Alright, he goes an update. I know it isn't so much of an update, but is way better than just keeping my stories forgotten.
I woke up in the floor of a bathroom; I was, apparently, back at the temple, and with a painful bump fast growing on the right side of my head. I opened my eyes slowly, to see Belldandy looking down at me with obvious relief, from her position kneeling by my side, and with one of her hands on my forehead.
"Hello, there." - I tried, while I began rubbing said bump. I also noticed that it took me a great deal of effort just to lift my arm.
"Oh, Nacho-san, I'm so sorry! I should have noticed that was a Mirror of Light! If I had noticed you wouldn't have been depleted."
Right then, steps were heard approaching, at a relaxed pace. Belldandy looked up and shouted.
"Urd, Skuld, please bring me all your Moon rock bracelets, quickly!"
And so the steps stopped for a second, and were replaced by a single set of steps running past the bathroom's door. I tried to sit up, but Belldandy gently restrained me.
"Please do not, Nacho-san. I've just re-energized you, but unlike when you did it for me, with my limiters on I could only muster enough power to bring you back to consciousness."
And right then the door slid open and Urd literally flew over me and gave Belldandy a half-dozen of assorted grey stone bracelets. - "Here Bell, I couldn't find anymore in such short notice..." - After that she just kept herself hovering close to the roof, watching on. - "But just what happened?"
"A Mirror of Light happened." - Belldandy said, while she bared my chest and began depositing on it the stone bracelets. - "Sister, his Secondary is food, so please go to the kitchen and start reheating the leftovers from breakfast."
"Right on, sis!" - And she took off like a rocket, narrowly missing Skuld; who had just appeared on the doorway, carrying at least two dozen more bracelets. After taking a second to recover from her narrow miss, she extended the bracelets to her sister.
"Here, one-sama. I hope they are enough, because I don't think I have anymore, besides depleted ones."
"Thanks, one-chan. Now please go and load the big rice cooker; not the regular one, but the one use for parties. Once you have set the rice, please come back here."
"Alright one-sama" – Skuld answered just before she left.
Belldandy turned back to me and was about to arrange this other bracelets on my chest, but I softly stopped her from doing so.
"No, Miss Belldandy. Let's better save them for once I have completely depleted these ones."
Truth be told, since the moment the first bracelet came in contact with my skin, I began feeling stronger, but also I began feeling nauseated, and the longer I felt them on my skin, I felt stronger, but also felt my stomach churning. By now I was feeling strong enough to stand, but also ready to vomit. With a swift movement I picked up the bracelets on my chest, and with little effort picked myself from the floor, kneeled facing a western-style toilet, and began vomiting. Then, to my great surprise, my vomit was nothing but a single, long torrent of liquid Light, which sat on the toilet just a few seconds before dissolving into thin air.
I raised my head, and clutching the bracelets on my left hand as for dear life, tried to look up at Belldandy with a smile.
"Well, just as they say about Mexico, I guess that was another reason not to eat Heaven's food." - And grinned to make point for my joke.
She smiled sweetly, while she helped me to get up.
"I would guess that now that you have expelled the Light, you are feeling much better, aren't you?"
"Yeah, loads better in fact!" - ... - "So my Secondary does happen to be food?"
"Yes. And I would hope my sisters already have some ready, so let's go to the dinning room."
"Alright; Ladies first"
And I bowed before her, while gesturing toward the exit.
"Thank you, Nacho-san." - And she moved out, with me behind her. As soon as we left the bathroom I could notice we were on the house's second floor, as I could distinguish it from when I had come up here on the night to deliver my dinner to Skuld.
Speaking of whom, she intercepted us in our way down the stairs.
"Alright, one-sama, the rice is set. What else can I do to help?"
"Thanks, one-chan. I will now need you to look at the sack with Nacho-san's uniform, and get us his limiters. Without them, his energy expenditure is draining him as fast as he is being loaded."
"Sure, one-sama, I'll get them."
Skuld gave us the thumbs' up and finished going up the stairs, but Bell called her just before she turned out of sight.
"Skuld, if you need his uniform's description, it's in Page Five of the manual I left in the bathroom!"
Skuld turned and looked curiously at her sister before giving her an "Alright, One-Sama", and turning out of sight. We continued our way.
By the way, Belldandy was not kidding about the fact that my 'energy expenditure' was draining me, and real fast. The Moon stone bracelets, soon ago comfortingly cold, were now beginning to feel warm, and I was beginning to feel both weak and hungry. So weak in fact that by the time we were in the dinning room, I was beginning to cling to the walls for support. I fell to the table without more ceremony, and was having a hard-enough time just keeping awake, until Belldandy removed the now-depleted six bracelets from my left hand, and put a fresh one on each of my hands.
"Hang on, Nacho-san. Here are the rest..." - And she deposited them in the table, in front of me. - "...But please try not using them all together, as we might not have many more, and you might need them for a while."
"Hello Belldandy-san." - Keiichi had just entered the main door, and his voice was coming from the entrance and getting closer... - "Sorry for not coming sooner, but Terai and me were at the shop and… Whoa! What happened?"
"Keiichi-san, Nacho-san has been completely depleted! Please watch over him while I go to the kitchen, and check the bracelets in his hands every once in a while. If they warm up, give him fresh ones."
"Uh... Alright, Bell-san, I'll do."
"Thanks, Keiichi-san." - And with that, she hurried to the kitchen, leaving me with a horrified-looking Keiichi. As the fresh bracelets were already energizing me, I picked up my head from the table, and tried to calm him down.
"Don't worry, Mr. Keiichi, I'm unlikely to bite you, especially in this state."
Nice pick-up phrase, buster: now he really looked ready to flee in panic!
"Ha ... ha ... ha! Do... Don't worry; I have already helped other gods in distress. Not that many of them really needed my help..." And he dissolved into panicky chuckles. After a second he sat opposite to me, and began touching the bracelets.
As I really didn't want him looking so terrified, I tried again to pick up a conversation.
"And well, where is Terai?"
"Well... she's at the shop, battling to wash microscopic particles of grease out of her hands. I proposed her as a joke to try incinerating them, but she was scared of the possibility of getting too far and once again erasing Tokyo out of the map."
He one more time dissolved into nervous giggling, and if I had been feeling strong enough I might have manifested my shock. Instead, I just let my head fall hard on the table, and wished to die.
Almost immediately I felt him pull the two bracelets off my hands and put new ones under it. I lifted my head again to complain.
"Hey man, those two weren't even warming up yet!"
He seemed startled.
"But then, why did your head fall on the table!"
"Because I'm feeling miserable, you know! I don't think I have been a god for a full day, and I have already gone through a homicide attempt, which I am not sure if I have survived yet!"
"Homicide!" Keiichi nearly shouted, as his eyes bulged. "What happened?"
"Well, I had my interview with this great guy Hephaestus and then we went to this Mainframe Room and got my uniform, but when we left that room we found ourselves cornered to travel immediately through this one mirror that as far as I have understood happens to suck darkness. Next thing I know, I'm in the bathroom's floor without energy to move a muscle. And don't forget that here's early afternoon, so I won't have a bit of a natural Energy source for a while to come: If this wasn't a set-up, I'll bite my forehead!"
I felt a click on the back of my head, while heard Keiichi mumbling. After a while a sacred silence fell between us, as we could only hear the occasional noise or exchange of words coming from the kitchen, and the occasional sweet-mouthed curse coming from upstairs. Finally, after what I felt like an eternity, the far door slid open, and from the kitchen stepped Urd, carrying a small platter loaded with what looked like the burnt remains of the morning's omelette. She practically shoved the platter under my nose, gave me a quick thumbs-up, and ran back into the kitchen.
I was a bit reluctant for a moment, first because I was still minding my modals (and so I was half-expectant for Urd to come back with a plate and cutlery); and second, because I wasn't too sure about how much heresy would it be to Belldandy-the-chef to stuff my face with one of her creations, ruined. The first reason was easily brought down, as Keiichi said emphatically "Bottom up, Nacho-san". Therefore, I discarded the second one as being stupid.
Using the serving spoon, I began shovelling down the offering. Its taste was a few notches below what I had tasted before, being half-frozen and half-burnt; yet it tasted like life to me, as I could feel that now I was obviously drawing more energy from the food than from the bracelets, which I could now put down on the table.
Too bad I had eaten three quarters of the platter by the time I really noticed. From that moment I tried to force myself to eat more slowly, even if I began feeling hungry just because of the slow-down. I knew the goddesses were cooking up a storm, but by the time I finished the platter, I was feeling more and more tempted to pick up the bracelets once again. Thankfully, Belldandy came from the kitchen carrying a tray loaded with assorted foodstuff. I quickly dug in, this time giving no second thought to speed or manners. I quickly lost track of everything and made my world to be only the plate at hand, and every few minutes the table while I put down the current and picked up the next one. It wasn't until I finished cleaning a large bucket of rice that I felt the most curious click inside my chest: suddenly I could open my eyes to my surroundings and could pause stuffing my mouth.
Terai was sitting next to me, watching me with an utmost look of curiosity. I felt embarrassed from not having noticed her until now, and further embarrassed for her gaze. Where my manners so incredibly bad?
"Sorry for that spectacle, Terai." I said, as I looked away from her, feeling even more ashamed as I felt an overpowering need to begin picking stray grains of rice from the bucket.
"I know you situation, Nacho-san, so there's nothing to be sorry for", She replied uneventfully. "What really amazes me is that you've eaten slightly more than a tenth of your body mass, and even so you haven't increased your total body mass in the slightest since I sat down to watch you a half hour ago. The only change I can see is an energetic build-up in the tenth, eleventh and twelfth dimensions, but I understand that converting matter to those kinds of energy is really wasteful. Are you cloaking your emissions on the dimensions four to nine?"
All right, I could understand every word she said, as I do take reading science and enjoying science fiction seriously; however, my understanding of the real meanings was obscured by bafflement. Is there truth in the notion of many overlaying dimensions in space-time? Am I converting matter to energy, and at a hundred percent efficiency at that? Am I cloaking something on myself without even knowing?
Author's Note: 'Stealth' and 'Cloak' are similar concepts, but that need to be distinguished. A stealthy vehicle is surreptitious, being a hole in the background; while a cloaked vehicle would actively appear to be the background (think of it like active camouflage). Cloaking an emission would be making it blend with the background of radiations.
"I… I really don't know!" I could eventually stammer.
The door to the kitchen opened again; Urd entered carrying a large platter. She planted it in front of me and picked up the bucket, and was almost all the way back to the kitchen before she made a double-take and looked at me not digging in.
"So you are already beginning to react? Good, now don't stop and I'll tell Bell we are almost there"!
My stomach rumbled, so I blushed and turned to the platter.
Said platter seemingly had half a dozen chickens. No elegance: haphazardly chopped and tossed into boiling oil, the mass of unevenly cooked meat with pieces of bone jutting out reminded me of the cyberpunk meaning of 'Chinese take-out'.
("Darn it, that riot gun made his chest into Chinese take-out!)
It hurt me to see some spices on it: apparently Bell had been so appalled on its appearance that she had at least tried to make it look more appealing, and actually managed to make it look like some dirt had mixed with the mangled and bloody flesh.
But what really hurt me was when I automatically picked up the serving spoon I had in my hand and began shovelling down the offering, almost without the benefit of chewing it. I did a quick job of the plate (or so it seemed to me), and once again I felt that weird click inside my chest, but now much stronger, and my body felt cooler. I didn't really give importance to it and pushed it away from my mind, just as I pushed away the now empty platter.
"Gross…" I muttered while I looked down onto the serving spoon on my lap, which sported several bite marks.
"I know!" Said Belldandy from across the table. I looked up to her, where she sat by Keiichi teary-eyed. "I know that food was really awful!" She added with a broken voice.
"What…?" I managed, before I caught what she had just said and could actually answer. "Oh no, Belldandy, I meant I felt awful to just shovel down the food like that!"
At least she didn't look now like she was ready to cry anymore, so I continued.
"On our previous meal I really enjoyed everything, but for all this time I don't think I have even had a sense of taste after the second half of the omelette. I wouldn't even remember what I have eaten so far."
She didn't seem happy just yet, but she seemed to settle down.
"I guess I should have expected that" she said after a few moments. "Until you had been properly reenergized, food would be nothing but fuel for your body. Now it seems you are already priming up, but until Skuld gets your Limiters or night has fallen, you will burn up your reserves whenever you stop eating for too long."
"So… this isn't over?" I asked; feeling very chagrined at the obvious sight of byte marks on the spatula on my hand.
She sighed.
"Not yet." She answered, adding a sense of finality.
We made idle chat for a few more minutes, until my guts groaned and Belldandy went again into the kitchen to bring me another platter of food. I ate again loosing control of my body, and for a few more minutes we could chat again, until my guts would groan again and the cycle be repeated.
The cycle repeated seven more times, and little variance occurred until…
Thud … thud … thud … Thud … THUD … THUD … WHAM!
The door nearly jumped out of its rails as Skuld opened it with extreme violence. She was by herself enough of a sight, even without the entrance: her skin was steel grey, her lips, eyes and markings were coal black, and she was letting go black smoke that would be absorbed by every surrounding shadow.
We all laid motionless for a few seconds, until I felt her emanations and, from across the table, jumped on her.
Urd would later on tease me to no end about what I did there, but at the moment all I thought about was the Darkness inside of her. I hugged her where she stood and my lips connected with the first terminal they found, which fortunately was the marking on her forehead. I suckled for all I was worth and drank the flood of chill that emerged there. I was there for a long time until the flood died, and licking my lips I released her and I stepped back a couple of steps.
She was a bit unstable, had a dreamy smile, and had her eyes glazed over. Her appearance was normal again, if a bit flustered. She stepped forward but her legs gave way, and I could barely move fast enough to catch her. With her again in my arms, I sighed.
"Well, you definitely seem to be a good kisser, Dark-boy."
I carefully turned around with an intense blush in my face (not that it would have been visible: I had 'blacked out' again) and gave Skuld to Belldandy, as I tried not facing a chuckling Urd. I returned to my spot at the table and sat down, just as everyone sat down again.
It took a minute for Belldandy to make Skuld react. Then, sipping tea, she told us what had gone on.
"Well, the sack in the bathroom happens to be an entrance into Nacho's pocket dimension. Happens that the entire place is littered knee-deep with depleted Moon Rock!" Skuld shuddered at the mere memory. "It took me forever, but I could get two of his limiters. Here they are." – She brought a hand inside her coat and pulled out two pieces of black leather, which were rolled up as if they were parchment. She laid them down on the table. - "But One-Sama, what does 'Class A' mean?"
If Urd had been drinking something, she would have coughed it half way across town, judging by the bewildered expression she made. Belldandy just put her cup down, and spoke up; while Urd clung to the table, and Keiichi and Terai seemed nothing but expectant.
"Skuld, that's the equivalent of First Class for Elementals and other deities based on environmental Energy. Basically means that a Class A being has a limitless capacity to absorb and store his own type of environmental Energy, and might have the same limitless ability to use his reserves. Yet it is a special class, and I don't think that a single being other than Nacho-san had achieved it after the Great Spirits, Titans, and Giants." - She paused, as a huge bottle of Sake flew from the kitchen and into Urd's hands.
Belldandy finished her idea after watching Urd pop the bottle and begin suckling on the sake like a baby. - "So, Skuld dear, would you remember any Class-A's that we know?"
"Err..." Skuld began, shaken away from staring at Urd. "Wouldn't it be like the Rainbow Serpent, one-Sama? So that's how he shaped the Australian Alps, isn't it?"
"That's correct, dear."
Skuld and Belldandy beamed at each other for a second. Then the implications struck Skuld, and me.
"So... how do I put this 'Limiters' on?" I said, while I grabbed the nearest one like it was made out of porcelain. "I don't want to one day loose control and blow somebody up!"
With great care and the calming assistance of Belldandy I unrolled the Limiter and put it on my left calf. It happened to be a gaiter (calf bracer) made from 2mm thick leather, black and shiny. I tied it up, and felt very surprised when it seemed to turn into smoke for a second before reforming without seams, and as close fitting as socks.
I felt unnerved, a feeling that lightened only a bit once I tested my muscles and saw the gaiter move with them.
Now a bit weary, I inspected the other Limiter: it turned out to be a bracer for my right forearm, made from the same type of leather as the other one. I wasn't surprised when it also lost its seams in a blur, or when my movement was unhindered by the piece: I was, though, when a feeling like liquid ice began spreading from these two Limited limbs, riding up until it connected on my chest. I felt how it tried to spread to the other two limbs, yet was met with leaks and quickly the flow stopped growing.
In all, the cold sensation was very pleasurable and made me feel stronger. I guessed that was how my power felt like.
"Whoa!" – I breathed out. I looked up toward the expectant faces around me (except for Urd, whose eyes where unfocused), and I made a comment.
"Does it feel this good every time you are Limited?" – I said.
"I wouldn't know", muttered Skuld, pouting.
Belldandy beamed at her sister and answered me. – "I don't think I would do, Nacho-san. My Limiters…"—She touched her earrings emphatically. –" …Aren't design to limit my output, but my input. I must admit that having them off is pleasant, but I know my responsibilities. Speaking of which…" – She stood up in a graceful motion. –"…I believe we better go to the bathroom and retrieve the rest of your uniform. Are you feeling well enough to follow?"
I looked down on my body, looking for the answer. I tested the muscles or my arms, tensed the muscles on my legs, and carefully pushed myself up. I tested my legs a bit more before looking up.
"I believe I am ready." – I said. – "To the bathroom?"
"Yes. Follow me, please." – She said, even as she waited for me to reach her. She began moving once I was at her side, and turned to the door that faced the kitchen. We went over there, but just before we passed before the kitchen, my stomach decided to growl again.
"Should we make a detour through the kitchen, Nacho-san?" – Belldandy said in a completely innocent fashion.
I was mortified, but nodded. Some chuckles went off from the room behind us.
That was it for the moment. I hope you enjoyed it. Unless I decide to put a filler scene after this, it should close Chapter 1.
Even if I did not answer the questions planted on the previous chapter, I am not forgetful. The story calls for answers, which I will deliver at the sedated pace required by my outline. After all, would the Harry Potter books be so popular if they gave all answers at once?
Take care and have my genuflections, those who have waited on me.