"So you're telling me" , Noah repeated. "That the Oracles will send Michael, the traitor, to retrieve the necklace that ended everything in the past, and to destroy it, so the world would start over?"
Typhon nodded. His face was now empty of amusement. His lips pursed, hiding under his thick black mustache and his triangular shaped beard.
They were all back in the smartphone's world, that endless green grass and cloudless sky, a view Noah was starting to hate.
They all sat cross-legged, facing each other, as if they were children in a very important meeting to decide who was to use the swing first.
Noah could have been amused by this random thought, if only he wasn't about to be faced with a decision he never asked to make.
"When the necklace breaks, it doesn't simply open the gates. The three worlds will collide. There will no longer be heavens, Core and Earth. I will spare you the details of the near future." , Typhon declared.
The boy could feel Hitori's shivers traverse his whole body.
"And we must prevent that from happening" , she said, half asking, half addressing herself.
The Demon-slash-Oracle nodded.
"Everyone will die, including us, the ones who were responsible for this. Even if you two were to officially meet again in the battlefield, a second condition must be fulfilled: The three worlds must turn into one, and only then the Oracles' last essence, residing in you, will activate."
"The Last Purge" , Hitori whispered, and her words chilled Noah to the bone.
"As I have already said, only the last Adam and Eve will survive the end of the worlds. Then you will have to live" Typhon spread his arms. "Here"
Noah frowned. The idea of getting revenge on all those who abandoned him didn't sound so bad. But what about the few who didn't? What about Lailah, whom, despite her impulsive behavior, only had Noah in her mind, her actions being only driven by her love? What about his demon mother, who loved him like her own son, providing everything he asked for, sheltering him from the harshness of his father, all through these sixteen years ?
If Noah had been suggested this idea before meeting Hitori, he would have had an immediate yes, as an answer. Erase everyone and build a new era where he would be king.
Now? He thought nothing of it. The girl he loved taught him how to be grateful, how to love back. How to treasure his own life, no matter how sad it sounds.
He looked at Hitori, who seemed deep in thought. She, too, was thinking of her family. Her friends at the Orphanage, her caretaker, Cassiel, who turned out to be a good Oracle, because she was influenced by Hitori's love. She must have thought of Aoki too, who never really kicked her out for all those years, despite the fact that she hated her for so long.
The world did not really abandon them. Some people did, and that's exactly why they grew stronger, that's exactly why they met, that's exactly why they were having these very same thoughts right now.
The world deserved better than to end.
"Ending the world also means ending the misery happening all over it.", Typhon said. He turned his index finger in a circle, over and over again until Noah had to divert his eyes from it, because it made his head spin. "Ending the deaths that keep increasing by number everyday. Ending the suffering of other small children, abandoned by their families, sold off to some cruel men to earn money without effort. et cetera."
"You're telling us to choose between regaining our peaceful normal lives and becoming the heroes who will create a better humanity, by ending the misery of the previous one." Noah pointed accusingly at the demon.
To that, Typhon raised his arms, palms up and facing the two teenagers, in a gesture of defense.
"I am not telling you anything. I am only stating the different outcomes, based on your possible actions. It's for you to decide. Either you destroy the world or you don't."
He is definitely asking us to choose. Hitori spoke inside Noah's mind.
You know he can still hear us, right? Noah answered.
I do. But in case he chooses not to, thoughts are safer than spoken words.
She looked at him, her mind speaking but her lips shut tight, as if afraid of what she was going to say.
What do you want to do, Hitori?
She hesitated for a split second, before giving him her answer.
I want my old life back. I want peaceful days of walking to school together, eating lunch together, sleeping over at each other's houses. I want to make more friends I can share my interests with. I want to be stressed out over exams. I want to look forward to seeing you every morning, waiting for me behind my house's gate. I want to run everyday after school, late for my part time job, knowing fully well that my boss is too carefree to notice. I want to play games with you until late at night, I want to go see the fireworks, then the sakura leaves fall. I want to see a scary movie with you. I want to live a normal high school life. With you.
But... but....
The more Noah's heart constricted in his chest, the more Hitori's tears seemed to fall. He held her hand tight, not wanting to kiss her in front of Typhon, but longing for it with all his might.
The girl he fell for deserved all the goodness of the world. And at that moment, Noah swore to himself.
He will live to see her smile, he will live to fight against her tears. His life and hers were one, and he shall protect this bond, this warm feeling in his heart, with his own life.
Loving, he thought, and being loved back, is the best feeling in the world.
He suddenly remembered that Hitori had access to his thoughts. Red filled his cheeks as he blushed all the way to the tips of his ears.
If Hitori heard him, she didn't react. She continued her trail of racing thoughts.
I want all that. But I'm not selfish. I know that humans are bad, and will always be. I don't want to live in a world where I get my normal life back but turn a blind eye on what's happening, of the countless deaths that could have been avoided, of the misery that we, as beings given power out of our will, could have prevented. I could be one of those sick orphans on the streets, waiting for my own death. I could have wished for someone to grant me a better home, or at least, a peaceful farewell. I could have wanted to go to heaven, to a world where I had parents who loved me, sisters and brothers who fought me, and grandparents who spoiled me. If there was someone like us, Noah, who could save all these children, why would we ignore it?
I refuse to live while others die, fully knowing that I could have saved them but refused to do so, at the cost of my own peaceful, selfish life.
Noah was speechless.
Hitori, all this time, never thought of herself. When she accidently killed Haru, she didn't think of her punishment, she only mourned him. She worried about her brothers and sisters, that's why she left. Aoki didn't need to kick her out, she was going anyway.
She had always thought of herself as a monster because she was terrified of hurting others. She pretended to be strong and cool, setting boundaries between herself and people. When Honoka approached her and seemingly died, Hitori forgot the fact that she was abused in the first place, worrying sick about the life of the girl she had just met.
When the Orphanage caught fire, she rushed inside without thinking, wanting to save her friend. And now, when she could finally get rid of all the ones who wronged her, she thought of all the innocent others, wanting to save the world more than wanting to save herself.
Hitori, a half-demon, was the True Angel, all along.
Noah did not know what to do anymore. He wished to give Hitori everything she ever asked for. If he could, he would have given her his heart. But what use did she have of a heart that couldn't fulfill her desires?
That's when a thought randomly popped in his head. A memory, long forgotten, of his mother.
It was one of those rare winter afternoons when his father disappeared for days, and it was just the boy and his mother sitting by the fireplace as she read him stories of the outside world.
After every story, there was a lesson to be learnt.
One afternoon, as his mother had finished telling her fairytale, Noah waited for the last phrase, the lesson that would be engraved in his memory for as long as he lived. However, the lesson never came.
Mother, he asked. What am I supposed to learn from this story?
She only smiled at him, a mischievous grin.
Nothing, for now. She said, when you grow up, there will be times when you wonder: why did this happen to me? Was I supposed to gain something from it? And you keep thinking about the answer but nothing comes to your mind. You get sad, frustrated, you start to think that it isn't fair. Why me? you cry. But it's you, and only you, who lived through these hardships and instead of letting them crush you, you believed they hid lessons behind them. Then you decided: Instead of giving up, I am going to learn.
Learn how to be a better person. Learn how to find my own happiness, at my own pace.
I don't understand, Mother, he remembered saying.
She giggled at his honesty.
Your life is already planned for you, Noah. But the way you use these plans for your advantage will truly make you shine.
At that time, the boy thought that his mother had gone mad.
Now, he finally understands.
The Answer to this dilemma might not be ending humanity. Neither letting things be, watching as it destroyed itself once more.
He knew what humans lacked to achieve perfection.
Someone needs to show them the lessons to be learned. Someone needs to show them the light, otherwise, darkness will find them before they realize it, and they will be stuck in a vicious loop that only leads to sin.
His smirk came unexpected to Hitori, who stared, wide eyed at Noah, whose eyes turned opal white, shining with the seven colors of the rainbow.
Hitori's lips parted in shock, her eyes gleamed with excitement as the boy's idea found its way to her brain, like Pandora's box finally releasing hope into the world.
"I have an idea" , Noah felt the urge to declare out loud.
"You better do ," Typhon replied. "Because I definitely ran out of those."