Chapter 306: Stupid Idiot

Luna pulled back, her teasing expression fading. She sat cross-legged on the bed and sighed.

"I have an innate skill."

Damian’s head snapped up, his crimson eyes going wide.

"...H-Huh?"

"An innate skill... SSS rank." Her voice was matter-of-fact, like she was discussing the weather. "It’s called Empath.

Damian’s mind went blank for a second.

’An innate skill? She has an innate SKILL?! Since when? And why the fuck did no one tell me?’

His hand came up to cover his face, fingers pressing against his temples.

"You’ve had this since... since when?"

"I’ve had it since I was young. It lets me see the emotions of everyone around me as colors... all the time, their feelings become visible."

The word dropped like a stone.

"The skill is too high-rank for me to control, so there are some side-effects... It’s always active, all of my emotions are magnified by a factor of one hundred inside my own mind and surrounding emotions affect me by a factor of ten."

She said it like she was reading from a textbook, her voice steady and calm.

"So... let’s say when you’re happy, I feel happiness ten times stronger than normal and when I’m sad, I feel that sadness amplified in my own head by one hundred. I feel every emotion from everyone around me, constantly, with no way to turn it off."

Damian said nothing, his expression hidden behind his hand but his mind was processing implications faster than he could speak them.

"I didn’t want to tell you before," Luna continued quietly. "I thought... I thought you’d start avoiding me if you knew."

"And why..." Damian’s voice came out low and rough. "Why the hell would I avoid you?"

Luna looked away, her fingers picking at the bedspread.

"Connect the dots, will you? You have shown me love and affection since we were kids. Treated me kindly, protected me, made me feel safe and valued... And I started depending on that. With time it turned into a crush and then this damn skill amplified it into something... more."

She paused.

"Obsessive and unhealthy... The kind of love that would make anyone uncomfortable if they knew about it. Especially coming from someone you grew up with like a... sister."

She finally looked at him.

"I knew it was weird. Falling for someone I grew up with like a brother. I knew you’d be uncomfortable... So I kept it hidden."

Damian slowly lowered his hand from his face, his crimson eyes meeting her silver ones.

The silence stretched between them, heavy with years of unspoken truths.

"I... understand."

His voice was quiet.

Luna blinked, surprised by the simple acceptance.

"And let me guess," Damian continued, his expression complicated, caught between concern and frustration and something softer. "Since you aren’t awakened yet and can’t control your skill properly... it somehow worked subconsciously and let you calm me down?"

His eyes fixed on her with intensity that made her look away.

"And that’s why you’re so exhausted. Because you were playing with fire and using an uncontrolled SSS rank skill night after night to make sure I could sleep... peacefully."

Luna’s hands tightened on the bedspread.

"...Yes."

"Look at me, Luna."

She met his eyes reluctantly.

"You’re a stupid fool. You know that, right?"

"And YOU’RE one to talk!"

Luna raised an eyebrow, some of her normal spirit returning.

"I didn’t almost die using an uncontrolled SSS rank skill on someone’s shattered mind."

"You literally ate Giants and created a cursed art that degrades your sanity."

"That’s different."

"How is that different?"

"It’s strategic risk-taking."

"It’s suicidal stupidity and you know it."

"At least I wasn’t playing with skills I have zero control over!"

"At least I was trying to save you instead of just being reckless for power!"

They glared at each other, the bickering feeling almost normal after the strange calm of earlier.

After some time, Damian’s expression cracked and he let out a long breath, his hand coming up to rub his face.

"You could have seriously hurt yourself, Luna. Every power comes with consequences. You’ve seen what the Devourer Art does to me..."

Then Damian’s expression softened and he reached out to ruffle her hair.

"Stop it!" Luna tried to bat his hand away but there was no real force behind it, a faint blush creeping across her cheeks. "I’m serious! Stop messing up my hair!"

"You literally just told me you have obsessive love for me and you’re worried about your hair?"

"That’s... shut up! This is embarrassing enough without you making fun of me!"

Damian’s hand stilled in her hair, his eyes becoming serious again.

"Don’t do it again. At least not until you have proper control over your skill. Understood?"

Luna nodded, her blush deepening.

"...And why are you so calm now? This isn’t like you at all."

She shrugged, her voice going quiet again.

"You’re safe... I get to spend time with you. Mom and Dad are without worry. I feel... peace. And my skill amplifies that too. Everything that’s happened lately has been so intense that I’m learning to manage it better. To find calm whenever I can."

She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear.

"In order to have some peace with this skill, I need to stay in positive emotional states. That’s why I didn’t ask about what happened in the portal. Didn’t want to drown in your trauma on top of my own amplified emotions."

Damian looked at her for a long moment, seeing past the calm facade to the exhaustion underneath, to the girl who’d been fighting her own emotions for years without telling him.

"...You’ve grown up a lot, Luna."

She smiled, genuine warmth breaking through.

Then Damian stood up.

"When the entrance exam results come out, I’ll help you form your Aura core. You don’t need to wait to join Stormhold Academy. I’ll ask Elizabeth to send you a special invitation."

He headed toward the door.

"Though with your talent, you’ll probably get one automatically. I won’t even need to ask."

Luna didn’t react for several seconds, just stared at his retreating back.

Then her voice came out confused.

"Wait... you’re letting me join Stormhold? Without fussing about me being too kind?"

Damian looked back, a small smile playing at his lips.

"Who am I to stop someone with more balls than anyone else I know?"

Luna’s face went red as she remembered shouting that at him months ago.

But in the next second, she jumped from the bed and ran toward him.

Her foot caught on the edge of the blanket.

’Shit!’

She pitched forward, arms windmilling uselessly, the floor rushing up to meet her face.

Whoosh

Damian vanished from the doorway and reappeared beneath her, catching her mid-fall in a princess carry, one arm under her knees, the other supporting her back.

"Careful."

His voice was soft and concerned.

Luna stared up at him, her face inches from his, her silver eyes wide.

"...So pretty."

The words slipped out in a daze as she looked at his crimson eyes.

Damian’s face went awkward immediately. He quickly set her back on the bed, avoiding eye contact.

"Rest. You need it."

Then he was gone, the door closing behind him with more force than necessary.

Luna lay on the bed where he’d placed her, staring at the ceiling.

Then she grabbed her pillow, buried her face in it and started giggling uncontrollably, rolling back and forth across the bed like a child.

****

Damian leaned against the wall, one hand pressed over his face, trying to process everything Luna informed him about the skill.

Then something else occurred to him, something that made him straighten up in shock.

The whispers... Nera’s accusations and the hallucinations that had still been following him constantly since he woke up.

They’d been completely silent the entire time he’d been in Luna’s room.

He hadn’t heard a single whisper, hadn’t seen a single shadow move wrong, hadn’t felt that crushing weight of guilt and self-hatred pressing down on him.

Just... peace.

He looked at Luna’s door, his expression complicated.

’She’s been fighting her own battle this whole time. One I didn’t even know existed. And instead of focusing on herself, she used her skill to fix me.’

His hands clenched at his sides.

’Stupid, reckless idiot!’

But despite the thoughts, warmth spread through his chest. Something that felt dangerously close to what Luna had described feeling for him...

He shook his head and headed back to his own room, refusing to examine those thoughts too closely.

Behind him, Luna’s muffled giggling could still be heard through the door.