But Things Have To Change

“He still lies to himself,” Nor murmured.

Sounds familiar, doesn’t it?

“Shut it already,” he snapped at the voice that continued to plague his mind.

At this point, his original mission had gone completely out the window. This was something that’d become a common occurrence after a certain section of his life.

Nor caressed the ‘A’ on his chest.

It was the girl whom that letter represented that changed everything for him. Without her, the rage in his heart might’ve gotten to a boiling point.

He couldn’t even imagine where he’d be now without her.

“You’re probably laughing at how bad I am at this. Aren’t you, Angelie?”

Angelie.

That was the name of the girl who changed his entire life.

At some point in his youth, Nor was a vengeful person. He traversed the country with nothing but hatred to push him forward.

He’d killed countless people for so many years that even he lost count at some point. His immortality allowed him to continue this path of vengeance for eternity if needed.

From his immortality, life was becoming meaningless.

He was losing his humanity.

Angelie was the complete opposite. A gentle soul that could bring light even on the cloudiest of days. It was hard to see her not smiling, but Nor was one of the few people who had. Maybe the only person who ever saw her weep.

Worst of all, she wept not for herself, but for him. For his pain. For his suffering.

“I…miss you…” he whispered as he traced the ‘A’ with his finger.

After some years, Nor changed his ways. Without realizing it, he began putting others before himself. Willing to sacrifice everything to help everyone else.

“You’ll kill yourself with how much you’re helping,” Angelie would tell him.

“Guess that means I’ll never be done,” Nor would respond.

Now he was doing the same thing.

It would have been simple if the girl, Evy Ze’Seki, had ended up being the one Nor connected with. Instead, he got Araldo Tsutsumi.

But even then, Nor could’ve had his goal completed the day he met with Araldo, but he simply couldn’t. Nor couldn’t leave that boy like that. Not when he was committing the same mistake Nor did.

“Sometimes all you need is a little push,” Nor whispered the words Angelie told him all those years ago.

---

“Oh, there it is,” Ze’Seki said as she reached for a book just a bit out of her reach. Even with that obvious fact, she still tried and, of course, she leaned way too far. “W-Woah!” she let out.

As she fell, I turned to face her and caught her just before her foot left the step ladder. “You could’ve just told me where it was.”

“R-Right,” she stammered.

I lowered her to the ground and then pulled out the book she was talking about. Groaning, I asked, “Do I really have to learn about the economy of the country from over eight hundred years ago?”

The book was so plain it reminded me of a self-help book. Honestly, I always wondered why the writers of these types of books couldn’t make reading them more entertaining. Not that economy is fun regardless, but at least it’d be more bearable.

“Of course you do! That’s literally the unit we’re on right now.”

“Haven’t you only been in school a single day? How do you know that already?”

“Because I paid attention for longer than five minutes?”

“I see. I should try that sometimes.”

“But you won’t.”

“Yeah, I won’t.”

At least when Ze’Seki taught me, she wasn’t boringly speaking everything to me…although she did yell at me a few times.

“I think you’d be really good as a history teacher,” I spoke my mind, “You’re much less boring than any teacher I’ve had.”

“C-Can you repeat that?”

“Which part?”

“The whole thing!” she yelled.

I put my finger to my lips to quiet her down a little. There was no way we were about to get banned again because of her yelling.

“I said, I think you’d be a really good history teacher because you’re not as boring as the ones I’ve had.”

Ze’Seki’s face flushed as a grin formed on her face. I think there were even tears building up in her eyes.

“W-What’s wrong?” I asked Ze’Seki who was just silently playing with her hands.

“Do you…really mean that?”

There she goes again. What’s with the whole second guessing my words?

“You really just have to take my words at face value. Why else would I be telling you that.”

It was more of an offhand comment anyway.

“I just…I just thought that maybe you were just saying it as lip service.”

“What, do you like to be called a good teacher or something?”

“Well…something like that…” she smiled.

Wait, could that mean that…

No, if she wanted to be a teacher too that would be too big of a coincidence. Not only was she bad at the one thing I was good at, and vice versa, but she also wanted to be a teacher. At that point, I would have my suspicions that some higher power was planning stuff here.

“Well, if it isn’t you two,” the librarian said as she scanned us. She snapped her fingers and the same Reipter from before landed on her lap. “I didn’t think I’d ever see you again.”

“I expected you to be in prison by now,” I responded.

“Right, that,” she laughed, “Sorry about that, I was really against that, I swear.”

“You didn’t look sorry when you tossed us off the roof.”

“Just imagine I was, then accept my apology.”

“Yeah…no.”

I really didn’t know what her deal was, but I had to believe that at least part of what she said was true. If I read in between the lines, she was saying that it wasn’t her idea to toss us off the roof. But then, who was it?

“But anyway, you two checking out some books?”

“Why else would we—”

“Y-Yes,” Ze’Seki answered for us.

She gave a much nicer response than me, probably because she didn’t want to be tossed off the roof again.

“I see you’re already studying for the big test, huh.”

“I don’t really need to study.”

Ze’Seki flinched at my statement, “By the way, what’s your grade in history?”

“That’s private information.”

The librarian grinned. She stopped scanning the mountain of books we’d placed on the counter and picked up her phone. After quickly typing something, her phone buzzed almost immediately.

Her eyes shot open.

“A two?!”

“Is my information really that readily available or what?”

“Just a perk of being friends with Venc—I mean, Ms.Vernadew,” she made a disgusted face as she corrected herself.

“Huh, that explains some stuff actually.”

“Wait, your score is really a two?” Ze’Seki asked.

“Right, I kind of forgot to tell you, huh?”

“Isn’t the passing grade a seven?”

“Yep.”

Her shocked expression was definitely warranted. Most people’s nightmare was to have a five or a six. I’m sure some McKinley students would get a heart attack if they ever saw a two in their grades.

As the librarian finished scanning the books, Ze’Seki, in a flash, tossed them all in her bookbag and turned towards the door.

“Let’s go,” she commanded, “We have a lot of work to do.”

Well, I guess there went any free time I might’ve wanted to have.

“Good luck,” the librarian said with a wave.

I still hadn’t gotten her name and it didn’t look like that would change today either.

To say Ze’Seki upped the difficulty in our studies would be an understatement. In the week that followed, I had my brain filled with more dates than I knew what to do with.

I was used to numbers clogging my mind, but having to attach events to them was causing my brain to fry.

But, surprisingly, and mostly thanks to Ze’Seki, I passed that week’s History test.

My current grade: 4

---

“Long time no see Nor,” I said after my mind was transported back to the ruin-like place.

I quickly noticed the place was slightly different. The walls with the traps were gone entirely, and there were no signs of battle aftermath like there had been the last time I was here.

“It wasn’t that long ago.”

“Aren’t you supposed to be immortal or something? I’m sure your time perception is a little off.”

Ze’Seki had filled me in during our studying on who Nor was. I hadn’t realized he was one of the three leaders of the Finisterras. Legend had it that he was immortal too.

Seeing as he was still alive after hundreds of years, something told me it wasn’t really legend.

Or maybe he wasn’t real and I was just going insane or something.

I don’t know.

“That girl has been teaching you well.”

“Are you stalking me in my everyday life?”

“Unwillingly.”

Well, that didn’t feel good to find out.

“Do I take it that you summoning me here has something to do with the task you gave me?”

“More or less.”

Not a straight answer with this guy.

Nor stayed silent. He stood near the back end of the wall, tracing his finger on the markings.

I could only think about how excited Ze’Seki would be if she could meet this guy. As far as I knew, she really looked up to his group.

Maybe I could get them to meet somehow.

“That thought,” Nor said.

“And now you’re reading my mind.”

He continued, ignoring my statement entirely, “Do you know why you had it?”

Just because? It was a kind of hard question to answer. My thoughts were just that, thoughts. They came for one reason or another, I guess, but how was I supposed to know that reason exactly?

“Why would you want that girl to meet me?”

I could answer that much.

“Because she’s a big fan?”

“Right, but why would you care about that at all?”

…huh, a pretty good question. Why did I even care about that?

The only thing I could think of was that she would enjoy it.

“That’s exactly right. She probably would.”

Right, he could read my thoughts.

“So with that in mind, that means you want to see her happy, right?”

“I…I think…”

I guess I did. At the very least, I could imagine her smiling ear to ear just seeing Nor alive. Her golden eyes glowing brighter than they usually did…

“Why do you think you want to see her happy?”

Why?

“What are you getting at?”

“Just answer the question.”

Why do I want to see Ze’Seki happy?

It should be a simple question, but I couldn’t come up with a proper answer. She wasn’t my friend so why should I care—no wait, that was just it!

It would help with Nor’s tas—

“No, you damn idiot!” Nor grabbed my shirt collar and tossed me against the wall.

My back slammed against the rough rock and I slid to the floor, but there wasn’t any pain. Just an odd numb sensation.

“You have to stop giving excuses,” He looked down at me with furrowed brows. “I get you want to run away from it, but that’s a hopeless route, believe me.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You enjoy spending time with Ze’Seki, don’t you?”

Yes.

“Not really…”

“Yet your first thought was ‘yes’…don’t you see what that means?”

“…”

“Answer the question.”

“…”

“Do you know what that means?”

“Yes…” I murmured.

Obviously, I knew. And obviously, he knew I did.

It was hard to say anything to him. He basically knew everything about me. Hiding anything from him would be pointless. What was I supposed to do?

“I get you won’t change anything yet, but understand,” he kneeled over me as he said, “This route you think will end better—it won’t.”

Guess he really knows everything. I know I keep thinking that, but somewhere deep inside I was hoping there was some aspect of me Nor didn’t know.

---

“You know of my immortality; can you imagine how many lives I’ve lived?” Nor asked the slumped-over boy, “Enough to drive anyone insane, I could tell you that much.”

The boy, Araldo, didn’t respond. He wasn’t thinking about much either. The words Nor spoke seem to keep repeating in Araldo’s mind.

“That life you imagine yourself living, keeping people at arm’s length, that won’t work. You won’t survive like that.”

Even if Araldo claimed to have his best friend, the girl named Riri Kokoro, he knew that he was keeping her at arm's length too. Apart from what she knew about him from when they were younger, Araldo hadn’t told her anything since.

He’d even stopped calling Riri Kokoro by her first name.

The same went for his family. They barely knew anything about him anymore.

He was lying to himself.

That’s all Araldo Tsutsumi did.

Lie to himself.

“I’ve done all of that before,” Nor continued, “I’ve kept people at arm’s length. Refused to tell even my own parents that I loved them…and I never did.”

All Nor wanted was to not see Araldo go down the same route. He’d had hundreds of years to learn, but those years had turned out to be a curse more than anything. The only light in the darkness of that tunnel was the wisdom he’d gained from the lives he’d lived.

If he couldn’t even do that…then…

“Solitude is no cure for a broken heart. Those people hurt you…” Araldo twitched, “…but you can’t just keep hurting alone.”

Along with everything Nor had learned about Araldo, he’d also learned the reason he became the way he did. What those people did to him.

Granted, for him, it wasn’t too big of a situation. But when death hid behind every corner in the distant past, nothing of the present could compare.

But it wasn’t about that.

To Araldo, the boy sitting in front of him, those events were everything. His trust for people was shattered and his life had gone downhill because of it.

That’s more than enough reason for Nor to care.

“You have good people around you…nurture what you have, don’t give in to the pain of the past.”

---

Easy for you to say, you god-like creature.

That’s all I wanted to scream at him, but I was no longer there with him. I’d been brought back to reality. A more real reality.

I chuckled.

An odd feeling was rushing through me. It wasn’t anger necessarily, but it was close to it. My chest felt heavy and I could feel my teeth clenching up.

Maybe it was the simple realization that I was wrong…and I refused to be…