Chapter 202: Zetto is bad (4)
I cuddle up to him as he lies on the bed.
I straightened my fingers and ran them slowly over him.
His flesh was hard and warm and alive.
I continued to move my fingers gently.
He had quite a few scars.
Each time I traced a faded scar, my body throbbed with the pain he must have felt.
-Ting.
I patted the hunk of metal on his left side.
‘I should have done this from the beginning.’
Then he wouldn’t have been in such pain.
“Ha…”
The thought touched her and she sighed.
She climbed on top of him and draped herself over his body.
“…Hmph.”
His sweet scent.
His warmth.
It was all mine.
I immediately gave in to the extreme euphoria that washed over me, but a lingering anxiety nagged at the back of my mind.
It’s okay now.
There will be no more scars on his body. At least he won’t be sick.
Because he’s mine.
He was mine to begin with.
It was meant to be.
My mind tricked me, trying to erase the anxiety.
“…Ugh.”
That’s when I heard his sober voice.
Zetto groaned, his voice muffled by the dizziness in his head.
The effects of Blanc’s special perfume had worn off.
Blanc was the head of the Intelligence Guild’s branch, and as such, she had all the tools of the trade.
One of them was a perfume that could put a person to sleep in seconds. It couldn’t be used multiple times on the same person because they would build up a tolerance, but one chance was enough.
“Are you awake?”
I whispered straight into his ear but I raised my voice so he wouldn’t be surprised.
“…Miss Aizel?”
Zetto called my name, then the shackles that bound him clanked.
He tried to move his arms, but the restraints that held his limbs down made it impossible.
“This is…”
Zetto stammered, still not quite grasping the situation.
“Stay still, Zetto.”
“…”
Zetto’s mouth drops open at my firm response.
“I tied you up, Zetto, because if I didn’t, you’d leave my side again and run off somewhere, and I’m afraid… I can’t stand that…”
“…I see.”
“Zetto, you understand, right? You said you love me, you said you only love me, so you won’t hate me…?”
Things had long since gotten out of hand, but I knew in my head that this was the wrong thing to do.
I begged him not to hate me over and over again, not even taking a breath as my anxiety rose.
I’d thought about it once when I’d pushed him through a gap in the Demon Rift, what if this action made him hate me?
It was the same now.
Would he hate me?
Would he be disappointed in me?
What if he didn’t love me anymore?
That’s how anxious I was but I had a bigger fear than that, so I had no choice.
Soon, his lips opened and suddenly I buried my face in his chest.
I was terrified because I didn’t know what his answer would be but eventually, I heard his voice in my ear.
“…I don’t hate you.”
With that one word, the guilt that washed over me like a tidal wave dissipates against the calm resonance of his voice.
“You didn’t bother to tie me up properly anyway, did you? An ordinary piece of iron like this would shatter under the slightest pressure.”
“That’s…”
I don’t have time to defend myself because true to his word, it was a flimsy restraint that would shatter at any moment if he exerted himself.
“…Break it?”
I glared down at him and grumbled.
Zetto seemed to accept anything, so standing in front of him made me feel foolish.
“Haha…Well, if we stay like this, we won’t be able to go to the East, will we?”
“We don’t have to go, do we?”
“…”
Zetto didn’t answer and that was a strange thing.
“Is it because you’re worried about your sisters?”
“No, I’m sure they’ll be fine without me.”
“Isn’t that why you’re happy to be with me?”
I asked, tilting my head to look at Zetto.
“No, it’s not that.”
“Good. Cause I’ve been hearing some weird stuff lately. Like, Zetto likes another girl, or he’s been kissing her…Isn’t that ridiculous?”
“…”
“It’s Zetto’s fault, because he’s nice to everyone, and the other bitches crawl all over you, that’s why there are rumors like that.”
It’s all Zetto’s fault.
He flashes his friendly smile here and there, and the beasts are drawn to him by the scent of his blood.
“Still, now that we’ve come this far, there will be no more distractions. All I want is for Zetto and me to be happy.”
I stroked his head gently.
“…Where are we?”
“This is…”
At his question, I turned my head to look around.
The ramshackle house, with its dilapidated walls and crumbling ceiling, was an abandoned house in the woods a short distance from the Academy.
“…A temporary home.”
I remembered seeing it on my way around, so I came here in a hurry. I couldn’t carry an unconscious Zetto back to the dormitory.
It had been an impromptu plan, and I hadn’t been prepared in many ways.
“Well, at least I made the bed clean…! Zetto can stay in his bed.”
“What about Miss Aizel?”
“My place is here.”
“Ah, my body.”
“Am I heavy…?”
I asked cautiously, blushing at the thought of being on top of him.
“Not heavy at all. It’s just how light Miss Aizel is, and my top…”
“That’s…I did…”
“…You’re bold, aren’t you?”
“No, it’s not that… The wound…! I was trying to check the wound.”
“……”
Zetto shrugs quietly and smiles, as if he doesn’t believe me.
We were chatting nonchalantly like normal lovers in the midst of a situation that was anything but normal but it didn’t feel so bad.
Zetto’s smile, the one that told me I could get away with anything, was too mesmerizing to resist any longer.
“Zetto…”
Suddenly, I pulled him into a tight hug and kissed him.
***
“What am I supposed to do about that…?”
Keraph pondered.
Zetto, the man he hoped to make his lord, had been kidnapped before his eyes.
“Weren’t they lovers…? Was there some kind of grudge match between them that I don’t know about?”
He muttered to himself as he clutched his head.
There are many differences between demons and humans, but when it comes to the emotion of love, there is not much difference.
Demons love just as much as humans do, that was why Keraph couldn’t understand Aizel’s behavior.
A hundred concessions, even if they were love, could never be considered normal behavior.
Still, he had to save Zetto.
“But who…?”
For one thing, Keraph himself was not up to the task.
In the first place, Aizel Ludwig was a match for almost any demon’s strength, and Keraph was the weakest of them all.
He needed someone to take his place and save Zetto, someone in Zetto’s circle who had the power to stop Aizel and the reason to do so.
He excluded people like the instructors, whose involvement could make things worse.
Above all, he needed someone who could act on a letter from an unknown source without raising any suspicions.
Soon, several faces flashed through Keraph’s mind.
Even as a low-level elementalist, Keraph was able to control a fairly significant number of spirits simultaneously, allowing him to investigate many people at once.
That was Keraph’s strength as an informant, an ability to gather information that could match any intelligence guild.
And since the spirits had, until recently, all been centered on Zetto and those around him, he had a pretty good idea of their relationships.
The person who fit the bill the best was none other than Yuri Clementine, the princess and sole heir of House Clementine, one of the continent’s four elemental families.
She would be able to stop Aizel Ludwig with nothing more than the words ‘Zetto’s in danger’ and his current location.
“But… she’s…”
She has a crush on Zetto.
She’s even one of those people who, like Aizel Ludwig, is suspected of being romantically involved with Zetto.
If she were to show up at the scene of Aizel’s kidnapping of Zetto, Keraph felt that something terribly bloody would happen.
It would be a bloody fight to the death but with the clock ticking, Keraph quickly racked his brain and an idea flashed through his mind.
“So… even if she’s not strong enough to stop Aizel Ludwig, she could…”
With that realization, Keraph scribbled on the letter in his hand.
“Alright…Lord Zetto, please wait a little longer. I, Keraph, will surely prove to you that I am useful.”
Now all he had to do was sneak the letter away.
***
Keraph did exactly what he was supposed to do.
The letter said that Zetto was in danger and that she should come alone, and it described the location of the hideout he had discovered by following Aizel with his spirit.
Even to him, the letter sounded suspicious.
‘Normally, she’d be suspicious.’
Unless she’s Yuri, who Keraph had seen before in a darkened room, clutching a doll in Zetto’s likeness and muttering something along the lines of “I’ll protect him.”
But if you’re simple enough to believe a letter like this, it’s a different story.
Keraph was currently manifesting a spirit and using it to sneak the letter into her room, which happened to be empty, and then hiding his spirit form once more to see how things were going.
His affinity with spirits was so good that he could do it all without entering the academy.
Hmph.
Soon, the door to the room Keraph had been observing through his spirit vision opened.
“See you later, then!”
It was Lucia Windless, a bluish-haired girl who closed the door with a cheerful greeting.
Keraph realized that Lucia would be able to stop Aizel simply by showing up.
Then Aizel, who was holding Zetto, would have no choice but to let him go before things got out of hand.
There would be no fight.
Zetto would be very disappointed in her if she attacked Lucia, the symbol of innocence.
In the unlikely event that the blinded Aizel attacks Lucia, there’s nothing he can do about it.
Keraf knew that Zetto didn’t want things to escalate, but he also knew that he was extremely reluctant to see anyone else harmed.
“Um…? What is this, a letter?”
Lucia spotted the letter on the table.
Her eyes filled with curiosity, she broke the seal and read the letter.
“Mr. Zetto…In danger…? Alone…?!
That should have been her reaction.
But when Lucia finished reading the letter, she turned her head without saying a word.
“…”
Lucia had a faint smile on her face, but something was different.
It was a strange sensation that was hard to explain.
Lucia shook her head once and put the letter back into the envelope.
Uh-uh-uh…
She then organized the disheveled shape of the seal with a very detailed wind spell.
As Keraph watches, a question arises in his mind.
Why would she put the letter back in?
Could it be that she wasn’t so close to Zetto that she didn’t really care if he was in danger or not?
No.
This was strange.
When her classmate Zetto had died the eldest daughter of the Windless family, pure of heart, bright and cheerful, but not very good with wind magic, had cried herself to sleep.
But now, Lucia’s behavior was completely inconsistent with what he had learned about her.
Lucia finished sealing the letter and looked it over.
She picks up a fountain pen from the table and writes something on the letter.
‘…Yuri Clementine?’
Lucia scribbled Yuri’s name on the letter, which had no recipient.
Even creepier, Lucia’s handwriting was exactly the same as Keraph’s on the letter.
In that short amount of time, she had managed to copy the handwriting from a cursory glance.
Lucia leaves the room again, this time with the letter bearing Yuri’s name.
Lucia spotted Yuri in the hallway, smiled, and waved.
“Yuri…!”
“Huh? Lucia.”
“This… I think I got the wrong letter…!”
Lucia cautiously held Keraph’s letter out to Yuri.
‘This is…This is ridiculous…’
Keraf was stunned.
It was bad enough that he had misidentified Lucia Windless, but Lucia’s next move was out of character.
She was stirring up ‘chaos’.