Chapter 76: System + Bedtime
Hours later, deep in the evening.
"So how's Fixer life for you guys??" Mei heaped another piece of meat onto Pete's bowl, which the boy devoured ravenously. The restaurant he went to for lunch was nothing compared to this. Short ribs glazed in sweet, brownish sauce. Yum.
Pete and Aiko smiled, eager to tell her about Sophie-
Asher shook his head by the side. 'Sophie' was busy right now, is what his excuse was.
'Talk about Sayako instead,' his eyes told them.
They grinned sheepishly before changing topics. Mei listened to their stories with avid curiosity, interjecting every so often with a gasp or a 'wow'. She was a good listener.
Dinner passed by, just like that.
After his Fixers bid him farewell and goodnight, Asher and Mei were left alone for the night.
He looked at the face of the woman he had gone through so much suffering for. And seeing that smile touch her face as she stared at him made everything worth it.
She was his family, the person he loved most.
Mei scratched her face, slightly embarrassed.
"You can shower first, okay?" Asher broke from his trance, nodding his head. Mei was left alone for her thoughts to fester inside herself.
She still remembered that vivid 'dream' of Bellecote yesterday. The thought of it alone brought a smile to her face and tears to her eyes. Inexplicably, her mind drifted to Asher, perhaps because Bellecote mentioned him in that dream. This time, her grin contained no tears. Along with Sophie, Asher had saved her life so many times that she didn't even know how to repay them.
...
Soon, after she had showered as well, the two of them lied side by side in the dark.
"Asher, what was with that kimono you wore yesterday? Are you..."
'Hiding something from me?' But Mei couldn't force herself to finish. Of course he was hiding things from her. The fact that he knew Sophie and had amnesia only increased the mysteries behind his background.
"I'm fine. That thing's just another set of mine. Let's sl..."
Mei nodded, reaching to his side to tousle his hair.
However, Asher wasn't really paying attention to her this time. The System stole his attention with the prompt in front of him.
[System update complete. New functions unlocked: Abnormality Ranks. Increased System capabilities and functions.]
['Us, We' (Scorched Girl): Relation with specified Synchronous soul has maximized. Necessary condition = True. Progress to ???: 1/7.]
[Abnormality 'Little Red Riding Hood' has been assigned rank 'WAW']
He quickly processed the deluge of prompts.
This was intriguing. Aside from the strange achievement for Sophie that he still couldn't quite understand, just what did this new rank function mean?
[The Scale gives the relative danger that an abnormality holds to human life. This function has been unlocked using a fraction of the power gained from your achievement with the Scorched Girl.]
So it seemed like that moment with Sophie really did cause the update.
[Ranks go from weakest to most dangerous in this order: ZAYIN -> TETH -> HE -> WAW -> ALEPH]
'Okay... That's a lot of new information. So I'm guessing my next mission is gonna be pretty hard?' It had the second to last rank, after all. Still, Asher had no way of knowing exactly how these ranks mattered, simply due to how he had no other comparisons to base them off of.
[One Sin and Hundreds of Good Deeds and Fairy Queen were both ZAYIN. Scorched Girl, Fragment of the Universe, and Grave of Cherry Blossoms were all TETH.]
Huh? He could understand the ranks for most of them, but what was with Sophie's rank? Her mission was obviously the easiest, so what gave?
[The rank of an Abnormality does not always correlate to mission difficulty. In their true forms, the Scorched Girl, Fragment of the Universe, and Grave of Cherry Blossoms would be many magnitudes more dangerous than any of the ZAYIN's.]
Okay.
But why did something not seem right? 'Little Red Riding Hood'... The name seemed a bit familiar to him. Residual memories? And why would his past/future self be familiar with the name?
Sensing his wish, the System translated it into something he could understand.
[Le Petit Chaperon Rouge]
Asher's eyes lit up.
'Oh, it's that one-!' But then his face showed a streak of confusion. The name was so familiar to him, it was the title of a story he knew quite well. But when he tried to recall what the story was in plot, his mind drew a complete blank.
[A popular fairy tale. It is still prevalent in the City. Although I do not have the authority to give you the story's details, most City residents have heard it by word of mouth.]
'So you're telling me that Mei should know it?'
The System didn't respond, which Asher took as a resounding yes. He didn't know why the System couldn't tell him the story itself, but that was fine.
He turned to Mei's side. Her light breaths told him that she was still awake.
"Hey Mei, can I ask you about something?"
Mei rolled over, motioning him to continue with a listening smile.
"Do you know a story called 'Le Petit- Little Red Riding Hood'? Tell me what it's about."
Asher was exceedingly curious about this supposed fairy tale. Theis was the first evidence of an abnormality of the Ruins in real life aside from Sophie, whom Salvador faced in the Ruins.
Why was 'Little Red Riding Hood' turned into a fairy tale? Asher suspected that it had something to do with its higher rank, WAW, compared to Sophie's TETH. Though, he wasn't too sure about that.
Mei let out a strange squeal, giggling to herself. She sat up from bed, turning on the lights.
Turning around, she explained her sudden excitement to him.
"My mom always used to do story time before bed, hehe~"
She left the other half of her words unspoken. Because now, before bed, she was going to tell him the story of 'Little Red Riding Hood'.
Asher's lips twitched as he understood the unspoken comparison.
Mei snuggled behind him, squeezing him in between her legs as he faced away from her. Even though Mei was considered a petite build, she was still a little larger than Asher, who was still shackled by the limits of early adolescence.
Which was good, otherwise this situation would have been very awkward.
And with a deep breath, she began.
"Once upon a time there was a sweet little girl, who everyone called Little Red Riding Hood... Any guesses on why they called her that?"
Mei smiled sweetly, talking with a slow, steady cadence. She tried to mimic the same soothing tone her mother used with her bedtime stories before she was murdered.
...
Once upon a time, there was a sweet little girl who everyone called Little Red Riding Hood.
She always wore a crimson red hood on her head, taking much pride in her endearing nickname.
One day, her mother sent her to the forest to deliver a casket of wine and a delicious slice of cake to her old grandmother.
However, on the road to her grandmother's house, she spotted a villainous-looking wolf. The wolf leered at her. Glowing blue eyes and a searing, splitting smile.
The wolf asked her where she was heading. Still innocent, the girl told it of her lonely grandmother. Ah, how sad, she cried. There was no one to visit the poor old woman but herself.
The wolf smiled. Offhandedly, it told her there might be another visitor soon.
To distract the girl, it told her to pick some beautiful flowers for her old, sickly grandmother. Surely that would make her feel better. Wouldn't she be so moved?
It pointed to the side, where, lo-and-behold, a beautiful flower garden beckoned, with bright greens and pastel yellows.
As the girl picked as many flowers as her arms and basket could hold, the wolf slipped away, cackling to itself.
Minutes later, the girl looked up from her trance. The wolf was nowhere to be seen. She lifted her grass woven basket, whistling a joyful tune as she skipped back onto the road, back toward her grandmother's house.
When she got there, the girl was surprised that the door leading inside was wide open.
She called for her grandmother, but the voice that came back was so raspy that she didn't even recognize it.
Hiding the flower bouquet behind her back, she took a step inside. She asked her grandmother if she was feeling sick, but no response came.
She walked to the bedroom, her breaths unconsciously quickening.
Her eyes widened. The flowers fell from her hand. As the wolf tore open her grandmother's throat in front of her, blood splattered onto the girl's crimson hood.
/*It's nice to see you again...*/ Something deeper was hidden in the wolf's superficial words
The wolf spat a chunk of flesh into her eye before melting away into the shadows.
As blood slid down her face, the shivering girl fell to her knees, crawling to the gurgling body beside her.
She could see something in the bloody puddle.
A crimson shadow held its hand out from the other side of the reflection.
The girl sank her arm into the ever glowing pile of blood, and the shadow smiled.
With a pull, it dragged her down, drowning the innocent girl in the endless pit of timeless red. And now that the girl was dead, it naturally had a space to fill. The space it was meant to fill.
/*! $% ^"@!#$ "#$@ %@#!%*/ The girl's voice deepened, snarling viciously as her arm soaked in brackish blood.
She lifted her head. A faint crimson glow surfaced in her eyes.
...
"Little Red Riding Hood and her grandmother popped out from the big bad wolf's belly, both safe and sound. The huntsman took the wolf's pelt, and the grandmother ate the cake and drank the wine that Little Red Riding Hood had brought. They lived happily ever after. The End!"
Mei poked his stomach as she finished, causing Asher to giggle uncontrollably.
Just over a dozen minutes passed. Asher was comfortably situated in Mei's arms. His eyelashes fluttered as he felt a wave of sleep wash over him.
'That story was surprisingly nice... But why would she be an Abnormality...?' His last thoughts faded away as he fell asleep in Mei's arms.
Mei kissed him on the cheek, lowering him onto his side of the bed with a strained groan.
Asher was heavy.
She covered him with their blanket, using the moment to press her ear to his chest. She listened to his heartbeats.
Even with all the things Asher kept hidden from her, Mei knew that he was still an innocent child inside.
That night, Mei dreamed of paradise. Her only paradise in this hell, this fragile family in the Backstreets.
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone