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Chris should be angry.
No. Angry was too soft a word for what she was feeling right now.
Angry was for Kirika and Shirabe forgot to do their summer homework and came to her at the last second. Angry was for Miku taking the last pudding cup that Chris had specifically said she was saving for herself after midterms. Angry was for walking into the lab and tripping over something Elfnein left on the floor.
No. This wasn’t anger.
Chris is livid.
In all of the life she’d lived up to this point – even at her lowest point being jostled from slave trader to slave trader and ending up as Finé’s slave – none of that compared to the sheer audacity that stood before her right now.
“What’s wrong, Chris-chan? Aren’t you happy?” Hibiki’s voice – slightly distorted – called out, easygoing as always. Of course it is.
After all, she just yanked her parents out from their graves.
At first, Chris didn’t even realize who it was that was standing before her. The memories of childhood had been so thoroughly beaten out of her by life and slavers and Finé that Chris didn’t even recognize them.
That was…
That was until they spoke.
“Chris…? Is… is that you…?” Her mother’s voice trembled, Chris fighting every instinct in her body to run to her mother’s side and hold her and be held by her. For now, she was winning.
But she couldn’t tell you how long that she’d be able to keep that up.
To give the dumbass the smallest credit, she didn’t pull their bodies from the ground in front of her – wanted to make it a surprise, after all. But if anything, right now, that made things worse.
The first time Chris had seen her parents in years, and they’re wearing faces similar to that of their deaths. If not for hell running rampant through her veins, it’d almost be funny, in a way.
Her parents were dead. And in a way, they were dying in front of her all over again.
Something clicked into place in Chris’s mind, or maybe that was the feeling of something snapping. It was hard to tell the difference anymore.
With shaky breaths, she grabbed the pendant sitting around her neck, and thus sang Yukine Chris.
Killter Ichaival tron
The gun weighed in her hand as it did in her head. She could see the fear, the realization spreading across her parents faces, on Hibiki’s face—
Was she really about to do this?
Could she do this?
There was no way she would leave them to the ‘mercy’ of the dumbass right now.
She had to.
She had to…
“…are you happy, Tachibana? You did it.” Her voice came out smaller, shakier than she wanted, but it was all that she could muster right now.
“…did… what…?” For her part, Hibiki sounded shocked. In all of her godly divinity, this didn’t even cross her mind, did it?
“You did it. You made me hate you.” Chris shook as she turned away, away from the growing pool of blood and smell of gunpowder still lingering in the air.
“Kanade-san… I think I did the wrong thing.” A breathy voice similar to her own. Chris didn’t know the woman, but it was typical of Hibiki to speak-
Chris wheeled around, and her blood went cold.