Chapter 712: [Blood Moon War] [53] Inner Quarrels

I always wonder when everything truly began.

At first, I thought it started the day Ephera was taken from me. That wound was deep enough to feel like the origin of everything that followed.

But then I saw Leon here, in this world, and it made me trace things back further—back to when my parents and sister were killed. Maybe that was the real beginning.

Yet, the more I thought about it, the less certain I became. The more I pulled on the thread of memory, the further back it seemed to unravel, like it all reached into a time long before tragedy struck.

"Where did it all begin?" I muttered aloud.

I turned my head to the left—and saw him.

Myself. Or rather, the me from Earth.

Nyrel Loyster.

Tall, black hair falling messily into his green eyes, with that same air of disinterest he always carried. He didn’t look at me, of course. He never did. His gaze was fixed ahead, cold and unreadable.

I followed it—and saw what he was staring at.

A younger version of himself. Of me.

Elementary school.

The sight alone made me grimace, because I knew exactly what memory was waiting there.

Naomi.

Naomi—the blind girl, the bright girl. The one I couldn’t help but be drawn to even as a clueless kid. She had this strange pull on me, something fragile yet impossible to ignore.

And like any foolish kid craving attention, I made mistake after mistake with her. I cracked jokes, I acted out, I made the whole class laugh at the wrong moments—but I didn’t care. None of that mattered. What mattered was her. The foreign girl with pale hair, from some Nordic country, who walked into my world and instantly became its center.

"Do you regret it?" I asked Nyrel quietly.

"No." His reply was blunt, immediate.

"No?" I frowned.

"Otherwise," he said calmly, "things wouldn’t have happened the way they were supposed to. And I wouldn’t have met Ephera."

I scoffed. "You’re truly an egotistical scumbag, aren’t you?"

"Well... he’s not entirely wrong."

The voice came from my right. I turned, and there stood Amael.

He looked almost exactly as he had before Nyrel’s memories fused with him—grey hair, amber eyes, and none of the weight he’d carried before. His body was lean, sharp, not burdened by the fat I had carried at that same age.

"Nyr was more of a protector for Naomi than you give him credit for," Amael said. "If it weren’t for him, she might’ve suffered worse from the others. He kept them at bay. You remember, don’t you? Like that time he beat up that little brat who wanted to bully Naomi but Nyr stopped saying she was his."

As he spoke, the memory surfaced before us like a screen.

I grimaced instantly. The scene was raw and embarrassing.

Me—wild, furious—pummeling another kid, shouting at him in quiet anger. Naomi had been there. She couldn’t see, but she could hear everything. She had stopped me before it got worse, but still...

My cheeks burned even now.

I stole a glance at Nyr. He looked the same as ever—impassive, detached, watching the memory without the slightest flicker of shame.

But then the scene shifted.

And this time, it was the one memory I never wanted to relive.

Naomi on the ground. Blood trailing down her face. The screech of tires, the shadow of a truck.

I felt my chest tighten, my face twisting into a grimace.

It hadn’t been fatal, but it had been bad. Bad enough to put her in a coma. And all because of me.

I hadn’t meant for it to happen—I had startled her, just a stupid moment of carelessness, and she stumbled. Straight into the road. Straight into disaster.

That was the first scar etched into me. The first time I felt like my whole world had cracked.

From that point on, I changed. I had to.

No more clowning around. No more picking fights. No more reckless games.

By the time middle school came, I had learned how to disappear—quiet, careful, discreet. A ghost of the boy I had been.

Maybe I had finally understood how much Naomi had meant to me — but by then it was already too late. Guilt has a way of turning worthiness into a private currency you can never quite earn back. I stopped visiting her at the hospital after a while, not because her parents forbade it — far from it. They were grateful I came, and proud that I did it every day. It was me who couldn’t stand to look at her like that; it was me who felt unworthy to be the boy who’d ruined her life.

The memory slid on.

Middle school—an awkward carousel of belonging and not belonging. Sharon and Felix filled the frames: small, stilted conversations, forced laughs, the brittle politeness of kids learning social rules. I winced as each scene passed.

"I’d rather not watch this," I muttered, but there was no choice. The images kept coming.

High school followed. Jeanne. Curtis. I watched Nyrel narrow his eyes at Curtis, slow and dangerous—the same look I would have given him. We were on the same wavelength where that bastard was concerned: cold, silent, and willing to let the worse parts of ourselves answer his provocation.

Finally it reached college. Ephera. Without a doubt, those were the best years of that life—the only years that felt like mine in the purest sense. Her presence softened edges I hadn’t known I had. That was when I believed, briefly, that everything might be okay.

"Now my turn," Amael said, sidling up beside me.

The scene snapped to a younger Amael in Sancta Vedelia. Kleines and Alea tumbled through the frame, laughing as they played with him. The sight knotted something in my chest — an ugly mix of discomfort and envy I didn’t like admitting even to myself.

"Are you jealous, Edward?" Amael teased, a grin tugging at one corner of his mouth.

"Jealous of what?" I asked, cringing.

"Jealous of him being pampered by parents," Nyrel cut in, voice flat and disdainful. "You sound pathetic, whining for parents at your age. Grow up."

The bluntness landed like a slap. For a second the two of them — memories and selves mashed together and then pulled apart again — made my head spin. So I asked what I needed to know.

"Don’t you feel anything for Alea and Christina?" My words sounded smaller than I meant them to.

Nyrel glanced at me before returning his gaze to the memory. "I am not their son," he said. "And I am not their brother. They should stop trying to make me into what they want. I won’t play the lost son or the devoted brother for their convenience."

"That’s harsh," Amael admitted. "Mom and my sister are worried about us. Father... well. You can’t blame him entirely. He’s been through a lot."

"Your father is a piece of shit," Nyrel snapped without hesitation. "If he tries anything weird again, I’ll kill him."

Amael’s smile disappeared. "If you do that, Alea and Christina will hate you." He sounded genuinely worried.

"Get rid of that nuisance as soon as you can. We’ll be better off," Nyrel said, blunt as ever as he turned toward me.

"Without me, you would’ve been killed," Amael shot back, folding his arms defensively.

"That’s the only use you have," Nyrel replied coldly.

"May I remind you that this is my body?" Amael said, irritation sharpening his voice.

Nyrel ignored him, eyes fixed on some point beyond the memory. The conversation stung because it revealed how fractured we were — how messy my own consciousness had become, braided with other men’s memories, loyalties, and grudges.

Why was my deeper self so torn, so scrambled?

"By the way," I said, shifting the topic, "what do you think about the Prophecy? Are we actually going to die?"

"I’m not dying until I find Ephera," Nyrel’s answer came fast.

Amael snorted, a half-smile playing at his lips. "Ephera’s already inside you, isn’t she?" He teased.

"Don’t compare that psycho to Ephera."

"We talking about the same Ephera?" Amael said, shrugging. "Sure, they may differ in details, but I don’t think they’re all that different beneath the surface."

"Shut up," Nyrel snapped.

I folded my arms, letting them trade barbs for a second. Then Amael answered my question more seriously. "About the Prophecy—yeah. I think we’re going to die. Fate doesn’t like being bullied."

Nyrel scoffed, voice laced with scorn. "That’s the kind of talk a weak mind would give. No surprise it comes from you." He jabbed a verbal elbow at Amael.

"Overconfidence is stupid too, you know," Amael shot back. A slow, heated exchange built between them.

"Cleenah would never let us die," Nyrel said then.

Amael’s tone cooled. "Cleenah might be a Goddess, but even she can’t completely defy fate."

Nyrel’s expression hardened into a grimace.

"If you want to die so badly, then go ahead and do it," he muttered, the words more dangerous than a dare.

Amael barked a laugh. "If you die, remember we all go with you."

I stepped in before it could spiral. "Regardless," I said, cutting through the noise. "Whether I die or not isn’t the point right now. I have to save Amaya."

Nyrel’s eyes narrowed. "Do that," he said. "And if you let her die again, I’ll kill you myself. We have still a lot to do in this miserable world—bury the suicidal thoughts for now."

Then, as if speaking to himself, he disappeared.

That threat—Nyrel’s casual, lethal promise—troubled me more than it should have. It was amazing how easily these foreign shards of thought were actually my own thoughts in my deep consciousness.

I sighed, pushed the unsettled feeling down, and squared my shoulders. No more letting people die because I hesitated.

"Fine," I told the empty space. "I won’t let her die again. Or anyone else."