Iharu's angry eyes squinted at Val. Her steady hand pointed a knife directly at her throat.

Without an idea of what to say, Val stood stock still and sweated in place. It felt like the bob of a swallow moving down her throat might be enough to draw blood from the knife tip.

“Please move the pointy object away from Val’s throat,” Tavras said. Two of his fingers pushed Iharu’s blade to the side. “Let’s have a nice, calm, civil conversation.”

Iharu blew some air up into her face for no particular reason, other than to express her annoyance. “I hate it when you come to visit, Uncle. You always treat us like children.”

“Well, you all act like children.”

“Don’t lump me in with her!” Fang interjected.

With a sigh, Tavras made some amends. “At least you always do Iharu, and Fang never fails to match your level of immaturity.”

“Hey—”

This time, Tavras did not give him the chance to object and kept on talking. “When Val heads to the Summit of Ascension, she is going to go undercover as a demigod for reasons that I will disclose to you later.”

There was a pause. In this, Tavras darted his eyes between Fang and Iharu as if that would be enough to communicate with them.

“You can Read Blood,” Fang began. “Is Val…?” He trailed off in the middle of his question and instead opted for a lackluster, “Ah, I see.”

“You see what?” Iharu asked. “I don’t get it.” The fact that she was the only one not in the loop made her shake her head angrily. Her eyes flitted to Val with a little sympathy.

“We will refrain from speaking of this matter in front of her for the time being,” Tavras said. “Once she develops a strong enough Mind Shield, we can tell Val everything.”

They all continued following Fang through the forest while Tavras kept talking.

“Fang, were you just being... accepting of what you thought was Val’s preferred gender, or did you actually think that she was a boy?”

“I actually thought that she looked like a boy. That awful haircut is really convincing. Sorry, Val.” Fang looked back to her with a pitying glance.

“Do you think that she will pass for a demigod on the Summit?”

“Yeah, I do,” Fang said.

“No way in the Nether,” Iharu said over him at the same time.

“Okay,” Tavras drawled out. “Fang was tricked, but not you Iharu. I was expecting you to be more attuned to her actual sex. Is this something that other gods and goddesses aside from yourself could notice?”

“Most definitely. Anyone who can Read Intentions like me will feel that she is a girl.”

“Why is that—?” Tavras began. “Wait, I don’t want to know.” His hand lifted up to waive away whatever thought had entered his head. “Is this something that you could teach her to suppress?”

Val could feel her pulse pick up from anxiety. What intentions gave her away as uniquely female, exactly? Hopefully, it would be something unknown to her, located somewhere in everybody’s subconscious. She was feeling horribly uncomfortable with the prospect that Iharu could have learned something inappropriate that was very personal to Val.

A curt laugh curled past Iharu’s lips. “No, I can’t help her, but maybe you could!”

Tavras asked the exact same question that she had. “What is that even supposed to mean?”

Iharu only continued to laugh to herself.

Now, Fang, Tavras, and Val all looked to each other in confusion. If anything, Tavras looked the most uncomfortable. This time it should have been herself and Iharu in on the secret, given that whatever she laughed about had originated from Val’s own mind. Instead, she was in the dark as much as always.

“This is serious,” Tavras snapped at Iharu. “Can you help Val or not? If you can’t fix the thing that gave her away as a girl, could you at least work with her to develop a Mind Shield.”

“Yes, I can do that.” After a long pause, Iharu continued, "I am very confused though. Mentally, she feels like a girl. Physically, she looks like a boy. I do not like being confused. It makes me think that magic is involved. Are you using a power to make you look more like a boy?"

"No," Val said innocently at once.

"How about an enchantment?" Iharu asked. “Do you have one of those infernal things that only the weak use?”

"No," Val began again, but she stopped short. "Wait. Maybe I do." She unclasped the necklace from around her neck that she always wore. "I don't know if this is a genuine charm or not, but I was told that it is enchanted to make others regard the wearer with more respect."

Iharu snatched it up in one hand. With the chain dangling from her fist, she let the charm dangle uncomfortably close to her eyes. For a long time, she stared and concluded, "It is enchanted."

"I never knew that she had this," Tavras muttered. "There is no way that she could pass for a boy without it."

"You look more like a girl now," Iharu said, thrusting the necklace back in her hand.

"I guess that I will have to be the one to say it," Fang said with a big shrug. "You actually look pretty now, Val."

She redirected her attention to Fang with big eyes. "I look pretty? Thank you." It was such a simple compliment, but she had never heard anyone comment positively on her appearance aside from her own mother. "Wait…."

A horrible thought crossed her mind. If this necklace made her look more like a man, this little chunk of metal could have been keeping Tavras from liking her. The way that he had murmured just before, did he also think that she looked pretty now?

"If the enchantment is supposed to make others respect me more, why does it make me look like a boy?" Val supposed that the woman who sold her this necklace could be some kind of cynical sexist, but it seemed like a needlessly cruel prank to play on a paying customer. That necklace had cost her thirty-five dollars.

"Well," Fang said, "you were trying to pass off as a boy, were you not?"

"Yes," she drawled out. Val had even deepened her voice and everything.

"It seems like a very clever enchantment. The necklace must help align people’s perception of you with the way that you want to be seen. That is the definition of respect, is it now?"

While that sounded like the most logical explanation on a surface level, it did not account for Val's true intentions these past weeks. Val had always wanted Tavras to find her pretty. She wanted him to see her in a romantic light.

"I don't think the necklace works like that."

"It doesn't matter," Tavras snapped. "None of us were the one to make the necklace, so we can only speculate as to its workings. The enchantment will be useful for your guise as a man, and that's what counts."

“The enchantment is small and hard to see through,” Fang said, “so it should work.”

With that matter settled, they continued making their way through the undergrowth of the forest. At last, a tiny cabin appeared in a small clearing. Whatever trees had been used to construct the cabin likely came from the immediate vicinity. Some young trees had already sprouted up and grown to a sizable height, marking the cabin’s construction as fairly old.

Fang held the door open for everyone and ushered them inside. The behemoth that had followed Iharu this entire way could not fit through the door, so it settled down outside. The rest of them gathered around a table inside.

Val sat in a chair, a simple luxury that she appreciated. All of the simplest things fascinated her. She was unable to help but look around at the wooden rafters above her and all of the clutter around her. It had been over a month since she had last stepped foot inside of a building. After all of that time outside, it felt weird to enter a warm shelter.

“I wanted to discuss the primary reason in which Val and I have come to your Paradise.” Tavras pushed the pearl so that it rolled across the table to Fang. “I would like to hire Iharu’s services in making Val’s dog Foofy into a divine beast.”

“It is just a pearl,” Iharu said. “I have no use for that.”

“Consider it as a token of my appreciation. Will you do this as a favor to me, the man who raised you?” Tavras leaned onto both hands and batted his eyelashes many times.

“Fang practically raised me!”

“I practically raised Iharu!”

They both shouted this in unison which was followed by each of them turning and blinking to the other.

“At least you acknowledge me,” Fang said.

“You do not speak,” Iharu snapped. After their quick exchange, Iharu turned back to Tavras. “If you wanted me to do you a favor so badly, why did you give the pearl to Fang? I am the one who you are asking for a favor!” Her thumb jammed in towards her chest.

“Fang,” Tavras said with a raised brow, “I suspect that you want this pearl more than Iharu does.”

He stared down at the pearl for a long time, likely looking at his own reflection in its iridescent, flawless surface. “No. We cannot accept this. I refuse to let that dog become a divine beast with Val as its master.”

Her face fell, but worse yet, her heart dropped like a pit in her stomach. “What?” she asked. Not another word could come from her open mouth. While Fang seemed to not like Foofy from the moment that he had laid eyes upon him, Val did not understand why. What did she do wrong?

Both Fang and Iharu objected to having Foofy ascend. Somehow, between herself and Tavras, they would have to convince them to turn Foofy into a divine beast.

Character Update

* New information is marked in cyan.

* All entries are based on what Val knows.

Iharu Title: the She-Wolf Rank: Goddess Attributes: beasts Abilities Name Class Description Read Intentions cognitive - feel the general inclination of others' desires Transform tactical, combat - a wolf is the only known, available form Unknown n/a - probably has a lot more abilities