Disclaimer: I do not own DanMachi or any of the Omori's original characters, nor do I make any profit off of my writing.
Bell blinked owlishly at the cloaked figure in front of him. Could he really be blamed? The figure's voice was coming from just about everywhere and could only be described as androgynous.
Anya, however, had no such reservations.
"You're grandmistress's master?"
Fels didn't know about that. She just liked to come to him for advice sometimes.
Now was one such time.
He told her as such.
"You are her master! That makes you my great grandmaster! Bell's my master, Lenoa's his mistress, and you're her master! It's perfect!"
If Fels could furrow his brows in confusion, he would.
.. what?
He turned to glance toward his old friend. His old friend who was holding her head in her hands and maybe, probably weeping.
.. what?
He elected to ignore the cat girl's excited outburst in favor of getting to the entire reason for him being here.
"So.. you're a familiar?"
"Mhmm!"
"And Bell is your- "
"Husband!"
.. what? Hadn't she just called him her master?
Fels looked over to the boy, Bell, who - similar to his mistress - had his head in his hands. It was far easier to tell that he was weeping, with the puddle on the floor and all.
"Is he alright?"
Anya looked over at him and nodded emphatically. "They're tears of happiness!"
For some odd reason, the boy only cried hard at that. Anya didn't quite understand that.
"Uh-huh. Did the blessing reveal anything?"
The catgirl frowned and crossed her arms with a 'hmmph!'
"Not to me! All they said was my husband- "
Tears.
" -was the best darn witch around! I already knew that!"
"That's great. Now, could you tell me what the blessing said?"
"It said that my husband was the best darn witch around!"
It stood to reason that a being who had lived for hundreds upon hundreds of years would have a large basin of patience. Fels felt like he'd begun to understand that after his three-hundredth birthday. He was like eight hundred years old now.
This girl was testing that patience.
He sighed.
Kind of.
He gave a disembodied voice's best impression of a sigh and called it a day.
"Cranel-san, may I see your back?"
Anya pouted. Why wouldn't her great grandmaster just believe her!?
The young witch gave what Fels could only assume was a confirmation through his sobs, so he maneuvered around to his back and pulled up his black shirt.
".. "
".. "
".. "
".. "
After a full minute of silence, Lenoa became curious and made her way over.
".. "
".. "
".. "
".. "
She glanced over at Fels and Fels at her.
They turned back to the falna in unison.
".. "
".. "
".. "
".. "
Then:
" " What the fuck? " "
Skills:
Witchcraft: The best damn witch around!
Fels had never more wished that he hadn't created that damned immortality stone. At least then he could perish and start a new life free of the burden of this knowledge.
What the hell even is that!?
He was going to have some serious words with upper management about this.
Fels dropped the shirt and walked away, slumping down into a chair tiredly. His body ached with an exhaustion and wariness he hadn't felt since long before the skin and muscles had sloughed away from his bones.
"So?"
He glanced up. Bell was wiping at his red eyes, puffy from tears. The shoulders of Fels's cloak lifted as he shrugged his tired bones. "I have no idea."
Lenoa blinked. "You what?"
He shrugged again. "I've got nothing. Never seen anything like it."
She sputtered. "You're over eight hundred years old, Fels-sama, how have you not heard of this?"
"You are!?"
"Wow! Does that mean he's more like.. my great, great grandmaster or my great, great, great grandmaster?"
They were both ignored.
"I don't know what to tell you, Lenoa. I cannot give you information that I do not have. There has never been anything like this, not in Altena, and certainly not in Orario."
Lenoa grumbled to herself. This was just peachy. Not only had her prank turned into a massive headache, but she was dealing with some weird mystical shit on top of it. Honestly, what even was witchcraft? She felt like she'd gotten the aesthetic down but past that she hadn't the faintest idea what it actually was.
Spells and curses? Maybe.
Potions and elixirs? She doubted it, people had been making those for centuries and nobody ever called them witches.
Were they all witches in reality?
What was a witch?
What makes them different from the rest of the world's practitioners of the magic arts.
How had Bell described them when he first barged into her shop? Practitioners of the arcane and demonic arts? Terrific. That's exactly what she needs on a Monday morning. Arcane and Demonic arts.
Inexplicable. Confusing. Weird. Arcane and Demonic arts.
It couldn't stop at the arcane, gods no, it just had to keep on going to the demonic, and it couldn't even stop there, it just had, had to be extra weird and confusing. What even was Anya? Was she a real girl? A cat person?
What even was a familiar?
She went to the expert.
"Headache."
Anya turned away from the skeleton man and stopped her attempt to calculate just how many 'greats' were necessary when she spoke to him. "Yes, grandmistress? Nyaa?"
"What's a familiar?"
The catgirl jumped to attention, all too happy to share her vast knowledge. "Familiars are helpers! Nyaa!"
Lenoa squinted her eyes as her mouth hung open in disbelief. That's it?
Bell peaked over the girl's shoulder and smiled at his mistress. "What she means is that familiars are supernatural entities that assist witches and the like in their practice of magic. They can do any number of tasks: collecting ingredients, preparing occult circles– "
"And back massages! Nyaa!"
Bell shrugged. "And back massages."
"Oh! And foot massages!"
"And foot massages."
"And shoulder mass– "
Bell slid a hand over the girl's mouth to stop her likely endless list of the different kinds of massages she could perform before she even started. "Thank you, Anya, very enlightening."
Lenoa nodded. It seemed rather helpful if she were being honest, she wouldn't mind a familiar of her own if that were the case. Massages and gruntwork? That sounded like heaven to an old coot like her.
Fels – who they'd all just about forgotten the existence of – coughed into his hand. How he managed that, none of them were quite sure. Nothing about the vacant skeletal creature making noises made much of any sense though so they left it alone. It wasn't like Bell or Anya were exactly the pinnacle of logic in the world at the moment.
"If that is all, I think I'll be leaving."
"Thank you, Fels-sama. Feel free to stop by."
The sage nodded. "I will keep that in mind, Lenoa."
He would decisively not be doing that. He wanted to be as far from those two freaks of nature as he could be.
Once he was gone and the door was firmly shut behind him, Bell turned to his new familiar, removing his hand from her mouth.
" –alf massages and nyeck massages and butt massag– "
His hand didn't stay separate for long. Did she even need to breathe?
The next week passed without anything really special happening. Riveria stopped by once or twice to check up on their nonexistent progress before leaving to update the goddess on what was happening.
Most of the wasted time had been spent with Bell answering some of Anya's unending questions. Things like 'why can't I touch the lava water' and 'is this food?' Truthfully, he felt like the questions were relatively self-explanatory. Firstly, if you're going to refer to something as 'lava water' it becomes rather obvious that you understand said water is hot. Typically, people avoid touching hot things. Secondly, no. No. No. Swords are not, and never will be, food. He did not care if she saw a street performer swallowing one when she snuck out halfway through the week. It was not food.
Gods, he really wished familiars came with survival instincts.
"Husband, nyare you alright? .. nyaa?"
Bell sighed and shook his head ruefully. It wasn't that he was annoyed with her by any means, he actually found her fascination with the world really endearing, he was just frustrated in general. He hadn't made any progress with his arcane tricks. Nothing.
"I'm okay, Anya, just worried I'm not very good at this whole 'witchcraft' business."
It certainly didn't seem like he was very good. Anya was the only good thing that came out of it unless he counts turning his left ear pink for a day. He wasn't even really sure what that had been about.
Anya practically growled at the notion, baring her fangs toward the floor as the pencil in her hand creaked under her grip. Her ears too flattened against her head and her tail lashed angrily behind her.
"That's stupid. Nyaa."
That may have been the most serious 'nyaa' he'd ever heard in his life. It felt more like she was speaking it for the sake of speaking it rather than the impulse it had seemed like before.
"What is your skill?"
".. witchcraft?"
"And what does it do?"
Why wasn't she nyaa-ing anymore? He didn't realize how used to the little noises he'd become in his everyday life, it just felt wrong to not hear them. Had they been purposeful this entire time? Did she even have to 'nyaa' when she spoke?
"Uhh.. makes me a witch?"
Anya narrowed her eyes at him and stood from her chair, discarding her coloring book as she did. She stalked forward toward him, taking slow, menacing steps as she approached. Bell pushed himself further back into the couch just in time to brace himself for the girl's lunge.
"Kyaa!"
It certainly didn't prevent him from squealing though.
"It said that you're 'the best– '" She cut herself off, frowning in consternation as she held his shoulders against the backrest. "It said you're 'the best– !' Nyaa! It says you're 'the best witch around!' Got that?"
Bell blinked.
And then he blinked again.
And then, for good measure, he blinked a few more times before a smug grin spread across his lips.
"I thought you were supposed to be some kind of demon?"
"I am!"
"And you can't say 'damn?'" Seriously. Aren't demons like.. the textbook definition of 'damned?' How can she not say it.
Anya crossed her arms and looked away with a huff. "I don't know what you're talking about. Nyaa."
"If memory serves, the skill says that I am 'the best damn witch around,' but you cut a word out, didn't you?"
"No!"
Bell huffed out a disbelieving laugh. She totally did!
"Husband! Stop!"
"I'm sorry, but," he snickered, "it's just– " He howled with laughter, clenching his gut as Anya pouted in his lap. The girl tried futilely to get him to stop by any means necessary. She smacked his arm, flicked his nose, pulled his ear, pinched his cheek, she even left to get the spray bottle Lenoa keeps around for when Anya was getting particularly antsy. Nothing! He wouldn't stop!
Now, Anya was typically a happy girl. She was pretty simple in her requirements to be having a good time. Truthfully, there were only two things necessary.
The first was that she needed to be alive. This was a necessity. She physically could not be happy if she was not alive. Probably. Actually, she wasn't entirely positive on that one. She couldn't say for certain what happens to familiars before and after summonings. Perhaps they had their own little version of Tenkai?
She'd shelf the requirement of 'being alive' for later.
The second requirement though? No dogs.
That was it, really. She could be happy so long as those two requirements were met.
Most of the time it was actually easier to make her more happy than less. Just about anything could do that. Answer a question? She's ecstatic. Pet her head? She's about ready to melt. The way her grandmistress calls her 'headache'? She could die happy.
Yes, Anya was a happy girl.
She was decisively not happy right now.
"Master! Stop laughing at me!"
She didn't like this. Not one bit.
Why was he laughing at her? She just didn't want to say the word because it was a bad word. You aren't supposed to say bad words. That was like lesson one of existence. She wasn't even sure where she got that knowledge, she just knew it.
"Bell! I mean it! Stop laughing!"
He didn't.
She couldn't even tell if he tried.
Anya stormed away with a flurry of limbs and hisses, disappearing from the store floor. Bell barely even noticed the vanishing of the weight on his chest as he clenched his stomach, still laughing uproariously.
Lenoa watched the interaction from behind the front counter, giving off a disappointing shake of the head as she did. The boy would have to learn from his mistakes on his own. The first rule of marriage: don't laugh at your wife. Yes. It still applies even when your wife is a witch's familiar and you aren't actually married.
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