Road to a hero: Three chances in another world. Chapter 24: Lost Hope

Arc 3: Choosing Reality by Embracing Life

 Azalea: "Yeah yeah I know you're getting sick of me."

Grays eyes quickly opened, shaking his head and standing. He was trying to remember everything, the image of Arthur wearing an old track suit burned into his psyche. Then came everything. Every little thing Arthur had done. How he went through life without care, spoke and acted, screamed and fought, all like he was outside of it all. 

Azalea: "Hellooooo, I am the Witch of Darkness dammit I'm not supposed to get ignored like I'm nothing!"

She was snapping her fingers over and over, Grays eyes focusing on her while he groaned in annoyance.

Gray: "How many times have I gotten knocked unconscious in the last few days!? I'm gonna have brain damage at this point."

Azalea: "If it makes you feel better you're more so falling asleep, not getting hit so hard to fall out. You do get hit pretty hard though. Over and over again, aren't you getting tired of it? After screaming all of that toward a girl just trying to help."

Gray gritted his teeth, exploding an a rage and running forward. However his feet quickly sank into the oozing floor. As he flawed with rage Azalea chuckled, staring into the dark abyss. Gray was struggling and trembling and screaming and sweating and just, he just couldn't. He had to stop, he had to fall, to sit and shake with fear and panic. To feel the agonizing pain that was existing. Existing with the choices he's made.

Gray: "DAMMIT ALL!"

He fell on his back, the cloak slowly winding around him and pulling him into the darkness. Yet when he resisted the cloak broke immediately, standing up with a face full of rage.

Gray: "WHAT AM I SUPPOSED TO DO!? I TRIED TO HELP SOKU, I TRIED DAMMIT! BUT JEREMIAH STILL ATTACKED! I TRAINED MY ASS OFF AT THE MANSION AND THE SECT STILL ATTACKED, AL STILL DIED, I STILL LOST THAT HOUSE! I MADE IT TO THE KNIGHT EXAM, I FOUGHT THROUGH THE FIRST TRIAL! I BEAT THE SECOND ONE! I EVEN MADE A NEW TECHNIQUE! AND I STILL LOST AGAINST EDWARD, FAILED THE KNIGHT EXAM! I TRIED TO STAND UP FOR MYSELF AND MY FRIENDS AND ARTHUR STILL BEAT ME! HE STILL ONE THE ELECTION! AND THEN I TRIED TO LEAVE TO KEEP THEM SAFE AND HE JUST KIDNAPPED ME! DAMMIT DAMMIT DAMMIT! WHAT THE HELL!?"

Bashing his head over and over, his bit lip bleeding, his eyes filled with tears. Only able to scream out at the world, to throw out all of his energy and emotion toward hate and nothing else but it.

Gray: "WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH THIS WORLD!?"

This time instead of laughing, which is what she wishes she could have done, she only looked on with a bit of pity for the boy. A growing feeling she could only feel disgust and confusion for having. Azalea was still the Witch of Darkness though, and would do anything to step foot in the world once again.

Azalea: "Then give in. You know you can. Just give up control, let me take over. Let me help."

Grays ears perked up, his eyes widening, but no. No no no. Gray Kyojin could not, would not throw away his second chance in another world. Not yet anyway. Not when there was still something more to do. Not when there was the fleeting hope that he was still special.

Gray: "NO! Not yet! Not until I understand what Arthurs deal is!"

Azalea: "What? So you can see if you and him are from the same place? So you can see if you're really the only special person in this world?"

He surged with even more rage, looking toward Azalea with only fury in his eyes.

Gray: "Wake me up."

Over his voice he heard a loud, echoing, and constant snapping. He shook his head, the black abyss fading while a dimly lit room replaced it. Opening his hazy eyes, he saw himself in a dark damp room lit by red crystals. The door, a thick iron, and in front of him, a tall red haired man in an old tracksuit.

Arthur: "Hey dude."

Gray surged with anger and lunged out, his arms, legs, and neck bound by chains. Around his neck was a mana dampening crystal, causing Gray to feel a sickening feeling every time he attempted to use his mana. 

Gray: "Where the hell am I!?

Arthur: "You just woke up and you're this moody? Hah! You're in a dungeon, in a similar one that you held Jeremiah in."

Grays heart sank, his eyes widened, and he gasped; Arthur Williams was with the Sect of Anarchy, and he was the new king of Walgonia.

Gray: "So you're with them then."

Arthur: "Yeah, I am."

Gray: "So you're the one that freed him then?"

Arthur: "Nah, I just sent out some cheap bounty hunter to snag him while you were all distracted. That's why got I Kioshi and Musashi out of the house y'know."

Gray: "Good plan, for an idiot."

Arthur had a constant smile, sitting down right across from Gray. Arthur was nearing his early forties, his hair a bright red, his build far bulkier than Grays and the exact same height. While right now he was wearing his track suit, looking similar to Grays jacket and jogging pants, he normally wore a black and gold coat over dark formal attire. Far different than Grays. It was all so much, his title, his new role of king and previous role as leader of the Dragon Army, his time in Valatroctius instead of Walgonia, his black flames instead of a massive spiritual connection. Arthur Williams was, undeniably, a man from Another World. A man who has been here, had his adventures, built his strength, for a long time now. And Gray Kyojin was just falling into the most recent events of his tale.

Arthur: "You're taking this pretty well. I expected you to get super mad, and start calling me names. I don't know if I should be impressed or fell sad for yah. I mean look at your face!"

When Gray had awoken after his battle with Edward, he couldn't wipe the furious glare away. Now it had fallen, broken and somber. His eye bags having grown, his smile sunken and gone, his face pale, and his once bright shimmering eyes faint and dead; Gray Kyojin was on his last legs.

Gray: "Look if you're going to kill me, then kill me I don't care. Nothing matters anymore anyway."

Arthur: "Well if nothin matters then I'll ask a couple questions first, yah sad sack. So where ya from?"

Gray: "America -

His eyes widened, but nothing; the trigger on his OD hadn't activated, the mana surge was non existent.

Gray: "Wait can I say that? Or is it this crystal?"

Arthur: "It's cause I'm here. I'm from America too, what state? I'm from Oregon!"

Gray: "Oregon? Lame. I don't really care enough to tell you. But I guess the location doesn't matter with the isekai."

Arthur: "Weird that this place has thanksgiving right? And the same weekdays, as well as the months. Time, lots of culture, history stuff! I'm pretty sure people have leaked here for hundreds and thousands of years, crazy right? Not many but the people who did, well did a lot."

Gray sighed, feeling like he was going to fall asleep any second. With out any energy to keep going.

Gray: "What do you want?"

Arthur: "That's later. Now I want to ask you, how did you get here?"

Gray: "I got hit by a truck. But I stepped in front of it.... I guess, I guess I kinda killed myself. Or tried to."

While Gray hadn't really wanted to accept it, he had to. Arthur didn't care at all and just laughed, keeping the wide grin on his face.

Arthur: "Same! I think we got saved right before we died, getting connected to a corrupted powerful soul, then warped near where they died."

Gray: "Yeah I assumed the same thing. We were like husks of people. The souls of the people that brought us here went into our bodies. Getting their powers, with our body."

Arthur: "You still got the soul in your head!? How's that bitch Azalea!? I got rid of mine a long time ago."

As they went on and spoke, something could only break down at the back of Grays mind. The memories, his screams at Rosemary, the pain of his journey, all of the people he had failed. To the parents he could never go home to. To the room, the house, the school, the world he abandoned. Taking ones own life was a major, major choice, but Gray Kyojin had not internalized that. Gray Kyojin was always the type to go a bit overkill, to go all in on something the moment he needed to do it. Whether it be to say a joke rude or not, buy something with his money, or do something most would consider stupid. The only thing that held him back was the fear of what might happen, a fear that his over confidence had allowed him to momentarily by pass. But everything he pushed passed, every cringe and awful thing he said, they were all things he couldn't take back. Things he had to run away from until he couldn't any more.

Gray: "She's annoying and she won't leave me alone. She's probably watching me through my eyes right now. How long have you been here?"

Arthur: "Bout twenty, no twenty-five years."

Gray: "Damn…I've only been here for a month. What year was it when you got transported?"

Arthur: "Nineteen Ninety Six?"

Gray: " I've been here for a month and I got transported in twenty-twenty one. Guess that lines up. But I just don't get it! You're from Earth, shouldn't you know that this stuff is batshit crazy!? That the Sect are nothing but insane villains!? Have you never seen a movie or red a book!?"

Arthur: "Look man life is not as serious!"

Gray stared at Arthur with a bit of confusion, as Arthur wasn't speaking with a deep or wise tone. It was almost like he had to mind set of, for lack of a better word, a child.

Arthur: "The old world was! The old world was, look at everything you can never do! Look at all of these things you can't fix! Do all of this stuff you don't want to do! Talk to people you don't want to talk to! And you can't do anything about it! You have no real power! You only have your dreams! Your will! And that sucks! Life sucks! But this world! This world is free! This world I can be whatever I want! I can get power! Use power! Command, act, exist! It's freedom! It's peace! But still the people of this world are like the old one, the awful hell! The Sect will break that Hell, we can save this world!

Gray gritted his teeth, screaming out at his nonsense.

Gray: "DON'T YOU THINK I KNOW LIFE SUCKS! BUT JUST BECAUSE I'M NOT HAVING A GOOD TIME DOSEN'T MEAN I CAN DESTORY THE LIVES OF SO MANY OTHER PEOPLE! I -

Arthur: "Look kid you don't know shit! Both my parents died in a car crash, I used most of my money to pay for the funeral, then my girlfriend broke up with me a couple of days later, then I go to work only to be told that I got fired. So I went to my parent's house, sat in my childhood room, then put the barrel of a gun in my mouth, though right as I pulled the trigger! That was life for me dammit! That was life for billions and billions of people! I'm just one of the lucky few that got a second chance! I felt the air around me shift, I heard screaming, fighting, and heat all around me! I opened my eyes to see a battlefield, dead bodies on the ground. Hell. "

Arthur went on and on, Gray lost in it all. Lost in the foggy maze that was his mind. Turning and turning, his own screams, ego, selfishness, hatred. The times he cried, the horrible way he treated his friends, how he failed and failed and keeps on failing. Listening on.

Arthur: "Then I saw the Devil himself! An old man with pale white skin, and makeup similar to a jester, kinda looking like a zombie, poked the demi-human with his long fingernail, then in an instant, the demi-human exploded, covering the both of us in his blood. I fell to the ground, thinking back on it I think I was about to lose my mind, or what little left of it I had. Then the old man looked me in my eyes, smiling with his crooked and nasty teeth. You would think this would make me even more scared than I already was, but Nah, it reassured me, then he asked me a question I've wanted to hear my entire life. He asked me if I wanted to be a part of a family, something bigger than myself, to be his tool that would bring on a new world. And I said yes. I was truly excited about my future for the first time in my life."

Without any care Gray spit at Arthurs face, screaming forward.

Gray: " I DON'T GIVE A DAMN WHAT SOB STORY YOU HAVE! THAT DOSEN'T GIVE YOU AN EXCUSE TO KILL SO MANY! TO DESTORY THIS WORLD! So you got roped into something while you were losing your mind! So you couldn't think properly leading to you going to a cult that likes to kill, destroy, and take over anything they want!"

Arthur: "You have no idea what you're talking about! Have you never wanted to hear someone ask you that? Have you ever wanted to be a part of something bigger than yourself!? You must have since you wanted to be a knight!"

Gray: "No! I WAS SAD BECAUSE I HAD NOTHING! NO GOAL! NO DRIVE! NO PURPOSE! BUT I HAD NO EXCUSE FOR IT! NO EXCUSE FOR MY LACK OF DRIVE! NO REASON TO EXPLAIN WHY I WAS SO AWFUL, OTHER THAN THE FACT I WAS JUST A BAD PERSON! I just want my friends to be safe! I didn't want to lie to them, so I didn't! The only thing I have ever wanted in my life the power to go forward with everything! Not to be perfect, and not to do it with a crutch! But to be able to stand a smile, to be myself without anything holding me back anymore! But that! That's not possible."

As he slowly slouched down he watched Arthur grab a golden necklace from his pocket. A flash of Azalea appeared in his mind, and her golden crescent charm. The same charm hanging from the necklace right in front of him.

Arthur: "So wouldn't you joining the Sect give you that purpose? You have the power and the drive to be a strong fighter, one of the strongest in the world!"

Gray: " I just want to make sure everyone in my life is happy, I want to save everybody, I wanna be a real hero. That is my purpose."

Arthur: "So leaving your friends to cry, and wonder about your safety? That's keeping them happy. They were happier when you were with them."

Gray couldn't responded, his head falling to the weight of his burdens.

Arthur: "So what were you going to do when you left then huh? Walk around, live in the woods, kill yourself?"

Gray: "I Don't know, I didn't even have the idea of leaving until I woke up. I just had to leave. I had to."

Arthur: "You are the most impulsive person I've ever met. And that's what's so interesting about yah."

Arthur placed the charm around his neck before stepping toward the iron door, looking back toward him.

Arthur: "That damned cursed charm was still tied to Azaleas soul after she died. Her soul is kinda your soul now, so that cursed charm is yours until you die. Good luck with it. Oh, by the way, The Sect is going to attack to castle later today! Ravoria and Valatroctius have left, and I sent most of the knights and guards away for the day. It's just a few knights, Kioshi, your friends, and my squires. They will all die, and you can do nothing to stop it."

Gray had to accept that fact, unable to believe he could do anything to stop it. Hearing the door slam behind him, the flame crystals turning off, and the cold room turned pitch black. Leaving him with only himself.

Gray {So that's it. I tried hard to make it, to use my second chance, but It was useless. Dammit, I'm sorry...I'm so sorry. Mom, Dad, Soku, Opheilia, Edward too, sorta. And Rosemary. Rosemary."

All he could do was see her face, a light against the darkness. One he had to throw away, one he had to accept was going to die because he couldn't save them.

Gray {I made Musashi waste his time with me, I got Al killed, and now he might die and I can't do anything about it. I'm gonna get his daughter killed, his nephew. Soku and her sister. I...I failed them. I lost.}

Gray Kyojins heart beat got slower and slower, his breathing fainter and fainter, his mind hazier and hazier.

Gray {That's it then. The end of my road, In a dark, wet, dirty cell. Fitting for me huh. Welp that's it then I guess the next time I open my eyes I'll be nowhere or in hell. I hope it's hell, then I'll have something to do.}

All he could do was sit there and cry. Cry into the pit of despair.

Then after what had to have been a few hours of hesitation, Gray sticks his tongue out, shaking and crying. Then, turning all of that sadness into a wave of rage and determination, he bit done as hard has he could.

Gray {Goodbye.}

Then, erupting from his sealed OD, feels his body enveloped with mana, similar to the mana surge. But this was far more powerful, sending out a wave of mana that shattered the chains around him, cracked and destroyed the mana crystal around his neck, but also sent him tumbling into unconsciousness once again. Without any knowledge of his freedom. Gray opens his eyes looking at a black foggy area, with a beautiful woman standing in front of him, dressed in black.

Gray: "This isn't hell."

He stared forward with spite and rage, screaming with the last of his decayed will.

Gray: "AZALEA!"

As Gray jumps at Azalea his limbs are grabbed by black tendrils, holding him in the air. Azalea smiles at Gray like she's happy about his anger. Yet Gray head-butts her, causing Azalea to let him go while groaning with rage.

Azalea: "So you're finally giving up. After getting to know you, I'm quite impressed you made it this far."

Gray: "...Yes. I just want it to end. So I don't have to face the pain of my failure anymore."

His head fell, but with her next few words, it jerked back up.

Azalea: "I can strike a deal with you."

Gray: "What? What kinda deal?"

Azalea: "I'll let you live in a world of dreams, with no memory of this world, or the fact you're in a dream in the first place."

That was truly something, a blessing to his dead soul

Gray: "And the catch?"

Azalea: "I want your body, I want you to give me control of your mind, so I can resurrect myself and you can just be Conner Kyojin, leaving this Gray name and life behind. With my Cloak of Darkness I can regain my strength, kill Arthur for betraying me, and hell I've save your friends. All you gotta do is - 

She was putting on a theatric voice, rising the oozing tendrils around them into the air along with her arms. But he spoke quickly and quietly.

Gray: "Okay."

Azalea: "Oh okay. REALLY!? OKAY SHAKE MY HAND!"

She rushed forward with a massive smile, sticking her hand out while more tendrils emerged around him.

Gray: "If you can save any of them, save Rosemary for me."

Azalea: "I promise!"

They shake hands, enveloping Gray in a black mist. The black slime slowly moved around him while he was pulled into the darkness, seeing a faint vision of his life in this world planning backwards. Unwinding out of his mind, unraveling into the darkness. Then, confused and left with nothing, he saw an unfamiliar young man smiling at him, a man that resembles this sleeping boy, like a mirror image. Wearing his clothes, body, and face, he was without glasses, his hair was a bit longer, and he was far far happier. Surrounded by friends and warmth. Then nothing, absolutely nothing.

Then a noise, a ringing sound. A repeated chime quickly growing louder.

"Ugh…

The boys hand reached out, turning the alarm on his phone off before groaning with annoyance.

"What?"

However it wasn't an alarm, and instead a phone call he had just answered. Hearing a screaming voice coming from it.

"GET ON! JOIN THE CALL DAMMIT! IT'S UPDATED!"

The boy groaned before lunging up, looking around at his room. To his right was a window to the early morning, sunless sky. In front of him was a closet, and to his left was a desk with two monitors on it. Yawning and staring at the blade hung over his setup he looked into his reflection. Conner Kyojin, woken up early to play a game.

Conner: "OH FOR REAL? GOT IT I'MA JOIN HOLD UP!"

Grabbing his glasses he leapt onto his chair already dressed in his gray jacket and black pants, placing his head set on right after. He shook his head, forgetting the strange dream that lasted so long. Only able to see the outline of a beautiful girl in the back of his mind.

Conner: "OH FOR REAL? GOT IT I'MA JOIN HOLD UP!"

Conner sits down in his chair, turns his computer on, joins a group call, then plays his game for hours, doing nothing but having fun with his friends. Without a worry in the world.