A Blessed Curse [Rewrite]

Chapter 19 - The Painful Truth

"Are you certain? I wouldn't want to intrude on anything personal."

"I'm sure. I think I'll need some support, regardless of what the outcome may be."

"Then I'll be there, Soleil."

She replays the exchange in her head while she looks down at the cup of tea clutched in her hands, steam still rising from it. There's a comforting pressure on her back where Kid has placed his hand between her shoulder blades. She's glad he's there.

Soleil takes a breath and glances up at Lord Death, who has been waiting patiently since she walked into the Death Room "You had news?"

Lord Death nods "I do. But before that I wanted to ask, Soleil, how much do you actually know about cursed weapons?"

"Not a lot." She admits, frowning "Mainly just what I've gathered from personal experience and... from the few things my father taught us when he still could."

"Your father was a cursed weapon as well?" Kid inquires.

Soleil turns her head towards him before nodding. Her eyes sting a little "He went mad a few years ago. He was resilient for cursed weapon standards, but... not enough."

Kid pauses "It's him you're trying to save, aren't you?"

"How did you...?"

"I pieced it together eventually." He explains "You and Lune look similiar to him, and he seemed to recognize you both times we fought him. It wasn't hard to realize he's a relative of yours."

She looks away now "I'm sorry for not telling you."

"It's okay. It hasn't come up for quite some time, so it makes sense you didn't discuss it." Kid looks over at Lord Death "Apologies for the side-track, father. Continue."

"Don't worry about it." At that sentence, Lord Death's voice is a little more chipper again. He takes a sip from his tea.

Soleil has stopped questioning how this particular reaper functions long ago.

"I'm sure you're familiar with the history of regular demon weapons?" Lord Death waits for her to nod before he continues "Cursed weapons descend from one of these first weapons. This individual was caught by witches, who were rightfully angry at what Arachne Gorgon had done to create the weapons. However, they directed their fury at the wrong person, who they doomed to suffer from severe madness."

"So they were cursed by witches." Soleil mutters. She frowns "I don't understand how we're still around then. Very few of us even reach adulthood."

"Yes, but your weapon blood awakens when you are children. This person was already an adult by the time they became cursed." Lord Death sighs "They managed to hang on long enough to have offspring, and one of them inherited a dormant weapon gene, rather than an active one, from whom most of your kind descends."

Soleil glances down at her tea again while she lets the new information sink in. Of course they descend from the person with a dormant weapon gene, that's how most of their kind come to be anyways. Lune and her are the strange ones in that regard, having a cursed weapon parent.

"Very few of you reach adulthood?" Kid repeats, shutting down her wandering thought process.

Soleil gives a solemn nod "Weapons activate their abilities at some point, right? We do too, but for us the process is a lot more... violent. I honestly don't remember most of it."

"Soleil...?"

"Lune? What's the matter?"

"It... it hurts."