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Trissy forcibly willed her leg to stop shaking with anxiety as she calmly drank her coffee in the middle of a crowded cafe on one of the better parts of Tingen. All around, she could feel the gazes of men tracking her every move, lingering on the curves of her body and the delicate smile on her lips as she swallowed her drink. Usually, she would be leveraging their brainless devotion and lust, but today she was preoccupied with other matters. Before long, she spotted that newly familiar face in the crowd, leisurely making his way towards her with an ever present smile pasted onto his face.
Klein Moretti pulled out the empty chair in front of her and sat with inhuman grace. His eyes were trained on her face, but unlike the other gazes following her, his was devoid of any lust or want. Instead, he simply looked incredibly amused, like a cat playing with its food before eating it.
"Trissy Cheek," he greeted her kindly. She swallowed, trying to wet her suddenly parched throat.
"Gehrman Sparrow," she greeted back. His smile widened as if about to rip his face in half.
—
Trissy had never spent much thought on time travel or any such concepts, but when she awoke in the past after dying to stop the King's ascension ritual, she had no choice but to remedy that. Regrettably, she had traveled back to a point after she had taken the Witch potion and turned into a woman, though if she was being completely honest with herself, she didn't mind it all that much.
Stumbling out of the brothel—her unsteadiness only half-faked due to her recent time travel—she planned to quickly use this opportunity to leave Tingen before the Nighthawks managed to find her hideout. Bumping into one of the men standing outside, she muttered a quiet, demure apology and attempted to gently slip off, but was stopped by hands gripping her shoulders with surprising force.
"Well, look who we have here," a voice said, sounding amused. "The instigator Tris, in the flesh."
She looked up and saw the face of one of those pesky Nighthawks who had been following her. He was staring at her with recognition. Huh,it looks as if they've already figured out the properties of the Witch potion by now. Well it didn't matter much, all men were the same anyway. Just as she was about to apply her powers and seduce the poor man into helping her escape though, she felt it: hints of ancient grey fog swirling around him, powerful remnants. It was weak enough that most would not be able to detect it, but as someone who had been groomed as a descent vessel for the Primordial Demoness, Trissy was hypersensitive to the power of deities. And this specific aura was one that she had only felt around a specific person before.
"Gehrman Sparrow," she breathed out subconsciously, staring in horror at the man holding her.
An expression of pure shock flashed across Gehrman Sparrow's unfamiliar face. His grip tightened. "Trissy Cheek," he said, a smile starting to grow on his face. "Don't tell me you time traveled as well?"
And that's how they ended up here.
After a short conversation confirming that they had both time traveled, Gehrman—"Call me Klein," the man had said with a sweet smile that sent shivers of fear up Trissy's spine—had let her escape under the condition that she meet him here the next day to compare notes. Trissy would not lie and say she hadn't considered running away, but the very idea of being hunted by Gehrman Sparrow was enough to make her stay. She had heard stories of his ruthlessness, and after seeing him in person, she knew those stories were grossly understated.
"So after you died, you found yourself back here, is that right?" Klein asked, stirring his sweet iced tea before taking a sip.
"Yes," she said succinctly. "It was quite a shock to wake up in the past."
Shocked would be an understatement. One would expect that after heroically sacrificing herself to stop evil or something, she'd at least be granted the privilege of working on her perfect tan in the eternal fires of damnation. But alas, she's back here, untanned, probably about to be hunted down for betraying the demoness sect and in the company of a supposed madman (though he seemed mostly sane from what little physical interactions she'd had with him) who was rumored to be a zealot for an evil god.
Her words made Klein smile kindly, "It's lucky that you ran into me then, isn't it?" He said, in a mockery of comfort that made her want to run screaming for the hills. Suppressing the urge she just nodded wordlessly, not trusting herself to say anything in response to that statement.
"And you?" She probed carefully. The fact that he was here too made her suspect that perhaps something had gone wrong with their attempt, but seeing his calm demeanor she decided that that probably wasn't the case.
"Around the same time," he hummed noncommittally, still sipping his tea as if they were just two normal people enjoying some time together in a cafe. "Our mission was a success if that was what you were worried about." Oh goodie!! "The King never managed to ascend to divinity. It'll be a simple feat to just do the same thing again—easier, even. The real question we find ourselves stuck with right now is: what are you planning to do now that we've gotten another chance to redo everything?"
What was she planning? What did she want?
It had been ages since she had actually had the privilege of being able to want. Self loathing and yearning filled her as memories of a round face and a pair of slender blue eyes staring at her with undisguised affection, bathed in the light of a new dawn entered her mind. Memories of a gilded cage and comfortable days of every petty whim indulged without restraint.
"Do you have any plans?" She countered instead, unable to verbalize what exactly it was that she wanted.
Klein smiled sharply, "I have a hit list a mile long, most of which has absolutely nothing to do with you." His voice was full of vicious glee at whatever it was that he had planned. "But for the purposes of Tingen, I suppose only the pregnant woman is of any importance."
Oh ok, so he really was mad. "You're gonna kill a pregnant lady?! Why?!"
A condescending look was shot her way, as if her question were completely ridiculous. "Pregnant lady jumped my captain. Of course I'm gonna kill her."
"Excuse me?" Sir, someone's marital dispute is not a reason to kill a person. If a pregnant woman wants to beat up a man for reasons that's entirely her prerogative. Also, what was up with how he was framing it as if whatever he were saying was simply a reasonable development.
"Have you ever been pregnant?" Klein asked her patiently in lieu of a response.
Trissy was taken aback. "What?"
"Pregnant. Have you ever been? I doubt it, especially considering your reaction right now. But let me tell you, as someone who's been pregnant before: pregnancy is evil."
I'm sorry, WHAT?! "You've been pregnant? What the fuck?"
Gehrman nodded beatifically. "Yes, many times actually. Every single time, evil."
She stared at him gobsmacked. First off, the idea of targeting an individual and killing her for the sole reason that she was pregnant was just absurd. Secondly, what the Fuck?
Before she could even attempt to comprehend whatever the heck that was, he leaned forward seriously and continued.
"Look, it is not as if I have any personal vendetta against the lady herself, alright? It is just that the father of her offspring and I have major beef with each other—or at least, I have a problem with Him. He's an absolutely terrible rapper, somehow worse than Mr. Hanged Man even, and yet He still maintains a cult following."
He sighed with distress and ran a hand through his hair, messing it up slightly.
"Like, can you believe it?! Why the heck do people even want to hear Him speak gibberish? And you know what, fine, even if people have their own tastes and interests, I won't judge... much. But then, He had to go and leak my bank account password to all of Backlund! Can you believe the nerve?!"
"What?" Trissy was genuinely starting to feel like some sort of brain damaged parrot by the amount of times she's been saying this, but Klein simply nodded as if she were making a good point.
"And after all that, He still had the audacity to have His cult try to sabotage my cult! The nerve! The absolute fucking nerve of that guy! Like seriously, who does He think He is?! It was completely worth turning His subordinates into mushrooms."
Trissy decided that she wasn't even going to attempt to understand this psychopath. "That doesn't mean you can kill his unborn child!" she argued back. "What about the fact that the sins of the father are not the sins of the child?"
"That would be true," he said agreeably, as if he were a professor whose student had made an excellent, if misguided, rebuttal. "Except this guy has really irritating children. His younger son? An absolute fucking menace to literally everyone in the whole world! First of all, who even thinks a wizard's hat and a monocle is an acceptable fashion choice?!"
Trissy refrained from pointing out to the man that he thought black and yellow top hats were acceptable to wear in public.
"He spent so much time just stalking me around," Gehrman continued passionately; it was the most animated she had seen him. Clearly, this was something he had been holding in for quite some time. "He then forcibly kidnaps me for the most unpleasant date I've ever been on, and the whole time He keeps trying to steal my fucking house! Like, who does that?! And don't get me started on that guy's oldest, who thinks jabbing a cross into someone's heart and locking them in a church is an appropriate bonding activity. Clearly, any spawn of His has to be neutralized before conception. For the betterment of the world."
"How about an abortion, though? Maybe we could abort the child and then the lady wouldn't be pregnant anymore, hence you wouldn't have to kill her." To be completely honest, Trissy wasn't even sure why she was putting this much effort into convincing him to spare the woman. Maybe it was from some misplaced urge to redeem herself, or to establish boundaries with Klein to make him understand she wasn't some subordinate who would blindly go along with his plans. Or maybe it was because she didn't believe that, deep down inside, this was something he actually wanted to do.
Klein looked taken aback at the suggestion, as if it were something he hadn't even considered. "Abortion? That's a good idea actually. How many months along would it be right now? Maybe... hmm..."
He was deep in thought for a moment before his features twisted. "But you see," he said, suddenly sounding so unnaturally pitiful that it gave Trissy whiplash, "my pitiful support class Seer self is not strong enough to perform an abortion. Axe is the only solution, I'm afraid."
Axe? Where the fuck did an axe come from here? Clearly, this was not working out; he seemed hell bent on murdering that woman. But Trissy had one last card to play before she gave up.
"What if I tell the Nighthawks? What if I tell your colleagues that you're planning on killing an innocent woman and her unborn baby in cold blood? Then what will you do?"
Her words finally illicted a reaction. His eyes went cold, any trace of previous amusement wiped clean. Gehrman smiled, the curve of his lips as sharp as a knife.
"Well, that is an option, of course," he said, humming in a mock thoughtful manner. "Assuming that you somehow manage to get there without getting captured by the Machinery Hivemind, the police force, or the Nighthawks themselves... and that when you do reach Blackthorn, you are either not recognized, or recognized and still allowed to make your statement. And even then, we are left with the question: who exactly would my dear colleagues believe? A known mass-murdering cultist? Or their beloved colleague Klein Moretti, who has barely been a Beyonder for a month now and is a mere Sequence 9 Seer at that?"
As he said that last part, his entire posture changed. From the moment the meeting had started, he had been lounging in his chair with inhuman grace and elegance—a quiet surety, as if it were a given that he was one of the pillars the world rested upon. But now, it was like a switch had been flipped. He looked skittish, like a kitten trying to fight an obviously superior predator. Scared, but determined and trying his best to appear calm.
Staring at his masterful acting, Trissy was filled with a bone deep tiredness that only came from dealing with unreasonable assholes. He was right. There was no way the Nighthawks would believe her. They were not aware of who they had brought into their midst, of what predator lurked among them. Her face twisted beautifully in irritation.
Klein smirked, his posture reverting back to its previous nonchalance. "You have a point, though. Perhaps I am being too hasty. Maybe it would be better if we were to turn a traitor into a midwife. After all, He does still owe me for that time He burnt my eyes off just because I accidentally looked at Him once. Self esteem issues much?" Klein scoffed, leaning back into his chair. The smirk on his face widened the more he thought about it. "Yes, actually, this will work nicely. I just need to plan a few things out."
He was silent for a moment, lost in though about whatever it was that he was plotting. Watching the way his mouth had started to curl up sadistically, Trissy sent a prayer for whatever poor soul has just been dragged into this madman's plans.
"I need you to go track down the pregnant woman's fiancé in Backlund for me," Klein told her out of the blue, snapping out of his silent musings.
Trissy blinked at the sudden topic change. Fiancé? The one with the bad singing and weird children? 'How does he expect me to track down the head of some cult when he's barely giving me any information?' She lampooned internally.
"He ran off after swindling her out of all her savings and getting her pregnant." Klein continued thoughtfully. "Perhaps this can be a sort of community service, considering how very concerned you seem to be about the woman's life."
"Do you have any information about him?" she asked in lieu of agreement. He sent her an approving look.
"His name is Lanevus, a Sequence 8 of the Marauder pathway. I'm aware that he will be in the docks a few months from now, so use that information as you will. Tingen will not be safe for the next few months, and it would be better if you took my request."
Remembering the warnings she had gotten to leave Tingen in her previous life, and rumors of events that had occurred, she knew that he was absolutely right. Besides, cooperating with Gehrman was always better than getting on his bad side, especially not this early in the game. Though he claimed that he had only a few months' seniority in terms of future knowledge, it was very obvious that there was a lot this man was aware of that he wasn't telling her. Making an enemy of him would simply be a surefire way to ensure her early death and nothing else. Sticking close to him would be the most ideal tactic.
"Perhaps you can even use this opportunity to re-enact your clichéd romance plot and get close to your prince again," He suggested, sounding absolutely bored out of his mind.
Ok yeah no nevermind, she's had enough of this guy.
"I'll look into it." Trissy said, smiling at him sweetly, her hands shaking with a barely suppressed urged to deck Klein in the face. Judging from the amused glint in his eyes, she wasn't very successful in concealing it, but at this point she'd really had enough of this man.
Trissy cheek left without another word, her mind full of plots and plans for the future.
Klein watched her leave without a world, the smile on his face softening until it was merely a pleasant upturn of the lips, something that was more a fixture of his features than an actually expression of feeling.