Hi, everyone! This is a fan fiction of “But God Forced Me to Reincarnate!” by sch, inspired by chapter 123 of the main story. Here’s the original link in fanfiction.net in case you’re curious. I’ve asked for sch’s permission to repost it on my site ^^

If you have a fan fiction to post, you can notify me here or via my Discord server and I can link or repost them for you so other readers can find them. It’s my pleasure to receive fan fictions <3

Happy reading and don’t hesitate to comment~

 

Silent Observer 1

 

The stillness of her smile never wavered. Even in death, she retained the image of the perfect noble, one that her mother would have taken pride in. Such was the plight of Reinst Carnatia Grabberton.

Reduced to the role of a silent observer, she fulfilled her duty with unblinking diligence. Reinst consumed every sound, every sight, every smell, sensation or emotion that came her way to store them for eternity in her memory. This was the extent of her agency, proof of her continued existence.

Having willingly withdrawn from the world of the living once, she was determined to obstruct Aion’s childish plot to bring her back by any means necessary. Her best attempt at stopping him ended in failure–a predictable outcome of defying a god’s plan–as she was forcibly reincarnated into the very same world that had forsaken her.

That world did not need her. No one had sincerely called for her to return. She had been a waste of time and space whose delusional hopes for a bright future had to be crushed at the earliest convenience. The doubts Reinst had had until her final day were now confirmed, subverting the expectations of the deity that urged her to return to the uncaring world. Her life and death changed nothing. Once she was gone, life carried on as normal, as if she had never existed in the first place.

Reinst wanted nothing to do with such a world. Stubbornly rejecting the lessons she had learnt through experience before and visions provided by Aion now was foolish, yet Aion insisted that she needed such foolishness to obtain happiness.

She did not believe a word he said, preferring to trust the visions of the world that carried on without her. Her refusal fell on deaf ears, however. Despite the world contradicting him, Aion insisted on her reincarnation. Reinst would live again.

He had her by a technicality. Who knew a good deity would stoop so low as to trick a little girl, just to make sure she followed his script. Agency was an illusion in the end. To the likes of him, Reinst was a puppet, a toy.

Aion cared for his toys. The toy would be fixed as many times as required and made to dance until its master was satisfied. Only then the broken toy’s wish to disappear would be fulfilled. Such was the unspoken nature of their relationship. Reinst would have her wish after everyone else had their turn, per Aion’s instructions. To attain peace in death, she had to outlive her usefulness. Reinst didn’t know whether to laugh or cry: was her uselessness needed to make others shine? She could not begin to fathom why anyone would agree to persist as a hollow existence unworthy of being filled and incapable of filling others.

She elegantly gazed past the emptiness around her, not a single movement revealing the extent of her internal turmoil. Not having to breathe or blink certainly made self-control easier. Her mother would be disappointed in her for using such cheats to get by. Reinst missed her chance to make her family proud. Her failure was permanent and Aion offered nothing to contradict her.

Reinst had lost in life and admitted defeat with grace like her mother had taught her. However, this sentiment was flagrantly refused by Aion: she would return to the starting line and try again. As long as she acted according to the script unknown to her, she would be allowed to take the next step. Aion was serious about keeping her in the game.

For this reason, he eventually sealed away her defiance, making it nigh impossible for her to frustrate his plan from the onset. Whether by design or accident, when the time was right Reinst became a silent observer tethered to the existence known as Lyra.

Lyra appeared to be everything Reinst strived to be and more. She had what Reinst had been missing, and Reinst had been missing so much that the sheer magnitude of her own past destitution would have been breathtaking, had it not been for the fact that Reinst no longer needed to breathe. Lyra appeared to be more inside and out, but to Reinst, the part of Reinst that had to be sealed for Lyra’s sake, Lyra was a cripple. Her essence was less from the beginning. As pure and refined as the fragment seemed to be, it was not the whole.

No one knew it better than the fragment that had been discarded, Lyra’s silent observer.

This certainty gave her comfort in her otherwise pointless role. The revelation that death was not the end came to her as a shock, as did the conditions of achieving her current state. In the absence of Aion’s intervention, Reinst would have ceased and Lyra would not have come to be. The whole would have been allowed to rest forever as she had wished.

Her wish was the second requirement. Aion could not accomplish his goal as long as she firmly rejected reincarnation, and Reinst was adamant in her ability to reject his advances without fail. The stubbornness forged in House Grabberton would not bend to pressure. If he wanted to have his way with her, he would have to break her. That much became obvious to both of them over the years preceding the reincarnation.

And break her he did. Reinst wasn’t informed about the details, but Aion found a way to segregate her defiance, giving rise to both Reinst, the whole reduced to a fragment, and Lyra, the fragment elevated to a whole.

Or, to be more precise, the way found Reinst. The world was inhabited by more than one micro-managing pest in search of a pawn. A troublesome one exploited Reinst’s wish and worked in concert rather than against Aion to pull her apart: the unyielding core separated enough from the rest to be extracted without either ceasing to function, the gods’ power filling the cracks.

Having one’s soul torn apart by two opposing gods must have hurt a lot and took years to complete until each side was happy with the fragment they pined for. Neither wanted their pawn to implode and disappear at the realization of the horror of its birth.

Reinst, the fragment, referred to herself as Reinst because it felt convenient, not that it was certain that Reinst was its rightful identity. Though, until anyone vigorously contested its claim to Reinst’s existence, she would persist as the sole inheritor, per Grabberton tradition.

Persistence helped define and crystalize Reinst in the void. Once the fragment identified as Lyra was pulled away from her, she experienced change all around her, but not inside.

Aion’s light dimmed over time, giving way to darkness. Reinst welcomed the change, having found the light obnoxious, yet the dark failed to invite stillness as she had hoped. Only disappointment awaited her. If light was Aion’s domain, the opposite belonged to his ruinous counterpart. Unlike Aion, this puppeteer took pleasure in the anguish that it caused and it was taking its sweet time to show its face.

Reinst quickly became aware of its identity. At least, it recognized the name enough for the existence to acknowledge her greeting. Reinst had knowingly called upon evil and it answered. That was her second mistake.

Her first mistake was allowing Miseria to approach her in the first place. Acknowledging her name and the power contained therein brought Reinst into her domain. Reinst did not dare to imagine what would happen if she addressed the evil by its true name again now that she was at its mercy.

“Miss Mi?” she called.

The void pulsated at her recognition, gurgling in contentment that her power affected the immovable silent Reinst.

“I missed your sweet voice, Reinst. You must call me more.”

The reply reverberated throughout Reinst, a uniquely disgusting sensation she could not get used to in her disembodied state. The one she referred to as Miss Mi flaunted her existence in the dark. As long as there was darkness, it was filled to the brim with her existence. Since there was nothing but darkness around Reinst, she was cocooned by and submerged in Miss Mi.

Reinst had no respite from whatever Miss Mi had in store for her. Whatever message Miss Mi wanted to convey, Reinst would acknowledge it with her entire being. Such was the essence of the current Reinst, a product of bitter rejection empowered by a drop of Miss Mi’s poison.

It was enough to circumvent Aion’s insistence, but any more would have punctured the barrier that separated her from the darkness outside. For reasons unknown, Miss Mi took a liking to her and, not unlike Aion, decided to paint her soul in the color she thrived in.

Adamant as she was, Reinst knew that her patience and will power were no match for a timeless existence versed in deception. After Aion left Reinst to her own devices, prompted by the poison that she had unconsciously taken to reject him, it was a matter of time until Mi got what she came for. The thin film separating Reinst from Mi would burst and she would forever become one with the dark. Her death wish would be forfeit, her existence sacrificed to the entity defined by unrelenting proliferation of suffering. Aion’s followers called her the embodiment of evil, but they were just two sides of the same coin, each trying to reshape the world according to their own irreconcilable ideals.

“End me,” she muttered.

“Accept me.”

The exchange repeated on end with different words leading to the same conclusion. A contract with Mi was irrevocable once put into force. The only agency she would be allowed was signing it. Reinst was aware of its contents without ever seeing a word of it. Such was the result of the pressure Mi exerted on Reinst every breathless moment after she had been declared dead. The void made Mi’s intentions clear and Reinst would eventually give her full cooperation to her. Be it a hundred years or a millennium, the awareness that she had passed the point of no return and had no choice but to yield would take hold. Mi could afford acting patiently because she had to win Reinst over just once while Reinst had to fend off her advances without fail every time. A battle between a child and an immortal was inherently unfair.

“Free me.”

“Try me.”

“Never.”

Mi chuckled, the laughter spreading, echoing and overlapping before deforming into a demented choir, Mi’s original intention. The concept of time seemed to amuse her, as did the idea of infinity. Mi readily agreed to wait forever to receive payment after granting a wish, a testament to the frightening power she wielded.

Reinst could only rely on herself to avoid being caught in a loophole or contractual technicality. She would be swindled and subdued by an opponent with infinitely greater experience if the distrust rooted to her core by Dahlia wavered even for a little bit. The worst of Reinst became her saving grace.

“I am satisfied with this answer. Shall we?”

Reinst ignored Mi’s teasing. She wasn’t always able to, ensnared into an endless debate about the terms of her subordination. The mentally taxing communication between them had been the one method to keep her guard up. A moment of silent respite in Mi’s grasp made Reinst weak to sudden mental attacks. Mi’s manipulative nature was most frightening when hidden in plain sight.

The source of Reinst’s anxiety changed when the one known as Lyra was born. The living fragment transmitted everything it experienced back to Reinst, giving her a distraction in the depressing void. Reinst could not honestly say whether this change made her happy or sad, but the fact that she felt something–anything–was worth celebrating.

Mi had been quiet for long stretches of time, unable to faze Reinst even while Lyra slept dreamlessly on the other side. Deep as it may be, the void had many shades of black, yet none as bright as a moonless night that Lyra sometimes gazed at. The darkest shades out there on Lyra’s side paled in comparison to the lightless intensity Reinst had been subjected to in Mi’s domain.

Reinst believed that her smiling mask would be unshaken as long as she could observe Lyra, but she soon realized the demerits of growing reliant on her sole distraction. Mi must have noticed it, too, as her unending embrace gradually became less suffocating, comfortable even. Mi joined Reinst in the observation session like an old friend, acting oblivious to the suffering she propagated.

The moment Reinst became engrossed in spectating Lyra’s adventures, Mi reminded her of the crux of their mutual relationship.

“Happiness,” Mi began.

Mi had no eyes, face or form to speak of in her own domain, but Reinst could have sworn she just experienced Mi’s genuine smile for the first time. The chilling sensation of giving an immortal evil a reason to be happy was further reinforced by the anticipation of what Mi was about to say. Reinst knew her well enough by now to realize that she would be hit hard. Their long-term intimacy gave Mi access to every weakness and blind spot Reinst had. Her accuracy in picking the most painful one for the occasion traumatized Reinst to the point that uncontrollable fear broke through her stoic noble’s mask. Reinst’s smile was no more; she faced the evil defenseless, a sight that emboldened Mi to pull her further down and make sure she stayed there like the obedient pawn she was destined to be.

“Hers belongs to you.”

Reinst shook in rejection of Mi’s words. She neither agreed nor disagreed with them. She refused to process the statement outright. Though, once she tried to vocalize her opposition and push back, nothing came out. Mi had her cornered with the mention of happiness, a concept so alien to her after years of suffering in the void that she froze in confusion upon encountering it. Albeit the feeling of happiness eluded her till the end, she was well aware that happiness existed, as other nobles routinely displayed theirs in front of her. Now Lyra joined that happy circle with a dose so great that Reinst found it toxic.

“I savor your envy.”

Mi was like that. She made Reinst bleed and then shamed her for it to make her bleed harder. Lacking the limitations and inherent protection of a physical body, Reinst was ignorant of her current capacity and remaining vitality, which drove her further up the wall. One day Mi would manage to bleed her dry, leaving behind nothing save for crystallized negativity as dark and hopeless as the god surrounding it.

“Your cries, your tears.”

It was a fate worse than death.

“Share it all with her.”

This poison killed a person on the inside while leaving the outside intact. Sharing it resulted in more dead people walking. Misery did love company, choosing to pull others down after losing the ability to climb.

“No.”

She said it. Getting there took longer than before, but she managed to resist this time. Mi was powerless against will that could be neither bent nor broken.

Unfortunately, Reinst’s will belonged to neither category. It just needed the right amount of prodding to crumble.

“You are free to share. It is fair for us to assist.”

There was no such thing as a free lunch. Accepting a gift from Mi a single time put Reinst in her domain. She couldn’t imagine the outcome of consciously taking what was presented to her.

Fortunately, the current conditions then and now were different. Reinst did not have a choice back then–she had to do it to stop Aion from changing her. This time she had the luxury of choice. She could afford refusing Mi’s kindness.

Just as Reinst finished contemplating her answer, the void chortled with excitement. The malice was deafening as it reverberated inside Reinst, softening her before the final blow. The flavor of misery prepared by a god was like no other.

“She is coming. A guest, at our disposal.”

Reinst had been front-run. There was never a choice to begin with. Mi and those allied with her found a way to pull Lyra in for a close encounter.

Her thoughts were in disarray about the predicament. Miseria never lied outright. She cheated and manipulated Reinst, but the grain of truth in her words could not be questioned. Lyra was coming. Reinst would get to talk to her and settle their differences.

“I won’t let you dispose of her.”

Mi silently observed the figure of Reinst emerging from the darkness in preparation for Lyra’s arrival in her domain. The void welcomed its guest, who had the potential to become another permanent resident. That would settle their differences for good.

“She is mine.”

 

Author’s note:

Ending coincides with chapter 123. ~sch~

 

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