Reapers

Chapter 47: Aw, They're in Love! Go Away Ren

"Are you okay? You've been really quiet since we got home," Roman asked Virgil.

"I'm fine," Virgil answered, clearly not fine. He was back in his spirit form so he could heal faster, pacing around and chewing on his thumb.

"I saw Remus and Janus earlier, are they okay?"

"Yeah, they didn't get hurt. The fight was easy once they appeared."

"Then what's wrong? Something's clearly bothering you."

Virgil sighed, walking over to the couch and sitting next to Roman. "I was right about the phantoms being summoned."

The human frowned. "The class fours?"

"Janus said he found a summoning circle where the first class four appeared last week, and then Remus found one in the room the phantom appeared in today. Both had a golden smear on them, reaper blood."

"Can they figure out who did it? Through DNA or something?"

"I wish, but reapers don't really have DNA. You need a body to have that, so it just doesn't work. I don't know, it's confusing. It was confusing enough when I first learned about all this modern science stuff."

"So someone is summoning strong phantoms, and you guys don't have any idea of who is doing it."

"Oh we have an idea, what we don't have is proof. Janus is suspicious of Ren, since she hasn't shown up at any of the attacks."

"I haven't seen her around lately, have you?"

"I haven't seen her since she tried to shoot Patton, which is odd since that was months ago." Virgil pulled out his phone and went onto his maps. There were five black dots in the city, two together, one at Roman's apartment, and two stray ones. Virgil clicked on both, seeing that they were Sal and Ren. Roman looked over his shoulder to see Virgil zoom in on the area she was at, and they both saw two red dots near her disappear.

"She must be a good shot."

"One of the best, even I have to admit that. I've noticed for my own safety, in case she snaps one day."

"Like, turn into a shadow?"

"No, in case she decides to stop following the rules and tries to hurt me. Shadows don't use their weapons, they disregard it and fight with tooth and claw."

"Why does Ren hate you?"

Virgil set his elbows on his knees as he leaned forward as he turned off his phone. "I have no idea, clearly I did something during the world wars. Before then she didn't care. I just don't know... I mean... I don't know."

"What?" Roman asked, leaning forward so they could see each other better. "Did you figure something out?"

"When I was fighting that class eight during the world wars, there was a reaper who put herself in danger just to save me. She pushed me out of the way and got hit, while I was only scrapped. I was still in bad shape, luckily Janus and Sal were there to help me get to safety, but the reaper that saved me faded. Before the world wars, Ren hung out with her a lot, and I mean a lot."

"Do you think Ren blames you?" Virgil nodded, making Roman frown. "But that wasn't your fault! The other reaper jumped in the way to save you!"

"Her grief could have turned into anger, and she needed to point the anger at someone. But... there's no way she would be angry enough to summon class four phantoms to get back at me, that's too reckless! There has to be another reason that she hates me."

"Sometimes anger can fester into something worse."

Virgil sighed, turning away from Roman. "I don't know. But I really want to find out who is really behind these summonings. It's possible that they've summoned weaker phantoms as well, and that they're the reason behind the growing number of phantoms."