Closure Of The Night

Vajdahunyad Castle, Aria's World
11:40 PM

The way to the cabin was as long as the first trip, it was almost midnight in this world, according to the weird clock, the truth is that I think I have more than 12 hours here and at least 26 hours of being awake. I was completely exhausted, both physically and mentally. Normally in the army it was not uncommon to be awake for up to five days in a row when things were bad, but still I had access to coffee there. But I couldn't find any here. I imagine Tamamo and Maria are tired as well.

When we arrived at the hut, our mother Adelis was waiting for us with some typical dishes of our family, served in the dough under the light of several chandeliers. My mother was happy to see us and invited us to the table. When we all sat down, Tamamo explained to her what was really happening, she took things calmly at first, as if she knew it from the beginning, but the more she thought about it, the more she realized what was happening. Then she remembered that she was in her house and there was no way we could have gotten to the castle so fast. Once we confirmed that she was really aware of what was happening around her, she asked about her next interest, the dolls. They stayed behind me the whole time and did not speak at all. While I tried to find the easiest way to explain it, Tamamo decided to drop the bomb. My mother, now accustomed to the mischievous behavior of her daughter-in-law, turned to me and waited for the details. I explained once again why we had ended up in this world, the rescue, and how it was very likely that the Balkan Empire was behind it. When I finished, she smiled and looked at the girls. She realized that once again she was confronted with something completely different than humans, and she just resigned herself to accepting it. She approached them, asked their names and then introduced herself, telling them that Adelis was their grandmother and that she was happy to meet them, she asked them if they were able to eat and when they said that they were, she brought two more chairs to the table and began to distribute the food for two more people.

The next thing on her list was to take the big metal spoon she had to serve the food and beat my father with it until it was deformed. In my opinion, she deserved it. She complained about what he had done when he was on the private island of Avesta 7 and began to interrogate him exhaustively, trying to find material to accuse him of. It was certainly like watching an intelligence agent draw conclusions from the way my father answered the questions. But when she saw that it would take a long time and that the food was getting cold, she decided to let it go for now.

"I already told you, I'm fine!"
"Tamamo has been treating the wound for a long time."
"It doesn't even hurt right now."
"I assure you, I can eat without any problems"

"But what are you saying!"
"Just look at the wound you have in your abdomen, if you eat something normal like rice, it might be difficult for your body right now"
"I might even cause another hemorrhage." My mother tried to take away the plate of food I had waited so long for tonight.

"I've eaten a lot more and been hurt a lot worse in the past.
"I know what I can eat with the wound I have.
"Give me my food back!"

"Let him eat"
"I don't think we'll have many more opportunities to have a family celebration like this in the future.
"What if we make the most of it and have a good time with the family?"
"After all, we have two new members today."
"Let's welcome Charlotte and Kazumi"
"Cheers!" My dad said

"Wait a minute, since when do you like alcohol, Dad?"
"I remember how you hated being invited to drink when you came to visit me in the hospital."
"Is this another of your new hobbies?"

"Who? Your father?"
"He always liked to drink, I even remember that we drank so much at the wedding party that we forgot what happened for 3 days"
"Then, nine months later, Cesar was born by surprise."

"Mom!"
"We don't need to know that!"

"But it is the truth"
"After that, many things changed when you were born."
"Your father had to sell his precious motorcycle to buy a car."
"It was my turn to learn to cook, and that's how I discovered my passion for culinary arts."

"Well, when you were sick, you were still very young, I'm sure you wouldn't have liked to see me drinking when I visited you.
"Even then, I couldn't drink much for work.
"But that's all in the past now."
"Look at yourself now, a pretty developed and healthy girl"
"If you had told me 10 years ago how healthy you are now, I would not have believed it"
"Hey, now that I think about it, your Cesar is also now a healthy and big developed girl too now that I think about it, the problem is your height on the other hand".

"Tamamo, the Dutch cheese is waxed to protect the outside, so you have to remove the red layer first before eating it!"

"Oh."
"That explains why it tasted so strange."

We had a good time as a family, we ate and talked about everything, from our experiences at school, at work and how my mother created the coffee shop, the mythical New Year's Eve party that my father made, the tragedy that Tamamo lived on earth, I told again how I ended up as a girl and how, thanks to me, Maria was able to overcome her illness. The twins did not speak much, but they were attentive all the time, they were quite entertained by our stories, and they ate everything on their plates very quickly. It seemed a lie that only a few hours ago they had been locked up in that horrible place, living through those horrible experiments.

There was still much I did not know about them, not what they were capable of and to what extent, but if we are going to raise them, we will have to find out together, listen to their past and find a way to overcome the problems that may arise over time. Will they be able to see themselves as human or will they continue to behave like computers? that is something only they will have to decide. But one thing is for sure, with this little party, they are now officially part of our family.

When we finished eating, it was already midnight, Mom and Dad wanted to spend the rest of the time alone, so they left the hut and sat on a bench in the garden to talk for the last time in a really long time to come. They had their backs turned, but we could see Mom smiling when she turned her face to see Dad talking about something, then she rested her head on his shoulder and he responded by putting his arm behind the bench to hug her.

We turned the cabin upside down and searched everywhere for the damn book. Well, there were so many decorations in the place that there were many pages to check, plus there were several shelves full of other books in Hungarian. After checking the place for the fourth time, we managed to find it. Then we tried to decide how to destroy it, because Maria thought that we might accidentally activate other spells without meaning to, but Tamamo told her that she would take care of it in a delicate and calculated way. So without warning us, she threw a fireball at the book. The book began to burn slowly in a purple flame, very different from the natural color of fire or the azure flame of Tamamo's signature fire.

Tamamo and Maria sat and watched the book burn slowly in a metal bucket, the twins standing close by. On my side, I looked out the window at the garden while the book burned, and I could see my parents still hugging each other. After that I started to get sleepy, so I went to the sofa to rest. But as I did so, I could hear a voice saying: "I finally found daddy! From what I could see through the other window, which looked into the forest, and I could see a silhouette among the trees, it was a girl of a similar height to Maria's, but she had more characteristic features, like she clearly had wings and horns on her head. But what undoubtedly caught my attention the most was a long reptilian tail with a rather characteristic tip that was a weapon, I could recognize it wherever she was, but when I opened the window to say her name I fell unconscious from sleep.

Family Home, Sumida City, Tokyo
February 15th
2:15 A.M

I immediately opened my eyes and looked around, trying to figure out where I was. But despite the darkness, I could see that it was clearly the living room of our house. But I would not have time to rejoice because I quickly noticed something that deserved much more attention. Lying on the sofa, I watched as 4 armed men in full combat gear walked through the front door of the house. Without much time to think, I summoned Avalon, held it like a shield, and charged at them with all my might. When I hit them, I knocked two of them to the ground, and the others lost their balance a bit. Despite the sudden pain in my stomach, I ran and took the pistol from the belt of one of the soldiers and shot him in the head. Then I got back behind Avalon and listened as the other three started shooting at me with their rifles, I charged again with my giant sword, but this time I only took down one, who I took the opportunity to shoot as he tried to get up. There are only two left, as I can see, trying to surprise them with a different tactic, I grabbed the giant sword with both hands and threw it at one of the bastards, and emptied the entire magazine of the pistol at the other. his feet where he had no shield and then as he writhed in pain the rest hit him in the upper chest and head.

What the hell just happened, it had only been a few seconds since I woke up from that nightmare and now I was in the middle of the street with four dead people at my feet, my stomach bandaged and no shirt on. The neighbors' houses started to turn on the lights when they heard what was happening outside, and I understood how bad it would be if they saw me, I disappeared again Avalon and ran inside the house. I was still running when I heard the police sirens. But how the hell did they get here so fast? Were they chasing the guys from earlier?

Knowing the enormous mess I had just gotten myself into so suddenly, with no way to solve it on my own, I ran to do what anyone would do, to ask my mother for help to get out of the problem.