Chapter 44: "...You... Don't Want... To?"
"Hey, kiddo, can you help me?"
"...What do you want?"
The child whom Anubis was referring to was the child whom the trio and Jörmungandr had picked up while they were searching for Fenrir.
She was a twelve year old girl with beautiful dark mocha skin and soft gray eyes that she'd inherited from her mother, her tight curls of hair pulled back into a rather incredible ponytail; the image of the circular serpent was at the back of her neck, and it had benefited her intelligence and stealth abilities.
Despite knowing very well that the one before her was a god, she felt irked that a person who was hardly older looking than herself was calling her "kiddo". However, as a smart child, she decided to ignore such details.
Anubis smiled, aware of her thoughts, but considering how she didn't act on or openly show them, he found no reason to fixate on them.
"What's your name?"
"...Ime."
"Ime? Alright then, Ime, can you distract your Patron over there?"
She blinked, her gray eyes wide before she muttered, "...Huh? What do you—distract? Why would I—"
He clapped his hands in a praying gesture as he begged, "Pleeeease, I need to figure out the weird spirit and his full connection! It'll help him in the long run, I promise~"
She stared at him a bit before replying with a bit of a glare, "If you want to do weird experiments, why don't you ask the girl in question? Haven't you ever heard of 'consent'? It's KEY. And I am NOT pissing off my Patron—you want me to die or something?"
"What're you gonna do to Asta...?"
A shiver went up the two adolescent-looking people, Anubis' eyes in particular widening as he slowly looked behind his back. Jörmungandr's pupils had sharpened into points so sharp, they could cut glass with just a touch, and that eerie yellow had begun to glow as he loomed over the smaller god.
With a shockingly gentle touch, he grabbed Ime before muttering, "...No deals... leave her alone..."
Truthfully, she felt thankful; she couldn't exactly tell a god directly to screw off, as death was likely eminent at that point. The entire interaction, she wished she could disappear into a puff of air in hopes of not dealing with him... but with her Patron now here to deal with him.
'...I'll just sneak away while he's distracted... fufu~ I'm so clever...' she thought, a bit of a goofy smile that said everything she was thinking about appearing on her face in response to her self praise, a look which honestly annoyed Anubis a bit.
She was thinking about walking away, scott-free after he'd chosen her to be his partner in crime, while he suffered the consequences of his own actions?
Ridiculous.
"My, my, my, aren't you a heartless little serpent—can't you see that the child wants to spend some time with you? Aiya~, so cruel, leaving her alone..."
Jörmungandr blinked in surprise at the sudden attack. His eyes shifted to the nervous-looking child who was beginning to walk away from the two mythical beings, the remnants of a smile still on her face.
"...Is that... so?"
Anubis enthusiastically nodded, his hazel eyes shining with such purity, you'd think he was actually a saint instead of a devious god.
"Yes, yes!" he enthused with solemnity in his countenance, "I recognize the desire of a child anywhere! I've been along for a long time, remember? I can easily tell whether of not a human wishes to be within the divine's presence!"
Of course, this was all bullsh!t—he hardly interacted with humans, and the ones he did were of extremely strong or distant personalities.
However, as a result, he knew the best way to throw those with distrust at a loop was to be extremely serious and confident sounding instead of friendly—doing so added more credibility, especially when he was usually light-hearted and childish-seeming.
However, Jörmungandr had yet to meet an actual trickster before, and was told by the trio to always listen to advice if it does him and others good. Within his clever yet limited world experience and scope, unfortunately... he was duped.
'...Huh?!'
Ime, who had been sneaking off slowly, was suddenly pulled back by her Patron, his innocent gaze incessant as he cluelessly asked, "...Does, Ime... want to talk to... me...?"
"...Huh?" she squeaked, her eyes wide at the innocence of the monster.
"I-I... uh... I don—... huh?"
Meanwhile, the smirking face of a Jackal could be seen behind Jörmungandr's shoulder, only for the smirk to freeze along with his slowly fleeing form as Jörmungandr warned, "If you do something bad to her, you're dead."
The atmosphere immediately froze up, and the smiling face of Anubis assured hurriedly with beads of sweat, "I won't do anything bad to her!" before running with his tail between his legs.
Assured, the serpent looked back at the nervous child.
"Do you... want to... spend... time... with me?"
"I... well I..."
In seeing her hesitation at his question, he released her shoulder and with an almost sad expression crossing his innocent face, turned his androgynous features cute for a moment.
"You... don't want to...?"
Ime closed her mouth that had been poised to reply with a no, feeling immediate guilt at the surprisingly adorable serpent in front of her. No, forget serpent—he looked like a kicked puppy pleading for help!
"...I want to spend time with you... I don't mind..."
While internally screaming bloody murder towards a certain dog, she accepted the request. Even seeing the face of her Patron light up at her acquiescence couldn't cure her bitterness towards the dog for creating such an awkward situation for.
'Haha, just kill me now.'
She wanted to cry while she followed the innocent serpent out into the woods.
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Hey, Odd_Lily here! I joined the contest for "Dark Romance", so if you wanna see a more romantic novel of mine, you can check it out. It's called "The Beauty of Damnation" (I know, cringe). If you wanna read it, you can go ahead and do so, if not, ignore me, I don't really mind either way. Enjoy the story!
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Odd_Lily
Odd_Lily Ah, I'm tired... this chapter did not go the way I expected, huh... whatever. Go check out "The Beauty of Damnation" if you're interesting in other current works by me; if you can't find it on my little account, then you can just search for it. Have a nice life, and I hope I can see some comments!
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