Shuffle The Deck

Chapter 37 - Chains

Her eardrums were almost destroyed by the pulsating sound that rang through them, and her eyes snapped open in terror. The most horrid noise ricocheted around the area, and she covered her ears as fast as she could. The roar went on for a good ten seconds, the echo along with it. She had no idea where she was, but that sound did not seem like a good sign.

The ringing sound in her ears immobilized her body for a few seconds before her hearing was fully restored. With a rough massage of her pounding head with her fingertips, her eyes slowly opened. 

Before her eyes sat many Phantom Troupe members, all carefully removing their hands from their ears.

Machi turned around, seeing Lilah shakily stand up, her head still pounding. She smiled slightly at the staggering woman and placed her hands on her hips.

"Took you long enough," she smirked. 

"How long was I out for?" Lilah asked, regaining a straight composure.

"An hour at least," Shalnark answered. "Happy to have you with us again!"

She laughed softly. "Sorry about that. I can't handle large amounts of blood visually."

"Don't apologize! It was your first day on the job, after all," the blonde reassured with a kind smile.

Uvogin was sitting at the bottom of the canyon, his back and spider tattoo visible to everyone's eyes. Lilah stood next to Machi, as they all stared down at the mess. There were bodies and pieces of corpses all around the area and a staggering hole that Uvogin had created. But, she didn't see much blood, so she shrugged all the disgust off her shoulders.

Uvo turned his head around, aiming his voice at the group on the cliff.

"Shizuku! Do me a favor and suck out all the poison and leeches from my body! Your vacuum could do it, right?" He asked her.

She was gathering up the fallen cards from the floor as his voice rang through her ears, and she stood up as he finished his sentence. "Blinky can suck out the poison, but nothing that's still alive!" She called back.

"Really? Then what do I do?"

Shalnark quickly hopped from the cliff down to the canyon and offered to take a look at what he could do to help. Lilah watched them converse a bit and then turned to Machi.

"Hey, did we get all the auction items?"

Machi shook her head with a sigh. "No. Turns out someone tipped off the auction heads, and so they moved all the merchandise to a new location."

Lilah sighed. "That's irritating. Who could have sabotaged the mission?"

"We don't know. But the boss thinks it's not a traitor, rather, something more. Still, we should keep an eye on everyone, including you, Lilah. You just arrived yesterday, so we still can't fully trust you," Machi explained.

"Fair point," Lilah agreed. "For the record, I wouldn't gain anything from jeopardizing you guys."

"See, that's the issue," Nobunaga interjected, looking at Machi and Lilah. "That's why this whole thing is mysterious. Makes no logical sense."

"Shizuku! Can you get the poison?" Uvogin yelled.

"Okay!" She called back, finishing gathering all the cards from behind them. She placed them in Franklin's hands and quickly jumped down to take care of her job.

Uvogin and Franklin had a quick conversation as Shizuku reached him, and activated her ability. The tall man nagged her to finish the job quickly, and she turned around with her vacuum in hand.