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Chapter Eighty One: ( the final battle )
Death had always been miss with Annabeth Argent. When her aunt Kate died, she was relived that the monster hovering over head head was gone, and when she lost her mom, she didn't even shed not one tear. She never imagined it would come to this, she didn't expect the onslaught of emotions that wrecked through her, completely tossing her off the edge. It wasn't what she was used to, it wasn't a miss, it was a definite hit.
And it hit her harder than she had ever felt before.
It was too much, all that she could feel was pain. She couldn't breathe, it was like every inhale was pricked and sharp in her esophagus. Or maybe that was all the pain in her throat from choking and crying. She was sitting off to side with her dad after the paramedics had taken her sister's body away, her legs were pulled to her chest as Chris was knelt down infront of her.
"I need you to listen to me closely, sweetheart." Chris tells her gently but sternly all at one. "I know it hurts, I can feel it. It hurts like hell. But this battle... it's not over. We have to end this thing, we still need to vanquish the Nogitsune, okay? So I need you to do this one thing for me." She nodded, biting down on her lip to keeps her sobs muffled. "I need you to imagine that there's a box inside of your head. Picture that box. Do it, now."
She nodded, closing her eyes and doing as she was told. She tried with all that she had to focus on the box inside of her head, then once she had it she opened her eyes. "I did it."
"Okay, now take every sad and painful feeling that you have, and shove it into that box. Just take all of it, every single ounce of pain that you feel, and temporarily put it into the box." Chris explains to her, his hands holding face in his hands. "I know it's hard, honey. But you need to be focused. You cannot act on emotion, you need to be completely and totally focused on the task at hand. Now, do it, shove everything feeling into that box that I told you to picture."
Anna closes her eyes, trying her best to what her father had told her once more. She focused on her feelings, every single gut-wrenching and overwhelming ones that were suffocating her and she imagined them being shoved into the box inside of her head. She told herself that she needed to be ready for the final battle, that it wasn't over yet and that she had to concentrate if she wanted to get this job done.
She knew what she was doing, it was called compartmentalizing, she had never done it before, but she knew that it worked, and she really needed it to work for her. Even if just for a few hours to end all of this, to end the Nogitsune for good.
She took a few more moments, she pushed down every painful feeling into the box, then she closed the box inside of her mind. When her eyes opened, she didn't feel any better, but she didn't want to cry anymore. All she wanted to do, was get her ass up, get the final battle started, and kill the Nogitsune. The bastard that took her sister from her.
