Chapter 12: Radiance, P14

~12.14~

*****

On the day of the ceremony, Allison introduced the rulers and gave the same speech about not causing trouble, then flared her aether a bit to show the new students that it was futile to cause trouble. Afterward, a noble spoke for the first-year students since there were no new royals entering the academy.

And then it was my turn.

I announced the discovery of the space element. That shocked the crowd, but not as much as what I told them next... or rather, what I did next. As I closed my speech, I flared my white mana, then white aether. I didn’t expect to get away with it for a whole year, but after the battle on Atlas, I figured having white mana wouldn’t be as much of a surprise. Before I could return to my seat, several students shouted about that battle. Allison allowed me to address it and even played the video of it for the assembly. I had already become something of a legend, but that battle forever engrained my Goddess of Light title upon me in the eyes of the public. Even knowing I am a white mana user, they stuck to Goddess of Light, since light is what I use the most.

School life was enjoyable. Alethea and I competed for the top score in every subject right from the start. Adele and Michelle didn’t let us compete alone, especially since the four of us were married and it was public knowledge. The four of us had scored 99 or 100 in every subject in our first year. The results for the first term of our second year were even better. We all tied with perfect scores.

And then... Michelle and I missed the entire first month of the second term. The last month of pregnancy really kicked my butt, but we planned to be absent anyway since we expected that I’d be unable to control the illusion magic well enough once I was that far along. But it was worth it. On September 1st, my fraternal twin daughters were born. Michelle had the triplets later on the same day. One very heavily favored my Akari family, while the other favored me. I knew who was who, of course, by their mana. Azalea reacted to me the same way I reacted to Layla, who said the newborn was a carbon copy of me. As Elysia and Azalea, we looked very similar, almost like twins. My boobs were bigger... Azalea was almost flat-chested. But that didn’t bother her; she even said once that she’d hate to have big boobs. I mean, mine aren’t huge, but I do tend to bind them somewhat so that they’re firmly in place. I really hate having a bouncy chest... it can really hurt sometimes. As Kye I looked almost identical to Elysia, aside from the hair color, so I expected Azalea to grow up the same.

Suzuka was born with black-hair, just like before. I couldn’t help but smile with tears at the thought of finally getting a second chance with her.

“Have you decided on a name?” Alethea asked.

“I’ve been thinking about that for months and I still haven’t decided. Do any of you have any ideas?”

Alethea, Adele, and Michelle were in the room with me when the girls were born. We ended up using Kaede’s real name here, but I didn’t want to use Suzuka or Azalea. To that end, all four of us spent the entire time trying to think of names and bouncing ideas off each other. For Suzuka, I ended up choosing a name my little sister Yami had suggested. And so, Rei Akari joined the family. As for Azalea... she was more challenging. I wanted to give her Alethea’s last name, but she was adamant about using my last name.

“Okay, Azalea, which last name do you want? The pink-haired girl is our fellow immortal Maya. She is your biological...” I almost said father.

“Thanks for not finishing that sentence...” Alethea smiled dryly.

Kye gave her an apologetic smile.

“Guh!” Azalea pointed at Adele and the still pregnant Michelle.

“You want their name?”

“Gah!” Azalea cheered as best a newborn could.

Kye looked at the redheads in question. “Heh.”

“Heh.” Michelle said.

“Okay then. Azalea, their last name is Maya... wow, I just realized the-”

“Shut up, I’ve been trying to ignore it the entire time!” Alethea pouted.

“Gah!”

“How about... hmm...” Kye and baby Azalea stared into each other’s eyes for a moment while she thought. “My name is unisex. It’s spelled differently in English... K-Y-E, because who knows what my parents were thinking, but the standard spelling of Kai is unisex. So maybe a unisex name?”

“Gah!”

“That drastically cuts down the options,” Adele said.

“And since she wants your last name, we shouldn’t use a Japanese first name. Hmm. Okay, Azalea, what do you think of Joey? Joey Maya?”

“Gah!”

“Welp, we have her gah of approval! Heh... when mom figured out I could communicate, I gah’d at her to try to talk, too.”

“I like that name,” Michelle said. “I like it a lot.” She walked over and held her hands out to the blonde newborn. “Hi, I’m Mimi!” Joey eagerly reached for her and Kye handed her off.

“Gah Gah Ah.”

Michelle giggled. “Did you just try to say ‘Adara’? You figured me out that fast, huh?”

The baby smiled and gah’d at her again.

Alethea was holding Rei, who got jealous watching Joey and reached out for Adele.

“Heh.” Adele accepted the black-haired girl and the two newborns exchanged glances and gah’d at each other. “I get the feeling that they are gonna be...”

“A HANDFUL!”

“Good grief.” Kye sighed.

Michelle’s eyes suddenly widened. “Uh oh.”

“Hmm?”

Michelle quickly handed Joey to Alethea and turned to Adele. “Heeeelllp. It’s my tuuuurrn.”

The other redhead’s eyes widened, and she handed Rei to Kye. “So, we’re gonna go deal with that.”

Kye smiled. “See you soon!”

“Bigger family soon!” Alethea was all smiles.

Michelle lasted not even half an hour after she and Adele left the room. Ariel, Adriel, and Anna joined us. All three turned out red-headed, kept their real names, and were given the Maya surname.

The rest of the year went by uneventfully, as did the year after. The following year, my little brother Zen was old enough to enter the academy. That was my fourth year. Another year after that and my little sister Yami started school. Both gave speeches in their respective first opening ceremonies.

I did end up becoming an official instructor in my third year. The royal council were very adamant about waiting until after my kids were born, though that didn’t stop us from holding unofficial classes that were very heavily suggested were not optional, even if technically they were. I had a plan to improve everyone’s mana control and growth. I also worked with Louise and Allison on aether. Louise turned out to be very good at manipulating aether. She grew even faster than Liliana, Aliana, Astarte, and Astraia.

At the start of my fifth year, our rugrats were almost two and a half years old, and they were already training. They couldn’t do much physically, but they were very stubborn. I taught them how I trained myself before I could swing a sword, and each of them quickly began channeling mana constantly. Even Rei. Her soul possessed a tremendous amount of mana for a mortal. My guess was that she had a lot of hard lives like I had since Shiori’s and Suzuka’s lives.

My heart sank, thinking about all the things that she could have possibly gone through. I know every mortal goes through reincarnation over and over again, but she had so much mana that one could question whether she was from Athas. She was able to keep up with the constant channeling, which was incredible for a mortal that didn’t have the sort of experience we immortals do. I was happy for and proud of her. Life was going well, but there was always a lingering thought in the back of my mind.

Where was Shiro?

*****

Revision: 2024-3-4