Chapter 65: Story Time

Akira’s eyes opened slowly, blinking against the light filtering through the curtains.

The first thing she noticed was the sound. A familiar and soft, yet rhythmic scraping of metal on stone.

She lifted her head up to see Melody sitting in the chair by the window, drawing a whetstone along the edge of her sword, sharpening it.

"Morning," Akira said, her voice still thick with sleep.

Melody glanced up with a small smile. "It’s afternoon, actually."

Akira sat up immediately. "What?"

"You’ve been asleep since last night."

"I really slept that long?" She stared at Melody for a moment, genuinely surprised. "That’s not normal for me."

She ran a hand through her hair, thinking about it. "Maybe it’s because I’m finally sleeping with peace of mind for the first time in a long while."

Melody set the whetstone down, her voice curious. "So, how are you handling this whole situation? Choosing to come here and marry a man you’ve never met before last night?"

Akira considered the question, yawning again. "It’s definitely among the more unusual things I’ve experienced," she admitted. "But strange doesn’t mean bad."

She stretched her arms above her head, the motion making her huge breasts jiggle a bit. "From what I’ve seen of you and Lukas, you’re good people. I’m comfortable with that."

She sat on the bed cross legged, a thoughtful expression appearing on her face. "And honestly, the overall situation suits me. I’m in a new world, away from people I can’t stand, and out of the sisterhood for good."

She paused. "My faith back home holds to one husband for life. I’ve always accepted that. I just never expected to find mine like this." She shrugged. "At least I don’t have to go looking."

Melody raised an eyebrow. "You’re very calm about it."

"I’ve had practice being calm about things I can’t change." Akira smiled. "And there are certain things I’ve always wanted to try with a significant other." She grinned, wagging her eyebrows, a mischievous grin on her face.

Melody’s cheeks went immediately pink. She looked back down at her sword.

Akira chuckled and looked around the room. "Where’s Lukas?"

"He got a separate room last night since the bed wasn’t big enough for all three of us." Melody began reassembling her cleaning kit. "He’ll soon—"

Three knocks landed on the door, interrupting her.

Melody stood, setting her sword aside, the small smile returning to her face. "That’ll be him."

She opened the door for Lukas, who walked into the room, his hands occupied with a stack of containers that had an aroma that made their stomachs rumble.

"Good afternoon." He gave Akira a big smile. "Sleep well?"

"Extremely." She stood, drawn forward by the smell before she had consciously decided to move.

Then she looked down at herself and stopped. "I forgot to take my armor off." She said it with an exasperated tone, as if this was something that happened often. Which it was.

"I’ve been sleeping in it for so long that I don’t even notice it anymore." She held up a hand. "Give me a few minutes."

She disappeared into the bathroom, and the sound of running water followed almost immediately.

Lukas set the containers on the small table beside the bed and began dividing the food while Melody cleared space.

True to her word, Akira was back quickly, her hair still damp but now dressed in a simple pale dress that she’d apparently kept in her spatial ring, joining them at the table.

She looked at the food, then she picked up her utensils and began eating.

The first mouthful produced a sound that was somewhere between a sigh and a moan. She paused, looked at the food, then at Lukas.

"Who made this?"

"The cook down at the restaurant?" he said.

"You should taste Lukas cooking," Melody grinned as she ate. "It’s to die for."

Akira pointed at him with her spoon. "I made the right choice coming here."

Lukas simply leaned back in his chair with a smile. "So how are you finding the new world so far?"

Akira considered it while chewing. "Honestly? It feels like a vacation. Somewhere I’ve never been before, but not so visually different from my world either."

She gestured vaguely at the room around them. "The buildings, the streets, and all that, it all looks familiar to me. Just in a new location." She took another bite. "A very welcomed one."

"You seem comfortable with being somewhere new," Melody observed.

"I’m used to it." Akira set her spoon down briefly. "My division was always being deployed. Here for a month, somewhere else the next. We went wherever the Church pointed us."

She picked the spoon back up. "With the funding they gave us, accommodation was whatever we could find. We sometimes got inns when we were lucky, and empty buildings when we weren’t."

She chuckled to herself. "There was even a time we had to sleep in a floating raft in the middle of a storm."

Lukas raised an eyebrow. "That sounds like a story."

She smiled. "It certainly is one."

Melody finally asked a question, her curiosity getting the best of her. "Tell me more about the Sisterhood itself. How did it start?"

Akira finished her mouthful before answering. "Back in my world, the Church of the Allfather holds significant influence over the common people."

"They’ve built their reputation on being the moral compass of society. The standard for what good, righteous living looks like." She folded her hands on the table.

"Beasts were classified as creatures of evil early in the Church’s doctrine. That framing worked in their favor. It gave them a clear enemy, which gave the common folk a clear reason to look to the Church for protection."

"So they built a fighting force," Lukas said.

"Two, actually. A corps of priests and a corps of nuns, both tasked with hunting and eradicating beasts and anything the Church deemed associated with them."

She leaned back slightly. "That was the founding purpose. It was pure, straightforward, and easy to put on a banner."

Her expression shifted to something darker. "The Sisters of Blood came out of the nuns’ corps. We were the combat division. The frontline fighters dressed in the Church’s colors, and carrying the Church’s reputation wherever we went."

She was quiet for a moment.

"The purpose was never the problem," she said. "It was the people running it."