A bit of backstory time, enjoy
I may someday come to own Danmachi, but alas I do not own now.
"Welcome to the Hostess of Fertility, oh Bell it's you."
On the West street of Orario, a Familia had gathered outside a popular, well-known pub in hopes of spending the evening there. After waiting outside for a couple of minutes, they were greeted by a grey-haired waitress in the green dress, brown booted uniform of the pub.
"Hi Syr, sorry for not coming here sooner, we have had a busy week." Bell replied, scratching the back of his white hair.
"That's alright, I understand you and your Familia must have been quite busy this week, you know with winning the War Game and all. Congratulations on that by the way."
"Thank you very much. Thank you for giving me that lucky charm as well, I felt like it helped me."
"That's why I gave it to you silly." The girl replied with a smile.
*Cough* "Can we come in and eat." A prum girl stated bluntly, not wanting for the scene to continue.
"Of course, table for 5 is it?"
"Yes thank you." Bell responded with a smile of his own.
"Right this way then."
The Hestia Familia followed the waitress to a circular table, Bell noticed it was the furthest one away from the bar where he normally sits.
"Thank you for your patronage, Ryu will be with you shortly."
And with that, Syr left the five people to decide what they wanted to eat for tonight.
"You not gonna look at the menu Nathan?" A Red headed man asked the Half-elf sitting next to him.
"Already know what I want."
"How many times have you come here to have a 'usual' as they call it." A far eastern girl asked the bleached haired boy.
"I have ordered the same thing every time I've come here, ever since the first time I entered here." Nathan replied to the girl seated on his other side.
"And what is it exactly you order?" Lili asked, looking across from where she was sitting next to Mikoto.
"Spaghetti Bolognese and Orange squash."
Before any other questions could be asked, a Green haired elf came up to their table.
"Good evening, are you ready to order?"
"Hey Miss Ryu, I think we might be ready."
"Hello Mr Cranel and that quite alright."
Ryu observed the other people situated around the table with the rubellite eyed boy. She had already seen the Smith and Supporter a few times in here and had interacted with them on the 18th floor, as well as the far eastern girl. When her eyes landed on the last remaining person in the group, she finally accepted reality.
'So he really has joined them, why though and how did he manage it.'
'Fuck why did it have to be Ryu.' At the same time, another thought swirled in the other elf's head.
"I can take your orders now if you would like?" Ryu asked with her usual amount of emotion.
"Yes that should be fine, if everyone is ready."
A murmur of agreement went around the table.
Welf ordered a simple ale with steak and chips, with a warning from Lili not to have too much, not wanting to get into another bar fight again.
Lili herself ordered fruity drink with a chicken salad, and after a bit of explaining, convincing Mikoto to also try the drink along with her curry and rice.
Bell ordered his usual orange fizz drink and the fish he had on his first time here.
And like he said, Nathan ordered an orange squash and spaghetti, Ryu not even writing it down, already knowing what he wanted as he always has the same thing.
'At least he makes it a bit easier' The waitress thought.
The night drew on, and the atmosphere among the Hestia Familia grew jovial, with stories being shared among them and jokes being made. A big surprise they all had was the smile that Nathan had when his pasta dish arrived, with an even bigger surprise with how quick he wolfed the bowl down.
Throughout the night though, Bell couldn't help but feel like he was being watched. This wasn't what it usually was either as he felt it wasn't always directed at him. When ever he looked up to try and see who it was, a different waitress came into view standing in the doorway to the kitchen, he even caught Mama Mia glancing over from time to time as he the one facing the bar.
'I thought they knew how good my hearing was. Don't they know sitting me the furthest away and the noise of this place won't stop me from hearing them talk about me'
Nathan didn't realise his fist that was on the table had been clenched somewhat. This was noted by the others around him, especially after he got particularly quiet for some reason, even by his standards. Before anyone could ask him what was wrong though, the problem presented itself in a chipper voice.
"Yo Hestia Familia, how have you all been. Congratulations on the War Game victory. I must say you guys put on quite the performance."
The voice came from behind Nathan, but he didn't need to turn to know who it was. He could already picture the travellers' clothes, the feathered hat and the massive fake grin that was surely plastered on the Gods face.
'Great, more annoyances now'
"Hermes-sama, how are you." Bell responded. Mikoto and Welf both turned slightly to get a better look at the God behind them, though Lili was looking at Nathan. He didn't return the look. Instead choosing to take another sip of his drink and continue to look at the table.
"May me and Asfi join you?"
"Sure, I don't think anyone will complain." Bell replied.
After pulling up two chairs in-between Nathan and Welf, Hermes quickly melted into the group, seeming like he had been there from the start. Asfi also started up a conversation of her own, talking to Lili after she had eyed the half-elf for a split second. The half-elf himself continued to stay quiet, Hermes not even trying to pull him into the conversation about the War Game he was having with Bell and Welf. After a while though, Nathan finally interjected into the conversation.
"What do you want Hermes?"
"What do you mean by that, who says I want something."
"You always want something."
"Can't I just come and sit down with some people that I like and have a nice chat." The smile did nothing to stop the glare the half-elf sitting next to him was giving.
"We should be moving along anyway, Hermes-sama." Asfi said.
"You are right, and yes I am here for something. You, actually."
"What do you want with the Nathan?" Welf asked, never fully trusting the mischievous God in the first place.
"Well I'm sure you know by now he was in my Familia before yours, so I just want to take the opportunity to say goodbyes and some other things."
"Like what?" This time, it was Lili who asked
Before the God could come up with an excuse, Nathan spoke up.
"Fine, whatever. We can talk while we walk to your home." Nathan simply said, not saying anymore and just standing up.
"Great. Thank you children for this lovely evening but I guess we shall get going now. Come along Asfi." Hermes said, another smile flashing across his face.
With that, Asfi followed her God and started to walk out of the pub.
"I'll see you guys back at the house, don't worry about me. I put up with him for over a year, one more night won't kill me." Nathan said, following the God out of the pub. While the other started to follow, it seems Lili also noticed what her captain had previously seen before.
"Everyone look at the staff." She said in a hushed whisper.
The rest of the Hestia Familia turned to realise all of the staff watched the three people leave, stopping what they were doing. Even Mama Mia had stopped cleaning out her glass for a split second to observe the three people leave her pub, specifically the boy leaving last.
"Why are they all watching them?" Mikoto asked.
"They are watching Nathan, I think." Bell responded
"Why are they doing that, he has been here before a few times. Shouldn't they be used to him by now?" Welf was the next person to voice his concerns.
"I don't know, but throughout the evening I could see them take quick glances over at us, I believe they were observing Nathan."
"I wonder why they are so on edge about him?" Lili wondered out loud.
Having turned the conversation quieter, the Hestia Familia had sort of turned into a sports team having a team huddle. This made them not see their waitress approach them. A cough in the hand however, and all of them were looking at the blue-eyed waitress standing in front of them.
"May I ask why he has left early. Mama Mia would not want someone to not pay up." Ryu said, thinking of an excuse to ask about Nathan's current vacant seat.
"Hermes-sama came by and wanted to talk to him about something." Bell replied.
"Do you know why he has left with Hermes-sama?" Ryu asked sharply.
"He used to be part of his Familia before he joined ours."
"Why do you want to know or care?" Lili fired a question back at the elf.
"As I said, Mama Mia.."
"Yeah we told you where he went, but your follow up question was unnecessary." Lili pushed back, taking the elf a bit of guard.
"Why were you and the rest of the staff looking at him throughout the night?" Welf asked, not liking his friend being spied on.
"I'm not sure what you mean." Ryu tried to back out, but it was a bit late for that now.
"I saw you and the other girls looking over at us from time to time." It was Bell who stopped Ryu from escaping, sealing her fate.
Ryu looked over at Mama Mia, and seemingly understanding what the elf was asking for after listening to them talk, she gave a nod of approval. Ryu then turned back round and sat down where Nathan was sitting.
"I will tell you how we first came to meet him."
This brought a hush around the table. Not wanting anyone else to hear this, Ryu quietened her voice so only the people at the table would be able to hear it.
"Over a year ago, we were about to close the pub."
"Anya, go bring in the sign from outside please. All the customers have left now, it's time to clean up."
"Yes Mama, Nyaa."
Just before the brown-haired cat girl stepped outside, the door to the pub was pushed open.
"Oh sorry Nyaa, we have closed now and we aren't having any more customers Nyaa."
The other waitresses looked up to see who their co-worker was talking to. What seemed to be a young boy was standing in the doorway, his head down. As he was standing in the dark, a full image of the boy couldn't be made out. However, as she was closer to the boy and had a very good sense of smell, Anya could make out that the boy had blood on him. Anya could also make out that it was any monster blood either.
"Are Nyaa alright?" Anya asked, thinking it might be his own blood. The boy didn't respond. Instead he took another step forward, attempting to walk past the cat girl. A dripping sound could be heard as he continued to walk forwar
Seeing this, Ryu came up to the boy and tried to help Anya out, but before she could make her way over, the boy walked into the light of the magic stone lamp that was still on. This immediately made Ryu stop. The other waitresses who were looking over suddenly stopped what they were doing, frozen by the sight in front of them, even earning a gasp from Syr.
"Kid, are you alright?" The first one to speak was Mia, who was planning to join her girls if this stranger tried to do anything unwarranted. However, after seeing his appearance, she quickly changed her thoughts from danger to concern.
No response came from the boy, who could now be made out to be a young half-elf, with what they assumed to be black clothing on. The people present couldn't fully make it out though, as the boy was almost entirely covered in blood, only fragments of his hair had escaped what quite literally appeared to be a bloodbath. Half a mask covered one of his eyes, with his one exposed eye remaining closed, a clear mark cut right across it. Another few drips drew the people with a falna's attention downwards, seeing two swords coated in the same blood, the red liquid dripping off the tip and onto the floor.
A loud grumbling noise brought everyone back to look at the boy again.
"hungry"
This was all they heard before the boy collapsed, landing onto pub floor, soaking the wooden floorboards with blood.
This was all the Waitresses needed to get into action, Mama Mia commanding over them.
"Lunor, pick up the boy and take him to one to one of the spare bedrooms. Chloe, go help her and strip off his clothes. Ryu go grab the first aid kit. Anya, Syr, get some hot water and cloths and bring it upstairs to help clean with the others. May, prepare some food. He said he was hungry and that noise was clearly the lads stomach."
Mama Mia's orders were spoken very quickly but everyone understood what they needed to do, Lunor having already gone to pick up the boy. Quickly carrying him upstairs, she took him to the far room on the left placing him on the bed, not caring about the mess it will make. Chloe had followed her upstairs and started to help get rid of the bloody clothes from the boy's body, Ryu being quick to follow with the first aid box.
The girls removed his boots and top half of his clothes first, and after seeing the number of scars littering his body they all gasped. Even after their years of experience they had not seen this many scars inflicted onto one person. Ryu also noticed the green necklace around the boy's neck, realising that it must have been given to him from his elven parent as a gift of some kind. It looked to be quite expensive as well.
Before taking out medical equipment, Lunor stopped Ryu after noticing that none of these scars were fresh. Upon further inspection, the three girls came to realise that the boy was not bleeding from anywhere and apart from his eye, he had no clear signs of any wounds or damage being inflicted.
"Why is there so much blood if none of it is his?" Ryu asked to no one while putting a bandage around the boys eye.
"He must have been fighting a massive horde of monsters in the dungeon for this much blood." Lunor specified.
"It's not monster blood."
Like Anya, Chloe was also a level 4 cat person, giving her an extraordinary sense of smell, helping her realise there was no monster blood on the boy and with her previous line of work, she knew exactly what kind of blood this was.
"What did you say?" Ryu questioned her colleague.
"I said it's not monster blood."
Chloe's revelation brought the other two to the same conclusion as the black-haired cat girl.
The door to the room was flung open with Anya, Syr and Mia in tow. The first two had brought up water to help clean the boy's body of blood with Mia wanting to see what was wrong with the boy that had stumbled into her establishment.
Upon seeing his scarred body, the three all had varied reactions, none of them were made up of pleasant thoughts. But like Lunor, Mia also spotted that the boy had not fresh cuts or bruises.
They washed the boy down anyway and proceeded to throw away his now ruined clothes. They kept his boots as they seemed to be fine. Ryu also washed off the blood from the half-elf's weapons, stopping any rust or damage to come to them. She also examined the swords while she did this. They looked to be in exceptionally good condition, with a weird design hilt to it and also a curious looking bottom to both swords. Not one to pry though, she quickly did her job and went back to her co-workers to continue to wonder what had happened to the boy.
"No point guessing. Let's wait until he wakes up and ask him then." Mia said, having started to already walk out of the room.
The other girls followed her out, with Syr turning around one last time to look at the boy.
"What's wrong Syr?" Ryu asked, seeing discomfort on her friend's face.
"Hmm. It's nothing, don't worry. Just.. curious really."
Ryu took that answer, knowing that it wasn't the full truth but she wouldn't ask more on the subject.
"Anyway, you girls need to get down there and clean up that mess." Mama Mia ordered.
"Do we have to, meow?"
"Yeah, when the boy wakes up he can do it Nyaa. It's his mess."
The cat girls said, hoping that the boy took a while to wake up and hopefully making the pub close tomorrow because of the mess.
The two cat girls were immediately silenced by a glare from the Hostess.
"Anymore suggestions?" Mia asked, though clearly not giving much of a choice.
""" No mama""" The other girls squeaked out, quickly rushing to do the task they had been given.
"Make sure to clean outside the pub as well. No doubt he had a trail of blood following him from wherever he walked from."
The waitresses got to work, some complaining while they worked as they were apparently tired. The main topic that was discussed was what had happened to the boy that caused all this, no one seeming to produce a good answer. The thing they knew was that he hadn't fought any monsters but instead other people.
"I wonder if it had to do with the God that was sent back today?" Lunor asked.
This reminded everyone of the massive golden beam that pierced the skies a couple of hours ago, signifying that a deity had returned to Tenkai. They remembered how everyone had stopped what they were doing to look at the light that covered the city. Then seeing Ganesha Familia members running through the streets, going to the destination of the golden beam of light.
"We should hear more about that tomorrow." Ryu said.
"Most likely, meow."
"Maybe that young boy does have a connection to the God returning like Lunor said." Syr stated, coming in after finishing cleaning the pavement outside.
"It is entirely plausible; guess we will find out soon." Ryu commented.
With the cleaning finished, the girls started to say goodbye to Syr as she went to leave, only to be stopped by a sound of creaking floorboards. They all turned to look up at the stairs to see the young boy that had walked in only an hour earlier now standing at the top of the stairway.
No noise was made in the pub as the boy, with one eye behind his broken mask and the other bandaged over, looked over each of the people occupying the floor below.
Ryu tried to speak but couldn't as she had started to blush incredibly and couldn't look at the boy, immediately turning her eyes away as soon as his now naked body came into view.
All his clothes had been completely covered in blood and wouldn't be able to be worn again, this included his underwear as well. So the boy, clearly either not realising or not caring, stood at the top of the stairs, wearing only his black boots and half a mask and nothing else, exposing everything to the girls in front of them.
Most of the girls looked away at this, though Lunor or Mama Mia didn't seem to care. Chloe was suspiciously staring too much at the young boy, who had very quickly become her type. Seeing this, Lunor smacked the cat girl on the head. Before any argument could be made, a quiet voice was heard.
"where am I?"
Because of the mask and bandage, the girls could only make out his expression from his slighlty scrunched eyebrows, his voice and from what he was wearing, and not wearing. This told them that he was confused and was in some kind of shock.
"May, is that food ready?" Mia asked the cat girl in the kitchen.
"Yes Mama"
"Lunor, go find something for the boy to wear, then bring him back down so he can have something to eat."
"Ok Mama."
Following Mia's instructions, the brown-haired human walked up the stairs and calmly guided the boy back to the room he had previously occupied.
"Get a hold of yourself girls, it's just a young boy's body. Get over it."
While Lunor was helping the half-elf out, Mia was trying to get the rest of her staff back into reality. Syr and Anya calmed down quite quickly, only a slight blush had settled on their cheeks. It took a bit more to stop Chloe from drooling and offering to go help Lunor find some clothes, knowing that she would take advantage of the unaware boy. However, the biggest problem child was Ryu, who couldn't stop mumbling and stuttering, her face bright red with embarrassment. She eventually calmed down a bit, still not being able to talk properly and just keeping quiet.
After about 5 minutes, Lunor walked down the stairs with the half-elf in tow. The boy was still bare chested, as none of the tops would really fit him as they boy's body was somewhat toned but also kinda skinny in other places, making it hard to put any of the female tops on him. Only Mia's would fit him and they would drown the kid, also taking from her room would mean certian death, and Lunor didn't fancy that right now. His bottom, thankfully for the others, mainly Ryu, was covered by some long brown shorts Lunor had spare. These went down to his knees, but not really wanting to give the boy any of the girl's pants, he would have to go commando.
Lunor led the boy down to the sitting area at bar, where May came out with a bowl of Spaghetti, while Mama Mia poured him some Orange squash. With the food set down in front of him, the women all looked at the boy. However, the boy didn't move, seeming to just stare at the food. His stomach groaned again but he still wouldn't even lift the fork.
"Why aren't you eating kid, you clearly need it." Mama questioned the boy.
The boy slowly looked up at Mia, his mouth slightly open.
"This is all… for me?"
This caught the girls off guard, wondering why he would think otherwise.
"All of it, now get it down ya. A growing lad needs to eat a lot."
Mia could tell at a glance that the boy wasn't eating properly by the way his body looked. He had some muscle starting to develop on his arms, his chest was starting to look alright but below that was bad. You could see his ribcage without having to squint and he had no fat on him whatsoever.
The bleached-haired boy looked back down at the bowl, slowly picking up his fork and slowly put it into the bowl of pasta. However, he tried to use it as a shovel and the pasta kept falling through the fork.
"What's wrong, have you never had spaghetti before?" Mia asked with a small smile, hoping the boy would talk some more. A shake of the head was her only response.
Instead of continuing to talk, Mia simply took the fork out of his hand, slowly twirled some spaghetti, and gave it back to him.
"You see, that's how you eat spaghetti"
The other girls smiled as they looked at why Mia was called Mama, a quick glare got rid of there eyes but not the smiles. Their focus went back to the boy, who had just put the food in his mouth. He stayed like that for a quite a while. They tried to ask what was wrong but suddenly spotted a single tear roll down the half-elf's face.
"Is it good?" The dwarf quietly asked, a gentle smile on her face.
"hmm" was returned, only to be followed by the boy quickly turning his attention back to the bowl in front of him.
After a few minutes of eating so quick, the boy coughed a bit, having put too much in his mouth in one go. Mia slid the glass of Orange squash to his hand, in which he quickly accepted taking a sip. Straight afterwards, he downed the whole the glass, with another "hmm" to the same question Mia asked earlier.
While the bleached-haired boy was eating, the other girls asked him a few questions.
"What is that necklace, meow" Chloe said after noticing the shiny green jewel around his neck.
Nathan pulled his free hand to cover the jewel and grasped it quite tightly. Ryu wanting to know the answer herself but deciding not to prod further.
"Do you want to take off that broken mask and have us remove the bandage covering your eye?" Lunor gently asked, but the boy very quickly shook his head and moved his hand away from his necklace and onto the mask covering his eye.
"Why not, it will make it easier to see."
After another mouthful of food, he spoke.
"scared"
The women noting how quiet and almost scared his voice was, they quickly dropped that topic as well. The boy looked to be early teens, maybe 12 but he was acting and sounded like he was about 8 or 9. They wanted ask more but didn't know how to.
After the meal was finished, the boy sat there for a minute, not knowing what to do.
"Could I ask what you name is?"
The boy turned around to see that a grey-haired girl slowly approaching him. He didn't notice the slight discomfort on her face as his right eye was still bandaged. Syr had taken the opportunity to ask her question, especially because she now the boy talked a bit more.
The boy looked at the girl, not speaking. He was clearly thinking if he should tell them his name.
"It's hard to talk to you if we don't know your name, you know."
The statement from the waitress seemed to do the trick, as the boy pulled his gaze downwards and mumbled something.
"What was that, I didn't quite catch it."
"Nathan" The boy softly spoke
"Well hello Nathan, are you alright now."
"hmm"
"Do you mind telling us why you came here."
"I-I don't remember much, only the scent of food as I walked past."
"So you were hungry, we could tell with how fast you ate the food." Syr said with a small smile
"Why did you have blood on you Nathan?" Lunor asked, still standing next to him.
This made Nathan visibly twitch, signalling to everyone that he didn't want to talk about it. However.
"Was that your God who was sent back to heaven today, Nyaa"
Everyone turned to Anya with a cold glare, making her whimper and back off a bit. Yes, they all wanted to know but not to ask it straight away.
When they all looked back at the boy, they saw that he was visibly shaking. This at least answered their suspicions from earlier.
However, that seemed to be enough for the boy who got up and tried to walk out. However, before he was able to escape, a large hand had grabbed him from behind. Nathan turned to see the large dwarf had grabbed his arm, forcing him to stay.
"what are you doing?"
"You are clearly tired and you have probably been through a lot today."
No response came from the half-elf,
"I also assume you have no where to go right now. Would I be correct."
Nathan's lack of response and lack of resistance answered Mia's question.
"You can stay here for tonight, alright. You can go when you wake up, understood."
"I don't really want.."
"Understood!" Mia repeated herself with her Mama glare.
Nathan didn't respond and let Mia drag him back inside.
"Lunor, take him to the attic. He can sleep in their for tonight."
"Understood Mama. Come on Nathan." Lunor said, gesturing to Nathan to follow her.
He slowly made his way to the stairs and followed her to the attic, leaving the others to talk about what they had just seen. They discussed about what they had learnt and thought about asking him in the morning but when they went to check on him, they found he was gone with only an open window to show where he went.
"So he just disappeared, what happened to him?" Bell asked.
"He appeared back at the pub about a week later, near closing shift but nowhere near as late as last time."
"Wait, so he just came back?" This time, it was the red-haired smith who asked.
"Well yes but not exactly"
"What do you mean by that?" Lili continued the interrogation.
"Well, you know how I said I remembered him acting almost like a child. Well when he returned he seemed completely different."
"In what way?" Mikoto said, taking her turn to ask.
"He didn't look scared or timid anymore, he had a new mask on. He was wearing similar clothes to what he wore the first time. But when he spoke it was still quiet, but clear and quite blunt in a way."
"That's how he talks now as well. What did he say?" Bell said.
"He sat at the bar and asked for what he had the prior week."
"So he came back because he liked the food here. That's seemingly normal." Welf said.
"It wasn't that, it was a certain feeling the rest of us got from him, especially the Chloe, Anya and May. We don't know how he changed so fast but we think he got a new Falna, giving him back his strength. We could tell he was trying to conceal his aura, but but most of us could tell that only Mia would be able to properly take him in a 1 on 1."
This made everyone have a bead of sweat appear on the side of their face. They had all seen Ryu battle the Black Goliath on the 18th floor. That person saying that she wouldn't be able to take on Nathan made them even more curious of their companion.
" He joined the Hermes Familia didn't he?" Bell said, bringing everyone back to the conversation.
"We found that out a bit later after he started to come back once a week. We tried to hold conversations with him, but he was difficult to talk too, especially about what happened that night."
"There were other things as well. One point someone bumped into him, obvisously trying to start a fight. Before Mia could say anything, Nathan simply kicked the guy out of the pub, through this window actually." Ryu said, pointing at the window behind them. Everyone took a breather, waiting for the elf to continue. "He apologised for the damage, put an extra pouch of valis on the bar and walked out."
"For some reason, he has always been clearly uncomfortable around me. Everyone noticed it at some point and we don't know why. He says its nothing and one time used the excuse that I'm a full elf and he is a bit uncomfortable around them but we don't believe that." Ryu finished off with a very strange statement on their relationship.
"So this is why you guys were staring at him tonight." Bell said after Ryu had stopped talking.
"Kind of. I apologies for doing such a rude thing in the first place, but the main reason we were looking quite a lot was because we haven't seen him in about 6 months."
This grabbed everyone's attention.
"What do you mean by that, Miss Ryu?" Mikoto asked.
"I mean that he stopped coming to the pub 6 months ago. After a few weeks we wondered what had happened to him, but he never showed himself. I remember before he disappeared, he would come in smelling of the pleasure district but from what we could see, his attitude was almost getting better. We thought it was because he was.. at that age.. and.. Err… sorry." Ryu stuttered, not being able to finish that train of thought, a red hue on her cheeks.
"So the first time you saw him in 6 months was tonight?" Welf asked, bringing the conversation back to its original point.
"No it would have been in the War Game, surely you would have recognised him then." Lili said
"That is correct, and we were surprised he was with you. Could I ask you why he is in Hestia Familia?" Ryu asked after composing herself.
"Why don't you ask him yourself when we come here again." Bell recommended.
"I suppose" Ryu muttered.
"Hey elf, breaks over. Back to work." A booming voice reached their ears.
"Yes Mama."
With a sigh, Ryu got up, bowed her head, and went back to work, leaving the adventurers with a lot of information to unpack about their fellow Familia member.
Off to the side, Syr had been listening in, thinking back to that very same night. She remembers looking at his soul while cleaning his back, the sight almost making her vomit. It was horrible. Jagged edges sprouting out everywhere, the colour was a terrifying black. What had happened to him to cause his soul to become like that.
She remembers volunteering to go outside to clean up the blood so she could ask Allen, who was watching over her that night, to follow his trail of blood to where it came from. When he reported back, he said he found it dried up in Daedalus street, and when following the scent, he found himself at what was seemingly a dead end.
Syr remembers seeing him come back a week later and his soul had lost its viscous sharp edges to it, but the colour had barely changed.
She remembers just before his disappearance 6 months ago, his soul had started to get better, almost like it was healing, which fascinated her and when she tried to watch him to find out, he always noticed it and stopped what he was doing and walked away, waiting for her to look away. Freya eventually found out about it, and she was almost happy for the boy. It did explain why he had the scent of the pleasure district on him.
She looked for him after he had simply vanished, and when she found out the reason she almost cried. When she looked at his soul it was worse than what it had been on that night. It was almost colourless, no emotion or anything seemed to reside in it. Freya let that soul be and decided to forget about it, deeming it lost and unmendable.
Freya remembers seeing it in the War Game, helping her Bell. She was confused at first on who it was, but she was surprised when she finailly recognised him. His soul hadn't seemed to improve that much but from what she could tell from when he walked in tonight, it had gotten more colour to it. That's her Odr though. He is that amazing he can help fix the unfixable. That is what Freya believed anyway.
"I'm not part of your Familia anymore."
"I know, but just this one time. I promise it will be the last."
"Don't make a promise you won't keep"
"You think so little of me."
*sigh* "What do you want me to go and get again, Hermes?"
"It's called a killing stone"
A fox girl could be seen looking through her window to the night sky. "It will be over soon. I guess they were just fairy tales after all." A small teardrop trickled down her face.
And there we have it. I had a lot of fun in this chapter. I teased two very important moments that will be shown in the future.
Considering we are now going to the Haruhime/pleasure district arc, will the thing that Nathan did back then be brought up. Maybe. How did Nathan lose his God on that night.
Also, do you like how I'm incorperating him to be relevant to the story. I know in the original, Hermes gets the stone himself but when he has someone like Nathan to use then of course he will use him.
I'm trying to find ways to get him into the story but because of his strength I can't just throw him along with Bell all the time as he is a high level and with his backstory, it would make everything too easy. I hate stories that try to be serious and drop an OP character in the mix and have them not do anything when they can clearly sort the shit out easily.
Heroes had to completely go off course cause Achilles was way to op to do the xenos daedalus street incident or the expedition. Wonder how Nathan will help when they come up. Its why I didn't make him first tier. Level 4 is just right cause it makes him easily above 90% of the people in the story but not strong enough to be able to take on the freya or loki executives unless they work together. (Also read Heroes, if u somehow haven't already)
Onto le reviews:
wyatt (coming to love you): Thanks man, the support is always appreciated. I'm not sure if the two churches are the same, but from the background where the conversation about Bell between Zald, Alfia and Erebeus took place, I think so too.
Jank7457: Aftre I read your review, I looked into the future (and past) of this story and realised there are a few similarity traits to Killiua. I haven't even realised that but yeah that stone cold killer thing is a part of Nathan that I enjoy writing.
Friggleberry: If you are reading this then thank you for the review, all criticism is appreciated and I have gone back and improved the prologue becasue of you. I have private messaged you, so have a cheeky check and get back to me if you want.
And with that outta the way, see ya next time and peace.