Okay warning, this chapter is not really for the faint of heart with all the implications in a couple of scenes, especially the first one. I didn't want to write something too graphic to not set in straight to Mature rating but yeah...cruel things are very much implied and a couple of more swear-words.

I have to postpone the update of Cage of Gold because the *insert string of swear words* files got corrupted.All the work, absolutely wasted. I want to go crying in a corner right now but that won't bring the chapters out any faster. So for those interested, I apologize and try to reproduce the chapters I have written.

I also apologize if the chapter is boring or doesn't live up to the usual quality. I tried really hard to battle a fullblown writers block on this one because I had to chuck the original out of the window as well because of illogical plot holes and what not. Rework...everything needs rework. I'm a failure as a writer.

Please enjoy the new chapter.

The shadow spoke, tilting its head to the side. "No need to lose sleep over something like revenge."

"Shut up."

"It's not nice to treat the one who saved your life that way, you know." It moved a step closer, head tilting into the other direction. "Manners, my dear, is something that you shouldn't forget even in this god awful place. Trust me, it gets you farther than scowling at people." Its tone was soft but teasing, his words polite but hollow and meaningless.

"Leave me alone or else I miss the guy who…"

It drew another step closer and it chuckled wickedly.

"Unfortunately, I have to tell you that you already missed that boat, dear."

"What do you mean?"

The shadow threw something in her direction and as it hit the concrete to her feet, she heard a strange hollow and wet sound coming from it. A bag. It wasn't very large - maybe enough to make a ball fit inside. She stared at it. A liquid was trickling out of the cloth and suddenly she felt how a shot of adrenalin and morbid curiosity moved through her tired system.

"What… is that?" She shouldn't ask.

"What do you think it is?" The shadow snickered in response.

She took it even though her whole mind screamed not to look, not to touch it. Some things were better left unknown but this urge, this need to know let her trembling hands move. It felt heavy, slick with liquid. It was red. As she gazed upon brown eyes, she felt something cold warping slowly around her heated heart and slowly but steadily crushing it. She couldn't avoid the dead gaze which seemed to stare right into her soul.

"That's…a joke, right?" Her lips curled up into a desperate smile. This wasn't real. It couldn't be real.

"Attracting our attention is never healthy…You know how these things go, don't you? You have already seen it."

She felt sick.

"This one got a little bit…How should I say? Too ambitious for our tastes…"

"N-No, this is a lie!"

She was furious but felt cold inside. Another step closer, the wicked crackling of the shadow drifted around her.

"Does it look or feel like one? A little bit of a pity, when you ask me. You were working pretty hard to find him. "

Her hands were trembling, shaking. The smell of copper penetrated her nostrils and made her stomach knot together. She couldn't form a thought, a sentence or something else in her mind, with her mouth. It felt like something was choking her.

Something seemed to snap inside her and she just felt nothing. No heat, no cold, just a void spreading inside her.

"I told you…There is no use in losing sleep over this." It was right by her ear, whispering softly to her.

It hurt. This emptiness hurt.

Someone was screaming in the distance.

It took a while before she noticed that it was her own voice.

Lucifer woke up with a jolt, drawing hasty breaths to fill her lungs with air but still felt like she was suffocating. Then she felt how her stomach flipped and she started to feel dizzy and sick. Despite almost being unable to decide where was up or down, she scrambled to her feet and ran towards the bathroom where she emptied the remains of her last dinner into the toilet bowl. She tasted acid and blood on her tongue.

"For…fuck's sake…" The woman panted between breaths as she finally finished and flushed. She sat down on the cold floor, away from the stinging smell and swallowed. It had been some time since she last threw up. Lucifer pressed her eyelids together until she saw stars exploding in her vision.

That time, it was a combination of stress and being sick. One hand wandered to her forehead. Her skin didn't feel unnaturally hot or feverish but she didn't really feel healthy after all this shit just went down in quick succession.

Very carefully she got up and just shot a quick glance towards the mirror. A couple of seconds was sufficient for her to say that she looked beyond awful. Her skin was sickly pale, the bags under her eyes dark and more pronounced, her lips dry and split up with some red spots coating the surface. The night blue hair was standing away in all possible directions and her uniform jacket was open and the shirt beneath it wrinkled. Most likely she had passed out on the couch without even bothering with undressing herself.

Alisa would probably get a heart attack and she would get another lecture about how 'a lady should take care of her beauty' while she helped Sakuya to drag her into the sickbay.

Lucifer picked a strain out of her face and tugged it behind her ear. It has gotten longer again. Just for a split second she saw the face of a girl, fallen in cheeks and horribly malnourished. Out of instinct, she pushed herself away, blinking once, then twice and questioned her own sanity as the picture was gone.

Suddenly a loud ring, accompanied by a soft vibration in her left pocket made her jump in place.

"Yeah?" Her voice sounded hoarse.

"Good morning, Lucifer. I hope I didn't disturb you."This didn't sound like Mammon at all. She frowned and tried to concentrate. The first name that came to mind was 'Hibari'.

"No?" She was confused, walking out of the bathroom to look at the alarm clock. It was already 10 a.m. A curse moved over her lips and she rubbed her eyes. "Shit, I'm late, aren't I?"

"Sakuya informed me that you will take, at least, the morning off."

"Ah." It was the most intelligent thing she could say at the realization that the unit leader just benched her without leaving behind a notice. Lucifer had seen it coming but it would have at least been nice to be notified that she was free today. "Then why are you calling me?" Inwardly she hoped it wasn't for a mission. Despite being a workaholic, she needed a little bit more time to recuperate in this moment and she would rather do it in her room or else she feared that she would turn it the field into a bloodbath.

She had nothing against blood or getting dirty but it was unnerving when she noticed that she was dragging the fight out.

"There is a gentleman who would like to speak with you."

Her frown deepened. "Gentleman?" Almost immediately her memory showed her the shadow again and she tried not to shiver.

"A Mr. Victor Ma…"

"Oh for god's sake…" Lucifer cut her off with a sharp mumble.

"Huh?"

"…Tell me to meet me in my room."

"But…I don't know if Tsubaki would like a civilian marching around in the private sector."

"If she gets angry, I will take the punishment. Please send him up."

"Understood."

"Thanks, Hibari." She hung up and cursed again. Somewhere in her guts, she felt that these was one of those days where she would almost instantly regret getting out of bed.

Victor leisurely walked down the hall, occasionally kicking his walking stick in front of him. A soft hum escaped him as he turned around the corner, checking the room number and entered the room. He knew the door was unlocked. It was an old habit of hers to prefer not to lock herself up since she would instantly nervous about it and start pacing like a tiger in a cage.

"Hello, Sir, how are you today?" He tried to smile although the state her room – or working place - was already answering his question. A couple of books were on the table, strewn across, some papers tugged between and crumbled paper on the floor. She was normally very orderly in doing her job and if she wasn't then something was stressing her.

But after he heard what had happened, he was surprised that he didn't walk into a chaos of disastrous proportions. She was sitting on the couch like last time, legs crossed and placed on the table and arms placed beside her head on top of the furniture. Her jacket was open and showed the white wrinkled shirt underneath it.

"…With what can I help you today?" Her voice was, at best, sounding a little bit annoyed and he knew that she wasn't in the best mood as of late. Her green eyes watched him and as always felt a little bit of hesitation of doing the final step in her den and close the door behind him. She watched him attentively but not alarmed.

Her empty stare was almost hauntingly piercing.

Silently she motioned him to come closer and he obeyed. He looked at the messy desk and noted that there was a glass of water standing there to her side. A carafe was standing next to it with the same clear liquid. She was prepared for a longer talk and wasn't going to kick him out immediately. He licked his dry lips and dared to sit down across from her. Her eyes followed but her head didn't move.

"Seeing how you are doing."

"And what do you see?"

"Incredible self-discipline, Sir."

"Shove your compliments up your ass." She spoke, her tone sharp. It seemed she wasn't in the mood for nonsense and friendly banter either.

"It was an observation, not a compliment." He pointed out and then cleared his throat. "Those people are good to you. I see the appeal to stay. Really, I do but…"

"Even if I turn my back on them, it doesn't change a thing and you, of all people, know that."

"Yes, but I would rather have you under surveillance by people who won't hesitate to kill you."

"You mean like Sam? The one whose only job was to kill me if he got the chance?" The woman clicked her tongue, annoyed. "If you haven't gotten the news yet: He did an awful job."

"Wow, you have quite a nasty temper today." Lucifer looked away, grinding her teeth and crossing her arms before her chest. He had high respect for her but at times and in this pose, she looked more like a child who was about to throw a tantrum than really something that should be feared. Somewhere inside of his head, he felt a pang of guilt before his lips could form an amused smile.

She was younger than him. He had seen her grow over the last couple of years and mature from an incredibly stubborn but broken girl to an emotionless demon which now struggled to understand the concept of sanity. Now he was sitting here, suffering from the occasional stinging of his scarred skin while he watched the last remains of a former life slowly wither away right in front of him.

He wasn't alright with this.

"Not that I blame you." Victor hastily added after a pause. "You had to endure a lot without any help."

"I don't know what you have heard but the life of a God Eater isn't so bad. You get a large weapon, see really big creatures up close and new exciting places and get to salvage what is left out there. Naturally, the room and the food - well, most of the food - are nice." A smile ghosted over her features. "But…"

Something about her tone was different. She folded her hands and leaned forward. Her teeth buried themselves into her lower lip for a few seconds, not enough for her to draw blood but long enough for him to see that she was thinking if this was a good decision or not. He tilted his head, waiting for her to continue.

"I never planned to stay a God Eater for long."

"I thought that process is an irreversible thing."

"It's a one-way ticket. I just didn't want to…well…to just bite the dust after this…How should I say that? I didn't expect that I would survive my little…quarrel with the director. Hell, he had all the resources on his side and I was incredibly sloppy." She combed through her hair in a frustrated manner.

Victor didn't know what exactly happened but when she involved herself personally and expecting that she wouldn't come out alive, then it had to be ugly.

"Sir…"

"I would rather prefer that blade of yours through my throat than your pity." Lucifer cursed under her breath. "Maybe I should have gone with..." Her sentence was abruptly cut off by Victor jumping to his feet and pointing a finger at her.

"Oh, hell no! Bad idea. Very, very bad idea. You should not - under any circumstance - crawl back to that…that motherfucker! If I ever hear about this again, I will pull every lever and dirty trick at my disposal to not make that happen."

Lucifer just stared at him for a while and was silent or rather stunned into silence. Irritated at her look, he grimaced. The outburst had strained his scarred skin. "What?"

"I never said that I'm going there." She chuckled. "Excuse me, I'm – for the lack of a better description - 'mentally dying' and not desperate."

"Don't act all innocent on me here. I know that you played with the thought of going to the Western Branch where he works and don't even try to lie that you dismissed this idea already."

Lucifer just looked at him and then reached for her glass. Instead of drinking, she moved it in her hand and watched the clear liquid swirl inside of it. "I didn't dismiss it. That's true." She admitted. "But the chances that I can go through with it are not very high."

"As if low chances would prevent you from doing something." He snorted, nibbling on his own drink to calm his sore throat. "You already dropped the bomb on the medic as you noticed the first signs. Doing a 'last stand'-thing isn't going to help against him and he will screw you over even more than he already has. He triggered this for a reason. Think about it."

"I know."

"And he will…"

"I know." She sharply repeated, her tone rising just a bit before settling back into a more pensive one. Her eyes trailed off. "…After you visited I thought a lot about what I know about the brainwashing…or the 'me' right now to be exact and things I can do, can't do and all that."

"This is going to get absurdly complicated now, isn't it?" Victor sighed and his forlorn expression and obvious distaste in such matters made her laugh out shortly.

"Come on, I'm the third one you are directly serving. You should be used to such philosophical moments and that shit. "

"No. That's a trend your predecessor started and Mammon liked it. The one before that didn't really give a fuck about this 'me' or the 'other me' or the whole brain screwing business. He just…" He gestured a little bit helplessly around. "Well, did his job. And he did it very well, I can tell you."

On his lips tugged a smile as he remembered. In his eye gleamed up a spark of wonder as if it was a found memory.

"Were you close?"

"Close? Yeah, you could say that. I was his pupil but never too close, you know…He was just…Dunno." He smiled, averting his gaze. "Outwordly. He was cunning, attractive, strong and intelligent but most of all, he was charismatic like the devil incarnate. He could convince you to do anything. It was like I was serving a hero and not the villain."

Victor laughed but it ended quickly and on a bitter note.

"It just ended like it always does."

"So, you weren't able to kill him."

"Hahaha…no. I couldn't. I was too weak and when I had the opportunity, I just ran away. Yeah, I'm a dirty coward. All my life just running around and away when things get ugly." He chuckled to himself. "Nobody said that assassins need to be honorable or brave."

"But now you sit here. That's hardly running."

"Yeah, have you ever tried to run after half of your body got burnt? Trust me, you will regret that idea very quickly. Now you are stuck with me, I guess." His breathy laugh made her smirk.

"Mammon wouldn't like that, though."

"Ah, he can shove his threats up his ass at that point. What should he do at that point? Turn me into Victor 'extra crispy style' or what?"

"…I shouldn't tell you that you should be careful what you wish for."

"Well, I didn't wish for being smoking hot as far as I can remember."

"Vic…"

"Yes?" He innocently blinked with his one eye.

"Don't make me give you a makeover."

"Does it involve knives?"

"Most certainly."

"Then I will pass. I have delicate skin." He patted his burnt cheek carefully and winked at her like a girl trying to flirt and failed spectacularly at it. The silence that followed and the disbelieving and dumbfounded look she threw him, made him laugh out loudly this time around so much that it brought a tear to his eye. After he calmed down and cleared his throat he pointed at her.

"God, I missed that look so much!"

"I think I need to bleach my brain…" She shuddered and closed her eyes with a grimace. Victor chuckled to himself before he leaned back and seemed utterly satisfied with himself, tapping the cane against the floor. Suddenly he stopped.

"Say…about Ira…"

Lucifer hummed to signal him that she was listening.

"How exactly did he die?"

"I killed him."

"I thought the Shard Field off-ed him?"

"That didn't stick."

"Lucifer…"

"Yes?"

"Do me a favor just this once. Please stay in this unit." This time, she looked at him seriously confused at what he was getting at. "Didn't you say that it would be better to leave with my growing insanity?"

"No, I was wrong. Stay here, by all means. I respect your wishes."

"Since when?"

"Just…stay, alright?"

He left her with this words. Like always he disappeared quietly out of the door, not giving her another look, not saying goodbye. It had been always like that. The only time he had said that was the last briefing they had together and her decision to make a last stand. A sad grin had been plastered on his face as he let her leave.

There was no question that they were going to die back then and still she was sitting here, months after that event and had a talk with him. Her gaze drifted to the glass of water in her hand. Slowly decorating instead of a quick death was not a fate she wished on anybody. Maybe it was divine reputation or someone up there was enjoying to let her suffer this sadistic torture. It didn't really matter at that point.

Victor managed, the survivors would manage, the other God Eaters would manage. Nobody of them was weak. Maybe a temporary drop of moral but they could deal with it, too. It wasn't something unusual that people just went away, disappeared and died. God Eater could submit a testament right before they were injected with Oracle Cells, in case when something went wrong. If a God Eater died and there were no relatives, the money they earned would go back to Fenrir.

Now that she thought of it, she never submitted a testament.

With a sigh, she tilted her head back.

The director hadn't given her the offer to write one and she hadn't demanded one since they both knew that there was no one she could offer her earnings to and she didn't possess anything of worth in the beginning. Maybe it was time to think about it now with all the credits she had collected when she did missions for the director, additional solo and scavenger missions. When Kota would see the number of credits on her bank account, his eyes would probably boggle out of his head.

The only thing she would spend money on was weapon upgrades and the occasional replacement of her standard uniform. Since the latter was mass-produced, it was relatively cheap. The rations she got was practically everything she ate, no additional embellishments through sweets. Naturally the rations came with a pack of beer that she didn't drink, so she used it to trade with other God Eaters for other kinds of food.

Kanon would bring her cookies every now and then as an apology when they had a mission together because Lucifer almost always got almost shredded by her bullets. She would miss the taste. The first sweet treat she had tasted in her life and probably the last. On the corner of her desk was a small glass with a couple of pills. Sakuya had given it to her, saying it helped wonders against headaches.

She never took one.

Halfway buried under files, was a case with a disc in it titled 'Burgarally Season 1'. Kota still pestered her to finally watch it but she never found the time for it – or particularly interested. She should return it someday. The reports need to be finished as well, so Alisa could hand them all in.

Deadlines, superiors, working hours, vacation. The woman chuckled to herself. So that was more or less an ordinary working life, leaving the giant creatures aside. A little bit more relaxing than it was in the past where Mammon always loomed over her shoulder, following her, watching her.

Just now, she noticed that his absence didn't feel like there was missing something around her. He was on the other side of the planet, far away from her but his threat still lingered. Although he tried to use the memories against her, she could feel his intentions. It wasn't to kill her or, at least, he hadn't given her the quick treatment. He knew hundreds of ways to kill a person and he was a God Eater so he probably knew what would happen if he removed the bracelet. He had enough time to kill her but he didn't, even though she openly opposed him this time around.

Normally this would be enough to be a death sentence.

"You are my equal. My antithesis."

His words rang in her head but they didn't make any sense to her. They were too similar. They shared principles. They both maimed and killed people. Just because she didn't kill when she didn't find it completely necessary, didn't make her a saint either. Lucifer rubbed her eyes.

"God damn, I can't think straight anymore. Stupid nightmares …"

She starred at the ceiling. For a nightmare that made her throw up, she remembered only a few details about it. Shadows upon shadows and not one face she could recognize. The thought that there was something else inside her head that was trying to break her down with memories she had not the slightest clue about was unnerving.

"Hmm…and people thought I was scary…"

Above her, a shadowy figure squirmed out of the wood.

"The ones who sold their soul are the desperate kind."

"Agreed, they have nothing to lose. The sense of pain probably drove us insane or was it the lack thereof?"

"Right…I see and hear disembodied voices. That might have something to do with that."

"Oh, we developed irony or was it sarcasm? We…never get the definition right."

"Trust us. Without us, we would be worse off."

"Yeah right. As if you weren't already a death sentence to my sanity."

A shiver climbed over her spine as she felt something to cold at the side of her face.

"…Quite the opposite, actually. Stubbornness doesn't mingle well with the idea of being obedient."

"As does a death seeker having a purpose to live for."

Lucifer narrowed her eyes, not turning her head. The last voice sounded clearer than the other for a moment. It sounded feminine. Judging the tone maybe an older woman. Immediately her head searched for a face in her memory or something where she could have heard it before only to be retaliated by a stabbing pain piercing through her skull.

"Curiosity kills the cat."

"Or our sanity."

"Just…who are you?" She pressed through her teeth.

"…still doesn't remember. Take your time, kid. Nothing is being won with being impatient." A rougher, male voice answered.

"That's…not very reassuring." She closed her eyes and tried to calm her breathing. They didn't answer and the silence felt more foreboding than hearing voices inside her head. They always came here and there, like a visualization of her own thoughts when her mind tried to handle multiple strings of plans at once.

Maybe they were just a sign of accumulated stress and her brain tried to hold her broken psyche somehow together in this state. That theory could at least explain why she wasn't completely shocked or freaked out that some disembodied things appeared in her vision and started to talk. Or maybe Mammon and the rest had completely screwed her sense of what should or shouldn't be 'normal', 'frightening' or 'sane'.

Despite being absolute lunatics in battle, the company she kept had been rather strange. Victor and herself had been more or less the more grounded people. Ira would have counted too, despite his habit to challenge the first things he sees in the morning to a fight, be it human, animal or something else. One time she had to dodge a potted plant that had been chucked straight down the corridor.

She chuckled to herself. In hindsight, the only thing of lunacy she had to take off here was to get Kota do his work instead of re-watching the latest session of his series again, so he didn't get strangled by Alisa. Or thrown out of the chopper by Soma for a prank. Or suffering from Tsubaki's wrath when he did something or getting his arm stuck in the vending machine.

Strangely enough, most of the weird cases were connected to him.

A sigh escaped her. Letting her thoughts sway to the memories she had made here, was putting her more at ease for a strange reason. Lucifer closed her eyes again, trying to recall more of them.

Alisa looked around the main hall which was almost empty. Most of the God Eater would be either on patrol or at the canteen to grab a bite to eat. Just with one ear she heard how Sakuya excused herself to report to Tsubaki.

"She isn't here."

Kota crossed his arms behind his head and looked more relieved than disappointed. "Lucky us, I guess. I can't imagine that she all that happy."

"She has to suck it up." Soma commented bluntly as he walked past them. "It's not like she would be of some use in this state."

"Soma!"

He ignored her protesting outcry and just walked to the elevator. He wanted to catch up on sleep which he had lost yesterday night before the next emergency, either God Eater business related or one of these nutjobs which their former leader had a talent to attract, threw him out of his bed again.

Although the last one was his own fault. With a grumble rumbling in his throat he pushed the button. He closed his eyes and tried to think of something else as he waited for the elevator to come down.

"Oh, what a coincidence!"

In this moment, he suppressed the urge to punch the person right in front of him in the face – consequences be damned, he just wanted a peaceful afternoon for once. "What are you doing here?"

"Aren't we a morning person?" The breathy voice was taunting his strained nerves. He just tried to breathe in and out and not throttle him although the man was in arms reach and was smiling at him. The woman was annoying as heck sometimes but if there was any positive about her rough treatment than he had to admit that he was growing more tolerant to teasing.

The man was walking past him, the smell of ointment hit him straight in the face and he wrinkled his nose.

"Had a good hunt today?"

Kota frowned confused.

"I…guess?"

"Good to hear. Listen, I just talked with Lucifer and…I have one tiny little question I would like to ask you."

"Okay…?"

Viktor took a deep breath and placed both hands on the young man's shoulders. Then, suddenly he intensified his grip and his stare became piercing.

"What the fucking hell did you do with her?"

"H-Huh?!"

"Tell me your secret." Some things were more fearsome than staring at the mouth of an aragami. One thing, in Kota's book, was Lucy's smile, the second one he added was a hitman with half burnt face's soul-piercing look.

"How about telling us what the hell you mean first." Soma pulled him away from a frightened Kota and turned his assailant in his direction. The later looked a tad bit disappointed.

"Come on, with a face like that can't I, at least, scare the shit out of the kids."

"No."

"I slowly get the part with 'forever alone'…" Alisa muttered under her breath and crossed her arms before her chest and he let out a breathy laugh. "Oh, it's just a part of my charm, Milady." He winked her at and made her grimace a little bit. Then his expression turned serious again.

"Jokes aside. I really like to know what you did." Victor rubbed his chin and then lowered his voice. There weren't many around to overhear them anyway "Is it correct that she, herself, by her own, killed Ira?"

"He was dead as we found him." The veteran answered.

"Did you see it?"

"There was a wound on his torso which could have been from a God Arc blade. Yeah, that might have killed him but we weren't there to see it. Why is that so important now?"

"Because I thought the landmines killed him and not her personally."

Soma lifted an eyebrow. "And what?"

"She shouldn't be able to that."

"Because she is weaker on the official scale or what?" It still tasted somewhat bitter that she was considered 'weak' and she still beat him in hand-to-hand combat. Granted, at that time he wasn't in complete control but still he felt the sting of humiliation when he just thought about it.

"What scale?"

"No!" Victor lowered his voice again to not draw any suspicion. "They can't kill each other. Their brainwashing triggers a horrible memory that can knock them out or, in the worst case, drive them completely over the brink. How the hell do you think we can keep seven of these nutjobs together in a building without them killing each other off?"

Soma titled his head slightly to the right. That guy had a point although that woman wasn't completely off her rockers and she didn't seem to suffer from the frantic kind of crazy. On the other hand, he had seen how far the other guy would go to make other people suffer for his enjoyment and if the others were just remotely like him, it was quite a miracle that they had seven of them in total.

"That's the reason why Mammon chose him for this trap in the first place. And now, I know the reason why he wants you dead." Victor licked his lips again. He looked frantic and nervous as if he had discovered something huge.

"Let me back up a bit, alright? You have met Sam, right? The young man who speaks like a kid and always repeats his name. Or spoke - considering he bit the dust."

"Yeah but that was just an act, right?" Kota seemed to have recovered from his first shock.

"Want to know the reason? First off, Sam isn't his real name. The last time she acted that strange was when she took him in. Mammon was less than happy about that and gave her an ultimatum: Either he would get rid of him or she would come with him for a while. After she returned, she had no memory of him and suffered from headaches when he ever tried to speak to her. So he adapted his speech pattern and the way he acted to come off as a different person so he could stay with her."

"Why…would he do something like that?"

"Don't ask me that. You would know more. I mean, I'm not the one who called a hitman which looks like a cheap knockoff of a movie villain for help." He shrugged his shoulders and flinched. "Ah, shit…Still hurts."

"In conclusion…He wasn't trying to kill her that day." Soma concluded. "He was trying to screw her up again with the Resonance."

"Since his trap didn't work and it was taking her too long to bite the bait of his blackmail, yeah, I suspect that he was getting impatient. I don't know why he is making her life a living hell or why he wants to keep her around and somewhat alive but don't let them together alone again. This would be in all of your interests."

"Right, and your interest would be in all this?"

"Wouldn't it be sufficient that I act out of guilt and kindness and for old time's sake?"

Everybody just looked at him. Kota was the first to speak up, wearing a very deadpan expression.

"Dude… You put poison in her food one time."

"Really? I did? Where did you hear this…"

"You kinda told us."

"Yesterday." Alisa ended the sentence, a grim look on her face to show that her anger was slowly but steadily rising.

"Look, yeah, that happened but hey, she gained some poison resistance from it. Hahahahaha….Ha…Ha…" Victor cleared his throat and let his gaze wander somewhere else to escape their accusing looks. After awkwardly clearing his throat, he continued. "I owe her my life and she had to go through a lot of crap for it, just like her predecessor and the one before that….Well, the latter not that much but…I owe them something at least. I mean she is the last of her line and there are better things to die than of insanity, so…"

"Then why would you wait so long in the first place if that's so important to you and just appeared on the screen when it's already…"

He took a deep shaky breath.

"What use am I in this state? When we came here, we had nothing. We had to hide, adapt and as we found out that she was working at a God Eater...That was just out of our reach. You can't just barge in the front door as…you know, non-registered ones or hack a system in a day. You need time, resources and a hell lot of preparation to get such things to work... Whatever she has done to give you that impression that this is a quick procedure, I have to tell you, she has a habit of stealing passwords." He explained and huffed as if he was slightly offended.

"Either way, the job of a strategist and front line fighter suits her more than that of a shady information broker and black hat hacker." Victor made a dismissive hand wave. "Although I would like for her to have a less violent and stressful job, especially when she ends up coughing up blood."

"She did that in the past too?" His eye flickered to Alisa and he was silent for a moment. Then he opened his mouth again, clearly hesitating to speak this time around and closed it again. Victor's eyebrow crooked slightly and he was looking at her with unmasked sympathy.

"Milady, stop worrying…It only makes you grow older quicker. She is doing fine. It's just a minor setback and she will come around eventually. If it makes you happy, I tried to convince her to leave and she shot me down. I personally think, she enjoys her time here."

"Really?" Kota frowned and crossed his arms behind his head.

"Lucifer would be long gone. Ah and don't worry about the fact that she tried to wiggle herself out of her position. She always does that once in a while but in the end, she will always take up the mantle again. Just give her some time to process all this."

"Are you really sure about that?"

"I served her for three years, so yeah. Absolutely." He smiled at them and then turned away. "I have to go now before someone is worrying about me."

Victor walked, one foot dragging slightly behind out of the main entrance. Then he took out a cellphone of his pocket and dialed the last number he had called. As it was ringing, he continued to walk and then he silently slipped from the main road into a darker alley. He sighed and hung up as he saw the screen of the phone held by a shadowy hand.

Multiple glances wandered to him.

"Guys, the plan has changed. We need another angle to tackle this…problem."

Well, Lucifer is coming around. Sorta. Kinda. In her own way.

For those who are interested: A 'black hat' hacker is a criminal hacker who deliberatly corrupts and steals data for his/her own gain. (also referred sometimes as crackers).

I can't write anything more right now, because my body desperately wants me to go to sleep right now.

Thank you for reading and bearing with my mistakes.

Until next time,

TheNocturnalHunter