"... Looking into Jesus the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising shame, and hath sat down at the right hand of the throne of God." -Hebrews 12:2(ASV)

__________________________

{Indian Ocean, 6AM}

With the sun 90% risen over the horizon of the Indian Ocean, it is the perfect backdrop for Berserkir Katsu’s nonsensical laughing.

He holds his stomach, and hunches forward. His tears of laughter from his closed unconscious right eye fall into the ocean at his feet as he shouts taunts down below.

Berserkir Katsu: "aaaaahhahhahahahaa!

Awww, you done playing, Sis?

Pffffffffahahahaahahahoohohohohhuuuuu!

Hm?"

As if stopping because of something below, the Yang Vessel jumps backwards a few yards. The black hole surrounded by a blinding white aura focuses on something incoming and the vessel cackles.

A hand covered in Saku’s SoulSeiõrShield breaches the water and then gasps of relieving breaths come from the conscious Yin Vessel as he tries using the surface as a way to pull himself out of the open waters he was rocketed into.

Berserkir Katsu(thinking): *Aww, because those dumb human bitches who abused Seiõr, she isn’t able to take full control of her improper Vessel infinitely...*

...

...

{Present Day, Mt. Decima,

Higher-Class Residential District 10PM}

[The Roof of General Nephilim’s Home]

Maniae:"...Please, Big Sis, can you help train me so I can get strong enough to be dependable to everyone?"

Silpheed is clearly blushing from being called "Big Sis" but shakes her head out of it, and gives the good hearted, ambitious red eyed young man an over animated nod and a visible puff of determination squeezes through the face covering.

Maniae: "Alright! Can we train right now?!"

Silpheed is uncomfortable with the idea, while the hyperactive teen is still trying to convince them.

[A few minutes later]

Inside the two story household, after their newly created ’brother/sister’ bond, Silpheed and Maniae stand in the hallway after the ’babysitter’ closes the window they used to get on top of the home. 𝗳𝐫𝚎𝗲𝚠𝚎𝗯𝕟𝐨𝘃𝚎𝗹.𝗰𝗼𝗺

Maniae: "So you absolutely promise you’ll start training me tomorrow, right Big SisSilph?"

Completely pink from her new title, Silpheed does a few quick shy "mhm, mhm" nods and the young man is overjoyed.

They halfway walk down the hall, then Silpheed watches Maniae walk into him and Arai’s room, but before he closes the door he turns around...

Maniae(whispers): "Hey, thanks again for being someone else to talk to, Big Sis...

Good night."

He hugs her and the official anointment of trust in her embrace back brings a tear to their exposed left red eye.

Silpheed(whispers): "Goo- niee-, Rirr- Bro-.*

They disengage their hug, Maniae walks back into his room, the door softly closes behind him, and Silpheed takes a deep inhale through their face mask.

However, before the responsible assistant can get the exhale out, the door behind them opens and the beautiful author, Persephone exits with her gorgeous silver sparkling night gown. Her breath taking pink eyes widen in surprise from seeing Silpheed right outside her bedroom.

She takes a flinching step backwards.

Persephone: "Oh! Sorry Silpheed, you scared me..."

The most trusted ally to the General bows in apology.

Silpheed: "Ai- obaahjzz-, Mrrgrrm Burrzehvornii.

Iz- drr- nnniidnn- ouu- niid-?"

The beautiful guest takes a moment while blushing before comedically grabbing Silpheed’s wrist and pulling her in with a careful shut of the door.

Once inside Silpheed gets their first look at the given room to the General’s most treasured writer.

Soft pink christmas lights, matching her optic sensors, are hung around the border of her ceiling.

It adds a certain feminine ambiance to the room that is seemingly foreign to Silpheed.

Her bed is in the right corner from the door, next to a window with the blinds closed.

In the opposite corner is much larger TV than the two boys sharing their room. With a DVD and VHS player sitting in their designed cubby holes, inside a carved wooden entertainment center.

At the foot of her bed is the author’s work desk. There are multiple notebooks, pens, character designs, and crumpled up nonworkable ideas. A replica to her workplace before her incident.

Finally, a bookshelf full of, what else, books and encyclopedias. Placed just out the way of the inward opening bedroom door.

Silpheed admires the contrasting cleanliness and intoxicating aroma of Persephone’s soaps and perfumes, compared to the male teenage slobs next door.

The young girl sits down on her bed and looks across the room at Silph. She pats on the bed next to her with a nervous smile.

Persephone: "Don’t just stand there, come sit down."

Silpheed swallows their spit and shuffles over to the blushing Persephone, eventually sitting down next to her.

Silpheed: "I...Iz- errriidin- ohgai-?"

Persephone is nervously twiddling her thumbs and thinking.

Persephone: "W-Well, I was wondering, since Eden isn’t back, and since you’re the only other girl here, I was wondering if we could talk for a bit..."

Silpheed is taken by surprise from the apparent trust everyone else has given them.

First Maniae and now Persephone, Silpheed has officially become the resident therapist.

The young woman who had the memories of her rape removed, notices the hesitation to answer from the ’masked watchman’ and she gets embarrassed.

Persephone: "I’m sorry!

If you don’t want to-"

A soft hand touches her knee, cutting her off, and she turns her head to see Silpheed clearly smiling underneath their face covering.

Silpheed: "Ai- woo- bii- appii- doo- dawk.

Wahz- ub-?"

The dedicated storyteller smiles at the willingness and then looks over at her desk.

Persephone: "Well, there’s two things, I wanted to talk to someone about."

Silpheed: "Wehh- ouu- ohniii- geh- wuhn-..."

Persephone looks confused at the answer but a soft chuckle comes from behind the thin black covering.

Silpheed: "Mm- juhds- giiddin-, wahh- dii- vurrzd- goeshdun-?"

Persephone, feeling relief about the light hearted tease take a deep breath.

Persephone: "Yesterday, in the middle of thinking about what I wanted to write about in the day’s Chapter, I suddenly thought of something...

...I thought ’Why do I write in the first place’?

Silpheed listens quietly and intently, exactly how they did while letting the young delinquent vent on the roof of the house.

The brunette’s pink eyes shift over to her bookshelf and stay fixated on the neatly arranged encyclopedias and alphabetized books.

Persephone: "I began to wonder, why do I put so much time and effort into researching biblical, historical, and scientific information to better my own story?

Why have I put in all this alternative work, when my grammar sucks and I fall into inconsistencies within the plot that I try to fix with more inconsistencies?"

She lastly peers over to the TV and the video players.

Persephone: "It made me realize, no matter what my reasoning is, I’ll always be a pretentious wannabe author.

I’ll never be able to light a spark in others like the stories that inspired me to start my own.

Does life imitate art, or does the life of the artist, dictate their work?

I’ll shamelessly ’rip-off’ those great writers who I consider as the Gods to my heroes, thinking I’m paying tribute to them.

Why?

Why do I even write at all?

Who am I to believe my mind is on the same level as their’s, when I don’t even know proper comma placement half the time?

I want to believe my story...

I wanted to believe my fictional story is the truth but in my own world.

Instead, all I’ve done was create a semi-meta multiverse of my favorite stories and characters and their powers and, tskkhaha, even some of their likeness.

Who was I kidding?

I’m just ’another storyteller’ whose universe will eventually die from nobody giving a...a shit... excuse my language..."

Silpheed leans back on the soft blanket spread out over the queen sized mattress.

The pink lights reflect off the only exposed eye of the mostly masked mind doctor.

Silpheed: "Whrr-, Mahzdr- Nef-ah-um zoor- dzz- riig- doo- reed- orr- zdorrii-, Brrzefonii."

Persephone: "And I get that he does.

I truly do fuel off his support...

I do...

But to be honest, I- I think he’s just trying to not hurt my feelings.

Mr. Nephilim isn’t a creep or some perv grooming us young girls for his future harem, like some of the rumors I’ve over heard.

Mr. Nephilim, he- he doesn’t like to see us girls get hurt.

So when he tells me that I have almost 60 people as of right now who asked him for a copy of Chapters whenever I’m finished, part of me wants to tell him not to waste the time, energy, and paper, just to protect my feelings over a pipedream.

I’ve never met those 60 people, but I doubt I’ll ever be able to create a story that is different in a way they haven’t witnessed.

Nobody wants to be the audience to a tale that basically shouts to the world as an author, ’I would be a lot worse of a person, if it wasn’t for certain fictional influences sparking my fascination for my imagination’."

Silph feels the manga tucked in their waistband, thinking about how reading the wholesome moments made them blush on the roof, and also helped the new Big Sis conversate to help Maniae’s mental predicament.

Persephone: "I’ll never be able to create characters who can talk directly to those ’readers’ and tell them, from how much care and effort I’ve put into my own universe, it doesn’t seem too farfetched to believe we are all characters, designed from the stories that inspired our own universe’s God/creator/author.

I think...

I think I might need to take a break..."