True God In Another World (Tensura x Tbate)

Chapter 77 - Just Another Day

Rimuru POV

Darkness. Not the peaceful kind, but the type that feels alive, pulsing with memories and sensations.

Those patterns of purple and silver kept dancing through my mind, beautiful but seriously messed up. Even now, I could feel the echo of that pain when reality basically told me to get lost. The memory of trying to force aether and mana together made me want to kick myself. Real smart move there, genius.

Looking back, the aether had tried to warn me. Those gentle pulses, that weird apologetic vibe it gave off right before everything went sideways - yeah, those should have been pretty big red flags.

At least my brain was still working enough to piece some things together. Aether wasn't just some power source waiting to be used. It was something different, something that seemed to know me better than I knew myself. But clearly, I hadn't understood its rules at all.

Eventually, the darkness started letting up a bit. I could hear voices filtering through, though they sounded like they were coming from really far away. People were definitely not happy with me - that much was clear.

"...completely reckless..."

"...lucky to be alive..."

But one voice cut through clearer than the others - Ciel. My girlfriend's voice carried this mix of anger and fear that made me wish I could stay unconscious a little longer.

"If you die on me, I swear I'll bring you back just so I can kill you myself."

Yeah, I was in deep trouble.

Between blackouts, my brain kept trying to make sense of what had happened. The weird thing was, the integration had actually been working at first. The aether hadn't rejected me until I tried to lock everything down. Classic me - always trying to control things that shouldn't be controlled.

I kept catching bits and pieces of conversations around me. People talking about "dimensional fractures" and "reality distortion" - which, by the way, sounded way cooler than it probably was. Ciel was definitely going to kill me when I woke up.

Speaking of Ciel, I could feel her presence more and more as time went on. Sometimes she'd hold my hand, other times she'd lecture me about not being an idiot - you know, normal girlfriend stuff when your boyfriend tries to mess with the fabric of reality.

Time got really weird in that state. Could have been hours, could have been weeks. Everything just kind of blended together in this soup of "wow, I really messed up" and "maybe I should have listened to everyone who told me this was a bad idea."

Finally, something changed. The darkness started lifting, like someone was slowly turning up the lights. First, I could feel my body again (spoiler alert: everything hurt), then the sounds got clearer, and then...

I opened my eyes to find myself staring at the academy clinic's ceiling. The light felt like it was trying to drill holes in my brain, and my mouth tasted like something had died in it. Every part of my body felt like it had been put through a meat grinder.

"So," came an eerily calm voice from beside me, "you're finally awake."

Oh man. I knew that tone.

I turned my head - which hurt, because everything hurt - and there was Ciel. She looked like she hadn't slept in days, her hair was all messed up (which never happens), and her eyes... Let's just say I've seen less scary things in horror movies.

"Hey," I managed to say, my voice sounding like I'd been gargling gravel. "How long was I..."

"one day," she cut me off. "A whole day of watching you sleep like a sleeping beauty because you decided to play with forces you were specifically warned about."