Chapter 22 - 22: Tristan's Regret(6)
At the hospital,
"Leave me alone, your grace...it's not your fault." Aurora turned her head looking out from the hospital's window with the grip on her blanket tightening the part where her legs were.
She tried to hold back the tear of her loss and she couldn't cry because Tristan was standing there looking at her from the door after Marinette left.
She tried to avoid being a cripple back on earth, and now her fate didn't seem to be going well for her.
"Why did you save me?" Tristan asked her, his purple eyes...there was some sort of guilt in it with Aurora's back in his pupil.
"Everyone would do the same."
"You should have left me--"
"What's the point of talking about it now anyway?? Just leave me!!" she raised her voice at him, some of the tears she had been trying to hold in started falling down on her cripple legs.
Tristan couldn't reply, he felt guilty, he left the room. The moment she heard the footstep of him leaving the room.
She broke down crying without knowing Tristan was hiding on the other side of the door.
She hit her leg.
"Useless...get up...move a little bit...please..." she shouted to her legs in desperation even a glass of water on the table beside her, she couldn't walk to it and grab it.
She tried getting up but ended up falling from the bed so hard with a blanket covering her body and the water of the glass spilling over her hair.
Tristan couldn't bear it anymore rushing in to help her get up and put her back on the bed.
"Why are you still here...?"
"I...I'll take the responsibility."
"It's my business, I don't need any of your responsibility!"
"I'll make you my wife--" his face got red from the slap of Aurora, she looked at him angrily. She bit her lip and shouted at him, "It's my life!! Are you crazy throwing your future like this?? If it was another woman, do you take them as wife as well??"
"...so what's about you? You're like this because of me."
"It wasn't anyone's fault. I can deal with it." she tried to push him away with her little hands, some tears ended up falling on Tristan's hands.
She put her head on his shoulder and begged him, "Please...leave..." her hands were shaking so hard as she cried on his shoulder.
+++
Meanwhile,
Ahhh...
"You brat, you're my descendant!!! Show some respect, will you??" Herod's soul shouted at Marinette with an indifferent face.
"No time for introduction, I already met you in my last life. So just answer some of my questions."
"...last life?? Don't tell me..."
"Yes, I used your spell and engraved the past life memories in my soul."
"You're lying!!! You didn't get complete memories, pfft."
"I engraved four souls, and mine, I used other methods."
"Four souls??? Are you crazy!!? Even I couldn't engrave one soul."
"So...am I worthy of your descendant?" Marinette grinned at Herod.
"Ahaha...ask what you want then."
"Where is the leftover light magic?"
Herod was taken aback by Marinette's words to know about that secret from two thousand years ago.
"Did me in your past life tell you that?"
"You only tell me one place among two, and I didn't find it!"
"Then it must be the other one then, why do you come so far to ask me?? Are you stupid??" Marinette glared at him with cold eyes, Herod's soul shrink in fear of her.
"You turned to ash right after you answer me!!"
"Did I...?"
"I don't have much time here, just tell me."
"It's complicated to get there, so you have to take me with you."
"..." Marinette stared at him hearing him being all suspicious.
"I mean...I have to take you there."
"You do know you can't leave this tombstone, right??"
"Yeah, yeah I know that. Didn't you bring that man with you to be my vessel??" Herod flew surrounded Flynn, Marinette rushed in and didn't hesitate to burn his soul. She glared daggers at him while hugging Flynn tightly in her arm, "Don't you dare touch him!!"
"Hey...brat, he isn't a Mortel and I let him in here...you should be grateful, what's wrong with tossing him, that uniform, isn't he just your knight?"
"If you touch him, I'll destroy your tombstone right here right now."
"I won't. So, calm down. This is the tombstone my son build for me!!!"
"I'll bring you a vessel then, but we have to make a vow first."
"Sure, haa...I really want to see the world after two thousand years."
"First, you can't kill humans. And second, as long we're both alive, you have to protect me."
"Alright, I, Herod Mortel accept the vow." light shone on both of them from the sky, Marinette smiled and dragged the monster's corpse nearby into the barrier.
Herod entered the wolf's body and a moment later, the black skin's wolf turned all white, its eyes turned from yellow to dark red like blood all over its body.
Soon after the transformation was complete, Herod with the long white hair laid down to his small waist.
He took the first breath as a living being and stared at the monsters approaching them growling when the barrier dropped.
Death Roses Magic: Death Door
A door appeared and plenty of roses came through the door and a petal dropped on one monster, the moment is made contact, all the monsters died because of poisoning and every black tree in the forest were affected by Herod's magic started to turn green and roses were coming out of the ground everywhere burning those monsters alive.
Marinette was dumbfounded seeing the true power of the original death roses magic user.
After the monsters died, Herod also cast clothes covering his naked body, that was when he realized something missing.
"Huh?? Where..."
"Ahaha, let's go now." Marinette carried Flynn's body and rushed forward passing Herod who was furious.
"Brat, did you give me a female corpse as my vessel??!!!"
"Oh my...I didn't know it was a female." Herod clenched his hands and wanted to punch Marinette but he couldn't.
He accepted his new life as a woman.
"I need one royal blood to come with me." Herod told Marinette who was playing with Flynn's sleepy face. Currently, they were up in the sky using the big rose petal to levitate them from the ground.
Marinette replied, "Why didn't you tell me sooner??"
"I thought it was an easy task since I saw the royal ring on your finger, isn't your fiance the royalty?? Haa...I really don't want our bloodline to be stained by those bastard royalties."
"He was the one who executed me in my last life." Herod wasn't much surprised there when Marinette said that.
"The entrance of that place won't be opened unless one royalty helps us." Herod got up and looked at the royal palace from above the cloud, he used his eye vision to look for any remaining royalty.
"There's one person though..."
"Take him with us then, we can wipe his memories once we're done."
They landed at the west palace of the royal palace, the graveyard of the royalty.
While Herod was laughing over the royalty's name on the grave, Marinette sneaked inside the first prince's royal palace and when she saw him walking in the hallway.
She kidnapped him and dragged him back with her.
"What's that?? A corpse??"
"It's the first prince." she replied bluntly.
"What?? Are you crazy kidnapping a prince??"
"Isn't this the fastest way? Let's go." there wasn't any knight guarding the west palace even if the prince was missing, Marinette knew that fact couldn't help but pity the prince.
Although she still put him to sleep on the edge of the petal, unlike Flynn who she allowed sleeping on her lap.
"Hey...Marinette, was it??"
"How do you know my name?"
"You don't need to know that. About your method, how many fractions of memories have you collected so far??"
"There are two, why?"
"But...why did I see three in your soul?"
"I already checked it, it was only two. So what's the third one??"
"Although I was the one who made this spell, you have to get your complete memory to know the answer about that. It can be the locked memory."
"What's locked memory?"
"You can say...that it was the memory that will hurt you if you remember it."
"...so that must be the reason I felt like something missing the whole time."
"It can be love."
"Love?? I never loved anyone." Herod glanced at Flynn who she was playing with his sharp nose.
"You just don't remember it, it might be the one close to you...anyway, we will arrive there soon." he rolled his eyes.
Marinette touched her heart, it was beating now and then since she left the west palace, it was from the moment she made eye contact with the first prince.
'Come to think of it, who was the one staying in the prison with me that time??'
They arrived at the entrance of a big cavern with the ocean flooding inside it, Herod took Marinette inside it, there were many letters engraved on the wall of the cavern.
"We arrive, this is the door. Now, what do we do??"
"Why do you ask me!!?"
"We have to let the prince use the light magic on the door to make it open."
"Ah..." Marinette realized she messed up, she looked at the prince's sleeping face and had no idea how to do it.
"Should we wake him?? Or should I kill him to take his magic??"
"No!!! Remember our vow!!"
"Okay, okay. Then you...kill him, you can take his magic and make it yours."
"There's gotta be a way." Marinette got the prince sitting, he was sleeping like a log because of his magic.
"What are you doing??"
"I'm trying to..."
Because of his weight, Marinette lost balance and fell with him into the water underneath them.
"Marinette!!!!" Herod shouted her name and tried to catch her hand but the current took Marinette and the prince's body far and far away.
Ahh...
Marinette tried to hold the prince's hand with one hand holding her breath underwater and the other hand, she grabbed onto a rock. She felt relieved a second before the rock break, and the big rocks started falling hitting her right in the head bleeding.
Her consciousness was drifting away from her, the prince who was pretending to be sleeping the whole time grabbed her hand back and moved to her looking at her.
His eyes were calm despite the situation, he looked at his surroundings and noticed the little door underwater.
He hugged her body gently in his arm and dived to that door. He remembered the words of the woman Marinette talking to and used his light magic.
His breath was running out as he couldn't hold any longer, he got only one shot. The door opened and the current took them into the inside of the door where the room lit in the gold color because of the uncountable treasure like a mountain inside the room.
"Marinette!! Marinette..." he called her name and tried to perform CPR on her, he pushed her chest, some water leaking out.
He smiled in relief, to make her completely awake, his lip was put on top of her soft lip, and put some of the light magic inside her body to heal her bleeding head and organ that was damaged when the rock hit her body.
Cough cough
Marinette coughed water, her vision was blurry. She felt the chill of cold on her lip, it felt like it was warm a moment ago from her perspective.
She got up sitting looking desperately for the prince's body, she was very glad to see his body was also on land and when she walked to check him out, he was breathing but he was still sleeping.
She smiled and lied her head on his chest.
"Thank goodness he's alright." she didn't know how to use any of the fire magic, his body was getting cold.
She walked around ignoring the golden treasure and went to grab the piece of clothes they used to wrap the treasure box to warm the prince.
Seeing his shirt soaked with shirt water, she ripped it all, his firm chest was shown, she looked at it for a while before deciding to cover it with the warm clothes she brought.
And that was all she did, she didn't have the gut to rip his pant too.
And for herself, she was cold the same as him especially in a cold room like that. She took off her dress, there was still a piece of clothes underneath the dress.
She undressed her clothes and she was wringing out the seawater from her clothes behind the treasure, not in front of the sleeping prince.
"What should I do now??" she put both of her hands on her waist staring at the vast treasure room with an indifferent face.
+++
Back on earth,
"Miss, I heard you like this novel. So I brought it for you." the nurse gave the novel to Sun-hee who was waiting for the man who was beside her when she was in a coma, he didn't come once since the time she woke up.
"It has season two??"
"Yes, and it was really interesting!!! Do you know the female lead went back in time??"
"Female lead Diana??"
"That's right. She went back in time, oh my god, I really ship her with Victor in this season."
Sun-hee the moment she heard that, flipped the page of the novel in hurry to the ending.
But it only had one volume, and the ending of the volume was to the point Marinette was poisoned.
"What about volume two??? Is there volume two???!" she asked desperately and tried to get up from her bed but ended up falling on the ground miserably.
The nurse was in panicked seeing her bleeding and rushed to get her back up.
"Did you read that fast??"
"It's not important, please give me the volume two!!"
"The volume two, I heard it will be released tomorrow but they only sold it at the fan signing event."
"...please...please take me there tomorrow."
To be continued....!