardrobe will also be mine" She speaks excitedly.

"Haaa...I guess it’s easier for you to just say what I can do alone" I say trying to speed this up, after all if she’s going to talk about every single thing I should do with her, it’ll never end, she thinks before speaking.

"You can talk alone, that’s enough isn’t it?" She speaks while I just nod my head.

’I’m surrendering my freedom...how ironic...’ I ran so much after my freedom that now that I have it, I’m purposely surrendering it, I guess it’s like that, I want the freedom to choose whether to be trapped in a relationship or not.

It’s also good that this will annoy Nyzzoraleth, who was directly responsible for Yui’s end, and that’s unforgivable.

"I’m glad you accept, I’ll make you very ’happy’, when you get used to everything here you’ll see I’m not as bad as they try to make me out to be" She speaks enthusiastically, the angry look hasn’t gone away, but it’s smaller.

I guess she doesn’t mind being used as long as she has me as hers, it seems I’m in a relationship now, although this is probably the last one I’ll have for eternity.