Editing Sorcery Hacker:Volume3 Phase05 (section)

===Part 5===

A short distance from Ayato and Henrietta, Teleria and Mamilis were watching after moving from the falling control tower to another tower.

Teleria hated only being able to watch what was happening below.

No…

“That isn’t it. I knew all along there was something I could do. Ayato stepped across the border between right and wrong to save me, but I’m still trapped by my own rules. I can’t keep doing that.”

“Teleria?”

Dark Elf Mamilis gave her a curious look.

The Four Lords were powerful enough to alter the rules of the battlefield by their very presence.

Well, Teleria knew of another being capable of altering the standards of sorcery.

''The girl who had inherited the Nereid name.

“My secret has kept everyone from their rightful destinies. My survival caused everything to go wrong for my brother, for the Council, and for Ayato.”

But.

So.

“I will not run away. I won’t hide it anymore.”

Something sounded like crackling sparks.

But this was not magic initiated by a sorcery gun and controlled by human hands.

Her blue blazer’s buttons popped off.

A different sort of power – a power based on this world’s most fundamental rules – caused Teleria Nereid Aquamarine’s Mimic Options to burst from within.

The black tights shredded and a mermaid’s tail appeared in the outside world.

Do not doubt.

Do not regret.

Do not fear.

Everyone worries at first. Everyone fears revealing their truth. She could accept that.

But no longer was she a chrysalis who hung her head and bit her lip.

She brought that period of her life to an end here.

She overcame it.

She moved past it.

She had to confidently show off the wonderful traits she was born with. She had to find pride in her differences from others and appreciate the joy of finding things only she could do. No part of her body was shameful and no part of her soul was flawed. So she had to hold her head high. She wouldn’t let anyone stop her from announcing that the power inside her could end the tyranny of Escalrain.

Pain stabbed into her chest.

The pain of regret. Now that her focus had shifted, the care she had taken to protect her daily life now tore into her as self-inflicted damage.

Yes.

She could admit it now.

If she didn’t admit it and look straight at it, she couldn’t tell how tall that hurdle was. She needed to know the height, orientation, and distance to the hurdle if she was to clear it, but she could only measure those things using her own pain.

So she clenched her teeth.

She accepted the pain. She could do that now.

Memories came back to her like her life flashing before her eyes.

So many good times.

Her time spent with the human boy who had accepted her secret and protected her as her stepbrother. He had silently covered up any minor slipups she made and always supported and encouraged her.

So many good times.

The times spent with that black-haired boy who had formed a one-on-one relationship with her despite his ignorance of her secret. He had been the strongest Forward – the Hexajinx, but despite the concerning stories about him, he had let all his feelings out like a child. As someone forced to live her life carrying a secret, she had honestly envied him.

So, so many good times.

Ayato and her brother hadn’t had a wonderful friendship or anything like that. They had often clashed harshly, especially when it came to treatment of Teleria. To the point that they appeared to have developed fighting into a new form of communication.

But they had done it all for Teleria.

So it hadn’t been all that bad being caught in the middle of that fighting.

When Teleria Nereid Aquamarine thought back on the happiest time of her life, she always returned to the memories of those days. She had felt so much more like a princess than on that small island full of mermaids and other demons. Ayato had been the strongest Forward and her brother had excelled in his sorcery studies, so they had both injured themselves constantly. Those days of sighing, bickering back and forth, and healing their wounds with water recovery magic had been the happiest of all.

Then various threads had complexly intertwined and one of those lives had been lost.

The other one, Ayato, had been so obsessed with revealing the truth he had reduced himself to a Sorcery Hacker and turned his back on the upright path of the strongest Forward.

It was possible he wouldn’t forgive Teleria.

The answer had more or less been revealed to him at Laguntreat. If he impartially viewed the data available to him, he would readily arrive at the conclusion that Teleria wasn’t human. But the human mind was a complex thing and it did not always respond the same way to the same answer.

It was perfectly possible he would have been fine with it back then, but not now.

Yes, she should have gone ahead and confessed the truth before they left Laguntreat. If she hadn’t still been dragging that secret around with her, the President couldn’t have used it against her to set up that despicable trap. Ayato said he didn’t care, but once Teleria came out and said she was a mermaid and had hidden that secret from him, it could reveal some weakness or ugliness inside him he wasn’t aware of himself or some other whim could come over him and the revelation would create a great fissure between them.

There were no absolutes when it came to the innerworkings of people’s minds. There was no surefire method. That was the one thing no one could hack. No cheats could be found. And that was what made it such a precious thing.

None of this would have gotten so twisted if Teleria had been shot back then.

Her stepbrother would still be alive and the other demons wouldn’t have had to suffer.

That was the truth.

No one could predict what Ayato would do once he knew it all.

So.

The moment she revealed her identity to save him could also be the moment their journey together shattered and came to an end.

(But.)

The girl clenched her teeth.

She desperately forced down the temptation from the side of her that feared change and loved making excuses.

(The idea of our relationship ending scares me. The thought of our journey ending saddens me.)

But.

But.

The girl who had once been all alone raised her head and roared in challenge.

She was the Nereid princess.

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The girl who would be the Water Lord one day stared at the hail impudently pouring down from the sky. Someone other than their proper ruler had infringed on the princess’s territorial waters without her permission. And, of all things, he had done so to pummel people she held dear.

It didn’t matter who was responsible. This tyranny could not be allowed.

So she declared war against the world here.

Change.

Throw away your mask.

“None of that is worth abandoning Ayato over!!!”