He was smiling.
While Neo could feel her heart breaking as her entire world crumbled; returned to be the hell of when she was a child, something that manifested itself in her surroundings as the Vanille mansion was recreated through her out-of-control Semblance, all this damned thing had in response was smiling wider and wider.
There was an undeniable sense of satisfaction in watching her break.
Neo would know since they were the same.
Even worse would be Sasuke's attention shifting focus soon after, finding it more interesting to admire the prison in which she was trapped most of her life.
Roman was dead and would never return...and none of that seemed to matter to this little god of death.
Why should it matter?
Neo was stupid for even remotely cogitating that there was any regret in this man because of his gesture and words from before.
After all, Roman wasn't a beautiful woman he could seduce to have by his side, but someone who crossed his path, if the endless hatred he showed that day was a result of their meeting.
Death was the only result that could come of it.
While there was some curiosity as to why someone strong and undeniably beautiful like Cinder hadn't fallen into Sasuke's graces, it didn't matter.
Only that Neo had gained his attention and Sasuke wouldn't hurt her, even if only for the moment, and that was all she needed to keep trying.
Responding to her deepest desires, three more copies joined her in Roman's form, bringing the total to seven. On her head, Neo could feel a familiar weight as she recreated the same black hat with red stripes that her partner in crime always wore.
A gift from her to him.
Likewise, in her hands materialized Hush, the parasol and hidden blade, colorful and deadly, just like her.
Roman's way of repaying her for the hat.
That weapon was something she came to love quickly, but that, unfortunately, couldn't compare to the gift of freedom and...happiness that came later by having someone similar, real, and who was always by her side.
Which is why Neo needed to avenge him!
It didn't matter if she was living in a fantasy, using her hatred, she would make Sasuke's death a reality!
That would be her last gift to Roman!
It wasn't long before explosions followed close behind with the firing of several Melodic Cudgel, thus restarting this lost battle.
Countering this motivation to fight to the end, Sasuke was more interested in the changes happening around him.
It seems that I made her awaken some sort of Mangekyou in her Semblance. While this girl was reaching her limit, about to break for good, whether physically by releasing more power than her current condition could handle or the emotionally growing instability, just as Sasuke initially wanted, the outcome of it all was quite different than expected. If the waves of emotions I sense coming from her serve as a response, I would say she is almost going crazy with hate.
He would know, having experienced it firsthand, which would certainly complicate things a bit, perhaps to the point of no return.
Unfortunately for Neo at the moment, as much as Sasuke wanted to find a way to deal with her hate, only the limit of this Semblance mattered in his eyes.
And what about this house? One of unknown design to him, yet somehow expected for the exuberant standard of this world. Any reason for her to create something like this in particular?
At first, when Sasuke saw that great amount of spiritual energy being released in waves by Neo to cover the whole area, he was expecting an army of clones... Which would be a waste of time and Aura, but a feat he would love to crush next to her willpower. However, she went further and surprised him by shaping the moonlight, thus creating a kind of domain to possibly prevent him from escaping.
A mistake, he would say.
After all, Neo was the one who was trapped with him, not the other way around.
With that Semblance and hatred, I was expecting a sword dome or something lethal of the sort. Although surprised by all this increased power and extremely detailed creation, disappointment was there at having his expectations betrayed. Well, better than nothing, I suppose.
Especially if Sasuke took into consideration the fact that his eyes had difficulty differentiating these walls molded from spiritual energy from something natural and real.
Neo's power was influencing reality and trying to become part of the very world that surrounded them.
The possibilities that such a power brought were almost limitless and Sasuke found himself wanting this girl more and more.
For so far, as much as he hated to admit it because of his confused and biased feelings for the other girls he had met since arriving in this world, Neo was the one who could really help him in a fight against Kaguya.
Her Semblance was useful like that, especially if it was strengthened further and used correctly, and not to create a house for no reason.
At least, that was how he saw it.
However, it didn't take long for him to begin to understand what was going on.
Not only the copies Neo created in the image of that man in white who was viciously trying to blow him up with a strange cane, the same weapon used to kill someone that night to trigger the current circumstances but because of the numerous portraits appearing around the walls with vivid images from different time periods that seemed to tell a story.
Neo's life.
Now this was all making sense, and not in a good way.
There was a good chance that this house was an unintentional manifestation because there was no way anyone could deliberately show their past like that.
At least, Sasuke would never do that.
One conflicting thought he inevitably had already; about how much to reveal to the girls later.
Questions would inevitably be asked, but how much he was willing to answer and reveal had already been decided.
While Sasuke didn't want to lie to them, omitting certain details and events from his life was something he would definitely do.
If it were up to him, they would never know his entire story.
Sasuke would be sure of that.
Seeing Neo's past only made him more certain of it.
If there was one thing Sasuke repudiated it was the feeling of pity...and sympathy present when learning more about another person's life, in this case being about Neo.
In the first portrait, there was a small girl who, although familiar, couldn't be more different from the one who was desperately attacking him, being undeniably shy, with brown eyes and hair tied in two short ponytails on top of her head. Her clothes were also different, these being suitable for a child, where she wore a black and white dress while being embraced by a couple who could be assumed to be her parents.
It seemed to be a happy and normal family, but as expected, it wasn't something that was maintained for long.
In the next image, she was left alone to cry in the dark.
With just this much one could already imagine that Neo was a neglected child, possibly mistreated by those who were supposed to care for her.
Another picture only confirmed part of this with her being ignored while other children made fun of her, soon changing to what he assumed was the awakening of her Semblance with the appearance of another little girl whose appearance he knew very well; this being the one who looked at him with such hatred he could feel it in his skin.
If Sasuke was right in his interpretation, the loneliness and isolation were so much that this girl literally created a friend so that she wouldn't have to be alone anymore.
In a way, Neo was a middle ground between Naruto and him.
She had a family, but at the same time, she had nothing.
Her story continued in another portrait, this one being one of her experiencing what it was like to be happy and have someone by her side while growing up...even if that someone was nothing more than a manifestation of her deepest desires to escape the despair known as loneliness.
It was depressing.
Even worse was understanding that this manifestation was definitely a representation of her resentment, influencing her more and more to walk in the wrong direction as the years passed until the woman Sasuke assumed was Neo's mother had enough after an incident that resulted in a fire.
The manifestation was destroyed in a moment of anger, just as something visibly broke inside Neo as she desperately tried to put back the pieces of this friend of hers and failed.
Sasuke didn't need much more to understand that this was the moment when everything changed with no turning back.
Now the two were one.
The shy girl who followed the rebel to get into trouble no longer existed, only the bitterness was there for those who deprived her of the only form of friendship and possibly love she had.
The next images flashed before his eyes quickly, where Neo left her family to join an all-girls school and still remain isolated, followed by her changing her appearance to become who stood before him on this day, formal training to learn to fight and finally...meeting the man in white.
Someone who Sasuke could say wasn't in Neo's life for long, but who marked her forever by being the first person to truly accept her the way she was, regardless of her flaws.
If Sasuke understood this right, this girl couldn't talk, part of the reason she suffered discrimination while growing up.
Neo wasn't good enough, not even for her own parents.
Something Sasuke could relate to some extent.
More and more was shown in the numerous portraits that seemed alive, from the origin of the eccentric weapon she was using to try to cut him to pieces, the original he had put away in his storage seal next to Winter's swords, and the hat that now adorned her head.
Objects that had weight and meaning, similar to the symbol of the Uchiha clan to Sasuke.
It didn't take long for the most critical point, in his opinion, to happen.
The death of her parents coupled with the destruction of the house he was now in.
The moment she obtained the white locks in her hair in the form of silent grief and the long-coveted freedom.
That was Neo's life; the culmination of what resulted in her current self, if that was even her name, and the importance that the man he killed had in her life.
Even trash like that was important to someone else.
Sasuke should know, since he had people who still cared about him, even in a different world.
In the end, it seems that I wasn't wrong. This place was some kind of domain; the source of this girl's fears and nightmares to leave Sasuke conflicted. What should I do now?
Even more, could he really handle her hatred when he wasn't much different?
Maybe he couldn't.
Because Sasuke wasn't Naruto and didn't want to be.
Should I just give up, then? It seemed like the most obvious course of action, where he could simply seal Neo away since killing her was no longer an option and try to deal with her later, after finding a way to use Genjutsu without killing his targets. What would they do in my place?
Sasuke didn't even consider Naruto, knowing full well what the position of that stubborn friend of his would be, where giving up wasn't in his vocabulary.
His question was asked thinking of the girls who were able to change him; Ruby, Weiss, Blake, Yang, and Winter.
If they were in his place, what would they do? Better yet, would seeing everything that was in those portraits make any difference?
Ruby and Blake could definitely sympathize, where the former would try to help out of her sense of heroism and the latter might have a thing or two to say, but without holding out much hope. Weiss and Winter seemed to have a complicated family if Sasuke remembers correctly, but they would hardly have the same level of consideration for someone else who chose to be a criminal, where redemption would only exist after paying for her crimes...probably.
The fact was that Sasuke didn't know much about them, especially Winter, so he was just assuming that to be the case, where their opinion could be very different...probably about him as well.
Then there was Yang.
If her reactions towards him even though she knew almost nothing meant that much, he already had his answer.
Likewise, Sasuke could only imagine what would happen if the past they saw was his and unfortunately nothing good would come of it, especially if the intentions he had until recently were revealed.
Unfortunately, the answer he never wanted to have to hear from either of them came to him through one of the copies that assumed the appearance of that man in white.
"Fucking monster!" the Alter Ego of Roman manifested through Neo screamed in frustration as he was ignored and proved unable to lay a finger on this god! "What's wrong with those eyes of yours?!" Sasuke wasn't looking at this copy but directly at Neo for the first time since the Vanille mansion was manifested. "Am I boring you?!"
Seven shots from his weapon made the entire mansion shake and all that accomplished was to have Sasuke with his hand outstretched, completely fine while his surroundings were destroyed and still with nothing to say.
"Is this how you felt when you killed me?!" Roman demanded, his form almost distorting as Neo grew increasingly emotional over her enemy's indifference, somehow being worse than when he was smiling at her. "Answer me!"
Sasuke kept his hand outstretched after using the Deva path to repel this attack, still immersed in thought.
With each passing second, bringing this broken girl to his side became a greater impossibility.
Still, regardless of what the others would do in his place, Sasuke didn't want to just give up; in that regard, he was just as stubborn as Naruto...even if that usually only held true when it came to revenge.
"You're wrong," he decided to say since staying silent wasn't helping in any way. "Killing you was merely a consequence of your own choices."
A truth.
As much as Sasuke was... "relieving his stress", in a very brutal and controversial way, he didn't intend to kill anyone that day.
Torture yes, killing no.
This man, however, while overcome with fear, carbonized someone alive and Sasuke simply decided to use him to test Genjutsu of a higher level without putting innocent people at risk.
Maybe he shouldn't have done any of that, but at that moment, Sasuke didn't have his head in the right place.
In fact, if he thought about it further, no one present in that place had...because of his choices and actions.
A situation and outcome that could have been avoided if Sasuke hadn't spoken to Ruby after leaving the police station, being the original trigger for all his frustration and anger that night.
Again, he couldn't blame her for that and he wouldn't.
That was simply Sasuke being stubborn in denying the fanciful expectations of a pure-hearted little girl.
"What?" each copy of Roman stopped in his fruitless advances next to Neo, reflecting her surprise as he vocalized her doubt. "What are you talking about?"
After all, she didn't know what happened that night, there were no conscious and mentally stable witnesses who were able to describe those events or even visual records from security cameras, only the aftermath with Junior's henchmen brutalized, where one of them was charred alive...
Neo's eyes opened to the limit as she considered a possibility ignored until now.
Was that what Roman did during that robbery at Dust's store to piss off Sasuke? Kill someone?
Was he really that complacent of a person?
It would make sense if he was since Neo was still alive.
But Roman wasn't, so it couldn't be that, even more so considering what he had to say.
"Exactly what you heard," Sasuke didn't elaborate further, where trying to explain would only make things worse, and was straightforward about it. "You deserved to die."
Unfortunately, that wasn't much better than his last attempt.
Regardless of what may have happened, Neo really wanted to kill this bastard!
"As if you were any better!" Roman spoke for her, remembering the terror that Sasuke had spread throughout the kingdom! "A monster like you shouldn't even exist!"
Such an accusation was still desperate, but it managed to make Sasuke smile again, and that made Neo nervous.
Why on earth would he suddenly smile after being offended like that?
The answer was one she had considered before, however, whose smiling confirmation sent shivers down her spine.
"Yeah, I know." Sasuke wouldn't deny that fact, being aware of it from the moment he let himself be consumed by Orochimaru's power. "After all, we are both monsters." He made this girl flinch at the truth and appeared before her in the blink of an eye, his hand resting on her surprised face again. "Reason I want you by my side."
They were the same.
Neo was right.
Still...that didn't change what he did!
"In your dreams, you bastard!" Roman struck out to allow the original to escape the clutches of this monster! "Neo will never submit to you!"
Surprisingly, this god didn't back down, just raised his left hand to hold his cane and finally look at him.
One thing, however, Sasuke was no longer smiling.
"You're annoying." He made pink light glow like crystal shards as he smashed that weapon and placed his other hand on the hilt of his sword as he narrowed his eyes. "Just be quiet, I'm not talking to you...whatever you are."
Seeing someone they were unable to touch finally put a hand on his weapon for the first time, was more than enough to have Neo's heart sinking as she tried to back away with her copies and with reason given what happened in the next second.
One by one, her clones who were taking on Roman's appearance, suddenly stopped moving and expressed visible shock before straight lines began to appear over their bodies until they were torn apart!
W-what was that?! She didn't even see him move! That...just how?
Strong was no longer even a good word to describe Sasuke, increasingly proving that this boy before her was indeed a god, as many believed him to be around the world...or a demon.
Neo already knew this, but having the confirmation only made her ground fade faster.
Even as she was overcome with anger, she wasn't stupid enough to ignore the fact that she was alive merely because Sasuke was allowing her to be.
Neo didn't stand a chance against him.
She never had.
"Don't be surprised with so little." Sasuke made Neo look at him with something more than anger, reason returning to her along with fear. "Once, as mere training, I faced and defeated a thousand opponents without receiving even a scratch." Such information was not to brag or anything of the sort, but rather to help lessen her desire to fight, and the incredulous look on her face said it was working. "While many of them weren't as strong as you, I doubt you could remotely do the same."
In fact, according to what he had learned so far about the power level of the people in this world, where Ozpin was considered one of the strongest, there was no one who was able to overcome such a large number of opponents.
At least, not at that level.
If there was, Sasuke wanted to know where this person was hiding; he or she could be useful.
As for the target of his comparison, his words didn't seem to be having the intended effect.
On the contrary, her eyes still burned with anger-fueled determination.
Really, she seemed to be a female version of him, except for being a little too colorful, and Sasuke couldn't help but want her by his side more and more.
Neo had her lips stuck between her teeth after seeing her copies of Roman reduced to nothing and still having to listen to this god brag about it while diminishing her.
So what if she was weaker? Neo knew that from the beginning, and seeing that strength of his didn't change a thing!
As long as his desire to have her existed to let her live, Neo would keep fighting!
"You won't stop, will you?" This desperate girl's response was to throw herself into his arms and knock him down, where Sasuke let her have this last shot at him. "I should know since we are alike."
Neo ignored his remarks, being more surprised that she could not only finally touch him but also knock him down!
Pretending to hug him again worked even without using Ruby Rose's appearance!
All because this guy couldn't resist having her in his arms!
While she knew he let it happen, probably so he could have her sitting on top of him if his hands on her hips meant that much, it didn't matter!
This was her chance!
With this, Neo truly smiled as she squeezed the materialized sword through her Semblance and tried to stab him with everything she had! Your life is mine!
A blade through the heart, that's what he would get for giving her this chance!
This bastard should have known this would happen, for they were one and the same!
"Ouch," Sasuke feigned pain as her hands hit his chest. "Another thousand of these and I think I'll die...of boredom."
Neo lost her smile as quickly as she had gained it, looking down at her empty hands in confusion.
Her sword was gone!
How?!
"I can teleport things," Sasuke clarified to her without caring to divulge such information, showing her sword in his hand; one that Neo immediately tried to take back but to no avail as it soon disappeared again. "Oh, and I can absorb Aura too."
Neo didn't want to believe this nonsense, just thinking that he had moved super-fast like before and taken the sword from her at the last second, but as she tried to form another, she felt her Aura getting weaker and weaker; being torn from her by those cheeky hands at her waist!
He wasn't trying to feel her, but to steal her power!
Neo tried to run away, but Sasuke wouldn't let her, holding her in place.
This son of a bitch! Neo couldn't understand! How can someone do so many things?!
While calling him a god wasn't exactly an exaggeration given how much stronger he was when compared to even the Remnant elite, an actual deity was something fictional that shouldn't walk among humans.
In that case, what was Sasuke really?
Could he really do anything?
If so, then...
Sasuke saw that this girl finally calmed down, even if by force, and decided to sit down, but kept an exhausted Neo on his lap to see how small she really was.
She looks so fragile... It was strange how girls could do that when he knew she was nothing but fragile. "Neo, are you willing to listen to me now?" Reluctantly, she looked up at him with her eyes tired and almost unwilling to fight. "I won't try to justify what I did that day, nor ask for your forgiveness." Again, a poor choice of words given the way she clenched her teeth and had her small hands trying to dig her nails into his exposed chest. However, suddenly something changed in her as if she had realized something and Sasuke didn't intend to let her think too hard. "The fact is that I left that man in white and the woman in red to die after defeating them, so you can hate me all you want for that, even try to kill me later; I will accept your hatred, all of it, so come with me!" He allowed himself a smile as he ignored her incredulous look and added something that even he couldn't believe he was about to say but which seemed necessary to finally have her by his side, "If you do, I promise you will never be alone again!"
Now Neo was looking at him as if he had gone crazy for good, and maybe he was for making a broken confession like that, but it didn't matter... as much as her traitorous heart had stirred a bit because this was the first time anyone had ever done that.
Or maybe it was the relief of knowing that she was still safe? hard to say which.
That day and not this day? Neo preferred to focus on this, putting together everything he said and it wasn't long before she had her Scroll in hand to type a question to this mindless womanizer. "You didn't finish Roman and Cinder?!"
There was a thread of hope with that doubt and she needed confirmation.
"Roman and Cinder? Those were their names?" Sasuke didn't even know that, but it hardly mattered, only the question from this girl who was finally willing to talk...the way she could, through texts. "After I defeated them, I tried to read their memories, I kind of can do that, but they couldn't stand my power, so I just walked away." The girl was now in shock and he was beginning to understand what was going on. "Do you think that besides killing them, I also destroyed their bodies or something? I know you see me as a total monster, but I'm not that bad...?"
Sasuke stopped talking, becoming speechless as he saw tears falling from Neo's eyes.
His insensitivity in trying to justify the unjustifiable struck again and Sasuke felt like an irredeemable idiot.
Contrary to his hasty conclusion, Neo was crying for another reason.
A misunderstanding.
The whole thing was just a misunderstanding!
A figment of her overactive imagination.
Again, her fantasies got the best of her!
Even better, Sasuke didn't know that Roman had survived!
The doctor didn't tell him anything!
At least, not yet!
In that case, she had to keep it that way!
Before Neo could begin to formulate a plan, which definitely included the possibility of silencing that old man for good, she felt goose bumps as her hair was suddenly stroked to make her remember where she was... or rather, in whose lap she was still sitting on.
Sasuke, this all-powerful god...was he trying to comfort her? Considering the affectionate and uncomfortable way he was doing this, it was certainly a yes.
Really, this boy was a womanizer who was genuinely trying to win her over, even though he knew that all she felt for him was hate.
Maybe that was one of the reasons he wanted her, and Neo would praise his twisted persistence.
Yeah, they really were alike.
"Better now?" Sasuke asked after Neo had calmed down a bit, not being very good with that sort of thing. Comforting girls, especially one who hates me.
Usually, a smile would solve any problem.
Not this time.
To keep smiling would be the same as spitting on the memory of that Roman guy, and he couldn't do that now that he had made some progress.
That and Sasuke didn't care about that man anymore.
Thankfully, Neo nodded, his clumsy attempt proving effective for more than one reason.
Again, this being the first time something like this had ever happened, very similar to sitting on a man's lap and staying that way because she had no strength in her legs to escape, and Neo didn't hate that as much as she should have.
Finding out that Roman was okay definitely had a part in that.
"So what are you going to do now?" Sasuke took the opportunity to ask. "Do you want help finding the body...I mean Roman?"
That was the least he could do.
"No need," she shook her head and showed the Scroll with the text to him. "I can find him on my own."
What she really needed was to keep that doctor's mouth shut, maybe even risk leaving Vale and never coming back...
At that point, she should have known better than to push for a revenge that wasn't going to happen, no matter how hard she tried.
Except that it wouldn't be that easy to get off the radar of this complacent little god who had her within arms reach.
"Hn," Sasuke wouldn't push that, to avoid pushing the limit of her tolerance. "So, you haven't answered me yet."
While it sounded as if he was pushing her, Sasuke needed to insist on finishing this as soon as possible so he could go see Winter and if she was okay.
The doctor was good at what he did, but that was only true for this world.
Sasuke needed to ensure that she would not have any sequelae from her injuries.
"Why?" she couldn't understand this obsession, having to have more behind it than just the similarities they shared. "Why do you want me so much, even though you know I hate you?"
Neo wanted to believe she was attractive like that, to the point that a god like him would try to win her over rather than take her by force, which he could certainly do when he wanted to, but it couldn't just be that.
"I don't really like you either," Sasuke would be honest about that, not having forgotten what she did to Winter and probably planned to do to the other girls to get to him, that being a very common tactic. "However, it is undeniable that you have just become the strongest person I have seen so far in this world and that is why I need your power."
Neo swallowed dryly as she confirmed that his hatred was reciprocated, soon forgetting that as she focused on the real reason he was interested in her.
"You need me? My power?" Again, that made no sense to her. "A god like you?"
What on earth could she help him with? If he was after her body, Neo could understand, but for her power?
Or maybe it was both, where a strong woman was needed to be able to give birth to a child for him?
A mix of emotions was there that made Neo begin to hate her own boundless imagination, for putting her in a situation like this since she was a child and being taken over by anxiety.
"I'm not a god," Sasuke said just for the sake of saying it, figuring that his words carried no weight whatsoever given his actions and feats, especially if you took into account what he was about to say and reveal. "But who threw me into this world is."
The way Neo was looking at him made it seem like he had grown a second head.
She didn't even need to speak to be able to show skepticism.
"You heard me." Sasuke should have known by now that reactions of the sort would be common given his own origins. "I am not of this world."
Bullshit! Neo wanted to scream immediately, but not only was she physically unable to do so, but suddenly a lot of things were starting to make sense. No way...
Did that mean she was trying to kill a fucking alien?! If so, where were his tentacles?! Imagining this made some very bad and dirty things pop up in her fanciful mind. Fortunately, the only thing different about him was his eyes, which didn't amount to much compared to some faunus.
Besides, not only were gods real, even if this boy tried to deny that he was one too, but there were other worlds out there!
That was a lot of information!
The worst part was that there was even more behind it, and not in a good way, either for her or anyone else who lived in Remnant.
"The goddess that threw me here is an insatiable monster that can devour the life of planets," Sasuke would make a summary of his situation, this being the first time he would do so in a straightforward manner. "Otsutsutsuki Kaguya, that's her name, and right now she's fighting a friend of mine; the only person besides me who has a chance to stop her from killing everyone where I come from."
Again, Neo wanted to say that this was bullshit.
However, there was one thing she learned from that doctor, about how he met Sasuke.
This absolute monster had come to him because he had been brutally injured by an unknown woman who was supposed to be just as dangerous.
Plus, there was how serious he was when talking about it, to the point where she felt his body tense up.
Sasuke wasn't lying and his concern was genuine. At least, that was what all the experience Neo had gained as a criminal extorting information told her.
"Given the difference in the time flow of our dimensions, I have some time to prepare and look for allies, but eventually," Sasuke could already picture Naruto's lifeless body and it didn't give him a sense of satisfaction or dissatisfaction normally expected from having this opportunity stolen from him. "She's going to get rid of my friend and come after me to finish what she started...along with everything else here."
Remnant would be dessert after she devoured the Elemental Nations.
Meaning that, in the end, the fact that Roman was alive was but a temporary condition.
If this goddess had things her way, Neo would lose everything, including her life.
That couldn't happen.
"If that's true, how can I help against someone stronger than you when I couldn't even scratch you?" Neo asked using her Scroll, this being her biggest doubt. "Not just me, but those other brats?"
If she was the strongest, an indirect compliment that raised her self-esteem and confidence up there, then what use was the other girls if not to create a harem?
Except for Winter, where even now, Neo didn't have the slightest desire to cross swords with that woman again.
Her neck still hurt and there was fear in her heart at the very thought of her.
It was kind of amusing to Sasuke to hear a girl as young as Ruby refer to others that way, but he would ignore it because she was showing interest in helping.
Which was odd, since he believed she had no attachment to this world at all after losing that man.
"I can make all of you stronger, much stronger." Even if Sasuke had to adjust the Six Path Mark, it was still fully possible to follow through with his original plan. "That way, you could, even if very little, be of some help against Kaguya."
Preferably in a way that not one of them would end up dying in the process.
Things had changed.
Sasuke no longer wanted to use them as if they were objects to be discarded...or rather, he could no longer do something obnoxious like that.
In fact, the mere thought of putting these girls in danger in itself bothered him deeply.
However, not preparing them for the worst also weighed heavily on his mind.
I had forgotten how complicated it is to keep someone else's welfare always in mind. Everything seemed simpler when Sasuke cared about nothing but revenge. The difference between a person and a monster.
It meant that he was changing for the better.
His mother's smile was there to give him a sense of pride and feel his resolve grow stronger, whereas not even Ruby's absurd expectations of him being a hero could shake him.
Unconscious to Sasuke would be the fact that the girl on his lap could feel this change and be influenced by it.
How can someone be like that? Neo had chills running through her body in an unknown way with the change in the Aura of this god. So...inconstant?
In fact, while they had that in common, Sasuke was even more broken than she was and that meant something.
One moment he was making the entire kingdom cower in fear under the pressure of his dark power, the next he was bringing tears to the eyes with the happy memory of many about their mothers, where even she almost let herself be carried away.
Earlier, he had looked at her in a way that promised pain and death, and now he was offering her a chance to grow stronger and fight for this hateful world...or for her own life and Roman's.
In that case, the difference between them was disappearing, because he was putting himself together, and to think that she had something to do with it made her even more uneasy, even if it was for a different reason.
I want to understand this better, Neo made her decision; one that wasn't motivated just by the power offered or the chance to be able to keep Roman alive. "All right then," she reminded this boy that she was still on top of him, which annoyed her a little to think about since no one else had that opportunity. "I'll join your little harem."
His reaction was one she hadn't expected, where a vein popped on his forehead along with the visible twitch of his left eye.
Another change in demeanor, a result of the first blow she hit in this fight.
"What harem?" He looked away, feeling like throwing this girl through one of the walls of this collapsing house. "I don't know what you're talking about."
The truth couldn't be more different, but he preferred to ignore it, and in that, Sasuke was very good...even if that wasn't exactly a quality or something to be proud of.
A weakness! Neo on the other hand smiled truthfully, finally finding a loophole she could use. It will be fun to provoke him about this later.
In a way, this would also be a kind of revenge, and she would get what she could out of it!
A little later than expected, but I don't regret it. Too busy yesterday.
Anyway, don't forget to review, like what happened in the last chapter, and if you want to support me and read ahead take a look at my P t r & on (slash) Bertoti
The next one will be out by the end of the month.