Having suspicions of something was one thing, but having those suspicions confirmed was completely different. Noth had been fairly convinced that the church was behind most of the problems he’d faced in his life, at least in one way or another, so it wasn’t much of a shock, persay, but knowing it was the pope of all people…

It made sense.

Of course the top of an organization had the power to tell them what to think and do.

The fact that this country was a theocracy meant there wasn’t a single person who could keep the pope in check.

The church being his enemy was already hard enough.

The pope directly being the one who wants him gone was even worse.

Just thinking about trying to fight against such an insurmountable power difference felt overwhelming.

How could you possibly even make a dent in such an ancient, God-dess backed institution?

Especially one that has convinced the whole country that you’re the #1 most blasphemous human existence.

He did have the powers of an angel. Holy powers. Would holy powers even work against the church that literally serves the exact same God-dess that the powers came from?

Noth absolutely hated how powerless he once again felt. A deep feeling of depression washed over him, one that wrapped around him like a blanket and held on tight. He absolutely loathed the pervading thought in his head that everything he could possibly try to do was futile, but in the end that same loathing simply turned into a great sadness, one whose only answer accepted was to give up. At this point, he was all too willing to do what the sadness instructed, even if it all hurt so much, or felt like a waste.

The boy couldn’t hear what his angel was saying anymore.

He didn’t notice her taking him to his room.

He didn’t know how or when he fell asleep.

He didn’t know what he ate for breakfast.

He barely even felt the tingle from the wish absentmindedly he made for it.

Days passed by without any notice or care.

Every movement happened on autopilot.

Time ceased to exist.

Life lost meaning.

Eventually even the sadness had gone away and had left behind only emptiness.

All he could do was wait to meet his fate.

At least the days would pass by quickly if he slept.

Oddly enough as the days and weeks passed by, Noth slowly started coming back to his senses. His thoughts were still a little blurry and sluggish, but he could still make simple, if not impassive, observations. For instance, his angel seemed sad and worried, and he’d gotten much thinner than he was before. He felt tired and heavy all the time. His villa seemed darker now that he hadn’t been opening the windows. Somewhere in his blurred memory he remembered a few things. His angel used to open up the curtains for him at the beginning of the day, but at some point it seems that that had stopped. He’d been mechanically wishing for food every day, but he’d only eaten a small bit of it each time, and then walked to a back window to toss it. At some point Elillith had started coming to the villa to find him every once in a while, and sometimes she would even clean and check that he wasn’t sick or anything. His father had tried to come and see him once a week, but he always left with tears streaming from his eyes when Noth would barely respond to him.

After a month of this had passed, a second intruder entered the villa. Even if Noth’s angel hadn’t desperately woken him up, he would have known that someone was there; That’s how seemingly unstealthy this particular attacker was. As the door swung open with a slam and the stomping figure made its way closer to him, the groggy boy felt more and more crabby. Noth absolutely hated being woken up to loud sounds, and even with his senses dulled from depression, his half awake mind still felt a large flare of annoyance and anger at the sudden intruder. He sat up in bed and levelled a glare at his opponent. His eyes began to lightly glow, and the bottoms turned rusty orange. Unlike when he once practiced it with such difficulty, he now easily overlapped with the voice of his angel and gave a demand.

“Just ”

The assassin suddenly clutched his chest and keeled over in an instant.

As the colour faded from his eyes, Noth yawned and laid back down, not sparing the corpse another glance or thought.

~~~

The angel told him not to just leave a body lying around, and after nagging at him for an hour that he might get sick or that he might worry Elillith should she stop by, Noth finally relented and followed his angel and the corpse she was dragging to the designated greenhouse spot. He gave the most halfhearted prayer he could, which basically amounted to ‘I pray you’ll go away to the God-dess already.’, and then sat down in the dirt and watched. Interestingly enough, instead of the ground opening up, this time the body spontaneously combusted and was immediately reduced to ashes. Of course, just like before, a red bush grew, although this one’s flowers seemed even bigger. Noth wondered if the flowers related to how great of a sinner someone was, but he didn’t really care enough to ask out loud.

Noth rested his head on his knee and stared at the beautiful monster in front of him for a little while, before getting up and walking over to a particularly eye-catching rose that was growing from it. He grabbed one of the oversized petals and swiftly plucked it out. He was mildly surprised that it didn’t burst into tendrils and try to kill him like he’d seen last time. He plucked another petal and another, but nothing happened.

As he absentmindedly removed the last petal and looked down upon the now barren flower, a question suddenly formed in his brain. Perhaps he would have thought of this question much sooner had he not been dropped so deeply and instantly into depression. It almost felt like it was burning into his mind, pressing down on him with an anger that easily slipped past the shell of his recent dampened emotions. He turned to the angel who was standing nearby, and even though his face had mostly retained its bored veneer, a fire was starting to burn in his eyes.

“...Does the pope only want me gone because he thinks the God-dess hates me?”

The previously upset face of the angel swiftly broke out into a smile when she realized that this was the first question he’d asked in ages, and took it as a sign. She assumed a position like she had to think really hard about the answer, but then shrugged and shook her head.

Her answer was far from what he’d expected, and at the mention of a ‘shinier toy’, the only thing he could think of was the graceful and powerful holy spirit that was standing in front of him. Noth pulled the first confused face he’d made in weeks, and tilted his head slightly as he looked her up and down. She giggled as she realized what his questioning gaze meant, affecting a bashful posture and playfully motioning at him to stop.

The angel smiled extra wide and sauntered closer to him, grabbing both of his cheeks and looking him directly in his eyes.

Suddenly the angel’s gaze picked up intensity, almost giving a feeling like they were boring into Noth’s soul. Her hold on his cheeks grew the slightest bit tighter.

It wasn’t hard for Noth to understand the meaning behind her last words. His eyes shone with an understanding and clarity that was impossible not to recognize. As his hand came up and firmly grasped one of his angel’s hands on his cheeks, she dropped her intense stare and broke out into a cheesy smile.

Noth could understand her words. He could even understand why someone could fear those with his same [Gift]. But at the same time, the absurdity of the entire country ostracizing small children just because they ‘might decide to become too strong or bad’ was… just too silly of a thing to believe. A thought kept repeating itself around and around in his head; Perhaps if people didn’t treat these children so awfully, then they’d never have a reason to do such things! It all just seemed so stupid and unreasonable that just because of people’s fear and ignorance, and just because some almighty pope somewhere was afraid of getting ousted from his oh so wonderful God-dess granted position, Noth had to suffer and eventually die. How could life be so absurd and cruel?!

The boy angrily turned and stomped back to the bushes. They wanted to send assassins to him when he’d literally done nothing wrong and had only been trying to quietly live his life? Noth growled at the injustice of it all and started messily ripping out petals from the oversized flowers by the fistful.

How dare they?

How dare they?

How could this possibly be seen as fair?!

Why was this just allowed to happen?!

Why why why?!

All of a sudden his angel’s strong arms were pulling him back, away from the picked over bush. He struggled in her arms, still reaching out towards the few flowers that had somehow managed to survive his onslaught. Somehow just the sight of the bush offended him, symbolizing all the unfair things in his life. He wriggled and squirmed, baring his teeth and yelling, and eventually he angrily pointed at the target of his hatred, screaming at it as his eyes once again lit up and grew rusty red.

Particles gathered around the bush, dark, pulsating particles.

More and more gathered, smothering the offending shrub.

The darkness thickened, until you couldn't even tell what it was covering anymore.

And then, when it all dispersed, nothing was left in that spot but grass, a bit of rust, and all of the previously plucked petals.

Noth panted and snarled, his eyes running rampantly over the now empty spot, scanning it to see if even a speck was left. It took a moment, but as his eyes lost their colour again, he began to cool down just enough to think. He was angry, yes, but if anything it was a resolved anger. Who cares if he felt hopeless? Who cares if he felt depressed? He wouldn’t let that damn pope or any of his other lackeys have the satisfaction of killing him, for however long he could hold onto his life. Even if he thought he didn’t stand a chance, that didn’t mean that he had to make it easy for them! He was going to struggle and scream and be a thorn in their eye for as long as he could get away with it, dammit! Fuck everyone and anyone who dared to try and stop him! He was still young, and had a ton of life ahead of him! He’d grow up to be an unstoppable monster hunter, and one day he’d hunt down the biggest monster of all: The stupid pope who’d condemned him all this time!

And he wasn’t alone in all this! He had an amazingly powerful and maybe crazy angel on his side, one that promised to do her best to never let him die. He had to live not only for himself, but for her sake! Besides, she’d been there helping him through such tough times, it almost didn’t feel fair to her to just give up now. Noth knew it would be hard, but he strengthened his resolve, told himself to quit being such a crybaby over something that hadn’t even happened yet, and after smacking his cheeks a few times, he’d smacked himself out of his funk. No more was he going to sit still inside his villa, letting life attack him as it wished, and waiting for death. Today was the day to make a change!

Noth stayed still in his angel’s arms and let his mind turn over and rummage through all the things he could start getting done right now. He needed something that could both keep his mind busy so he wouldn’t panic and fall back into depression, and also could be counted as making progress somehow. He didn’t like how small his list of options was, but the fact that he had any options at all was better than nothing. Noth diligently weighed the pros and cons of each of his options before deciding that there was really only one that made sense to do right now. The boy gently removed his angel’s arms from around his waist and held one of the confused woman’s hands as he started marching towards the exit.

“We have to go talk to Elillith, angel.”