Beast Gacha System: All Mine-Chapter 127: If Must

"Do you think she’d agree?"

Their footsteps made soft, syncopated splashes on the wet cobblestones as they walked away from the clinic, the capital’s grand, rain-blurred architecture rising around them like sleeping giants.

Cecilia leaned heavily on Eastiel’s arm as they walked.

"I don’t know. It’s fine if she doesn’t want to. We still have options," Cecilia answered, her gaze fixed on the misty middle distance, already calculating alternatives.

Eastiel nodded, the movement causing a small cascade from the edge of the umbrella. The rain was persistent, a curtain of steady silver, but not violent. The droplets were fat and heavy, hitting the cloth above them with a dull, rhythmic plink, but not the sharp staccato of a storm.

A quiet settled between them, filled only with the sound of the rain and their own breathing. Then, Cecilia’s voice, softer now, almost lost in the downpour’s hush, asked him something.

"East, can you... hold me?"

"Hold you?" The lion’s chuckle was low, a rumble she felt through his arm. It was a sound tinged with affectionate mockery. "What’s wrong, Saintess? The rain getting to your delicate sensibilities?"

But even as the teasing words left his mouth, he was already moving. He shifted the umbrella to his other hand and used his newly freed arm to pull her firmly against his side, his grip strong and sure, tucking her into the shelter of his body and the canopy.

Cecilia looked up at him, rainwater catching on her lashes like tiny diamonds. She smiled. Then she let her hand, cold from the air, slide beneath the heavy wool of his coat, finding the solid heat of his waist. She sighed, releasing a tension she hadn’t named.

"East..." she murmured, her face now half-buried in the damp fabric over his chest. "You won’t leave me, right?"

Eastiel’s easy demeanor vanished. He stopped walking. His golden eyes narrowed as he looked down at the crown of her head. "Alright," he said, his voice dropping from teasing to something flat and serious. "What’s up? What the fuck is up, Cecilia?"

Cecilia scrunched up her face, pulling back to glare at him. "We spent our time arguing in the past!" she barked, her voice pitching higher. "You’re not like Oathran and Arkai! You always turn your body around and stalk off whenever you don’t feel like talking with me anymore! You leave!"

"That’s because I was always hard!" Eastiel barked back, the words exploding out of him before he could think, loud enough to be heard over the rain. "Why in the nine hells do you think I shifted my stance and crossed my legs every five seconds around you?!"

"Huh?" Cecilia flinched, her angry pout dissolving into wide-eyed bewilderment.

Eastiel’s ears flushed a deep red, visible even in the grey light. He cleared his throat violently and looked away, aiming for nonchalance and landing squarely in panicked absurdity. "Huh? What? It’s the... the wind. Ignore it."

"Hey!" she grabbed a fistful of his coat. "Tell meee~" she whined, dragging out the syllable.

Eastiel groaned, a sound of profound suffering. He tipped his head back, letting the rain hit his face, seeking divine patience. "Listen..."

"Mm?" She blinked up at him.

"You see," he began, speaking to the sky, each word dragged out. "I love you bad. Bad. It’s embarrassing. Every damn time we talked, I either got shy or horny. Horny when you were mad, shy when you smiled and looked at me like I hung the moons. Do you understand?"

"Now, can we please, for the love of all that’s sane, not talk about this anymore?" He finally looked down at her, agony in his face. "And why did you even ask if I’ll leave you in the first pl—"

"AH, EXPLAI—"

"FINE! BUT TELL ME WHAT’S ACTUALLY WRONG FIRS—"

"FINE!"

Cecilia pouted.

"I love you too, by the way."

"Mm. Don’t distract me with facts I already know. Answer the question."

Cecilia didn’t let go. Instead, she pressed herself even closer, as if trying to merge with his solid warmth. Her voice, when it came, was muffled and small. "It’s about... Oathran."

As expected.

Eastiel felt the admission like a cold stone dropping into his gut. But more than that, through the bond they shared, he felt the hollow in her chest. The suspended absence of her own heartbeat... and deeper.

"I will talk to Brother Arkai about it," he said. "We’ll find a solution. We’ll scour every library and turn over every stone on this continent and the next. Okay?" He leaned his cheek against her damp hair. "Don’t let it burden you alone. Brother Oathran is still here. He’s strong. We have time."

Cecilia shook her head against his chest. "I don’t think..."

Alarmed, Eastiel frowned and gently pulled back, cupping her chin to tilt her face up to his. "Cecilia..."

"That’s not it," she whispered. "He’s not hurt. He’s not sick. And he doesn’t even want to die."

She swallowed hard. "And, East... he’s the Dragon Lord. The most powerful being we know. What if whatever forced him... whatever convinced him so absolutely that he must die... is something... world-altering? Apocalyptic? What if it’s a problem so vast, so terminal, that even the Dragon Lord can’t see a way to fix it... without his own death being the catalyst?"

Ah.

Her brilliant mind had already vaulted past the immediate grief, past the search for a cure, and landed squarely on the precipice of the scale of the problem. She was fearing the reason she might lose him, not just worrying about losing him.

She was afraid of the size of the shadow he was standing against.

"What if..." Her voice broke. "What if I can’t fix it?"

Everything... might simply not be enough.

Of course.

This was the Cecilia he loved. This was exactly how she would process this problem. 𝙛𝓻𝒆𝓮𝒘𝙚𝙗𝒏𝙤𝙫𝓮𝒍.𝓬𝒐𝙢

"If... you must die, East... if it’s you..." Her voice was a thin thread of sound, almost snatched away by the rain. She looked up at him, her gaze stripping away all his kingly pretenses, searching for the bedrock truth of the man beneath. "Would you leave me?"

What a spear aimed at his own hidden heart. He crushed her to him in a vise-like embrace, his face buried in the wet silk of her hair. "Ssshhhh... don’t talk like that. Let’s stop."

He didn’t know how to answer her.

Because he would.

What if his death was the price for Cecilia to draw her next breath? What if his life was the required fuel to keep the sun rising in a world that contained her?

Then he must.

If his end was the barrier standing between her and an apocalyptic end, the lock that only his blood could open?

Then he must.

If the safety of the world, a world that held her, and thus was the only world that mattered, demanded his last heartbeat as tribute?

Then he must.

It wasn’t a choice anymore. It was a fundamental law of his existence. He would walk into that darkness without a backward glance, if it meant she remained in the light.

He must. And thus, he would.

Just as Oathran would.