Bright gives him a puzzled look, then glances between her chest and his oddly embarrassed expression. After a minute, realization dawns on her face, and she smirks at him.
"That's adorable...all those jokes earlier, but even the thought of touching my skin makes you turn red as an apple."
She chuckles as she grabs the collar of her black undershirt and pulls it down, exposing her collarbone and the top of her chest. Her Mark stands out, dark black on her porcelain skin...just above her right breast. Spotting the Mark, Rain reaches towards it slowly, trying to limit his focus to nothing but the black design. Under no circumstances can he think about anything that's going to set Unhinged loose and get him killed.
'Don't look, don't look, don't look...it's just a normal, flat surface, nothing special about it.'
Rain's hand covers the Mark, and he feels a subtle warmth seeping into his hand from her skin. He also feels something much softer pressing against the bottom of his palm, and his hand tenses instinctively.
'Ah! That's...that's just her shirt. Yup. Just her shirt.'
He quickly becomes aware of a trembling under his hand, and realizes that its source is Bright desperately trying to suppress the urge to laugh at him. Her free hand is covering her mouth, and she's nearly red in the face from the strain. Rain scowls and grits his teeth, feeling his face turn red.
Fighting off his embarrassment, he quickly returns his attention to visualizing the Ego's Brace, and sending it to Bright. After a moment of delay due to...distracting thoughts...he finally feels a surge of heat around his Mark. It travels down his arm and out his palm, and he feels a faint heat around Bright's Mark. Breathing a sigh of relief, he quickly takes his hand away from her chest.
Dismissing his tunnel vision, and finally looking at her face again, Rain gets a front row seat right as Bright's hands fly away from her mouth and shirt. She lets out raucous laughter so intense that he wonders if she's going to tear up.
"HAHAHAHAHAHA! Oh my gods! Oh my gods, Rain...your face! Oh, you should have seen your face! You looked like you were about to pop a blood vessel from averting your gaze! HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!"
Rain feels a fresh wave of indignation as she continues laughing, nearly doubled over at this point. He leans forward angrily.
"Hey, this is not funny! Have you forgotten about my Quirk already!? I just managed to get our working relationship where I want it, and I didn't want to jeopardize it by accidentally groping you! Do you have any idea how hard I was working to make sure my Quirk didn't activate while my hand was there!? The least you could have done is keep your laughing under control while I was trying to stay focused!"
Bright's eyes widen in surprise, her laughter quickly subsiding, and she stares at him with a strange expression for several seconds.
"Wait...that's what that whole meltdown of yours just now was about? You're worried about losing my help with runic descriptions and Asphodel history?"
Rain blinks several times, the implication of what he just admitted setting in.
'Oh shit...I basically just said that I'm worried about not being able to use her for her expertise anymore...'
He smiles nervously, making a placating gesture, and tries to keep his tone nonchalant.
"Well, yeah, but it's not like that's the only thing I care about, of course. You know, you're pleasant enough company and very easy on the eyes and...uhm...you seem like a very capable fighter from that short demonstration I had. I di-"
Bright listens to him ramble, wearing a complex smile that seems borne of surprise, incredulousness, and amusement, all rolled into one. After hearing his comment about her combat skills, she chuckles and cuts him off.
"Rain...are you under the impression that I'm mad about you primarily valuing me as an academic?"
He blinks in confusion.
"Uhm...you weren't offended?"
She gives him a lighthearted, genuine smile as she chuckles, then shakes her head.
"No, not at all. You can relax."
Rain visibly breathes a sigh of relief, then smiles at her nervously.
"Great, great...uhm...why don't you go investigate that Relic then, before I say something else stupid."
After a brief smile at his comment, Bright nods and closes her eyes without another word. To Rain, it seems she only closes them for a few seconds before they snap wide open again, as though in alarm. She leans forward excitedly, grabbing him by the hands. Her silver hair cascading down into her face, partially obscuring her unnaturally crazed, grey eyes.
"Rain! This...this Relic of yours has full immunity to Falling!? That...that means someone wearing it could explore Nether! This is huge!"
Her face seems to freeze for a moment, as if she's remembering something, then she directs a puzzled look at him.
"Oh, and do you have any more runic descriptions that mention that being called Chaos? I'm not familiar with it from any existing research findings. How curious..."
Her voice briefly trails off again, as she presumably racks her brain trying to remember if she's read anything about a being named Chaos before. However, her entire body suddenly goes stiff, her face turning pale, and she slowly looks at him with an incredulous expression.
"Rain...wait...that Relic is of Demigod Prestige. You said that you won it in your Trial...what exactly did you mean by that?"
Rain watches the beautiful Demigod's face go through those various emotions in quick succession, bewildered by the sudden intensity of questions. Eventually, he calmly pries her hands from his and gives her a polite, measured smile.
"Okay, Bright. That's three questions, so...uhm...I guess I'll just answer your most recent one. What I meant when I said that, is that I got it from slaying a Fel. Specifically, a Curse."
Bright's face is frozen in stunned silence for several moments as she seems to digest the answer from Rain. As she does, her face slowly twists in disbelief, and her eyes begin to study him frantically. Eventually, her expression calms slightly, and she asks him one question in a serious tone, her eyes cold and focused.
"How is that possible...how did you kill a Curse before you were even a Champion? Those could even kill me if I'm not careful."
Remembering the fight, his own expression turns eerily dark, and his voice becomes low.
"Simple. I suffered through it breaking my legs, chest, and back, gutting me until my entrails spilled out, and shattering all the bones on the right side of my body as it pinned me against the wall. Then, when both of its arms were finally occupied with torturing me, I summoned a powerful weapon Relic with my last functioning limb and delivered a lethal blow before it could stop me. In exchange for killing the Curse, my Relic healed me from the brink of death."
Bright's eyes widen involuntarily at his description of the fight, horror slowly invading them as she studies his expression.
"You're...serious...aren't you? You really went through all of that?"
Rain's expression remains unchanged as he holds the horrified Demigod's gaze, unaware as his normally shimmering, silver eyes darken like an abyss, and a small smile tugs at the corner of his mouth.
"Of course. But it was all worth it to watch that smug bastard die. I'll remember it for the rest of my life."
Bright involuntarily leans away from Rain a little bit, her Ichor once again stirring as though something unfathomably dangerous has appeared close by. However, before she can react further, the feeling is gone. Meanwhile, Rain's eyes return to their mirror-like, shimmering default, and an eerily cheery smile spreads across his face.
"But anyway, that's that! I'm guessing you have more questions though, huh? Ask away...it feels good to come clean to someone, surprisingly."
She stares at him for several seconds, an expression on her face that's mixed with confusion, wariness, and concern. Eventually, she seems to relax some, and looks at Rain seriously.
"Okay...you refused to talk about this earlier, and I kind of had my suspicions then, too, but now I'm sure. Your Lineage...it's Death, isn't it?"
Bright watches him with a somber expression as she poses the question. To her surprise, however, Rain just smirks and chuckles for a while before responding.
"Nope! I'm glad to know that subtle little misdirect worked, though, even if it's unnecessary now."
She stares at him in open confusion for several moments, then her eyes turn incredulous.
"Wait...you're saying that you wanted me to think it was Death, but it really isn't? Why in the world would you do something like that?"
As she stares at him, bewildered, he sighs deeply before returning a serious expression.
"Because, I knew a Death Lineage would be easy for you to believe, and at the time I thought it was a much less problematic conclusion for you to reach than the truth of my Lineage."
She narrows her eyes skeptically, her voice becoming uncertain.
"And your true Lineage is...what?"
Rain smiles mischievously.
"Chaos..."
Bright blinks in confusion, fixing him with a blank stare for several seconds.
"Chaos? You mean that being from your Relic's description? But I've never heard of him..."
Rain nods with a small, amused smile forming on his lips.
"Yeah, that makes sense, because Chaos is another primordial, like Creation and Destruction."
Her eyes snap open in shock, and her mouth moves to form words for a response, but she stops short of speaking each time, as though she can't quite decide what she wants to say. Her eyes dart back and forth, her expression constantly some mixture of bewildered and confused.
"You're...you have a primordial...as your Lineage?"
Rain just nods with a calm, slightly amused expression. She takes his nod as affirmation, and her face goes blank for several seconds. Suddenly, though, her expression becomes...mischievous.
Her wolfish smile makes a reappearance, and her storm grey eyes gleam with excitement. She leans over in front of Rain, her voice once again becoming sweet and melodic as she studies his face.
"Hey Rain..."
Rain, fully recognizing this side of her for the trap that it is, watches her nervously as he responds in a hesitant tone.
"Yes...?"
She chuckles, her smile becoming slightly provocative.
"What would you say to touching my chest again?"