Giriko watched Gopher from the couch in deep confusion. Not two hours after Gopher's defeat at the hand of Maka Albarn she was up again and went straight to work. No one else around the church seemed surprised by this either. Even though it seemed wrong for someone in her position to be ripping out moldy carpets. Not that he planned to take over by any means. He was hired muscle, and no one told her to it in the first place.
"Doesn't that hurt?" He asked. Gopher glanced at the gaping hole in her side.
"Not much; I've managed to stop the bleeding." She pointed to the sashes tied around her injury. "I should be fine as long as I don't make any sudden movements." She gave an insincere smile before moving to a box of old candles. Usually Noah would have fixed her by now, but with all the new additions to his collection he had been too busy to start.
"So what, you're just going to wait for it to heal on its own?" Giriko said. It was like watching a bee at work. She couldn't focus on any one task for long. Or she was jumping ship each time it hurt, it was hard for him to tell.
"No." Gopher sighed. "I... I can't 'heal' alright. With small stuff it doesn't matter much, but I'll probably need a skin transfusion." Giriko's brow furrowed.
"So you weren't born in that body?"
"Noah made it for me." Gopher smiled and drifted off into a daydream for a bit. Suddenly she shook her head and gave a slight chuckle. "My old body was horrible, I could barely move and I was in pain all the time. So, Noah made me a new body." She turned to find Giriko scrutinizing her like he would a prize at a fair.
"So your body's composed of artificial materials then. Base elements enchanted to stick to a polymer base material." Gopher stared at him blankly. "Magical rubber." Giriko simplified. People had tried for years to make realistic golems. He'd just never met someone willing to live as one before. He certainly couldn't handle it. He loved drinking too much.
"Not...really?" Gopher frowned. "It's a compound Noah made, like skin. I can feel and move like any normal person."
"But you have no micro filaments or reconstructive proteins." He smirked. "Simple really, I could fix up that hole in your side in my sleep."
"I will not have you tampering with the body Noah made for me. He'll fix it... when he had time." She looked to the side, away from his smug grin. Of course Noah would fix her, he had to. She was a precious asset. A fighter. He wouldn't simply forget about her now that he had new additions... would he?
"But when will that be?" Giriko asked. Gopher paused in her work. "Do you really want to be walking around with a hole in your side for the next few weeks?" Gopher bit her lip. "If you don't trust me with the detail work, fine. At least let me patch it up to keep the flies out. Then you can wait all the time you want for Noah to take a look it."
"...Noah has been busy lately, and if I get it fixed up now, then he won't have to worry about it." She sighed. "I guess. But only a quick patch up!" She reminded. Giriko lead her out of the room with a smirk on his face. He could do miles better than that freak Arachne hired.
Chrona shuffled to her new home after a recent mission. She paused, surprised to see her mother at the kitchen table, it was, after all, two in the morning. Medusa took a sip of tea.
"Go to bed." Medusa said. Chrona nodded numbly and continued to her small bedroom. She flopped onto a pile of blankets in the corner of her room, the pale moonlight making patterns on the stone floor. She sighed; another person had that skull with them. It bothered her that it looked familiar and yet she couldn't recall where she had first laid eyes on it. She bit her lower lip and struggled to think. Where had she first seen it?
She remembering shouldn't hurt her head like this. There was a brief flash of a man in a mask and a girl here age. Her head pounded, but she had to know. She tried to remember, the girl with blonde pigtails, a curtain of red blood, then blackness. She couldn't bear to remember more, her head ached horribly. At times like this, someone would usually reprimand her, distract her. But she was alone. Just her and the feral soul that wrapped around her's in the darkness. It had a name once, didn't it?
What was the name?
She rolled over and pulled out an object from her pocket. A small, three toothed skull. She ran her thumb over the smooth surface to remove the dried blood. Her brow furrowed as to why she was attached to it. She cringed as her headache began to act up. So, she set down the skull and rubbed her temples, it was time to rest. She'd worry about the skull later.
"I'M HIDEOUS!" Gopher cried. She stormed out of Girkio's makeshift workshop half dressed. This was bad, really bad. Leave it to Justin to bring in some amateur that couldn't stay sober while he worked.
"Would you stop complaining." Giriko growled.
"You've completely ruined my body!" Gopher accused.
"So I messed up a little on the pigmentation." Giriko shrugged. "If I recall it was you who wanted a quick patch job." Gopher glared at Giriko before she continued to mourn her 'deformity'. The cut was completely healed and she could move fine. But the color was wrong; a rich tan blotched her pale skin where the cut was previously. Frankly, that was the only problem with it, but the discoloration was permanent. "Just have Noah fix it."
"I can't have Noah-sama see this!" Gopher screeched. She threw on a fresh shirt to hide the evidence. "He made this body with his own hands. If he finds out that I tampered with it-" Tears burbled from her deep blue eyes. "I'm sorry Noah-sama!" She wailed, though the man wasn't in the room.
"He's not as fantastic as you make him out to be." Giriko spat. "I wouldn't have messed up if I used the Book of Eibon." Gopher grew quiet at this. So that was his angle. He hadn't wanted to help her, he was just another fool chasing after the book.
"Don't say things like that." She turned away from him. "No one is allowed to touch that book other than Noah-sama." Justin sauntered in, he looked between Gopher's tear-streaked face and Giriko's confused one.
"Hey!" He smiled cheerily. "I was just looking for Gopher, I figured she'd want to know that the shinigami's out of the book again. Noah's yelling at him too, guess Kid did something to irk him." Gopher nodded and whipped the tears from her eyes. She walked out of the room hoping to be cheered up by the prisoner's punishment.
As soon as Noah had left the dungeon, Gopher slipped in behind him. Sure enough, the shinigami was back in his chains and looking quite pleased with himself. She'd make sure to change that real quick. Kid grunted as Gopher's fist collided with his stomach. She bit her lip as she did so, irked by his insubordination. Kid merely smirked, it was so easy to get a rise out of her.
"How dare you insult Noah-sama!" Gopher shouted. "Rearranging his precious things, acting like your above us." She punched him again.
"I didn't," Kid chuckled, "I just stated the truth. People like you, who break rules, will be hunted down. You will be executed by the hands of Shibusen for the evil scum you are."
"You have no right to say that!" Gopher wiped away her tears. "You don't really know us; you don't know what happened to him." It was Shibusen's fault Noah was like this in the first place. She punched the young shinigami again. "What gives you the right to judge someone you know nothing about?" Kid slumped forward and struggled to gain his breath. "You in your oblivious little world; there are rules your father made that even you don't know, unfair rules. Noah broke those rules long ago for me and I'm prepared to do the same for him."
"How disgusting," Kid panted, "rules are put in place for a reason; to uphold order. You say I have no right to judge you, yet you only help yourself-" She grabbed his throat and pressed her thumb to his larynx.
"Sometimes you have to break rules to protect the ones you love." She said darkly. He sputtered for air and was finally released. When he looked up, she glared at him as if he were the lowest life from on the planet. "I hope you rot in that book." She hissed and gave him another swift kick to the gut.
Back in the safehouse, Medusa waited impatiently in the kitchen. Hiding from prying eyes meant less luxury than she was used to. The small, abandoned apartment was supposed to be temporary, but Chrona was taking longer to recover than Medusa had hoped.
"Chrona?" Medusa called. The young girl curled up and buried her face in the curtains. "Chrona, come here!" Medusa tapped her foot on the busted tile floor. This was one of the more irritating parts of Chrona's condition. She had no loyalty to her, no fear either. All the years she had slaved to training her child went to waste. This did mean that her daughter would only remember the recent training but would still maintain the knowledge from her childhood. A small smile crossed the witch's face. She was so close to her dream. There was just one last obstacle she needed to get out of the way.
"What is it Medusa-san?" Chrona asked. The witch's gaze grew cold.
"Is there something you aren't telling me?" She asked. Chrona shook her head. At this Medusa sat an object on the table. "Is there something you aren't telling me?" She repeated. Chrona's eyes widened at the small skull pin on the table. She thought she had hid it well, but there it was. "Chrona." Medusa prompted.
"It's nothing, really." Chrona mumbled.
"Chrona." Medusa said with more force.
"It's nothing!" Chrona whined. "Why won't you trust me?" Medusa was taken aback by this.
"Chrona you will not speak back to me in such a way." Medusa said. "As long as you are training under me you will live under my rules. Now tell me where this came from."
"I-" Chrona hesitated.
"Now." Chrona shook, why did this woman scare her so? No, it wasn't her specifically, but the idea of her finding the skull. Something told her this... mother of hers, didn't want her to have it. Yet, it seemed, Medusa would be angrier if she didn't explain why it was in her room.
"One of my victims was wearing it." She said, tears brimming in her eyes. "I just thought it looked nice is all. I didn't think it mattered that I had it. It's just a pin." Medusa nodded, satisfied with the answer.
"I understand; had you talked to me first, I might've let you keep it." She stared at her daughter. "But you didn't." She pointed to the pin. "Now, throw it away. In the future, I expect you to discuss things with me ." Chrona nodded and held the pin in her hand. She looked once more at her mother, then dumped the pin in the garbage. "I hope you've learned your lesson."
"Yes Medusa-san." Chrona sniffled. She turned and walked up stairs unaware of her mother's smile. Medusa nodded to herself; Chrona was almost ready.