[Edanian Journey] Sylvia

Chapter 10: The Oblivion I Chose

I looked around as though waking from a dream. Only then did the Black Spirit begin telling me the truth, one piece at a time.

It made no secret of the fact that it had wanted my body. In Mediah, it had grown impatient and tried to swallow me whole, only to realize that even then it would not be strong enough to defeat Hadum.

Then came an unexpected greeting.

"Welcome to my homeland."

The Black Spirits had lived on this planet long before humanity was born, building a brilliant civilization before Hadum appeared. They had been forced to leave their homeland and had dreamed ever since of returning. Even now, what they wanted was simply to live and prosper here again. There was longing in the Black Spirit's voice, but greed as well.

Before asking about that vast history, I wanted the truth about our deal. The Black Spirit had kept me alive when I was dying in Hystria, and in return, I had agreed to face Hadum's despair together with it. The journey I had begun with nothing but lost memories had started with a pact.

Hystria touched the other plane, beyond Hadum's gaze. When I died there, I slipped out of her sight, reunited with the Black Spirit, and immediately regained the memories of my past life. But once the gap in space-time closed, we would fall under Hadum's laws of cause and effect again. If I acted according to those memories, my choices could already be foreseen.

And so, it was <b>I</b> who chose to forget.

My missing memories were not an empty space left behind because someone had taken them from me. Losing them had been the opening move of a counterattack I had chosen myself. The Black Spirit stayed with me and watched over me, while I continued making choices that strayed from the course already laid out for us.

Records I had believed immutable, and memories I thought erased, began to take on a different shape beyond the reach of observed time.

Hearing the explanation did not make the feeling of having been deceived disappear. But I could no longer see who I was now as someone who had merely been swept along by events. My past self had already accepted even the fear of forgetting who I was, so that even I could not know what would come of that choice.