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“So… why did you call me here?” I couldn’t help but ask Lute.
This morning, she suddenly took me to the side and spoke in a weird, encrypted tone about wanting me to come to her room after working hours. Truth be told, I got a little bit excited by what this implies.
Lute and I, all alone together, in her bedroom, my heart kept racing with wild thoughts going to places I am not proud of…
I barely managed to make it through the day before ending up making a portal straight to the HQ, gunning towards the lieutenant's room, momentarily stopping myself to take a deep breath, and knocking on the door.
I could hear footsteps getting closer and closer, and with each step, I got more and more tense until finally the door opened, allowing me to find Lute and... A huge knife collection?
So here we are now, my eyes scan over the pile of knives. Wow, this is a lot of knives stored in one place.
They came in different shapes and colors, fuck, there is even one that is almost my size.
Lute remained silent as she went further back in the bedroom, rummaging through the collection. “You aren’t planning on killing me, r-right?” I ask while actively playing with the collar of my robe, trying not to seem nervous. This must be karma for the not-so-pure thoughts I’ve been having earlier.
“Oh, please, if I wanted you dead, I would have done so a long time ago.” She rolled her eyes, turning back at me, while holding the knife of her choice, which was a plain silver knife with a somewhat thick handle, and then proceeded to walk closer to me.
“Glad to know our relationship has finally gone to the next stage then~” I remark, which made her ironically throw staps at me with her gaze.
"I warn you not get too comfortable, one wrong move and it’s your end. Now get inside!” Her lips pursed with annoyance even more, cute, I obey coming in and closing the bedroom door behind me.
“You still haven’t answered my question,” I ask, then pointing a finger at the knife she’s holding, “First, not to hobby shame but stuff collecting has gone a bit out of fashion for me, Lute, second, why knives exactly? ” I wonder out to the lieutenant.
Her mouth curved into a smile as she took my hand to place the knife on it; my heart skipped at the motion. Her hand is so tiny against mine, but at the same time so warm, I couldn’t help but wonder if it would also feel nice caressing my face.
“First, there is no reason in this world not to collect knives; they are truly the pinnacle of creation. Second, I got an idea on how to improve you as a leader, Abel.” She retorts as she slowly leads the hand holding the knife right to her chest area, “stab me, Abel,” she urged with the most delighted look I have ever seen her show.
blinking once, then twice, then thrice.
“WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT, LUTE???”
I roared at her, trying to free my hand from her iron grip. She looked completely perplexed by my reaction.“I don’t get why you're making it such a big deal. It’s just one stab,” she queried.
I know Lute has some insane- I mean quirky traits to her personality, but this is a whole new level.
“How on the heavens does fucking stabbing you make me a better leader?” Finally managing to free my hand, I immediately backed myself to the furthest corner of the room away from that crazy exorcist.
Lute gasped at my act of offense towards her apparent genius idea. She then proceeded to say with a sharp tone, “Well, if you need it to be spilled out to you so bad, you fucking imbecile, you lack ruthlessness, you fold in the moment someone so much so raises their voice at you, and you let the soldiers walk all over you. That is not how a good leader acts. You need to learn to strike down anyone who imposes on you and punish those who don’t follow your rules,” the lieutenant explained as she drew closer to me, much to my dismay, my eyes fixated on her so as not to risk losing track of her. I need to fucking run.
Unfortunately, she caught wind of what I am planning to do, which led her to throw the knife at me before I could attempt my escape.
In a reflex, I caught the knife only to find Lute’s face inches away from mine, feeling her hot breath close to my mouth, making me freeze in place as I lose myself examining her facial features, and my god, she is even more beautiful up close.
“let’s cut to the chase, Abel, we both know i’ve been nothing but a bitch to you ever since you become the commander of the exorcist army, that is not how a lieutenant should treat her boss, yet here you are, allowing it” she shifted closer to my ear, whispering “you need to put me back at my place, sir,”.
Oh shit, oh shit, oh fucking shit, this can’t be real!
In a panic, I pushed Lute away from me, resulting in her falling all the way down from the impact.
Tears are threatening to spill out of my eyes, which has aided more of how pathetic I must have looked. “Lute, please, I am too vanilla for this!” I beg the cruel lieutenant to spare me from such a fate. I can’t go through this because of the terrifying realization that I am very much turned on by this.
Lute left herself up, clenching her jaw, her muscles tense from pure rage.
opps, looks like I angered the beast…
In a swift motion, she bounced at me. I yelped, thinking she was planning to attack me, but much to my surprise, she just snatched the knife from my hand. “Ugh, stop being such a crybaby and just do it! It’s not that hard, see?” she calmly said as she proceeded to jab the fucking knife right through her stomach.
Golden blood poured all over the floor, tainting her uniform in the process. My eyes widen, terror overwhelming all my senses from the view laid before me, “LUTE! WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?” I ended up rushing to her side.
“Relax, it’s fine…I think,” she reassured with a confident smirk, like I will let that fool me.
“I’m sorry, YOU THINK?” This is it, she finally pushed me to Hestaria. Forgive me, father, I have failed you once again.
The angel pulled the knife out of her torso with ease, leading to even more blood to spill out and make a mess all over the floor. I think I’m gonna get sick.
“Yeah, now you know how it’s done, go on,” offering the knife to me one last time to finish the job, her body grows weaker as she lies in my lab, “this will be enough to make it up to you,” she’s started to space out, giving out small, shallow breaths.
not bearing this scene any longer, my eyes shut out. Why do you keep doing this to yourself, Lute? That is not how you expect to be treated. I wish that one day you’ll see yourself the same way I do.
“Hey, Lute?” I call out to her. She hummed softly to show that she’s listening to what I’m about to say, “did…did dad use to do things like this to you?” I ask, fearing the possible answer escaping her lips, perhaps before the hell debacle, I wouldn’t reach such a conclusion. But now, after finding out about the extramentation and the cruelty dad’s been committing for the last decade, I wouldn’t put anything past him.
Lute weakly turned her head away, with a shaky breath, she confessed, “sadly, he never went through with it…no matter how much I begged.” Her hand quickly covered her mouth to trap any sobs from surfacing.
…
The man was a saint for keeping this woman in check for god knows how long.
“So let me get this straight, you want me to stab you, because dad didn’t want to do it? Even though he was a ‘good leader’ by default.” I deadpan as I try to make sense of her logic.
“No, no, you don’t get it. You see, Adam had the aura right, but he needed a bonus, and that can be done by personally stabbing his underlings as an act of pure leadership. You, however, need it to kickstart your journey to success, so yeah, it’s just common sense.”
“No, the fuck not, you dump bitch!” My blood pressure reached a halt from the nonsense she’s been hurling at me. “I will say this once: you are not some kind of training dummy to be impaled by weapons left and right, you are my lieutenant. If I’ve ever seen you try to entertain such harmful thoughts as this one to me or to anyone else, you will be permanently demoted from your position, am I clear?” My voice deep in tone as I hissed at her my order.
“But I-”
“Am , I , Clear?”
“Yes, sir…” defeated, she nodded to confirm her compliance. I must say, this isn’t a bad look on her; she looks like a puppy that has been denied its treat because of its mischief. It’s truly fascinating how she manages to go from psychotic to adorable in the span of seconds.
“Good girl~” I praise, “and since we are already too deep in it this time, maybe I should reward you, what do you say?” I can see the excitement rushing to her face the moment she understood what I'm getting at.
“You’re really going to do it?” she asks to make sure if I’m being serious or not, and to prove that I indeed am by holding the knife closer to her, pointing the sharp edge right above where her heart should be.
“Of course, close your eyes and count to three”, I issue the command, and she happily applies, closing her eyes and taking a deep breath before starting to count.
“1…2…3- Och!” confused from the weird placement of the pain, her eyes open only to see my hand retracting away from her forehead. It didn’t take her long to realize that instead of stapping her, I had flicked her head. “Wha? Abel?”
Even though I’ve been trying to keep serious, a snort managed to escape due to the lieutenant's priceless reaction, “HAHA, hey, I said you’ll get a reward, but didn’t say what kind.”
But it had to end when I saw that Lute’s face had distorted from confusion to sadness, with tears falling from it.
Wait, Lute can get sad? Before I managed to do something to comfort her, she grabbed me by the collar and threw me all the way to the end of the room, landing right on top of the knives. Thank God my robe is sturdy enough to shield me from attacks like this, or else I would have been a goner. “Lute, did I do something wrong?” My voice filled with concern as I tried to get back up.
“Abel, y-you MONSTER, I thought I could’ve trusted you,” she declares, then dramatically running away out of the bedroom, wailing for any poor angel nearby to hear.
…Eh, she’ll get over it, I hope.
Still, I’m kinda glad she started to open up to me more now, even though no one really cared or even tried to help her with her grieving. I did care about her because I understand.
Dad never really garnered that many positive relationships when he was alive; he was always deemed a nuisance in everyone's eyes, and with his death, the angels seemed more relieved than anything, like they were always secretly praying for him to disappear.
Even if I’m his son, I was never bothered by it. Why should I? They are angels, born to be perfect in a perfect world; they don’t really grasp human imperfections. that we can’t simply stay happy and content, never to be sad or angry, never to voice frustrations. Aside from Dad and me, the angels never really interacted or associated with human souls, despite them sharing the same realm. I was always easy, compliant, and happy, which is why I was accepted and deemed god’s favorite.
Dad, on the other hand, never went along with what they wanted. He argued, challenged, and demanded of them so he could secure a place for humanity to reside in neither suffering nor fear. This was more than enough reason for them to segregate him to no end, but Lute is different; she truly understands our complex nature. She was loyal to him; she followed him everywhere and always supported him. I know Dad doesn’t ease up to anyone that easily, but it’s obvious Lute was very dear to him.
Despite everything that happened, I’ll make sure she’s happy and protected because that’s what he’ll want.