Guild Wars

Chapter 1340: Love Or Obligation? - End

"I'm disappointed in you."

Draco hovered before the two women with a cold expression, facing Riveting Night especially. "When I got Amaterasu to bring you out, I was expecting much more."

Draco pointed to the ground, lowering himself down slowly without continuing to speak. The two beauties shared a look and did the same, returning to ground level in a random alleyway near the Purgatory Group building.

When they landed, they regarded Draco who was facing them with a cold frown. "I expected better of you more than anyone else. You and I are the same, two ghosts of an old timeline and broken world, ruined by misunderstanding, conflict and unrealized destiny."

"We are both used by our souls to harbor all the filthy part of our darkness, so that our other aspects can remain pristine and clean. Because of various reasons, the premier being incompatibility with the world, we both retreated into the darkness of our souls for years and let others run the show."

Draco pointed at Riveting Night then himself. "You thought this was the best outcome at the time and so did I. Truthfully, if that fool Lucifer hadn't been ambushed and fucked up, I would have let things continue to run their course unless he walked down a path of no return."

"So I expected that just like me, your time in exile would allow you to think about everything and reprocess the entire events of our lives from different angles, using it to understand your flaws and how to pave the way forward."

Draco's expression darkened slightly. "But what is this? As far as I can tell, not only have you not progressed or changed, you have become even worse than before. You were always cold and unfriendly, but that was fine, you understood the objective at hand and how to achieve it, even if you used the cruelest method available."

"But now, all I see is an impulsive and unpredictable person who has no self-control and has no recognition of the reality of the world around her. That is not the Riveting Night I remember." Draco concluded with a shake of his head.

After saying this, there was a period of silence among the trio that lasted for a significantly long while, enough that Shuangtian frowned while Draco seemed puzzled, both of them turning to Riveting Night who was standing there in a casual manner, her expression cold as usual with no significant changes.

Seeing the two looking at her questioningly, Riveting Night shook her head. "There is no need to look at me. Whatever you say is correct."

Hearing this, both Shuangtian and Draco shared a look, feeling some level of alarm internally.

This… what were they supposed to do with this?

"The problem is worse than I thought…" Draco muttered with heaviness.

Shuangtian stood aside and took up a position between Draco and Eva, folding her arms as she glanced and both then decided to speak completely bluntly.

"This is not going to work. Your idea was beautiful Draco, but this Riveting Night personality is not only completely unsuited to pilot Eva, it's completely unsuited for her existence at all."

Hearing this, Riveting Night's placid nature sharpened as she glared at Shuangtian with killing intent. "Bitch, what do you mean by that? Just because I listen to Draco doesn't mean you have the right to talk about me."

Shuangtian ignored her and looked at Draco, because at the end of the day, he was the only one who could make the decisions.

Draco scowled. "Elaborate."

Shuangtian shook her head. "Why must you make me say it when you realized it from the first moment she spoke… alright, let me do you a favor then."

Shuangtian turned to Riveting Night. "You have a slew of problems and in truth we all do. I myself, who is supposed to play the role as the binding agent, has weakness and flaws that mean that I won't always make the right decision for us."

Shuangtian gestured to Draco. "This fellow was willing to tolerate Lucifer because he understood that his presence is not optimal. Even now, I suspect he had a big plan he is hiding from us, which likely ties into why he changed my mentality and tried to bring you out."

"Regardless of me or him, the key underlining factor is that we have problems and we acknowledge them. The key problem you have clearly demonstrated is that you also have problems, some worse than ours, and completely do not recognize them."

Shuangtian sized Riveting Night up and down. "To you, it's obvious that you feel every aspect of your current self is perfectly suited to be the optimal partner Draco needs, with not a single flaw."

Saying this, Riveting Night placed one arm akimbo. "Is that supposed to be a grand revelation? Whether I have problems or not is not for you nor I to determine, but for Draco to. He is the only one who can decide anything, and he decides who I am and what I am."

The familial black swirl was missing from her now golden eyes, but they were not needed to present her intense madness as she spoke. "My duty is simply to be what he needs me to be, when he wants me to be and where he wants me to be. That is all."

Shuangtian felt moved by the intensity of Riveting Night's conviction.

So this was a yandere…

Riveting Night sized up Shuangtian. "You fought me for a few days because I said you are not my equal in this relationship, and looking at it now, I was right. You probably misunderstood me when I said your power doesn't qualify you as my equal, so let me explain now that you've brought this up."

Riveting Night pointed at Shuangtian. "To me, you are no different from Hikari, Zaine, and Roma. They are not evil people nor are they lesser creatures, but even with all of their love and devotion towards Draco, they are simply unable to cross that final line."

Riveting Night drew a line on the ground with her feet. "The line is simple: can you drop everything right now, sacrifice everything you have, for Draco?"

Shuangtian's expression condensed, but she did not say anything. Rather Riveting Night sneered and continued. "That's exactly the problem! None of you can resolutely do that!"

"Despite all your so-called love and obsession, the more time you spend with him, the weaker your collective resolve to be with him forever and put everything aside for him!"

Riveting Night smirked. "But let me not accuse without evidence. Let me prove it to you as simply as I possibly can with this one scenario."

"If the being that reincarnated I and Draco—assumed right now to be stronger than we can handle and can end our lives permanently with no chance of return—descended and captured Draco as well as your son Lucitera, forcing you to choose one to save, you will agonize over the choice but eventually choose your son."

Riveting Night tilted her head with a strange smile. "Am I correct?"

Draco's eyebrows went all the way up in shock while Shuangtian visibly paled.

However, Shuangtian did not pale because of Riveting Night 'outing' her more likely choice in that scenario because she wasn't ashamed of it. She would definitely save her son first and then work to either seek revenge for her husband or try to bring him back somehow, even if it was stated to be impossible.

Rather, she paled because she feared the implication that Riveting Night was making.

"You… then if you were given a choice between Lucitera—your daughter—and Draco…?"

"I will choose Draco." Riveting Night did not even blink as she answered right away.

The scene became deathly silent in a way that was worse than before, as if the very sound had been vacuumed away. Shuangtian was sweating visibly, her lips quivering as she glanced at Riveting Night like she was seeing her for the first time while Draco's expression was grim, his arms crossed as he gripped his elbows on each end tightly.

For the first time, Shuangtian and Draco were starting to wonder if Amaterasu had really sabotaged the bloodline ceremony like they suspected. With the way Riveting Night thought, it might be entirely possible that her bloodline genuinely malfunctioned and rejected her because this train of thought was just…

"How would Lucitera feel about what you just said?" Shuangtian couldn't help but ask.

Riveting Night's expression softened greatly. "…I would not wish her to hear this from her own mother, because I wouldn't want to hear it from my own mother."

"But it doesn't change my statement. No matter what anyone says or does, in a 100 different scenarios with the same choice, the outcome would always be Draco, no matter who he was placed against nor how much they mean to me." Riveting Night stated firmly as she shook her head.

"I… see…" Shuangtian could only say eventually with a weak smile.

All the arguments and counterarguments she prepared were useless now, because fundamentally speaking, they were not on the same wavelength. They were, objectively speaking, not even using the same language to talk to each other, so how were they supposed to convince one another?

Shuangtian realized the difficulty Amaterasu faced, which was inherited by Evaterasu, which was the fact that Riveting Night was an unsolvable problem with a simple solution.

Her obsession with Draco made her not much of a person, but like an AI of sorts that simply executed the code 'obey Draco'. Because of this, she was unable to function normally no matter how you persuaded, reasoned or used stimuli to change her life, making her issue unsolvable.

You could not change the core her, that was impossible. Yet at the same time, the solution to deal with her was simple, just have Draco command her to swap out with another mentality or to change her behaviors.

But this was not a foolproof solution because the basic 'programming' was still there, just covered with nice fluff. She would have only changed on surface level, but internally was the same and the problems would only be suppressed to erupt another day.

…precisely like right now, where they locked her away for a mixed personality of her and Amaterasu that functioned somewhat well up until now that she was released again, unveiling all the problems that needed her sealed in the first place.

It was no wonder that Draco said she was crucial for them to work.

Looking at Riveting Night, Shuangtian had already understood her importance, but now she understood it even further.

Based on what Riveting Night said, she would do the exact same thing she did in the previous timeline. If someone were to truly threaten Draco's life and try to defile her, this Riveting Night would probably agree again, even though Draco told her he would rather let himself die than have her defiled.

If it had been she, Shuangtian, in the previous timeline who was faced with that tumultuous choice that ruined an entire timeline, she would have never agreed even if Draco was killed, not because she did not care, but because she knew that agreeing would only kill them both inside.

And it was precisely because she could understand this and Riveting Night couldn't that necessitated her presence, but this was still too much.

There was little to no common ground to work off of, because Riveting Night did not even fundamentally recognize her as a peer because she was not as obsessed with Draco. Unlike Draco who acknowledged her presence, her value and especially her role, Riveting Night only listened to Draco.

Even if Draco forced her to obey, the problem would remain. In situations where it was just her and Riveting Night, problems would erupt that could escalate into serious trouble.

Shuangtian deeply felt helpless.

Draco felt tired.

"Fine, just turn back time and bring back the other one… we'll make do for now." Draco could only say sullenly, feeling like a big fool after all of this.