Goal: A Normal Life

One Hundred Twenty-one

-Vincenzo's POV-

She sat there with confidence while silently sipping on her tea though her eyes never turned away from us. 

Setting down her cup, she gained her poise and started, "Ask any question and I'll answer them honestly."

I didn't hesitate to ask, "Why did you make me shoot you, Ivy? Please tell me.."

I was eager to know. The explanation she gave me a few weeks ago was not sufficient. For months I couldn't sleep well because all I had in my head was the image of her dying from my hands.

The immense guilt I felt when I released the trigger. I knew I killed her. The woman whom we love..the one that I love so dearly. 

Her eyes held an answer that she had already expected my question. Her brows formed waves of regret but she replied, "I had to follow what was destined, Vince. As disgustingly corny as it sounds, I had to realign the structure I had destroyed forcefully. Me being here wasn't what was supposed to happen. It was my fault for disrupting all of your fates for my self-benefit." 

"What do you mean?" Claude asked, just as confused as I was.

"Claude found the real Valentina after her foster parents died. She fell in love with him first before eventually falling into an obsession with the rest of you except for Caius. She hated him since all you six could think about was Caius, that's why when Klaus contacted her, she agreed immediately after being manipulated into thinking she'd have you all to herself. The reason why I made you kill me was because originally, you killed Valentina. After cornering her at the same spot she had murdered Ambrosia the day before, you shot her in the chest and she fell into the waters where she finally drowned. When I died your fate finally went back on track and so did mine. After all, I also had to die in my original story." She answered.

Slade raised his hand and quickly asked, "Why six? Aren't there seven of us if you exclude Caius?"

Her eyebrows cocked a bit and she hesitated to answer for a moment, "Heinrich..wasn't supposed to resolve his matters with Vincenzo. At the climax of everything, before I originally killed Ambrosia, He dies after finding out he was being betrayed by Klaus. Of course, I played along from the start and pretended I was irritated with you the moment we met but it was for all of you to be together again. "

I never imagined that she had already put up a plan before she even realized she loved us. We loved her then but hearing this now made it clear that nothing could compare to everything she has done and sacrificed for us.

"...I noticed something, why did you say you also had to die in your original story? What did you mean by that?" Heinrich questioned.

I also was intrigued when she said those words but I was hesitant to ask as I've already made her explain enough. She seemed confused before she stared at Caius and then back to Heinrich.

" Isn't there a novel of my life's original story here? Caius was the one who innocently introduced it to me. It's called urgh, Crowned Puppeteer. Fuck I hate that name. " She said with disgust.

My eyes bulged out, I never pieced those two together since why would it be her, not everything in that novel happened and I just convinced myself that some were just coincidences. 

"You're The Crowned Puppeteer??! I had to reread the whole novel since I was planning to make a movie out of it but you were sent to war when you were sixteen?!" Sebastian looked just as appalled as we were.

How could they make Everline, their bloody fucking heiress, be sent to a violent war at sixteen?! 

"I was initially enlisted when I was fifteen so I already knew what to do by then after being trained since I was six."

"So the training you mentioned before included this?!" Raven asked.

"Yes, and before you ask no, I did not marry eight men like that novel. I didn't want to follow it and I didn't even plan on marrying anyone when I came back there. I only had to marry Jedriel because of my great uncle. Also no, I didn't sleep with him either."

"You almost did. You just pushed him away because of the mark I gave you reacted. That other guy just also made an excuse of you being a Rastadian and that virus. " Caius sulked.

"How do you guys know of that? It's as if you were there." She scrutinized.

"...Well, how do I put this without sounding crazy. We were having dreams about you. Every night when we slept, we'd see what you were doing in your world. We don't know how it is possible but it stopped after we pretended to die. We could no longer dream about you after that." Demetrius explained.

"A dream? How odd...I don't know of any phenomenon regarding seeing dreams."

"I'd like to ask, was there a novel about us in your world?" Raven asked.

"Yes, there was. That was how I knew what to do and how I twisted everything to go the way I wanted it to. How I was able to efficiently plan all of it out. Though, I never really intended to fall in love with any of you or even get involved. Just become a friend or a comrade, I suppose at most." 

"You do love us..don't you?" I asked. It just came out. Why out of all times I had to be insecure now??

The smile on her face was soo bright in my eyes, I felt like my heart could explode any minute.

"Of course I do. I love all eight of you and no one else and I promise I'll never leave again. Even if this world might reject me in the future, I don't care." 

My body moved on its own and the next thing I knew I was already in her embrace. How could we ever let go of this woman? Our world revolves around her just as much as Caius does. I  never thought I could love someone as I love Caius but this woman..Everline, I love her soo much that it hurts.

"I love you." I whispered in her ear. She leaned back and pressed her hands on my chest. I stared at her as she placed a kiss on my lips.

"I love you too." She then giggled.

That was the first time she ever giggled and I wish I had recorded it. It was lovely, a song in my ears. But it's fine, I still have a lifetime to listen to her beautiful voice.

 "I want a kiss to~" Heinrich whined.

To Be Continued . . .