Noem stared at the person who was now his sister. His smile felt fake. But he knew it didn’t look like it; he’d had more than enough practice putting on airs that conflicted with his true feelings.
“You’re awake!” He said with forced disbelief and an undertone of unbridled joy. “Not just awake, you’re walking around! What happened?!”
Mona didn’t say anything. Her gaze was filled with terror, embarrassment, and more than a little confusion. It hurt so, so bad to see that on what used to be his sister’s face. Almost to the point that he wanted to help her. But that was the problem, wasn’t it? Whether Mona chose to do this to try and garner sympathy, or because she was truly out of her element.
She wasn’t his sister any more. But Noem couldn’t even think about hurting her. He glanced over at his inventory–the large black cabinet he kept stocked with everything he could ever need–and noted that some things were missing. Then he looked down at Mona, who was carrying everything he’d thought was missing.
“Why’re you trying to steal from me?” He asked with genuine hurt. “You don’t even have an inventory to put it in.”
“Inventory?” Mona whispered to herself in confusion and looked down at the ground.
Noem grit his teeth under a toothless smile. She sounded exactly like Mona; nothing of that other girl’s voice from the dream remained. But her cadence was all wrong. And she put too much emotion in her voice. “Yeah, Mona, your inventory. I’ve got your old system interface around here somewhere, but your inventory’s dead and gone.”
Mona lifted her arm and gestured at a small screen embedded in the underside of her wrist. “Isn’t this my inventory?”
An involuntary sigh escaped Noem’s lips. Had the goddess really not prepared Mona for anything? He tilted his head to the side and decided to give Mona a way to keep lying. If she told the truth before she left for university, then maybe he’d help her out just a little. But if she lied to him for the entire time, then there wouldn’t be any part of the relationship worth salvaging.
“That’s your bio-monitor. I had it installed when you got sick.” Noem kneeled down next to Mona and gently grabbed her hand. She felt… warm. For the first time in years, she was warm. “Mona… do you remember me? Do you remember anything at all?”
Confliction blossomed on Mona’s face. She stared deep into Noem’s eyes, and he hated how scared she looked. “I… I don’t know anything, Noem. I can’t remember anything, I don’t know how all this tech-y stuff works, and I don’t know anything about you other than your name.”
She leaned away. Noem saw the remnants of the fear the goddess had planted in Mona’s mind when she called him a monster. But that was the source of conflict. Mona had woken up confused and alone. And she’d expected him to be a horrible person, not a concerned brother.
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In her mind, she didn’t know he knew. He could use that.
He let go of her hand and took a step back. Her eyes widened as if she wasn’t sure if she should feel relieved or abandoned. “Well, if you can’t remember anything, I’ll see how I can help.”
Noem walked past Mona and opened a cabinet that reacted to his Qi. He heard a small gasp a moment later, and turned with a raised eyebrow once he found the med-gel he was looking for.
“Your… your shoulder.” Mona shakily raised a hand and pointed at the shoulder in question. “What did that to you?”
Noem shrugged as he slapped some med-gel on his wound. “Some weird bonded spirit. It’s dead, though, so you don’t gotta worry about it.”
Mona blanched at the mention of a monster. “You killed a monster?”
“...Yeah?” Noem frowned and opened another cabinet filled with grenades. He filled his arms with them and kicked the cabinet closed. Mona watched with a frown as he walked over to his inventory, slid open a drawer, and dumped the half-dozen into it. “I didn’t want to kill the spirit, but it went for little miss meteor. So it had to die.”
“What… what kind of monster?” Mona reluctantly asked, then scrunched up her nose. The real Mona never did that. “Who is little miss meteor?”
Noem turned to look directly into her eyes. He knew why she was asking, but she didn’t know that. “The monster looked like one of us, but made out of vines and wood. Then it turned into a standing antlered prey spirit once I got the anchor out of it.”
Relief escaped Mona’s lips in a quiet sigh. Noem bit back a comment about the apex the goddess had told her to go after. He shoved the drawer closed and bent down to put everything Mona had tried to steal back while he kept his eyes on her the entire time. She had the decency to look embarrassed and a little ashamed at her attempted larceny, but Noem knew what it was like to have to steal to survive.
She didn’t. That was the difference.
“Who’s little miss meteor?” Mona reiterated. “You can’t just say something like that and then gloss over it.”
“Yes, I can.” Noem smiled. It didn’t reach his eyes. “Go back into your room and find the drawer with a lot of red tape on it. That’s where your interface is, and your acceptance letter should be in there too.”
Mona grumbled and pushed herself to her feet with forced amusement. She looked into Noem’s eyes as if searching for something, then shook her head and jumped down. Noem raised an eyebrow and leaned over to see if she was fine, but she was already walking as if she hadn’t just landed an eight-foot jump with a body that hadn’t moved for almost five years.
Except for the little hiss she let out when she thought she was out of earshot. Noem found himself smiling and shaking his head along to the things his cautious and calculating little sister never would’ve done. When he noticed, he didn’t try to stop himself. He needed to be as natural as possible, and that didn’t include emotional swings whenever he reminded himself that Mona was actually Keria Baker. Someone else from somewhere else.
He didn’t know how he’d find it out, but he needed to know how Mona had died. If she’d gone naturally or willingly, then he could grudgingly accept this. But gods didn’t do things willingly. They forced, they coerced, and when that failed, they went ahead and did things anyway. When anything had enough power to ignore everyone underneath them, everyone else’s wants and needs turned into obstacles. Things to be avoided, solved, or brute-forced.
A bitter smirk of experience curled Noem’s lips. It didn’t even have to be a lot of power–just more than whoever was in your way.
Noem shook his head, looked down at the floor, and activated Resilient. He blanked his expression then stepped out over the empty floor. Bent knees softened his landing, and the layer of Qi from his skill quieted the impact to no more than a small thump. Little miss meteor scraped a little closer at the sound, though she returned to her centerpoint a moment later.
The couch creaked under his weight. Noem threw his legs up on the table and tapped out an order to his system to keep everything he knew about Mona a secret. It flashed green for a split second in confirmation, then switched over to a digital display of Noem’s skills and attributes. Something he hadn’t checked in years.
Clatters from someone rushing echoed out from Mona’s room. He tilted his head to the side as little miss meteor pressed herself against his foot. Mona appeared in the doorway a second later with her arms loaded and utter excitement radiating from every pore.
“I’ve got all the stuff! Teach me!”