Mere days before the deadline for one of many university projects I have to turn in, and I'm wasting time on another chapter for this fic. Oh well.
And this is where things get a little... Whammy, for a lack of better wording. A bit more serious, if you will.
"So, you still haven't told me a few things."
A few days have passed. Akko was visiting the derelict quite regularly, in hopes of meeting up with Sucy every now and again. Sure enough, the brunette never came empty-handed, always bringing some food for her odd companion – if anything, her presumptions about the sheer blandness of these rations that Sucy stumbled upon beforehand were all too true. So Akko knew that she was doing her friend quite a favor. Especially whenever she brought along the half-demoness' favorite mushroom-stuffed buns.
Lo and behold, right now the violette was busy munching down on another one of these, and paused for a moment after she heard the asian girl's question. Swallowing what little she bit off of the simple yet tasty snack she had, the half-demoness asked: "What is it?"
"Well, I don't know where you came from, which of your parents was the demon, and-"
"Don't you think you're prying a bit too much, Akko?"
Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, Diana had insisted to tag along with Akko. Considering the brunette couldn't handle a gun and was lacking in terms of holy magic skill, it was no wonder that someone else would have to follow her to the abandoned village, as to make sure she doesn't get attacked on the way there.
"Right, maybe I really am prying a bit too far…" – Akko remarked, looking down a bit.
"Nah, it's alright. If anything, there is a lot I wanted to talk about. Just… Not with a third wheel present." – Sucy looked over at Diana as she said that, furrowing her brows slightly to emphasize the point. The blonde sighed and remarked: "Fine, I suppose I'll stay out of this."
"So…" – As Akko noticed her partner leave to look around the derelict some more, she asked: "I guess the first appropriate question would be, where you even came from? Like, were you born in the Abyss or-"
"Not quite. My mother was… Well… She was summoned into the human world, to better put it."
An odd silence persisted throughout the derelict after Sucy said that. The wind was awfully quiet lately, so once again did the whole derelict go as silent as if no one was present.
"Summoned? As in, through some sort of demon summoning ritual or-"
"Exactly. Some down-on-his luck fellow got his hands on the reagents needed to summon a succubus-type demon, and his ritual was surprisingly successful. Although…" – Sucy paused for a moment and sighed, before continuing: "It wasn't so much "summon" as "rip her right out of the Abyssal plane against her will", to be exact."
"Whoa… That sounds awful enough already. What would he summon her for anyway?" – Akko asked, taking a quick sip from her cup of tea.
"The same thing that all succubi are usually summoned for, obviously. " – The half-demoness then reached back over for her mushroom-stuffed bun, leaving Akko to process what she just said. And after a few moments, she got the intended reaction, with the brunette yelling "Eww!" as she realized what the other girl was implying.
"And, well, I was an unlucky little accident, if you could say so." – As the violette finished her snack off and downed it with some now cooled tea, she elaborated: "I could go on for days how I was an unwanted child conceived entirely by accident, how badly my father mistreated both me and my mother, and how he eventually got what's coming to him, but I'm not feeling like telling some sort of cheesy sob story right now."
"Wow. You've probably had quite a difficult life, didn't you?" – Akko asked, looking rather dejected by what Sucy said – even if she only mentioned her plight entirely off-handedly.
"I've gotten used to my life being complete and utter crap, to be honest. No need to pity me. Besides, I already mentioned that my father's got what was coming for him. Not going to miss him, that is for sure." – The horned girl stood up from the ground and, after brushing the snow off her backside, remarked: "Well, it was nice to talk to you for a bit. I guess I stuck around for long enough, but I'm afraid I'm going to have to leave this place quite soon."
Wait… Leave?
Hearing that immediately made Akko freeze, and not just from the cold weather.
They only recently became close friends, and Sucy already wants to leave?!
"What?! Why?" – The brunette asked, completely dejected.
"Well, that's just how I go by with my life. Travel over to some derelict, salvage what I can, stick around for a while if possible, and move on elsewhere. " – Sucy remarked, her tone of voice suggesting that it was outright casual to her.
"B-but… Are you at least going to be close by? Surely there must be another place that's close to Blytonbury and-" – Akko was interrupted by Sucy shaking her head in disagreement, and drooped down with a disappointed "Aww…".
"I can't even show up anywhere too close to an angel-protected settlement. They'll just obliterate me on sight, and I kinda still want to live – I hate my life, sure, but not by that much. And even if I were to settle in an unprotected settlement, well… Either they're going to drive me right out, or I'll get a bunch of demons on my tail all over again, it never ended up differently. And if the latter's going to be easy – after all, it's not like a small human settlement is something to weep over – the former is going to be a bit too much of a thorn in my side, as some humans are a bit too persistent for their own good, and are probably going to chase you to Abyss and back. So yeah, I guess I'll just have to go scavenging towards another derelict that may be even further away from the city than this place. "
Akko's eyes immediately got teary as Sucy explained the reasons for her departure. She immediately rushed over at the violette and tightly hugged her, outright crying as she shouted: "Please, don't go, Sucy!"
"What's going on?" – Diana asked as she approached the duo, having decided to check up on them. She then noticed the outright bawling brunette crying on Sucy's shoulder and added: "And why is Akko crying?"
"She's just upset I'm going to leave and not show up around here for quite a while." – As the demoness said that, Akko's bawling intensified.
It just wasn't fair! The brunette recently made a new friend, seemed to have gotten along with them quite well, and now they have to part to never meet again?
"Akko, calm down… It's not like she's going to depart right now, right?" – Diana remarked, placing her hand on the crying girl's shoulder and trying to comfort her in at least some way. Not that it helped much, as Akko remarked through her tears: "N-no, b-but she's still going t-to leave and n-never come b-b-baaack!"
Sucy couldn't help but groan at the situation. She herself wasn't happy about having to leave this lovable idiot, but that was just what the circumstances at hand dictated, so, in a vain attempt to calm the brunette down, she replied: "If it makes you feel any better, you can come over tomorrow afternoon to say goodbye to me."
"Y-you're going to leave tomorrow?!" – Akko looked up at Sucy, her eyes still incredibly teary as she said that. The violette immediately realized she made a mistake with her wording, but before she could correct herself, Akko resumed her crying.
"Mind to pry her off me?" – Sucy deadpanned, looking over at Diana. The blonde quietly nodded and pulled the brunette off the half-demoness' body. Mercifully enough, Akko seemed to have calmed down, only quietly sobbing as she covered her face with her hands.
"Seems to me someone's gotten way more attached to me than I expected… Didn't see that coming. " – The violette continued, still looking over at Akko who was just quietly wiping her tears off and looking downright miserable.
"And you've only known each other for about a week or so, too." – Diana added, looking over at Akko. Wow, never did she expect the brunette to get so madly attached to a complete stranger. Sure, Akko was the type of person to quickly make new friends and get easily attached to them, but this was something else entirely. However, the brunette seemed to have begun calming down, as she took a deep breath and apologized: "S-sorry… I… Uh… Must have lost control for a moment. It's just that…" – Akko looked up at Sucy and, swallowing hard, continued: "We've only recently became such close friends, and yet… You're already leaving… It's just…" – The asian girl then once again looked down and sighed, her breath a little jittery.
Once again, a relative silence persisted throughout the derelict for a few more moments, before Sucy attempted to reassure Akko: "Hey, no need to worry your silly self about it. I mean, who knows, maybe I'll show up around here once again later, right?"
"But still, I'm really, really going to miss you. We've only known one another for about a few weeks, but…" – Akko sighed and, after a few moments, just went silent, dejectedly looking off somewhere into the distance.
"Akko, we'd better get back to the city now. We can't stay within this derelict any longer for the time being." – Diana calmly explained, and after being met with Akko's teary eyes, attempted to reassure her: "If anything, we'll come back tomorrow and say our farewells to Sucy, just as she mentioned."
"It's not like I'm going to be in any particular rush to leave anyways." – Sucy added. While Akko didn't seem to calm down completely, she still managed to at least somewhat regain her composure, as she quietly nodded and let Diana lead her out of the derelict, with Sucy unenthusiastically waving back to the duo as they left her with nothing but her own thoughts to keep her company.
As Sucy looked around the place, she felt an odd sense of coldness. While previously, leaving any of the places she settled over at seemed like nothing new and just a part of her lifestyle, now… Now Sucy felt like she didn't want to leave the place whatsoever. It wasn't the musky snowed-over derelict that she gotten attached to, no, Nine forbid. She thought back to all that happened between her and Akko, and couldn't help but wonder…
Was she also feeling so attached to that little airhead?
"What's the matter, dear?"
Later that day, during the evening, Akko was quietly sitting behind the dining table over at her family's apartment, poking her dinner with a fork idly and occasionally sighing in dismay.
"Akko, is everything alright?" – The young brunette's mother asked, trying to snap her out of her dejected state.
If one were to look at Akko and then at her mother, one could clearly see that there was quite the uncanny family resemblance going on – the only few things Akko had that differed from her mother's was her bright red eye color compared to the older woman's more mundane brown color, and that's where it mostly ended, as otherwise, Akko practically looked like a younger version of her mother, down to wearing the same hairstyle almost all the time.
"Sorry, mom… I'm not hungry today." – The younger brunette remarked, pushing her plate away from her. Her mother walked over to her and touched her forehead with her hand.
Seeing that her daughter's body temperature was relatively normal, the older woman remarked: "Well, you don't seem to be sick or anything like that. What happened?"
Akko didn't know where to start with this. What was she going to tell her mom? That she befriended a demon and is now upset that said demon is going to leave and that they'll never meet again?
"Well… Let's just say I've gotten a new friend recently…" – Akko decided to start from afar, not going into any detail.
"Then why are you upset?"
"I'm getting there, mom! And that friend is… Going to leave soon and never show up, not until after a really, really long while! So… That's why I'm feeling a little down today." – The younger brunette tried to stay as vague in her terms as possible as she spoke.
"Oh… Why didn't you tell me about her earlier?"
"Because, um…" – Well, now Akko dug herself a tad deeper than needed, so she had to make something up. After a bit of thinking on how to turn this around, she said: "She's a transfer student from our high school. Truth is, I've, uh… Only gotten to know her about a week or so ago, and yet… She's already going to leave soon, and I don't know if she's going to ever show up around here again."
"Why can't you just keep up a long-distance relationship, then?" – Akko was certainly lucky that her mother didn't get even remotely suspicious and took her lies hook, bait and sinker.
The younger brunette sighed, and, a bit more confident with her lies, answered: "H-her parents are kinda, uh… Technophobics? I think that's the word… So, yeah, she doesn't have a phone of her own, and doesn't use a computer."
"Hmm… Well, I can't help out much here." – The older woman admitted dejectedly. – "If she's from particularly far away, I can only imagine how high the mail bills might get for her, too… So I suggest you go on and say your goodbyes to her while you can. Maybe even leave her a gift to remember you by."
"Maybe I should. Thanks for the advice, mom." – Akko remarked, getting up from her seat and giving her mother a soft hug. As she let go of the older woman, she immediately ran right off to her bedroom.
Digging through the complete mess that was her room, Akko rummaged through various piles of various trinkets and figurines. After a long while, the asian girl finally found what she was looking for. An odd lily keychain made out of some shiny, but rather cheap metal, and with a very small cheap zirconium crystal embedded into the center of the flower, right in the middle between the petals.
Somehow, she felt that this particular parting gift would be just right.
So, you think you're so clever, hiding out within that Nine-forgotten derelict?
You fail to understand one thing, pathetic little filthblood.
We know where you're hiding. We know no one will be there to save you.
And we know you can't escape.
You will die by my hand, you half-breed filth.
Ooh, spooky off-story monologue! Dun-dun-duuun!
In all seriousness, you know things are about to get real heated. So, yeah... There's that. I'm really not feeling like writing any excessive author's notes to this. Yeah...