The Underworld.
We arrived at Sitri's mansion quickly, and Serafall, without further ado, simply crashed into her house and put me in front of the door to a room that was obviously a library, given the sign above. The servants who saw this just shrugged and left, apparently used to the antics of a demon lord with ponytails, and I just shook off the dust and looked at Serafall.
- "You know, you could have just waited, and I would have visited her myself," I said calmly. "But since you acted so decisively, I guess things are pretty bad?"
- "Yes. Sona pretends everything's fine, but I'm not blind," she said, and I was surprised, because Serafall did sound serious. "She locks herself in the library, doesn't eat, drink, or even sleep. Whatever happened in that lab hit her hard. And you have to fix it, since it's your fault."
I raised an eyebrow.
I had a strong sense of deja vu, because Rias was literally doing the same thing. And to be honest, I had expected a slightly different outcome, since Sona held all the cards to not have any problems.
I gave her a clue, a very fat clue, which she took advantage of as far as I was concerned. Roygun was very strong, and her help should have been enough, and I literally couldn't imagine a situation where things could have gotten out of control that badly. However...
- "Ah, ah, ah, Sera, the fault is not mine," I grinned. "If I'd wanted to give her an emotional roller coaster, I would have done the same thing to her as I did to Rias. And there, I reminded myself, there was no way to get out unscathed. Here, the risk was so negligible that its probability went to zero at the speed of light."
- "So? Who's to blame if..." she asked, standing up close to me and looking me in the eyes, she clenched her fists, and the demonic power began to envelop her like a shroud.
- "You seem to forget who you're talking to, Serafall," I interrupted her in a completely calm, even frightening tone, and lowered my eyes, for she was shorter than me both literally and figuratively. Serafall clenched her teeth and remained silent, but continued to stubbornly stare into my eyes. This went on for about a minute until I chuckled and stroked her hair, causing a sudden stupor and surprise on her face.
- "I know you're worried about her, but isn't it about time you let her go? She is literally in a greenhouse with nothing and no one to let her grow. Look at Sairaorg or Rias. They went through trials and rose to the pedestal as some of the best heirs, receiving the approval of Goetia himself and demon Pillars. And all because they were given freedom, whether it was intentional or not," I said. "You and Sirzechs are too much alike in that, and I can't say it's without merit. The war's there, all that stuff. But just listening to me, don't you have any idea at all that I'm right, hmm?"
There was a silence in the long and ornate hallway with the broken wall that didn't last very long, for it was interrupted by sobs. Sobs that obviously belonged to Serafall, who now stood with her head down and flinched every time a sound was heard.
Seeing this, I unintentionally sighed, for women's tears have been too much lately. So when I was done here, I definitely needed to unwind.
- "Okay, I'll do anything, just stop crying," I said, and was about to open the door when I was suddenly hugged by Serafall, so much so that my bones threatened to crack and break for a moment. "It hurts, you know."
- "I-I just want to protect her," her voice came from my chest in a broken voice. "B-but I realize you're right. I-I just can't let her go so...so soon..."
- "Well, that's at least something," I shrugged and, realizing that she wasn't really planning on letting me go, I started to gently push her away from me. However, instead of giving in to me and letting me get down to business, she started to squeeze me even tighter, as if... "Trying to kill me, hmm?"
- "Are you feeling sorry for yourself? You're immortal," she said in a suddenly completely calm tone and raised her head. And when I saw the look in her eyes, I unconsciously flinched, as if I'd accidentally made Morgan angry. There was darkness in her blue and usually childish eyes. It was as if the abyss itself was staring back at me, indifferent and frighteningly unknown. For a moment, it seemed to me that Serafall was outshining even Ophis, which embodied that very abyss. "If anyone found out that I had actually cried... We understood each other, didn't we, Ro-tan?"
What could I have done? Well, obviously, nod fearfully. And yes, that was despite the fact that I was stronger than her. I guess this world stood out not only for the number of attractive women, but also for the degree of insanity in those women. Scary and creepy at the same time.
- "That's good. I hope so, Ro-tan," she said, as if that look was just a figment of my imagination, in her usual cheerful, childish tone and with a sweet smile on her face, and then she disappeared down the hallway, skipping and humming a tune.
It took me a few minutes to recover a bit, and then, after taking a couple deep breaths, I opened the door and entered the library. And the first thing my eyes noticed was the pile of half-empty shelves, the mountains of books clustered around the center of the huge room, and Sona herself there as well. And there I was again, feeling a sense of déjà vu, for Rias was in roughly the same state.
Sona was pale as Death and had sunken cheeks from malnutrition, disheveled messy hair, and just huge circles under her eyes. And her clothes, that is, her academy uniform, were all crumpled in dust and stains. She herself, as if possessed, was reading the pages of a book, on which her eyes were running fast, so fast that it seemed to me as if someone had accelerated time three times. And all this was accompanied by the mumbling of incomprehensible gibberish emitted by Sona herself.
It was unsettling and eerie, to say the least, and I was probably a little mistaken in comparing it to the situation with Rias. It was worse. But since I had promised, I had to do it.
I walked over to Sona, who didn't notice my footsteps or myself, and crouched right in front of her face, forcefully putting down the book she was reading. Of course, it was only the last action that caused her to react, and she looked up.
- "Sensei?" Sona wondered in a rather weak voice.
- "Well, hello, So-tan," I began. "Can you tell me why someone as rational as you would do something as irrational as suicide, hmm?"
- "It's not suicide, it's error correction," she retorted. "I made a mistake, and in order to prevent it from happening again, I need to..."
- "Just don't do that, okay? I don't want to slap you like I did to Rias when she was going through the exact same thing," I rolled my eyes, which caused Sona a new level of surprise. "She was in exactly the same state as you are now, trying to hoof it and taking all the blame. Thankfully, however, I intervened and set her straight."
- "Trying to play righteous, Sensei? We both know that."
- "Yeah... Even your message is exactly the same as Rias' back then. Are you sure you're not twin sisters who were accidentally switched at the hospital?" I interrupted her a second time, and her surprise turned to shock. "Let's do it my way. You tell me what happened in the lab that made you suffer such a stupid pastime, and I, since we're following a familiar script, pretend to be interested and say literally the same thing that Rias did then, okay?"
- "You're a terrible psychologist."
- "That's how all psychologists work, and I'm not even certified. Although, given the circumstances, I don't need one. All I need is an absurd but appropriate Talk-no-Jutsu for this world. And that doesn't require much of a brain," I shrugged. "Shall we call it a day?"
Sona thought for a moment, and it made me realize that her attention was now focused on me, not on what she'd been doing earlier. I guess that was a step forward.
- "Given your character, you're not likely to get away from me, are you?" she asked, to which I merely produced a chair and a cup of coffee, then took a sip. And that silent answer elicited a sigh of her now customary slight irritation and resignation. "Okay. Listen..."
-0-
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