Alva went out of his apartment with his crutch. He went down the stairs, his left hand holding on to the stone railing. Adey was leaning on his motorcycle, his deadpan face blanker than the stone he was standing on.

“Still thin, but you have grown a gut,” Adey said. “It has been what?”

“A month?” Alva said. “I’ve been doing nothing but write reports, so it would be expected that I’d grow fat.”

“Really?” Adey said.

“Is there anything wrong?” Alva said.

“Nothing, why do I have to care about the way you live your life? You do your own work, but after four years, you’re going to be done from this place,” Adey said.

“Why?” Alva said.

“Huh?” Adey mounted his motorcycle. “Isn’t it obvious? We are supporting you for four years, and after that, you will be thrown into the wild unless you have something to offer this city.”

“Make’s sense,” Alva said. “Still, four years huh, is that how much I owe this place?”

“That’s right, you were given an allowance, right?”

“Yes, but I only have fifty bits left on me, I used most of them for snacks.”

“Wait that should be for your supplies. You shouldn’t be spending that on snacks, no wonder your gut is blowing up.”

“Sorry,” Alva said. “I just can’t help but stress eat.”

“You really are wasting your life away,” Adey said. “But considering how you got turned into a battery for five hundred years, I find it disturbing how you can still function despite it all.”

“Do you scream when it rains?”

“Excuse me?”

“Do you shout at the rain when it suddenly comes pouring?”

“It doesn’t really rain here, but I get your point. No, I don’t.”

“Those years, I just thought of being a battery as something I expected to be. No need to question it. I gave up shouting after a year, and to escape the pain, I had to kill myself for six times.”

“You were revived?” Adey asked.

“Yes, that egg pumped my heart, restored my tongue, and yet it keeps draining and bringing me back alive, although I say that I have been inside that egg for five hundred years, I’ve been mostly dead or unconscious. I was only counting the years where I was conscious.”

“I see,” Adey said. “Isn’t that better than being awake for five hundred years?”
“Yes, it was,” Alva mounted the motorcycle as well. “But would it be possible if we don’t talk about this? I’ve controlled my vomiting, but if I continue to ponder about those days, I think I would go into a fetal position and dry my eyes crying.”

“Pardon,” Adey said. “Though it should be an unavoidable topic for the next hours.”

“Why so?” Alva asked.

“The boss wants to see the new inhabitant of this city. She’s usually busy mind you, but she’d have to see you.”

“I see.”

“No need to be nervous,” Adey said without a tone in his voice. “The Boss isn’t like the guy who called himself the Overlord of the Demons, she’s rational and reasonable enough to convince her people to stop fighting.”

“I heard that she made a pact with the current war maiden.”

“Do you know what a War Maiden is?” Adey asked.

“I do. I just do.”

“I won’t pry,” Adey said. “So what pact did she make?”

“The human world belongs to the surface, and beneath is our home. The barren wasteland, however, will always belong to the demons and sentient monsters. If anyone who breaks the pact will have to answer the boss herself.”

“Sounds...reasonable.”

“Reasonable?” Adey said. “The boss fought the War Maiden to a standstill, she has obsidian blood but she’s the current pale shine lady, the war maiden of our people.”

“It sounds like it’s quite a story.”

“Is it?” Adey said. “All the demons knew was that she killed the old overlord to satisfy her desires of the ruling. We made a pact with the humans, but it doesn’t mean we forgot the overlord who wanted to keep us alive. The old fools of this city hate the fact that she’s strong enough to face off against the current War Maiden.”

“This War Maiden,” Alva said. “She should be a human, yet I heard nothing but praise for her strength, and how she helped in fending off the darkness that should not affect your people.”

“You really do know things, huh,” Adey said. “I don’t want to meddle, but you should keep your mouth shut when you’re talking to Machina.”

“I got it,” Adey nodded.

The two passed by a stone bridge, the motorcycle’s engine roaring along the asphalt road leading to the home of the overlord of the demons.

“Back to the topic, the reason why we have no hate for the War Maiden, is that she broke the back of darkness for all these years. The boss is keeping the darkness from strengthening itself, but it doesn’t mean that the War Maiden would care about the darkness, she’s strong enough to be the second Sun of this world.”

“She really does sound powerful.”

“Because she is,” Adey revved his motorcycle. “When she became a War Maiden she got all the abilities of the incarnations of the War Maidens. When years passed, she became stronger, she had started to receive the memories of her other selves.”

“What do you mean by that?” Alva glared at Adey’s back.

“Something happened that allowed her to receive the blessing of her other selves that belongs to other worlds. The boss says that her slaughter of the time wraiths allowed her to inherit memories of the IF. Their sorrows, their heartbreaks, and their powers as well. The boss got her powers as well from these time wraiths, and even so I doubt that a fight between The Obsidian Heiress, and the Incarnated War Maiden would be good. They know it well how they could destroy a country if they are not careful enough.”

“She inherited the powers of the war maidens from other worlds by killing the time wraiths?”

“Yes, she’s strong because she has the memories of her other lives.”

“How absurd,” Alva said.

“I don’t know how it happened, but I doubt that they’ll reveal what truly happened when they encountered the time wraiths. There are things that we should not try to pry about, got that?”

Alva frowned. He looked at the building that they are heading. His heart pounding loudly as Adey drives forward.