Coupon collecting villain x reincarnated cannon fodder

Chapter 24

My eyes fluttered open and I found myself standing amidst a crowd of what looked to be university students.

I struggled to understand what was going on, recalling that I was clearly at home a moment ago.

"I-I l-l-love you." An all too familiar called out from beyond the crowd, as soon as those words left his lips the crowd began jeering. Then I realised I wasn't in a crowd but standing amidst a few people circling a familiar blonde haired female.

"Hah, y-y-you what? What a re*ard!" A red haired male taunted with a sneer.

"It's not his fault he was born defective." This time the green-haired chimed in with disdain colouring his tone.

"Your stutter is annoying to listen to, how am I supposed to accept you when I can barely stand listening to you talk?" The girl quietened down the two assholes by her side and stared down at him with arrogance.

"W-what is this?" I covered my mouth in disgust as I watched the scene play out in front of me. Despite my outburst none of them seemed to detect my presence, then they turned to leave and I saw the mix of emotions in Audeus' eyes.

As he stared longingly at the heroine's back, his face froze and then contorted painfully. Holding back the tears he slowly stood up and stormed off.

"A-Audeus, don't listen to those guys they obviously don't know what they're talking about." I tried comforting him but he didn't seem to hear me.

"Hey, can you hear me?" I softly shook his shoulder only to find that my hand went through him. "What the-" I was interrupted by the sudden shift in location and I found myself standing besides Audeus outside a hospital.

"I-if I f-f-fix m-m-my stutter... Will she..." His voice trailed off as he paced back and forth in the private hospital room. Hearing him mumble to himself I realised that his stutter was way worse than I was usually used to hearing.

My thoughts were interrupted by the sudden entrance of a doctor.

"Sir, there's no need to go through this procedure. Is there no way to stop you?" The doctor tried to persuade him to back out of it with a pleading tone.

"D-Don't worry I'll m-make sure no one finds out you d-did this." Audeus muttered with an unwavering look in his eyes.

"Procedure? What procedure?" I asked, worried by the solemn tone of the doctor.

"We must discuss the possible side-effects of such a surgery..." I sat in horror as I listened to the doctor listing horrible side-effects like bouts of nausea, changes in personality and a high chance of death.

"What are you doing? Hey, do you really need to go this far?" I tried shaking his arm to get his attention but failed to touch him once again. "I know I can't understand why you're doing this, but you, you can't do this." I panicked, blocking his path with my body.

Then I was transported to the surgery room and no matter how many times I tried to leave I was forced back into the room.

"Audeus... No." My voice shook as I stood stock-still, watching the doctor removing a portion of his brain. Closing my eyes didn't stop the scene from playing out in my head.

"Ahh." I shot up in bed, cold sweat drenching my clothes. I shakily made my way to bathroom, splashing my face with cold water.

"What's wrong, sis?" Shi stood outside the bathroom rubbing her eyes tiredly.

"Just had a bad dream." I laughed uncomfortably while pushing her back into her room.

The next day after we had dropped them off to school, I stopped abruptly and turned to Audeus.

It was just a dream... right? I hesitated for a moment. But then recalled how Audeus in the original timeline had lost his stutter. And how the Audeus in his childhood was so different from the psychotic villain at the end of the game...

I felt disgusted at myself, who felt that the 'strong' adult Audeus was my favourite, when I had no idea what he had sacrificed to get there.

"W-what's wrong?" He asked, worry filling his voice.

"I..." I squinted at him unsure how to continue. "I just want to say that I don't think there's anything wrong with you stuttering and I'm sorry for saying stupid things when we were younger." I wrung my hands together feeling a little awkward. "Even if people say something bad about you, don't listen to them! I, I know this is like out of nowhere but I just think you're fine as you ar-" I choked on my words and watched for Audeus' reaction. He stared at me open-mouthed for a moment before his face lit up with a smile. "W-w-why are you smiling?" I stammered, feeling slightly scared by his reaction.

"No reason." His cheeks reddened slightly and he ruffled my hair playfully before dragging me forwards.

"Thank you for saying that." His quiet voice sounded from in front of me and his hands tightened around my wrist.

I stared bewilderedly at my wrist, feeling a strong warmth from the place his hand was wrapped around.

A/N: basically tell me why, TELL ME WHY! I was basically messing with the zoom settings at the beginning of the school year and put a camel background and forgot to change it back cause I haven't turned my camera ON and the first time I do in a 1-1 discussion it fooking comes on and I'm like shit... and then I didn't know if you could switch it back in the call so I was just awkwardly sitting there and then it glitches and my eyes start glowing yellow and I try to fix it back to "normal" and then the girl was like your eyes glowing and I was like yeah I can see that 😂😂😭😭 and I was like I didn't know this would happen and she was like yeah... right. So now I'll not do that again! Also the surgery I was talking about was lobotomy by the way. I think it was used to treat stuttering ʅ（◞‿◟）ʃ I remember watching a documentary about it like when I was 10 or something and it traumatised the shit out of me GRAPHIC DETAILS: like they would stick things in through the kids eyes and cut out a piece of their brain and parents would let people do it if their kids misbehaved and all this other ish. Its an effed up practice but yk what medicine used to be like, like 100 years ago.