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Whatever her eyes laid upon was to belong to her alone. That was the way things were meant to be for her as the representative of the sin of greed brought on earth.
However, what she would never expect to happen happened, and it turned out that even someone like her, the embodiment of avarice, could want to give things with the same desperation she felt when she herself yearned for new possessions. And that even a magical being of great power had limitations and had things she, unbelievably, couldn't have or do.
Well, not without a little outside help.
Ange was frowning as she looked down at the path towards her school.
The day was bad—they were always bad whenever she had to return to that cursed academy at the end of every vacation. She couldn't sleep the night before; the road here was rough as usual, with her having to get on several different types of transportation to cross the ocean; and she could already feel a vague sense of dread and sadness thinking about meeting her classmates again.
Lost in her thoughts, she wasn't paying attention to where she was heading when she suddenly bumped into someone's back. "Sorry."
"Ange?" Upon raising her eyes, the red-haired girl didn't recognize the other, but she certainly seemed familiar. She had long brown hair and sounded so excited to see her. "It's you, right? Do you remember me?"
A vague memory crawled from the recess of her brain. A call from the past on that faraway island and a little girl hiding among the servants. And all their shared fun together. "...Mammon?"
The other girl smiled. "It's Manon!" And she suddenly hugged her. "I'm so glad you remembered!"
In an instant, a wave of memories engulfed the depressed student, of things and moments that may or may not have taken place at all, not in this world.
This was an unexpected meeting, something that wasn't supposed to happen by anything short of a miracle. A hug that transcended timelines.
"Can you believe it? I'll be studying here as well! I was so happy to hear that you would be here. I'd never think we'd see each other again, I missed you so much!"
"Yeah," Ange said, fighting a sob, her mood doing a hundred and eighty degree change from the gloomy morning. "I'm so happy to see you too!"
"...How long did you spend looking for this fragment?" asked the Witch of Certainty as her incorporeal form observed the sappy spectacle in front of her.
"Just a little less than how much I spent looking for a way out of your trap. So don't worry," replied Bernkastel.
"I figured as much. Too much had to be rearranged for this meeting to happen. " Lambdadelta sighed, a condescending smile on her face. "And all that for what? Will the one who requested it even remember the meeting?"
The other witch replied nothing, more than likely aware of what could and couldn't happen as the one observing these fragments.
She was hugged from behind. "You're getting softer. I wonder if you'd become a little more romantic in my loving care."
The look Lambda received back was bordering on disgust. However, no attempt to free herself came from the catty witch. "You're mistaking "loving care" with "harassment" again."
"Persistence and greed are to be expected in love. It's the desire to please to the point of being replaced that is abnormal."
"...But even a demon of greed can change completely when in love."
"Gyaa, so you are being romantic after all!~"
"Shut it."