Thief of Time

When it came to Distortions, there were two ways to deal with them. One was to do what Claud and Lily did, which was to kill the core of the Distortion. This entailed the ability to ignore the laws of the Distortion itself, which, in their case, was apparently freezing cold or something.

The second way was to deal with the Distortion’s actual cause, which had succeeded twice thus far. The traumatising incident, or the trigger. It was universally acknowledged that doing so required luck, a lot of knowledge about the target, or both.

It so happened that the kneeling little kid and her mother was a complete enigma to Dia, so the only thing that she was literally relying on was luck right now.

“That’s all I can do, though,” Dia said out loud, watching as the variety of healing and rejuvenation skills flooded her mother’s body. The charred flesh turned back to normal, and blood seemed to return, but…

She couldn’t sense any life from the woman. Her current state wasn’t all that different from a vanity sword — pretty and intimidating, but that was it.

The little girl crawled over to her mother, and then shook her body back and forth. Dia took in the sight in silence, but there was nothing she could do to blot out the pain in her heart.

After all, she too had lost her mother. Not in such a traumatic way, but sorrows were never meant to be compared with each other.

For a moment, her own memories overlapped with the scene, and warm tears ran down her cheek. Was the sorrow and pity for the little kid? Or was it for herself? Dia didn’t know, but it hurt.

However, giving in to her turbulent emotions wasn’t the right thing to do now. There was a time and place for everything, and right now, what was needed was an adult.

She squatted down and hugged the little girl. “She’s not coming back. She protected you.”

The child froze.

“See that smile on her face?” Dia continued. “She’s happy, because she protected you. In that last moment, she pushed you away and saved your life. You are the crystallisation of her entire being. She will never want you to cry in this dead world. She is your mother, after all.”

The girl began to sob.

Even though there might have been a language barrier, there were some things that were so primordial, so common, that all it took was a human to understand them. Crying and wailing were the most fundamental expressions of grief, one that babies knew…and it was how one could release the emotions in their heart.

The child wailed and wailed as she hugged her mother’s body, but in the midst of all that sorrow, Dia could see the faint understanding in that child, the understanding that her mother will never wake up again.

Never would her mother laugh with her. Never would she hug her again. She would never move again, and that smile on her face would be the last one the little girl would ever see.

As the little toddler wailed at her understanding of what it meant to die, Dia finally understood why this Distortion behaved in such a way. Those falling stars and how they absorbed people who had been killed or knocked out by them were manifestations of this child’s little wish.

She didn’t want people that were struck by falling balls of fire to die.

The only question that remained was how this wish was both distorted and manifested to such an extreme, and why it was capable of engulfing not just Licencia, but the area around it.

That, however, was a question for a different day.

After scanning the area once more, Dia squatted down and patted the little kid’s head. “Hey.”

The toddler looked at her, and Dia felt her heart break apart once more. There was no conceivable reason for a child to have such an expression, but here it was, right in front of her.

“…We should bury your mother,” Dia said, her voice quiet. “She died for you, right? It’s not correct to leave her body like this. Let’s bury her instead. Give her a place to rest in.”

She didn’t know if the toddler could understand her or even comprehend the concept, but the kid tottered over to her and hugged her arm anyway. The heart-rending wails doubled and tripled, and it was all Dia could do to pat the child’s head and wipe her tears.

“There, there. Keep crying. It hurts. So cry until it doesn’t,” Dia murmured. “Cry until you think you can live the life your mother would have wanted you to have.”

Tears fell over and over again as Dia patted the child’s back. Once again, she was struck by the feeling that she knew what the child was feeling. Of course, it only made sense, but…

Rocking the girl back and forth, Dia patted her back until the sobbing finally ended in an adorable hiccup. Puffy eyes stared at her, and Dia smiled. “Ran out of tears? There are always more tomorrow, and the day after, and the day after that. There will always be a tomorrow. But you need to put your mother to rest first. Only then will your tomorrows have a meaning, and your mother be at peace. Please.”

Dia gestured at the world around her. “Restore the world, will you? So that we can send your mother off. I’ll bring you to see her whenever you want, until you are old enough to make your way there yourself.”

The little child looked up at her, and Dia felt her heart twist up even further. “This, I promise. I’ll bury her in a lovely place, where she can watch you grow up henceforth. I will provide you with the best living environment to grow up in, and when the time comes, you will make your mother proud. So…please. Let go.”

The world wavered once, and the child began to cry in earnest. At the same time, the Distortion’s contents began to fade away, leaving behind only the corpse of a woman, who had a peaceful smile on her face. Purple light fell from the heavens, the little fragments of a child’s shattered heart, and the little kid began to glow.

“…Thank you,” Dia whispered, before sitting down next to her. Purple light drifted as the Distortion fell apart entirely, and the two of them found themselves in a city square. “Do you see her smile? It’s pretty, isn’t it? She chose to save you. She passed away on her own terms, as your mother. Live. Be strong. Do her proud.”

The child nodded once as tears streamed down her face once more, and Dia hugged her.

She could see the people that had been captured by those balls of fire on the ground now, and some of them were even awakening.

The Distortion had ended.

This crisis, which her brother had spent his entire life to overcome, had been solved like this, in such an absurdly, seemingly easy, fashion. Thanks to her Salvation Star skill, she had managed to make it into the city centre, meet the core of the Distortion, and then help her overcome her trauma without needing to kill her.

It was an achievement like no other, and yet…

The only thing Dia could feel was a profound sorrow. Her brother had perished for this. Burned his life and moved piece after piece behind the shadows all for this day. She had expected a battle unlike any other, and yet, her destiny alone had shattered everything. How many people would acknowledge his fate-defying efforts? Know that he did what he could, just to ensure she was the right person at the right time?

The entire Licencia owed him their lives, and no one would ever know. No one would ever acknowledge her brother ever again. A part of her, the deepest, darkest part of her, felt a touch of regret — if she hadn’t moved so quickly, if she hadn’t solved the crisis this easily…would everyone view her brother’s sacrifice with far greater respect?

Was it worth it? Why didn’t he just tell her outright? Why?

What was the point of all this?

All this…sacrifice?

With a trembling hand, she patted the little child. She was too innocent to be blamed; no one could have taken responsibility for this Distortion that would have been fated to destroy the entire sovereignty in a different future. In fact, the only two things that could be blamed was the catastrophe that had robbed this child’s mother, and the cause behind these Distortions.

What caused these Distortions, and why?

This was a question that needed answering, no matter what. However, even if she learned the answer…

So what? Who could give her brother the accounting he deserved?

Dia trembled once, and then patted the little child again. Was the pity in her heart directed at the child now, or at her? Dia didn’t know, but at least patting her head and cheering the child up also did something to ease her tired, fatigued mind.

The memories she’d seen, the memories she had recalled, her dark thoughts, the absurd ease in which she had solved the crisis…

All that had tired her out.

“Dia!” Risti rushed over to her as her head swirled. “You defeated the Distortion?”

“Her mother died in front of her,” Dia replied, lying down on the ground. “Take good care of her mother’s body. Give her the funeral she deserves. The child. Take care of the kid too. She lost her mother.”

“Dia?”

“I’m just a bit tired, you know.” Dia smiled, and then raised her head slightly. “Child. Go with this pretty sister for now. She’ll make sure your mother is buried properly. She’ll give your mother a proper place to rest.”

The child looked at her, and then at Risti, who nodded. With the adaptive skills of a chameleon, Risti hugged the child and said, “You’ll be…living with us from now on, alright?”

Pulling out a small ball, she tossed it into the sky, and a burst of green light covered the world. Dia looked at the emergency signal for a while, and then felt the fatigue eating away at her once more.

No one would fault her if she rested now.