Chapter 35: Don't Piss Off Your Fiancé
Chapter 35: Don't Piss Off Your Fiancé
Avalon swallowed a nervous gulp of saliva, the fingers of his remaining arm drumming against his knee while he sat down on a chair with straighter posture than usual, eagerly waiting for the woman opposite him to break the awkward silence.
He listened attentively to the clattering of her teacup, coupled with her seemingly calm breathing that served to masquerade the woman's dissatisfaction. I've really gone and done it now haven't I? He forcefully withheld the urge to chuckle nervously, the fact that he could read her true emotion's filling him only with further terror rather than confidence.
"It would seem Adaloth has already conveyed a portion of my frustration beforehand," she looked at the bright red hand mark on his cheek that still throbbed even after he had returned home. "A very faint portion, but a portion nonetheless."
His sweating worsened, even more so than when he had been subjected to Adaloth's anger—causing him to dip his head. It was a fun second life.
"Look at me when I'm speaking to you," she reached forward and cupped his chin, raising his head towards her. "I don't believe the rule I made was exceptionally hard to follow, you're not to leave the estate without my explicit permission. What part of that condition is so difficult to understand?" Her eyes narrowed sharply, daring him to try averting her admonishing gaze once more.
"I had a pretty good reason for going though didn't I?" He mustered up all his courage and strength to reply without stuttering. "I also brought Albedo along, so it's not as if you were cut off from me."
"Of course, because Albedo is clearly capable of keeping you in place isn't she?" She retorted sarcastically, knowing full well that only she and Adaloth were capable of actually keeping him under control. The exact two people who Avalon had neglected to inform or bring with him.
Coincidence? She thought not.
"But the trip was worth it wasn't it? We found out that the fallen had retreated from the Underworld earlier than we would've, and I also captured one that could probably tell us where they've gone."
Zekram scoffed, "And?"
"Eh?"
"The fallen aren't useful anymore, now that you've defeated their strongest they no longer serve any meaningful purpose. I already told you that this war was a laughable imitation of what the real thing looks like," she shook her head in disappointment. "Adaloth already told me you plan on turning the captured fallen into your subordinate, and we both know you don't have the appetite for torture and interogation. So I doubt you'd do a good job of extracting anything useful, if you even bothered to do so in the first place."
You know me too well Honey, he sighed. Zekram was correct, Avalon had absolutely no interest in getting more information out of Eurus. Baraqiel wasn't worth fighting yet, and he doubted the Vice-Governor or Governor were stronger than a Super-Class Fallen Angel. Even if Eurus still had plenty of room left for growth.
Zekram had started this war, and now she had extracted everything she wanted from it. The fallen could run a marathon across all three realms if they wanted to, she wouldn't so much as even make an attempt to impede them. Whether they perished or thrived, it no longer meant anything to the Bael Clan's Ancestor.
She had survived through the Great War and Civil War, seen her creators, comrades, and almost the entirety of her generation perish. Yet even through all that, she still remained at the top of the Underworld's food chain.
You have the patience of stone and the will of stars Honey, but those traits of yours are also the reason why I pity you so much. He took a deep breath, leaning into his chair. No matter how high you climb, you'll never be satiated. You're fated to be forever hungry regardless of how grand a feast you become capable of hosting.
He wore a faint smile, "That's true, I don't have the appetite for such a thing. But I expected you to be more concerned about me recruiting a fallen angel into my peerage."
She breathed an exasperated groan, "For the last time—I'm not Sylas, as long as a tool can prove useful then that's all that matters. You might end up facing some backlash from Marquis Phenex in the future if he ever finds out, so just make sure you make a contingency in advance." She didn't feel it was necessary to tell him the obvious duty to keep Eurus's identity as secretive as possible.
With time, Avalon had come to understand that Zekram's inherit prejudice had nothing to do with blood or species—it always has, and would always be simply a matter of strength and utility. If you were strong you deserved to be rewarded, and if you were weak you deserved to be trampled over like an insect. She held every living being to that standard, even her own children.
Even though he was of the opinion that the strong should always look out for the weak, he knew better than to try to push that ideal onto Zekram. It was just a fundamental difference between their characters, and he was alright with that.
"What now then? Will you find another faction to war with? Or has your appetite been satited?"
Zekram slowly leaned forward, looking Avalon dead in the eyes. "You should be asking yourself that, you're already itching for your next opponent aren't you? I started this war to increase my clan's influence, and to stimulate the growth of you and your sister. I have no need for another one now that I've accomplished my goal, at least not at the moment."
Avalon frowned, knowing that Zekram had made a good point. "I think—it'd be best for me to take a break for now."
"Oh?" He piqued her intrigue.
"I'll keep training as much as possible, but I don't think it'd be wise for me to go hunting for another opponent before I've officially become Great King. I accepted your offer to help build a better Underworld didn't I? What would be the point of that if I don't involve myself in how the Underworld will develop from this point onward now that the war's over?"
Zekram's expression remained stone-cold as per usual, but Avalon could tell that deep down he had earned some of her approval. "It's good that you've matured a little, but maturity has no value without the intellectual foundation to back it."
"Then I better study hard from now on shouldn't I?"
"That you should, but don't go thinking just impressing me a little is enough to get you out of trouble." Avalon's cheeriness sank, "Especially for having the audacity to return with that abomination for a hairstyle."
He tilted his head, "What's wrong with my hair?"
She held out a hand-held mirror, "You tell me."
He pulled down the left side of his blindfold, only now getting a look of what had happened to his locks after his second Youkai transformation.
What the hell! He gasped, looking at the shockingly more dire state of his hairdo. Instead of just having a single strand of white hair at the front, multiple strands all around his hair had become white. Making it look like he had styled his hair after a white and brown tiger.
He was officially tiger-haired.
Ahahahahahaha! You finally noticed! Tomoe couldn't laugh any louder, thoroughly enjoying the flabbergasted look on his vessel's face.
Tomoe! Fix this now!
Why would I do that? After one more transformation you and I will finally have matching hair Darling! You should be rejoicing! Tomoe shamelessly denied his request. Maybe one day you'll even look as beautiful as me, though I wouldn't get your hopes up.
Hair dye had proven to not be of any use, unless it were made by Ajuka who probably wouldn't bother to waste valuable research time on such an unimportant endeavor, meaning Avalon was more likely than not stuck with his new hairstyle—forever.
"You've got the fallen angel bound to one of my guest rooms don't you? I suggest you hurry up and deal with her so you can clean up the mess you've made." Even though it was a very necessary mess to prevent Eurus from escaping, Zekram still had little tolerance for her residence being anything other than pristine.
"On it!" He saluted playfully, swiftly making his departure.
---
All the furniture from the room had been removed, the walls now littered in hundreds, if not thousands of suppression seals taken directly from Avalon's stockpile—the same having been done for the flooring and roof. Exceeding the level of sealing that had been used to keep Tomoe sealed within Muramasa before the Demonic Sword and Youkai were transferred to him.
The talisman-riddle room had no lightning since the ceiling light had been covered up and all the lamps had been removed alongside the rest of the furniture, not that it mattered since Avalon didn't need any light in the first place. However, it did give the space a bit of an eerie vibe. The naturally offputting presence and the sheer quantity of seals provided made it seem as if the place was completely separate from the rest of the estate.
All that remained was a single steel chair planted smack-dab in the middle of the room, a strikingly beautiful raven-haired woman with pale skin tied to it by her hands and feet with Avalon's demonic thread—the same having been done to her torso to completely restrict her movements and add an extra layer of sealing onto her incase she was fortunate enough to get a sudden burst of strength. Or if her rate of recovery was simply faster than expected.
Is this what death feels like? Eurus's consciousness slowly started to return, the memory of the battle she had shared with Avalon flashing through her mind as she recalled the final sensation of her passing out after he had destroyed her draconic constellation—Draco.
She wasn't sure what to expect after her passing, but to her immense surprise death didn't feel all that dissimilar from life. She could still feel the warmth around her, her connection to her limbs, and her cognitive thought. The only thing that was missing was her ability to use her Light Magic. I can feel something restricting me by my wrists and ankles, how strange.
"You're not dead, if that's what you're wondering." Her eyes widened, her brain trying to wrap itself around why she was hearing a voice she recognized—and why it was that voice of all the ones she thought she'd be hearing in the afterlife. Not dead? She repeated that phrase internally.
Her eyelids gradually began to part, her vision starting off relatively blurry but promptly returning to normal thanks to her impressive physical constitution. The first thing she saw were her bound feet and the endless sea of suppression seals plastered all over the floor, the sight of someone else's feet soon coming into her line of sight as she raised her head.
A figure that was still fresh as could be in her mind greeting her with an infuriating grin, his remaining hand held behind his back and his torso leaned forward so he was eye-level with her.
…You've got to be kidding me, if her arms weren't bound the first thing she'd do was pinch her cheek to check if she was dreaming.
"It's not a dream either, you are most certainly still amongst the living—congratulations." He slowly began to clap, the sound of his palms hitting each other instilling Eurus with an incrementally worsening sense of irritation. You've got to be fucking kidding me! She tried to shuffle her arms, but the seals covering the room made it impossible for her to gather her strength, reducing her to a helpless state of being. "You can squirm all you want, unless you're a sealing master in disguise it's not going to amount to anything."
He patiently waited for her to comprehend the situation she was in, namely the fact that force wouldn't be enough to get her out of her predicament. Unlike during their fight, Avalon no longer had to worry about time—with the level of sealing magic he had prepared he could keep her suppressed for multiple days on end even though he only needed an hour at most to decide her fate.
After a minute straight of glaring at him, Eurus finally gave up on trying to see if she had anything left up her sleeve. Forcing herself to come to terms with the fact that she truly had been cut off from her strength.
"Why am I still alive?" She asked with clear venom in her tone, as if the act of him sparing her was an unforgivable insult to everything she stood for. "Explain yourself!"
"That is the million-dollar question isn't it? It's not out of the goodness of my heart I assure you that much. The short answer is that I thought killing you would be a waste, however—that might be what I end up doing depending on how you respond."
Eurus snickered, "You plan on interrogating me? Let me guess, if I answer all your questions you'll let me live?" She scoffed, having prepared herself for death the second she lost the fight.
"No, I have no interest in interrogating you." Avalon replied swiftly, carrying no sense of mockery or falsehood in his tone. "Although, there is a certain someone that might want to know more about Grigori's secrets—but I've lost interest in your species. You're the strongest at the moment aren't you? I imagine it's going to take quite some time for another one to pop up, so if anything it's in my best interests to let your people recuperate and allow someone just as impressive if not more to rise up."
Like harvesting fruit, if Avalon wanted the maximum yield he needed to wait for Grigori to ripen again. What use would there be in expending so much effort chasing them down just to get a medicare battle at best?
"Then what do you want from me? Don't tell me you're interested in my body or something?"
He chuckled, "My fiancée can be surprisingly tolerant at times—but I think bedding a fallen might be pushing her patience further than even I'm comfortable with."
Hmph, you say that but you probably had your hands all over me while I was asleep. She had a tendency to be exceptionally—confident in her appearance. "Then what do you want?"
"Before I get to the point, how about we converse with each other for a little while? I'm interested in getting to know your character beyond what you showed me in Valkorion after all." One could only learn so much from battling someone, unless you were psychic. Talking with them one on one was a necessary step in understanding their true character, something Avalon had studied in his past life.
"Yeah? Then why don't you untie me first so we can speak more comfortably? It's a little awkward being subjected to your bondage fetish," whether that statement was true or not was left up to debate.
"Really? I thought you were the type to enjoy that, I created the technique just for you after all didn't I?" Instead of avoiding or getting swept up in her rhythm, Avalon surprised her by matching her flow. "You don't have to be shy if that's what you're doing, I won't kink-shame you."
Eurus let out a thoughtful hum, "You're a lot less straight-edge than you appeared to be when we were fighting."
"See? We've only just begun to talk with one another and you've already learned something new about me," he chuckled lightly. "But the banter can only go on for so long," his face stiffened and his demeanor grew firm. "Eurus, you aren't actually prepared to die are you?"
"What kind of nonsense is that? Of course I'm prepared to die, those who kill must be prepared to face death themselves."
Avalon fell silent, frowning as he put his hand on the side of her face. "You're lying, do you want to know how I know that?"
She considered biting his hand, "Enlighten me."
"I won't even entertain the thought that we're anything alike, especially since you're a loser who picks on children not even half your strength. However, there is one singular trait that you and I share, and that's our desperation."
"Desperation?"
"We're both dying to know how far we can go—no, we can't exist without having that question answered. It's why fighting is so enjoyable for us isn't it? It's the one thing that can give us that answer we're yearning for, we who are for some reason born different from the rest of our species. How can we not want to know? We're like toddlers being left in an isolated room with a new toy granted to us by our own genome, even if someone tells us not to, we're still going to play with it." Avalon cleared his throat, realizing that he had gone on somewhat of a pseudo-manic tangent. "My point is, have you really seen and done everything you wanted to do, Eurus?"
Now it was her turn to fall into contemplation.
Avalon had posed a good question, was she really done already? She had hardly lived a fraction of what the likes of Azazel and Baraqiel had, she hadn't even obtained her sixth and final pair of wings like she had planned. She hadn't explored her constellation magic that only she posed to the fullest, even that spur-of-the-moment goal of having children hadn't been fulfilled.
The more she thought, the more her internal bucket list grew. The sense of unfulfillment plaguing her growing more and more potent with each passing second, the thought of everything she could be ending early fanning the flames of her frustration.
"Are you really finished already Eurus? If you are then I suggest you let me know, even though you attacked my children I'm willing to let your end be painless as a show of respect for the fight we shared—I'm a kind and forgiving man after all." He eagerly awaited her response.
"If I'm not done," she hesitated, "What do you plan on offering me?"
Avalon retracted his hand from her face, holding his closed fist in front of her for a moment before slowly opening it with his palm facing up.
A Rook laid in his hand, or more specifically—a Mutated Rook. Avalon's one and only unused mutation piece, a phenomenon that occurred in only 1 out of every 10 devils, a bug that enhanced the value of the piece that Ajuka had decided to keep for fun.
Normal pieces had a chance to mutate when they were already inside someone, but cases where they mutated completely on their own were exceptionally rare.
"You're from Grigori so I doubt I need to tell you what this is, if you want to live—I'll allow you to do so under the condition that you serve me from now on. I am still furious about what you did to my children, so I'm afraid that there's no room for negotiation."
"You want me to be your slave?"
He sucked his teeth, "I like to think I'm more compassionate than most Kings in the Underworld—however I wouldn't put it past me to treat you more coldly than I do my children."
Servitude or death, that was the option she was being given. "From what I've learned at Grigori, those pieces don't actually impose any sort of binding will on the person that receives them. I've also heard of cases where peerage members kill their Kings, aren't you worried I'll do that to you?"
"I beat you once in my pajamas, I'm sure I can do it again."
"Arrogant bastard," she scowled. "Fine, I'll become your subordinate—just don't come crying to me when this inevitably backfires on you."
"We'll see about that," he grinned.
Avalon's peerage was now home to three naturally born Super-Class beings including himself, a team composition with potential terrifying enough to warrant the attention of even those standing at the pinnacle of existence.
"Now for your first task, I'm going to need you to help me clean up this place."
"Eh?"
---
I'm not entirely sure whether I want to go straight to the next volume, or have some interlude stuff in between—but I suppose time will tell.
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