章 411: Chapter 399 - Sympathies

Zeel sat in the chair watching as Henry slept soundly on the hospital bed. She had an IV bag inserted into her arm, and a cardiac monitor showing the pulse of her steady heartbeat on the nearby screen.

Honestly, it was all a bit overexaggerated for Zeel, but he reminded himself that Humans didn't heal as fast as other species.

'She could probably still die, right?'

Zeel kept a close eye on Henry, enjoying the rare moment of reprieve from the troublesome life he led. A moment of relaxation was rare, that much he could remember even if his mind was currently unreliable.

As if suddenly enlightened, Zeel thought about Caroline and how she was probably dead and being eaten by Krauls. After all, Henry pulled him through space at a very inopportune moment.

'She could probably survive for a couple of days with the gun I designed…' Zeel internally mused, choosing to ignore the fact the excess radiation from the weapon may very well lead to Caroline's demise.

One problem at a time.

"There goes my good deed," Zeel lamented, not liking the fact that Henry had inadvertently caused the death of someone he wanted to save.

For so long, death had been following him to every Universe, and now, he was literally a God of Death, so if he couldn't do any good deeds now, he was meant to forever be a villain. Still, Caroline's possible death wasn't what irked Zeel.

It was the fact that he wouldn't be able to convince himself that he was becoming a better person.

Well… maybe he had…

Hadn't he saved Henry's life after all?

Not to mention those she would have killed if the seizure continued and her powers got out of control. After he finished convincing himself that he was a hero, Zeel took a bite of the half-eaten apple in his hands, nodding his head in enjoyment.

The sweet taste of the apple was wonderful.

Ironic how having his senses dulled could bring out the most flavor in human food.

'Truly a reverse species…'

Sure, Zeel had tasted way better fruits, but he forgot most of them. It was an enjoyable experience for his mind to be silent of all the constant calculations. It came at the price of safety, but… win some and lose some.

After Zeel was finished with the apple, he stared intently at the jello on the nearby table, wondering if it tasted as nasty as it looked. But from the faint traces of sweetness his nose was detecting, stealing Henry's pudding would be worth the headache from the World's Laws.

Besides, Henry wouldn't even notice if the pudding went missing. Sadly, Zeel had to withhold his sticky fingers since the passing nurses already saw him snacking on Henry's apple. If the pudding went missing as well, he would be instantly suspected.

'Unless I kill them?' He thought but shook that thought away as quickly as it came.

But Zeel really wanted to try the pudding, and Henry wouldn't mind.

Would she?

Alas, Zeel fell back into his old behavior, not caring much about sharing with others, especially not when he saved Henry's life, so she was basically repaying him with her food. Zeel snatched the pudding from the table, and blurred, activating his [Shallow Time-Zone] to eat everything as quickly as he could, blasting whatever evidence remained with his lightning.

One might argue that he was stealing a pudding and there was no need to be so thorough, but Zeel knew covering his tracks, no matter how small the crime, was always important. Leave evidence of pudding theft today, and leave evidence of hopping Universes tomorrow… there was no compromise available.

A low hum disturbed the aftertaste of the pudding lingering in Zeel's mouth. Frowning, Zeel turned his attention to the machines monitoring Henry's vitals.

Everything seemed fine.

Just like the machines, Zeel had surmised that Henry was completely fine, but something had to be wrong if she was having seizures. And from the records he had hacked from the hospital, Zeel knew this was a recurring problem.

Sure, some of the more powerful Jumpers had seizures maybe once before their power manifested, but that was all.

It should only happen once.

'Different Universe, different rules?' Zeel thought but quickly dismissed this thought since it would lead him down a rabbit hole he would never come out of.

If every time he encountered a problem and thought it was because he was in a different Universe, then nothing would be solved… ever.

"Something is affecting her jumping abilities," Zeel surmised, his [Traveler's Eyes] flickering to life as he scanned Henry from head to toe.

Once again, there was nothing wrong. At least, nothing he could perceive, which was not surprising given his lack of nanites and weakened senses.

'Maybe she is a different type of Jumper?' He theorized unconfidently.

Henry's DNA showed no indication of tampering, so she should be just another Jumper, albeit a very powerful one. Still, everything was fine, and there was no need to look for trouble where there was none.

"I'll investigate more later on," Zeel whispered, already somewhat aware of what might be the cause of Henry's epileptic episodes.

Zeel refocused his attention on Henry's face and sighed. He envied how Henry could sleep so soundly after a medical emergency. As a Homo-Superior, and quite possibly the last one at that, Zeel couldn't even rest after he fought a battle against Gods.

Even now, he was constantly on the lookout for the first sign of trouble. It would have been a tedious job, but thankfully, he wasn't working alone.

"Can I have your pudding too?" Zeel asked, spinning in his chair, tearing his attention away from Henry, and settling on the girl laying in the adjacent bed.

"Can I braid your hair?" Nara questioned, anticipation flickering in her eight-year-old eyes.

Zeel hesitated… sure, his hair had grown a bit too much, and he was reluctant to cut it, but something as primitive as styling hair was not something he wanted to try.

Seeing his hesitation, Nara pouted a bit "Come on… you told me to pay attention to the door and windows in case someone tried to break in, and I did the job without complaint."

"I paid you for the job!" Zeel argued, not liking the fact that a human child was trying to scam him "I hacked the hospital systems and canceled your very expensive bill."

"But that's something to do with money!" Nara argued, looking at Zeel as if he was the scum of the Earth "Money is something my parents have to worry about… not me! So, it doesn't count for anything."

"That's—" Zeel paused, sighing in frustration "That makes sense."

"Yay!" Nara cheered, sitting up and patting the nearby chair as the signal for Zeel to come closer "Don't worry, I'll only braid the front."

Zeel hesitated for a couple more seconds, contemplating if he should kill the child, but eventually, and very reluctantly, he made his way over to the chair and sat down.

"You have pretty hair," Nara complimented, but Zeel's face turned even more ugly since the last thing he wanted to hear, as a guy, was the fact he was pretty.

Alice and Elizabeth made his feminine looks abundantly clear over the past couple of years.

"You seem sad…" Nara questioned, humming lightly as she braided Zeel's hair.

"I guess… I am feeling a bit lonely," Zeel admitted, leaning back a bit more to give Nara better reach "My first wife hates my guts, and my second wife is dead."

Nara's hands froze for a moment and she giggled "That means you have more than one?"

"Two… maybe more, I don't remember."

"Isn't it hard to keep all of them happy?" Nara questioned curiously "I have a boyfriend too, but he's not as handsome as you."

"Are you flirting with me?"

"Maybe…" Nara hummed, twirling her fingers in Zeel's hair...

Zeel rolled his eyes "If I had a daughter like you, I'd probably kill her…"

"You mean love her anyway?"

Zeel sighed "My race is very particular about having stupid children."

"But how do you feel about it?"

"Honestly," Zeel mused for a couple of seconds and truly thought about the matter "You're pretty stupid and I am enjoying our little talk, so I guess… stupid people aren't so bad."

"Do you always compliment people with offensive statements?" Nara questioned, tugging on Zeel's hair harder than necessary, but she failed to remove even a single strand.

"I know how I should talk and what I should say, but I'm trying to find my own personality and not rely on training."

"Hmmmm…" Nara hummed, and then silence followed.

Zeel didn't speak and Nara was too concentrated putting the final touches in Zeel's hair to pay attention to anything else.

"Done!" Nara announced, "What do you think?"

Zeel had no need to look in a mirror, he simply retraced the pattern of Nara's hand movements in his mind and constructed the appropriate style of his hair.

"It feels like a ponytail…" He snorted.

"It's called an Inverted Fishtail Braid," Nara announced proudly "Do you like it?"

Zeel turned around and stared into Nara's hopeful eyes "But… it's not very combat efficient."

"Do you like it?" Nara asked once again, this time a little less hopeful.

Zeel wanted to say 'no' very badly, but something about her hopeful eyes made him rethink a truthful answer "I mean if I look at it from the left… then… sure, it's amazing… even if it's not combat efficient."

"Whoop!" Nara cheered, smiling wider than should have been possible with the size of her face "Now, you should give me a gift in return since I did your hair and all."

Zeel frowned, not sure what gift to give, but knowledge was always a good gift, or so Alice taught him.

"I can tell you how long you have left."

Nara's cheering stopped and she smiled sadly "How do you know that?"

Being reminded of her failing health was not something Nara enjoyed, but it was something she had grown accustomed to anyway. Zeel glanced at the black wisp of death visible to all Gods of Death. The black wisps were thickening around Nara's body.

"You should probably call your parents and those you love… you're going to die tonight," He warned, thinking about Aurolana and how it would have been her job to escort such a young girl to Heaven.

"HOW DARE YOU SAY SUCH A THING TO MY DAUGHTER!" A woman yelled from the door, barging into the room, laying a slap on Zeel's face before he could even respond.

"Mom, it's okay… I asked him—" Nara tried to defend Zeel, but her mother was not hearing any of it.

"You asked him what?" The Mother yelled, attracting nurses into the room "You asked him to crush our hopes! The doctors said the treatment is going fine… is he even a doctor?"

Zeel frowned, biting his tongue to stop himself from telling the woman the treatment was too primitive to do anything against the type of mutations occurring inside her daughter's body.

"GET OUT!" The Woman yelled, and Zeel almost snapped her neck.

But… at the last moment just before he was going to act, Nara cast a pleading look in his direction, and for some unknown reason, his Divine Cloud felt as if it fell from his chest to his stomach.

Then, Zeel silently left the room under the guidance of the nearby nurses. In actuality, he ran away from the room, because he didn't like the emotion he perceived from Nara's gaze. It was something intense that he hadn't felt before.

For the first time in his life, Zeel had sympathized with someone else.