"Oh, someone’s in a good mood?"
Ryuk called out, watching as Zafree rose higher and higher into the air, until she stood a head taller.
"You both can go back to your little mancave. I need more time swimming," She said, preparing to dive back into the water.
"No." Ryuk voiced out firmly as she paused, turning to look at him.
"I can’t risk you being seen, or having this location revealed, something bound to happen with that tsunami that follows you around," He said, watching Zafree give him a suspicious look.
"What crime did you commit?" She asked, making Ryuk almost want to cough up blood.
"I committed no crime."
"Why are you hiding away then?"
"I’m not hiding!" He said, tapping his feet on the water while forcing out an
"Execute Open Protocol."
He ordered, and Zaffre watched as a glass-like barrier appeared out of the water’s surface, its top opening up.
Ryuk turned to look at Zaffre, who looked at the opening, but still with no intention of going in.
"Can you swim faster than me?" Zaffre asked Ryuk, who shrugged.
"I think that’s an interesting topic. But..." He said, pausing to look at the sleeping Iris in his arms,
"I don’t have time for that."
"Maybe next time, though," He said, before continuing down.
Zaffre looked at the opening, which remained as if also waiting for her entrance.
She debated for a while before eventually sighing.
"I guess there’ll always be a next time," She muttered to herself, jumping out of the water and disappearing into the opening, which closed gently and dipped back into the sea.
_____
When Ryuk got back in, the first thing he did was tuck Iris into the bed sofa.
With that done, he exhaled in faint relief, before heading into his lab, where Zaffree was already in.
When he took his seat, he found her tinkering with the other prisms in the lab.
"All of these prisms are holding the Other Lv.3 beast."
"I remember being locked up with a couple of them before falling into slumber."
"What happened? How did we end up here?" Zaffree asked Ryuk who got onto the computer and began working.
But at the same time, he explained.
"The Organization abducted my two other Contracted beasts. So, I went out for them, coincidentally with when they were under attack by some other powerful organization."
"They were trying to get all of the prisms and experiments out to another place, but they weren’t fast enough, allowing me to burst in and get Isha out."
"She asked me to bring you all together, saying it will be a waste if you all get crushed by the collapsing rubble of the organization."
"So..." He explained, and at the end of it, Zaffree understood well what had happened.
She didn’t know whether to believe him or not, but at least, his explanation seemed viable and they came out smoothly enough.
"So, what did you plan on doing with these beasts? Fuse with them all, one by one?" She asked, and Ryuk nodded.
"Yes."
She gave one last look at the prism in her hand before she threw it off into the pile.
"How many beasts have you fused with up to now?" She asked, walking up to him.
"Two."
"That’s low..." She said with a slight taunt to annoy him,
"They won’t be soon,’ Ryuk replied casually, focused on the drawing panel of the computer.
"Your other two beasts, where are they?" She asked in interest.
"Not here."
"I want to see them," She demanded.
"And why is that?" Ryuk asked.
"To check whether your ’My beasts are my family saying is true." She replied, watching Ryuk turn from the computer, which all his attention was focused on, to stare at her.
"What?"
"I’m pretty sure you can’t know that from simply seeing or asking them?" He replied, turning his attention back to his work, whilst adding:
"And why did you even care about that anyway?"
"At least if I’m getting forced under a contract beyond my will, at least I should know what type of jackass I’m getting forced under?" She returned, causing Ryuk to roll his eyes.
"I don’t know, Zaffre."
"But maybe it’s a jackass that saved you from being buried to death back in that ship, or waking you up from the slumber that would most likely have continued for as long as two years due to those hidden injuries on you."
’And also healed you from it, getting you back to your peak state."
"You know about the hidden injuries?" She asked in surprise, although Ryuk didn’t respond.
"Tch, that doesn’t excuse the fact that I’m not here of my own will!"
"Well then, would you have preferred to still remain in slumber up until now, and continue getting experimented on until death, compared to your current situation?"
"Yes, I would!" She said, only to get a helpless shrug from him.
"Interesting choice," He replied, obviously uninterested.
She scoffed in annoyance at his lack of interest, but her curiosity still got the better of her.
’Just what is he even doing and so serious about?’
From behind, she peered her head onto the screen Ryuk was looking at, and her eyebrows furrowed at the various images that were being drawn.
Images of humanoid 2D figures with odd forms.
Odd forms in the sense that one had a curved blade from the back of its wrist up until its elbow, and another one had six arms, whose ends ended with the nozzles of a gun.
They were of different anomaly forms, but if one word could describe them, each of the figures being drawn was obviously related to battle, geared towards destruction in one way or another.
"And what are you doing?" She asked him and he answered.
"Designing?" He replied.
"All I see you do is waste precious time by drawing out unrealistic Evolution paths..."
_______
A/N:
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In and Out_SnowySmoos