Author Note: I got a job, with a contract and all. I really dislike spending 8 hours of my life listening to people complain and asking assistants about every bit of junk possible. But we all have to make a living.
Unfortunately, this job makes it more difficult for me to publish my stories.
I wanted to write about a bar fight between Hestia Familia and a certain werewolf. But I ended up writing about a certain goddess of love and war.
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Story Arc: Welcome to Labyrinth City Hours
Episode 2: Is it wrong to get attention? (I)
Chapter 5: Curiosity "killed" the goddess
Plot: The goddess, Freya, started her day as usual. For better or for worse, Freya has discovered the existence of a small group of souls of Exotics. Reactions to the sight of such rare pieces, Freya could lose her mind.
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POV Narrator
The sun has just risen over the city of Orario.
Atop the Tower of Babel, sits the goddess Freya, whose domains are love, beauty, sex, fertility, warfare, and death.
Freya is a young woman, 170 centimeters tall. Freya has superior and outstanding beauty even among the gods.
She has long silver hair, silver eyes, and skin as white as fresh snow.
It has a perfect golden section, so much so that it is thought that the golden section originated from her.
Her clothes are largely black and red, exposing most of her belly and breasts. She also wears two flower-like ornaments in her hair.
At the moment, Freya is sitting in a luxurious chair fit for a king and holding an elegant glass of red wine in her hand.
In front of Freya is a large oval window in the shape of a flower, this window is actually a divine mirror that allows her to see any place she wants in the city.
Freya is practicing her favorite pastime, observing the souls of mortals in search of a unique soul.
As a deity with dominion over death, Freya possesses a particular ability that remained available even when she arrived in the Underworld, aka Gekai.
Discerning Eye, the innate ability to see the color and brilliance of souls.
He is also able to use it to vaguely estimate the status of adventurers by looking at them. With it, he can also tell the emotions that are clouding an individual and his mental states.
Freya often used this ability while in Heaven to claim those she liked before anyone else.
Nowadays, Freya uses her Discerning Eyes to find future members of her Familia.
In her long experience as a soul watcher, Freya has learned that the souls of mortals have different shapes and colors, each with a specific meaning.
Souls are a book that tells the owner's entire life, forming itself based on the previous life, the current life, the lived experiences and the surrounding environment.
Freya with a bored look is watching dozens or even hundreds of people going about their business without knowing they are being watched by the Discerning Eyes.
Freya's spiritual vision shows him colors of all kinds, but none of them manage to attract the attention of the Goddess of love.
In some ways, Freya is a high-end collector who seeks only one-of-a-kind pieces to add to her collection.
Sadly, with such high standards, most people are not worthy of the attention of the Goddess, Freya.
During the beginning of her collection, Freya didn't need the company of a good wine to make the time pass faster, unfortunately, finding souls with unique colors has become an incredibly rare occurrence.
The Goddess of Love and War prepares to take a sip of the wine and end her game for today. But then the unexpected happened.
When Freya's sight traveled down the main road to the guild hall one last time...
White, red, blue, lavender and black have been immortalized in Freya's eyes and mind.
After a long drought, Freya has found a dream crop in the form of five unique souls.
The first soul is pure and white in color which belongs to an innocent boy. The soul may be almost transparent, but still manages to shine like a small star. Freya's heart at the sight of this white color begins to beat faster than before.
The second soul is red like fire. Freya thinks for a moment that she was looking at the soul of a deity, but the basic consistency is similar to the soul of a mortal, but with a power typical of the divine.
"What do we have here?" Freya murmurs with a predatory smile, having never seen such a soul before.
"It's as if someone had put a mortal and a deity together in the same body, achieving a harmonious balance." She comments the Goddess of love, being captivated by this anomaly.
Continuing to look at the red soul, Freya is able to see the power, majesty and nobility of the sun itself, but, surprisingly, there is the humility and lack of arrogance typical of a saint.
Looking deeply, Freya can see a strong will and a strong heart, combined with a cold and ruthless nature. Compared to this essence, her champion Ottar is a puppy.
"I have seen and judged warrior souls before, but a soul with such ardor has never been seen or heard of in all of Tenkai." Freya murmurs, starting to feel warmth in every corner of her body, as if she were wearing winter clothes in the desert.
" Two such unique specimens, I absolutely have to take a close look at the next three!" Freya exclaims aloud, jumping up from her chair, approaching the divine mirror to see better.
Getting up so fast, Freya spilled red wine on the floor, but she's too wrapped up in exotic souls to mind anything so insignificant.
The third soul is blue in color, in many ways resembling the ocean. At first sight it appears to be a soul of a cheerful and joyous maiden who has never known sadness.
"As usual, women are good at hiding how they feel under a mask of happiness." Freya murmurs, not being fooled by first impressions.
Freya's spiritual sight has plunged into the depths of the blue soul, finding dark waters filled with malice and sadness.
Followed by mighty underwater volcanoes spewing fiery love and desires that can melt anything.
The woman who holds this soul is someone who has suffered many in the past, leaving traces impossible to erase in her soul.
However, she has found something capable of making her forget her past, love, an indomitable love that does not hesitate to hit her rivals and show her affection in every possible way.
"A woman who has suffered the pains of hell, has found her salvation in love and will do anything to keep her love found again. Ryuu, she should take an example from that." Freya murmurs, moved by this love story etched into this soul, wishing her friend could leave the past behind her.
This brief moment of clarity from the Goddess of Love completely disappeared when she found the blue soul center.
Hidden between the streams of fiery love and so many powerful emotions and desires lies raw divine power.
This power can be likened to the sun, a sun that shrunk to a single fragment and then plunged into the ocean in hopes of shrinking back to a humble candle.
This candle appears to be in the center of two opposing currents, a current of hatred is trying to put out the divine flame, while a current of love is stoking the flame.
Oddly, the flame of this candle resembles a fireball fox.
"What am I looking at!? A deity who has found a new way to become mortal?" Freya asks with a big smile on her face, her grip tightening around her glass, becoming more and more interesting to these exotic souls.
Suddenly, the candle flame lit up as if someone had thrown oil on it, causing it to grow dramatically. The flame has grown to the size of a building, depicting a majestic three-tailed fox.
This change disrupted Freya's concentration, causing her to return to seeing the physical world.
Without focusing on the metaphysical aspects of the blue soul, the goddess of love manages to discover the cause of the appearance of the flame in the shape of a three-tailed fox.
"Holding hands can cause such a reaction in her soul! How great is her love!? What else brilliant can she become!?" Freya asks, losing her composure at such a ridiculous cause.
"If so little is enough to cause such wild splendor, what will she do when she receives an act of true love?" Freya asks, desperately wanting to find out what the blue soul's greatest glow is.
If the white soul captured Freya's heart and the red soul warmed her body, then the blue soul intrigued her mind with a thousand questions and not a single answer in sight.
Not knowing what to expect anymore, Freya slowly shifts her attention to the fourth soul.
The moment the goddess of love and war saw the lavender soul, her mind went haywire.
Freya paid no attention when the wine glass she was holding slipped out of her hand, shattering spectacularly on the floor.
Freya got so close to the divine mirror that she physically touched it with the tip of her nose.
It would be an understatement to say that the goddess of love was captivated by the lilac colored soul which can be considered the highest quality pearl possible.
On superficial examination the fourth soul resembles the white soul, sharing an inviting clarity and shimmer.
But there is a contradictory difference in the light cloaked in lavender soul, it possesses great levels of fantasy and reality.
This soul has a deep kind, empathetic and pure disposition, as if she were a newborn child who is exploring the world for the first time in her life.
But its shell is not fragile like a child's ephemeral dreams that will be destroyed by harsh reality. On the contrary, her shell seems to be unshakable, as if nothing in the world can bring her down.
The owner of this soul is a girl who dreams of a world of fairy tales, when she has traveled the world she has seen wonders and horrors.
Instead of despairing at the existence of cruelty, she accepted the fact and decided to continue her journey, seeking new wonderful horizons.
"The rare soul of an idealistic girl who hasn't let the world crush her. But there's so much more inside her." Freya murmurs, managing to notice a unique trait of this lavender soul.
At the center of the pearl or within the foundation of the soul is something Freya has never seen before, a silver and gold colored soul.
"A soul that contains another soul, such an absurd and wonderful sight!" shouts Freya, putting her hands on her head, looking ready to pull her hair out or have a nervous breakdown.
The lavender soul has a sort of second gold and silver soul that has been inserted or assimilated or fused with its own essence.
The Assimilated Soul tells the story of a perfect, holy knight who was the only one to obtain the Holy Grail, only to return it to heaven. A person who has achieved the highest level of purity and cleanliness.
Freya can swear for a single instant that she watched as the pearl's shell opens to reveal a fairyland from which rises a utopian castle with walls of pristine white that can repel all evil in the world and beyond.
Freya's hands gripped the mirror frame so tightly that her dark gloves almost ripped.
The Goddess of Love was captivated and deeply affected by each of these souls.
The transparent soul of a young boy who can be considered innocence incarnate as much as possible for a human being.
Freya wishes to get this boy, make this soul shine to its fullest potential, and then chain him to her.
The red soul of a legendary warrior of unshakable strength and will, who is neither mortal nor divine, reincarnating the power and majesty of the Sun.
Freya doesn't understand how it is possible that a person could possess traces of mortal and divine nature at the same time. But the goddess of love and war wants to find out and see if she can hold the power of the sun in her hands.
The blue soul of a girl in love, who hides a dark past and an inhuman love behind the mask of the always happy girl. But her greatest secret is that deep within the sea of her soul exists a flame of pure divine power that manifests as a kitsune of fire.
Freya isn't sure if she was looking at a goddess who has found a way to become mortal or a reincarnated goddess or a maiden blessed by a deity's Arcanum.
However, Freya is certain she is interested in its spark of power and wishes to see it burn at full power.
The vanilla soul of an idealistic girl with a big heart who didn't let herself be crushed by harsh reality, remaining a bright light unable to be turned off.
Freya longs to get this soul into her collection and see that utopian castle and its unshakable walls again.
Shaking her head slightly, Freya tries to calm down again, not wanting to get overwhelmed by feelings of excitement from her new discoveries and risk making a bad move.
Souls with such unique characteristics that are unprecedented cannot be treated lightly, if he loses them there will be no way to see them again.
Taking a deep breath, Freya, to calm her nerves, having to examine one last soul.
Although apparently the Goddess of love seems to have recovered her calm, inside she feels like a child who can no longer wait to see the new episode of her favorite cartoon.
"Let's see if the latest soul is the highlight of the collection?" Freya asks, extremely curious as to what this black soul turns out to be.
Freya returns to her divine mirror, expecting to see the last member of the group.
Instead of seeing the black soul right away, Freya only saw the holders of the exotic souls she had already examined.
A white-haired, red-eyed little boy dressed as a novice adventurer.
A young man with messy white hair and intense blue eyes, dressed in golden armor.
A beautiful young woman with pink hair, with orange fox ears and tail, dressed in a blue Far Eastern dress.
A maiden with lilac hair, lavender eyes and pale skin, dressed in tight black armor, holds in her hands a large cross-shaped shield.
" Where it went !?" Freya exclaims aloud, starting to wield the divine mirror to find the person with the black soul.
"I'm not satisfied with a single part, I want the whole collection!" Freya cries out loud, slamming her fists against the divine mirror, not wanting to lose a single piece of her future treasure.
Through a stroke of luck, the goddess of love and war has found her target, a person clad head to toe in draconic-designed black armor who carries a large backpack behind him.
The Black Knight stands on the roof of a building with his arms crossed and his gaze fixed forward.
"Could he have agreed that I'm watching him?" Freya murmurs, feeling how her curiosity is growing more and more towards this individual.
No person before today has ever found out they were being watched by her.
The goddess who lives atop the tower not wanting to waste any more time activates her Discerning Eyes and focuses her attention solely on the person in black armor.
"What happened? Where did that black soul disappear to!?" Freya asks, failing to see any souls inside the black knight.
The goddess of love and war does not know that the black armor is not a simple armor with an extravagant appearance.
The armor she wears is the Royal Xeno-Armor IV, nicknamed Kheperer Shiruba, a one-of-a-kind piece originally created by Amelia Blight.
The corraza ua received several updates from its owner over time, eventually being perfected by the various Servant Casters during their stay in Chaldea.
Kheperer Shiruba, not the King in Black of Chaldea's strongest suit of armor, but it's the suit he's most fond of, plus it has many useful features, including anti-clairvoyance barriers.
When Freya laid her gaze on the Black Knight, Kheperer Shiruba activated her barrier, preventing him from seeing her soul.
"I don't know what you did to hide your soul, but it won't work for me." Freya proclaims, forcing her Discerning Eyes to work better than usual.
When the deities of this world descended from the Tenkai, they sealed their Arcanum so as not to damage the Gekai.
But their affinities and talents have remained the same, combined with having literally all the time in the world to improve their talents, have produced phenomenal results.
For example, Hephaestus is the greatest female blacksmith in the world, she can create swords unmatched in the entire Gekai using only human techniques.
In Freya's case, she has refined her talent for sensing souls in the hopes of better understanding and evaluating future members of her Familia/collection.
"I'm starting to see right through your trick!" Freya exclaims in a victorious voice, beginning to see brief black glimpses around the knight in raven armor.
Freya is lucky, because the Anti-Clairvoyant measures are the least developed point of the armor.
This weakness exists because if its user wanted to become invisible and interceptable, he would use Arsène's Coat, an object that can make Harry Potter's Invisibility Cloak die of jealousy.
Freya's Discerning Eye managed to see through the barrier, allowing him to see a soul...
"Alien." The goddess of love and war can only pronounce this word.
In her long life as an immortal Freya knows no other word to best describe what she is looking at.
It vaguely resembles the concept of Hitodama, i.e. a ball of light possessing the distinctive characteristics of an individual.
Unfortunately, there are a thousand factors that make everything more complicated and difficult to describe.
The Black Knight's soul is too big, too strong, too brilliant for a mere mortal to be. At first glance, Freya could tell that this black soul is worth 99 first-class adventuring souls. But she can't read the details about the individual's personality and inclinations. Everything is as if written in a different language.
Through her Eye Discerning, Freya sees a semi-transparent sphere with a circumference of nine meters of dark purple color.
Surrounding the sphere/Hitodama are silver chains which seem to keep it from expanding further.
In the center of the sphere is a fuzzy pitch-black humanoid figure, a representation of the physical body or a powerful curse.
" I was wrong, the soul is not black, the soul is dark purple, but why do I see his body of such a different color?" Freya asks, forcing her eyes further to better see this unique case.
Freya's willingness to see the details of the Black Knight's essence is greater than her sense of self-preservation.
Her eyes are close as she weeps tears of blood, but she keeps pushing forward.
The pitch black humanoid figure seems to constantly change its consistency.
One moment it is fire, then ice, then mud, crystal, smoke, etc.
The only common feature is the pitch black color and the presence of a myriad of circuit-like symbols that propagate everywhere, also, there is a kind of large gem in the center of the chest.
" That black essence represents: Luxuria, Wrath, Superbia, Gula, Envy, Avaritia, Acedia, Malice, Fear, Hate, Despair, Conflict, Bloodlust, Ruin, Extinction, Kill, Bad, Evil, Pain, Destruction, Death, Death, Resentment, Misfortune, War, Atrocity, Darkness, Grudge, Hatred, Contempt, Conflict." Freya lists the elements that are emitted by the dark aura.
" As if all the evils of the world had been gathered in a single individual.
But his soul is not evil in the slightest, this evil seems to come from his own body and not from his own soul.
Is it maybe an inherited curse or something crazier?" Freya asks in a frantic voice, as her right eye begins to weep bloody tears from exerting too much in such a short time.
The black knight stops keeping his arms crossed and starts clapping slowly.
"Nosy, I don't know who you are, but I admit you are persevering.
You've managed to get a cursory glimpse of the outside of my soul and spot one of the signs of my Morgan Le Fay inheritance.
You deserve a reward or a punishment, maybe both." The Black Knight said in a cold voice, clearly not appreciating being observed by Freya.
"Come on and let me take you to the underworld." Said the individual with a particular soul, making a theatrical bow, while his heavy helmet that covered the face split in two and became one with the armor.
Freya stepped forward wanting to see this fellow's face, forgetting that she is about to receive a reward and a punishment at the same time.
The black knight, now without the helmet that hides his face, lifts his head, showing his androgynous face, one gray eye and inky black hair.
" Is cute." Freya murmurs, feeling a slight blush appear on her face.
Suddenly the androgynous boy's hair became snow white, his ears became long and pointed, while his gray eyes began to glow with fluorescent gold.
At that moment, Freya made one of the biggest mistakes in her life, she gazed into the eyes of a sorcerer who removed his shields.
The eyes are often called the windows to the soul, the truest reflections of a person's heart.
Poetic as it may sound, for witches and sorcerers this is more a fact than reality and a rather problematic curse.
If a mage and anyone else maintains eye contact, they can peek through those windows to see each other's most fundamental nature.
Most wizard users find ways to prevent these incidents through protection.
But the knight has opened the door to his own free will, letting Freya get what she wants and more.
The entire world of Bruce Bel Bahamut Belmont is perhaps one of the most dangerous places in the multiverse.
Poor Freya doesn't know what she's about to see and is experimenting.
Continues ...