Noah – Nyx Pieta

The girls were making a circle in their bedroom like usual. Nisha was usually excited for the potion, but this time, she just hid half of her face with her pillow. She was deep in thought, she didn't even communicate with Laby. Rena noticed this and stared at her. "Is something bothering you, Nisha?" she asked with a curious look.

"I pretty much looked at Chung's memory. Of course it's bothering me," Nisha replied with sad and angry feelings. When she mentioned that, the other girls started to remember some stuff from a body they took for the day too. Laby spent her time with El Gang more than Nisha. She always said a positive thing about them, it sounded really fun.

But now she knew the truth. Not everything, but at least she knew several of them, but it was based on Chung's memory. "Say, Aisha, you like Chung again?"

The blunt question caught Aisha in surprise. The blood rushed to her face in an instant, making it redder than usual. She didn't answer the question, she kept quiet and waited for Nisha to continue.

"It was a nice moment, isn't it? You two were just playing around, but it was fun. Chung started falling in love for real too," Nisha giggled, didn't avert her eyes from Aisha to see her reaction. This was actually an invasion of privacy, but they let this happen. They can't blame Nisha for suddenly talking about personal stuff. Even the others agreed that they looked cute together back then.

"Do you think I can hook up with him again?" Aisha asked and looked at Nisha for an answer. She didn't know what she was thinking back then. She regretted playing with people's feelings, even though she had some fun with it. Now that she actually fell in love too, she thought she could have a chance to make it up.

Nisha smiled and chuckled. "That won't happen. Chung doesn't love you anymore."

Aisha screamed and hid her whole face on her pillow. She expected that when Nisha brought up their past relationship. Why did she wish for something anyway? Even so, her heart felt like it was pierced by a sharp object. The truth hurt her so much for the first time.

"And my friend should come tomorrow morning," Nisha changed the subject. On her journey, she made a new friend, but her friend refused to come with her.

"Oh, new friend! We should use a nicer potion for today," Rena smiled with sparkling eyes.

Aisha quickly took a dark grey potion with a pout. "Anything will do! I don't care anymore!"

Obsessive potion: Everyone will be obsessive and aggressive for the day! Let's be careful, or something bad might happen.

Elsword unusually woke up early. He couldn't sleep well for the night. At first, he thought it was the effect of the girls' potion, but he didn't feel any change. Whatever Elesis was doing to his body yesterday, it made him feel uncomfortable. It was probably a side effect of different fighting style during "his" spar with Rosso.

He walked out of the room and smelled a sweet scent coming from the kitchen. This was also unusual, so he went there to check on Ciel. The man was baking so many sweets in the early morning. "Ah, good morning. We're eating sweets for today," Ciel said with a smile.

"Are you trying to give us a sugar rush or what?" Elsword asked with a confused look, but he wouldn't care much as long as he got some food. Otherwise he would need to go outside to eat.

"As long as Lu loves it, I don't care," Ciel answered. He opened the oven, letting another sweet scent come out from it.

Someone walked toward Elsword with a disturbed look. "I smell diabetes. What is going on this time?" Ain asked and stared at Elsword intensely.

But Elsword pointed his finger at Ciel. "Maybe stare at him. I don't think I get affected this time."

"What is something that we have in common?" Ain asked again, but then he looked at Ciel in the kitchen to check him. First of all, their races were already different. They're both male, but Ciel was also a male and he seemed to get affected. Both of them were mostly different, so they couldn't figure it out. The others were still asleep too, it was impossible to find the effect.

Knock, knock!

And now someone came to their house in the early morning. Elsword walked toward the front door and opened it. He saw a white haired boy, some of his body got crystallized. He smiled gently and introduced himself. "My name is Noah, a friend of Nisha and Laby. Nice to meet you."

"Friend? Nisha never told us about you," Ain said with a skeptical look. He stared at Noah from his hair to his toe, judging if the boy was trying to do something evil.

"Be nice, Ain!" Elsword scolded the angel and slapped his arm. The redhead smiled and introduced themselves to Noah.

Noah's eyes widened a bit. For a moment when Elsword slapped Ain's arm, he saw something was wrong with Elsword's hand. The redhead was physically fine, but his muscles were sore from different movement from usual. "You're hurt," he opened his arms with a smile. A bright light blinded their eyes for a short time.

Elsword looked at his own body for a while. He moved his body like he was doing a warm up. "Hey, I feel much better! Thanks!" he grabbed Noah's hand and shook it.

"Is that a heal? Impossible," Ain narrowed his eyes, still declining what he just saw. Rena's spirits to heal herself was already weird enough for him. But now a light that actually heals? It can't be real.

Someone grabbed Elsword's body from the back. It was the Queen of Nasods with unusual hatred in her look. Her wings spread to cover both of them. "My Elsword right here. Don't touch him," she threatened and grabbed her boyfriend away outside.

"W-Wait, I'll explain. Let me… I…" Noah never managed to finish his words. The couple already left the house. He sighed and gripped his sickle tightly. "I shouldn't have come here. No one needs me."

"Hm… about that…" Ain paused for a moment. He told Noah about the girls' potions. "Come in. Don't let anyone bother you until midnight."

Noah sat in the living room, waiting for Nisha to come for him. Ain wasn't a social angel, so he didn't make small talks. In fact, he left him alone to follow Elsword and Eve from a distance.

The next one to wake up was Raven. He simply walked out of the room. Before he went outside, he walked past Noah in the living room. Noah quickly introduced himself, hoping that Raven would at least welcome him with the current situation.

"I'll buy beef jerkys for you too. I'll be back," Raven said before he walked away from the house. Once again, Noah was left alone.

The others woke up one by one. Rose went straight to Ain's lab, which was her usual stuff but could be possibly more intense than usual for today. Chung was already awake, but he stayed in his room to read books. Aisha woke up to find Chung, but the blonde boy completely ignored her existence. Ara and Elesis went outside immediately after introduction with Noah because they had a special someone to chase for the day. Lu was hanging out with Ciel in the kitchen and his desserts. Rena went out to the forest for unknown reasons.

Finally, Nisha woke up last. She overslept from too much thinking last night. She noticed she was oversleeping, so she quickly walked down the stairs to the living room. She smiled when she saw a familiar person. "Noah, hey!"

Nisha gave a hug to Noah. The floating mirror next to her moved closer to Noah to hug him as well. "You decided to come! We were worried about you."

Noah chuckled and smiled at her. "I don't think I'm needed here. I'll go later—"

"It's the effect of a potion. Stay here," Nisha held Noah's hand to prevent him from going anywhere. Noah told her about the potions he heard from Ain's story, which made things easier for Nisha. "Ah, everyone is obsessed today. Don't worry, they're not actually ignoring you."

Noah was a bit confused, so Nisha pointed to her mirror. It had been clinging to Noah's head all the time. Normally it would stay by Nisha's side. "Laby really missed you, so she'll be with you for a while."

"Why are you not affected?" Noah asked and tilted his head. His buddy that he knew for quite some time was acting normally like nothing happened.

Nisha smiled creepily. "You know I do everything for Laby. I don't think a mere obsession potion can affect me."

Noah smiled back, not knowing how to respond to that. Nisha grabbed Noah's hand, putting a certain friendship bracelet on his left hand. It wasn't well made, she was actually bad at it. She explained the meaning of the bracelet. Of course, it made Noah very happy to hear that.

Someone came back with a bag full of beef jerkys. "I bought a lot. Eat up," Raven said casually as he put the bag on the coffee table. He picked one beef jerky and started eating it.

"That is a strange obsession, but it's better than most people," Nisha sighed and grabbed a beef jerky. She started eating it, her face showed disgust for a while. It was shown that she didn't like beef jerky.

Noah was confused, so he picked one and ate it as well. It tasted fine to him, but he didn't feel like eating them all.

"Keep eating! I will make you full with this!" Raven commanded. Nisha and Noah had no choice but to keep eating it and pretended it was good. According to Nisha, disagreeing with them right now would be a bad choice.

Elsword and Eve were walking along the river. Both of them were just talking, but Eve was more clingy than usual. She held Elsword's arm very tightly, not letting him go anywhere. She probably won't let him go to the bathroom either.

"I have calculated our alone time for today. Holding you like this will be the best choice, considering Elesis is still into you and Ain would interrupt anytime," Eve said with a smile. She giggled after she said that, holding her boyfriend's arm tighter.

Elsword, who was already obsessive without showing it, was obviously not affected by the potion. Looking at his girlfriend's unusual action, he kept chuckling and patted her head overtime. Normally Eve wouldn't want to be spoiled this much, but this time she accepted it wholeheartedly.

From a distance, Ain had been preventing Elesis from going near them. Eve might notice their presence already, but the only thing that mattered was Elesis didn't engage in battle with Eve. They might have reached the point to kill each other, but the worst part wasn't that. It was a sudden demon invasion that could come anytime. They can't let someone got badly injured for a stupid matter.

"Good morning. You look like you're kidnapping someone, sir Angel."

Ain turned his face to a white haired girl with nine fox tails. He sighed, looking at her and not giving a single care to Elesis as he covered her mouth with his hand. "Just go back to Ara and chase Raven or something."

Eun giggled and shook her head. "Wouldn't that make her sad? In fact, the guy only cares about his beef jerkys," she smiled and narrowed her eyes at him. "What about you? Isn't it time to let Elesis go?"

"She'll stay like this until midnight," Ain answered shortly. Whatever happens, he will monitor Elesis all day.

"It was an obsessive potion, isn't it?" Eun asked and stared at Ain's eyes. "You're naturally obsessive over Ishmael. No wonder you look normal."

Ain shrugged and didn't reply to her words. For Eun, she only cared for Ara's safety. In her case, she didn't want to let Ara get hurt from something, so she took over her body. She began to understand why Nisha would switch places with Laby with her current feelings. She might not realize it herself, though.

Suddenly, the white fox aura around Ara was slowly fading away. Starting with her tails disappearing one by one, her hair turned back to its original color, and her right eye turned to orange. "Meanie Eun. I need to find him!" Ara pouted and walked away without saying anything.

Not knowing what to do, Ain decided to continue watching Elsword from a distance, making sure he's safe with obsessive Eve next to him.

The kitchen was filled with a bunch of sweets. Lu had been eating Ciel's sweets since morning. She was flying around the kitchen, jumping around and shouting random words in happiness. The long period of sugar rush was definitely concerning, but Ciel kept baking sweets and letting Lu eat them all.

A question suddenly appeared on Ciel's mind. He did all of this because of his love for Lu. She could be ignorant at times, but the fact that she made him come back to life was undeniable. Did Lu even love him? Or she merely saw him as a servant, baking sweets and probably giving her the lost power she once had?

Lu noticed Ciel had stopped doing anything for a while now. She approached him, staring at him and smiling. "What's wrong, Ciel? Is something bothering you?"

"Don't worry about it," Ciel replied with a smile. As much as he wanted to know the truth, he feared it. What if all his optimistic thoughts were actually wrong? It would be better if he didn't know about it.

Ciel was going to bake another cake, but Lu's hand prevented him from getting the ingredients. "You've been baking since this morning! You must be tired," she said and grabbed his hand to the outside. They walked past the living room, seeing Nisha and Noah suffering over Raven's beef jerkys. Ara was there, enjoying the beef jerkys with Raven as they talked about the food itself.

They walked out of the house. Lu raised both of her hands, breathing in the air with a smile. "We need fresh air! And I can fly much freely here!" she shouted as she spread her wings to fly. She spun around and faced her servant. "I'm full, Ciel. Thank you. Now let's do something you like!"

Ciel was stunned at this. He never once heard Lu asking to do something he liked. He had been spending his new life following what she wanted, including a simple matter such as walking around the town. Now that he got the question, he was actually confused with what activity that he liked.

"Come on! You're part of me, Ciel. I'm very spoiled today, so it's my turn to spoil you!" she smirked and lifted up her hot pants a bit with her left hand, showing more skin on her thighs. "Perhaps you want this?"

All Ciel's doubts were gone in a second along with his composure. His face turned bright red in an instant. "I stayed like this because of your preferences. Let's walk around the town and find something. You're so useless without my guide," Lu giggled and led the way as she grabbed Ciel's hand once again.

"That one time, I could've died. Hunger was a natural enemy attacking your weaknesses. I was alone and lost. The compass was broken and I didn't have a single clue to lead me out of the forest."

"But this thing… This beef jerky was kept in my backpack. It was the only thing that kept me alive when no wild animals were around. This food saved my life!"

"How lucky of you," Noah smiled at Raven when he finished his story.

"Ignore him. This is like the 37th story or something, I don't want to hear about beef jerky anymore," Nisha said as she hid her face with the pillow on the sofa. Raven had been talking non stop about his experience with beef jerky. It was fine for the first story, but it's starting to get boring and annoying.

"Guys, eat more! We almost finished it!" Ara encouraged them. She was enthusiastic with Raven's story for some reason. It was lucky that Ara would listen to him while Noah just randomly said something about it. Nisha didn't even care anymore; she wanted the day to be over.

Noah faced the mirror next to Nisha's face. "Oh? Here you go," he said with a concerned look and offered a beef jerky from the plastic bag. He put it inside Nisha's mirror. This confused Raven and Ara because… they can't hear Laby from the mirror. None of them but Nisha could hear Laby, to be exact.

Nisha stood up and grabbed her mirror tightly. "We're going out until midnight! I don't care if the sun is already set," she spoke with an annoyed tone and walked out of the house. Noah was startled by her action, but he followed her to escape from beef jerkys. She sighed, glad that she had finally decided to escape from the beef jerkys. "Laby wanted to spend time with everyone. She was very happy, and seeing me happy gives her happiness. This was my selfish action; I literally left them so we could be alone."

Her friend smiled when he heard that. He suddenly stopped walking, making her stop as well. She turned around and faced him smiling at her. "I'll be fine! I'll see you later," he said before he took a step backward and turned around to walk away.

She didn't mean it that way, but she sighed and hugged her mirror tightly. "Alright. See you," she waved her hand and walked to the opposite direction. At the moment, she didn't think much about Noah's words. All she cared for was a time with Laby, just the two of them.

Everyone would be home already, but Nisha was still wandering around the town. The same went with Ain, who was currently dragging Elesis as far away as possible from Elsword. The boy he cared for was already home along with Eve. There were a lot of people there, he didn't have to monitor him anymore. The place where Ain dragged her was none other than the forest. It would be dangerous, but it was the best place to finally let Elesis say whatever she wanted and screamed in sadness. Besides, they didn't actually enter the forest. Just the side of it, sitting on a bench with a dim road light.

Ain spotted a small boy. He wasn't familiar with the boy, but Ishmael told him that they had met before. He left Elesis sitting on the bench, approaching the boy and grabbed his shoulder. "Crystal Boy, what are you doing here?"

The "Crystal Boy" yelped in surprise and faced Ain. He was confused with the nickname, but he remembered some part of his body was crystallized due to his power usage. He smiled slightly, showing sadness even though he tried to hide it as he touched his friendship bracelet. "I don't know. I'm trying to find a new place."

Ain narrowed his eyes and grabbed Noah's right hand tightly. Noah's right hand was already crystallized, Ain felt like he could accidentally break it, but he grabbed it anyway. "Don't find a new place at this hour. It should be midnight soon. Let's go home."

Noah was confused with the words. "Home? I don't have a home—"

"Elswoooord! Why won't you love me baaack?!" Elesis was still screaming in agony. Ain grabbed her left hand tightly and forced her to follow him.

When midnight came, most people went back to normal. Ciel apologized to everyone for not cooking any meals, although everyone forgave him already. Eve also apologized for her indecent action, but only Elsword knew what embarrassing thing she had done when they were alone. Aisha and Chung finally came out of the boys' room; they looked mostly confused with the sudden apologies from people. Add and Rose also came out from Add's lab, greeting everyone casually like nothing happened.

Raven also apologized for feeding everyone with beef jerky, but more importantly, he remembered something important. "Wait, where's your friend, Nisha?"

"My friend? Ah—!" Nisha gasped and looked at the front door. She wasn't affected by the potion, but she could be super protective for Laby at times. It happened in the late evening. She casually parted ways with Noah, but knowing her friend, he would literally leave them and might never come back. She was going to go outside, but someone opened the door.

Elesis came back first with an awkward smile. Behind her was Ain grabbing Noah's right hand all the time until he locked the front door. Nisha was so relieved when she saw her friend again. "Welcome home! Where have you been?"

"Hm? Who is he?" Aisha tilted her head in confusion. She was with Chung the entire time, so she didn't get the chance to meet him in the morning.

Nisha approached Noah and stood next to him. "This is Noah, my friend," she introduced him to the group. She faced Noah and let him meet everyone this time.

Rena forced herself to laugh and scratched her head. "We were under potion effects. Sorry for today. You just came too."

Noah startled with the warm welcome from everyone. He looked away from them and lowered his head. "Thank you, but I'll be fine. I'll go now—"

"What do you mean "go"? It's time for us to sleep! Come here," Elsword smiled and grabbed Noah's left hand. He waved his hand to everyone and entered the boys' room.

Elesis sighed and rubbed her forehead. "Great, did we make him feel not welcomed? He was about to run away to the forest too," she said with a disappointed look, mostly for herself because she only cared for his brother for the whole day. She grabbed Nisha's hand and walked to the girls' room. "You know him. Tell me what should we do so he won't run away anymore."

Eventually, everyone went to their room to take a rest.

While everyone was sleeping, Noah was staring out of the window, looking at the full moon. It shone brightly for the night, not even clouds were in the way.

"You can't sleep?"

Noah turned around and faced Ain. He nodded slightly and smiled. "You guys are nice. I'm so happy and excited."

"Do you need a bedtime story to get bored? We can borrow one of Chung's novels," Ain suggested and looked at the books next to Chung's bed. It was still lying messily on the floor.

Noah turned to silence for a moment, but then he smiled. "My brother used to read a book for me before sleep," he replied before he stared at the moon again. He wasn't sure if he needed a bedtime story or not.

Ain nodded. He didn't need Noah to continue; he knew something was up with his brother with the way he said it. Bringing back a bad memory at night wouldn't be nice, so he thought of something, but it was definitely not right in Ishmael's rules. Even so, the memory was good enough, he managed to remember it. He got up and took a certain board. "Alright, Noah. I'll find a story for you, but not from books."

Noah faced Ain again, who was putting an Ouija board on the floor. He sat next to him and looked at the board with a confused look. "Let's call someone to tell us a story," Ain smiled and put his finger on top of the board with a planchette.

Special thanks to Void HighLord Prime!

Thanks for reading!