Falling for You

Side Story 8 - He had not forgotten

Venti's POV

 "I'm going with you."

 "I'll be fine alone."

 "Venti, you got your body back a few days ago. I can't just let you go alone."

 "I'm just visiting Ei to pick something up. I'll be back in a few days."

 This time instead of answering he merely glared at me.

 I get that he's worried, after all, my previous powerless state was the reason I put this off for so long, but I really couldn't bring him along this time.

 "You get four days at most." Xiao spat out eventually, most likely realizing that he wouldn't be able to convince me this time.

 "I'll be back in three!"

 I pressed a kiss on his cheek and before he could react, I teleported away.

 "Bye, bye, Xiao Xiao!"

 It didn't take me long to reach Inazuma. It did take quite long, however, to actually find Ei.

 "Well, that's an unexpected combination."

 Surprisingly, Ei was with Morax.

Zhongli's POV

 "Barbatos?"

 What is he doing here?

 I came to visit Ei since we hadn't seen each other in a while and Ajax wanted to go to Inazuma for Celestia knows what reason.

 "What are you doing here, Barbatos?" Ei asked sounding both annoyed and surprised.

 "I just came to pick up that trash I left here last time." Barbatos smiled.

 Trash?

 "Trash?" Apparently, Ei had the same question as I did.

 "The thing I threw aside before I left with Xiao last time. It's rather long and ugly." The smile never left his face as he spoke, but that smile somehow gave me a bad feeling.

 "Ah! That one. But to call it trash-"

 "Isn't it though? If not trash, I don't know what else it could be."

 Ei eventually took out a purple orb with a somewhat awkward expression.

 I could finally see what it was that Barbatos was looking for.

 "A soul?"

 "Trash. Not even worth recycling." Barbatos said, taking the orb.

 "I do wonder what you did to him, Barbatos. He begged me to kill him when I found him."

 "Is that so? Hmm... No idea. Maybe he was having a bad day."

 Bad day my ass.

 Ei might not realize it, but I could see what state that soul was in.

 Even as we spoke, it was being ripped apart over and over again.

 "What are you planning Barbatos?" I couldn't help but ask.

 Now that I looked at him more carefully, I realized that he looked somewhat angry under that smile. If he was so angry that his rage was leaking through, we might need to take some countermeasures.

 "Nothing much, just disposing of some trash." He waved the orb around.

 "Just tell me-" What you're planning.