Chapter Text
It happened so fast that at first I wasn’t sure what had happened. I’d thought for a moment that Yuri had been devoured by the apple shaped abnormality until I saw clearly that Yuri was fine, Gregor had grabbed her and shoved her away. Leaving himself in the place she would have been.
While I dreaded the inevitable agony that would come with bringing back Gregor, I couldn’t help but be relieved that it was someone who I could bring back that had died. Or.. been consumed in this case? The particulars of his cause of death didn’t matter at the moment though. Ishmael had rushed to Yuri’s side unprompted to pull her away from the rampaging abnormality that she was staring in shock at.
Though I was down two sinners for the following fight with the transformed apple, it really could have ended up worse.
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It could have ended up worse, even as we trudged our way back up the facility without the Golden Bough. What I was dreading the most was how Vergilius was going to react to this, he really didn’t seem like the kind of guy to take our failure lightly, even if it was only because of a second party arriving to take the Bough while we were all worn out from the fight with the apple.
How was he going to react to us asking for Yuri’s continued presence on the bus?
“Seems nobody in our group ‘s getting out with what we came here for.” Heathcliff’s voice caught my attention and I looked to see where he was looking. And there was Hopkins, or what was left of him at least. It looked like he’d been partially crushed by a hammer of some kind, perhaps an abnormality we’d missed on our initial delving down into the facility had caught him unprepared.
Out of the corner of my sight I swore I could see a very small smile on Yuri’s face for the first time since the apple had devoured Gregor, still needed to bring him back but we needed to be in a spot where I could do that first. The bus seemed like the safest place to do that even with Vergilius.
I hoped he wouldn’t have any memories of what the apple had done with his face, that was something all of us could have gone without seeing. Yuri in particular seemed the most bothered by it, I wished I could provide even a little bit of comfort to her but we really had to get out of here first if the other abnormalities in the facility were still around.
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Vergilius was more concerned with giving me a verbal dressing down than he was over Yuri staying with us assumedly. He hadn’t batted an eye after requesting an explanation from Faust about her presence and simply left it at that. She seemed relieved about that, letting out a sigh before settling in the seat she had taken before on our journey.
The pain of being eaten by an abnormality was, as usual, incapable of being put entirely to words but as unbearable as any other cause of death rest assured. I wasn’t completely sure where Gregor would end up, given that his body was completely gone after the apple was beheaded. Luckily for us he simply showed back up in his seat on the bus, rather than being all the way down in the facility where he got eaten.
Yuri seemed a bit startled when he showed up next to her, she’d seen me bring back the dead sinners before but maybe she was startled because it was Gregor. Who she’d last seen as the decapitated head of the apple.
“Gregor I… I should’ve known better. I’m so sorry.” Gregor sighed a little as she apologized, but he seemed at a loss for words. “You got killed because of me.”
That got Gregor to speak up with something.
“Better me than you, Manager Bud over there can bring me back at least.” I was a little bit annoyed at how casual he was about it but honestly? I didn’t really mind this time, so I kept quiet about it.
“Still, it’s my fault for getting so close to it. I worked with that one before, I should’ve remembered.” She sounded upset with herself, maybe not unreasonably in her thoughts.
“Not like we can change the past, we just have to live with it.” Gregor replied taking a moment to look out the window, we weren’t moving yet so I wasn’t sure if he was looking at anything in particular.
The bus was mostly quiet with a bit of chatter here and there between the other sinners, as poorly as our first mission went the mood was fairly light all things considered. It really could’ve gone worse.
“A word miss Yuri.” Vergilius’ voice called from the front, the quiet chatter chilling over as soon as he spoke, he was looking over a few maps with directions to presumably our next destination written out over it. Yuri looked frightened to be referred to directly but came up to him without a word herself.
“We arrived at our destination thirty minutes earlier than expected with your assistance. If you would, I ask that you continue to assist by familiarizing yourself with our next route.” Vergilius explained, holding out the maps to Yuri, who quietly nodded and took them back to her spot intimidated.
The quiet tension that had come from the unknown fate of Yuri evaporated as Rodion spoke to her, a smile on her face with a question ready,
“So you’re our new navigator eh? Care to tell us where we’re headed next?”
“Let me read it myself first.” Yuri said as she pulled her other arm from the sling-like strap she held it most of the time.
“We should be far enough away where it does not matter. Charon?” Vergilius called softly to our driver.
“Off we go, vroom vroom.” Charon responded before starting forward to our next destination, softly humming to herself as the sinners tried to ever so quietly chatter about where we might be going next. It was hard not to feel just a little bit hopeful that we might turn things around with our next mission.