There was a name they would happily call the woman by.
A devil in a Goddess's disguise.
A vivid image; A woman standing by mutilated corpses; Their heads beheaded, their limbs severed, their gaze remained in that instance of fear and anxiety. No one would close their eyes for them, they simply became another bunch of unknown corpses that lay on the land. Blood drips down from the edge of her blade, the stench of blood surrounding her entire being. The woman did not smile, she did not even offer a sympathetic glance at the corpses. There was nothing reflected in those eyes of hers, cold and distant.
'The Devil is here!' Some would scream out, their life flashing before their very eyes.
"But I think it's exaggerated." The odd one would always refute their claims, believing that others simply said it out of fear.
But who is the one telling the truth?
* * *
"So…"
The black-haired woman started, then stopped as she looked up at her assistant. Amelia
when groaned reading through the file in her hands, another day another problem. The problem was not too hard to deal with, the issue was that it was another one of those 'why are people doing this?' sort of issue that they were used to dealing with. In simpler terms, people doing something moronic for short-term benefits.
"Why the hell is this something I need to deal with?" She asked while waving the file she was holding, annoyance apparent in her tone.
Diane chuckled awkwardly before saying, "The Council asked you to?"
She narrowed her eyes on Diane. "Is it that bitch again?"
Her assistant's silence was all the answer she needed.
She let out another groan, much longer and much more frustrated. She nearly slammed her head onto her wooden table, her head inches away from the cold, hard surface. She wanted to say no, she had the authority to do so, but she could not deny that the problem interested her.
She stood up from her seat and walked over to Diane, handing her the file. "I'm going to come back in a bit. Just leave the paperwork on my table."
"The usual then." Diane added to her words.
She offers her assistant a wave before leaving her personal office, her hair swaying a little as she moved.
Amelia felt miserable, but it was not the hot sun that made her feel that way. There was this familiar smell of rotting corpses that overwhelmed her senses, making her nose smell nothing but that. She stared at the dead bodies in front of her, they were all left in a horrible state. Their limbs were twisted as if their bodies were something malleable, their skin and flesh all squeezed together, the layers of combined flesh and skin were countable to anyone that was willing to do so. Their gazes were frozen in that moment of pain, it was possible to see them regret their choices right up until this point.
If this was all there was, there would not be a need to write a report about the incident. Death is a common occurrence. No matter how disgusting the scene may have looked, it would have just been another day. People died and nothing more. Yet there was more to all of this than first met the eyes.
It was the location they died at.
Sanders' Pier, a well-known spot for gang members and drug lords. Although the corpses could belong to regular civilians, the faint whiff of powder from their bodies were all that she needed to know. But there were more layers to all of this; While nobody would give a damn about the identity of the corpses, it should have been cleaned up at this point. None of them would like to be exposed to the authorities after all. There was bloodied writing on the wall close to the area where they died, it only read 'I'll come find you.' It was definitely a threat, though it was one that she would have taken lightly.
But not this one.
The words were written in a language that was only familiar to an exclusive group, Royal God Language. The letters resembled some ancient human writings, looking more akin to symbols. She knew immediately that whoever left this behind was the same people that killed the bodies on the ground, the blood smelled exactly like theirs. She groaned while scratching her head, unable to find out who left this behind just with these few clues. There were a lot of ways she could just pinpoint who the murderer was, though they all disinterested her at the moment. She wanted to let the murderer's identity be a mystery, until the moment she figured it all out.
But naturally, she would need to at least find something more. She did decide on taking the boring-looking mission after all.
She pulls out her phone from the insides of her black jacket, she quickly pressed on a contact before placing it close to her ear.
"There's something I want from you." She instantly spoke the moment the man picked up the call.
Sensu laughed before responding, "I assume it's information, right?"
She gave a hum of approval and continued, "Are you able to find out who killed four men in Sanders' Pier?"
"Ah… that. Give me a day or two, I'll give you a reply by then."
She nodded before hanging on him without saying goodbye. She stared at her contact list for a moment before walking closer to have a better look at the corpses. This was when she noticed something, there was a very faint aura being emitted from the bodies.
"Now this is fascinating…" She mumbled, a grin adorned her lips.
An acolyte, the term used for those who were a devoted follower of God. They were granted some of God's authority and power, serving right under them. Though a God could simply revoke that title at any time, as long as they wished to.
This narrowed down the area of finding who the murderer might be, as there were not many acolytes that existed in this world. Although… that only brought up more questions than answers.
First of all, was the acolyte related to a gang or was only related to the drug trafficking business? Second of all, which God had the power to bend a human body to such an extent? She wanted to say that it was the God of Space but that eccentric man had no such interests in acolytes. What about Falak then? The self-proclaimed God of Snakes had acolytes but he did not have an ability to do so.
"This is troublesome…" She groaned out loud, still trying to wrap her head around the whole thing.
She would just need to try and figure this all out later. But their bodies were probably worth doing an autopsy, even if it was just to fill her own curiosity. She snapped her fingers, the bodies disappeared into thin air. Her eyes lingered on the bloody writing, she started to have some ideas about who the person might be like.
"This is definitely something bigger than just some mundane killings."
It was definitely not a bright idea to go up to someone and ask if they had an acolyte but she honestly did not care at all.
"Who do you think has an ability like this?" Amelia showed the pictures she took of the corpses once they were sent over to the Medical and Medical Research Division (M.M.R).
Themis, the wavy brunette grabbed her phone, pulling it closer to her face to have a better look. She did not have much of a reaction to the state that the corpses were in, her knitted eyebrows showed her being pensive. She let out a soft 'hmm' while staring very, very closely at the pictures.
"I have a few theories." The Goddess of Justice turned her head over to the pile of file folders laying around the ground.
There was a separate space in the office just for Themis since she needed a quiet space in order to focus. The room was lit up by warm yellow lights, though the atmosphere was not at all inviting. It's definitely going to terrify those who were claustrophobic and clean freaks due to the way the file folders were piled up all over the room. There was just enough space for her long oak wooden desk and chair, Amelia was sitting on one of the piles as a makeshift chair.
"Where is it…" Themis kept repeating those same words as she looked through the piles. Amelia had all the time in the world to wait since Sensu was not going to give her information that fast anyways.
Themis pulled out one of the file folders, making the others tumble to the ground. Amelia swore that the noise echoed throughout the room multiple times, it was near deafening to her ears yet her face remained as stoic as ever. Themis opened it up and looked through the papers, then she showed a particular page to Amelia. While she was unsure what the case was about, she could at least see that the state the corpses were in were the exact same as the ones she saw earlier.
"What's the motive behind this particular incident?" It was the first thing that crossed her mind.
Themis lifted back the file towards her face, she pushed her glasses up before telling Amelia, "According to what's recorded here, it's for revenge."
"Then how are those people related back to the person?"
"Erm… give me a second." Themis replied while flipping through the pages again. "Through investigation, those people were close friends of the murder's family."
"Show me the murderer's profile then."
Themis flipped over to the profile page and turned it around, showing her a picture of a young woman with long bleached blonde hair. The woman's eyes were—to put it in a direct way—soulless. Those eyes belonged to a person that only had a single goal in mind and had sold everything they had for that sole goal. Though what caught her attention was one of the pictures attached to the profile page, it was a picture of a faded symbol on the woman's back shoulder blades. The symbol was a black box floating above someone's hand, the tip of the fingers nearly touching the block. Amelia's eyes widened when she saw that, immediately knowing who it belonged to.
The God of Space, Ouranos
"But this isn't what a normal acolyte mark looks like." She mumbled to Themis.
"It's faded. So it's probably an ex-acolyte."
Amelia scratched her head in frustration. "Then she wouldn't still have access to any of his authorities, or even the mark for hell's sake. The mark should have faded soon after he revoked her status as one."
They both shared a glance with each other, the questions only growing more and more in her mind. But no one dared to ask any questions, as if there was an unspoken rule between the two of them that nobody said a single word about it. But the matter was still up in her own hands considering who she was.
"This really is some troublesome shit."