Mari has put the maskless masked man’s soul back into his body. He wakes up and sees Mari and Eissen standing in front of him. He is sitting on the ground, with his back leaning against one of the containers in the port.
“So, it’s about time you talk, isn’t it?”
“She defeated you fair and square. Tell us what that whole transformation is even about!”
“. . .”
The man realizes that he is not tied up by anything. He can simply get up and fly away with his Faith power. But after witnessing Mari’s Faith power, he doubts that he can actually escape from her, plus the fact that he doesn’t know anything about Eissen’s Faith power.
“. . .”
The man still doesn’t talk. Mari crouches down to his level to persuade him.
“Is your life in danger if you spill the truth about that blood in the syringe?”
“. . .”
“Are you someone important?”
“. . .”
“Are you guys a giant organization in the underworld?”
“. . .”
*Sigh*
“Alright, that’s enough! I’ll knock you out! I’ll search your memories instead!”
*!*
“Huh? What?”
Mari clenches her fist and activates her Vein armor.
*BAM*
She hits the man at the top of his head and knocks him out cold.
“Err, Mari-chan! That sounded loud. Did you hold back properly? He didn’t die, right?”
“Oh, c’mon now, Ei-chan! I have a pretty amazing grasp of my own strength at this point!”
Mari stands up and summons the Sword of Purification. She stabs the unconscious man on the ground in his chest. The Sword turns black, and Mari pulls it out.
*inhales exhales*
“Here we go, Ei-chan! Prepare yourself!”
“R-right!”
Mari points its tip towards her chest.
*!*
“GRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!”
“URGH!!”
“ARGHH!”
But before she even stabs the Sword, the blackness on the Sword suddenly let out a really loud and high-pitched scream. Both Mari and Eissen instinctively cover their own ears, though Mari only covers one of her ears.
“W-WHAT ON EARTH IS THIS??”
“GRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!”
“I DON’T KNOW MARI-CHAN!! I THINK IT’S BEST THAT YOU DON’T STAB THAT INTO YOUR CHEST!!”
“GRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!”
“GOOD IDEA!!”
“GRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!”
“URRGGHH!! WHAT SHOULD WE DO, EI-CHAN?!”
“MAYBE YOU SHOULD STORE IT UNTIL WE FIGURE OUT WHAT TO DO WITH IT?!”
“GRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!”
“ALRIGHT! GOOD IDEA!”
Mari unsummons the Sword of Purification from her hand.
*!*
But she sees that the blackness of the Sword stays floating in the area where the Sword was.
“GRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!”
“URGH!!”
“ARGH!!”
The blackness let out its loudest and most high-pitched scream one last time before it eventually faded away into nothing.
. . . . . .
Mari and Eissen open their ears and feel relieved from the ringing pain.
“Phew! Finally! My ears hurt so much!”
“Urgh. . . What on earth are we encountering tonight?? This is definitely not a normal case of Greed.”
“But now, we don’t get any information from this man. *SIGH* What a waste!”
Eissen pulls out his phone.
“Before we forget any details, I’ll relay anything that happened just now to the Judge’s group chat!”
“Good idea, Ei-chan!”
“Urgh. . .”
*!*
The 43-year-old man suddenly regained his consciousness. He gets up and sits on the ground.
“W-What happened?”
Mari immediately approaches the 43-year-old man on the ground.
“Mister! Are you okay? Do you have any wounds with you?”
This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
“I-I’m fine. . . WAIT!! YOU’RE THAT WOMAN WHO RUINED MY PRECIOUS TRANSACTION!!”
*!*
“C-Calm down, mister! You were being scammed, and we just got you out of it!”
“SCAMMED? THAT BLOOD OF HIS WAS A VERY VALUABLE ITEM TO ME!! AND BECAUSE OF YOU, I DON’T HAVE THE BLOOD NOW!! YOU RUINED MY LIFE!!”
“Now hold on a second! What does this have to do with your life? What did I ruin by stopping you from being scammed?”
“I WAS SUPPOSED TO EXACT MY REVENGE ON MY BOSS!!! HE’S BEEN TREATING ME UNFAIRLY, AND I'VE HAD ENOUGH OF HIM!! I AM GOING TO KILL HIM AND HIS FAMILY USING THE POWER I WOULD GAIN FROM THAT BLOOD IN THE SYRINGE!!”
“Vengeance, huh? If it’s alright with you, what did your boss do to you?”
“. . .”
The 43-year-old man leans his head down as he tries to remember everything that his boss ever did to him.
“He. . . keeps shouting at me for the smallest mistakes I made. He keeps comparing me to other coworkers who work better than me. He keeps cutting my salary for the most unrealistic reasons. He keeps hitting me every time I do something wrong. He keeps threatening my career and my future in that company. He keeps threatening that he will go after my wife and kids. He. . . He. . . *sobs sobs*”
It seems that he still wants to say more things about his boss, but his tears and sobbing don’t allow him to continue talking. Mari’s face went from confused and curious to saddened and empathetic, hearing what the man said.
Mari crouches down and places her right hand on his left shoulder.
“Don’t worry, mister! I’ll take in all of your frustration and sadness. Then, I’ll pray for you so that God will fill your heart with His love to comfort your troubled heart!”
“*sobs sobs* huh?”
*BAAAAMMM*
Mari suddenly strikes the old man on the head and knocks him out. Eissen walks towards Mari from behind.
“You done, Ei-chan?”
“Yeah! But no one seems to have read it yet! They’re all probably in the middle of their Judge duty as well.”
“I see. Now prepare yourself, Ei-chan!”
Mari summons the Sword of Purification in her hand.
“We’ll save this old man instead.”
“Alright!”
Mari stabs the Sword into the man’s chest, and the Sword turns black. She pulls the Sword out and points its tip at her chest. Mari and Eissen each take a deep breath, and she stabs her own chest with the blackened Sword.
*!*
And so, as if there’s a bunch of videos appearing inside their heads. They both receive the painful memories that belong to the man.
. . . . . .
“It’s as he told me. His boss treated him so harshly, now I wanna punch the boss in his face.”
“Agreed. Let’s come to that office tomorrow!”
“Then, let’s stay at a nearby hotel or motel in this city.”
“Alright. Let’s also leave this place! The officials are probably going to storm this place soon because of that giant explosion and that kaiju.”
“Right! But let me pray for this man first, Ei-chan!”
“Oh, right!”
Mari takes a pose to pray, and her whole body suddenly glows brightly by a white holy light, coming down from the sky above. She puts both of her open hands towards the man, and all the holy light flows and engulfs his entire body within seconds.
“Amen!”
“Alright, Mari-chan! Let’s tie up that masked man first and place this poor guy somewhere else so he doesn’t end up being a suspect!”
“Alright!”
.
.
.
Los Angeles, 21:03. . .
Mari and Eissen are currently in a different location in the city, far away from the port. They are both sitting down on the edge of a random building’s rooftop with their legs hanging off over the edge.
*SLURP SLURP*
“MMMHHH!!! I LOVE CUP NOODLES!!”
*SLURP SLURP*
“Sure, they’re good! But please don’t eat it every day, Mari-chan! That just reminded me of your lifestyle in the past.”
“Y-yesh, of course I am not eating it every day, Ei-chan! You sounded like my mom or something!”
*SLURP SLURP*
“That’s because I care about you, Mari-chan!”
“. . .”
Mari’s face went red, but Eissen didn’t see it because he was busy slurping the noodles down his throat.
*SLURP SLURP*
Mari continues to eat the cup noodles in silence.
.
.
.
Ten minutes later. . .
They have both finished their late dinner. They wrap everything up inside a plastic bag to throw it later.
“So, let’s continue our talk!” said Mari.
“About what?” asks Eissen.
*!*
Mari silently points to Eissen.
“Ei-chan! It’s about time that you tell me about your past!”
“. . .I guess you’re right, huh?? Ever since the day we met, you’ve been focusing on how to find Sierra. You even thought of a crazy idea to infiltrate an international event like the BWC!”
”T-THAT’S IN THE PAST ALRIGHT!! I APOLOGIZE FOR COMING UP WITH SUCH AN OUTRAGEOUS IDEA!!”
But then Mari quickly leans her head down.
“But thank you for being with me the whole time, Ei-chan.”
Mari suddenly talked in such a quiet volume, Eissen almost couldn’t hear her.
“So, how’s your relationship with Sierra-chan now?”
Mari lifts her head, and her face looks a little sad now.
“I don’t know what to think of her. I really hate her for taking all of our friends away. Yet she was one of those friends that I love so much about.”
Mari looks like she was about to cry. Eissen rubs her back gently back and forth to calm her down.
“Thanks, Ei-chan. . . At the very least, now we are complete strangers.”
“I see. What happens when you meet her again in the future?”
“. . .”
Mari folds her legs and buries her face in her arms.
“I. . . don’t know.”
“Don’t think much about it then, Mari-chan!”
“Okay. . .”
They both fell silent for a few seconds, until Mari suddenly lifted her head and faced Eissen.
“Now hold on a second! I was asking about your past! Why did we suddenly talk about my past?”
*!*
Eissen suddenly looks away.
“Ei-chan! Why do you keep trying your best so that you don’t have to talk about your past??”
“. . .”
Eissen did not respond.
“Ei-chan!”
“. . .”
“EI-CHAN!”
“I’m. . . ashamed of my past, Mari-chan.”
*!*
Of all the possible things that Eissen could have said, ‘ashamed’ is not the word that she expected at all.
“Ei-chan, I don’t mind what you did in the past! Iesu-sama guided you to me about a year ago!”
Eissen silently looks towards Mari.
“Mari-chan.”
“Yes, Ei-chan!”
“I was born in the Underworld.”
*!*
Both Mari and Eissen suddenly sensed Greed from somewhere else in the city.
“Wow, what timing!”
“Grrrr!! WE WILL CONTINUE THIS TALK, ALRIGHT, EI-CHAN?!”
“Figures! This is LA after all, Mari-chan!”
Both of them stand up, activate their Vein Armor, and jump far away from the building.
.
.
.
About 110 meters away from where Mari and Eissen were, there was a certain 20-story building in downtown LA. Inside its highest floor, inside the room that belongs to the CEO of this company, the CEO himself is sitting at his desk, counting cash money with his hands.
“660,000 dollars on the dot! PHEW!!”
The CEO himself was counting all of that cash money with his hands by himself an hour ago, and he had just finished. He puts back the last stack of cash into a black suitcase atop his desk.
“HRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHH!!!”
The CEO got up from his seat and stretched his body.
“I'd better go to sleep now! Tomorrow’s a big day!”
The CEO walks towards the door to his office.
*PRAAANNGNGGG*
*!!!!*
But when he’s about to grab the doorknob, something, or rather someone, breaks into his room from the window at the back of the room.
“Good night, CEO-san!”
“Wow, there are so many CEOs doing the Greed sin, I’ve lost count already! And we’ve been doing this for only a year, Mari-chan!”
*THUD*
The boss falls on his butt in reflex.
“W-WHO ARE YOU GUYS??”
“I sensed Greed, CEO-san! OHH!! LOOK AT THIS SUITCASE!!”
Mari walks towards the desk where the suitcase with all the money is.
*BRAK*
She pries open the suitcase with her bare hands forcefully and breaks its locking mechanism.
“WOOOOOAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH!!! THERE’S SO MUCH MONEY HERE!! WHAT’S ALL THIS MONEY FOR, CEO-SAN?” said Mari with such an innocent tone.
*!*
“(C-CRAP!! IS IT LEAKED? HOW DID THEY KNOW ALREADY? I HAVEN’T EVEN ANNOUNCED IT TO ANYONE ELSE BUT HER!! HOW?)”
“W-WHO ARE YOU PEOPLE?” asks the CEO.
“Hehehehe!! Since you ask nicely!”
Mari puts her hand on her face in her usual chuuni pose.
“KHU KHU KHU!! MY NAME IS KOBAYASHI MARI!! SHE WHO WAS CHOSEN DIRECTLY BY THE ONE TRUE GOD, IESU-SAMA!! I AM JUDGE NUMBER SIX, THE JUDGE OF GREED! I have come to deliver divine Judgment towards sinners!”
“M-My name’s Eissen Divalo! I’m her Support as well as her closest friend!”
“. . .”
The CEO could not respond to the sudden large amount of new information that he had never heard in his life.
*!!!*
All of a sudden, both of their danger senses activate.
*BANG*
*PRANGG*
Someone shot their firearm from outside the room, the bullet pierces through the window and is flying at high speed towards Eissen’s head.
*GRAB*
Eissen was ready to dodge the bullet, but Mari moved faster to his front and caught the bullet with her bare hand.
“T-Thanks, Mari-chan!”
“Anytime, my closest friend!”
*DAHK*
*!!*
Someone kicks open the door and points a sniper rifle, standing from outside. Eissen also summons his pistol and aims it at the person in front of the door. Mari summons her giant scythe and enters her battle stance, still standing in front of him.
*!!!!*
“Di-Diva-chan?”
“E-Eissen-sama?”
*???*
Hearing their exchange, Mari was confused to no end.
