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𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐏𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝐅𝐎𝐑𝐓𝐘-𝐎𝐍𝐄 : 𝐓𝐎 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐄𝐃𝐆𝐄 𝐎𝐅 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐖𝐎𝐑𝐋𝐃
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Ask me when I was younger if I would've made a deal with the devil and my answer would've been a flat-out yes.
Because to me, the devil wasn't a figure of evil but a figure that could make wishes come true.
And I desperately needed some wishes to come true.
I wished for Mother to go back to the way she was before Father's death. I wished the entirety of Japan didn't see the Ichigo family as murderers, and I wished every night before I went to sleep to wake up in another body.
What I didn't know then is the fine print that comes along with every wish coming true. Three little words, you never really notice until you wish you had known earlier.
Three little words that mean more than you can even imagine
You owe me.
There are no such things as miracles. You'd be a fool not to expect or receive any payment.
Roll the dice and see what you must give up for the chance of temporary respite. endless adoration, your vow to carry out a will, your firstborn, your soul...
It's been three days since my encounter with Trismegistus.
Three days since I've spoken to Ruki or anyone for that matter. For three days I've been trying to differentiate what is real and what is not— And it's been three days since I have felt the venom of the Medusa snake wrought in my body.
I've been cured and cursed.
I should be ecstatic, and for what it's worth, a small part of me is grateful to be rid of the last few weeks of my life— the stone, the last remnant of a journey cursed from the beginning.
However, a larger part of me is fearful of the uncertainties I left our agreement to.
"I will collect your payment later."
Trismegistus spoke it, commanded it, while I lay helpless under a dreary soporific state to which he poured the draught down my throat. I remember it was dark, as most things were there, but a second of realization dawned before I woke up coughing and sputtering in Ruki's room muttering incoherencies and curses.
I have been cured, yes, but in the most odious thaumaturgy I have ever seen.
My father...
Hung like a necklace, paraded next to dead animals— a collection of Trismegistus' prized jewels.
