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Chapter 109: Unhealthy Obsession(Part 1)
🕑 Added 2025-08-17 03:00:28 +0000 UTCHannya stood there before her beloved, a hand on her hip, the other hanging lazily at her side. An air of regal nonchalance wrapping her pose, despite the intensity rotating deep with her pale pink eyes.
“Now,” she said, voice even and warm, “what’s a handsome like you doing in a place like this?”
She delivered the line with complete confidence, the tone of someone who expected this to land…
Unfortunately, it didn’t land for him.
He understood the words; but he didn’t understand why anyone would use them here.
He chose not to answer.
Instead, his mind ran.
Because up close, her aura showed more detail the more his eyes filled with essence. In the hidden world, it folded over itself in slow, organized waves, like silk draped on a stand. But behind those waves, just behind her, something else spiraled.
His eyes narrowed.
‘Parallel Opinion?’ He prompted once more.
A familiar voice rushed up at once, tense for the first time in months.
‘Samael! Careful, that’s-’
“Yes,” he cut it off, still inward. The urgency confirmed his suspicion. “I see it too.”
He let the rings turn a degree more. The spiral revolved. It wasn’t color or light; it was a rotation in rules. The same rotation that had once tried to twist his thoughts into wrong angles in a tunnel far from here. The same rotation that mirrored silence where sound should be and made echoes feel like knives.
He set his jaw.
‘Void Song.’
The name didn’t leave his mouth. The recognition did not shake his breathing. But the muscles of his shoulders went firmer, and the precision in his eyes turned from measurement to readiness.
Hannya watched that change happen. She didn’t know the words he had chosen inside himself, but she felt the air tighten the way a sparring partner’s stance tightens. She tilted her head a fraction, considering him, and did not step closer.
“Your silence is very handsome, too.” she said lightly, keeping the tone she had practiced, letting the pick-up-artist bravado roll off easy. Then, without dropping her poise, she let the next sentence be honest. “I’ve come for you.”
Behind the veil, her smile widened a fraction, and the mist at her ankles drew close like a tame pet ready to heel.
Vainglory let the words settle. He thought on the offerings he received for a year.
The Believer now had a face. A voice. A devil’s eyes.
The spiraling force curled tight behind her, waiting. He already had a name for it, understood it. And he would treat it accordingly.
He did not speak yet. He did not move yet.
He simply looked at her with those slow, exact eyes and measured how far he would allow the moment to go.
Hannya observed him keenly.
Vainglory kneeled, yet his statue was tall, as expected. Definitely 6'5", broad-shouldered, the lines of his frame cut hard by survival and restraint. His skin was a deep, mahogany brown, rich and even. Black horns swept back from his temples with a faint golden tint at the edges, as if light liked to hold there a beat longer.
The black curls of his hair just barely draped the black sclera of his eyes; the irises were grayish-gold for now, the three rings inside them turning with slow precision. She’d read that they brightened to gold when his power fully engaged, a sunrise she planned to see.
His armor was torn in places, not by neglect but by deliberate force; the breaks framed muscle rather than hid it. Over his heart, she saw the six black stars arranged in a circle… hollow, with a single one half-filled.
She knew what that meant to devils. She looked away at once. You did not name a wound like that in front of the one who bore it.
Her gaze slid instead, quick and unashamed, to the clean lines of his abdomen, then back up, pretending to check the set of the white chains. Heat flicked across her cheeks; she steadied it with breath and lifted her chin, posture regal once again.
Only then did she let the mist close behind her and meet his eyes once more.
Vainglory watched the calm line of Hannya’s shoulders, the steady set of her veil, the bright, unflinching eyes. Then he spoke.
“So it’s you,” he said, slow and measured. “My priestess.”
‘Well played,’ Parallel Opinion spoke, approving for once. ‘Keep her balanced. If someone touched by Void Song gets pushed into spikes; fear, euphoria, fury, the song leaks out of the soul and batters minds. And you, as you are, aren’t immune unless you burn the essence you’ve saved. Keep her steady. Praise is key, but not too much.’
‘Noted.’ Vainglory answered, and watched the page turn.
The red thread only he could see drew shorter between their chests, a clean tug.
Hannya’s poise slipped for one heartbeat; color rose deeper across her cheekbones. The word my priestess hit harder than she’d rehearsed for. Her pulse jumped, then evened.
’Indeed… cold handsomes really are a cut above the rest.’ She almost crumbled from a probing blow.
Her gaze sharpened a beat later. The petals in her eyes rotated, slow and deliberate, her focus returning. When she spoke next, her voice had the sure cadence of someone taking her place next to the person she’d come to meet.
“It is,” she said simply. “Your priestess has come to end this.” Then smiled.
Hannya believed her body alone wouldn’t win him. It was ‘okay’ at best, short for a devil at 5”9’, so she would earn him by competence and presence.
However, Vainglory’s eyes, despite himself, made a quiet circuit. The wide, soft line of her kimono where it slid off the shoulders; the layered fullness of her chest; the slim strength through her forearms. His gaze clicked back to her face at once, a hint of surprise by his own actions.
‘Focus,’ Parallel Opinion teased, lighter now. ‘It’s almost as if her body was designed to your taste. Don’t drift…she might want that.’
He ignored the bait. He found the joke more tasteless that usual today.
Hannya stepped closer, composure reseated.
“N-Now,” she said, then mentally slapped the stutter away and lifted her chin, “let’s get you out of here, stud. And don’t worry. The prince carry is on the house.”
The phrasing didn’t fully track in his mind, but the intent did. Something eased at the edge of his mouth, almost a smile, almost. But Hannya saw it, and her heart jumped at the landed hook.
But she held steady.
PO’s tone then flipped. ‘Samael. Caution. Void Song. Don’t lean in. She may already be too far gone to-’
The word gone soured his mood in a way he didn’t examine.
‘Pause [Parallel Opinion].’ he ordered inwardly. Silence, clean and useful, returned.
“We begin with the blood tribute seals,” he said aloud. “Three primary. Two visible, left scapula; sternum. One reveals when the others fail, right ankle.”
Hannya grinned. “Easy enough.” She answered, and moved at once.
She drew a small black bottle from her sleeve. Essence of Desire. When the seal broke, the air pressed faintly with unseen power. She dipped a fingertip, gauging with a precise glance.
Vainglory muttered, a little surprised. “Essence of Desire, useful.”
“One quarter,” she said, half to herself, half to him. “We’ll keep the rest in reserve for later use.”
Her magic arranged, circles nested, lines locked, small marks stitched into balanced geometry. A thin pale sigil of desire sank into the floor and set.
“Hannya Magic: [Null Pointer - Chainbreak],” she intoned softly.
The lattice lowered. Threads slid beneath his shoulder blade and wrapped the curse seal. The sigil tried to copy itself along his skin; her code refused duplication and blood red glyph unraveled and went inert.
Vainglory’s eyes narrowed with interest at the structure of her technique.
“…Hannya Magic?” he asked, tone even.
“Trade secr-”
“Clever,” he said, cutting gently. “I think I understand the idea.”
“…Hm?” She raised a slender brow. He processed all that?
“...Though, I’d probably need to see it again.”
Her veil tilted with a mischievous smile. “I can arrange that.” An unexpected hook dug in, surprising, but not unwelcome.
In truth, Vainglory did not need to see it again. But he knew most did not like their secrets getting exposed so easily. Especially devils.
But to his surprise, she did not seem to mind. In fact her posture, aura, and breath seemed to indicate she was eager to teach him.
He noted it down in his mind.
The metal then slackened by a narrow margin. He breathed deeper, filling the new space.
Hannya shifted to his sternum. “Count,” she said, calm and focused. “Tense only what you need to.”
“I won’t.”
“One. Two. Three.”
Desire brightened at her fingertip. The seal’s logic burned and snapped. Pain struck; clean and sharp, then passed. The chain eased against his chest even more.
As she worked, Hannya’s eyes did what her hands didn’t. Stole quick, greedy looks at him. The hard plane of abdomen beneath torn armor. The ridge of his biceps caged by white links. The shallow hollow at the base of his throat.
Vainglory’s gaze, unguarded for a moment, flicked to the full line of her cleavage, she felt it like a touch. Heat flushed her ears; her confidence jumped. She straightened and, with feigned absent-mindedness, let her shoulders roll back a fraction, the kimono’s drape framing what he’d glanced at.
His eyes came back to her face. He marked the adjustment without judgment and put it aside; unfamiliar behavior was still information.
“Full extraction next,” she said, voice steady. She drew a large black-framed mirror from the air, Narcissus’ Envious Mirror, and angled it toward the curse-letters and blood-ink stitched across his skin.
“It eats what shouldn’t be on me,” she explained, then allowed herself a quiet addendum, “and what shouldn’t be on what’s mine to keep.”
No deception markers, Vainglory noted. Possessive intent genuine. Dangerous, also clear.
“Mirror, mirror. Look up to him.”
The glass deepened and rippled with a gold sheen. Curses lifted in thin threads; magic scripts unseated and slid free; all leaping into the pane on its own.
“Curses gone. Skin returned,” she reported. “Hidden ankle seal?”
“Here.” He described exactly where it would surface and the trick of it.
She crouched at his right ankle. Desire gleaming again, still measuring, still conserving the bottle. She drew a triangle inside a circle inside a square. “It expects a greeting,” she said. “So I’ll give it exactly what it asked for, then remove the ask underneath, a simple rug pull.” She glanced up, veil smiling. “Premium service. No hidden fees.”
He looked at her for a heartbeat, another joke he didn’t fully parse, but the tone was familiar. He let it pass.
The floor flickered. The sleeping seal revealed itself. An angry, collector’s stamp, last safeguard. Hannya touched it with the essence. It tried to multiply; her script refused to compile copies. It buckled and folded with a dry hiss.
Metal yielded again. Another inch.
“Status?” she said, eyes on his as the mirror behind her ate the last curse.
“The curse is quiet now,” he answered. “Order law intact. Stakes and thorns unmoved.”
“We’ll leave the spikes for now,” she decided. “they’re knitted too deep. If we rip them now, the pain backlash will do more damage than the chains. We stage it and keep your body clean for the next steps.”
He approved the reasoning with a slight incline of the chin. Practical. Logical.
She tipped the bottle. A neat arc of Desire slid out; she stopped at exactly one quarter spent, recapped, and tucked it away. “Plenty left,” she said. “I’ll stitch a seam so the seals can’t rebound.”
As she drew a lightly-glowing crescent that joined her earlier circles, Vainglory kept the measurements running.
‘Breath cadence even. Aura coherence 0.991, slight rise when I praised. Stable. No fringe tremor associated with Void Song emission.’
He let his eyes drift, just once, to the open collar again, then snapped them back.
Hannya caught the second glance and, unbelievably, felt a calm amusement settle under her ribs. “Don’t worry,” she said without looking away from her work, tone dry, “I won’t charge you for appreciating the merchandise.”
For the first time, Vainglory felt a foreign need.
A need to roll his eyes. “You speak like you’re for sale.” he said.
Hannya snorted out a small laugh.
She countered. “What kind of woman is the seller? Obviously, I’m the-” she caught herself before saying something a little too honest, “-contractor.”
Vainglory couldn’t help but look at her strangely. The more they spoke the less her words made sense.
…But it wasn’t a bad feeling to interact with her.
The crescent flared and nested, closing the last visible seam. Pain pricked and faded. The chest chain loosened again, granting more air than he’d permitted himself in decades. He took only what he needed.
“All done,” she said, standing and smoothing her sleeves into place. “All curses are gone. You have room to breathe and think. Order chains and the stakes remain.”
He checked the hidden world again. The red thread between them hummed, shorter now, calmer, no longer pulling, just present.
“Good work,” he said.
Her lashes dipped for half a beat at the praise; the curve of her aura brightened a point, then settled. “Thank you,” she said. The confidence in her eyes, the rotating petals focused and held. “Next, we test how much movement you can tolerate without the thorns punishing you. We do this slow and patient.”
“Agreed,” he said. “No rushing.”
She slid one fingertip through the air, writing a collection of sigils above the white links, never touching it. “If a restriction tries to rebind, the script I wrote will reject it. If your breath rises too quickly, I’ll bleed it off.” She lifted her gaze. “Partner terms, you listen the first time I tell you to stop.”
He weighed the word partner, liked its honesty, and nodded once. “Accepted.”
Parallel Opinion tapped politely at the edge of his mind, trying to pass on words.
‘It reactivated again?’ His eyes narrowed.
‘Denied.’ He thought, pausing it again.
He looked at Hannya again. The discipline. The warmth chained under control. The exactness of her hands. The bold chest she deliberately didn’t hide now that she knew he’d noticed. He recognized the shape of a choice he hadn’t made in a very long time, to allow someone next to him instead of in front or behind. His trust had not gone to waste this time around.
“Your line earlier.” he said.
She tilted her head, amused. “Which one? I have a catalog.” She said, not kidding at all.
“Prince carry.”
A quick heat touched her face again. “It tests well where I’m from,” she said, chin lifting. “I’ll keep it if you keep smiling at it.”
“It was…a good joke.” he said, almost dry.
The veil moved with a smile she didn’t hide. “Well, I’ve got more where that came from.”
A comfortable silence settled.
Between them, the red thread lay smooth and short.
Hannya set her palm just above one of the thorn roots, feeling for the pain map underneath. “All right,” she said, professional again. “On my count, you draw a shallow breath and hold. We learn what the thorns punish, and what they ignore. We’ll take the rest piece by piece.”
Vainglory’s rings rotated once, clean and even.
“Proceed.” he said.
Her smile widened at the trust. She felt full. “Don’t worry Vain, it’s only a matter of time before you're free.”
Vainglory smiled at the words, a small, genuine smile.
Then he spoke. “Call me Samael.”
And Hannya’s hands trembled and froze.
“...What?”
And the red thread between them began to rapidly loosen.
Comments
Wintermelody
Thanks for the chapter
Benjamin
This chapter is boy meets girl. Next chapter is boy meets yandere.
