Raphael was annoyed, angry even.

As Raphael was having soup for lunch, he noticed an ant roaming a dozen centimeters away from his bowl on the wooden table.

Curious, he picked it up, pinching its bottom half between his thumb and index finger.

The ant was struggling to get away, biting his skin and pulling itself up with as much force as much as it could muster.

Every couple of seconds it would stop struggling for a bit, and then begin its struggle anew with newfound force, its resilience apparent.

Bored, Raphael let it go, picking it up again after a whimsical curiosity that wasn't really different from the first time he did it gripped his mind thereafter.

The interaction continued a bit more until the undaunted ant finally got faster than his curiosity managed to surface again, escaping in a crack of the floor.

Annoyed, Raphael searched around for it.

After a couple of seconds, he finally found an entire anthill form which the original ant probably came from.

Out of curiosity, Raphael poked at the entrance with his index finger, eliciting a surge of ants ready to defend whatever threat was coming their way.

Seeing as some of the defender ants were much bigger than the others, Raphael picked one of them up and tried to study it up close, but as the ant bit his skin, this time it managed to hurt him.

In a fit of rage, Raphael picked up a hard stick lying around and excavated the anthill from its entrance, digging into as many tunnels as he could feel with the stick.

Satisfied with his work, he left the mess of upturned dirt, scrambling ants and ruined ant eggs there, and headed back to his dining table.

Throughout it all, Raphael never intended to hurt the ants, but their fragility and insignificance were enough to attract his unperturbed curiosity, which transformed in annoyance once they proved their insignificant nature wasn't absolute.

In the end, they managed to uplift his spirit!

A bunch of ants!

It could be said that their existence finally wasn't meaningless.

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Raphael let out a sigh.

If only he could squish his problems as easily as he could the ants, how easier would it all be.

It turned out that a high figure of the oh so very candid waitresses' business chanced upon Judas and decided to spare her of any more pleasure.

This strange character then invited Raphael, the supposed owner/higher of Judas, to meet with him.

Raphael was cornered to accept this dangerous deal, not because he was forced or he couldn't turn anyone else to God, but because it would be difficult to even find a non believer, this was the extent of the Church's influence.

Having accepted his uncertain fate, he let himself be guided to the meeting place.

As soon as he reached his destination, he was surprised, not by the identity of the high figure, but by the appearance of Judas who he thought would be difficult even get to see.

----------------------------------------

Judas looked at her saviour, a girl roughly the same age as his recent nemesis, Raphael.

He couldn't understand her, but it was exactly because of her mysteriousness that the young figure managed to hold some power in a role that was meant to be purely symbolic.

Soon, Raphael appeared in front of them and the girl spoke without a change in expression.

"Mister might be confused and thinking about the reason I got up this little set up."

Without even waiting for Raphael to process that she had basically read his mind, she proceeded as unmoved as before.

"The answer is simple. I don't have anything to do with this lost lamb behind me and I don't want to have anything to do with her, or anyone really for that matter.

I just wanted to give her a chance, a chance to the path of desirelessness, seeing as she had unknowingly already done the first step.

Oh, also, mister doesn't have to worry about the money, we're going to give it all back regardless of her decision."

Judas had heard more than once of this path of desirelessness from his mysterious benefactor, but it had always been described as just a state of mind and nothing more.

Still, it had greatly helped him into overcoming the growing hormonal afflictions that affected him.

That's right. As his sexually distinguishing features had been crushed repeatedly, he couldn't perform what actions he could before, and to quell the aphrodisiac effects of the love potions given to him by the mad men, he had resorted to unseemly actions.

It was sufficient to say Judas was adamant about following the mysterious girl.

-----

Raphael didn't know what all this talk was about, but seeing Judas' resolute expression, he knew he had to bet on what he had previously intuited.

"Judas nonetheless wants to come with me, isn't that right?!"

After an internal Judas finally agreed, but a blank expression replaced her previous defiant one.

At last, Judas' pride had been destroyed, the problem was that what was left behind wasn't anything good either, a consequence of her transformation being forced by a backlash of control magic, the fine details of which weren't controlled neither by the caster nor by the resistant subject.

With an ugly expression, Raphael stared at the still unperturbed girl, trying to imprint to his memory the appearance of the first and only person that hindered his grander plans for his future.

"May I ask for lady's name?"

"Hm. But of course. I'm Iblis, but mister may call me Mara, I like it more."

"I'll definitely remember. I'm Raphael by the way."

Mara didn't seem to care to the end as Raphael and Judas exited her temporary abode.

What she didn't know was that now Raphael had a ticket to the top of the Church's hierarchy, but maybe she wouldn't care either way.