Teaser: One of Satan's main creations, Beelzebub, walks into Eika's office—only to see her napping contently with a pile of unfinished paperwork towering from her desk. A sigh and the shuffle of papers insues.
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Ryosei carefully kept his keen blue eyes attentive, his body language casual enough for someone off the street to think him relaxed—but if an experienced hunter were to try to discern his inner thoughts, it would all be a jumble of nonsense that they'd be unable to understand.
He remembered the time when Eika had taught him how to hide his subconscious feelings through body language, saying that it would be an essential skill for him to learn.
Hell, he could recall her exact words even now:
"'I'll break it to you gently darling—you're fuxxing open book and frankly, I don't want to know when you want to eat sushi made from skin and intestines or when you're sneaking fuxxing fingers off the table or something—so I'm gonna make you a closed book; I don't wanna have to deal with all the menial sh!t you unwittingly project.'"
Of course, he had immediately rebuked her with sarcasm to attempt to hide his embarrassment over that fact that she'd caught him sneaking an eye when he had previously insisted that he hated any of the facial segments of dinner, but she'd simply given him an all-knowing and omniscient look and he knew at that moment, without a shadow of a doubt and positively boiling cheeks—he was fuxxing screwed.
How that memory was now fondly reminescened, he wasn't sure, but it didn't stop a smile unwittingly coming to his face.
'How can someone with such a foul mouth somehow be so cute? I swear, she's a tsundere—I can at least tell that from her.'
Ryosei had a serious expression when contemplating her oddly charming duality, one that made Rurielles and "Cora" who were walking with him think he had to be contemplating the universe or what had nearly happened to him back there.
If they knew he was actually thinking bewilderedly that the demon who was christened as the "White Nightmare" was actually somewhat cute, they'd probably cough up blood—which would actually end up being a very bad thing, since it would reveal that their blood was actually silver ichor and not the trademark red color that the throng of humans that surrounded them were used to.
So... yeah.
It was a nice walk over all, with Ryosei mulling over Eika and her general weirdness seriously, all the while memorizing the details that surrounded him on the street, so that he would be able to find their shop again if needs be. Speaking of his guides, Ryosei was very curious over the identity of the third and youngest sister was.
Both Rurielles and Lorleilorn looked to be in their twenties, with Lorleilorn in her early twenties and Rurielles in her mid-to-late twenties, but this, "Cora", looked to have barely entered pubescent teen-hood, and even that was a stretch.
Also, three sisters?
Wasn't three a sacred number in all types of mythology from everywhere? Greek mythology had the three Realms that Zeus, Poseidon, and Hades looked over; there were the three Furies, the three Fates; in Norse, there were also the three Norns...
'Wait...'
'Norns?'
"'...Pardon my manners, I'm Rurielles Norn, the proprietor to this establishment and unfortunate "best friend" and colleague of Eika..."
NORNS?!
'H-Hold on,' he thought furiously to himself, desperately changing his expression to one of nonchalance as he inwardly screamed inside, 'does that mean that Rurielles, Lorleilorn, and this "Cora" are THE Norns? The Ladies who controlled fate in Norse mythology?! Holy sh!t! Who DOESN'T Eika know?!'
While Ryosei experienced yet another paradigm shift—the... is it the 12th? since he met Eika—the two sisters had stopped outside of the door to their shop. "Cora" tugged on her older sisters sleeve, her gray eyes oddly hollow looking as she whispered, "Other one, not here—people have followed us."
Rurielles pat on her younger sisters head, her expression relaxed as she calmly replied, "Man, you were right, this shop really is nice! I love the store front and items display, but that's been enough clothes shopping for today Cora, okay?"
"But we haven't bought anything yet Rue—"
"That's enough shopping! Time to go home, but first we have to help Mr. Ryosei get in contact with our troublesome friend, and that comes second, okay Cora?"
"...Fiiine..."
Ryosei of course noticed their little exchange, and gave a small smile, sheepishly scratching his head as he groaned, "I'm really sorry for this Ms. Rulis! Keia can be such a hassle sometimes.... I mean, I knew that she was leaving the day of her departure, but I neglected to ask her about communication and I don't exactly feel comfortable using our house for hosting family without her permission, y'know?"
Rurielles gave a small laugh, her pretty face lighting up a bit as she cheekily returned, "Again, it's no problem Ryosei—I'm completely comfortable with this! Besides, a friend of my best friend is my friend, and you're definitely "Keia's" friend!"
Ryosei tilted his head slightly in confusion as he genuinely asked, "You really think so? All she does is tease me all the time..."
Rurielles turned her head to face his, a sly smile on her face as she countered, "Keia is... reactive. Believe it or not, she rarely takes the initiative on things that don't interest her, finding it to be a waste of time; the fact that she is active with you—"teasing" you, as you say,in order to get a reaction out of you—shows that she cares. She's the type to take action only on important matters, and if she's taking action in concerning you—and she is—then she obviously cares for you a lot."
A faint heat crawled up Ryosei's face, his handsome expression one of surprise at the logic presented before him. He had noticed that about her himself—she only attacked the devils and demons when they had targeted him, and whenever any sense of conflict happened, she only reacted to it, never moving unless it was in response to foreign movement.
But her, a person who seemed to take a back seat on most things, actively training him and actively going out of her way to produce a reaction? A very odd thing to do for a relatively passive person like her.
But the last comment from Rurielles made him completely flushed.
"Trust me Ryosei, she likes you. On another note, are you aware that you're exactly her type?"
Ryosei d*mn near choked on air when he heard that, tripping over an invisible bump in the road and stumbling for balance, wheezing.
His regained balance haphazardly, a red blush overtaking his features as he sputtered, "W-What?! Y-You're joking, right? Right, yeah, you have to be joking! There's no way... no way that I-I'm... her... type... right?"
Rurielles just laughed at his reaction, finding the way he was literally tripping over his own feet from her off the cuff remark hilarious; now she knew why Eika loved teasing him—he was a fuxxing riot when he reacted to sh!t!
"Trust me," she cooed coyly, "I've known her for forever and a half and I can tell better than anyone—she fuxxing likes you~"
"Rue, what does "fuxxing" mean?"
"... Sh!t! Um, nothing Cora, nothing, forget you heard me say that!"
"What does sh!t mean—"
"Oh look, it's our house! Haha, what a coincidence! Man what a nice, long talk, am I right? Haha—Now get inside and delete those words from your mind! No computer for you tonight!"
"Rueeee, that's not fairrrr, you're being meeeeean..." "Cora" whined, her expression sad and annoyed at her older sister's restriction of her internet freedom.
Rurielles ignored the puppy dog eyes she pleaded with, her green eyes final and she deftly pronounced, "No. Computer. That's. FINAL."
As "Cora" was grumbling while entering the small apartment complex they had stopped in front of, Rurielles turned to the still faintly red Ryosei with a welcoming expression and she exclaimed, "Welcome to our humble habita—I mean, home! Yayy—I'm sorry it's small, it's all me and my sisters can afford."
Ryosei smiled politely as he calmly responded, "It's no trouble—I lived in an apartment complex even smaller than this one before Keia picked me up. I was really surprised when she took me in—I'm so grateful to her..."
'Bullsh!t, she tortures you constantly!'—was what Rurielles wanted to say as she responded to his statement, laughing weakly with a somewhat empty look on her smiling face, "O-Oh? Heh, yup, that's Keia alright, hehe... heh! Now! Come inside, we're just up the elevator on the fourth floor, I'll give you the special device that can reach her there, okay?"
"Oh? How does it work?" Ryosei inquired inquisitively.
"See, it's kind of like a radio transmitter, except a thousand times more powerful, since they don't exactly have any cell towers where she is, so..."
"Oh, makes since."
They rode the elevator to the fourth floor of the complex in silence, but at the ding, Rurielles and "Cora" pressed their hands on the control panel, and with their pupils shining gold uttered, "løslate."
The panel turned gold as the world turned monochrome, and suddenly, a twisting sensation started, curling in and unfurling simultaneously till the world imploded into one, singular point.
Trillions of colors passed Ryosei's distorted vision, making him understand why Eika had told him when she first teleported home with him from the sister's shop to keep his eyes closed—he had a feeling he would go insane if he had to do this every time he traveled in this manner that he was still unaccustomed to.
Suddenly, he stood inside their store, in the hair salon area he had first been in, and swaying as he walked, he followed after a Rurielles that simply smirked at how he was stumbling like a drunk, having her lead him to what seemed to be a basement.
In the basement was all types of fantastical equipment that he had no hope of understanding worked: tools and objects of mysterious shape and metals, glass containers of unusual shape full of mystical looking ingredients like blue, bioluminescent grass, silver twigs of various glows, void black stones that absorbed all the light around them, eyes that moves within their jars to face his direction in a kaleidoscope of hues, mushrooms that were a rainbow or simultaneous, shifting colors and more.
Several plants that looked straight out of the Studio Ghibli movies that he watched as a child grew in abundance, leaving him to identify the origin of some of the odd ingredients he had observed before. Critters of unknown and no doubt supernatural origin skittered along the branches, all of them moving to the center of the room, where a glass container full of water laid, ingrained in the trunk of an enormous tree.
Within the container floated his mentors sleeping body—or rather, the homunculi she used to live in this world—the expression on her face completely and utterly calm, devoid of the usual mischief or spark she usually had.
He found it oddly sad, seeing her deprived of the life she usually expressed; it reminded him of the way she would sometimes get, when it was late at night and the moon was shining and he would spot her by chance in the library, her beautiful face upturned to the moonlight, her lashes fluttering and her entire being so, so still.
"'Why're you here, Eika?'" he'd ask, feeling an odd sorrow in his chest in seeing her look so exhausted.
It was then she'd open her lovely eyes, and with a sad, quiet smile on her face that matched her voice, she'd hum, "'I don't know, I guess I just like it here; I think... it reminds me of my dad. My mom... she was more beautiful than starlight and moonlight, or so I hear. I'm not sure really... but dad always looks so young when he talks about her—young, and sad.'"
She would turn to him, laying down on the checkered marble floors, her small back twisting in response and her bone white hair that glowed beneath the moon shifting and glittering like moonlight on snow as she whispered in a voice befitting a siren in its softness, "'Have you ever been in love Ryosei?'"
His heart had throbbed then, his blue eyes widening as he murmured, "'No, I haven't. I hope to one day, but I doubt I will.'"
She'd smiled, her expression uncharacteristically vulnerable before it relaxed, becoming sad again, turning to the blue and silver moonlight that suited her sadness far too well.
"'Sometimes, I want to be in love, but other times I don't want to. My dad... whenever he looks at the stars, he looks really, really sad—like, he's remembering a time long past and long gone, a home he can never return to.
'"I wanna find someone who feels like home, but when they leave me, and I have no doubt they will, I get the feeling I'll end up like my dad. I think instead of him looking at the stars, I'll be the one looking at them, just... quietly reminescenting all the time gone by, all the memories I can never experience again.
"'All the hugs, the kisses, the smiles, the tears, the love, the memories; the conversations at midnight, the coffee at sunrise, the pajama parties with pillow fights, the late night movie marathons that left us crying, the board games and puzzles that would take up hours of our day at a time to complete—I get the sense, that I'll look back on all those memories, and while counting and wishing on all the stars, yearn for a time that I may never have again, just like my dad does. And... that scares me, Ryosei.'"
She rolled to face him, her eyes glinting as she placed her pretty head on her small arms, and uttered with the loneliest expression ever expressed, "'I don't fear death, Ryosei. I don't fear the unknown, peoples opinions of me, insults, fights, violence, hatred—none of that is what scares me.
"'The only thing that scares me, is ending up all alone. No one to smile at me, no one to hug me, no one to joke around with—just me, isolated and alone; abandoned, even. The feeling of being surrounded and adored by nobody who knows me in the slightest, and not a single person who likes me for who I am; that, Ryosei, is the worst feeling in the entire world, and I never want to experience it again. I'd rather be hated than loved... at least then I can understand it...'"
Their midnight meeting had ended with her turning back to the moon, closing her eyes and letting herself fall into the silence, and Ryosei turning to leave, unable to bear seeing the one who was always so assured be so empty.
Maybe that's why he didn't like seeing her in that container—it made him feel like he was witnessing the worst tragedy in the world, and he couldn't stop it, no matter how hard he tried.
"Ryosei? Come here, I got the call all ready for you; you okay buddy?"
Ryosei blinked out of his trance, his blue eyes regaining focus again before he turned to Rurielles with a forced, polite smile and replied, "I'm fine, can I take the call now? Oh... where's Cora?"
"Hmm? Oh, Verkoria went to her room down here to sort out her visions—she's a seer, and is one of the reasons why all of us are sought after in the Supernatural Underworld—the future pays a lot of money.
"We have Eika's protection, which is why none of us are bothered by Supernatural folks much, but because she's away, lately people have been kind of antsy so... Oh, the calls right here; she's waiting on the line now—tell me when you're done, I need to talk to her myself afterwards, okay?"
"Yeah, no problem—thank you again, Ms. Rurielles!"
She laughed, her expression relaxed. "Again, it's no problem for me—and just Ruri or Rurielles is fine, remember? Have a nice call!"
Ryosei smiled before turning to a glossy, shining black orb that was floating—presumably the communications device—and nervously saying, "Hey Eika, I need to... Eika? Hello? Are you there?"
[*snort*"H-Huh?! Uh, Ryosei, is that you? Uh, yeah, yeah, I'm here; what do you want?"]
"... Were you just... sleeping?"
["Pfft- sleeping, me, sleeping, yeah right—sleep is for the weak, young Ryosei; now, resting your eyes for a minute or two, that's, that's for the strong and mighty, and therefore exactly what I was doing, as I am great and mighty myself! Now, my young protegee, what is it that you require of me? I understand from Ruri that you have a question...?"]
Ryosei rolled his eyes at her obvious bluff before he replied with a mild migraine in the making from talking to her, "Uh, yeah, okay strong and mighty one. My request? Yeah, if you could impart your 'wisdom' and answer my request, that would be great. My younger sister is coming to the U.S. to live with me because of a recent change in my family situation, so I was wondering if she could stay at your house—"
["Wait, wait, wait, hold it right there—you have a fuxxing younger sister?! WHAT?! Why do I not know this?! Is this why you never show any real attraction to my fabulous self, cause you're actually a siscon—"]
"Because you never asked, the same why I never ask about your family and no, that's not why I don't really show any immense attraction to your 'fabulous' self. Just answer the question, can she stay?"
["... We are going to have a serious heart-to-heart chat about this when we get back, but, yes, she can. Thank you for asking ahead of time instead of just letting her in—I would've probably blown up the entire fuxxing house if I came back to see an unknown girl walking around in a bath towel—"]
"Me and my sister are just siblings and I'm not a fuxxing siscon! You have watched way too much Irregular at Magic High School, my World! I'm handing the... orb... over to Rurielles now, so goodb—"
["SINCE WHEN ARE YOU AND RURI ON FIRST NAME BASIS?! WHAT HAPPENED TO YOUR ANNOYINGLY POLITE SELF—"]
"GOODBYE! Ms. Rurielles, I'm done with her, please excuse any possible attitude problems from her and thank you again for your hospitality, I'll be with Ms. Lorleilorn!"
Ryosei immediately stormed away from the screaming orb with the determination of a battle-hardened war veteran facing impossible odds. Rurielles could only applaud his determination before she turned to the now quiet orb and came right out of the gate with what she wanted to say, not giving Eika any room to retaliate.
"Eika, honey, we need to talk about your little mentoring situation."
["Why???"]
"Cause you're fuxxed."