Lola’s tail whipped through the air, piercing straight through the man's chest and appearing on the other side. The man’s heart thumped as blood gushed out of it, coating the tip of her tail.

A groan escaped the man’s lips. Blood poured out from the gaping hole in his chest, leaving the floor slick with blood.

Lola ripped her tail back through the man’s chest, widening the holes as she pulled the heart towards her face with curiosity. She tapped it with her long fingernails, sending ripples of pain through the man’s body.

He groaned in agony, but the man still refused to speak.

“Ooh, a defiant little one. This is gonna be fun!” Lola grinned as she ripped the heart of her tail, squeezing it tightly in her hand. The man writhed in agony as her tail whipped across his body, leaving deep lacerations in its wake.

Guess I should try and find out what I can. Unphased by what was happening before him, Ed focused his attention on the man’s strings. Let’s see if I can find anything useful. He noticed several red strings attached to the man’s blood and started feeling them out with his senses to try and find what he needed.

He felt that some of the strings were far older than the others and guessed that they dated back to when the man was alive on Earth. I don’t need to look that far back. It won’t give me anything relevant to the current situation.

Falling back into the comfort of the void, Ed found himself on the streets of Pride City. Looking around, he noticed that he was close to the royal estate. The man he was looking for was sitting in a car nearby, with a headset on and typing away at a laptop. Jumping into the car behind him, Ed looked over the man’s shoulder to see what he was doing.

The screen flashed rapidly between different tabs, as the man simultaneously kept watch on a crowded square from multiple angles and passed information off to another person.

At the front of the crowded square, Elaine was standing on a raised platform, addressing her people.

This must be the first of the attacks. So, he was there making sure the attack went off without a hitch. I wonder if there was anybody else working with them?

The man flicked between different camera views, showing multiple angles of the square, as well as views of the surrounding streets. The cameras all seemed to be hidden from view. How long did this take for them to set up? Or did they just hack into cameras that were already there?

Ed watched on as Elaine’s speech ended, and she disappeared off stage. The camera swapped to a small hallway at the back of the stage that connected the square to the street behind it. Elaine appeared at one end of the hallway, completely alone.

“Now!” The man said over the headset as she reached the halfway point.

Out of the shadows behind Elaine, the snake man pounced on her, his teeth biting down on her shoulder. Caught off guard, she threw her elbow back, slamming it into the man’s chest. As if hit by a train, the man was hurled back down the hallway and disappeared from view.

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A moment later, the snake man appeared in the car beside him. The laptop was shut down and thrown to the passenger seat, and the man quickly drove away.

Slowly, the city faded away, and Ed found himself back in the void. Seems like they laid low for a while after that. I can’t find any newer strings after that, so he probably wasn’t involved in the second attack at all. Meaning the other guy probably attacked all on his own.

Ed sighed while thinking through what he just saw. Is there anything else closely related to this? Ed felt out the strings but couldn’t find anything else that happened at around the same time. This does make me wonder though. How does fate operate now that they’re in Hell? Does its criteria for a sin change now that they’re already dead? Their fate is still being tracked after death, and at least from what I’ve seen, it still feels the same. Is it just because of how heavily tied Hell is to Earth that fate just treats it the same?

Whatever the case may be, I still don’t know if it’s just these two, or if somebody else ordered them to attack her. I can only see the act itself, not the planning of it. I’d have to follow their string of fate into the past if I wanted to do that, and I don’t think I can go that far back.

I’ve already checked how far back I can see when attached to the same point on the string, but I haven’t seen how far back on the string I can actually go. Sensing the outside world, he found that Lola was still torturing the man. Guess now is a good a time as any.

He attached himself to it and started following the string back in time. Ignoring everything that was going on around him, he followed the string until he slammed into what felt like a solid brick wall.

Ow, seems like this is the limit. Looking around, he still found himself in the dungeon, but this time without the rest of the group. Feeling out the situation, he came to the conclusion that he could go back five hours. That feels about right, I was in that truck for a while, and yet I could still go back to the cafe at any time. I was too focused with what I was doing to check if I could still go back that far when I was in my cell.

So, I can follow the string back five hours, and I can stay anywhere on it and go back an hour. That’s good to know. I feel like I can definitely do better in the future, I’m just not strong enough yet.

Opening his eyes, Ed found Lola still torturing the man. Guess I wasn’t gone for too long then. He turned back to Elaine and caught her attention. “I’ve just checked, and while he was involved in the attack at the square, he wasn’t involved in what happened at the café at all. From what I could find, there didn’t seem to be anyone working with the two of them, but we can’t rule out the possibility that they were ordered to attack you by somebody else.”

Elaine looked at Ed with interest, pondering over what he said before nodding. “That’s good to know. We haven’t been able to get anything from him at all, and I think Lola has gotten her fill. Do you have any suggestions?”

“I think we’ll get more information from the one who attacked you. I don’t see much of a point in torturing this man any longer.” Ed said.

Elaine nodded before raising her hand. Lola stopped slashing out with her tail and took a step back.

The man sported massive gashes and holes all over his body. He looked up at Elaine with an exhausted look in his eyes, before spilling all the information he had.

Elaine squeezed her hand shut. The man’s body was squeezed into a ball. Wisps of blue smoke seeped out of the ball of meat, as his soul was ripped out of the body.

“Extract any information from his soul to see if what he said was true, then send him to wander in Limbo for all eternity.” She commanded.

The nearby guard walked over and caught the soul in a gemstone before walking down the hallway.

Why didn’t she just do that from the start? “Pardon me for asking, but if you could get the information you needed, then why bother with torturing him in the first place?” Ed asked.

Lola jumped in before Elaine could answer. “Because it’s fun!” She said with a smile, casually tossing the heart up and down as if it was a tennis ball.

“And also because he deserved the punishment. He is one of my people, but he broke the rules set forth by my father, and for that he got what was coming to him. Now, let’s move on to the next one.”