Gehenna's Gate

Luminescence

The two had a long yet difficult talk after that.

One where strangely enough, Kazuha agreed with her.

That sometimes chaos could only be fought with chaos. Fire with fire. An eye for an eye. It didn't mean to abandon all morals and toss humanity to the wind, it meant evening out the playing field.

In the end, it truly would come down to kill or be killed, the most basic of survival instincts. It almost felt savage, like taking a step backwards instead of forward, reverting progress, but this world played differently than the human one did. Rules had to be altered, the stakes were completely different.

If that meant some morals needed to be bent in order to survive, so be it.

It was now the next day, leaving Vena with one more day of trying to ease her mind in whatever ways she could and prepare for Skirk's next round of brutal physical training. This time though, she didn't expect another break.

"Just who I was looking for. I thought you'd left for the day already." Vena sounded chipper, coming over to stand in front of Scara with a smile on her face.

His expression almost instantly flipped, looking up from a few papers he'd been reading as he scanned her face.

"You're in a good mood." The indigo haired man flatly pointed out, obviously a bit confused and skeptical about it.

The whole compound was practically doom and gloom the past week, so seeing Vena with a smile on her face felt.... Uncanny.

"You're about to ask me to do something that's going to piss me off, aren't you?" Scara's expression dead panned, now tossing the papers he'd been reading down onto the table in front of him with an exaggerated sigh of disapproval.

"What? -no, I would never do that." Vena was quick to blurt out, yet couldn't contain the laughter from creeping in between her words, never able to tell even the whitest lie with a straight face.

"What do you want, rat?" Scara stood to his feet, eyes half-lidded and practically drowning with boredom already.

"Okay first of all, that's rude."

Without another word, Scara began to walk off toward the exit, only to be stopped by Vena tugging on his arm pathetically, letting out a hard laugh as she did.

"I need help, okay? I want to go weapon shopping." Vena whined a bit, eyebrows furrowing once she finally gave up trying to annoy him and instead got to the point.

"Weapon shopping?" Scara eyed the girl now, looking around the room as if someone else was going to explain to him what that even meant.

"Yes, I want more knives. Preferably durable but expendable ones that I can just toss and not worry too much about trying to find after a fight, you know? My usual knife is kinda special, so I don't exactly want to take it someplace I may lose it." Vena explained, her eyes never once meeting Scara's despite knowing he was staring her down with his typical judgmental little scowl.

"You mean the one you almost lost in Maya's eye socket and I had to fish out?" The man snorted a laugh through his nose at the memory, clearly enjoying the recollection.

"Look, I'm okay with the whole stabbing part... just not so much with the pulling the knife back out part... it makes me kinda squeamish." Vena winced a bit, mildly grossed out.

She'd probably need to get used to that too.

"Wiiiiiiiiimp," Scara taunted, snickering at her reaction.

"Why are you asking me to go anyway? Xiao busy or something?" Another skeptical and dark eyebrow raised in her direction.

"No, I told him to spend some time sparring with Kazuha and me and you could go. Don't think I forgot your entire arsenal of various knives, guns and torture devices." Vena gave a roll of her eyes, her hands going to rest on both of her hips.