Servamp: In Our Next Life

Of Visitors and Bells

Mitsuo had seen a lot of weird shit in his time.

A lot, a lot of weird shit.

But he'd never seen anything like this.

Apparently... the eve of sloth was back. Shirota Mahiru, the eve of sloth was back. Even though he was staring at the face he'd known as Masaaki, the boy behind those honey brown eyes was Shirota Mahiru.

He didn't think he could describe a weirder situation if he tried. There was no evidence that this could happen, no reason Mitsuo shouldn't think Sloth had gone delusional and Masaaki was messing with all of them. But...

He found he believed it.

For some reason he was dead convinced this was a wrong that'd been rightened- the first that would be. He believed that Mahiru wouldn't he the first to come back, though who else would he couldn't say. There was even something funny about this, something that made him wanna quirk an eyebrow, smile and say "of course"-

"Ow!"

Mitsuo sighed and looked away.

Standing next to Mahiru was a man with brown hair. He had a cheerful smile on his face that reflected in his light blue eyes. He wore white robes with a black cross pattern on them. He was holding a few strands of hair he'd pulled from Mahiru's head.

"Oi," Kuro snapped, pulling Mahiru closer by the shoulders. "Watch it."

"Ah haha... forgive the bastard, Sloth, Mahiru-kun," Mitsuo cut in. "He has 0 boundaries and sense of courtesy."

"The bastard" was of course Kono Tsuyoshi, Mitsuo's friend from C3. This was the guy he got a lot of his servamp info from, the guy who he'd gotten into a betting contest with at an auction. Tsuyoshi had won that, having the backing of C3, but the many other stupid competitions they'd had over the years and the information he gave Mitsuo meant there were no hard feelings.

"Mi-chan~! You're being mean!"

"Ah haha... it's fine," Mahiru replied awkwardly, patting Kuro's arm. "I was just surprised that's all."

"Okay~! That's good," Tsuyoshi remarked, putting the strands of hair into a small plastic bag. "Now! We got enough to run a couple tests. We'll send word when there's results. Expect to hear back in like 2 days."

"Thank you," Mahiru returned, nodding politely. "Uh... if it's okay I wanna ask a question."

"Fire away!"

"Do you know which bell is our contract item?"

Mitsuo raised an eyebrow at Mahiru. "What do you mean which bell?" he questioned. "The bell you gave him of course dumbass."

"Oi..." Kuro protested.

"But... well... I'm not in my own body anymore. I'm in Masaaki's," Mahiru explained. "And Masaaki-san did actually give Kuro a contract item like I did. So "the bell I gave him" could be the bell this body gave him or the bell I gave him for our first contract."

"Oh come on it's been 66 years surely he's not still keeping-"

Kuro pulled the old yellow bell from under his jacket and held it up for everyone to see.

"Pft... hahahaha!!"

Tsuyoshi was laughing.

"Oh my god Sloth!! I wasn't expecting the oldest and most powerful servamp to be such a sweetheart to his eve!!"

"Oi... who are you calling sweet...?" Kuro muttered. "I just... was never bothered to throw it away..."

Mahiru smiled, feeling a tiny bit warm inside despite himself.