Danmachi: Westward Cloud [Complete]

[Vol.4] Quest 346- Callisto & Cirrus

After the whole celebration, Cirrus and Ai returned to Orario as quickly as they could. By the time they arrived, the other group hadn’t returned yet.

Since they still had time, Cirrus decided to spend the day with his daughter.

"Hm♪ Hm♪ Hm♪," she said, walking with a pep in her step as she was shopping with her father. "Ooh! Can we go in there?" She points to a clothing store.

"Calli, that’s the third one today; do you really—" He could see it in her eyes.

‘Damn, she even has Artemis’s look when she spots her prey.’

"Alright, let's go in. It’s not like I’m already carrying your stuff."

They enter another clothes shop. The father and daughter look around while Callisto picks clothes to try on.

‘She doesn’t even like shopping. Artemis always picks out her clothes.’ Cirrus thought to himself.

Time passes by and as Callisto g tries on different clothes, Cirrus catches a glimpse of a pure white from the corner of his eyes.

"!!" Cirrus turned his head quickly like his life depended on it and it does.

He turned to see Nox sitting and drinking at the café they went to when they arrived back in Orario. His eyes watered up, close to crying.

"Cough! Cough!" He looked at his hand stained from corruption, and his heart was filled with hope. He calmed himself before walking up to the employee. "Excuse me, miss?" He takes out a piece of cloth to wipe the stain and promptly puts it away. "Could you perhaps keep watch over my daughter? I’ll be back in a second."

"Of course, sir!" The lady nodded.

"Thank you, I will be just outside for a moment."

Cirrus briskly walked away. He left the shop and made a beeline towards Nox, but the second he walked outside and looked at the café, she was gone.

"… Ah." Pain. Heartache. "Haaa…" He sighed deeply. A tear welled up, and he quickly wiped it and composed himself. "Alright. I guess I can wallow in some nostalgia."

Cirrus goes over and gets himself a cup of coffee and sits down where he and Nox once sat.

Sitting by himself Cirrus' mind was empty. He took sips of his coffee while letting himself drown in the sounds of the passerby's. He closes his eyes and thinks back on his life.

"... Neze." Memories of the spirits still stuck in the dungeon made his heart heavy. This will be a regret he will always hold in his heart.

A handful of minutes later.

"Hey, Dad, what do you think of this one?" Callisto came out in a red and white dress. "Hm?" She turned her head left and right in search of her father. "Dad?" But he was nowhere to be seen.

"Sorry, miss," The employee came up to her. "your father went out for a bit, he said he is just outside."

Callisto walks to the front window of the store to see if she can still find her father, only to see him drinking a cup of coffee outside by the store's outside tables. His eyes were close and he looks to be in thought.

"Here!" Callisto hands the lady the money for the clothes. "I’m wearing it out! You can keep the change!"

"Thank you for the patronage!" The employee waves her goodbye.

Callisto gets her stuff and goes outside to meet up with her Dad.

"Dad, where did you go? Look, I’m carrying all the stuff!" She holds up all the clothes she bought up to show to her father.

He turned to see her peeved. He also saw that she bought all the clothes.

"Sorry! Sorry! Hey, that’s a very lovely dress you bought; it matches your hair well." No matter what, it was always easy for Cirrus to make his daughter smile. "You look lovely my moonbeam."

"Hm! Hm! Thank you!" She said with a smug smile, happy at her father words of praise.

"Is there anywhere you wish to go so I can make it up to you? Preferably no more cloth stores."

"Hm!" She nods. "I know a place! Moomah, would take me every now and again! This place is…" She looked at the shop and shrugged. "It’s okay, but not the best."

"…" Cirrus only smiled. "I guess so. But it has a special spot for me."

"Hm? What is it?"

"It’s nothing much, just something special I shared with another." Cirrus drinks his coffee and stands back up. "Lead the way." He puts down the money on the table. "Today is your day, sweetie."

A light smile later, Callisto forgot whatever it was he said.

"Hm! Follow me!! Oh, can you carry my stuff?"

"Sure, sure."

Callisto leads him to a quaint little café off the east main road.

"Hello, Tsái!" Calli waved to the owner.

"Ah! Welcome back, Miss Callisto; ah, you even brought your father."

"Yup! Can I get the usual? Oh, and what do you—" As she sat down in her seat, Callisto was surprised by her father.

"Can I get two slices and some chamomile with a slice of lemon inside and some honey in there?"

"Right away, sir!"

As Cirrus turned to look at Callisto for a brief moment, he could have sworn to see Nox.

'No… It seems my mind is playing tricks on me.’ He goes and sits across from his daughter. ‘If she was her… No, leave the thought. It’s the flame. Yeah. It’s that.’

"What’s wrong? You seem a bit out of it, Dad. Are you pale because after everything is all settled, you have to go back to the paperwork?"

"Hmm…something like that."

"Oh, how was Haku? Has his swordsmanship gotten better?"

"Your brother is doing fine; you know he's got a crush."

"Heh!? Seriously! Hahahaha!! What’s she like? Or is it a he? Is it Retsu? They are rather close!"

"Just because they are doesn’t mean they are an item, Calli. They can just be close friends."

"But are they really?" She raised an eyebrow.

"Tell that to your brother and see what happens."

"I’m joking!" She leaned back on her chair. "So what are they like? This possible sister-in-law?"

"Hmm… smart, headstrong, responsible—everything you would expect from an heiress to a clan in Yamato."

"What does she look like?"

"Straight black hair, human, one blue eye, eyepatch."

"One eye? Heh, maybe he has the same tastes as Mom!"

"What is that?"

"They are into people with a single-colored eye." She made a smirk.

"You know Ai was into me before my right eye turned silver, right?"

"Of course! Green is the best color! Oh, by the way, did you know Lord Anansi is making a book about you?"

"Is he? Hm. That’s pretty neat."

"Yup! I commissioned it!"

"You what? Why—Actually never mind, that seems like something you would do."

"Hm! Hm!" She nods her head. "At first I had to pay for the collection of information, but after a while, he started doing it for free. He said he could see a good redemption story when he got some stories from the Kaios Desert."

"…" Cirrus's heart slowly begins to drop. "Oh?" He doesn’t want her to know that, that dark piece of his history. As much as he accepted his actions at that time, he didn’t want his daughter to know. He doesn’t want her view of him to change. "Did you read some early drafts of it?"

"I did."           

His heart sank, and his blood ran cold.

"Oh… What do you think?"

"Hmm… Well, it starts off kinda weird; it starts with you as some demon that was birthed by the sands of Kaios, and you kill all the evil people of the desert, even misbehaved children."

"Uh-huh."

"Then the demon meets his holy familiar, a white owl. When they met the demon, Zephyr changed his ways and went on to liberate the town of Solingen."

‘Anansi changed the order… Hm. Did he do this to make me more heroic? More fantastical?’

Cirrus was on the fence about it. He didn’t want his actions to be forgotten, nor did he wish for them to live on in some manipulated story.

"Is that it?"

"So far, yes. I don’t know why he added that first part: You weren’t born in the desert!"

"… Callisto."

Cirrus has passed on to her his strength, mastery, and everything he could to give his daughter the tools to survive. Yet there was something he had yet to pass on to her, his weakness.

"Those stories of me in the desert."

"Yeah, they're made up, right?"

"They are the truth."

"I know they… hm?" She looked him in the eyes.

"Um…" Tsái came and brought the slices of cake and tea. "I’ll leave you two be."

He walked back to his counter.

Callisto looked at her father as he picked up the cup of tea and sipped from it.

"Dad, I know I joked about Haku, but this—"

"I am not joking. I committed atrocities. Vile, horrible things."

"…" Callisto looked at her dad in a new, darker light. "T-they deserved it, right?"

"Personally, a little. They had all the chances to leave."

"T-then it’s not your fault! You shouldn’t feel bad about killing them!"

"I do. Callisto, I was Auberon’s age when I did it."

"!!" Callisto froze. "R-Ron’s age…"

She couldn’t imagine a boy around Auberon’s age killing men, women, and children. She herself has killed and hunted animals with Artemis, but the thought of killing another person never crossed her mind.

"As a father, I have endowed you with knowledge but not wisdom. I have raised you and all your siblings with a sense of empathy for those less fortunate than you. I did this so you will not repeat the sins that still gnaw at me from time to time."

This was the first time she saw such a look on her father's face. It was a seriousness that she had never seen, and it hurt her. To see her father in anything but the light of a hero stung her terribly.

"Why." She softly spoke out. "You… you could have lied to me. It would have been much better that way."

"Does it change how you see me?"

"… A little." She looked away.

A bit of Cirrus broke.

"Callisto, look at me."

"… I don’t wanna."

"Look at me."

Callisto looks back at his mismatched eyes, and they are filled with pain and regret.

"I am telling you because this was my weakness, my failure, and my folly that has defined my view of the world. As your father, who is supposed to help you navigate this world, you must know so you will not repeat my sin."

"… Does Haku know?"

"No. Aside from my close friends, none of your siblings know."

"Then why tell me?"

"You are my special little girl. Out of all my children, I fear for you the most."

"Because I’m your favorite?"

"Because, Callisto, I see a lot of myself and your mother in you."

Callisto was every bit as reckless as Cirrus and Artemis. It was something that both parents tried to polish off in her—to think before she acts—but she just barrels through, just like her father and acts before thinking of the consequences like her mother.

"Oh…"

"Callisto, I killed men, women, and children all so I could weaken the Vritra Familia, a Familia that was part of Evilus. A nasty group that wishes to bring chaos to the world. I strung, impaled, and mutilated every nasty thing to get to them and chip away at their will to fight. I bathed in their blood with their intestines hanging off my armor. I was as bloodthirsty as they were. It got to the point where I loved it, not because I enjoyed it but because I needed to. If not, I would have broken, shattered, and been lost in those sands that I stupidly walked into."

"…And did you? Did you ever break?"

"I did. I lost an important piece of myself back then. That day in Bukhara, I had reached my breaking point. I had enough of the desert; I had enough of this violence; yet I must keep going."

A fire grew in his eyes.

"You could have stopped? Rested?"

"There was no time to rest." He shook his head. "The second I rested, I would have drowned in my self-loathing. If I drowned, then the people, innocent people I could have saved would have died, and Evilus would be committing more violence." Memories of the Astraea Familia flooded in. His lips drooped lightly with pain and grief. "I couldn’t stop, not now after all that I did. That is my responsibility as an Adventurer of Orario. I needed to keep pushing forward." Regret. Regret tinged his voice from recollection of the Familia who would still be alive today had he remained in Orario. "This was my job as a first-class adventurer. My punishment for spilling blood."

"Then... will I have to kill people?"

"I am telling you this so you can learn from my mistakes. Draw a line for yourself. A line that you will never cross, no matter what. You possess great strength and power. I do not want you to follow in my bloody footsteps. Never."

In her father's eyes she saw a strong conviction. They were the first time she saw them like that.

"… Okay." She said it softly.

"Callisto, I love you." His eyes softened, a light blush on his cheeks, a earnest and loving smile only a father would give. "I always will. No matter what, I will always be there for you."

"I… I love you too, Dad." She looked at him with watery eyes. "I just… I didn’t want to know this about you."

"You would have learned of it eventually. I might as well tell you myself. Out of all my kids, you are the most attached to me; thus, this information would have hurt the most."

"It does… It’s like my hero is no longer a hero anymore."

"I never wanted to be a hero, Callisto. Never. All a hero gets, in the end, is a tragedy. Especially the kind that I am."

"What kind?"

"Those whose legacy is my capacity to kill. In each and every one of my stories, the people know I am killing something. I do not just want people to know of my capacity to take a life; I also want them to know of my other qualities. I want them to see me as a human, flawed just like everyone else, and learn from them."

There by window, highlighted by the afternoon sun she saw a whole new person. Callisto saw her father even more beautifully. He shined like a tree in the middle of the desert, weathering the harsh sun beating down on it and enduring roughest of conditions to remain strong and standing. But that does not mean it is not without scars—scars that tell of the experiences it had.

'Those imperfections...' Callisto thought on. 'They make him even more amazing, more... human.'

In her own way, despite not knowing of her divine heritage Callisto learned the beauty that all the gods saw in Gekai.

"Promise me." Cirrus looked deep into her focused eyes. "Promise me you will be better than me and your mother. That you will not cross that line in the sand."

Callisto didn’t hesitate to give her answer.

"Dad. I promise you I will be better than you." She looked at him with a firm gaze. "That I will not repeat your mistakes."

Cirrus loved that look in her eyes.

‘She has Artemis’ eyes. Firm in her convictions.’

Cirrus smiled ear to ear.

"I will hold it for you. My Moonbeam."

"Hm! So, should we eat? The cake and tea are getting cold."

"Ah, you are right."

The two began to eat and drink, their bond stronger than before.

A while later.

"So... speaking of crushes, albeit a bit late for it now, do you have any?" Cirrus asked his daughter while cutting a piece of the cake.

"No, I’m not really interested in anyone." She takes a sip of her tea. "Should I?"

"Not at all; that’s fine."

‘Artemis, it seems our daughter inherited some of your traits as well.'

"But…if I had a type…" She began to trace her cup with her fingers.

"Fuck, please no, Calli, I regret asking!!!!!" Cirrus covered his ears and looked away.

Calli leaned in and took some of the cake.

"Fufu! Nom!"

Cirrus glanced back to see her leaning back with food in her mouth.

"Hey! That’s mine!"

"You weren’t looking!"

The two would bicker back and talk with one another.

Tsái watched on, enjoying this sight.

‘Ah~ this reminds me of his time here with Miss Nox.’