Jean frowned. She thought over Helt’s words, and scanned for any bit of evidence that she could use to back up her argument, but the only real thing she had to go off of was that Helt couldn’t read Ren’s mind, so he used his [Gift]. Noth was completely correct that the odd voice that had caused Helt to collapse didn’t necessarily have to have anything to do with the Ren; After all, he’d opened his mind to all nearby thoughts. It’s possible that even someone in the nearby town could have been the culprit, let alone the small helpless girl he’d been aiming for.

Helt’s mouth squirmed in unease. He’d already felt like he was floundering defending some kind of crazy conspiracy from the start, so now that a hole was being poked in his story, he truly wasn’t sure how to handle any of it.

“Well, I, you’re right, but I… I’m sure it said something to me to make me think that, but I-I… I can’t seem to remember what it was…”

Noth’s serious and absorbed expression seemed to be losing a bit of its steam from how easily Helt had backed off after having only one part of his story questioned. Jean, who’d been alternating her worried gaze between the two of them, quickly tightened her hold on Noth’s hand and pulled on it, desperately trying to win back some of his belief.

“No! No, no, there’s more evidence! There were other times, just… Just let Helt finish his story already!”

The teen gave a soft apologetic smile to Jean. He knew that the two of them were already having a hard time telling him about these worries of theirs. What kind of hypocrite would he have become if he urged his loved ones to tell him about their worries, but then smashed their bravery down as soon as they did it?

Noth turned to look back to Helt, and gave the boy a reassuring smile.

“I’m sorry, Helt. Please, tell me more.”

Helt’s teeth clenched from the ever increasing pressure he was feeling coming at him from seemingly all directions. Jean and Noth’s gazes felt as if they could pierce through him if he let his tension go even just a little bit, and the possibility of disappointing either of these friends any further than he already might have seemed as if it could crush him if it came true. The boy swallowed repeatedly, trying to get the lump he could feel in his throat down, but eventually he knew he’d just have to figure out how to work past it if he was ever going to escape this awful situation.

“W-well… Uhm… Alright, um, I guess the next weird thing was after I woke up? Ren was crying, and she seemed like she felt guilty about me having been asleep, but um… Th-that could have just been Ren being Ren… And she acted like she was really resolved to help us all out in any way she could ever since then too, but that also could have been caused by anything, s-so maybe it’s just me looking into things too hard…”

Helt’s swimming and unfocused gaze slowly sunk as he talked, and the boy felt less and less confident in what he was doing the more that he spoke. The frustrated gaze of Jean next to him grew more and more severe as his mumbles went on, and eventually her rising impatience burst forth.

“Ugh, just get to the point already! Noth, ever since you woke up she’s been acting more and more strange! She’s been hanging out with us less, spying on us and running away when she noticed, and she’d even said things that are completely unlike her out of nowhere sometimes! That’s all weird but doesn’t prove anything, I know, but listen to this! Sometimes when Helt catches her spying on us she starts thinking crazy stuff and repeating it, and those are the only thoughts that Helt can hear from her! Isn’t that weird?!”

Noth’s face twisted a bit at Jean’s sudden flurry-like outburst. He agreed, it was odd that Ren was suddenly acting differently, but he personally hadn’t experienced any of it. He couldn’t help but think that maybe they had noticed the strangeness while he hadn't because they’d known her longer, or because Noth himself was just very poor in almost all things social… But that train of thought hurt him a little too much to just wholeheartedly accept. There was also the conflicting worry that the children were simply a bit jealous because he’d been spending too much time with Ren as of late, and so they’d looked a bit too much into things and were drawing odd conclusions, but he didn’t want to believe that embarrassing train of thought either.

Jean, who’d been watching as Noth’s face scrunch and twitch as he made one discouraging speculation after another in his head, began to misunderstand. It looked as if perhaps Noth hadn’t believed in her words, or that maybe her argument had been too weak. Her already flustered heart quickly grew all the more so, and soon she couldn’t help but blurt out whatever other information she had, even if she wasn’t quite sure what any of it might have meant.

“Wait, no, but there’s more! What about- Noth, you remember when you made the shadow things, right? And we were all there? Well Ren was there too! She showed up behind Helt and I and scared us, and then she started saying spooky ominous stuff that wasn’t anything like her! And didn’t she say stuff while you were talking to them? Ren wouldn’t be brave enough to just cut in like that! At the very most she would have clung on to one of us and urged us to do something, so how was she able to just speak up like she wasn’t even worried?!”

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“...I do remember that. It was rather strange of her, but I-”

“A-and! Remember the time that I used my [Gift] to help Helt so we could do that favour for you? Well that voice talked to Helt again, and-”

Noth’s head suddenly turned to where his angel had pressed herself against his back. Her body was glamorously leaned half-sideways against him as she sat behind him, and her arms were tightly wrapped around his waist like steel girders were restraining him. Her chin was perched gingerly upon his shoulder, and her lips seemed only a short distance away from his ear. It was shocking to realize that she’d managed to tangle herself against him like this without him ever even having noticed it until she called attention to herself. In fact, Noth was so distracted that he barely even registered anything more that the ranting girl in front of him had been yelling. It took a short moment for him to collect his thoughts back and realize that Serris had just ordered him to do something. Without taking his eyes off of the ethereal angel, or even asking a single question, Noth did as she asked, realizing that despite her calm seeming facade, her tone just now was nothing like her usual happy-go-lucky teasing self.

“Jean, stop it.”

“W-what?! Noth, you aren’t listening! She-”

Finally Noth’s eyes tore away from Serris, looking directly at Jean with a stern stare that absolutely brooked no argument.

“No, Jean.”

For a moment it looked like the overwhelmed girl was about to cry, and after letting out a weak, high pitched whine, she suddenly yanked her hands away and fisted them angrily against her skirt. Helt, whose face had already long looked haggard, seemed as if he would also break out into tears at any moment as he watched the scene unfold between the two. He tried to reach out to the hurt looking Jean in sympathy and comfort, but she only flinched away from him and refused to turn her wettening face towards anyone.

Noth’s mouth formed a thin pursed line as he watched the hurt looks on his sibling’s faces. He felt as if he’d done something awful without even thinking of the consequences. His gaze turned towards Serris with a practically simmering looking question, as if he desperately wanted to know what her justification for making him do such a mean thing was. At first the angel just stayed there quietly, staring back at him, but eventually her expression slid into something more begrudgingly resolved. Serris gracefully stood up, her upright form somehow looking so tall and resolute from where Noth sat on the floor. He’d managed to grow taller than her over the past couple of years, but for some reason he felt like even if he stood up now, he would still never be able to reach her.

The teen simply stared up at her from his slightly awkward sitting posture. From the way she was looking down at him, it almost felt like if he even moved or spoke in a way that Serris didn’t approve of, that something awful would befall all of them. The angel crossed her arms, her suddenly steely gaze now turning to the two upset and softly weeping children across from her.

With each of her words her angelic wings beat, somehow seeming to become longer and larger with every swing until they brushed past his face and reached out towards the kids.

Noth’s mind didn’t seem like it could process a single bit of what was happening. For a while he could only blink blankly and let her words echo around inside of his head. However, even though his mind was refusing to process it, his body still subtly began to react. His head slowly turned to look at the kids, and as the still constant beating sound of Serris’s wings continued, he watched as they repeatedly swept out towards the children. His teeth felt like they were on edge, and his throat felt as if it had become stuck.

The two soft and weak children sitting across from him seemed to look even more fragile than usual. Noth could tell they were both crying, but they were desperately trying to hold it all back and not show such childish sides of themselves. Somehow, such a display only served to make them seem even more weak. His heart already felt like it would break watching these two children whom he loved like family, and now the closest existence to him in the world, his literal saviour, was telling him to hurt them even more.

And the worst thing was that he was sure he had to do it.

The reason that Noth even owed Serris a favour right now in the first place was that he’d literally made the one and only god of this world angry at her, enough for her to have gone missing, and presumably have suffered under a godly wrath, for almost half a year. That guilt was on his hands, and if he were ever going to try to rectify that terrible mistake, he was going to have to do as she asked.

It was only her first day back, and yet how did things already fall in such a horrible way?

But, just because Noth knew that he would have to do what she wanted, it didn’t mean that he knew how, and that was where the real issue truly lied. After all, Noth was no such smooth talker who could simply diffuse such a harsh situation in the first place. Even if she hadn’t ordered it, Noth would be very hard pressed to try and get these two children to listen to his words while they were busy crying.

…But what if he didn’t succeed?

What if he failed to do what she wanted, and Serris did indeed take matters into her own hands?

She was, at her core, an angel made from cruelty…

…And hadn’t she just come back from suffering under the God-dess’s wrath?

And why did she want such a thing from him in the first place?

Everything had turned so awful on what should have been a happy day.