Arthur tore through the meat with animalistic ferocity, barely pausing to breathe between bites. His hunger was a living thing, clawing at his insides, demanding to be sated. Aziel watched with a mixture of amusement and concern as he handed over an oh-so-familiar jar of water shortly after providing the food.
Arthur was scarfing down the food as fast as physically possible, juices running down his chin in rivulets that he didn't bother to wipe away. Yet even as his body rejoiced at the nourishment, his mind rebelled. He couldn't help but feel guilty. Guilty of preserving his body... of keeping it alive after what he'd done. But despite the emotional turmoil raging within him, he couldn't possibly resist the temptation of sustenance and continued to eat, his body's needs superseding his desire for self-punishment.
While Arthur focused on satisfying his ravenous hunger, his mind began to wander to questions he'd been too busy grieving to answer before. The thoughts came unbidden, pushing through the fog of his despair with increasing clarity.
'Why did the roses not corrupt me like they did Luke? It doesn't make sense—he fed me more than enough, so why? Does it have something to do with my abilities? And why was I able to remember what Luke wiped from my memory? Was it simply because his ability is still underdeveloped, or something else entirely?'
The questions that had been held back by grief now flooded into his mind, each one without a possible answer, each mystery deepening his confusion rather than alleviating it. The roses should have taken his mind just as they had taken Luke's, yet here he was, traumatized but sane. It defied explanation.
After a moment of contemplation, Arthur decided it didn't matter, not anymore. Whatever had happened or however it had transpired was irrelevant because at the end of the day, it had happened, and Luke was dead. No amount of understanding would change that fundamental, painful truth.
Arthur finished scarfing down his food, licking the last traces of sustenance from his fingers before glancing wearily at Aziel, who leaned against the wall nonchalantly, the picture of relaxed confidence. "Where did you get all this?" he asked, his voice hoarse from disuse and his recent screaming.
Aziel popped open one of his closed eyes, regarding Arthur with mild interest. "Oh... I just hunted and scavenged the different monsters in the area. You're eating the beast that guarded this temple right now." His tone was casual, as if mentioning the weather rather than revealing the origin of their meal.
Arthur almost spit out his food, his throat constricting in reflexive disgust. 'Monster meat? That's disgusting!' But he stopped himself as he realized with how hungry he had been, it truly didn't matter to him where the meat came from. His survival instinct had overridden any sense of repulsion.
"And the water was stashed in those boxes over there when I teleported here," Aziel continued, pointing at two wooden crates stacked on top of one another in the corner of the temple. They looked ancient, their surfaces covered in faded symbols that Arthur couldn't decipher from his position on the floor.
Aziel sighed, his chest rising and falling dramatically. "Listen, we can stay here for one night, but we're leaving first thing tomorrow morning. Now that the Reaper knows we're here, he's gonna begin hunting us, and he'll find us sooner or later... and once he does, we're dead." The seriousness in his voice contrasted sharply with his relaxed posture.
Arthur raised an eyebrow, curiosity momentarily displacing his grief. "Reaper? And seriously? You don't think you could beat it? It seems like you have been handling yourself well enough so far." There was a hint of challenge in his tone, a subtle probing of Aziel's apparent confidence.
Aziel laughed, the sound echoing off the stone walls of the temple. "It's what I've been calling that skeleton we ran from. And yeah, I've done alright against tainted and twisted beings, but that thing is an aberration. Couldn't you sense it?" The question hung in the air, weighted with implications that made the hair on Arthur's arms stand on end.
Arthur's face widened in shock, the implications sinking in like a stone dropped into still water. "An aberration? Those aren't supposed to be in the second realm, are they?" He sat up straighter, his exhaustion momentarily forgotten as the gravity of their situation became clearer.
Aziel yawned, stretching his muscular arms above his head as if discussing the presence of an aberration was nothing to be concerned about. "Technically, any rank can be found in any realm. It's just that each realm going up is more and more populated with said stronger ranks. So for instance, this Reaper may very well be one of only a few aberrations in this entire realm, whereas the third realm is filled with them."
Arthur chuckled humorlessly and lay back down, his body reconnecting with the cold stone floor. He stared up at the ceiling, thinking about how unbelievably shitty his luck was. 'What god did I piss off, and how?' The cosmic injustice of his situation was almost enough to make him laugh if it weren't so painfully real.
Arthur side-eyed Aziel while lying down, his voice taking on a pleading quality that he couldn't quite suppress. "And I told you, I'm not going with you... there's nothing left for me past these roses. No motivation... no goal... nothing waiting for me on the other side... I'm going to stay here, so please... just leave me." Each word seemed to cost him effort, as if the very act of explaining his desire to be abandoned drained what little energy the food had given him.
Aziel's calm face transformed into an expression of slight anger as he rose to his feet and stomped towards Arthur, the temple floor vibrating slightly with each forceful step. His patience had clearly reached its limit, the facade of nonchalance cracking to reveal the frustration beneath.
"Oh, for the love of god," he growled, looming over Arthur's prone form with hands clenched at his sides, electricity beginning to dance between his fingers in response to his agitation.