Chapter 232: Heroine Chapter: Let me hear your voice. [1/2]
Chapter POV: Josephine Benelli
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After buying our presents, the Sirens and I went to a department store and had them wrapped. It was a good thing Lilly was there, otherwise we would have had to carry bulky boxes.
"Princess, here, store my present for honey. Make yourself useful," Bella instructed.
"The nerve of this woman. You make me? ME! Lilly Browning, of all people, to be your baggage carrier? Are you seriously suggesting that?"
"What? I am giving your useless {Fate} a purpose. Shouldn't you be happy?"
"{Store} is not useless, you sanctimonious twit. Didn't you see how brilliantly my dearest fought? He even managed to fly because of my {Fate}!" find-more-stories-on-NovelFire
"Oh, please, {Code} is the reason my darling can do half the shit he does."
While Bella and Lilly continued to insult each other, Robyn, Liv, and Aki also joined in the chaos.
"Possum would be dead by now if he didn't have {Carry}. What good would your {Fates} be if they don't help in battle anyway?"
"I agree and disagree at the same time. {Withstand} is the reason my beloved was able to defeat the brute. If it weren't for me, we would all have died in the enlistment."
"Everyone, I want to remind you all of one thing. {Gather} is the reason Master is able to come up with such amazing plans. {Eat} also keeps his belly full."
"Shut up, Chingchong, the brain boost from {Code} is why Honey was able to strategize. Honey is after all stupid."
While I found it hilarious that they were even trying to discuss this, I looked at my sister and coaxed her to join. Unlike me, who preferred lively discussions, my sister was a loner at heart.
"Jas, you are not going to join them? {Perceive} might look lame to the rest of the Sirens! You don't think so, do you?"
My sister sneered as she snobbishly replied. "I don't have to. They are only deluding themselves. {Identify}, {Loot}, {Expose}, and {Sight} all require {Perceive}. If their {Fates} were half as useful as mine, they would be used in more {Kismet}."
"Aww, that's no fun. You should join them, Jas! That's how the Sirens show their love for each other!" I joked, clinging to my beloved sister like glue.
"Tsk. Fine." Jas then left my side to try and mediate between the Sirens.
"Lilly, our packages are conspicuous. Anyone who knows our identities could leak the information to Trinity. Can we please hide them in {Store}?"
This would be the first time the seven of us had been together since the enlistment. While the rest of us had a fun-filled adventure in Japan, Aki acted separately and came here to kill Darling.
Originally, I wanted to kill her. However, when she told me the details of the battle between her and Darling, my anger was quelled. Even with his {Fate} loans wiped out, my darling fought like a beast.
It was downplayed because Aki was still alive. But my darling had the power to defeat a fully matured descendant. Even though Aki lost her peak by becoming one at the age of 28, she was still quite powerful.
"She even invoked {Soul Breaker}," I murmured in surprise.
Descendants were generally considered to be tools, not people. And {Soul Breaker} was our way of showing our resolve. The pain that came from invoking them was something that normal Reapers would never understand.
And Darling, who was a human just a week ago, managed to not only survive the desperate move, but also overcome it. He subdued the bladed kitsune without any manifested {Fate}, combat soulgear, or {Kismet}.
It was impressive, to say the least. My mind began to wonder what would have happened if my beloved and I had fought? Would I be able to kill him? Would he be able to kill me?
I joined in the conversation as my thoughts began to take a strange turn.
That was why I liked places that were lively. That way I couldn't concentrate on the voices in my head. Sometimes I felt that there was another person inside me. Someone who took pleasure in nothing but bloodshed and violence.
But every now and then she came out. Her whispers and murmurs would make me think of the worst in people.
'Trust none of them, they will only betray you.'
'Kill them all. If you don't, they will take what is yours.'
'Do you really think he loves you? It is a lie. He only wants to exploit your power.'
'You have no right to be happy. How many people have you killed so far?'
I only told two people about the voices, my sister Jasmine and my nanny Margaret.
My birth parents, the Benelli's, hardly cared what happened to me after I was born. They wouldn't do much even if I told them. Raised as tools, the descendants were expected to have bleak childhoods devoid of love and attention.
Most of mine was spent begging for scraps of attention from my mother and father. I rationalized their heartless actions by thinking that they would eventually acknowledge me if I behaved well.
As I grew older, I woke up. I understood that they would never look at me.
Margaret, my nana, on the other hand, loved me like her own daughter. She often told me to ignore the bad voices. When I told her they were so loud I could barely sleep, she started reading me fairy tales every night so I could focus only on her voice.
She would usually end the stories with a promise.
"Always remember, dear Lady Josephine. Just like the stories we read every night. Your knight will come and rescue you one day. He will like you more than anyone else, and the two of you will live happily ever after."
"Really nana?! Will he play with me all day?"
"Haha, of course, little lady, Sir Knight will play with you, shower you with praise, hug you when you are scared, and take care of you when you are sick," my nana prophesied.
"But Nana, how will I know if it is him? There are billions of people in the world!"
"Little lady, don't worry, you will meet him. I promise you that. You will definitely know, his voice would be enough to drown out everything and give you peace."
"Huh? That shouldn't be possible, nana, sound doesn't work that way!"
In true descendant fashion, less than five years later Margaret was summarily executed for theft. Without a trial, the mother I loved most was brutally impaled on a stake outside the Benelli estate.