"You're a bastard for making me do this Prett." I grimaced at the memory of leaving Charlotte high and—well definitely not dry but you get the point. Being backed up for a week straight meant that even just wearing slightly tighter shorts would cause me to pop a boner. The girls in class seemed to like it as they would watch it press against the inside of one of my pants sleeves like a third leg. The boys pretended that it didn't exist and I sent prayers of thanks to them for that.
"Come now~Garridan-kun, it wasn't like I didn't give you an alternative, and please call me Pretty." I groaned at that name, why would a mangaka do this to their audience? Did anyone actually like this bastard or was he just a joke character put in for comedic relief?
"I refuse to wear a chastity cage!" I shut up his weird fetish talk before my skin started crawling. But by the way goosebumps had already formed on the back of my neck I had failed in preventing my disgust from being made manifest. A shudder tore through my body and I took several steps away from him.
"Your loss~!" His cheery voice betrayed the look of sadistic glee in his eyes. Why did I ever think working with him would be a good idea?
"Okay enough of that talk, let's get this done! I've got a smoking hot babe back at the house and she's itching for me to get home so let's hurry this up!" I sat down on the beautiful red leather couch in the middle of his study.
The room was straight out of a posh Victorian mansion, the walls lined with row upon row of book shelves like a library. A sliding wooden ladder rested in the corner on its track, my eyes catching the beautifully ornate crown molding running across the room. The sight of this place alone made me feel immensely poor despite having a pretty decent income myself.
"O~kay Garridan-kun, you know the drill, focus on what your truest desire is. Peel back the layers of masks you have constructed for others and yourself. Ask yourself who is the true Garridan?" I nodded my head, my eyes closing as I drowned out every distraction. My breathing grew calm, a rhythmic cycle forming with each exhale just like the clown taught. At first, I wondered if the specks of light in the corner of my vision were just hallucinations created due to hyperventilating with Prett's stupid breathing method.
Focusing back on the task at hand I thought about my masks and the first one I had to remove was the persona I've taken over since coming to this world. Even though I tried playing as a super confident, suave, and awesome badass in truth I was none of those things. Like a young man hammering back shots at the bar the persona of Garridan Wraith acted like liquid courage for me. I had easily accepted the name change because Logan Davis was a nobody, and if I could be a somebody it would come through the face of someone different.
***
*Crack*
Underneath that is the nerdy fat blob stuck working a nine to five or whenever Brian deigned to call him, fucking prick. Logan Davis graduated high school, and other than that his accomplishments were few and far between. He read manga and watched the latest anime, but he had no one to discuss it with. Any dream he had was snapped under the cold hard reality of life, and that is where the next mask lay.
*Crack*
The dreams that Logan Davis made for himself always followed the same formula. One day he'd finally get recognized for x talent, x being the stand-in for any hobby that caught his interest with his short attention span. After being recognized then would come the fame, wealth, and women he always knew he deserved throwing themselves at him. This was the easy model for any dream of Logan, they were nothing more than phony excuses for his narcissistic assertion that he was somehow special.
*Crack*
Beyond dreams were his desires, raw animalistic things born from humanity's prehistoric DNA. Like all creatures Logan Davis desired to reproduce, in fact, it could be said that due to his failure to do it in his last life, he was someone constantly afraid of being unable to successfully copulate.
Every action he took in this world had been guided by this desire, the moral weight of killing someone for the chance to reproduce was light as a feather to him. Consent? A non-existent principle, something made by people who haven't experienced the fate of being unable to bring life into this world. He would take any female he could find and would use any method whether that be legal or illegal to mate with her. It was his expression of the endless well of energy flowing through him, an emanation of his soul made manifest through steamy desire.
*Crack*
Beyond the desire to reproduce is the selfish belief that one's own self is superior enough to constitute the need for his lineage to continue. Logan ascribed to this wholeheartedly, the doctrine dominating his life was the belief that he was superior to his fellow man. Everyone else smiled and kept their masks firmly in place, but for Logan, he picked at it like a scab. 'This isn't me' he'd mutter in the break room as he scarfed down his lunch. How could someone as great as himself be subjected to work a job as a cashier?
The humiliation engendered a deep sense of resentment in him toward his supposed betters. Many nights he'd sit at his computer, the blue glow of the screen illuminating his face in the dark room, and think of ways he'd kill his boss, Brian. Of course, he'd never do it, but the reason wasn't because he was some moral or outstanding member of the community. No, he couldn't do it because he lacked power and the thought of going to jail for killing something he saw as less than human put a bad taste in his mouth.
What if Logan had power though? What if a God, a divine being, or an otherworldly entity placed him in a world where he could truly be himself? The feeling was liberating to realize that as long as he can consciously think of it he can will it into existence. That is Logan boiled down to his truest essence, a tyrant hell-bent on proving to the world his superiority.
*Crack*
***
"You're back!" I broke out of the haze, my stream of consciousness returning to normal only to find myself in an all-white room. An inky black silhouette in the center raised its hands in the air in congratulation, an eerie white smile growing on its face. At that moment a piercing headache spread across my skull, a slideshow of foreign memories being injected directly into my brain.
"Oh you've got to be kidding me!" I groaned in both pain and frustration at the monster standing before me. The flood of memories of my time spent with this freaky philosophy-spouting bullshitter made me wish I hadn't agreed to meditate. Another emotion grew in the back of my mind, fear. I refused to think of the matter in his presence though to prevent him from reading my mind. The feeling of being a kid getting caught with his hand in the cookie jar would be the best way to describe it.
"Come on buddy it isn't that bad, I'm just here to catch up with you. You seem to be liking your new world so far right?" The white hollow orbs where its eyes should be curved into crescents of amusement. The thing's voice sounded like a combination between my old body's nasally whiny voice and Garridan's husky deep voice. It really made for an annoying combo.
"Yeah, it's been fun." Keep it vague, don't let him know about—
"You don't have to hide the fact that you are becoming a Sin-eater, I already know." I froze, the creature's grin growing wide at my paling face. The palms of my hands grew sweaty, my vision growing dim in the corners as my breathing quickened.
"A-aren't you supposed to k-kill me for that?" I stuttered as I asked the being. The last time we had met I had no ability to detect geist so I was blissfully unaware of the absolute bottomless well of power that stood before me. It seemed like every particle of energy converged on him as the creature's void-like body absorbed the geist.
"Oh, you think I'm the one that put it in the human's heads that they can't harness sin? No, the only unpardonable sin is to side with my brother." I gulped at his last word as all the geist in the atmosphere shuddered, reality straining under the immense pressure the creature displayed. W-we can't can we…there's no way?
"T-Then who put it in their head?" I asked, steering it away from any dangerous topic is a must. The creature seemed to humor me, his eyes narrowing like the cat that ate the Canary. If he already knew then we were fucked, my hands shaking as I hid them behind my back. Is this what Adam and Eve felt like hiding from God in the Garden of Eden?
"Before the establishment of the Exoricst Corp people who fought phantoms were few and far between. This led to the rise of calamity class phantoms, you know them as Tier-4's. The two most famous of these are the Leviathan and Behemoth, their ability to destroy and reshape entire continents forced humanity to come up with a solution to prevent the birth of any more of these cataclysmic threats. The answer was to have someone take the sin for themselves, building up power to defeat more and more dangerous calamities. And at the end of their life, they would be killed to purge this sin from humanity, that is the original purpose of Sin-eaters. That was until Faust arrived." He spit out that name with the same level of venom he reserved for his brother, the White void rumbling at his brewing anger.
"…He wanted the power for himself didn't he?" I asked, and the void nodded. The original manga made him into a super-boss, someone disconnected and unrelated to the main antagonist but a threat just as menacing nonetheless. He acted as the first antagonist to Ueda Daichi post-Shinjuku massacre and helped lead into the final boss plotline.
"Yes, that bastard created a special seal on his body, and every time his newly established Exorcist Corp would kill a phantom all of that sin would transfer to him through the seal. The first people to learn of their leader's treachery took it upon themselves to prevent him from ascending to the moon with my brother. After his defeat the use of ectoplasm was banned becoming a crime punishable by death." So we've got an eye-of-the-moon type plotline to unravel, great. The original plotline just made it seem like he wanted the ectoplasm just for the power boost, but if what he really wants is to become a god then his threat level is much higher.
"That's good to know I guess, but do you have any idea what my [Sin Node] will be? Prett is convinced that it's lust but I'm not sure." I might as well ask the creature considering I'm here. Having nothing to talk about would make this an awkward experience because I'm unsure of how I'll be leaving here, and just us standing there and staring at each other wouldn't be fun.
"Oh, that's easy, it's vainglory." I paused at his quick answer, am I really that vain? "Yes, the first time we met you told me that you could do better than my own creation. Your deluded belief in your own capabilities is far and away the most dominant sin in your body, and as for lust that's just a product of your arrogance in believing every woman you see belongs to you."
"Uh, yeah that sounds about right." I rubbed the back of my neck, I felt like a school kid getting chastised by their principal. Now that I look back on it I basically told the God of this world that he could shove it and that I would single-handedly take on the main villain without assistance from him.
"I do find it funny how you're doing this though. Didn't you say Ueda Daichi was a shitty character because he had all the bloodlines?" The entity snickered, his laughter reverberating throughout the all-white room. It was a grating annoyance, like a sitcom laugh track distorted to hell and back.
"Unlike your protagonist who had his powers thrust on him via his lineage I actually have to train to gain anything. Plus it isn't my fault that you wrote such a shitty story with easily abusable rules. It would be almost a disservice to not take advantage of your generosity in that regard." I grinned back at the bastard, his face not changing from his own smug grin. We both hated each other because to him I was an ant saying I was better than God, and to me, all I saw was a waste of universal-level power. Our thoughts did align though in one matter however, we both wished for the other's death.
"I hope you know that you aren't the first to try and kill me and you and that clown certainly won't be the last." My fingernails dug into my palm as I fought desperately to keep my consciousness, the feeling of being pulled back to earth was like an all-consuming black hole.
"I know, but this is the first time someone wanted to kill you and knew actually how to do it." It was another boast, but if I could get my hands on the right materials it would be possible.
His current form lacks any physical properties so damaging him would be impossible, and unless we wiped out all life in existence the geist constituting his soul would remain. The only real way to kill him would be to trap him in a physical vessel, his soul trapped inside the mortal world could then be killed. We both knew that and now it would be a cat-and-mouse game to try and kill each other before the clock runs out.
He's limited in what he can do to his inability to physically manifest or take direct action so I should expect for him to screw with fate and bring more and more threats toward me in the hope of killing me. It will be a proxy-war of every bastard from the story against me, my only allies being the girls and that stupid clown. My consciousness faded as I returned to the normal world with those thoughts.
***
"…You didn't tell me I'd see that thing." I groaned out as my consciousness finally returned to my body. My throat felt like it was on fire, and my tongue felt like it weighed 100lbs. The ache in my jaw and cotton mouth dryness behind my lips told me something had happened.
"If I told you would you have went through with it?" The clown asked back with none of the playful tone he usually held. I could only shake my head at his words, my throat felt like it was filled with shards of broken glass.
"He…knows…" I scratched out those words, my hand instinctually reaching for a glass of water that wasn't there on the side table next to the couch. Prett nodded, his plum-colored eyes gleaming in recognition tol me he knew who I was talking about.
*Knock, Knock*
"Master, I brought the tea you requested." The person knocking at the door prevented the clown from speaking, one of his gloved hands making a zipping motion over his mouth.
"You~may enter Kengo-chan~!" His speech returned to normal and with it his signature grin was plastered on his face. It felt strange to get to know the real person and then see them revert to a mask you know is fake.
"Yes, master." The ornate door leading to the study opened as a woman wearing a maid dress pushed it with her backside. She was wearing a black Victorian maid uniform. The long black skirt went down around her ankles, and the sleeves of her arms covered everything but her hands. Poofy alabaster frills framed the edge of the skirt and sleeves of the dress, a white apron covered her bulging chest and went down to about mid-shin.
On her head was a frilly white headband that contrasted beautifully with her short ebony hair cut in a bob. A thick shock of hair framed both sides of her face. Her bangs were cut straight right above her eyebrows and parted in the center with a little gap. Teal-colored eyes glanced at me as she walked toward the clown, an indiscernible gleam in her eyes. In her hands was a tea tray and two cups of the steaming liquid, her perfect gait allowing her to not even jostle the tea. She looked elegant, and as she walked past my eyes trailed toward her plump ass. Damn, I need to get me a maid.
"Hmm~it's delicious as always~!" The clown sipped from the piping hot tea and moaned, his pink tongue darting out over his purple-painted lips made me feel really uncomfortable. It was really a testament to the maid's ability that she kept a neutral expression throughout his outlandish display, her only motion was to curtsy. The tray floating in the air for a brief second as she did so told me she wasn't just a normal maid and had some training in using geist.
After giving proper respect to her master the maid turned toward me. Her voluptuous body cast a shadow from the rays of evening sun glimmering through the massive pane glass window. A deep frown marred her pouty pink lips, and as she handed me my tea I felt a piece of paper being slipped into my palm. My eyes gave her a questioning look to which she simply shook her head before curtsying. Her teal eyes looked determined, and for a short moment I wondered if the tea had been poisoned. Though the sore feeling of my throat made me take my chances as I brought the cup closer to my lips.
"Thank you, Kengo-san." I muttered through my scratchy throat, my lips pressing against the cup as I tasted the rich flavor of chamomile tea. The soothing feeling it had on my throat was almost immediate, my eyes flicking towards her and giving her a nod of appreciation. The woman gave a silent huff before turning her attention back on her master.
"Will that be all for now Master?" She asked as she sat the teapot on the coffee table sitting in the center of the room, her hands now holding the tray she carried it on against her stomach.
"Yes~me and Mr. Wraith are just about to finish up our discussion so if you would please wait outside so you can escort him back when we're done I would greatly appreciate it." Prett smiled at her, his words causing the woman to give a stiff nod in response. Her teal eyes glanced over at me before narrowing, her hand pressing against the door as it creaked open.
"Yes, master." With those parting words she left, the man's smile dropping immediately after the door closed behind her. His eyes trained on me as I drained the last of the tea from my cup, a satisfied sigh leaking from my lips.
"What did you get?"
"Vainglory, what's yours?"
"Ohohoho, interesting~! And to answer your question mine is sloth."
"So what kind of power will I have?"
"Hmm, if I were to guess due to your nature as a dark aether user your ectoplasm would help enhance your illusions. If trained properly you might even be able to achieve illusions capable of inflicting damage on someone." My eyes widened as I looked back at the clown. That would be a massive boost in power if true, my mind racing as I thought of all of the potential ways I'd be able to use it.
"Let's test it—!"
"Not here, and not today." His words broke me out of my excitement as a sheepish grin grew on my face. I almost revealed I was a Sin-eater with a geist user just outside the door. Damn, that could've gone bad.