Rivers of the Night

Chapter 811: Not Sure

Theron leapt off of Alpha’s back with Ayame in his arms.

"You can let go of me now," she said in her usual tone.

"Can I?" Theron looked down at her.

Ayame looked away and then leapt down herself, pressing a palm to Theron’s chest to stop him from pulling her back in.

She smoothed out her dress with a pair of palms and then looked back at him.

"Being tied to me will cause you problems. You should learn to keep a distance."

"For someone who just spent the last few nights on my lap, you sure are quite good at drawing lines."

"And if I were ever going to be with you, I’d like to actually be with you. Not whatever this is." Ayame continued speaking as though she hadn’t heard the sarcasm in Theron’s voice.

"This?" Theron asked with a smile.

Ayame didn’t reply for a long while, looking right into Theron’s eyes.

"This isn’t you," she eventually said.

"No? But I quite like being witty and quippy. I certainly have the mind for it."

"It’s not you."

"How can you be so sure?"

"I am."

Theron chuckled. Ayame was quite the interesting character, and indeed entirely unlike Malaya. Malaya would never be so aggressive with her words, but the core of it was still very much there.

Yet, he kept feeling they were all too similar.

"Well..." Theron looked away from Ayame and toward the large, looming city ahead. It had buildings taller than any Theron had ever seen, skyscrapers not in the colloquial sense, but in the very real, piercing-through-the-clouds sense. "... I’m not sure exactly who I am. So I don’t know how you know, and I can’t figure out what to give to you."

Theron had only been 13 years old when it happened. His 14th year came soon after that, but in all that time, he was swamped and swallowed by grief and misery. What should have been his most formative years were marred by thoughts of revenge and a savage need for blood and venting.

Was he still that same calm child that liked to read and watch the rain pitter-patter across his windows? Maybe in part. But he also liked to play games of chess with his life dancing on a blade’s edge now, and he realized that it probably wasn’t the tragedy that changed that about him, but instead circumstance—and maybe even this necklace.

Subconsciously, from the moment he had this necklace on, a lot of the edge he had always had was rounded and curbed by it.

Every time he had a calming, soothing thought, one that caused his emotions to go from a high to a low, this necklace had acted and granted him a reward for it.

That chill it pulled out from his mouth into the necklace didn’t just suppress his original Ice Mancy attribute, but it also set the tone for his personality.

So how much of that calm young man was really him... and how much of it was just him being conditioned into gentle calmness?

It had to be remembered that the necklace had probably been subtly improving his soul all the while.

When you fed a dog a treat when it did something else, it was trained to expect a reward for accomplishing a certain action. Pavlov’s Dog, the research papers called it.

Basically, during his entire childhood, he had been rewarded for being calm, gentle, stoic, silent...

But was that him?

Theron wasn’t sure of that. In fact, he was pretty certain that that was only one side of his coin.

Ayame seemed to feel that his current self was far too fake. But he also wasn’t sure if she was implying that that calm side was him either. Maybe she just wanted to see his real face, whatever that was.

Unfortunately, Theron couldn’t give her what she wanted even if he wanted to.

Because he didn’t have the answers to that question either.

For a moment, Theron could have sworn he saw Ayame’s expression soften. It was just for a moment before it vanished into the usual icy demeanor.

She turned away from Theron and faced the city.

"It seems we both have things to figure out, then."

Theron’s smile didn’t fade. In fact, it only grew deeper. He didn’t feel a burden or weight. In fact, he felt quite free. And he had for a long while now.

The guilt was still there, the scars were still there, but he still felt like he was living.

How many people knew themselves to the truest extent? How many could really parse apart what parts of themselves were the product of their environments versus what was truly them?

Or was the fact of human life that there was no real difference between the two in the first place?

Regardless of what Ayame thought, Theron quite liked acting like this. It stimulated his brain in a way it usually wasn’t and made him feel quite comfortable.

Maybe there was a reason he liked it so much, and maybe by following it he would find those real kernels of himself hidden in there somewhere.

Ayame, though... didn’t seem in position to relax at all. Her shoulders were tense, the burden she was carrying exceptionally heavy.

Theron had his own goals, but from what it sounded like, theirs were aligned.

After all... if he was going to destroy the Demon Corps within a year, then Ayame’s enemies would have to come down with it all, now wouldn’t they?

But now Theron found himself curious to follow her journey a bit.

Should he be more worried about improving his strength enough in just three years to deal with the Demon Corps?

Maybe.

But for some reason he wasn’t. This world...

It felt a bit weak to him all of a sudden. It didn’t really matter what he set his mind to, no one could stop him so long as he was focused.

Theron took a step forward and the aura of a roaring lion appeared around him as a messenger crashed down from above.

"You have been invited to a banquet—."