Chapter 200: Regaining Memories - A Forgotten Princess
Because of their feelings and speaking about his burdens, only a few small things remained.
Such as the strange dreams he kept having and then Selene and the secrets they held about the girl he met in his dream.
"Selene..."
"Nn?" An exhausted voice, but a tone filled with satisfaction... Her hair returned to the blonde colour halfway through having sex with her, but her eyes remained strange. One red and the other blue until the moment he came inside her.
\'I don\'t want to ruin this moment of peace, but I want to ask... since we are clearing the air now.\'
There was a name in his mind... he didn\'t know why it was so important. Nikolai heard hundreds, maybe thousands, of names directly over his lifetime.
Yet he couldn\'t forget the one that came to him during one of those strange dreams.
However, first, he asked another question as if the name itself was something important, and he was forbidden to speak out loud.
"Why do you keep changing form?"
Immediately... the atmosphere changed. Nikita and Selene\'s eyes snapped open. Discover exclusive tales at мѵʟ
It was as if they didn\'t just fuck for several hours as the pair gazed at Nikolai with shocked faces. Selene\'s eyes trembled as if terrified, while Nikita seemed excited... a sense of expectation.
"Must you know...?" Selene\'s tone wasn\'t aggressive but soft. He could feel her uneasiness, and for the first time, he saw her emotions and their colours with his Obsidian Eye skill.
\'Insecurity... worry... sadness... loss... grief... desperate for acceptance.\'
Meanwhile, Nikita\'s colours were always earnest and honest.
\'Delight, curiosity, expectation... worry... happiness... trust.... deep love.\'
Risa didn\'t react to the conversation. Instead, her eyes looked at Nikolai with her usual gentle gaze after experiencing anal sex... She developed a taste for it, and they did it once again while in the shower together.
\'I need to meet her clan. Since I have stepped over the line, I cannot leave her as just a lover. Like Selene and Nikita, I will ask my father and her guardian for permission to get married.\'
"I would like to know... from here, can we not start a new page in our relationship as future spouses?" Nikolai\'s gaze brushed past Selene and Nikita, and then, when he looked at Risa too, he felt Selene and Nikita\'s hands grip him tight before sighing.
Though it seemed the oblivious cat didn\'t realise the significance of his words, she closed her eyes and began to purr, rubbing against him as she got comfortable.
"Mm... can you give me a moment?" Selene looked at Nikita, who, in a rare exchange, stroked Selene\'s hair with a supportive smile.
Click—!
Selene climbed from bed and turned on the lamp beside the bed before wheeling the trolley with bloodwine and alcohol from a few hours ago.
\'I can feel how hard this must be for them to speak about...\'
Nikolai watched the pair sitting away from the bed, taking a glass and tapping their cups together with bitter smiles.
"You... don\'t remember anything from your younger years, right, Nikolai?" Selene\'s question didn\'t seem strange, and he really didn\'t remember, so he nodded.
"Mm, the problem is we both remembered everything." Nikita joined in. It seemed to be a joint secret between the pair of them.
"The truth is, neither Nikita nor I met you first. In fact, the girl who met you first was... my younger sister..."
"Anya?"
"No!" Selene adamantly put her hand up.
\'Eh, did she have a sister apart from Anya?\'
The sudden information should have felt strange or weird, but Nikolai accepted it. He felt no doubt about this news. Instead, his chest began to beat faster.
\'Why am I excited?\'
Nikita and Selene obviously noticed his changes because of their senses while from behind. Risa suddenly hugged his back, Her soft body against his bare back, causing him to calm down while she nuzzled the back of his neck.
"Calm..." Risa whispered while the other two looked jealous for a split second before nodding.
"I was born with a twin... she suffered a little danger in the womb and was born an hour later... and her name was Lunaria."
"Then..."
However... as she continued speaking, Nikolai\'s mind and eyes became hollow. Broken memories, scenes and images began to flicker inside his mind. He saw flashbacks of various scenes in his mind, like sunlight shining through shattered glass.
They contained information he had never known before.
It was a collection of memories from when he was younger... a small park... Nikita\'s house... Selene\'s house. Then, another house with lots of females with fox tails speaks about their great heir being born into the house.
Images and scenes about her being engaged to another family to stop a great disaster.
\'What is all of this...\'
He felt agony—each time he struggled to view a scene, Nikolai felt something pulling his mind and spirit away as if to stop him.
Yet he wanted to know... these were his past, and many people that he knew appeared in the memories.
Alucard, Vlad, Dimitri, Ivan... a woman who looked identical to Risa... but older... A young girl with fluffy golden tails... a fox?
\'Why did I meet Alucard with my mother as a child...?\'
—DO NOT LOOK!
—PROTECT YOUR MIND!
—FORGET THE TRAGEDY AND REMAIN HAPPY!
"It hurts... Ugh..." Nikolai\'s head felt like someone hit him with a hammer... the three girls were hugging him and looked worried.
\'Continue... show me more...!\'
His head pounded, and his heart felt like something held it tight, squeezing—the black blood in his veins began to surge and pulsate. Like a tsunami, it devoured and overwhelmed the vermillion essence and celestial aura in his veins.
To Nikita and the other, Nikolai\'s eyes turned pure black, and even the whites vanished.
He became strange and didn\'t respond to them.
"Nikolai?"
"Darling... come back, you don\'t have to remember.... please!"
"Nikolai...?" Risa\'s voice came last as she didn\'t understand things as well as the other two.
But maybe because she touched his back directly or was like Nikolai. When the blood surged, her eyes also began to turn black, and she also fell into a strange trance.
.
.
.
\'Where am I?\' Nikolai thought to himself... lost in darkness, the glistening shards hovered in the vast expanse, drifting together, forming a collage of his memories.
\'Nikolai?\' Risa was beside him but looked confused...
\'Risa, huh... at least someone is with me... but why do you look like a kid?\'
\'Eh? Nikolai... you look so cute!\'
The two of them were in their current forms but looked around eight years old.
"Hmmm... are those your memories?" Nikolai pointed to the opposite side, where another set of broken shards appeared... they were gazing at Nikolai and the others so that they couldn\'t be his memories.
\'These must be her memories... but why was she always excluded from their games?\'
Nikolai referred to himself and the others playing in the memories and scenes as if he were a different person; maybe the disconnection between his memories caused this.
[Ah... so you\'re finally at this point...]
Elizabeth\'s actual figure suddenly appeared from the distance, her beautiful black hair and red eyes like blood. She carried a regal aura and felt quite cold to Nikolai, who looked at his mother in this strange place.
"Mother?"
[Mm... it\'s me, or at least the part of me that wanted to keep things hidden.]
"Are you different from the mother I speak to outside using the necklace?"
[Haha... of course, we are from the same source... but she has a future. I am here just to protect your mind and memories.]
Risa didn\'t interrupt the young Elizabeth. Instead, she held Nikolai\'s hand tightly and tried to understand the scenes and images she saw.
Because, unlike Nikolai, her memories seemed to have been tampered with to forget all about him and the past she spent in this country and city. Even the fact she and Nikita used to be close friends and would often play together.
[Are you prepared to learn more?]
Nikolai couldn\'t stop now, nor would he! He needed to know to move forward.
"Please... show me everything you can!"
He noticed Elizabeth\'s face, a colder and more stoic version of her, showing a brief smile before she turned around.
[I am glad you grew up to be strong, like your father...]
A soft voice, as if whispering a goodbye.
The images and glass began to form and stick together faster; as Elizabeth\'s figure vanished, Nikolai felt a sense of loss, as if something had vanished from his mind. Meanwhile, Risa\'s figure became more transient as her broken memories became complete.
"Nikolai... I\'ll wait outside until you come back; I hope we can speak about this with everyone."
Her voice became more mature as her form became the adult Risa, not the young girl with blonde hair and a cheeky smile.
"Mm..."
\'I\'ll see you outside...\'
Memories and scenes constantly played back in his mind. He now understood why Nagisa meant so much to him and why she also treated him so well...
\'I thought of her as my mother because of these memories.\'
Although he acted afraid and avoided her, those were merely his feelings of self-loathing and how he used to see himself as disgusting trash.
In reality, he adored Nagisa and wanted to call her mother. After he lost his mother, she would come to visit Nikita and pick her up when she sneaked out.
Nostalgia, affectionate memories of the young Nagisa holding them like naughty kittens from the back of their necks after they broke things and fought in the Fenrir mansion.
\'If I didn\'t remember this... my reactions would make me think I dislike them, or they disliked me...\'
A vivid memory appeared... shortly after his mother died, and Nagisa came to find him after the funeral and wake... letting him sleep on her lap and cry.
Then another where she spanked his butt because he stole her bra and hid it somewhere... afterwards playing games using it as a mask and helmet with Nikita.
\'The fear of her was it because of these hidden events?\'
\'Was I such a naughty little shit as a kid?\'
Teasing the girls... flipping Kumi and Luna\'s dress...
\'Kumi... and Luna? Who are they...\'
His memories weren\'t complete, and even if the broken glass fixed itself... some things were forgotten forever.
Thus, he wanted to speak to Selene and Nikita outside.
Then, go to Nagisa and apologise before asking for permission to marry her daughter.
He needed to gain her forgiveness for being a horrible son-in-law and forgetting his promise to Nagisa.
\'Mother... I am going back. Thank you for protecting me in so many ways...\'
Nikolai never imagined that despite helping him adapt, she also used part of her soul and life to protect his mind.
She waited until he was able to accept everything his mother did too much for him.
As the world became distant, his eyes began to drain of darkness in the real world, and he returned to his usual eyes.
"How long was I out for...Luna?" Nikolai asked Selene, but his words caused her to freeze.
Her face filled with fear as she clutched the sides of her chair.
\'Ah... so he knows...\'