Tales of Astora: Legacy

Chapter 70: New possibilities

Chapter 70: New possibilities

"What? The machine is already fixed?" shouted Fiora before covering her mouth, realizing that Alastor was still sleeping in the next room. To her surprise, her grandpa has come in the middle of the night, bearing wonderful news of his accomplishment. But it wasn't something Fiora wanted to hear, not now.

"Yes. It has been difficult but I finally did it. So the moment I confirmed that it's functional, I rushed here immediately. But... he still hasn't woke up yet?" asked Vincent.

"No...." she gave out a long tired sigh.

Two days have passed since the Monochrome's invasion on Europia. People have begun to go back to their daily life as reconstructions were on the way. Fortunately, no attack has been made since, allowing for a speedy recovery. But not everything could just go back to the way it was. This attack was unlike any others, correlating at a total different scale of its own compared to those in the past. The military could no longer conceal the truth like they did before. Right now, protests and manifestations have occupied government buildings as the people were demanding an answer for what exactly has happened. But so far, no public response has been given yet. They no longer had the option to give a pathetic excuse like before as thousands of videos about the unknown creatures have been spread among the public. Everyone knew about the existence of the Monochromes now. There was no denying it. And they demanded the truth.

But none of that was of concern for the Esper Fiora. What has occupied her mind the recent days was Alastor; he still hasn't woken up since then. Even more worrying was that she couldn't give an explanation to why he stayed that way. His health and physical condition were perfectly fine. There was nothing wrong with his body so why he hasn't woke up yet? Could it be some kind of magical phenomenon that technologies of this world were unable to detect? If then, how was she supposed to help him?

Little did she know, this was a natural symptom for Alastor as this happened every time he absorbed a God' soul. This overload of exuberance and power would have killed any normal man. But Alastor was no man nor was he normal. Still, it left him paralyzed and inert as his body was trying to regulate this sudden surge of power. Like the prophet Nyx once said, Alastor has gone through some abnormal states, growing in power too quick and too unnatural for his body to keep up. It was already a miracle that he didn't die from the shock if not because of his lineage and Lilith's blood that helped subside the side-effects. But it made one wonder how long could this body of an eleven years-old continue to endure?

However, the poor girl didn't know that. All she could see was an unconscious Alastor who could not wake up for some reasons. She did her best to stay awake the whole time, just in case he could wake up anytime. The girl was afraid, afraid that if she was not there and something happened, he might just...drift away, just like her parents did. Because of that, she hasn't stepped out of her room even once since then, barely had a decent meal for the last two days, surviving with only what she had in her small apartment. A needless, illogical hardship but somehow perfectly understandable. For humans were creatures who were the very embodiments of irrationality. Because we were ruled, driven by our emotions. We could do things we would never normally do in the name of love, for our family, for our loved ones. Would you sacrifice the life of the person you loved to save the lives of an entire country? One live in exchange for millions. Some would, gladly. But there were those who wouldn't. A small percentage perhaps, considering how that choice could affect not just you but the entire race. Perhaps, we could reform the question: how many would hesitate when confronted with such a choice?

Did you see a difference? Indeed, many would choose to save millions of lives instead of one. But among those people, a lot would hesitate before they could make that choice. Why? If such a choice was the utmost logical response that rationality drove us to choose, then why would we hesitate? Because emotions were still there, our irrationality still there. It tried to fight back, to no avail. But that was not important, which side won. What was important was there was still irrationality living inside us even though many claimed that we were logical beings. It was not the final choice that made us logical but our way of thinking, how we ended up with that choice, defined who we were. And such was what drove Fiora to behave this way. For she was suffering from the ultimate condition of irrationality: love. What pushed one to love another? Could we simplify love to only a question of physical attraction? A question of compatibility? Or the primitive drive to reproduce or simply pleasure? To leave behind healthy offspring for the next generation as an instinct of survival of our race? Who knew?