"SAGITTARIUS!"
*#$%^#$%@#^*
Feeling a burning rage overwhelm him, Zoemi reached out his hand and roared – the concentrated star power erupted from his palm swallowing both the girl and the repugnant shadow.
*haaaaa*
As the glow of the star power faded, the sound of mana dissipating with a human-like sigh filled the room, leaving only the weeping girl on the floor.
"...why is he here...? I moved past what he did to me..."
"..."
Presence whimpered in a heartbroken voice as her tears were dropping on the floor while Zoemi watched her in silence.
"...is it your fault...? Is this your revenge...? You said that... Wh-wha...? NOOOOOO!"
The child raised her head and asked Zoemi in a trembling voice before her eyes widened and she screamed out again.
Just like before darkness gathered inside of her and emerged as the disgusting shadow ready to torment her.
"What the fuck is this supposed to be?! LEAVE HER ALONE, YOU FILTH!"
*haaaaa*
Agitated Zoemi growled changing his approach – instead of directly attacking the shadow, he spread his star power around the room, cleansing it from any form of mana and eradicating the shadow before it managed to start whispering again.
"...why do you hate me so much...? It's not my fault that your soul was born out of my Zoemi's soul and that you fell for a girl that I created... Why does no one want to help me...? Why does no one believe me...?"
The girl on the floor started sobbing burrowing her face in a torn-up teddy bear.
The repugnant shadow was being repeatedly created inside of her but it was erased by Zoemi's star power the moment it tried to creep out, giving the black-haired boy a rather worrisome idea.
He slowly approached the pitiful child and sat down by her side.
"!!!"
She flinched and cowered but didn't say a thing too busy to gasp for air as if she was about to drown.
"Hey... it's okay. You are not alone."
"...!"
The boy said and the girl stared at him as if expecting him to attack her, but nothing like that happened.
Zoemi merely stayed by her side as long as it was needed for her to calm down.
"Yeah... I now see that I am severely unqualified to deal with your situation..."
"..."
The boy sitting down with his arms around his knees pointed out which got him a glare from the little girl who sniffled and sat up with her back against the wall.
"First things first – I was connected with your protector for enough time to hate that piece of filth with all my heart. Second, I really did end up in this world by coincidence. Third, my Miriette didn't disappear from that other world even after the timeline reset."
Zoemi counted on his fingers before looking at the silent keeping a keen eye on his every move.
"Then why did that beast show up right after you arrived here?"
Presence asked huddling behind her knees, clinging to her messed-up teddy bear.
"I dealt with him for good."
She added pulling the hood of the new oversized onesie over her platinum hair.
"No. You didn't deal with him at all. You just ran away like the child you are. And I don't blame you. Hell, I didn't deal with him either even though I was so sure that I cleansed him to the last whisk of dark mist after you left."
The black-haired boy shook his head and pointed out looking to the side himself reminiscent of his failure.
"I stopped being a child the first night that this beast crawled into my bed."
Presence shuddered at the mere memory of an event that for her happened eons ago.
"From my perspective, it seems quite the opposite happened, really. He scarred you so bad that you were never able to move on past that."
Zoemi took a deep breath and said it rather awkwardly, feeling like it shouldn't be him saying those things to her.
But there was no one else there with them and some things needed to be said.
"..."
Presence didn't bless him with a comment and simply stayed silent staring at her knees.
"...I ask you to humor me for a moment, as audacious as it must sound to you."
The boy spoke up turning back towards the being that even a god treated as higher power tilting her a primordial.
She did not agree out loud but she looked up at him and waited visibly tense and cautious.
"I overthink things a lot, so stop me if my idea is getting too out of hand but... the two of us, Zoemi and Presence that is, had this talk before. You said that at the moment of your death when that filth also died you were thrown out of time and the artificial soul of your protector got mixed up with that filth's soul before crossing to another world. You said that you were resetting the timeline, again and again, to separate those two too."
"...because that's what I did... What's your point?"
The black-haired boy said and the young girl reluctantly admitted that he was correct.
"Have you ever considered that... you might have been mixed up with them too? Or rather... that you were the one keeping that filth alive?"
"..."
Zoemi asked and immediately received a murderous glare from the Presence that seemed to be too furious at the mere suggestion of something like that being the case.
"You said that you have erased him before moving on to this world. I really did my best to erase him too, but he still returned to the world of Kampf um die liebe and was able to corrupt Belcephora forcing her to reset everything – and then Guide themselves informed me that Cherro will be back and I need to get strong enough to repel him."
The black-haired boy was not intimidated and continued, the girl n the bear onesie looked as angry as before but one of her brows twitched as if she was beginning to wonder as to where Zoemi was going with his theory.
"Similarly, I could not sense any trace of that filth in this world until we met, and then, the moment that you were reminded of him, he reappeared from WITHIN YOU."
"What are you talking about?!"
Zoemi straightened his back and said looking Presence straight in the eye causing her to tense up and growl at him.
"Alright. I might be overthinking it but I will just ask you straight."
The boy furrowed his brows not backing out at all.
"Are you sure that the original Cherro didn't die and the thing that keeps tormenting you is just the personification of your fear and trauma that you keep alive because you can't forget what happened to you?"
"?!?!"
Just like Zoemi said, he didn't hold back and questioned the child that was literally as old as time causing her to freeze in place.
"Wh... what are you even talking about...? Me...? Keeping that... that beast alive...? DO YOU THINK THAT I ENYOU BEING TORMENTED?! BEING HOUNDED BY THE FILTH THAT SOILED MY ENTIRE WORLD?!"
Presence could not move back anymore with her back already against a wall but she still tried resulting in her crawling back up to her feet before she started screaming at the sitting boy.
As she did, the darkness inside of her condensed, and the filthy shadow tried to creep outside once again but it was destroyed by the spiritual energy that was still lingering in the room without fail.
"It would be nice if that was the case. I would have a valid reason to hate you then."
"?!?!"
Zoemi shrugged his shoulders and declared, making the girl close her mouth immediately.
"It's both ironic and incredibly sad... time is supposed to heal all wounds..."
The boy breathed out looking at the time magician that became something more than a god but could not let go of the shackles of human trauma.
"When you were alive you could not do anything to protect yourself against Cherro by yourself as he managed to manipulate everyone around you so you unintentionally convinced yourself that you can't win against him by yourself. That's why you so desperately wanted to bring back your Zoemi, the protector that you thought was your only chance of being free. Now that I think about it, he really cherished and believed in you. He let himself be erased to let you get rid of Cherro, but I think that I only had a surface understanding of what he has actually done."
"..."
While Zoemi was speaking Presence was clenching her fists and biting her lips while trembling, it seemed that she didn't even want to listen to the black-haired boy's words, and yet she didn't do anything about him.
"I was sure that he meant it in a way that you could have moved on whenever you wanted and you loved him so much that you wanted to protect him at your own expense, prompting him to disappear and stop being a burden.... but that must have not been the case now, has it?"
Zoemi pointed out sending the trembling girl a sad smile.
"He most likely knew that the real Cherro was long gone and the thing stuck with him in an endless time loop was something that you yourself have created but still hated Cherro too much to explain it properly... In that regard he and you are similar... but where you two differ is that your Zoemi realized that even if he and that filth will be 'separated' that will not let you move on and heal. Because your trauma is too deep to just ignore and move on. Fucking hell, if it wasn't, neither of us would be here in the first place!"
The boy started standing up and looking down at the little girl...
*thump*
...a girl who crumbled down and broke into tears...
"What... what am I supposed to do...? I can't....! I can't do anything on my own...! He... he will take everything I love away from me... again...!"
Presence sobbed, curling up into a little miserable ball.