"'What am I to you?'" Mirajane parroted. "That sounds like a line from a romance novel." Macbeth snorted. Cobra suppressed murderous instincts.
"I asked her that, even though I could already tell what it probably would be." He looked around the room. "No guesses?"
"…She couldn't come up with a response, could she?" Lucy finally replied. Cobra nodded.
"That's fairly accurate. She did try. I could see her struggling to form words that her brain would accept. She just stared at me for the longest time, a grim look on her face, like it was painful to think about. She couldn't assign anything personal, in either direction. I just didn't register in her mind at all as someone to like, dislike…but not quite ignore either. It's baffling. I've never seen a case like it on someone else…if she were simply missing her memories, it'd be one thing, but this is entirely different.
"Before today, I would have thought that they were being repressed in some way. They certainly seem dampened in spirit, even if they don't realize it. But I no longer think that's the case."
"You're saying something else has happened to them?" Mirajane asked.
"I think…it might be more sinister than we thought." Cobra took a deep breath, feeling the gravity of what he was about to suggest. "I now believe someone is trying to steal them."