Waking up, this time, was a slow, gradual, and surprisingly gentle process.
First came the sounds, no longer the distorted echoes of my mental landscape, but sounds of the real world. Seagulls. A lazy, piercing cry that reminded me of mornings long forgotten in coastal towns. Waves breaking softly somewhere nearby. And voices. Distant, muffled voices, as though filtered through a thick layer of cotton wool. Then came the sensations, the reassuring weight of my own body, the softness of something beneath my head that, to my enormous relief, was definitively not the impossible and thoroughly uncomfortable void of my own mind.
(A pillow. I was lying on a proper pillow. Bless the gods and whoever saw fit to invent the concept of comfort.)
If I'd had to spend another minute in that psychic prison, listening to Sukuna recount with sadistic relish the stories of my most embarrassing deaths across the ages ("Remember that time you were crushed by a giant wheel of cheese? Classic!"), or Kurama narrating in flat, condescending detail the occasion when I, in my seventy-eighth life, tripped over a simple root and fell face-first into an angry ant's nest, or, worst of all, the Phoenix pecking at my head whilst cataloguing every last one of the countless reasons I was an "irresponsible host with suicidal tendencies"...
I would have, with every certainty the universe could muster, gone completely and utterly mad.
More so than I had theoretically already gone mad, at any rate.
(Eos?)
[Welcome back to the physical world and its delightful limitations, Azra'il,] her voice rang through my mind, as calm and precise as ever. [I missed you.]
(How long has it been?)
[Four days, seven hours, twenty-three minutes and several seconds, since your initial loss of consciousness at the Tower of Heaven.]
Four days. Four long and dreadful days trapped in that private asylum which I, for lack of a better term, called my mental landscape.
(Never again,) I promised myself. (I'm going to train this body to withstand cosmic energy, even if it's the last and most painful thing I ever do. Anything to avoid having to listen to YOG-SOTHOTH make jokes about dolphins in alien tongues that make reality itself feel nauseous.)
[Your Ethernano channels are currently at 67% of their normal functionality. The Qi Meridians at 71%. Both remain below the ideal threshold and require further repair, but they are already sufficient for your basic biological and motor functions.]
(Could you translate that into something I can actually understand, please?)
[You can walk without falling. Probably. Running is still not a recommended option. And fighting, with any of your abilities, is completely and entirely out of the question for at least several more days. Attempting it now would result in a considerably longer recovery time.]
(Brilliant. Useless, but ambulatory. A tremendous step forward.)
[It is good to have you back, Azra'il.]
With an effort that felt monumental, I attempted to open my eyes.
Light. A great, vast quantity of sunlight. I shut them immediately with a grunt of pain.
(Right, second attempt. Slower this time, you creature of the night.)
The ceiling that slowly swam into focus was wooden. Simple, rustic, with a few artful cobwebs in the corners. The room smelt of salt, sea air, and fish. A fishing village, perhaps. That made sense. It wasn't as though they could have carried me, comatose, all the way back to Magnolia.
I tried to move, to sit up, and that was when I noticed it.
There was something heavy resting against my left side.
Something warm. Something that shifted slightly, up and down, with the rhythm of soft, steady, unhurried breathing.
With considerable effort, enough to make the muscles in my neck protest, I turned my head.
Red hair.
A cascade of scarlet hair, now clean and gleaming, spread across the soft mattress, across my arm, across everything in sight. And amid all that vivid red, a sleeping face. Eyebrows that were ordinarily furrowed in concentration or worry now utterly relaxed. Lips slightly parted. And the expression on her face was more peaceful, more serene, than I had ever seen it whilst she was awake.
(Erza.)
She was sleeping beside me.
No, "sleeping beside me" hardly did the scene justice. To be more precise, she was practically clinging to my arm, her fingers firmly laced through mine, her head resting partly on my shoulder, as though she had a deep and abiding terror that I might vanish into thin air the moment she let go for a single instant.
(Oh.)
[The young Erza Scarlet did not leave your side for all four days of your unconsciousness, Azra'il, except for the most basic of physiological necessities. And she has been sleeping in precisely that position for the past six hours.]
And something warm, something tight and faintly painful, settled in my chest.
(She... she really stayed here the whole time?)
[Yes. I should also add that Natsu Dragneel attempted, on no fewer than 47 separate occasions, to persuade her to rest properly in another bed. Lucy Heartfilia, using emotional appeals, tried on 31. Gray Fullbuster, after 12 fruitless attempts, wisely gave up.]
(And she...?)
[Refused, each and every time. Her answer was invariably the same: "I promised I would come back to her. So I'm staying until she comes back to me."]
And my eyes, in the most complete betrayal of everything I stood for, burned. Not with physical pain, but with something far, far more difficult to dismiss.
I watched her, in silence, for one long and precious moment. Her sleeping face. The small, almost invisible freckles on her nose. The way her long lashes rested softly against her cheeks. And the faint crease of worry between her brows that, even as she slept, remained, as though she were fretting over me in her very dreams.
(Beautiful.)
(She was so absurdly, so unfairly beautiful.)
And she, great and mighty Titania, had remained at my side like a stubborn sentinel for four long and endless days.
The last time someone had cared for me with such dedication... when had that even been?
The memory came, treacherous and uninvited, without being called. Another world. Runeterra. A small, cosy tea house in Piltover, the scent of herbs, teas, and sweet things hanging in the air. And a pair of soft dark wings wrapping around me whilst I, in that life, burned with fever after an alchemical experiment that had gone very, very wrong, involving certain plants of dubious origin and rather too much of my own arrogance. Gentle hands, changing cold compresses on my brow. And a low, hoarse voice, thick with poorly-disguised concern, murmuring that I was a reckless and pigheaded fool, but that she would absolutely not allow me to die on the floor.
(Morgana.)
Hundreds, perhaps thousands of lives ago. In another body, in another world, in another story entirely. She, my Crow Mother, had tended to me with that fierce, protective, unconditional love that only a mother can possess.
But this... what I felt now... was different.
Erza was not here as a mother. She was here as something more. Something that made my ancient heart, an organ I had long supposed had turned to stone, beat in an entirely new way, a dangerous way, a way that felt thoroughly and embarrassingly adolescent. Her fingers, firm and warm, laced through mine. A promise. A silent declaration that said, with a clarity that stole the breath from my lungs: I will not lose you.
Two kinds of love. Two different kinds of care, in two lives so impossibly distant from one another.
And somehow, I, the cynical and solitary creature who had watched the universe born and die, had had the absurd fortune to experience both.
I ought to wake her. I knew, rationally, that I ought to. She was undoubtedly exhausted, aching, and she most certainly needed to know that I was, at last, alright. That she no longer needed to worry herself.
But, for one moment, one single, selfish moment, I simply wanted to stay.
In silence. Watching her sleep. Feeling the warmth of her body against mine. Feeling her fingers firmly laced through mine.
It was selfish. It was ridiculous. And it was the most comforting thing I had felt in many an age.
And, as always, the universe decided I was not allowed to have good things for very long. Erza stirred.
A soft sound, almost a murmur, escaped her lips. Her fingers tightened around mine for an instant. And then, slowly, her eyes opened.
For a moment, she didn't recognise me. Her brown eyes, ordinarily so sharp and focused, were now clouded with sleep, unfocused, still caught in some distant dream that was, presumably, a good deal more peaceful than our reality. She blinked once. Twice. And then, recognition struck her. And it struck her with all the force of a bolt of lightning.
"Azra'il?"
Her voice came out hoarse and cracked, as though it hadn't been used properly in days. Knowing her, it very likely hadn't.
"Hello," I said. And my own voice, to my surprise, was not much better. Rough and scratchy, as if I'd spent the past four days gargling gravel.
With the agility of a cat, Erza bolted upright, her eyes now fully open, wide, and her hands flew to my face, her fingers warm and faintly trembling, touching my forehead, my cheeks, as though she needed tactile proof that I was real, that I was no longer some feverish delusion.
"You, you're awake! You, how long have you—"
"I just woke up," I replied, with a calm I didn't feel in the slightest. "Literally. Two minutes ago. At most."
"TWO MINUTES?!" And her voice shot up an entire octave, full of an indignation that caught me completely off guard. "You've been awake for two whole minutes and you didn't wake me?!"
"Well, you looked tired," I said, with a small smile. "And, to be perfectly honest, you were dribbling just a little bit on my shoulder. It was rather... endearing."
"I was not, I do NOT dribble when I sleep," with impressive speed, Erza raised her hand to her own mouth in an instinctive gesture of verification.
"No, you weren't," I smiled, with genuine satisfaction. "But your look of sheer panic just now was absolutely worth the small fib."
The look she gave me in that moment could have melted the steel of her own armour.
"You." And she pointed an accusatory finger directly at my face. "You were completely unconscious for FOUR LONG AND DREADFUL DAYS. Four. DAYS. And the very first, the absolute first, thing you do when you finally wake up is make a JOKE about my supposed dribbling?!"
"Technically, and to be precise, the first thing I did was lie here admiring you sleeping like an angel. The joke was, in fact, second on the list."
And her face, to my absolute delight, went scarlet.
"That doesn't, that doesn't make it alright! You can't simply—" With a frustration that was almost tangible, she squeezed her eyes shut, breathing deeply, the way I had taught her to manage her emotions. And when she opened them again, they were shining with an intensity that was not anger. It was something else. "I... I thought you were going to die, you absolute idiot."
And the confession, small, fractured, utterly unlike the Erza Scarlet the world knew, came out as a whisper.
And my smile, at last, faded.
"Hey." With an effort that made my muscles object, I raised my free hand and touched her face gently, my thumb tracing the line of her jaw. "I'm here now. I came back to you."
"You... you promised me dinner," the words came out trembling, barely audible. "You promised me dinner, and then right after that... you just... went out like a light. For four days. And I didn't know if you were going to wake up. Or when. Or if something had gone terribly wrong and you..."
"Erza—"
She was crying now. Not collapsing into sobs. Simply... crying. Silent, large, heavy tears rolling down her face as she stared at me with a raw mixture of relief, anger, and a fear she had been keeping pressed down for days upon days.
And I did the only thing that, in that moment, seemed right and possible to do.
I pulled her down and held her.
I held her tightly, wrapping my arms around her as she, at last, buried her face in my neck, her sobs now somewhat more audible.
"I'm sorry, my little redhead," I murmured into her hair, the scent of her filling my senses. "I'm sorry for making you wait. And most of all, I'm sorry for worrying you so dreadfully."
And Erza, in response, said nothing. She simply clung to me with the grip of someone who is drowning, as though I were her one last anchor in this world, as though she feared that if she let go, I might disappear again.
And we stayed like that. For one long, silent stretch of time. Minutes, perhaps. I honestly lost all track.
When she finally drew back, slowly, her large brown eyes were still red and swollen, but something in them had changed. Had softened. The storm seemed to have passed.
"Never again," she said, her voice now steady and carrying an authority that brooked no argument, in spite of the tears drying on her face. "Do you hear me, Azra'il? You are never to do this to me again."
"Well, I can't exactly promise I'll never be hurt again, Erza. That, given our line of work, would be a barefaced lie," I said, with a small, tired smile.
"Then promise me you'll always come back to me." She took my face in her hands, her fingers warm against my skin, holding my gaze steady. "Promise me, Azra'il. That no matter what happens, no matter how dire things get, you will always, always come back to me."
And I, looking into those brown eyes, so determined, so strong, and yet still bright with vulnerability, knew there was no other answer possible.
"I promise, Erza."
The silence that followed my promise was, for the first time in a very long while, comfortable. Light.
Erza, to my relief, remained close, now seated on the edge of the bed, one hand still holding mine firmly, as though she had a very real fear of letting go.
"So," I said, with a forced lightness, attempting to ease the heavy, emotional atmosphere of the room. "Four whole days of beauty sleep, eh? Tell me, what earth-shattering news did I miss whilst I was gone?"
"Do you want the short version, or the long and detailed account of Natsu attempting to cook and nearly burning the village down?"
"The short one first, please. My brain is still running on low power."
"Well," she began, with a small smile, "we're in a small fishing village a few hours by boat from Akane Resort. And the others, Natsu, Lucy, Gray, are all fine, and we're all staying at a guest house." A small pause. "Juvia, as soon as she'd recovered her strength, decided to set off ahead of the others. She's on her way to Magnolia, to find the Master and, in her words, 'formally request entry into the guild and be closer to her beloved Gray-sama'." Another pause. "And Sho, Wally, and Millianna are still here in the village. Simon is well and looking after them."
"I'm glad Simon is alright. He deserves it," I said, with a rare and genuine sincerity. "Of all our old, thoroughly dysfunctional little group from the tower, he is without question the most sensible."
"He is," she agreed. And I saw something complex cross her face, a shadow of concern. "And they want to speak to me. About their futures, about what comes next."
"And what will you tell them?"
"I... honestly, I don't know. I was waiting for you to wake up before deciding."
And my heart, that stupid, treacherous organ, gave yet another small and irritating lurch in my chest.
"You... you didn't have to do that, Erza."
"I know." She squeezed my hand with slightly more force. "But I wanted to wait for you."
And then a sound from the door of the room interrupted our moment. Not a loud sound. More of a muffled, conspiratorial whisper, immediately followed by a sharp "shhhh!" that was, ironically, anything but quiet.
With a synchronicity that only years of enforced company can produce, Erza and I exchanged a look of pure and absolute resignation.
"How long do you reckon they've been standing out there, eavesdropping?" I asked in a low voice, with a sigh.
"Knowing Natsu's gift for subtlety," she replied, equally quietly, "most likely from the precise moment you, in all your brilliance, made that joke about me dribbling."
"Ah. So they've essentially heard absolutely everything."
"Every last embarrassing detail. In all likelihood."
And another whisper, louder this time, came from the other side of the door. Something that sounded suspiciously like "she's really awake? For real?" followed immediately by "put a sock in it, you walking bonfire, you'll ruin everything!" and "you two are the ones who should shut up, before Erza kills us all!"
Erza, with the patience of a saint who is on the very cusp of committing several acts of grievous bodily harm, sighed and rubbed her temple.
"NATSU," she called, her voice now firm, clear, and unmistakeable. "I KNOW YOU'RE ALL OUT THERE."
And from the other side of the door, a sudden flurry of panic. The unmistakeable sounds of people shoving one another and, quite probably, tripping over each other's feet.
And the door, which was an old wooden door of the sort found in small fishing guest houses, and consequently quite fragile, gave way. Apparently, four people, or three people and one cat, pressing all of their combined weight and collective panic against a single wooden door was not, in point of fact, the most advisable of plans. The latch, poor thing, simply gave up the ghost.
With a pathetic creak, the door flew open, and the four figures who had clearly been squashed and jostling on the other side completely and entirely lost their balance, tumbling into a glorious, ungainly human heap in the middle of our room.
Natsu fell first, with a yelp of surprise, dragging Gray down with him in a tangle of limbs. Lucy, who was right behind them, fell on top of both, letting out a shriek that was thoroughly undignified for a young lady of her standing. And Happy, of course, with his feline grace and his perfectly-timed flair for chaos, simply floated down and landed, with a supremely satisfied grin, on top of the entire noisy, wriggling pile.
"Aye!"
"GET OFF ME, YOU WALKING ICE CUBE!"
"YOU'RE THE ONE WHO FELL FIRST, YOU MATCH-HEADED MORON!"
"YOU TWO ARE ABSOLUTELY AND COMPLETELY IMPOSSIBLE!"
For one long and delicious moment, I watched the scene unfold in contemplative silence.
Then, with deliberate slowness, I looked at Erza, whose expression was that of a woman on the very brink of committing multiple counts of grievous bodily harm.
Then I looked back at the pile of tangled, shouting limbs on the floor.
"You know," I said calmly, in the tone of someone making an academic observation, "for one brief, fleeting moment, I almost, almost missed the lot of you."
"AZRA'IL! IT'S TRUE!" With an agility that belied his size, Natsu disentangled himself from the heap and, in a single bound, was at the edge of my bed, his dark eyes shining with an energy and happiness that were nearly contagious. "YOU REALLY WOKE UP!"
"No, Natsu. I'm still asleep. This is all a dream. And you are a particularly loud nightmare. Kindly go away."
"HA! SHE'S STILL AS GRUMPY AS EVER!" With a grin that stretched from ear to ear, Natsu turned to the others, as though my rudeness were the greatest possible declaration of affection. "She's alright, everyone! Totally fine!"
"Clearly," Gray said, getting to his feet and rolling his neck with an audible crack. At some entirely indeterminate point during the fall, his shirt had, as always, through some inexplicable mystery of physics, completely vanished. "Four days in a coma, and the first thing she does upon waking is be magnificently cutting."
"Consistency, my dear nudist, is one of the highest virtues of a superior being."
Lucy, at last, managed to get herself off the floor and straighten her skirt, her cheeks still red with embarrassment and irritation.
"We weren't... we weren't eavesdropping," she said quickly, with the conviction of a thoroughly unconvincing liar.
"You were," Happy, the small traitor, contributed cheerfully from his perch atop the pile of discarded clothes.
"HAPPY! YOU WRETCHED CAT!"
"Lucy actually wanted to know whether Erza would cry again when you woke up," the cat continued, completely and utterly immune to the murderous look Lucy was directing at him. "And Natsu wanted to break the door down hours ago the moment he heard Azra'il's voice, but Gray was holding him back by the collar, and then—"
"Happy." Erza's voice, now, was dangerously quiet. "Perhaps, and this is merely a friendly suggestion, now would be an excellent time to stop talking. Immediately."
"Aye, sir," the cat replied, with a textbook-perfect military salute, before pressing his lips together with an imaginary zip.
And an almost pleasant silence settled over the room at last. And I, for the first time in a long while, looked at each of them in turn. Natsu, vibrating with an energy that could power a small town. Gray, attempting to appear indifferent and failing miserably. Lucy, still mortified by the whole debacle. And Happy, floating about without a single shred of remorse.
And then, to the surprise of everyone present, and chiefly to my own, I began to laugh.
Not a big, loud, mocking laugh. But a genuine one, soft, that made my shoulders shake and my eyes prick, not with sadness, but with a genuine, heartfelt relief.
"What's so funny?" Natsu asked, genuinely baffled.
"Nothing. Absolutely nothing," I said, dabbing at the corner of my eye with my free hand. "I just... I think, in some strange and thoroughly illogical way... I've rather missed this. All of you being exactly, hopelessly yourselves."
And I watched something soften in Lucy's expression. Gray, for his part, turned to look out the window, but I caught it, with all certainty, the corner of his mouth curving into a small smile.
And Natsu? Ah, Natsu. He simply grinned. That great, uncomplicated, wholly sincere smile of his that always seemed to illuminate any room, however dark.
"Well, we missed you loads too," he said, with the simplicity of a child. "I mean, Erza in particular was absolutely unbearable these past few days. Dead worried and snappy and in a worse mood than normal, and—"
"Natsu." Erza's voice, cutting through the air, had that low, warning tone that preceded imminent physical suffering.
"— and she was actually very, very lovely and calm and definitely didn't threaten to hit me even once!" Natsu corrected himself with impressive haste, a cold sweat visibly breaking out on his forehead.
"Liar," Happy murmured to himself, though loudly enough for us all to hear. "She threatened him at least twelve times this morning alone."
"HAPPY! YOU LITTLE GRASS!"
And I couldn't hold back the laughter. "Twelve times in one morning? Blimey, Erza. You really are going soft."
The look she shot me promised a future revenge that would be slow, deliberate, and deeply unpleasant. I merely smiled in return.
With the situation now marginally less chaotic, Lucy approached my bed, the concern on her face at last beginning to ease, now that the initial circus had passed.
"Azra'il... how are you feeling? Honestly, now."
The question, simple as it was, caught me slightly off guard. It was genuine. Not the automatic, hollow "how are you?" that people tend to lob at one another out of pure politeness, but real, palpable concern, visible in her large brown eyes. It was... oddly touching, in its way. To Lucy, to all of them, I had, in all likelihood, always seemed... unshakeable. Indestructible. The guild's mysterious, formidable mage, someone who walked into impossible battles and emerged from the other side as though nothing had happened, perhaps with slightly more sarcasm than before, but essentially unchanged. And now, for the first time, she was seeing me properly. She had watched me lie unconscious for days on end, in a state of pure and undeniable... vulnerability.
An old and proud part of me wanted to make a joke. Wanted to deflect, to pretend I was perfectly well, that nothing had happened.
But the sincere and worried look on her face deserved, at the very least, a little honesty.
"Tired," I admitted, in a voice slightly lower than my usual. "Very, very tired. As though someone had taken my body, used it as a punching bag for a solid week, run it over with a train, and then stuck it back together with spit and a bit of sellotape."
"You... would you like something to eat?" Lucy asked immediately, her instinct to care for others kicking in without delay. "You haven't eaten a single thing in four days. I mean, we tried to give you a little water and some broth while you were unconscious, but..."
"Food," I said, with an expression of deadly seriousness, "would be, at this particular moment, absolutely and utterly magnificent." And my stomach, as though wishing to prove my point and humiliate me just a little further, chose that exact and opportune moment to voice its agreement. Loudly. Very, very loudly. A sound not entirely befitting an ancestral entity.
And the silence that followed that gastric protest was, to say the very least, profoundly awkward.
"...Was that your stomach," Gray asked, one eyebrow raised and a smirk playing at the corner of his lips, "or a sea monster dying in agony somewhere out there?"
"Shut it, Gray. And put a shirt on."
"I'll fetch something from the kitchen!" Lucy, sensing my embarrassment, was already moving briskly towards the door, eager to be of use. "Natsu, Gray, Happy, come on, all of you. Let's give Azra'il some room to breathe."
"But I want to stay and talk to her!" Natsu, naturally, protested. "I've got a million questions! Like, how did you do that brilliant white fire up at the top of the tower, and—"
"The questions," Lucy said, with surprising firmness, as she seized his arm and began to drag him towards the door, "can most certainly wait. She's just come out of a coma, you great lummox."
"But—"
"Natsu." Erza's voice, beside me, had that low, commanding tone that accepted no argument whatsoever. "Go."
And Natsu, the great and fearsome Salamander, visibly deflated.
"Alright, alright. Absolute killjoy." But, before being dragged out entirely, he turned back to me with that smile of his. "But once you're better, I want a rematch!"
"You want to fight someone who's just come out of a coma, you nutter?" Gray asked, genuinely astounded by the sheer stupidity of his rival.
"Not now, you great ice block! Once she's better, obviously!"
"You are, and always will be, a complete and utter plonker."
"YEAH WELL SO ARE YOU!"
And with that final and most edifying exchange, Lucy managed at last to push the two of them out of the room, with a small, cheerfully unbothered Happy drifting along behind them. Before pulling the door shut, however, she glanced back over her shoulder with a gentle, genuine smile.
"It's really good to have you back, Azra'il."
And the door closed.
And suddenly it was just Erza and me again. And the silence that remained, this time, was different. It was comfortable. The sort of silence that didn't need to be filled with words or with banter.
Erza, still seated on the edge of my bed, her hand still holding mine firmly, sighed. And, with a reluctance I could feel, she began to rise.
"I... I suppose I ought to go and help Lucy in the kitchen. She'll probably need help stopping Natsu from eating everything before—"
And I, on an impulse that came from somewhere I didn't fully understand, tugged at her hand, with what little strength I had.
With a small, surprised "oof!" of lost balance, Erza stumbled back onto the bed.
"Azra'il, what are you—"
"Stay." The word came out as a request, not a command.
"But Lucy and the others—"
"Lucy is a fully functional adult who, I would hope, knows how to boil water without starting a fire," I said, drawing her gently but firmly closer to me on the bed, ignoring her weak protests. "And those other two can perfectly well go and finish each other off on their own. Stay here with me. Just a little while longer."
And her face, which had merely been a little flushed before, was now aflame.
"But... but... you... I... the food..."
"The food," I said, with a smile that I hoped was charming but was most likely just tired, "can most certainly wait a few more minutes." And, with an audacity that rather surprised me, I settled my head back against the soft pillow, keeping her warm, strong hand firmly in mine. "I've spent four long and dreadful days having the strangest and most humiliating dreams of my entire existence. Please just let me enjoy something that is, for once, remotely pleasant for at least a few minutes."
And, to my relief, Erza, rather than protest further, stopped resisting. Her curiosity, as I had expected, won out over her embarrassment.
"Strange dreams? What do you mean, strange dreams?"
"Oh, my dear Erza. You have absolutely no idea," I said, with a dramatic sigh, closing my eyes. "There was an enormous, sarcastic fox mocking me for stupid things I'd done in past lives. A firebird the size of a sparrow pecking at my head and calling me irresponsible. And something, or someone, that could only communicate in an ancient tongue that gave one a splitting headache just to hear."
"...That is, in fact, very strange indeed."
"I did warn you."
And Erza, in silence for a moment whilst she processed my bizarre account, sighed. And finally, with a hesitance that made me smile, she lay back down beside me on the bed, cheeks still endearingly pink.
"...Just a few minutes, then," she murmured, her voice low and slightly bashful.
I smiled, without opening my eyes.
"Just a few minutes." And in that moment, lying there, her hand in mine and the soft sound of her breathing beside me, I felt, for the first time in a very long while, that I was truly, unmistakably home.
----------
💬 Author's Note
----------
And here we are again, my dear survivors of my absolutely criminal schedule.
First of all: yes, I know my update frequency has slowed down quite a bit lately. And trust me, nobody feels that more than I do.
Between college, work, projects, studying, adult life trying to run me over with a speeding truck, and my sanity being sold on the black market, I simply haven't been able to maintain the same posting pace I used to.
And honestly?
I've felt pretty guilty about it.
I really have.
I know many of you have been following my stories for a long time, especially my Runeterra and Fairy Tail fanfics, and I wish I could update them as frequently as before. Unfortunately, my daily life has recently turned into a final boss fight with multiple health bars and far too many attack patterns.
So I started thinking about ways to handle that.
And that's where this announcement comes in.
I'm starting to post a new project: a fanfic set in the world of Mushoku Tensei.
The funny thing is that this project isn't actually new.
It's quite old, in fact.
I originally wrote it a long time ago at the request of a friend of mine who absolutely loves the Mushoku Tensei universe. Back then, I ended up shelving it because managing two active fanfics was already consuming enough of my time, energy, sleep, and probably several years of my life expectancy.
But since the project was already written, I thought:
Why not?
So I asked my translator to start working on it, allowing me to gradually post chapters while buying myself a little more time to continue writing my other two fanfics at a pace that is actually sustainable.
So no, this does not mean that Runeterra or Fairy Tail have been abandoned.
Not even close.
Those stories are still incredibly important to me, and I fully intend to continue them. I'm simply trying to find a way to keep giving you all something to read without accidentally evolving into a caffeine-powered eldritch being fueled entirely by deadlines and academic suffering.
Hopefully, you'll enjoy this new story as well.
Maybe some of you will end up loving it just as much as you've loved the others.
At the end of the day, it's still another life of Azra'il.
Another world.
Another adventure.
And, knowing her, probably another unhealthy amount of trauma, sarcasm, tea, and questionable life choices.
Thank you all for continuing to support my stories despite the slower updates, the chaotic schedule, and my remarkable talent for starting new projects while still juggling the old ones.
I truly appreciate every single one of you.
See you in the next chapter.