Archive Of Potentialities.

Short story: The bane of history 7.

It was another boring day.

My life has entered a state where events happen with such frequency that things appear uneventful. It was something that came with my job so I can't really complain.

I am a ruler, a person followed by others and consequentially, responsible for them.

The position I now find myself in wasn't because of some ambition of mine.

I grew up just like another newborn monster in the Ingracia dominated Tempest of back then.

Like every other monster, I was unnamed. Of course, being born a Kijin granted me considerable strength but it was nowhere near enough to bring me here.

I always thought my life would end like that of my parents, they never achieved anything special. They were soldiers for Ingracia in one of its many subjugation quests.

They met uneventful deaths at the hands of the sea monsters.

Their deaths were painful, but I spent my time with my parents without any regrets. I wasn't hung up on it. They told me stories of who we were, what we used to be. I absorbed this information but didn't consider the depth of it.

I trained, I grew stronger, I joined the subjugation forces.

During all this I ignored everything around me, treating it as normal. The mistreatment of monsters, the segregation.

The fact that the subjugation force was just a gift wrapped death group.

I deluded myself into thinking I didn't care, but it always ate at me. I hated it, I despised it.

But I made no effort to change it.

A coward, that's what I was.

Until one fateful day.

The higher ups had decided we had grown too old to deserve their support, it was a convenient way to get rid of monsters past the age of thirty.

Monsters that would want to settle down and have a family, hence, monsters that grew weaker.

They sent us against the unkillable monsters of the rift in the sea of treachery.

I took this in stride, already disgusted with myself for my inaction. The rest of my squad had other motivations to accept.

A few attempted desertion, some managed to escape. Others weren't so lucky.

As I imagined it, the battle was impossible. It was like trying to fill a basket with water without any water manipulation skills.

The team was wiped out, I watched as they were vaporized by the monsters.

Everyone else was gone, I was next to go.

After a futile resistance I was plunged into the ocean, heavily wounded and undoubtedly marked for death.

In my final moments I lamented the choices I had made.

It was really hypocritical of me to only do that when I was dying, when I was losing the ability to interfere whatsoever.

In the end, my vision faded into black as the roars of the monsters echoed in the distance.

"Your name will be Rohr."

Such a simple statement renewed my time as a living person, it pushed through the haze of my fading consciousness and pierced into my darkened soul.

I had been named.

Who it was, I did not know.

Why they did it, I couldn't tell.