It didn't take long for us to realize the scene we had caused in the middle of the street with Aru, so we quicklt decided to relocate to a nearby coffee shop. This one is yet another world-renowned brand, with an even more suggestive logo, it seems. A mermaid spreading her legs, is what I'd best describe it as? Eh, I'll just ignore that horribly obscene design choice and call it by its name - Starbucks.
"What? So you went all the way to the top of Mount Everest only for your boyfriend to dump you?" Freddy clicked his tongue in quick succession, "How despicable, to treat a lady like that after all she's done to be with you..."
"Ex boyfriend." Issei made sure to rub it in, "Also uncle, your intentions are as clear as day."
"Frankly, I'd say going for a woman who just had her heart broken is already scummier than what Ouroboras did." I shrugged, "Then again, we're talking about literal Gods here, so I guess you wanna go big or go home."
"Do you idiots have any idea how much embarrassment you put me through?" Aru slurped up all the coffee from her venti cup, "Because you guys made him mad, he immediately snapped at me in front of all the other Gods the moment I jumped to hug him! Urk, I'm gonna need more coffee..."
"I'll go get it for you." Freddy immediately dashed to make another order.
That dude, he still thinks he has a chance with the literal Water Goddess? I mean, props to him for not giving up, and I can certainly understand why a man would be charmed by her... curvaceous appearance, but does he even realize who he's dealing with? This bratty Goddess literally traveled the entire world over countless times just searching for Ouroboras in my homeworld. In other words - She's crazy obsessed with him. There is absolutely no way they don't get back together by the next meet. It's not even up to Ouroboras at this point. It's all her, I'm certain.
"Sniffle, so... What do you want?" She asked in between sobs, "A how-to guide on making megavolt batteries? That's impossible."
"Maybe for your world's humans, but what if we told you this guy right here can Materialize whatever he wants as long as he knows the structure of it?" Issei pointed to my hand.
"Hm? Ah, yes, the Iros." She nodded slowly, "I guess that'd make it possible then, but still not easy."
"Is it really that bad?" I chuckled as Freddy came back with her second cup.
"Dunno, see for yourself." She shrugged as she pulled out a rather complicated looking blueprint from her bosom, "If you can understand and make this, then my job here is done. If not, you're gonna have to find another way."
"Hey, give it here." Freddy motioned for me to hand it over to him, "Something you should know about me is that I have a special power myself that's just perfect for these situations."
"Uncle, if you say you have the ability to figure out a blueprint by sniffing and/or licking it, I'm taking your airbike and leaving you stranded alone in LA."
"Wow, I forgot how similarly we think, nephew." He flashed him a carefree grin, "Look, if you don't do that, I'll let you have a sniff too."
"...Fine. Lune, hand the blueprint over to uncle."
"Like hell I will, you horny bastards!" I held it close to my chest before bashfully recalling where it had been kept just moments before, "A-Ahem! Look, if anyone's gonna figure it out, it's gotta be the Famed Inventor himself, right? Look, I'm calmly placing it down on the table so that no one is touching it-"
"Yoink!" Issei grabbed it so smoothly it actually took me a while to even register the motion, "Now, itadakima~...su?"
"Don't tell me you actually expected me to give you a whiff of my scent, horny mortal." Aru sighed, "It was a flashy way of Materializing the blueprint, nothing more. It wasn't actually in my boobs the entire time."
"Yeah, she's right." Freddy too inspected it with his nose with a rather disappointed look, "It just smells like a dusty factory. None of that good-good scent."
"What a way to refer to it." I facepalmed, "In any case, this whole thing seems really elaborate. It's gonna be tough to Materialize even one."
Not just that, but even if I were to Materialize all the individual parts and try and combine them together to assemble the battery manually, it'll still be really difficult to accomplish. The entire mechanism is extremely compact, really powerful, and thus extremely dangerous and unstable to put together with human hands. I assume that the ones we find in stores are all made in factories, where mechanical arms and tools are used instead of a measly human's fingers. Still, this is a step in the right direction.
"There, I did my part." Aru got up to leave, "So now you're gonna have to help me get back together with my darling husband."
"Eh? N-No, I really think you should let the iron cool off for now and-!" Freddy panicked.
"Silence." She bent the leftover coffee from her cup to spray him in the face, "Your words intrigued me, but nothing more. I agree I may be a bit too flawed of a Goddess for someone as great as the Sun God, so because I helped you, it is only natural for you to not leave for your next destination until I have had all my issues sorted."
"We're never gonna leave LA, are we?" Issei whispered to me.
"Y'know, the more I look at the two side by side, the more I've come to realize that Aru and Ouroboras really compliment each other." I sighed, "They're both insufferable it seems, and they're so flawed it's actually scary to think they're the ones who govern our worlds."
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"Alright, what would be step one of improving myself?" Aru asked us as we walked through the busy square.
"Stopping with that nasty habit of trying to drown others with your water powers would be a great start." I raised a point.
"I don't do that to my darling, so that one doesn't apply to me."
"Wait, so if it doesn't have anything to do with Ouri, you're just gonna ignore our advice?" Issei tilted his head, "No wonder he dumped your sorry ass-Ghak! Cough, cough!"
She just drowns you any chance she gets, doesn't she? What a scary person, it's good that I know when to keep my mouth shut, unlike someone...
"In that case, let's go with what you described yourself as and use that as a basis." Freddy applied logic to the situation, "You called yourself a horny, annoying and overbearing idiot of a lover, right? GAHK-!"
And so another Kaido falls. Well, they're not dead, but they certainly did both have to throw up the water in the middle of the street because of this. You poor fool, Freddy. What made you think calling her that would ever amount to you not getting the same punishment as your nephew? Seriously...
"And you?" She suddenly turned around to point her finger at me as well, "Do you have any propositions?"
"...I think you're perfect, so maybe the issue is in him-GHUHK!"
"My darling is without flaw, take that back." She sighed resignedly, "I can understand Fuuji, because the only women he's touched are of the digital kind in otome games, but I expected more useful advice from you two."
"That's offensive, you know?" Freddy raised his tone only to yet again be shut down by mere water.
"I can't help it, I've never had any issues with my wife-Well, there were some minor issues..." I recalled all the crap I put her through, both Cecily and Marina respectively, "Actually, how DID they manage to put up with me?"
"This guy's a lost cause, I tell ya'. But I'm fine though." Issei continued from where I left off, "I got two lovely ladies waiting for me to get back home, and we've never once fought since the three of us started dating."
"That is heavily dependent on those two girls both wanting to remain friends with each other first and foremost." Aru peered into his memories briefly, "Me personally? If darling ever said he wanted another lover, I'd just kill the entire female population until he physically couldn't do that. Y'know, like a good wife."
"Yandere!?" Issei and Freddy jolted, "Woman, you're demented! Come on, Lune, let's bail!"
Dragging me away from her by both wrists, the duo had ran and ran like their life depended on it. Certainly, what she had said was quite eerie, but I doubt she was actually being serious. Yeah, the Aru I know is bratty, but she wouldn't ever do something like that. Ah, now I see what Ouroboras meant when he said the other Gods are only worse than him. Maybe, in the end, Ouroboras was the tamest of them all? If that's the case though, I pray we don't ever come into contact with any of the other ones during our stay here. Auros would probably eat us whole, Selzion and Prylos... Well, never met the two, so it'd be kind of rude to assume, but from what Ed told me, I can certainly see Selzion just deleting us from the Universe Cycle altogether. He did try and go after me once I revived, after all.
"Guys, you can stop now." I ordered, "She didn't follow us."
"I did, though?" Aru's extreme chest suddenly popped into my field of view before anything else.
"Yahh! What the hell, how!?"
"I said it before, didn't I?" Aru smiled a devious grin, "You aren't leaving until I'm fixed."
"Goodbye, Cecily..."
"Goodbye, airbike..."
"Goodbye, 3P..."
Hold on, how come our goodbyes only got worse the longer they went on? Dammit, we managed to secure the blueprints for the megavolt batteries, but at what cost? Still, it seems Aru's words didn't actually mean anything as ominous as she had made them sound like. Right, she's a heartbroken lady, first and foremost. She just wanted someone to accompany her while she tries to get her mind off things. This bit of information only clicked for us after we visited our 10th site in LA. Universal Studios, Griffith Observatory, Disneyland, Hollywood, the Santa Monica Pier, Beverly Hills, a nostalgia fest in Little Tokyo, just to name a few. By the time dusk began to fall, we were all tuckered out, but pretty satisfied nonetheless.
"That was awesome! I feel totally better after this!" She gave us her first honest smile since our meeting, "Going alone to all these famous places would have been way too depressing, but right now I feel like I'm ready to face the world again!"
"You mean your darling?" Issei smirked.
"My darling IS my world!" She hissed, "And trust me, I'll get him to say he loves me again! Just you wait!"
"Hey, where you going?" I asked, "Don't tell me you're leaving us already?"
"Hmph." She returned a wry smirk at the three of us, "You have a long journey ahead of you, boys. You've helped this old Goddess deal with a new emotion swimmingly, so I think you've earned the right to move on as well."
And just like that, she left within the blink of an Eye. Literally. I blinked and she wasn't there anymore. Gods are truly something else...
"Yeah..." Freddy nodded knowingly, "When I get my wish, I'm gonna wish for a girl just like her to fall for me."
"Now you're kinda sounding yandere-ish yourself, uncle." Even Issei winced at that one, "Wanting a girl just like the one that refused to date her? It's like, a new low squared."
Hey, I got that reference!