Previous Chapter
Riveria smiled as she sat down on the edge of Drake's bed, idly teasing him with just a hint of cleavage. He smiled himself, getting up behind her, one finger loosely hooking into her top as his breath tickled her ear. His touch against her skin was delightful, teasing, and she let out a soft breath as she simply relaxed there, letting her touch him as he willed.

He knew so very much about sex, after all. The image of him fucking Cass from both ends, the girl squirming in delight, had lingered in Riveria's brain, as if it had been burnt into it. She squirmed as the backs of his fingers trailed across her breast, eventually pulling her top down around her tits, letting her let out a soft breath as her tits were exposed to open air. She knew the man didn't discriminate based on breast size - he'd come in with a flat girl and a tittymonster, and by now had most all flavors in between. Still, she also knew she was fairly chesty up top, and her expectations were met quite pleasantly as his fingers started to play with her nipples, hefting her tits up and down.

Then a second body of Drake's appeared in front of her, as if from nowhere, and he lowered his pants. That simply enormous, stupendously oversized cock bounced out in front of her, seeming to loom over her face, her eyes shrinking as she stared up at it.

While she had never been with a man, she had - back in the Royal Forest - occasionally seen men's turgid lengths plunging into their wives. People simply didn't lock their doors, elves being able to trust one another in a way humans struggled to, and sometimes lovers were quiet: over seventy years, that was enough to catch a few people in flagrante delicto. His hard cock seemed to dwarf the ones she'd seen, and her mouth simply fell open in awe as she stared.

"Do you want it in your mouth?" For any other man, she would have declared she most certainly did not. At the very least, she would have expected that he would put his mouth to similar uses between her legs before she even considered it. But she had overheard enough to know that even oral sex with Drake felt incredible, and his hands on her breasts were truly working her up, his lips kissing along her neck dotingly as that cock throbbed in front of her. "If you don't say anything, then I won't know."

She'd heard Xulia blither about how annoying Drake's desire for explicit consent could be sometimes, but Riveria felt the girl was an idiot and this was actually quite pleasant. It provided a certain sense of safety. He was asking her exactly what she wanted, even as she stood there, mouth open, dumbfounded by the dick in front of her. He'd stop if she gave the slightest indication she wanted it.

Rather than replying verbally, though, she simply leaned forward, wrapping her lips around the tip of his cock. It tasted surprisingly good, salty and delicious on her tongue, making her hum softly. The body that was above her, towering over her, cock pointed at her mouth, softly stroked along her ears, making her shiver at the touch. Still, it lacked that overpowering bliss she had heard that fellatio on him could provide a girl. As she recalled, there was some trick to it?

As if he could read her thoughts, his hand reached down between her breasts, then, plucking at some invisible strand. That was it, she recalled. That was the thing that signaled bliss was coming fast and hard. She closed her eyes and waited for it, while the body behind her started to pull up her skirts, moving with slow, soft movements, silken dress sliding up her thighs to bear them to the open air, then her panties simply being gently pushed to one side. Every movement he made was so slow, so considerate; even the cock in her mouth remained still, despite the fact that it was obviously teasing.

He hefted her up, then, making her tremble in anticipation as his hard length pointed at her slick sex. Her lips on his cock sucked all the harder, even as her cheeks lit up. She couldn't bring herself to simply beg, that would be too much, but if she sucked and hummed, then perhaps he would understand that she most certainly did want it inside of her without needing to be told. "I'm putting it in," he said, and she nodded around his cock, at which point his other cock began to plunge into her waiting sex.

She had... occasionally... fantasized about such group sex. Multiple men at the same time meant more stimulation and presumably greater pleasure. Of course, she would never have done it in reality! That would most certainly be far too degrading! But here, with a cock in her mouth and one in her sex, it was as if that fantasy was being made manifest, without any sort of degradation involved. She slurped more noisily on his cock, beginning to try to work her mouth down his length, her tongue beating away.

He slipped into her throat with ease, until her nose was pushing into his pubes. He groaned in reply, softly bucking with his hips, his balls gently slapping at her chin, but she just focused on his taste, finding it quite nice on her tongue. "You feel amazing, Riveria," he told her. "All of you feels amazing. I love it. I love you." Her cheeks lit up scarlet at that, the heat rushing all the way down her ears, but she was at least spared having to hamfistedly reciprocate by the cock in her throat, instead nodding in response.

From behind, the body with its cock in her cunt began to lift her up by the hips, while the other played with her ear with one hand, the other teasing her nipples. She gasped and drooled around his cock, her eyelashes fluttering, and then suddenly it hit her, the overpowering force of pleasure she had heard two of his wives discussing: Xulia had said it was so sexy to have her 'brain cracked open' by that awesome power, while Noriko had complained that it made it hard for her to make him come.

Riveria, having little particular desire to ensure that Drake came, found herself much more sympathetic to Xulia's position than Noriko's, spasming as she started coming, jerking in place, his hands wandering her body, playing with her nipples, her ears, her clit, sending pleasure running through her whole being as her eyes lidded and she just let out moans around his dick. She was probably giving him quite the whorish show, but with the sheer intensity of pleasure that he was inflicting on her, she couldn't bring herself to care. She just moaned and drooled, rolling about in place, saliva dribbling over her chin and splashing onto her tits as she got fucked on his cock.

"I'm glad I can make you feel good," Drake told her from behind, while she just moaned senselessly around his cock. His lips kissed and nibbled at the very tips of her ears, the place she often found herself touched during self-stimulation, and she just moaned even louder in response, her hips bucking as he fucked her. She was completely lost in the moment, wishing for him to get harder with her, and he did exactly that, grabbing a tangle of her long green hair. "Here comes," said the body above her, and she just nodded gladly, accepting it as he began to furiously fuck her face, ramming at her mouth, balls slapping away. The body behind her intensified its own work, ramming up into her, gripping her hips and fucking her on his cock with relentless force.

Both bodies worked together in perfect coordination, serving to intensify her pleasure, to make her go cross-eyed with bliss as she got fucked absolutely senseless. His own endurance was obscene, impossible, but she delighted in it anyway, just moaning and drooling, staring up at him with tear-stricken eyes as he fucked her face. She lost all track of time - minutes became hours, surely, as she got fucked like that, coming over and over, but she didn't suggest for a moment that she wanted him to stop, so he didn't. Her hands molested her own breasts, when they had the sense to touch anything. He didn't complain about her selfishness as she delighted in getting pounded from both ends. No, she just squirmed and moaned and took it all with pride and glee.

Then, during one particularly powerful orgasm, she woke up, twitching and jerking awake, her eyes rolling around for a long few moments to figure out what was going on, exactly.

She had been fucking Drake... no, no... that had been a dream, yes, that had been a dream, she realized. Her body was slick with sweat, her night clothes sticking to her unpleasantly, and she did not even bother touching her soaked-through underwear to confirm that it was in similar condition. She planted the back of her hand against her forehead as she caught her breath.

It was all just because of seeing Drake going at it with Cass. Yes. That was it. She was not attracted to him at all. She was not even the slightest bit curious what it would actually be like to be his woman. It was just her mind plucking out bits and pieces of what she'd heard about his sex life. While his rooms were quite well sealed, his wives' mouths were unfortunately not, so she would from time to time overhear Erza talking about how wonderful Drake was in bed, or Xulia, or Noriko, or Aisha, or Lena... yes, they were mostly blabbermouths on the subject, and she could hardly just ignore what people were saying around her.

It was a single dream, born of too much overheard gossip and one particular sight that still lingered in her thoughts. That was all.

She went to the shower to wash herself off. She didn't do anything else there that you might be thinking of.

Though she was tempted to.

* * *

Filvis looked down at the sleeping body of Drake, his arms crossed in front of him as he sat against the wall. He would be so, so easy to kill right now - or so it appeared. He was quite the dangerous foe, and if he found out her ill intent, then Lord Dionysus's plans would truly come to nothing. "Drake?" She spoke in a quiet whisper, checking to see if he was awake. He didn't move. "I want to ask you something." He still didn't move, didn't even poke an eye open. He was well and truly asleep.

She took Tear Pain out, contemplating making a harsh slash into the man in question, then shook her head - the idea was far too dangerous. He could find out what she'd done. She stepped back, then back further, then turned her back to him, wanting to simply tempt the Dungeon into an offensive. She was never quite sure how smart the place was, but she could hear, distantly, the crack and crumble of walls crumbling nearby on the Twenty-First Floor. She heard the distinctive dim buzz of a Gun Libella's wings, and turned round to eye it up.

The dragonfly shaped monster creeped through the air, nearly silent at this distance, its attention obviously on Drake. She watched quietly as it lined up a shot, aiming for his head, saying and doing nothing as the creature readied itself to attack - then it fired, the projectile racing through the air and slamming into the wall right behind Drake's head, the man himself having suddenly jerked away at the last possible moment, the bolt seeming to have past right through him.

She didn't hesitate - she rushed forward for the monster, hurriedly cutting it in half before it could get off a second attack, before even Drake quite knew what was going on.

"I'm sorry," Filvis said, clasping her hands together in front of her and bowing deeply. "I failed to protect you adequately."

Drake, for his part, was still bleary eyed as he came out of his slumber. Apparently the dodge was more instinct than anything else. "It's alright, this place is pretty harsh," he said, standing up and rubbing his neck. "Plus, this is your first time taking up this duty - all my wives are pretty used to the naps, by now. And there's more than one of them."

"If you say so," Filvis replied, leaning back up. She was glad, at least, that he did not seem to become suspicious of her.

"Just be more careful in the future, Filvis," he said, reaching out to place one hand on her shoulder.

"Don't FUCKING touch me!" She screamed the words out on instinct, snapping her arm out to push his away, stepping back rapidly. He immediately raised his hands in submission, taking a step back himself.

"Sorry, sorry," he said, sounding genuine. She gave him a harsh glare despite herself. "Just waking up. Forgot about the elves not liking to be touched thing for a second."

It wasn't just the ordinary elven distaste for physical contact outside of intense intimacy, but she didn't bother to tell him that. If anything, her instinctive revulsion to the thought of others touching her - by this point, mostly because of what she was rather than elven culture - had helped her, turning his attention from the matter of her nearly getting him killed, to his own offense. She sniffed and shook her head. "Let's return to our Dungeon work. You're awake now, after all."

"I am, at that," he responded, rubbing the bridge of his nose. He shook his head. "Yes." His fingers flexed. "Let's get back to work."

* * *

"And which of your wives is your favorite?" Filvis asked me.

"I prefer not to say," I said, sighing. "Which child is a parent's favorite? Even if you have one, it's best not to say. Or to show."

"You do show it," Filvis countered, making me look at her curiously. "Some of your women are with child, and others are not."

"Well, yeah. Some of them asked, and others didn't."

"Hm." Filvis peered at me carefully, her eyes seeming to search me for any hint of some deeper feeling, then shook her head. "But you do have a favorite."

"I suppose," I replied. "But - it doesn't matter."

"How can it not matter? You have twelve women you call your own. Surely it matters which among them attracts the most of your attention."

"That's why it doesn't matter - 'favorite' doesn't mean I give her the most attention, or protect her the most, or spend the most time with her. When you love two different people, you display your love in different ways, and it's more about who that person is, than anything as like 'favorites'. I wouldn't knock Cass up, and I wouldn't help Noriko fight crime, because Cass doesn't want a child and Noriko doesn't want to fight crime."

"Are they your favorites, then?" Filvis asked, making me twitch in a way that I guess gave it away. "I see. Which one do you like more?"

I sighed. "Fine, Filvis. I've loved Cass for years and years - Noriko is more recent. Happy?" It wasn't technically an answer, but Filvis seemed to take it as one, nodding along in acceptance.

She didn't stop there, though. While she'd decided she'd worked out who were my top two favorites, and their order, she immediately moved on to trying to figure out which ones were my third favorite, fourth, fifth... Her expression was sharp as she tried to pry apart all my relationships and rank them. I honestly couldn't have ranked them far past the top two - sure, Julia was hot and I loved her, but Haruhime, Loki, Lena, Aisha, Ryu, Setsuko - they'd all wormed their ways into my heart in new ways now that I'd met them. Even my old top ten list, I wasn't sure still represented my true feelings. Life changes, the people you're with change, nothing's ever set in stone...

I think Filvis came to understand that, at least, and the topics of discussion soon moved on to her.

* * *

"I see," said Dionysus, peering down imperiously from behind his mask at Filvis, who remained on bended knee before him. "So his favorite is Cassandra Cain."

"Yes, Lord Enyo," Filvis replied, "but she is very strong, and will prove difficult to assassinate. Her talents at reading others' bodies are a thing of legend, she is very talented at evasion, and it's said that Freya herself watches over the Dark Knight. I would suggest Noriko, instead, given she is far weaker, and what's more, pregnant. He feels little protective instinct with Cassandra, but with Noriko-"

"He doesn't love Noriko," Dionysus interrupted. "As if a man could love so many women. You have fallen for his deceptions, Filvis." Filvis did not let her irritation show on her face. By the way Drake spoke of his wives, it was clear he loved them all. Perhaps he loved one more than the other, but he loved them all, all the same. More than many men loved the women they were with, too. She could hardly imagine he would not be devastated and enraged by the loss of Noriko, Setsuko, Naomi, or Haruhime, all of whom would make better targets than the Level Five Record Breaker. "We will kill Cassandra... yes. It will drive him mad with grief, weakening one of the major lynchpins of the Loki familia!"

"As you command, Lord Enyo," Filvis said, despite her irritation at her god's stupid decision. "Shall I move now?"

"No," Dionysus said. "No... I shall use the funds that remain in the hands of Evilus to hire the Sekhmet Familia. They will scour Cassandra from the Earth, once they arrive here in Orario." He chuckled darkly, maliciously, in the way he often did when he was pretending to be Enyo. "You shall continue to insinuate yourself into Drake's life. When he is weak and hurting from the loss of his beloved, you shall strike then!"

"..." She hesitated to speak, knowing it would only made Dionysus angry, but she really did have to. "Strike how, Lord Enyo?"

"Strike how?" He seemed baffled by the question.

"Even if he will be off-balance by the loss of his wife, he will still have many bodies, and I cannot kill them all before he learns of my ill intention."

"Must I come up with all the solutions myself?" Dionysus demanded. "Do I not trust you with secrets that even your own familia members do not know? Can you not make a single decision without my direction?"

In other words, he had no idea, and was offloading it onto her. His strategies had gotten much worse, since the loss of Thanatos and much of their supporters in Knossos. All his plans and resources had been scrambled, and he was trying to pick up the pieces. Sometimes she felt he was playing at confidence with her, trying to batter her into submission by sheer bravado; other times, she thought he truly was that stupid, unable to recognize how dumb his own ideas were.

The circuitous plan to deceive the Loki familia as to his true identity - what was the actual point of it? Dionysus could have simply disappeared from Orario without any of the various ideas he had, and it would have much the same impact as faking his death. Once his death had been faked, then he could no longer call on the resources left to him - indeed, if the plan went as he had originally outlined it, he wouldn't have any resources besides her, who also would be left unable to walk the city streets of Orario.

Now that that particular plan had been abandoned, she could contemplate it in earnest, not fearing Dionysus asking the right question and getting upset when she admitted she thought the plan was stupid. She had contemplated it a lot, and concluded the plan was extremely stupid.

"Well, Ein?" Dionysus asked. "Are you truly so stupid as to understand nothing on your own?"

She twitched at that. She often felt he was the stupid one, of the pair of them. She simply shook her head, however. "No, Lord Enyo. I will devise a plan to kill Drake when he is vulnerable."

"Good."

* * *

Filvis's mind was... different, when she was split in two. She often thought of it as her "light" and "dark" halves, perhaps.

The body that was used to play at being Ein in such times, was of course the dark half.

Her.

She relished her own failures, her own distorted sensibilities, her own problems. There were no mental blinders for this Filvis: she could accept herself precisely as she was, in a way the other her never could. She could look at herself, pathetic and miserable, and admit what she was. A simpering fool for Dionysus, obeying a master who, in truth, wasn't even her god any more. That didn't lead her to consider any changes, of course. It was precisely the fact that those thoughts could be had without the frisson of ambivalence, regret, shame, that allowed her mind to even form them in the first place.

When she was merged, she would dance away from the thoughts of all her sufferings when they came in reach. Perhaps, even, the 'light' Filvis didn't have them - she couldn't even remember the emotional state of the other one. Their minds were simply too different. A mind that can't experience happiness, can't remember it either.

She licked her lips. Her god's stupid plan was stupid, but Filvis was going to fulfill it. He was her god, after all. The being who had given her succor when she was young, who had carried her through her worst moments. He could smack her around, insult her, mistreat her, and she would go along with it all. That was her lot in life, behaving like a well-beaten bride. She smiled, exulting in her own humiliation, wondering if this was why her god loved her so. Was he truly so vicious?

"Let the show begin," she said, her voice warped behind her mask.

* * *

Filvis didn't even hear her other self's approach, not even with sensitive ears. She only heard the wet noise of her stomach being pierced, a long thin blade stabbing right through her. She gasped at the pain and agony, as a boot was placed on her back, kicking her forward, and heard her other self speak, her voice garbled by the mask that made her Ein. "Die. Both of you will die," the voice declared, harsh and cruel behind the mask.

Drake didn't say anything - he just acted. Six knives lashed at the air above her as Filvis tried to recover her poise, hand pressed against her side. She wasn't truly an elf any longer - she was a creature. She didn't bleed, but Drake might notice that if she wasn't careful, so she popped the cork on a healing potion, slathering it over her gut wound. It did nothing - it even produced a mild stinging - but it gave her an excuse to push power from her core out into her body, filling in the injury as she gasped for breath.

Drake was striking at Ein with furious force and attack, positioning himself between her and it. She felt some small pang of unhappiness as she watched - not for his actions, but for the knowledge that they were misdirected. He was trying to protect her, while she sought his death and the death of those he loved. Regret twisted up a knot inside her. He caught Ein's blade on his knife, then stabbed at its throat with such alacrity that she thought for a moment that he might accidentally decapitate it, ruining everything all at once. Ein managed to pull back, though, dodging the two knives that came at it a moment later, functioning perfectly fine with a knife in its throat.

"You're tough," he said, but as he spoke, he pulled on an invisible string, dragging at the knife in Ein's throat. Ein just twisted back, gasping for air as she moved to remove the knife from her neck, the blade slipping away from him. He was winning. It wasn't as if he would kill Ein - even if Ein died, Filvis would survive and recover her strength in time - but Ein had her face, behind the mask. Filvis had to do something to keep him from killing Ein.

So she vomited. What came up was black, because her stomach - her insides - was totally warped and deformed, crude parodies of what she'd used to have. She knew. She'd seen them before. Withered, alien, twisted, black, purple - never red and full of life. All wrong. Ashy, if you tasted them. "Fuh, fuck," she sputtered out. The taste that had come up through her stomach was truly awful. At its best parts, it was metal; at its worst parts, it was acid and ammonia. "I'm, I think, it's poisoned," she told him.

He glanced behind himself for a heartbeat - long enough for Ein to try to cut off his head, but he dodged that blow impossibly quick - and his eyes widened as he saw what she'd deposited on the Dungeon ground. His behavior changed instantly, as did Ein's. Ein tried to move around him, and he moved to block her. He threw knives her way, some of them impacting, cutting into flesh - and then he swung her, managing to aim her into a neighboring tunnel, sending her tumbling around and around.

He didn't pause to pick Filvis up - he just snapped out his hand to her, grabbing her with those invisible threads of his, and started to run right for the surface, pulling her up and off the ground as he ran across the air, leaving her swinging. She had been prepared for him to just grab her, but apparently her earlier comment about not wanting to be touched was enough for him, leaving her dangling half a meter below his feet as she pretended to be sick. "We'll get you some help. We'll get you to Airmid," he told her. "Loki's helping right now, alright? Hold on. If you're bleeding still, apply pressure."

His voice was so sincere, in the way he quested to protect and save her. She felt an intense, quiet feeling of shame to take advantage of him like this.

"That was the one who killed Aura, right?"

"Yes." That was the truth, after all. It was the one who killed Aura.

So was she.

"We'll hunt him down, don't worry." Filvis smiled at that. It was a melancholic feeling, carried alongside a stinging in her eyes.

* * *

Filvis had one advantage in faking being alive, when in truth she was a corrupted, animated corpse: she was an elf. Airmid was a human, and hardly one that she was intimate with. "No, you can't - you can't touch me," she said, hand snapping to stop the doctor from checking for things like her pulse, which she didn't really have, or trying to inspect the wound for blood, which of course there wasn't any of.

"I will have great difficulty treating you if I can't touch you," Airmid said.

"Then I'll die," Filvis replied. "I should have died a long time ago, anyway." Her head tilted to one side, looking away from Airmid.

"Can you talk to her?" Airmid said to Drake.

Drake sighed, gently moving around her body to squat in front of her. She stared into his eyes. They were kind eyes. Gentle eyes. "Filvis, I know that not being touched is very, very important to you. But is it really more important than being alive? You were poisoned-"

"I'm feeling better," Filvis interrupted.

"We don't even know what the poison was. It could have been a curse, too. It'd make sense for Enyo to use a cursed weapon, that's why I-"

"Ein," she interrupted. "Enyo is the leader. Ein is the follower."

"Alright. Ein. Well, we don't know what kind of weapon Ein was using. It's not just your life that's on the line, Filvis. If we don't know whether it's cursed or poisoned or whatever else, we can't take action to protect our people going forward. We'll fight him again, I'm sure. I don't think you're a bad person-"

"You don't know me."

"I don't. But when that Gun Labella almost killed me, I know you snapped into action to protect me. I think that when you see something wrong, you try to help, but you've let the... exhaustion, of how hard the world is, to make you give up on putting yourself in dangerous situations. I don't say that with judgment. Some days, I wish some of my wives decided to never enter the Dungeon again. Not all of them - I know some of them thrive down there - but some of them are just... the sort of girls I feel like would be better on some peaceful career path. So if you want to stop going into the Dungeon, with me, with anyone, I think you should. But I don't think you should die, Filvis." He reached out with a hand for a moment before catching himself and pulling it back.

"I'm fine," she replied, leaning up on the sick bed. "See? I can move freely." She swung her legs over the side of the bed. "The poison must have cleared."

"Or it could be eating away at your internal organs, right now!" Airmid said, fury in her voice. "I can't tell if you're sick or not without checking your vitals, which you refuse to let me do!"

"I don't want your fingers on me." She would honestly be profaning the Dea Saint, rather than the other way around, but that conversation was something she couldn't have. "Your concern is noted, and wasted. I'll be returning to my familia headquarters."

"Filvis," Drake said, rising to his feet, and Filvis paused, glancing back at him. "Is it really just the touch thing? I won't pretend to get it, but it seems like... a very strong decision to make. I want to hear your reasoning."

She just gave him a sharp look. Her actual reasoning was that she wasn't poisoned. Her actual reasoning was that her body was a corpse's. Her actual words were, "That is too bad." She then stomped out of Airmid's treatment center, to the woman herself's clear annoyance.

"At least let me cast Dia Fratel!" Airmid said, and Filvis stopped, sighing and standing in front of her, spreading her arms wide in acceptance. "I will note that I strenuously recommend you accept actual treatment," she said, before beginning to intone. "Healing droplets, tears of light, eternal sanctuary. Compose a medicinal hymn-three hundred, sixty, and five. The melody of the healer's almanac saves all things. Come, destruction of evil. The burial of wounds, interment of disease. Curses be gone in the light of vitality. In the name of all that is holy - I heal you!" Light emanated around Filvis's body, encompassing her, and she took a long few, deep breaths.

It didn't feel like anything. A faint tingle on the skin, perhaps. But she doubted that this would be healing her, even if she were injured severely. Would magic like that heal a monster?

Once Airmid seemed satisfied that the magic had done what it would, Filvis left, finding her god and departing alongside him.

* * *

Loki lazed against Drake from one side, as he walked home, her hand coming around to cheekily grope his chest, making sure it didn't come off as romantic. "Sure am glad that we rushed all over to help out the chick, so she could just refuse it and say she's fine."

Drake sighed at that, and she actually felt kinda bad. She was taking it out on him even though he wasn't responsible! It was elfy elf-face who was responsible! "Sorry, I can't accept medical treatment because in my culture, we love dying all the time." She was pretty sure that only Filvis thought that way!

"I'm sorry, Loki. It was a nasty injury, I'm surprised she's fine. The blade went right through her stomach, and then she puked up this..." he trailed off. "It looked like tar. Black and thick and slightly shiny."

"Oof. We talking dollop or?"

"A lot," he said. "A lot a lot. I honestly almost let Ein get a hit on me, I was so distracted seeing it. I'm surprised she can walk." He paused for a moment, biting his lip. "I wonder if part of the reason she's rejecting it is that I carried her via... well, via strands. I didn't touch her. She really doesn't like being touched. But maybe I should have? Then she'd have been willing to receive full treatment, since she'd already been touched."

"Oh yeah," Loki agreed, rolling her eyes. "It was just breaking through the wall the one time, and she'd turn into a total headpat slut like Lefiya." She tousled his hair. "Now let me say the line: not everything in the whole world is your fault. 'sides, she walked outta there alive. Airmid's being a worrywart on accounta she deals with normies. Adventurers are a different kinda folk! If she can walk, she can live." She considered leaving it at that, but honestly, it was a bit dishonest. "Probly."

"Thanks for your reassurance," Drake replied, reaching down for her butt and giving it a squeeze. "You're probably right."

"I'm always right," Loki countered, earning a chuckle from Drake. "Don't laugh! That wasn't a joke!"

* * *

Filvis had to leave Orario for this work. She actually told Drake that she was 'thinking of what he said,' about leaving the Dungeon for good. The man himself offered to come along, thinking it a sabbatical, fretting over her health after her 'poisoning.' She felt increasingly ashamed and miserable in her own deceit. Part of her wanted to split herself, purely to untangle these thoughts entirely. The 'dark' Filvis would exult in her own miserable reality; the 'light' Filvis would almost forget about it. But given she was going to meet some of the most dangerous adventurers outside Orario - the sort of people who would gladly throw their lives away for the merest chance at assuring their god's victory - she could not risk being the lowly thing she was when her status was split.

The journey was long enough for her to truly wallow in her own self-loathing. She rose from the sticky, unpleasant thoughts only from time to time, otherwise remaining utterly lost in them.

She liked Drake. She could at least admit that thought to herself, here, her mind whole. He was a good person, driven by concern for others. Not even just his - he hardly knew her, and he had tried to show her kindness, to protect her. Now she was aiming to murder the woman he loved most in the world, on behalf of her god.

Under her breath, she muttered, "I'm sorry," to no one but herself. Some part of her hoped it would be carried on the wind back to Orario, that he could hear the apology. Perhaps even take action to protect his beloved.

She knew he loved Cassandra. The way he spoke of her, full of admiration, affection, and desire - it was unambiguous. He loved her, deeply, powerfully, intensely. She also could tell that he loved all his wives, from the way he spoke about them. She had no doubt that if she tried to plunge her blade into Noriko, or Haruhime, or Setsuko, then she would find Drake's body between her and her target, no matter how many times she stabbed.

She wished someone loved her like that.

* * *

The foreign-looking woman stood across from Filvis, her gaze cold as ice. "You want me to kill this... Cassandra Cain?"

"Yes," Filvis replied, her voice covered up by her mask. Her mind was currently congealed together, both contradictory halves making one whole, and that made this all the more agonizing to do. She couldn't risk speaking to the Sekhmet familia with her status halved, though.

"Tell me about her," the woman replied.

"She is an extremely talented martial artist, and it is said she can see through lies with a glance." The woman pursed her lips thoughtfully. "Are you unable to do it?"

"If I can't do it, no one can." The woman pushed her tongue against her cheek. "She is a Level Five and a member of the Loki familia. May I ask why you wish such a hard target killed?"

"She is... married to someone that my liege wishes to make suffer," Filvis replied. Did that turn of phrase not apply to anyone? Was Dionysus just a pure sadist?

"I see. And your liege is Enyo, the last member of Evilus." Filvis bristled. She hadn't told the Sekhmet familia who was asking for their work, nor had the messenger known. The woman standing across from her was quite smart.

She didn't let that play out in her voice, instead pretending she didn't care. "I will not say last."

"The price for such a kill will be quite expensive," the assassin replied. "A billion valis. Can your organization afford that?"

"We can," Filvis replied.

"Then I believe we have a deal," the woman replied, smiling mildly.

"Good. I anticipate your work gladly, Lady Shiva."

Next Chapter