ai hongo

Maybe you and I do deserve to suffer for our wrongdoing. If that’s so, then it means that when things get painful, when things get difficult, we don’t have the luxury of quitting. We don’t get to end our lives to escape what we did. Whatever form the pain takes, we bear it, we endure it, we welcome it, all while we try to make this world a place where people like us, like how we used to be, have no place, and the people who would be hurt can instead live in peace. The next time you encounter an obstacle you cannot overcome, when you just want to curl up into a ball and quit on the world, remind yourself that you don’t deserve the peace of surrender. You have to keep working, to keep fighting, to keep suffering, until the day when you’ve fully repented.

As Ziradith cackled about her plans, Noah walked the silent evening streets back towards Valia’s home. Shannon had insisted on transporting him to the palace on her back, but he abstained, telling her that he wanted to do some night fishing and she might scare the fish away. His first catch tugged hard on the line when an attack came, a ring of glowing wind passing through his clone and striking the ground. Noah, walking several feet away in his invisible state, turned and looked up at a nearby building, with his clone mimicking his actions.

Down below, he heard a knock on the front door, and Shannon answered. The brief moment of distraction snapped his clone back as if it had been yanked with a tether. Once again, he was left gasping for air and dripping sweat. He deactivated his magic and ripped off his headband, immediately sighing in relief. That sensation alone was worth the stress of training, as if slipping into a hot bath.