“You should take one more day to rest, Mum. I can take care of everything; you can trust me!”

“Don’t worry, Ladybug, I rested for more than enough time. I feel so full of energy I think I might just explode if I stay put in bed for one more day”, she said giggling.

Her body, however, told me the opposite: her face was almost whiter than the tunic she wore; her eyes were a shade a blue darker than usual and, even if she was looking straight at me, her gaze felt distant, almost as if her mind wasn’t in the same room as her body. I knew she needed to rest more, but I couldn’t force her to. I was JUST a four-year-old in this world; and even if I had my teenager body back from my old world, I wouldn’t have been able to accomplish much more. The only thing I could do was give her all of my support and help. Still, the thought that she could experience an attack like that again frightened me.

Think, Ignis, think; this is your chance to be finally useful, your chance to demonstrate you are different from your previous self. Then you’ll be finally able to cut ties with your past life. You’ll be able to live peacefully with a mother who really loves you; you’ll be able to live as Ignis and Ignis only.

The best thing I could do to help my mother was figuring out what had caused her swoon. I had knowledge of a world where medicine was 2000 years MORE advanced, so I was sure I could do something about her problem if I managed to find out what it was.

I had initially thought she suffered from some sort of disease, but I quickly discarded the idea: if she was affected by an illness, I would have noticed some of the symptoms in my four years of life in this world. My only doubt was the existence of magic-related-diseases, but she often used her powers, and for pretty meaningless things too, at times, so it didn’t make sense for her to have a magic-related disease.

I tried to recall what had happened that night. She was explaining the origins of this world. A pretty difficult, yet interesting matter. What was she talking about right before she passed out?

A name, she was trying to tell me a name.

It was the name of this really violent Creator, who wanted to fight the bad- well, not so bad after what she had told me- guy. Was she scared of that name? but why?

The more I thought about it, the less answers I had. Finally, I came to a realization: I didn’t know anything about Metis’s past. Where had she lived when she was younger, who were her parents, how did she end living so far away from any trace of society; everything about her life was a mystery to me.

Could there be religions worshipping these Creators like Gods? Maybe some members of a cult scared her when she was just a girl…

Never in my four years of this new life I had imagined a scared Metis: she was always happy, always smiling, not to mention she could use a potentially overpowered magic! However, what my eyes had seen during that dinner was fear. Without a doubt. It was the same expression I had worn so many times during my past life, the face of a person who completely gave up to, who just wanted all of the suffering to finish.

Alright. For starters, I’ll never ask her any Creators-related question ever again, just to play it safely. I’ll just have to help her with the chores as much as I can until she recovers.

Not being able to do anything more than this left a bitter taste in my mouth. I could see my old self looking down on me, while the usual words kept being repeated in my head: “once useless, always useless.” However, Metis needed me, so, after gently telling my previous self to go fuck himself, I gave her a big smile and offered to cook for lunch.

Of course, she refused.

Being a child is such a pain.

A few weeks passed by and, much to my happiness, Metis’s condition got better and better. Her skin had reacquired her healthy pinkish colour and I could see once again glowing glaciers shining deep in her azure eyes.

She hadn’t told me anything more about the creation of this world, but if just a tiny little bit of knowledge was everything I had to give up to see her happy, then I would gladly pay the price.

 I still felt guilty about the fact that, in the end, I hadn’t been able to do anything concrete for her, but seeing her warm smile getting bigger by the day slowly made me forget about my worries.