Big Brained Moves

To his demand, Ram had no reaction. In fact, her face slowly closed up. Becoming a mask of uncaring neutrality, and her pink eyes pools of deep tranquility as they judged him.

HIM. The man under the surface of mystery he was purposefully building around himself, the man beneath the ability to bring back the dead. The being behind the golden boy normal people tagged him as at first glance.

She put her sight upon the boy who killed himself out of lonelyness, boredom and betrayal. The boy who thought restarting his life in a world of magic would somehow fix it all. Fix his past. Fix him.

Not so long ago, such a gaze would have broken him. Sent him into a whirlwind of pain, denial and anger.

But not anymore. Now, he was past this maddening self-delusion. He had perfectly accepted his current situation and currently seeked solutions to it.

Nonetheless, he found himself impressed. How did Ram do it? He had no idea, just that she was always hailed as a prodigy by her people, and that her intuition about people was on point.

Having no reaction other than giving her a smile. He waited for her verdict.

In either way, it was yes or no. He hadn't asked for her and her sister's hand against eternal happiness. He had asked for her permission to pursue her and her sister. Since she was the older sibbling, it naturally fell on her to approve of him. Like a futur father in law would.

Finally, after some time. Ram spoke and turned to look at the window, where rays of sunlight hit at just the right angle to be visible, seemingly arriving to a conclusion after her inspection of his person. "You speak of great power and of granting wishes. Of granting me and my sister eternal life if it was our desire. Yet in exchange, you want to be allowed our courtmanship. Both of me and my sister. Is it a fancy for our body, pity for our plight, or simple greed for what is in little supply that lead to your request?"

Julian smiled faded as he contemplated the question, slowly, his eyes hardened. "Since I first saw you two, I found you pleasing to my eyes. That's the truth. But that's not why I saved your sister. If you want the cold, hard truth. That's what I will give you. I saved Rem because she was the only one that needed saving. Subaru is not dead, as he is afflicted by the same curse that I am. As for sacrificing my arm to bring her back, I did it because for me. It is no great cost."

Saying that, he reconstructed his arm. The construct taking but a couple of seconds to appear from his constant practice.

"As for pitying you... I will not lie, I do. But this pity comes from simpathy, because you two remind me of myself from not long ago. Stuck in a dead end with no happy end possible, but refusing to see it." Julian stated, his expression unwavering as he told the one he wanted to woo unpleasant things.

"As for you being special in some kind of way and coveting your blood... I think we both know that this is unworthy of an answer. Notably because you didn't tell me about your past yet." He finished with a small knowing smile.

Ram returned his light smile with one of her own. "It is, I was just testing the water a bit."

"So? Did I pass the test?" Julian rolled his eyes.

"You did. Not what I expected, but I got the answers I wanted. And I'm satisfied. Both by them and your exceptionally crude honesty." Ram shrugged lightly

"I have one last question though. If you were, hypothethically speaking, ever successful in your endeavor. Would we ever finish as mere toys in your collection, or would you ever abandon us in order to achieve your goal, whatever it is?" Ram fixed him impassively.

"To the first one, no. I grew past the age to play with toys long ago, and the day I treat those close to me as such will be the day I have died. So hypothethically speaking, if I ever was to get your affection, you have all my permission to either torture me back to my sense or discard of me. As for the later point, I wouldn't, because my goal right now is not one of want but of need. I need to become stronger, I need to become better. To be better..." Julian trailed off, not elaborating.

"I see. Then I don't see any problem with it. Though you'll have to try harder than for Rem for me." Ram said calmly, standing up and dusting off her dress.

"Speaking of my Rem..." She sighed. "It's frustrating to say, but I suspect her current mindset is tied to me intimately somehow. And I have no idea what it could be with her acting as if nothing was wrong everytime I ask her about it. I find myself helpless, and I don't want to confront her about it. In fact, I don't- I don't-"

She took a deep breath. "I don't think I want to know the reason for her suffering. It's cowardly, but if I find that it was something that I could have prevented easily long ago..."

Her hands shook around the hem of her dress before she shook her head and firmed her will.

"All of that to say, I need your help. And as disturbed that helping you put your greedy claws on my little sisters is making me feel. I still feel that this is the lesser of the two evil that would be to continue our lifes as if nothing was wrong."

Julian nodded softly. "Don't worry, I'll take good care of her. I already know the problem amd have a pretty good idea how to tackle it."

"Of course you do." Ram sighed, putting a hand to her head. Feeling a headache incoming, both from the day's happenings and the lack of mana in her system.

"I'm serious." Julian replied, shrugging.

"I would hope a, because it would significantly reduce your already abysmal chance of making me love you." Ram let out as she made out for the door. Only to freeze as Julian spoke up.

"Woah there, you really wanna leave and go on so low on mana like that?" Julian said. A frown on his face.

"I- I can deal with it. Or I could ask someone else." Ram answered, a faint blush on her cheeks as she turned reluctantly toward him.

Julian crossed his arms, unimpressed. "You could, but nobody besides me and Beatrice, not even Emilia, has enough mana to safely transfer enough to you on a daily basis for you to get on with your days like you were with Roswaal."

"Urgh, fine. But if you makes it weird, I'm telling everyone." Ram relented after a while.

Feigning confusion, Julian furrowed his brows. "Why would I makes it weird? Isn't it just giving some mana?"

Ram considered him silently as he approached. "Very convincing, but something's telling me you know exactly why. So I'll not bother to answer your question. Please get on with it."

Stopping before her, he rubbed his chin. "What now?"

Putting a hand to her face, Ram sighed. "Ah, right."

Brushing back her forehead bangs, she exposed a pale oval scar just above the middle of her eyebrows. "You put two fingers to that place, and you inject a small. Steady flow of mana into it until I tell you to stop. And I do insist on small."

Just before doing just that, Julian paused and hesitated. "Small how?"

"Start with your smallest for now."

"A trickle it is then."

His fingers glowing a faint white, Julian softly connected them with her forehead and pushed the smallest amount of mana he could from the literal ocean of it lingering inside his soul.

Immediatly, Ram gasped as she recoiled from the intense sensation just this trickle gave her. Finding her legs suddenly too weak to step back, she fell on her ass instead of taking a step back.

"You- You bastard... I thought we were clear that you were to use the smallest quantity possible?" She said darkly, a fierce blush of both anger and embarrassment on her face.

Julian didn't know what to say to that. So he just said the truth, not sure if her predicament was his fault or her alone. "Sorry, but that was the smallest I could manage. I could probably do a bit better now that I have a feel for the procedure, but not by much. Your reaction is pretty strange tough, since I didn't even gave you enough mana to cast the lowest level of spells."

Standing up with shaky legs, Ram looked more annoyed than angry or embarassed now that Julian hadn't reacted at all to her suspicious reaction and her current state. "Are you calling me weak?"

"I mean, I could have used two gates. But I was careful to use just one right then. Now I'm really glad I did, because if you couldn't handle just this little bit..." He trailed off, smirking.

Ram gritted her teeth before replying slowly, as if she was chewing her words. "Don't think I'm not aware of what you're doing. This said, I was simply surprised right then. And I only reacted as such because of this and the fact that my reserve were dangerously low."

"Well, who I am to contradict you?" Julian shook his head before offering the pink haired girl a sly smirk.

"But how about you prove it?"

Taking several deep breathes to calm herself, after a while, after having recovered her composure. She spoke calmly. "Fine, you win this battle. And for that I'll play into your game."

Proceeding to gaze straight into his eyes, her own alight with a calculative glint. She challenged him. "However, that doesn't mean I'm gonna let you win it."

Surprised, Julian smiled. "That's all I'm asking."

—————

A bit later, after recharging Ram batteries and her leaving his room after sending him a meaningful glance. Julian found himself surprised, and perplexed.

The first because Ram had indeed proven herself to be able to adapt herself to the stimuli the procedure with him gave her, it even reached the the point that toward the end her only reaction to the the stream of energy he gave her was her cheeks becoming rosy from the pleasure his mana gave her. And because during the entire time he had spent filling her up, not once had his Lust whispered to him her lewd thoughts. Meaning she had entertained no wish of him making a move on her ot for the situation to develop further. Additionally meaning that she took it all as somethimg platonic. Something he would have to rectify.

And the later exactly because of those kind of thoughts. Notably, after the fact, he found himself contemplating the actions he had taken in recent developments. Precisely, his proactiveness toward his interest in the sibblings.

It was odd, because while he did promise he would pursue the things he wanted in the future after his encounter with Mikan. And the idle desire to make them his definitely popped into his mind the first time he saw them. He knew that he was still very much struggling with just pursuing his heart desires. Thus why he found himself perplexed that he was suddenly doing just that.

But maybe he thinking too hard about it, and it really just was the combination of his greed and lust being now unshackled together pushing him to go ahead.

After all, it was no coincidence that his sins were represented by pyres atop piedestals sealed behind panels of glass in his inner self. He could easily infer from this that his desires were sort of locked away, either by his own making or even artificially — maybe both. Which meant that in addition to the powers his unleashed sins granted him, it also allowed him to feel them freely in his daily life.

As he had realized when he unlocked Greed a couple of days earlier, life was all a matter of perspective. And each sins he unlocked gave him a new lense to see it through and a new motivator.

But thinking back to the day he woke up after his week-long coma and the electrifying sensation he got just before awakening, as well as the accident in which he introduced the female residents of the manor to his boner. He had the feeling something didn't exactly add up.

After thinking for a bit about it, Julian squinted. He had not a single clue as to what that electrifying feeling could have been. And this very fact was a pretty big clue in itself. Because if that feeling wasn't related to his biological condition somehow — which he highly doubted since it was too random. Then that meant it could only be related to the only other thing outside of his power.

Higher beings.

And since Kass would probably not allow anything to be cast on him by such a being — even if it was beneficial, in which case she would tell him — then that meant she was in on it.

Rubbing his chin, he sent a glance to his broken door and with a wave of his hand fixed it. Wondering what this was about while not being overly anxious about it, since he was so powerless in if it was indeed such a case that he found it utterly useless to worry.

—————

~Somewhere

"Well, that was a whole lot quicker than I expected. Fortunately, he can't do anything about it."

"And now he know I let it happen. Isn't that great."

"That's your fault. Should have thought twice before allowing me to bless him." The green-haired Goddess shrugged.

Kass rolled her eyes. "Last time I go along with your whim."