NMHA Ch. 9 - Leap of Faith
Luna decided that it could be the start of some joke. Two holy men and a demoness get into a car together and drive to the beachside. There was no way that wasn't going to be an interesting story to share.
Granted, she wasn't so much 'demon' as 'demon spawn', and her soul was still human last she checked, but that was semantics, particularly as under most circumstances that wouldn't really matter.
It didn't stop the brunette from fidgeting uncomfortably as she glanced to the seat across from her, at the black-haired man currently polishing a revolver.
At least it was the friendlier Exorcist. She figured that it wouldn't be quite as awkward since she wouldn't be glared at the whole way to Pichilemu as though she were to be shot the first mistake she made.
That 'the older one gets the wheel' still applied, despite these odd circumstances, gave Luna some level of relief.
So, since Touji was busy at the wheel, Luna decided to speak up, albeit somewhat hesitantly, eyeing the back of the older exorcist's head as though he would attempt to censure her for speaking up.
"Thanks for the snack, by the way. " Ah, chips and soda from a vending machine. How the brunette missed junk food. Truly, you never knew what you had until it was gone.
She wasn't going to have that too often though. Luna may have had an issue with caffeine in the past but she did not intend to get hooked on it again no matter how tasty a Dr. Pepper could be!
The Devil shook her head as Masaomi said something, blinking a few times to shake her out of her thoughts. "Right, could you say that again? I might have gotten lost in my thoughts right there."
The exorcist to her side gave a pained grimace. "Oh no, you too? Shidou-sensei's horrible with that."
"Sorry, sorry," Luna giggled sheepishly, shaking her head once more before continuing. "I'll try and keep out of my head for a bit then. You were saying?"
"It's fine," Masaomi soothed, setting his handkerchief down and lifting his free hand to wave down her apologies. "I was just saying that a few Pesos wasn't a big deal, and if it'll help you keep focus once we do start hunting for that Stray then it's mission funding well spent."
"And you won't get in trouble for accepting aid from a Devil?"
"We don't quite know what the Stray is capable of. You, however, seem to be on top of it. Beyond the lacking money or food or shelter bit, anyway. We can pass it off as a chilly ceasefire to bring down a common enemy." He cracked a smile. "You know, if your clothing wasn't so clean you probably could have just passed yourself off as a hitchhiker or hobo now that I think about it."
"Professionals have standards, you know." Luna lifted her head so her nose was pointing up haughtily, crossing her arms and huffing. "Do you know how my contractor would react if I hitchhiked a ride?"
"Haven't you done so already?"
The brunette's head dropped to gaze at Masaomi's sly grin with a fake pout and a pointed finger. "Hush you. I could have easily flown there, but your superior said he didn't want me out of either of your sights."
"To be fair, Shidou-sensei is still suspicious of you, and considering the circumstances I would say rightly so."
She fixed him with a neutral stare and a lifted brow. "And... you don't?"
The black-haired man shifted in place, returning to polishing the gun in his hands. He spoke after a few seconds of thought. "I... like to think I'm a good judge of character. Shidou-sensei seems to agree with that, and I haven't gotten any red flags from you. Besides, isn't it right to at least treat others with respect when they have done nothing to warrant otherwise?"
"I'm a Devil. Isn't that reason enough for exorcists?"
Masaomi seemed almost as though he wanted to say something, but with a glance to the man driving the car remained silent.
"Even if you are a Devil your apparent goals are the same as ours, just as they may be. That warrants some level of courtesy," Touji finally interjected, as though sensing Masaomi's discomfort. "Whatever your ulterior motives are for this mission, we shall see. Until then, to let you out of our sight would be the height of folly."
"I really hope that doesn't include the bedroom or bathroom."
That broke the black-haired exorcist out of his awkward airs, staring at Luna with a dumbfounded expression. "W-wait, what?"
"I really hope that doesn't include the bedroom or bathroom," Luna repeated, a dead serious expression on her face. "Unless you plan on using the fact that I'm a Devil to weasel out of consequences for peeking."
"Wha- t-that's ridiculous!" Masaomi cried out, as Touji stopped the car and pulled to the side, so he could turn around to glare at Luna.
"Maybe you could expect that from another Devil, but to suggest that holy men such as us would sink to such depravity is absurd!"
Luna bared her teeth in a grin, voice taking on an airy nonchalance to its tone. "Then look me in the eyes, and tell me to my face that you haven't thought of my soft, supple form bared to the steam of the shower."
As her gaze shifted from Masaomi to Touji, her grin widened as both opened their mouths, only for both to slam shut, Masaomi to turn away with a fierce blush and his superior with a grimace, pulling back onto the road to continue their drive. Touji's own ears had turned red at that, even if he himself hid his reaction far better than his subordinate.
Granted, Luna herself had worded it to ensure that they did in fact do so, but that was just part of the fun.
"Ara ara?" she purred, letting her tongue slip into the Japanese term to better tease them. "Who knew that holy men such as you two are even capable of thinking such depraved thoughts~? Here I was under the impression that you had shed any sense of physical desire."
She may have been toeing the line, but there was something entertaining about being able to get back at her uneasy 'allies' with some discomfort, especially as the red heated up on the driver's ears, and Masaomi began to stammer.
"Ah - well, that is, erm - that is to say, uh, uh- ohSHIT TOUJI!"
Luna's expression turned to pure shock as Masaomi lunged forward to yank the wheel sharply to the side, the car barely avoiding a truck passing by, horn blaring in warning.
'Did... did that just...?'
"Jesus fucking CHRIST, Touji!" She cringed, partly because she'd shrieked out the holy son's name, and partly because she hadn't thought he'd get so swept up in thoughts like that. "Focus on the road, man, not on my tits! You've already got a wife at home and a bun in the oven, I'm not getting anywhere near screwing with that relationship!"
It was only then that Luna realized she'd dropped forbidden knowledge.
'Me and my big fucking mouth.'
The car was deathly silent, all pretense of geniality gone once more and replaced with an ice-cold air.
Once again, the brown-haired exorcist pulled to the side of the road.
Then silence turned to action.
"How do you know that!?" he hissed, holy gun in hand as he twisted around and pointed it at Luna, expression contorting into a snarl. Masaomi wasn't as quick on the draw, shocked into silence at this turn of events, but quickly joined his superior in leveling the pistol in hand at the Devil. His brow was drawn in confusion and more than a little suspicion.
Back to square one. Fantastic.
She really needed to learn on how to keep her tongue in check. Damn it.
Lunarunn slowly lifted her arms up in a gesture of surrender, keeping her motions and her words slow and measured as her hands came to rest behind her head. Her eyes remained opened and focused on the brown-haired exorcist's hand.
"I will explain," she started, inclining her head at the gun. "But only if we all remain calm, and talk this through reasonably. If you could just... lower your weap-"
The brunette wasn't quite sure what happened next. One moment, she was speaking in a steady tone to try and calm down the guy pointing a gun at her. The next, her head strained to the side an an attempt to evade the shot, time almost seeming to slow down as the bullet raced forward. Even so, it grazed the side of her head and arm, leaving an almost cut-like streak of red on her cheekbone and clipping a bit of her ear, before punching through the headrest behind her. One would find a bulge on the other side as the bullet's momentum finally expired.
That the side of her face and that part of her arm exploded with pain and a feeling of... censure, and fatigue, confirmed that the bullets had some form of holy element to them. Her ears were ringing too, likely from the bang in an enclosed space. It was only because of her prior combat training that Luna was able to keep her reaction to a cry of pain and clapping her hand to the side of her head, instead of a full-blown scream.
'It burns, it burns, it burns it burns it burns!'
While it was clear that Touji wasn't expecting her to dodge from the brief expression of confusion on his face, it quickly morphed back into apoplectic rage. "No, you're done talking, Devil scum. We're doing this my way now, and if you don't tell me everything you know I'll make you wish that bullet found its mark."
Luna froze, the pieces finally coming together.
Touji had shot at her. Likely to kill. It was only because her body moved on its own that she didn't have a holy bullet-shaped hole in her skull.
He'd tried to kill her.
To kill her.
'-it burns'
Nobody had really tried before. She'd always sparred, never actually fought. Even if her own mother was willing to put her back in a hospital, she never went beyond that to putting Luna into a body bag.
'it burns'
Emotions warred within her mind; fear, anger, worry, shock, and more mingled together.
'It burns'
Even back when they first met, she hadn't really thought she was going to die, it was just a growing concern when her words hadn't immediately placated Touji. Now that was far more than just a concern.
'It burns.'
The seconds that passed felt like long minutes in Luna's mind as it continued to grapple with a situation that had turned from amiable to something immediately perilous to her continued livelihood. The pain from her wound and the worrying fatigue that emanated from it simply added to the fact.
'It burns.'
Fight. She wanted to strike back. She had two guns aimed at her. Lashing out meant death. She wanted to live.
'It burns.'
Flight. She wanted to flee from the one who injured her so. She was trapped in a car with them. Opening the door meant death. She wanted to live.
'It burns.'
Submit. She wanted to appease the one who was so upset. She had information that could ruin any semblance of reasonability she had left, or completely destroy canon, rendering all future info useless. Said information could be misbelieved, and cause further violence. That meant death. She wanted to live.
'It burns.'
There was noise outside of her field of vision, as focused in on the revolver as it was as her eyes shifted from left to right. Motion. She didn't understand.
'So it burns.'
She was attacked. She was in pain. She was in a hostile environment.
'So it burns.'
The air was tense, waiting for something, as if with bated breath.
'So it *burns*.'
Masaomi wasn't quite sure how things went pear-shaped so quickly. It seemed like everything were going so smoothly just moments ago. They were all conversing quite nicely, and if he was being honest the black-haired exorcist was enjoying the banter. Even the teasing seemed light-hearted, even if the mental image that came up when the Devil girl dared them to meet her eyes would have had a priest demanding he return to his studies and focus on the passages for chastity.
...Still would be worth it though, a part of him whispered.
He found that he agreed, strangely enough. Concerning?
Then Touji nearly crashed the car, clearly having gotten a similar image as him and got lost in thought like he normally does, and everything went downhill from there.
First, the Devil girl freaked out, and said something she shouldn't have known. Couldn't have known?
How would she have been able to realize that Touji was married, and expecting on top of that?
Clearly it was something said in haste and alarm, since her paling expression afterward implied she hadn't meant to say that. Why?
Then, Touji turned his gun on her, incensed at the gall of the woman to bring his family into the matter.
If there was one thing that was a trigger button for his superior, Masaomi would say without a shadow of a doubt that it was getting his loved ones involved. And the sole female in the car had all but bashed that button in with a sledgehammer.
Out of trained instinct, he found his own gun pointing at her, even if Masaomi himself was reluctant to do so.
Regardless, the Devil girl remained calm, even if her paling expression and slightly dilated pupils indicated that she was well aware of how dangerous things had become for her. She did everything right to deescalate the conflict, even so far as to put her hands behind her head, as though being arrested by a policeman.
Then his superior shot her.
Masaomi almost thought she was dead then and there, but somehow got her head almost completely out of the line of fire. He remembered then that Devils had reflexes far beyond the ken of mortals such as him and Touji.
Still, the cry of pain and the way she clutched at the smoking gash reminded him of a girl, an ordinary one, who had found herself in a situation she had no control over and had just gotten hurt in a way she hadn't felt before.
It was such a human reaction that he couldn't help but act in turn, especially after his superior spat out such vitriol.
"Touji! You've made your point!" Masaomi shouted, getting out of the car as the other exorcist did the same, the brown-haired man's gun still trained on the dazed Devil as he stormed around the vehicle? It almost, no, he was planning to pull her out of the car.
"This Devil mentioned my wife and child, Masaomi! She's going to explain how she knows about them, and I don't care what it takes." That was one of the things about Touji that Masaomi got so frustrated about; he became unreasonable when there was even a hint of danger to his family.
He reached for the handle, only to pull back with utmost haste.
Then, the car exploded.
No, that wasn't quite right. In hindsight, it was more like the air within the car spontaneously combusted, the pressure of which the vehicle itself was incapable of handling, and ruptured as such.
While the difference was small enough that visually it made no distinction, the brief moment that was part of the explosion originating from inside the car rather than the car itself saved his and Touji's lives, sharply honed instinct causing them both to dive away just in time to avoid the heat and shrapnel from either turning them to crisps or fileting them.
Still, it left Masaomi's head spinning and ringing as he got back up from his prone position on the ground, noting that his exorcist garb and the skin beneath had gashes of their own. Regardless of the wounds being superficial for the most part, he could only watch as the culprit sped out from the burning wreckage and flew off.
He couldn't really blame her. Or could he? It was hard to think clearly at the moment, as the black-haired exorcist was still gathering his bearings.
Also, why were her wings so... colorful?
And how did they not even learn her name, for that matter?
As clarity returned to Luna's thoughts and the burning sensation in the side of her head and arm faded to a dull throb, she landed on an empty beachside beneath the slowly descending sun and held her head with a hand, sitting down harshly on the warm sand.
That... that got fucked so fast. She hadn't even had time to think, she just acted, and things started blowing up. Luna hadn't seen Masaomi or Touji's corpses... but then again, she had been too focused on getting away to even check.
"...Fuck..." she hissed, wincing as she started to pick off some of the dried-up blood that had leaked from the bullet graze. There was probably some in her hair too. If only Luna could wash that off...
Her eyes shifted over to the seawater and crawled over to gather some to run through her hair. Sure, saltwater was terrible for hair care, last she checked, but dried blood probably was too, and as a Devil Luna had found it took surprisingly little time to tend to it despite its length. Probably another perk of the Devil physical form; ease of maintenance. A little cleaning this way wouldn't hurt.
Luna's thoughts came to a halt as she noted her surprising amount of concern for that particular part of the body. That was... not unusual, but still a little strange. She'd been shot at by a holy bullet, and one of her concerns was how the bleeding would affect her hair?
"I really need to get my priorities straight." The brunette sighed as she finished cleaning off. She hadn't taken herself as a vain individual, but... first time for everything?
She then took heed of the buildings in the distance, and figured that she was in the area she needed to be. So that at least was one concern out of the way. The matter now was then determining the rest of her... situation.
Technically Luna had retaliated against the Exorcists. But she had still effectively attacked them by blowing up their car. From what she could remember, anyway. Had they reported it in, chances were that she'd be marked for death by the Church, and wouldn't that be a pain in the ass for future Stray hunts, to be hounded like them?
Then there was the reason she got shot in the first place; her accidentally disclosing that she knew about Touji. Unlike with Sirzechs or Ajuka, there likely wasn't much information on him, and he was pretty devoted to his job so it only made sense they'd shield him in turn. That she knew meant bad things, especially to someone who was in the process of starting a family.
Combine that with the fact that she was an Exorcist's natural enemy, the very sort of being that they were trained to combat, and it only made sense that he reacted as negatively as he did. Perhaps he could have been less... overtly violent about it, but fear made people do funny things. And in a high-stress situation like a near head-on collision, it clearly compounded.
In a way, she couldn't blame Touji. In his shoes, Luna likely would have done the same, considering the circumstances.
Still didn't stop her from cursing him out for fucking shooting her though.
But what's done is done, and what matters is figuring out what comes next.
What should probably come first is setting up a base of operations, since she didn't actually know where the exorcists had planned to make camp.
The question was... where?
She looked around, and then came to a realization.
There wasn't anyone on the beach. Or in the water.
Considering it was roughly four in the afternoon, that was strange. Pichilemu was a tourist resort after all, and even if traffic was way down because of Uvarys making couples disappear there still should have been some people around.
The brown-haired Devil reached out with her senses, to attempt to detect any form of magic, and came across something... interesting.
Apparently she'd wandered into a Bounded Field of some sort. She couldn't tell what it was for specifically, but the fact of the matter was that Luna had found herself in it.
That... was either incredibly lucky or unlucky. The brunette hadn't decided quite yet.
Her stomach growled again, having finished the snack kindly provided to her by Masaomi and demanding another tribute.
Luna's eye twitched.
"Go figure."
She'd need to do something about that.
The sun was setting by the time Masaomi and Touji made it to Pichilemu, and though time had passed the brown-haired exorcist was still incensed at the Devil girl's actions.
He was in an overprotective husband phase, it seemed. The fact that they had to walk the rest of the way to the coastal town hadn't helped his mood any either.
Masaomi was also rather peeved, but kept his silence as a big part of his frustrations were with Touji himself, particularly in the way he overreacted.
The black-haired exorcist remembered what the Devil girl had said before Touji shot her. She was going to explain, and once again she had been completely honest with them. And the fact was, she hadn't uttered a single lie since they first met.
Or if she did, her acting was beyond flawless, which wasn't likely given how she'd reacted when that one stranger she was talking to gave her a verbal blessing.
Whether her lack of falsehoods was to ingratiate herself with them for some dark machination like Touji seemed to believe at this point, or if it was because she legitimately had nothing to hide, he wasn't sure.
Well, that wasn't entirely true, was it? She knew about Touji Shidou's wife and her pregnancy, and hadn't meant to say it.
Still, even if the accuracy of that information she shouldn't have had access to was disturbing, the intention in which she had said it wasn't malicious or hostile.
The Devil girl had specifically said she had no intention of messing with their relationship, didn't she? It meant she meant no harm. Not until the car exploded did she even try to fight back.
To be quite honest, it seemed as though she were trying to play nice. And succeeding, until blood was drawn.
And even then, she didn't turn into a snarling beast like the Strays were. It really was like she was human, down to the way she bled and went into shock.
...Well. Almost. The smoking gash in her face was proof that she was a Devil, if the fact that she blew up their car and flew off afterward wasn't proof enough. They had been hit hard enough that if the Devil girl wanted to finish the job she could have, and easily at that.
Which went back to her wings. They weren't the kind of pinions that most Devils had. Actually, in all his years of training Masaomi hadn't ever heard of wings ephemeral white like a ghost, with translucent skin that glimmered with all the colors of visible light.
They were quite striking actually, so he imagined that the scriptures would have mentioned a Devil with that sort of wingspan. As far as he could remember, he hadn't heard of such.
So was she a new lineage of some sort? Masaomi wasn't sure... but he would admit to being curious.
After all, if even Devils could gain new bloodlines, then that means they're able to change.
And if Devils are able to change, then the possibilities as to making peace - true peace, not just a ceasefire - bloom.
Masaomi had a feeling that the girl who had fled from them, who Touji shot at in a fit of overprotective rage, would have a big part to play in that.
Even in her interactions with them, she didn't really begrudge them for being exorcists, after all. Despite supposedly hearing horror stories from whomever her parents were.
Maybe she was Reincarnated? Those sorts of Devils had been around for a while now, and if she was recently Reincarnated it would sort of make sense that she didn't have the same fear of God's holy soldiers that most ordinary Devils did.
He shook his head as he and Touji split up to comb the city for information regarding the Stray. So many questions arose with the appearance of this one girl, and she almost certainly had answers to a large portion of those questions.
The black-haired exorcist decided he'd have to track her down somehow. The Devil and exorcists were technically still on the same mission after all, so it shouldn't be that difficult.
'Once bitten twice shy' came to mind, though. Masaomi really hoped he wouldn't have to try and work through that sort of distrust.
His eye twitched.
When Masaomi set out, he had two goals in mind: locate the hideout of the Stray, and see if he managed to stumble across the Devil girl. She was pretty focused on her mission after all. After some more time searching, he at least managed to find one of them.
Unfortunately, it was in a rather... disappointing fashion.
That is to say, he found her laying on a bench along one of the beaches, stomach growling in such a way that Masaomi was almost certain there was some level of biological manipulation going on.
There was just no way a stomach could growl so loudly otherwise.
Then their eyes met, and for the first time since they had their first encounter the exorcist wished he was someplace else.
"MASAOMI-KUUUUUUUUN!" The moment her eyes landed on him the brunette bolted to her feet and practically glomped him, bawling into his side. "I've been so hungry, my stomach demands more tribute, Masaomi-kun! If I don't eat soon I'm gonna diiiiiiie!"
"W-what?" Was this really the same girl who'd held a legitimate, thought-provoking conversation with him - and to a smaller extent his superior - on their way here? "H-hold on just a minute, humans can go days without food with only hunger pangs, you're just overreac-"
"FOOOOOOOOOOOD!" ...Was that her stomach growling in such a way that it sounded like actual words, or was her voice just that strangled?
"Oh, for the love of... fine, fine! I'll get you something to eat! Just knock it off with the stomach growling!"
...At least she seemed to be in good spirits?
His eye twitch seemed to be getting stronger, and it felt like a vein was protruding from his skull as he watched the Devil girl eat.
It wasn't to say she asked for anything expensive; they had ended up in a fast food restaurant of all places, for crying out loud, and she was the one who dragged him there!
Nor was it the way she ate, as the girl was a rather clean eater.
No, what ground his gears was the sheer volume that the Devil across from him was putting away.
She'd gone through five combo meals already and hadn't shown any sign of slowing down!
And what was it with her fixation on adding pickles to everything!?
It was a good thing that he'd set up a privacy ward to keep the common folk from seeing this... crime against the law of physics.
Seriously! How?
Masaomi was awoken from his thoughts when he noticed a finger and thumb holding a fry aloft, pointing in his direction.
"Want one?" The question was so innocent, so innocuous, that had the circumstances leading up to this moment not been a factor he would have simply shrugged and accepted her offering.
But this Devil had gone so far as to blow up their car, extort a meal out of him, and then proceed to rack up what was looking to be two day's worth of rationing on a single meal. And she had the gall to offer... him...
The righteous fury that had quickly been swelling in the black-haired exorcist subsided as he gave a heavy sigh, hanging his head. This day definitely was... a memorable one. That much, at least, was for certain.
"I know that sigh." Luna pulled the fry back and popped it into her mouth, frowning thoughtfully as she thought about what it might be that caused Masaomi to release the Sigh of Long Suffering.
...She really needed to not make a habit out of junk food.
Wait. Right. Devil. She probably could have as much as she wanted and any weight she did gain would go straight to her T&A.
That would explain the preference for excess in Devil society.
"In my defense, I was really hungry," she started, before pausing as the exorcist lifted a hand, palm facing her.
"Just... give me a minute to process everything that's happened," he muttered, that hand which stopped Luna turning to rub his temple with two fingers. "It's been a long day."
She allowed him that minute, and then spoke up again after Masaomi waved to her that she could keep going.
"Again, I know the feeling. I realize I'm probably the cause for it, but if you'd like to vent about... er, whatever it is that made everything crash down, you're welcome to." The brunette scratched the back of her head, glancing away with a sheepish grin. "Least I can do after you treated me to a meal like this, and after I blew up your car, and caused your superior officer to go apeshit."
"What's up with that, anyway?" If she was offering... "You mentioned you'd explain how you knew Shidou-sensei was married and expecting, but then things got... hairy."
"Hairy being an understatement," Luna remarked drily, now pointing to the mark on her cheek and ear. "This thing still stings like a motherfucker."
"Welcome to the world of guns, consider yourself lucky you managed to avoid the worst of your first bullet wound," Masaomi shot back, just as drily. "For someone who claimed to be a professional hunter, you're still pretty sheltered if you've never even been shot by an exorcist."
At that, the Devil's gaze shifted to the side with another sheepish smile, and a flush to her cheeks.
"Well, er. I mean... I technically am, but I never said how long I've been one, have I?"
"Considering I don't even know your name yet, I'd say I don't know the first thing about you other than you're a Devil with an unusual pair of wings,"
"Exchanging names never came up?" She glanced upward now, placing another fry in her mouth and chewing thoughtfully, before swallowing and continuing. "Huh. Yeah, I suppose that would be the case. I figured out your names from listening, but mine was never an issue. What changed?"
"You mean aside from the fact that I treated you to a dinner out of the goodness of my heart despite not knowing a thing about you other than your obsession with pickles?"
Luna looked down at the multiple burgers and sandwiches she'd gotten, and the way that every single one of them had a dill slice to go along with them. "...I haven't had any real good ones in a while. It's been years since I've had a dill slice, all the ones in the Underworld are sweet." She stuck her tongue out. "That is to say, disgusting."
"Then it becomes all the more reasonable to at least share your name," he pressed, at which the brunette shrugged.
She made a small bow in her seat. "Lunarunn. Of a distant Bael family branch. Freshly minted Stray Hunter. Nice to meet you."
"Bael?" The name rung true. Considered one of the highest families in the Underworld, even having the name without being part of the main family oft came with special privileges, according to the texts.
"Mhm." The Devil swallowed the bite of her sandwich. "Though before that, I was just a college student."
That meant... "You're a Reincarnated Devil, then?"
"Mmm... sorta? I'm in a weird place." She finished off the sandwich and scratched the side of her head in thought. "Got run over by a truck, woke up in the hospital in a body with way bigger tits than I had before, a different face, and a name not my own. So, yeah, I guess I am 'Reincarnated'. Naturally though, rather than through an Evil Piece."
The first thing she'd noticed was different was her chest? The exorcist glanced down briefly before covering his brief flush with a bite from his own sandwich. Yeah, yeah he supposed he could see that. Few humans were so blessed as to have that sort of... bounty.
Once he finished with that concealing bite, Masaomi continued. "What's the difference?"
"Well, for one, I woke up in someone else's body. Someone who'd gone and did a ritual to some eldritch being that stripped her body of its soul. So I guess since I was a wandering one that hadn't quite left Earth yet I ended up moving in." She laughed. "Geez, meeting my new parents for the first time was a mess."
Masaomi winced, though whether it was the nonchalance at which she said that another girl - the original one, supposedly - had her immortal spirit ripped from this world and fed to a being beyond comprehension, or if it was the fact that it happened in the first place, even he didn't know.
"Right, sorry, that is kind of a bombshell to drop, huh." Luna coughed politely, taking a sip of her drink before she pushed past that apology. "It's been years though, so it's kind of old hat for me. But yeah, I guess you could say I'm Reincarnated in that I'm a Devil with a human soul? Maybe? I don't really know anything about the spiritual BS that ended up with me in another person's body, so I'm just making conjecture here."
Finally, something she said caught up with Masaomi. "Hang on. You said that there was an accident that stripped the original Luna of her soul?"
At Luna's furrowed expression and cautious nod, the black-haired exorcist continued. "That is to say, she had a soul in the first place?"
"Yeah. Believe me, it surprised me that beings descended from the demons of the Ars Goetia had a similar spiritual element as regular humans, too." She lifted a hand to her chin. "The original Luna was going to have life support pulled in a matter of days, before I woke up. She'd already been declared brain-dead."
It still wasn't making sense to Masaomi, though. He'd been taught that Devils were all soulless beings who preyed on the innocent, and corrupted the righteous.
Yet, he'd already seen that wasn't quite the case, at least not with this one. She acted... just like a human. Even claimed to have been one before. Claimed that she'd died, and that her spirit moved from a broken home to an abandoned one.
As if reading his thoughts (and wasn't that an intimidatingly possible idea?), Luna continued. "I've thought a bit about it myself. And I've figured, maybe if demons and Devils had preyed upon humanity over countless years, acting like the parasites exorcists are trained to fight, maybe some of the humanity they were siphoning from the collective whole bled into their own beings? Maybe, over countless generations, they eventually developed souls of their own?"
It was... a lot to take in, admittedly. Especially since it was, should her story be true, irrefutable proof that there was more to Devils than he knew.
And yet... why did Masaomi get a flutter of excitement in his chest at the idea that there was more to his supposed enemies than the monstrous beings he was trained to slay?
He already knew that if Touji learned of his correspondence with Luna, and was actually listening to what she had to say, Masaomi would get verbally castigated. To say nothing of if a priest learned of it.
After all, to admit that Devils had a soul would upend the dogma of the Churches in such an overwhelming way that to call the result bedlam would be an understatement. The way the Churches were set up, God and his Angels were the ultimate Good, Devils were the ultimate Evil, and Fallen were the traitorous scum who'd turned their back on their Lord Father.
To suggest, after an untold number of years of violent conflict and racial schism, that Devils may be more like humans than they once were, that the teachings of what is right and wrong are outdated, would be heresy to the highest degree.
Well. Not highest, but still so close that the end result would still be the same; execution. Possibly even crucifixion, maybe even a burning at the stake, his name wiped clean off all the history books.
Masaomi found himself at a crossroads at this point, two directions in which he could see his life going, whether it be to embrace things as they are... or to seek what could be.
History was never made by those who fell in line with the status quo. What possibilities were being revealed here, it stirred something in Masaomi, the same sort of stirring that drove him to become an exorcist in the first place.
A will to protect.
A desire to see those around him safe from the schemes and dangers offered by a world beyond their perception.
A yearning for the day when swords can be made into plowshares.
A yearning that Masaomi knew, just knew, could be fulfilled if he decided to break off from the status quo, and continue his correspondence with Lunarunn Bael.
And wasn't Protestantism about finding your own path to God anyway?
Who was to say that God himself hadn't lead Masaomi to this fast food place with Luna, to encourage him to explore this potential line of realizations, to one day bring peace to the three factions?
He realized then that it wasn't even a crossroads.
"Before I continue to listen to these... frankly radical ideas..."
It was a path he was always going to take, this leap of faith.
"You never did explain how you knew about Shidou-sensei's burgeoning family. Could you explain that for me?"
Lunarunn blinked slowly, turning Masaomi's question over in her head before perking up in realization.
"...Oh yeah! Heheh... I... forgot to mention that I have prophetic visions from time to time, didn't I?"
What.
The.
Fuck?
Fuck it. To hell with it all.
*THUNK.*
His head slammed into the table, causing all the food on it to jump slightly, a panicked Luna quickly grabbing the drinks before they spilled with a yelp of alarm. "...Where's some fucking sake when I need it...?"
A/N:
Oh yeah, we've been over 100 favorites since last chapter huh? Compared to some of the other stories on here it isn't much, but I'm glad people are finding this one good enough to keep an eye on! Puts a smile on my face, that does.
Also, holy shit that conversation between Masaomi and Lunarunn flowed. Managed to pump this out under two hours, and I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. Hopefully you all agree!
Anyway, the Chile arc should be wrapped up in the next chapter, so if any of you are getting tired of it, worry not! In any case, enjoy the early chapter!
Tempura Wizard, signing off.
