The Extra's Rise-Chapter 821: Rin Ashbluff (7)

I tried to wave off the gratitude with casual dismissal, but my hand barely managed to lift a few inches before falling back to my side. The toll of using Mythweaver at such an intensive level was significant, but not quite enough to render me unconscious. Just thoroughly drained in ways that went beyond simple physical fatigue.

"Arthur," Valen said, his voice thick with emotion as he turned toward me while still keeping one arm around Rin’s shoulders. "I owe you a debt that can never be repaid. What you’ve done here... it’s beyond miraculous. It’s impossible made real."

The King of the Western Continent—the man I had fought to a standstill just hours earlier—looked at me with something approaching reverence. His usual stoic composure had been completely shattered by the return of his daughter, leaving behind only a father overwhelmed by joy and gratitude.

"You don’t owe me anything," I managed to say, my voice hoarse but steady. "Rin deserved to be saved. She always did."

"Still," Camila interjected softly, reaching out to squeeze my hand with gentle warmth, "what you’ve given us is beyond price. Our family... we were broken. Incomplete. And now..."

She trailed off, unable to finish the sentence as tears threatened to overwhelm her again. But the look in her eyes said everything that words couldn’t—hope restored, love renewed, a future that had seemed impossible suddenly stretching out before them.

Jin stepped forward, his usually composed demeanor showing cracks as he processed what he had witnessed. "I always knew you could do it," he said with quiet conviction that carried the weight of absolute faith. "From the moment you made that promise years ago, I believed you would find a way."

I couldn’t help but laugh at that statement, the sound coming out as more of a wheeze given my current condition. "No, you didn’t," I said with fond amusement, remembering the skeptical looks Jin had given me whenever I mentioned my intention to cure Rin’s corruption. "You thought I was being naive at best, and dangerously delusional at worst."

Jin’s composure cracked further as a slight smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. "Well," he admitted with uncharacteristic sheepishness, "perhaps I had some doubts about the feasibility of your approach."

"Some doubts?" I repeated with mock incredulity. "Jin, you spent half our conversations trying to convince me to focus on ’realistic goals’ instead of chasing impossible dreams."

"I may have been... overly cautious in my assessment of the situation," Jin conceded, his smile growing wider as the tension of the past few hours finally began to ease. "Though in my defense, what you just accomplished was objectively impossible according to every magical theory I’ve ever studied."

"Impossible is just another word for ’hasn’t been done yet,’" I replied, settling back against the wall with a contented sigh. Despite my exhaustion, watching this family reunion unfold filled me with satisfaction that made every moment of strain worthwhile.

Rin stirred slightly in her father’s arms, consciousness slowly returning as the magical transformation completed its work within her system. Her eyes fluttered open with the careful uncertainty of someone waking from a very long dream, and for a moment she simply looked around the room as though trying to convince herself that what she was seeing was real.

"Mother?" she whispered, her voice carrying wonder and disbelief in equal measure.

"I’m here, sweetheart," Camila replied immediately, moving to sit on the edge of the bed so she could stroke Rin’s hair with gentle fingers. "We’re all here."

"Father? Jin?" Rin’s gaze moved between her family members, tears beginning to gather in her dark eyes as the reality of her situation finally registered. "This isn’t a dream?"

"No dream," Valen assured her, his own voice thick with emotion as he tightened his protective embrace. "You’re awake. You’re free. You’re our daughter again."

What followed was one of the most beautiful family reunions I had ever witnessed. Eighteen years of separation, guilt, and accumulated pain began to heal as the Ashbluff family rediscovered what it meant to be whole. They talked quietly among themselves, sharing memories and making tentative plans for a future none of them had dared to imagine just hours earlier.

Rin’s voice was soft and sometimes uncertain as she reacquainted herself with speaking to people who weren’t hallucinations or products of her corrupted imagination. But with each passing minute, she seemed to grow more confident, more herself, as the reality of her freedom settled into her consciousness.

I watched from my position against the wall, content to observe their happiness without intruding on what was clearly a private family moment. The exhaustion I felt was profound but oddly peaceful—the kind of bone-deep weariness that came from completing something truly important.

After perhaps an hour of quiet conversation and gentle reunion, Rin finally turned her attention toward me. Her expression grew serious as she carefully extracted herself from her family’s protective circle and moved to sit on the edge of my chair.

"Arthur," she said quietly, her voice carrying a formality that hadn’t been present when speaking with her family. "I need to thank you properly."

"You don’t need to—" I began, but she held up a hand to stop me.

"Yes, I do," she said with quiet intensity. "What you did for me... what you risked... I spent eighteen years believing I was beyond salvation. That I was nothing but a monster waiting to happen. And you proved that wrong."

Her dark eyes, now clear of the corruption that had clouded them for so long, looked directly into mine with an intensity that spoke to absolute sincerity.

"You gave me back my life," she continued, her voice beginning to tremble with emotion. "You gave me back my family. You gave me back my future. How do I even begin to repay something like that?"

I studied her face for a moment, noting the genuine gratitude mixed with uncertainty about her place in the world. Despite being freed from the corruption, she still carried the psychological scars of eighteen years of isolation and self-hatred. Those wounds would take time to heal completely.

"You don’t repay it," I said simply. "You live it. You take the second chance you’ve been given and you use it to become the person you always wanted to be."

"But I don’t know if I’m strong enough," she whispered, vulnerability bleeding through her composed facade. "What if I mess this up? What if I hurt someone? What if—"

"Rin," I interrupted gently, reaching out to place a hand on her shoulder with the same gesture I had used in her mindscape. "Do you know what I saw when I was fighting the corruption inside you?"

She shook her head, confusion clear in her expression.

"I saw someone who spent eighteen years fighting against an alien influence that was trying to remake her into a weapon of mass destruction," I continued, my voice growing stronger despite my exhaustion. "Someone who held onto enough of herself to feel guilt about actions she couldn’t control. Someone who was willing to die rather than risk hurting the people she loved."

Rin’s eyes widened as she processed my words.

"The corruption didn’t make you weak, Rin. It made surviving an act of incredible strength." I smiled softly as tears began to spill down her cheeks. "You endured eighteen years of that torment and came out the other side still capable of love, still capable of hope, still fundamentally yourself despite everything that tried to change you."

"I don’t feel strong," she whispered, her voice breaking completely as the emotional weight of everything finally overwhelmed her carefully maintained composure.

"The strongest people rarely do," I replied with gentle understanding. "Strength isn’t about feeling invincible. It’s about continuing to fight even when you feel like giving up. It’s about holding onto your humanity even when everything around you tries to strip it away. It’s about choosing love over hatred, hope over despair, life over death."

The tears were flowing freely now, but there was something different about them—not the bitter tears of despair and self-hatred I had seen in her memories, but the cleansing tears of someone finally allowing themselves to grieve properly.

"You survived something that would have broken most people completely," I continued, my voice soft but certain. "You kept enough of yourself intact that when salvation finally came, there was still someone worth saving. That’s not weakness, Rin. That’s incredible strength."

"You really think so?" she asked through her tears, vulnerability making her voice small and uncertain.

"I know so," I replied with absolute conviction. "And you should be proud of that strength. It’s yours. It always was."

Rin broke down completely then, eighteen years of suppressed emotion pouring out in waves that made her whole body shake. But these weren’t tears of anguish or despair—they were tears of relief, of gratitude, of someone finally allowing themselves to feel hope for the future.

I simply sat there with my hand on her shoulder, offering what comfort I could while she processed everything that had happened. Behind her, I could see her family watching with their own tears of joy and relief, understanding that this breakdown was necessary—a crucial step in her healing process.

When the storm of emotion finally began to subside, Rin looked up at me with eyes that held something I hadn’t seen in any of her memories or visions: genuine peace.

"Thank you," she said again, but this time the words carried different weight. Not just gratitude for being saved, but appreciation for being reminded of her own worth.

I smiled softly, feeling my own sense of completion as I watched her begin to truly understand that she deserved the second chance she had been given.

"You’re going to be just fine, Rin Ashbluff," I said with quiet certainty. "You’re stronger than you know." 𝑓𝓇𝘦ℯ𝘸𝘦𝑏𝓃𝑜𝘷ℯ𝑙.𝑐𝑜𝓂

And for the first time in eighteen years, she believed it.