Lackey's Seducing Survival Odyssey

There was no anger in Young Aether’s face.

There was no hatred either.

And, for the first time, Young Aether realised that he didn’t even know which mask he was supposed to wear anymore.

A Friend?

An Enemy?

A Saviour?

A Monster?

What should he choose?

Someone tell him.

Show him.

Teach him.

Please…

Teach him what kind of mask he was supposed to wear now.

But no.

There was no one who could teach him.

He had spent so long standing behind masks that he had forgotten what his own face looked like beneath them.

And now, when he finally needed someone to tell him what to feel, there was nobody.

He was alone.

Not the ordinary kind of loneliness that disappeared when someone entered the room.

This was something deeper.

A loneliness that remained even when surrounded by people.

A loneliness that had followed him through every city, every battle, every smile, and every identity he had created.

His breathing trembled.

He lowered his head, and his shoulders sank slightly beneath the weight of everything pressing against him.

For the first time… He felt… he wanted to die.

Yes.

Right now, more than anything else, he wanted to disappear.

He wanted to die and never… ever come back to this place again.

He wanted the pain to stop.

All the memories he had made with his friends…

He just wanted them to be protected.

Untouched.

Unbroken.

Even if he had to disappear from their lives completely to make that happen.

His fingers slowly tightened around the bloodied fabric near his wound, and the pain bit deeper into his palm.

For once, he didn’t know whether the pain in his body hurt more…

Or the pain inside his chest.

Just leave the only pure, non-fake happiness in his life.

Please!

But even after everything… he still didn’t understand why Allen had betrayed him, nor why he was standing there like a statue while his own daughter was about to be killed.

“Are you… going to betray her too?” he asked, desperately hoping Allen would say something, anything, to him.

Yet there was no sign of movement from the whitish-black suit.

“I-It’s Dad?” Lily muttered in shock when she realised that the enormous suit was her father.

Her trembling eyes widened behind the tears. “Dad… is that you?”

Again, there was no answer from Allen.

Lily’s face crumpled as she burst into tears.

“D-Dad… N-Noah… Noah, my little brother… d-died…” Her voice broke as she struggled to breathe. “Dad… he died… I… I couldn’t do anything. I couldn’t protect him. I’m sorry, Dad… I failed. I failed to keep our promise… I should’ve left Uncle when you told me to… I should have obeyed your words… I’m sooo sorrryyyy…”

Her voice dragged into a broken sob as the pain of her brother’s death stabbed into her chest.

After all…

Her brother had died because of her actions.

The image of Noah laughing for the last time kept returning to her mind, again and again, like a curse she could neither escape nor silence.

If only she had done what her father told her…

This wouldn’t have happened.

All because of her.

She kept blaming herself for the death of her beloved little brother, crushing herself beneath guilt that she could no longer carry.

Yet Allen stood there motionlessly.

Young Aether frowned as he listened to Lily’s words.

‘Leave me? Why?’

The thought surfaced again, leaving him even more confused.

“Hmm… You still don’t seem to understand the situation,” the tailed mech-suit suddenly said in a cold, emotionless tone.

Its mechanical tail slowly withdrew from Lily’s forehead.

For a brief moment, everyone thought she had decided not to kill Lily after all.

But they were wrong.

The mech-suit abruptly seized Lily and shoved her forward.

“Argh!”

Lily stumbled across the floor as she finally stopped directly in front of Allen.

She slowly raised her head.

“D-Dad?”

Her eyes trembled violently as she looked up at the enormous armored figure standing before her.

The whitish-black armour made him look like an executioner waiting to deliver a sentence.

He raised his double-edged axe.

The pistons screamed with a sharp mechanical hiss as hydraulic pressure surged through the frame.

!!

Lily’s face instantly drained of colour.

For several seconds, she could only stare at the weapon raised above her.

“…Dad?”

Her voice barely escaped her throat.

She couldn’t believe it.

Her own father had raised his weapon against her.

The tailed mech-suit lifted one hand.

“Hand over Genome Beta.”

Her five fingers slowly spread before her.

Then one finger folded inward.

Then another.

She was counting.

Jonathan’s eyes widened.