"Ishtar, stop your melodrama." Bell spoke from Ishtar's back, his voice carrying no fluctuations.
The goddess wiped her red and swollen face with Bell still on her back, nearly losing her balance and kissing the floor.
Her lifted hand came back down frantically, steadying herself before she could tumble—and more importantly, before she could displease the white-haired menace using her as a seat.
"I have another task for you, and this time... if you underperform, the consequences will be far more severe than getting slapped by Haruhime's tail. Do you understand?" He spoke while dragging a single finger along her spine.
Ishtar felt her breath hitch, her back prickling with goosebumps.
"Tell me, sir—what do you require of this lowly Ishtar?" The words were forced through her teeth, her voice catching for a moment.
"I want you to set up a meeting between me and Evilus. Surely even you can manage that." His tone was uncaring—whether toward Ishtar's reactions or Evilus alike, impossible to tell.
"It will be done promptly, and without the tardiness from before." Ishtar's jaw was clenched. Bell noticed. Haruhime noticed. Neither pointed it out.
"Then, Haruhime. Let's go." Bell kept the file containing information on Hermes Familia members in hand and rose from Ishtar's back.
He walked out of the hall with Haruhime in tow.
Ishtar was left alone, gazing at the floor with an unsightly expression.
"I'll kill you both, sooner or later. You lowly mortals." Her voice carried a twisted hatred.
A blood-red eye opened for a moment from within the shadow behind her, regarding her with an unnaturally indifferent gaze.
It closed after a moment.
...
..
.
Bell and Haruhime walked away from the red light district, this time heading toward a different area of Orario.
They soon reached a cozy-looking home a considerable distance from the Tower of Babel. Its lights were still on, illuminating its interior and the surrounding night.
Bell stopped in darkness, just before the area bathed in that home's light.
The distance between him and that house was negligible, yet the contrast between them was unsettling.
He stood in darkness; that home illuminated the night.
His fingers curled once inside his pocket, then relaxed.
He looked ahead, a hint of nostalgia flashing beneath his indifference. It had been a little over a week, but to him, it felt like a lifetime.
He could reach it right now, but one final piece of unfinished business stopped him dead in his tracks.
Haruhime looked at his frozen figure, her ears twitching in confusion.
When his voice came, it was unfeeling—the same as always. Or was it?
"Go. Tell the goddesses inside that a white-haired person sent you to them."
Haruhime's tail stood on end as she comprehended his words. She frantically shook her head.
"I'll go where mister go—"
"Go."
Haruhime felt a sting of betrayal at his insistence, struggle flashing through her eyes. She didn't move from her spot.
"Do you want me to leave you here?"
Haruhime's eyes watered at the question. She looked at him pleadingly, like an abandoned child.
Bell's gaze didn't waver for a moment.
Haruhime still didn't move.
Bell didn't speak. He was just gone. No sound. No wind. One moment he was there, and the next he vanished like a mirage.
The Renard was left there... alone.
Her tail and ears drooped.
Time passed.
After waiting for some time in the dark, she finally took a shaky step toward the house. Another shaky step, and she crossed from the darkened area into light.
If only she had looked back at that moment...
She would have seen Bell, his back against a wall, arms crossed over his chest. Watching her back as she took her first steps toward something... on her own.
His abyssal eyes remained as empty as always, even as light enveloped Haruhime—while he himself remained drowned in darkness.
After watching her reach the gates of his home... he turned and walked away, only his whisper left behind.
"You're growing up... Little Fox."
...
..
.
A thin man—Tanor—walked through the streets of Orario with his buddies.
"I'll be back in a moment, bros. Need to empty my bladder, you know how it is after all those drinks." Tanor spoke and split from them, heading for a nearby restaurant to use the washroom.
He took a shortcut through an abandoned, dark street.
And never came out.
...
"So, then... will you spit out everything I want to know, or do we do it my preferred way?" Bell asked while brushing his teeth with a brush formed entirely of flame, his reflection staring back at him from a cracked wall mirror.
Clunk.
Tanor hung behind him, suspended from the ceiling, ropes binding his legs to the top.
His left arm was bent at an angle no arm should. His right hung by threads of tendon. Blood dripped from his fingertips in a steady rhythm—drip, drip, drip—forming a dark halo on the floor beneath him.
"Oh. I nearly forgot I'd broken your jaw earlier." He turned casually, flame-brush still in his mouth, and brought a hand up to Tanor's face.
Vitality flooded the man's jaw, mending it back whole.
Tears were streaming down Tanor's face as he looked up at Bell's hood with a terrified, venomous expression.
"I-I'll tell you everything about Hermes Familia. J-Just spare m-me. I-I have a t-two-year-old daughter at home." Tanor spoke through the pain with difficulty.
"Hm? You have a two-year-old daughter? Tell me your little sunshine's name." Bell's spoke.
"I-Ishara."
"Her favorite food?"
"Homemade c-curry."
"Favorite color?"
"Violet."
"Her most cherished memory?" Bell's brush paused for half a second against his teeth.
"G-Going on a picnic with me and her mother... watching the birds fly."
"Biggest fear?"
"S-Spiders and cockroaches."
"Now... tell me all of that... In reverse." His voice dropped to a whisper.
"Huh? Uh—" Tanor's mouth opened wordlessly for some time.
He was lying.
"...Very well then." A black abyss had materialized beneath Bell at some point.
Asura Soul Reaping. Abyss Submersion.
"Come... have a real chat with me."
The ropes tying Tanor ignited in an instant, and he fell—straight into the abyss.
"AHHHHHHHH!"
No one could hear his screams.
...
..
.
Hermes Familia Secret Base.
Flames raged across the building. Countless dead bodies of Hermes Familia members were splayed across the area like a macabre display of ruthless execution.
Bell sat on a throne condensed entirely of flame, one leg crossed over the other, at the very center of the devastation. His knuckles rested against his cheek with a bored expression, even as everything around him burned.
A dying woman, crumpled at the base of his throne, looked up at his hood with her last breath.
"... Why?"
Bell's black eyes didn't even twitch.
"Don't blame me. You only have yourself—and your god, Hermes—to blame."
Light left the woman's eyes, her face frozen in disbelief.
Bell rose from the throne as it dissolved behind him and stepped over the corpse beneath him casually.
He stopped suddenly mid motion. His gaze dropped.
His left hand became engulfed in a blade of flame as he carved words into the very floor.
It is war, Hermes.
Bell started walking away after that... yet he stopped once again for a second. His hand flashed, new words being carved beneath the old.
It is war, Hermes.
- Evilus.
He didn't stop this time, walking away without pause, leaving the destroyed Hermes Familia behind.
Hermes would know who did it.
Ouranos would know who did it.
Yet... they would have to land the blame squarely on Evilus' head.
After all, Bell Cranel was merely a missing adventurer who'd had enough guts to stand against the King at a banquet. Nothing more.
He was a registered Level 1.
How could a weakling like him destroy the Hermes Familia?
Right?
...
..
.
***
[300 Power Stones = 1 Bonus Chapter]
[8 chapters ahead on P@tr3on = [email protected]/Not_Aaryan]
...
[Authors Thoughts]
Hermes - "Don't blame me, Bell Cranel. You only have yourself—and your monstrous nature—to blame."
Enjoy my friends.
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