Becoming A God In Another World With My Crush
Chapter 44: Iris Crashes Out

Chapter 44: Iris Crashes Out

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"I didn’t ask to come here," she said, wiping her eyes roughly with her sleeve as she once again realized... this wasn’t her mother.

It was the house, the ghost. The poison of her own trauma and guilt and grief dressed in her mother’s voice.

But it still hurt like hell.

"You’re not her," Iris whispered.

And still, her mother spoke again, her tone sharp and merciless. "It’s good you disappeared into this world. You’ve brought nothing but shame now your father has to deal with not only being jobless but also a CEO in court."

The words cracked something inside Iris and that’s when the room began to tremble.

"Every thing I have ever done in my life was to make you proud." Iris began, "to you and dad happy even if we had nothing..."

Iris remained on her knees, shoulders quivering, her head bowed, but her breath no longer trembled from helplessness. The glow on her chest had returned, the mark burning hotter than before, there were angry bursts of pink light that lit up the dark room like flashes of lightning behind a stormcloud.

Glass in the painted picture frames began to tremble, rattling softly against the walls even her mother took a cautious step back.

Iris clenched her fists at her sides, her nails digging deep into her palms as magic coiled beneath her skin. Her body felt too tight for it now, like something inside her had finally decided it had had enough.

And then she screamed and a blinding burst of pink uncontrollable aura erupted from her chest and shot outward in every direction like a shockwave. The windows exploded, glass shards flying like confetti. Furniture splintered, wood creaking as it snapped and flung across the room. Picture frames burst, the once-frozen images inside them reduced to floating ash.

The force knocked her mother backward into the wall with a dull thud. Even Nia, ghostly as she was, stumbled a step, blinking against the brilliance of it all.

The energy didn’t stop. It rippled again, the walls trembling as cracks spiderwebbed along the ceiling. Her scream echoed through the manor like a war cry.

"And this is the thanks I get?!"

Magic radiated off her in waves, lifting the hem of her dress, whipping her hair wildly around her head, her body glowing with untamed heat and light.

She stood slowly, her limbs shaking from adrenaline and power.

"I tried to be perfect for everyone! But you ever saw my flaws!"

Nia had gone still again, standing near the shattered dresser with wide eyes, her small hands clutching the front of her dress. "Iris?" she said, her voice small now. Hesitant.

Her mother pushed herself upright, eyes narrowed and her features began to ripple, her mouth elongating slightly, skin twitching like it couldn’t quite hold its shape anymore.

"I never asked to be your perfect daughter," Iris said, voice low but sharp enough to slice through the thick air. "But I was. I tried. And you still chose to treat me like this."

Her form twitched again, her neck cracking as it turned too far to one side. Something inside her let out a horrible clicking sound.

And then her mother’s skin tore and her figure twisted unnaturally, her face distorting into something monstrous. The eyes glowed like burning coals, her mouth stretching wide, too wide, teeth jagged and wrong. Her limbs cracked and bent as she crouched low like an animal ready to pounce.

Iris took a step back, chest heaving, but her hands lifted instinctively, pink magic spiraling from her palms like embers.

The kind of stillness that didn’t feel peaceful but more like the eye of a storm, the kind that held its breath before the winds came back tenfold. Pink wisps of magic crackled around Iris’s arms, soft tendrils of light floating upward and vanishing into the air.

Iris stood in the center of it all, chest rising and falling sharply, her breath shallow and raw.

Across from her, the thing that wore her mother’s face slowly began to move.

It rose in segments, like a puppet being lifted by tangled strings. First the head, tilting unnaturally to the side with a series of sickening cracks. Then the arms, bending the wrong way at the elbows before jerking upright. The torso unfolded in sections, bones popping with each shift, as if the body didn’t know how to fit itself together anymore.

Iris took a step back, watching with wide eyes as her mother’s once-familiar silhouette began to ripple like heat warping glass. The edges of her form twitched, shimmered, then split. Her face, once lined with disapproval, now drooped at the corners, her eyes rolling back into her skull until only whites remained. Her mouth opened slowly at first, then stretched far too wide, far too wrong until her jaw hung open in a grotesque grin, as if her skull had unlatched completely.

Her arms lengthened next, skin sagging as bones underneath shifted grotesquely. Fingers cracked and grew long and thin, nails turning dark like claws. Her back arched violently, ribs straining against skin, and something snarled deep inside her throat a wet, feral sound that didn’t belong in any human chest.

"Nia..." she whispered, glancing toward her little sister but the girl was gone. The spot where she’d stood was now empty, the only thing left behind was the faint outline of tiny footprints in the dust.

Iris turned back toward the creature just as it began to move. It snapped its head toward her in a sudden, jolting motion, that horrible grin stretching further. It hissed low and sharp, like steam through broken pipes before lunging forward in a blur of jagged motion, limbs flying and its claws outstretched.

Her eyes locked on the face the twisted features, the gaping mouth, the absence of love in its eyes and she said, voice low, calm in a way that made the air seem even colder.

"...Low blow ghost, using my mommy issues against me like that." she crouched she willed her aura into the from of twin pink daggers, something she didn’t even know she could do. "You wanna fight, bitch? Let’s fight."