Netori: Stealing The Hero's Party!

The pews inside the church had been to the side to make room for a greater gathering of the islanders. But as of now at night, it was being used to rest by the Djinn sisters and by Liliyana to calm Amedith. Sitting away from the priestess who was watching over the girls, the warrior had his eyes piercing a hole in Erika's back, all the while, Liliyana tried to comfort him into sleeping.

"Will you give it up already?" Complained the priestess, tired of being gawked at for a mistake that she didn't really consider a mistake. Turning slightly to the back, she stared back at Amedith and shot back. "At least you now know she cared enough to save you, I don't even know why my parents abandoned me!"

"That doesn–"
Continue your journey on empire

"Enough, you two!" Before Amedith could respond, Liliyana cut him off and even moved her hand between the two and turned it gigantic to prevent them from looking at each other. "Just sleep it off for one day, okay? Please?"

In the end, however, it wasn't her pleading that ended the quarrel but the groaning of the sisters as they came to their senses. First was Seraphim, who seemed visibly disoriented and a bit jumpy from the incident on the ship. As Riyanzah came to as well, her older sister finally realized that it wasn't just her body that was making her feel dazed but also her astral form that refused to manifest.

'My magic…I-I can't use it?

In her moment of realization, her body went cold as she couldn't feel what was essentially half of her invisible form.

Concindently it was around this time that Melicia decided to walk into the church after the conversation with Choux had ended. Walking in through the church's door, she was greeted by weary eyes looking in her direction.

"Everything okay in here?" Looking to Amedith and Liliyana, Mel hoped to talk to her ex and speak some sense into him.

"We were just gonna sleep in a bit," Liliyana responded while the other two held her lips.

"What about those two?" Pointing at the sisters, Mel slowly began to walk close to the group. "Have they not had enough sleep by now?"

"Ughh, your voice pokes like a thorn!" Seraphim complained, her hands caressing her forehead as it continued to hurt.

"Try not to burn this place down, bitchy princess," Mel shot back as she stopped beside Amedith and Liliyana.

"S-shut up, your voice is prickly!" Riyanzah added, holding her head as well.

'Fucking great, we're supposed to act all supportive to these two bitches?'

The mere thought of dealing with the two was enough to make Mel have a headache of her own. Therefore trying to avoid further confrontation, she turned to Amedith and Liliyana by foot.

"Hey, umm…you two doing, okay?" Lowering herself to the ground, Mel crossed her legs and sat down beside the duo. In the meantime, with there being enough people to look after the sisters, Erika got up and began walking towards the door to get some fresh air from outdoors.

Once she was gone, Amedith finally turned his eyes to someone else.

"Yeah, I'm fine, just a bit…" Shaking his head and looking down, Amedith couldn't bring himself to continue the lie. "Why would she hide it? And that lie that she didn't know anything about my mother but did remember seeing you and Aria in a basket, I just don't buy it."

"Come on, why would she do that?" Grabbing his shoulder, Liliyana squeezed it to provide some comfort, but the look in Amedith's eyes refused to lighten up, even a little.

"She was what two-three years old at that time? I don't think she's lying," although Mel's words were rooted in truth and Amedith realized that as a fact, he simply didn't wish to admit it for the mere thought of knowing his mother was blinding him from being reasonable.

"The priests of Athenia and nuns are dead or maybe we could've found someone who was alive when it happened," He whispered, and the others couldn't help but agree.

"Amedith, why don't we sleep for now and think about this later?" Liliyana urged him once more but this time gently pushing him back by the shoulder onto the mattress they were sitting on, she forced him to get some shut-eye before frying his head overthinking everything.

"I'll keep an eye on the sisters while you sleep," Mel suggested before moving away from the duo and sitting next to the sisters.

Laying on mattresses as well, the two kept glaring sideways at Mel just hoping she wouldn't talk.

"Just sleep, you idiots…" Shrieking at her words, the two covered their ears, turned away and tried their best to fall asleep once again.

The sisters weren't unaware of what they'd done, the murder of their brother and yet it failed to register in their heads. Was it because of the brainwashing or simply a state of denial for them? It was hard to say, even so from looking at them, the two appeared as new people with nothing from their past truly defining them. Almost as if in that fire their past selves had burned and left walking on the other end was a blank slate ready to be filled in.

However, with a flicker of their personalities still hovering on the surface, Raven wanted them to be treated right until the duo could be assimilated into the party and eventually used for good on this journey.

'I guess I'll have to sleep in the morning, huh?'

Looking around at the sleeping faces, Mel wanted to sleep as well, but couldn't since she was supposed to keep watch. And although she'd hoped to sleep in the morning, her schedule along with the schedule for the rest of the party was about to be too hectic to get any rest.

Now, why would that be exactly? That is because Raven wanted to recruit more people from Athenia and Elenaria before facing Aran and the dreaded devil Tariyaan. The first person on that list was the sorceress who'd been handed the prisons from the fleet, followed right by her master, Mono Aurarelia.