Artificial 7: Genesis Requiem

Chapter 37: Approaching Darkness

(Artwork is done by AI. It is Natalie before her hair was dyed.)

Narration: 3 years later,
Natalie is now five years old,
Selena is 28,
the twins 25, Seth 26,
Morgan is 2022, Zoey is 522,
Yuzuhara is 1,000+, Belladonna is ???Jackson is a few months younger than Natalie,
Nero is 25,
Akiza is 25, Succubus Selena,
Chase's first daughter is 26,
Caleb and his sisters are 22,
Anton is 22.
In the 3 years that had passed,
Natalie is a very volcal girl who adores her mother and father.

Selena has fully accepted Natlie as her daughter and happily calls her such. Morgan,
who loves and adores children,
was quite happy to dye Natalie's hair for her sense she wanted her hair color to resemble her mother's.
Selena was mixed about it at first but then rolled with it because she found it cute.
Seth also liked his co-parenting situation with Selena,
and they've begun to hang out more, usually doing stuff Selena likes,
such as weight lifting and other various hobbies.

He's been learning Spanish from her for 3 years alongside Shimura,
who's been learning English to speak with the twins, Selena, Seth,
and Natalie.
In those 3 years,
both have become very fluent speakers of Spanish and English, and now Shimura and Himiko come over to Belladonna's mansion way more often, truly connecting and becoming more of a family than they have ever been. "Looks like we both lost the main wife title."

Zoey whispered to Yuzuhara.
"Yep." She replied.
"It was bound to happen eventually. It's only natural."
Zoey whispered.
"Yeep." Yuzuhara replied once again. The two sip their coffee as they watch Seth teach Natalie some none combat, child friendly techniques,
and Natalie,
who unfortunately has Seth's learning disability,
struggled to understand the basics of aura and runes.

Seth walked her through over and over again until it became muscle memory, and now that she's able to form the rune,
Seth tries to get her to imagine a shadow thread like Spiderman's web,
and after a minute,
she cast a shadow thread from the palm of her hand onto the ceiling and squealing in delight.
"Momma, look! I'm stuck to the ceiling now!"
Selena walks into the room,
surprised for a second,
then it wheres off as she approaches Natalie.

"Awesome, Natalie. Can you come down now?"
Natalie stops swinging and dangles.
"I don't know how...."
Natalie's excitement dies down,
and Seth tries to help her,
but that's a whole other process entirely. "Sweetie, follow Daddy's instructions. Just mentally picture the shadow thread de-attaching or picture yourself landing on the ground."

Natalie does as told,
and though it takes her a bit,
the shadow thread unattached from her palm.
For that year,
Natalie's demonic instincts flowed to her naturally,
and she got to the point that she could cast shadow runes without a thought and do anything with shadows without the whole imagination process Seth had to start off with.

Though Seth can cast shadow runes and use shadow anything as well,
after the whole Valla situation,
Seth doesn't need to imagine the runes or imagine the shadow threads,
he can just do it,
and it comes to him instinctively,
just like with Natalie.
So now Selena's daily life is a very happy five year old swinging off the cieling with shadow threads.
Over the course of that year,
Selena paid Himiko and Shimura to train Natalie in martial arts,
and she learned alongside Chase's kids, Aiko and Haruki.

Natalie would give it her all when training with her adopted siblings Aiko and Haruki,
and during the belt test,
when she yelled and did powerful punches,
kicks,
and stances,
she'd alway look over her shoulder for Selena and Seth approval to which they always cheered her on.
With Shimura having a lot of experience with training kids,
he would be the one to make sure Natalie did her breaking boards test, and if Natalie suddenly backed away during a kick or a punch,
Shimura would adjust so that she could break the board,
and each belt was well earned every three months.