Someone wakes up.

William stood up, leaving Nanami to enjoy the faint aftershocks of her orgasm as he went to get some paper towels to wipe her stomach with. When he returned to her, her head had cleared a bit, though she had a worried frown as she looked at his face.

“…Will? Are you okay?”

“Hm? Yeah, doing perfectly. Better now than I did a while ago, in fact. Why?”

“You’re scowling.”

“Oh… Am I?”

‘Yeah, you are.’

“Yes. Did I… do something wrong?”

Will groaned to himself. “No, not in the slightest. I’m just… being weird.” He began cleaning Nanami’s stomach with the paper towels as he continued. “Ever since Ishtar got into my head, sex has… become a more important part of my life, for better and worse. I just… really wanted to come inside you, and when you said no it kind of felt like a slap in the face.”

“I-I’m sorry. I… got scared. It’s not that I didn’t trust you, but everything was going so fast…”

Will smiled and nodded. “I get it, and believe me, it’s perfectly understandable. If I didn’t care about what you thought, I would’ve never asked in the first place. Only… It’s been a long time since sex didn’t go my way. Like I said, I’m just being weird.”

‘…Yet another sign that our connection is getting stronger. Too bad for you, but at least now you understand what I felt when you were fighting back against me during our early days.’

“Seems I still underestimated what it means for someone to be possessed by a spirit of Ishtar’s caliber…”

Will blinked. The wording made him think of a possibility. “You mean people can be possessed by lesser spirits?”

Nanami nodded. “Remember when I told you things in this realm are the main cause of supernatural phenomena in our world? Everything here is made of aether, so when some creature or individual manages to travel to our world, they do so in spiritual form and usually end up possessing someone’s body, be they animals or people.”

“That’s right. And looking for spirits causing trouble was the mission of our organization.”

Will and Nanami snapped their heads towards the source of the voice. Standing at the beginning of the hallway was Aoi Miyamoto, Nanami’s aunt. Awake, though averting her gaze and with burning cheeks.

“A-AUNTY!?”

“My slumber was shorter than you expected? Put on some clothes and we’ll talk properly,” the older woman said, trying to act cool and unbothered. Will knew better.

He calmly put on his underwear and his pants, remaining shirtless since, well, he no longer had a shirt. On the contrary, Nanami rushed to pick up her clothes and put it on while giving her back to her aunt, her face red as a tomato.

“Should you really be up right now?” he asked. “You passed out on me all of a sudden.”

“I’m fine. Feeling weak, but healthy enough. I can’t afford to sleep too much. There’s too much to do.”

Once they were dressed, Aoi sat on a chair across from Will and Nanami. She looked over them both with scrutinizing eyes and arms crossed before she sighed again. “So you already got your hands on my niece…”

Her words made Nanami frown. “If you fear it was the powers of the Spirit of Lust, aunty, then you don’t need to worry. I did… that out of my own free will.”

“So you trust this man?”

“I approached him out of desperation…” Nanami admitted, looking down at the floor. “But he promised to help me get you back, and well… here you are.”

“Sorry if you found my methods distasteful, but I had to play to my strength or get beheaded like a couple of others,” Will said. “If slapping me on the face will make you feel better, go ahead.”

“Please, I’m not that petty. You did what you had to do, and I can’t argue with results. I feel my soul perfectly clean, so I know you didn’t put me under your control. And I suppose having my chest touched is a slightly better option than a knife through my gut.”

Nanami raised an eyebrow at Will, and he innocently averted her gaze.

Aoi then grimaced and bit her lip hard enough that Will worried she’d draw blood. “So now I’m free to remember all that son of a bitch made me do.”

“…What did he make you do, Aunty?” Nanami asked carefully.

Aoi turned her gaze away from her niece and answered through gritted teeth. “…Made me kill every member of our organization.”

Nanami eyes widened and she covered her mouth in horror. Will felt his chest grow cold, and he now understood her initial reaction after being freed. Her head seemed to have cooled since then, yet… Will could sense a faint pain in her chest.

‘You feel it faintly, I feel it like a dagger twisting inside her. Pretty impressive that she’s able to keep her composure. Still… Will, we’ll need to watch her.’

‘You think she’s still dangerous?’

‘To us? No. To herself…’

Realization dawned on him immediately.

‘Don’t say anything yet. She’s trying to keep herself strong, but she’s near a breaking point. We don’t want her to get defensive nor do we want to make her remember more yet. It’d be too dangerous.’

‘Could you do something about it?’

‘…Maybe, but not as I am. I saw her soul, but didn’t see anything wrong with it. Either that’s simply not the source of the problem or I’m not good enough to tell yet. I can think of solutions. Alter her memory, work on her soul, maybe let her drink of deeper pleasures to alleviate the pain. Problem is, from all those I’m only confident about pulling off the latter, and it’d only be a patch solution, not that different from falling into **** dependence. The other two MIGHT be possible if I could practice more.’

Will pursed his lips, then steeled his gaze and looked at Aoi. “I have my own score to settle with that same son of a bitch. If you’d like to hop on the payback train, you’re welcome aboard.”

Aoi swallowed, but nodded firmly. “I remember. His wife had an affair with you, did she not? I remember him sending another one of his puppets to deal with you and see if you could be a bigger threat. Good job fooling him. Since you didn’t fight back, Jack Evans believes his control on Cynthia to be slipping because of his own sloppy work, not because you may have had something to do with it.’

Will grimaced. “Have you seen her? How is she?”

“Last time I saw her, she had fallen **** from having the mind control reapplied. She’s of use to him, so I can’t imagine he’s hurt her.” Will didn’t know if he should feel relieved or not. “I spent the past few days in here looking for something he ordered me to find,” Aoi continued. “So I haven’t seen her since.”

“Oh.” Will stood up and searched the pocket of his jacket, which was still on the floor. “You mean this?” he asked, taking out the white crystal.

Aoi winced. “Y-You left that forgotten there… on the floor?”

“I don’t even really know what this is, only that it’s a solidified chunk of aether.”

“It is exactly that,” Nanami answered. “It’s an extremely rare find, isn’t it?” she asked her aunt. “That could serve as a powerful source of energy or fetch an incredibly high price on the black market.”

“Yes. I was not privy to his exact plans, but I don’t think he was planning on selling it. He asked me to find as much as I could.”

Will shook his head. “This conversation is all over the place. Let’s start with proper introductions. William Sawyer, ma’am. The Spirit of Lust inside me is Ishtar.”

Aoi raised an eyebrow in a gesture very similar to her niece. Whatever questions she had, however, she saved them for later. “Aoi Miyamoto. And yes, I’d like us to cooperate in bringing Jack Evans down.”

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