The second female lead Dual Cultivates

"Y-Y-YOU! Why did you push her in?" Nao asked as her fist shook in rage and Suna could still not believe what she had seen happen right in front of her eyes.

How dare this puny little fairy think it could get away with attacking Maria like that and so openly. And to think that they had trusted this creature with their lives. Suna felt her temper rise along with her confusion.

"I can't believe that just happened" at least the shock had done one thing right and knocked Suna out of the weird headspace she had been trapped in for some time. The world had felt like it had slowed down and almost came to a halt before the previous series of events happened.

Suna could see the conflict Noa felt when she looked at her and she felt guilty. She should have never put Nao under a condition where she would have to choose between her and Maria but it did feel like she unintentionally did just that.

Otherwise, there would have been no scenario under which Nao left Maria alone. Nao was too dedicated for that to happen in front of her eyes. (It did not make Suna jealous. Not at all)

"Hey. Don't make me out to be the bad person here. I did that to protect you all from exploding" the fairy cried out, looking offended at being called out like that. Her words puzzled Suna since she had missed out on too much in her suspended state.

"What does that mean?" Nao asked and Suna felt hopelessness flash all over her. It was the same feeling she had been feeling for a long time now and now it threatened to consume her.

But Suna could fight it off for now. She had to fight it off if she wanted to be any help in the coming hours. She did not want to go back into the useless headspace she had found herself in when she had thought she lost everything.

(Lifeless eyes stared back at her as blood soaked the ground. Noa's lifeless body stared back at her from where she had tried to protect her. Noa had taken the blow meant for her and ended up dead in the process)

"-can we do? We can't just sit around here and wait for Maria to die. Right, Suna! Suna?" Suna clawed herself from her thoughts and felt a hand shaking her shoulder.

(Nao's worried eyes looked at her and for a second Suna was back in her headspace, looking at a worried, yet the dead body of Suna and Maria. She could not shake off the feeling of guilt)

"Snap out of it" Suna's arm hurt where she had been pinched. But it had also ignited her fight or flight instincts and caused Suna to instantly pay attention to Nao. And Nao looked angry when she looked at Suna which was never a good sign.

Suna's instincts did not allow her to slip up again with such an entity at her back. They screamed at her to pay attention and not get killed by Nao in the process.

"I'm going after her" Suna declared, her attention shifting from one thing to another. Her head felt like it would explode with all her thoughts bouncing around inside. It was a painful feeling and Suna needed a distraction from it.

However, the unimpressed looks she got from the other two indicated that she had missed a crucial point during their discussion.

"I just said that you should go after her. It would be dangerous for you as well as her and it might get us all killed. Besides, you need to stay here and protect me, I mean this opening" the fairy seemed to have panicked at the thought of losing her guards.

Suna felt no affection for her or her cutesy actions. Suna was sure that she had liked cute things before stepping into this forest but something seemed to have changed inside her that made her unable to care.

She wanted to snap that little irritation's head off before it put them in any more danger. She wanted to see the tiny body bleed and break and so much more- (just as her friends had been broken in her memories)

And then a quake shook the land she had been standing on and caused Suna to lose her balance. She felt her body slide toward the hole and a pair of small hands trying to keep her out of the place where Maria had disappeared to.

"Do. Not. Fall. The gem would explode if you entered the water without the curse. That's why I took Maria's necklace away as well" Nao felt another pair of hands join the small ones on her back and her body finally moved away from the hole.

Nao's disapproving expression had the same intensity it always had but it somehow felt worse to have it directed toward her. Suna felt her stomach drop as Nao glared at her down till she surrendered.

"I have one suicidal idiot in my party, I do not need another. Get yourself together because we're about to get company soon" Nao sounded bitter and Suna wanted to object to the suicidal part of the accusation. She was not suicidal, not like Maria at least who somehow happened to end up in every bad situation they came across.

But Suna no longer had any grounds to talk about it because deep down she knew Nao's words to be the truth. She had not exactly stopped herself from slipping toward the hole when she realized what was going to happen next. She had even allowed it to happen to some degree.

And she felt afraid of the sudden change inside her because this was not her. Suna was not weak like that.

She was not weak like her human that had chosen to give up on life rather than face the new reality it had been thrust into. That was not Nao.

'You might be a demon but the human in you doesn't die till you die yourself. Don't delusion yourself to think that you'll always be in control' was what the guild master had told her before she had been taken in by him. Nao had never believed in those words, her confidence far too huge to allow a mere human to overcome her will.

But now it was different. Fear was a strong emotion to be feeling in such a situation and it was forcing the human consciousness in the body to respond. Nao was getting weaker by the second and even she did not know what would happen if the human inside her body awakened.

She would rather die than find out.