"Home." Kazuma said when his fingers wrapped around the vertical door handle. 'Funny, after all this time in this world, it didn't really start feeling like that until just this moment.'
Behind him the rest of his party was full of mixed emotions. Megumin hadn't told Darkness or Aqua what happened, first there hadn't been time since the battle against the Devil King's General, and then on the way back… neither she nor he really wanted to talk about it.
Aqua was utterly clueless and never knew anything happened at all, but given the look Darkness gave to him and to Megumin, the long stare that was full of unasked questions, he suspected she might have worked out something. 'Or at least gotten suspicious.' He thought to himself as the click of the lock sounded and he entered the house they shared with one another.
"I need a bath, why don't the rest of you start preparing the food, and I'll cook it when you all hit the baths after I'm done." Kazuma suggested when he walked in.
Aqua walked in behind him and put a hand on her chest, turned her nose up into the air and said, "Yeah, sure Kazuma, leave all the hard work for an amazing goddess like me, I'll bet you'll just eat all the food and say you should get it all since you did all the work! But who resurrected you?! Huh?!"
Kazuma stopped in his tracks, whirled, and put a finger to her nose, "You did! But I actually had to do the dying out there… again because you're so useless that the only thing you can do is party tricks and resurrecting! Besides being a useless goddess, you are a godawful cook! Go chop veggies and heal anyone who accidentally lops off a finger!"
Her lip trembled and eyes watered, her tiny fists clenched. She held still for a moment before she started bawling. "Bwaaah! How dare you! How dare you call me useless again! I should get at least half the reward this time because you wouldn't get any if I didn't raise you again! I can't believe you went there! You meanie! You big meanie!" She pounded on his chest over and over shouting, "Take it back! Take it back! Take it back!"
"Go easy on her, Kazuma." Darkness said, approaching and placing a hand on his shoulder, "We really were worried about you after all."
Kazuma paused, when Darkness was like this, she was almost 'normal', and it was hard to argue with her.
He put a hand behind his head and rubbed his scruffy, dirty hair vigorously enough for some dust to fall out and hit the floor. "Yeah, alright fine, you aren't 'completely' useless." Kazuma said and turned around.
"Hah, see now… wait… did he just… did he take it back or… or not?" Aqua asked and scratched her head at his retreating back as he went further down the hall.
Darkness however, was not done, she held her hands up into fists beside her ample breasts, her face became energetic, her grin enormous and the crazy was ample in her eyes. "So, now that we're back, what was it like to get penetrated by all that magic?! To literally become one with that monster chimera… did it hurt a lot!"
'Great. She's back to her usual self, that didn't last.' Kazuma mentally grumbled.
He looked her square in the eye when he reached the bath and put a hand to the door. "Pervert."
She immediately began shivering and hugged her body when she whispered out, "You called me… pervert!"
"I'm taking a hot bath, so you stay out here and cool off!" Kazuma shouted, drew his leg back into a combat stance, held his hand out and shouted, "Create water!"
Darkness leaned back with a scream of bliss, her arms out to let the cold water soak her to the bone. "Freeze!" He shouted, and a gale force wind of snow swept over her, wringing a scream from her as she embraced the freezing sensation.
"Now stay out here and mop all this mess up!" He shouted and rushed into the bath before she could get even more perverted than she already was.
He heard her in spite of his swiftness at closing the door.
"Oh… to make me clean all this up, wiping it all up with my hair on all fours, turning my beautiful blonde hair into just a mop for the brute…" Darkness cried out and hugged herself in blissful masochistic ecstasy.
On the other side of the door, Kazuma could only lean against it and wipe his forehead. 'I didn't say any of the rest of that… ugh, what could be more annoying than a perv with a rocking bod?' He wondered and took off his clothes.
He set them aside and went to the steaming waters. Kazuma stepped into the water which rippled around his body as he broke the surface tension and lay back against the warm stone edge.
A heavy sigh came from him as he thought through the recent events. 'Man, dying hurts!' Kazuma thought and put a hand to his chest where Megumin and Yunyun's magic pierced his body and killed him. 'Is that the third time, or fourth time I've died in this world?' For all he knew, it could have been more.
'How many more times will there be?' It was a heavy and unpleasant question, to which there was no answer. 'Will I be stabbed next? Impaled? Tortured? This world is full of overpowered monsters I've only managed to beat because… alright because of them, but also because I've got a high intelligence stat and except for Vanir, all the Devil King's generals seem to range from average to idiots.'
With his eyes closed, he heard the door open and shut behind whoever came in.
"What are you still doing in here?! It's my turn to use the bath, I'll have you know!" The woman's voice said with an entitled, demanding air that could only come from one person.
"I'm about to open my eyes, Aqua, and if you're naked I swear I'll spank you like the brat you are! What are you even doing in here! Shouldn't you be peeling carrots or something appropriate for someone as dense as you?!" Kazuma snapped at her.
He didn't need to look to know she'd jumped back and covered her butt with her hands. "I stopped because they said they didn't need my help, and it's been a half an hour, and why was Darkness all red faced when she got back to us! What did you do to her, you pervert shut in NEET!" Aqua exclaimed.
Kazuma could feel her glare.
"So, you got in the way… how? Did you drop the bowl of carrots all over the floor a half a dozen times or something?" Kazuma asked with resignation, and then snapped, "And for your information, nothing! Darkness is just being darkness, you useless goddess!"
Aqua whimpered and looked down, she began to touch the forefingers of her hands together over and over again, "I ah, yeah, dropped it twice, not six times, but then… then they said it would be better if I just got a bath now and…"
Kazuma let out a sigh and opened his eyes, Aqua wore a blue bathrobe and her blue hair was tied up in a bun over her head.
"Right." He said and tightened his lips to stare at her.
She kept touching her forefingers together.
He stared longer.
She kept touching them and wouldn't raise her eyes.
He stared longer.
Finally she cried out, "Alright it was seven times!" She made the long subtle whimper she usually used when she was upset. "I'm a goddess of water darn it! Not a goddess of cooking!" She stamped her foot, "Now get out of the bath and let me take one! I've got sauce in places and I need to wash it off! It's all sticky!"
"Nope. Not moving. You want in, you get in with me or you wait there, I don't care but I'm not getting out till I'm done." Kazuma shook his head, "I'm not cutting my bath short for a useless goddess who can't keep from spilling sauce, carrots, and whatever else you managed to screw up before you were sent here."
"Fine! Big meanie…" She grumbled and stepped into the warm water. "But if you peep at me I'll tell Eris to send you to a really unpleasant world if you die again."
She paused when he didn't say anything back.
"Kazuma?" She asked from over her shoulder.
"What?" He asked quietly and stared up at the stone ceiling.
"Something wrong?" She lost her curt and entitled voice and took a higher pitch, a concerned inflection that was rare but not unpleasant.
"No, just… thinking. People with brains do that sometimes." He said, but without any real heat behind it.
"About what?" Aqua asked when he put a heavy wet cream colored cloth over his face. Water dripped and splashed down into the bath, and he didn't answer until the flow stopped.
"It isn't really an if is it, Aqua? How will I die next time? Head cut off? Impaled? Burned? Dying hurts you know, like, a lot. I don't like it. I know you want me to save this world from the Devil King and all, but I'm still weak!"
"Y-You're not thinking of quitting, are you, Kazuma? Y-You know you can't do that. I need you to win so I can go back home." Aqua felt a chill down her back.
Kazuma was still for a moment, and it held long enough that even Aqua froze with him. After the pause was long enough for the goddess of water to feel a bit of sweat form on her forehead, he answered.
"I don't think I can quit. Sylvia was going to wipe out that whole village. If that's really what's waiting out there, I don't really have a choice, do I? But look what I've got to work with? A masochistic perv with terrible aim, a one shot cannon, and a goddess that can only bring me back after I die and can't even cut a carrot without spilling sauce on herself!" Kazuma brought a fist down into the water hard enough to make a splash that hit Aqua full in the face when she turned around.
"Kazuma… does dying really hurt that bad?" She looked at him with such wide eyed innocence that he had no doubt she wasn't kidding.
"Yes. At least that time with the Winter Shogun it was so quick I didn't feel it. But all the rest? Oh yeah. This is no picnic for me. At least I can get a chance to live the good life now, but unlike you, I'm a human being, I think about these things and they suck." Kazuma stared at her and for once she didn't talk back.
"What if… what if we find some way to help you get stronger, you know, a lot faster?" Aqua asked in a tiny voice.
"If there were a way to do that, yeah, yeah sure that'd make me feel better, but if there were a way like that you'd… have… said… something…" Kazuma said and slowly trailed off.
"There is, isn't there?" Kazuma asked with a dry, certain tone.
"M-Maybe, I mean, I don't know, but… maybe?" Aqua answered while he stared at her.
"And you didn't say anything because…?" Kazuma couldn't help the twinge of doubt that thrummed in his mind.
"I forgot! Ok?! I forgot! I've sent thousands of people here over hundreds of years! I can't keep track of every little detail of their lives, OK?!" Aqua waved her hands rapidly, splashing the water around the bath as she threw her tantrum.
"Stop splashing, jeez!" Kazuma exclaimed and waved a hand out in front of himself, "If you remember now that's the important part!" He said to calm her down, and she began to settle down noticeably. "Just tell me what it is?"
"Well… everybody gets to take something with them, but they don't get all the same things, never the same thing twice, you see, so-" She was explaining and Kazuma interrupted.
"Wait so I got the leftover options when I got there?! The things nobody else wanted?!" Kazuma dragged his hand along his face and groaned.
"Well yeah, kinda." Aqua said innocently, "One of the things somebody took was an XP booster so he could gain skills faster. Lots faster."
"So… do you know what happened to him?" Kazuma asked optimistically.
"Not a clue." Aqua said, "Like I told you, I can't keep track of them all."
Kazuma clenched his jaw. 'She really is useless!'
"But the items we give people, they don't disappear and they can't be destroyed, plus only people we send here can use them, so they're useless to anyone born into this world." Aqua explained, and Kazuma gave it some thought.
"So… if we find it, I can use it. Yeah, that'd be great, but how would I find it?" He asked, "Is there like a radio signal or something?" He sat up and leaned forward in the water.
"Nope, sorry, no idea." She shrugged. "I'm just telling you it exists, the rest is up to you."
He snorted, "Fine, hey useless goddess, I'm getting out and I'll let you know when I've finished making dinner, don't hold your head under water too long when you wash your face."
"Meanie!" Aqua shouted at his back when he left her behind.
After the eighth time Aqua had dropped the beans, which was after dropping the carrots for the eighth time, Darkness lost the thrill of crawling over the floor to gather and rewash the scattered food, and sent the blue haired healer to the baths to get the sauce washed off. 'Oh, what a thrill it would be, to be forced to lick the sauce off some cruel, ugly man's body…' She shivered and bit her tongue to hold back her cry of excitement.
Megumin was uncharacteristically silent through the preparations, so much so that Darkness couldn't help but think to the night that the young mage's mother had cast her sleep spell.
Alone together, the crusader set down her bowl and put her hands on Megumin's shoulders. "Did he do it?" Darkness asked. There was no need to clarify, Megumin didn't pretend ignorance.
"No, no he didn't. Funny, you always say he chickens out with you when he gets a chance, but it wasn't because he was chickening out with me. He just… didn't, because I didn't want to. Not what you'd expect out of a pervert like that, is it?" Megumin asked with a wry little smile.
"So, if he didn't force you then why…?" Darkness slowly turned the young mage around, and in the privacy of the kitchen, sure that Kazuma was out and wouldn't see, the little mage showed her age, and began to cry.
"Because it was my own mother who set it up." Megumin declared and wrapped her arms around the blonde crusader, barely coming up to Darkness's chest, the difference between the two was night and day in every way.
But the older woman understood well enough that others desires were not the same as her own, and that the sense and shock of betrayal was the exact opposite of an erotic thrill.
"She did what she thought was best, that's all I can say, and I'm sorry." Darkness said to the young woman. But she could not suppress her own nature and said, "I promise you, I will throw myself at Kazuma's feet as a sacrifice to protect you if I must, that is a female crusader's duty! To protect the young and innocent with her own body if she must!"
Megumin squeezed the perverted crusader. "Thanks, but… I don't think he'll do anything, and now, away from… Yuiyui, she can't do anything either. Not to me, and soon, not to my little sister either."
"Your little sister?" Darkness asked and let Megumin disengage herself.
"Yeah, once Kazuma is rich, I'll ask him to let her stay here. I'll look after her after that." Megumin said and wiped her eyes dry.
"Do you think Kazuma will be OK with that?" Darkness asked, and her eyes went suddenly wild, "If I must, I can offer him myself as a plaything to persuade him, oh what wretched things he might do…"
Megumin cut the crusader off when the ecstatic whimpering began. "No, don't do that, I'll ask him tonight, after dinner, when he's gone to bed."