Chapter 468: …and cover it all up in a miracle or two
‘I mean… they’re still my creation, sure, but…I’m not gonna be the one to…raise…order…command…the question of sentience and subservience y’all are able of achieving is still a massive question to me that makes this uncomfortable for me to explain.’
[Don’t worry about it too much, milord,] Nepherage comforted, [I’ve seen all of the “self-help” and “philosophy” books from your world. The fact that even after ten thousand plus years and they still hadn’t figure out a universal lesson for living life and the meaning of sentience, I’m pretty sure we kaijin who have only been in existence for a few months at most, won’t be able to be much help either.]
‘Fair enough,’ Zhen Liu nodded, ‘but back to the matter at hand, is it possible to have Miss Reinhart provide the name?’
=Oh.=
<=In that case....yeah.=>
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“Huh? Why’d it stop?,” Elsa asked herself.
In this moment of time, the giant had produced the purple ball of light that had started this whole phenomenon in the first place and was just about to install it in the kaijin body it had just created.
This scene felt remarkably similar to the one she has seen over and over again in her memories of a certain vision she had decades ago…so she was rather confused as to why the giant had stopped at this crucial juncture, literally hovering inches away from inserting the purple ball of light into the kaijin.
In situations like these, when someone would act abnormal in her presence, she would normally read the subject’s mind so that she could determine whether or not they were actually up to no good and respond appropriately.
She couldn’t do that this time around because this giant was completely unreadable.
Elsa had faced this type of issue before, but in those situations, the source of the issue was due to them either being dead, have proper mind shielding or not being intelligent enough to get a proper reading on.
In the case of the giant though, it felt as if she was trying to read the minds of a thousand different people, each with their own preferences and dislikes, all that the same time. Essentially, this was information overload but significantly worse.
“Well…if I can’t read its mind, then maybe I can trade with it…,” Elsa thought as she tried to wrap her head around the idea of what a strange multi-limbed giant from a fairytale would even possibly want.
However, before she could even think about stepping away, the giant began to move again.
*Click, click, click.*
“Huh? Why are you pulling back?!”
Before her very eyes, the giant had pulled back his hand from the soon-to-be porn kaijin and had wrapped it’s hand around the ball of light.
“What are you do-”
*Click.*
“What?”
The giant brought down it’s closed hand before Elsa and slowly opened it before her.
“Those weren’t there before…”
In the palm of the giant’s hand laid two additional items alongside the kaijin core.
The first item was a strange looking pen, similar in build to the one that was just used to bestow an anima key to the kaijin.
As for the second item, it appeared to be a birth certificate.
The sight of the pen was enough for Elsa to be confused, due to now knowing where it came from, but the birth certificate threw her for a loop.
“No way….,” Elsa said in disbelief as she stared at the provide pen and paper.
She was under the assumption that this entire kaijin creation process was completely out of her control from the moment she saw the giant transform her then solid sugar statue into a surprisingly gorgeous taffy statue of the same size.
Needless to say, she very much appreciated being given the opportunity to name her soon-to-be child herself instead of relying on Zhen Liu’s naming sense.
Not that there was anything wrong with names like Nepherage, Hurricroak, Frosttusk, Razorstella, Archanidame and Lacerage, they were all just a bit too on the nose for her sensibilities.
To her, a name should be simple yet carry meaning behind it.
For example, her name of “Elsa”, was a name she received in honor of her great, great grandmother who had died many many years ago.
As Elsa’s mind wandered back to her younger years though, she was soon interrupted by the giant speaking into her soul directly.
[As the kaijin born this day will be connected to you, soldier of another world, please provide them a name so that they can enter the world with pride and joy.
‘Again with the word “them”,’ Elsa noticed, ‘I guess that means this kaijin won’t have a fully formed identity until I give them a name…but what name should I even give them?’
Elsa was lost in thought as she tried to find a name that was appropriate for a being such as this.
Would a normal name suffice, like Jessica, Robert or Aiden?
Should it have some form of deeper meaning to it, like should she name them after her grandfather or grandmother?
Perhaps she should mimic Zhen Liu’s naming convention and name the being Sugarbelle or Candy Crusher?
Taffighter?
She knew she only had one shot at this, one shot in making sure this soon-to-be child of hers had a name that they could be proud of having. From the way the giant conveyed that last bit, it sounded as if this name was more than just an identifier, it was the whole blueprint to their existence.
To say this matter was stressful would be a bit of an understatement.
“Wait…breathing exercises, come on,” Elsa told herself as she steadied her mind and breath, “it’ll help you figure out your next step.”
As Elsa went through her breathing exercises, she allowed herself to relax and think for a second about everything that had happened leading up till now…and realized something important.
Throughout the whole process of the giant putting together the kaijin from all of the materials, she couldn’t determine the gender or sex of the kaijin being made.
When she had made the sugar statue before, it had a feminine shape to be sure, but that was because it was the form she was most familiar with. After the giant had done its thing and turned the sugar statue into a taffy statue, she found the being looking completely androgynous, moreso than before.
A part of her had assumed once her medals were implemented, she’d be able to determine whether her child could be a son or a daughter, both were fine by her, but the metallic bits that were implemented were decidedly gender neutral once more.
It felt as if the malleable body wasn’t lending to itself to any one identity, as if the deciding factor wasn’t body or mind, but the soul and the name connected to it.
“Wait…why should I decide that?,”Elsa soon realized, “I don’t have that right.”
No would-be parent in this world or any other was able to control whether or not they had a son or a daughter. Perhaps there were so-called “secret methods” for conceiving a boy or a girl, but none of them actually worked.
Even after the child is born, whether or not they identified as a boy or a girl was up to them and no one else.
All that a parent could hope for was that the offspring grew up healthy and successful in whatever endeavor they decided to pursue.
“Wait…hope…”
In that moment, Elsa remembered something, or rather, someone.
It was during the time she helped a particular family escape their gruesome fate, the night she traded away her ability to create life in order to protect it.
It was when the family had to leave that she was given a chance to meet their baby and learned their name.
It wasn’t a thing fancy like Xavier or Anastasia.
It wasn’t anything straightforward like Robert or Mary.
The name itself didn’t lend to any one gender or the other.
Instead, it was three little letters that made a name with the meaning of “hope”.
One that just so happened to be gender neutral.
With this name in mind, Elsa took up the pen and wrote it down on the certificate.
“I don’t have the right to determine how you’ll look or act once you are born, whether I call you my baby boy or baby girl, but I can at least hope that you’ll be someone who’ll bring joy to those around you and be a force for good,” Elsa said as she finished writing down the name.
“Maybe that’s why I named you after it.”
Once the deed was done, the pen and birth certificate was quickly absorbed by the glowing purple orb.
The giants voice reverberated I’m Elsa’s mind once more.
[Acknowledged. The name for this kaijin shall be “Kit”. Proceeding to final step, installing desire core.]
