Chapter 140: Anna

Night reached the room and knocked on the door.

​Knock. Knock.

​The door opened.

On the other side stood a beautiful, tall girl.

She had piercing blue eyes and white hair similar to Eve and Lilith. She was wearing the same artifact set that gave away her identity as Death. She had a cool look on her face that made people feel like staying away.

​The girl’s eyes brightened as soon as they landed on Night.

​"Master, you are awake!" Death said with a bright smile. As she spoke, she stepped close and started checking him all over to see if he was fine, not even waiting for him to answer.

​Night dodged her hands, which were already creeping dangerously close to his face.

​He ducked and entered the room, leaving Death to pout and follow him inside.

​Once they were inside, Death’s smile dimmed, and a solemn look settled on her face.

​The room had two beds. On one of them lay Sara, and on the other was a woman with blackish-purple hair.

​Looking at the women with blackish purple haid, Night thought, she looked like a cute aunty who would always spoil you with candy when your parents were not looking.

She had a round, bubbly face and she looked nothing like Death, making him wonder if they were even mother and daughter at all.

​But he kept his thoughts to himself.

​Death and Night looked at each other, and with a shared nod, Night went to check on Sara.

​Night looked at Sara. She looked quite different now that she was not wearing her Witch outfit. She looked like a girl no older than Death; if he was being honest, she looked even younger than Death.

​But Night knew she was old enough to be his granny.

​Cough. He chased those thoughts away. If he spoke them out loud, he would surely get beaten to a pulp when she finally woke up.

​After admiring her sleeping face for some time and silently wishing her well, he turned and focused on Death’s mother.

​He looked at the the duo, he hadn’t even known Death had a mother. He was curious about her past, but he was not stupid enough to just ask her directly. He didn’t want her to feel sad, his intuition told him it was not a pleasant story.

​Alas, even if he didn’t want to dive down the rabbit hole of a tragic backstory, Death was different.

​To her, it was only right for Night to know everything about her.

​In fact, she was already waiting to share it with him first, especially since her mother was revived. She hadn’t said a single word about her past to the others despite their endless pestering.

​Not even to Vivianne, her supposed friend.

​To think she would actually make a friend... but after what the Devil Empress did for her and Night, it was a natural outcome.

​Death and Night sat on chairs beside the bed as Death described her past, at least, the way she saw it.

​Night didn’t interrupt her and listened patiently. He didn’t show any anger or negative emotions on his face when he heard about her father or the her treatment at the facility, moreover he could tell Death was not truly bothered by her own past.

​In fact, he could tell Death was strangely happy with the way things had happened. When he finally asked her about it, her answer stumped him for minutes.

​Night had asked her in puzzlement when he felt the way she viewed her past was a bit unhinged, "You don’t regret all that happened?"

​Death looked at him, dumbfounded. She almost looked hurt that he would even ask something so silly. "Why would I regret it?"

​Night scratched his hair and asked, "You had to go through all that as a child, and in the end, you still died." In a way, she had let herself die so that Night could survive and she did so willingly, and she didn’t know weather she would survive.

​Death smiled proudly and said, "Now that I get to spend the rest of my life with Master, it was all completely worth it."

​She then added with a dark face, as if she dreaded to even think about it, "I am afraid if I could redo it, I would be worried about how to make it happen the same way, just so that we could end up together like this again."

​As she said this, she came over to Night smoothly, knelt down, and hugged him.

​This time, Night didn’t dodge and even hugged her back.

​Night found her way of thinking a little questionable. If he used the memories of Levi to describe her, she was nothing short of batshit crazy.

The type that locked their lovers in a dark room away for the world for their ’safety’

​But Night was nothing if not flexible when it came to his friends. He would have done the same for her if he were in her place, though he would have gone about it differently. Yet, in the end, it was the intent that counted.

​They stayed that way for minutes. Just as Night was about to let go, Death hugged him tighter. Just when Night thought she would not let him go at all, Death pulled back, not forgetting to pinch his cheeks before returning to her chair.

​Night looked at Death’s mother. From Death, he got to know her name was Anna. She didn’t have a last name. She was not from a noble family, and only nobles had last names.

​When Night asked Death what her own name was before, surprisingly, she refused to answer. She refused to say it even when he tried to playfully bribe her with another hug.

​With a serene smile, she said she was happy with her new name. Even though it was simple, she cherished it; it was the name he had given her, after all.

​Though Night felt warm when she acted like this, and it should on his face when he gave her a bashful smile.

​After some more small talk, he left the room

...

​As Death looked at Night’s disappearing figure, he face broke into a crazy, twisted smile.

​Her cheeks flushed. With dazed eyes, she placed her index finger softly on her lips as she thought of what had just happened.

​She didn’t expect Vivianne’s advice to work so well.

At the start, she had acted like her usual self, but when she realized it was not working, she applied the Empress’s advice.

And the results?

She managed to hug Night openly and even got him to hug her back willingly.

​The her eyes gleamed. I didn’t think of it before. I got careless because I thought of her as a friend.

​If just a simple piece of advice from her is so effective, what about the woman herself?

​When she thought about how easy it would be for Vivianne to steal him from her, her expression twisted violently.

​She felt as if someone had suddenly plunged a dagger into her heart and twisted it.

​I am afraid, my friend, you will have to join the others and become another skeleton in my closet when the time comes. You are far too dangerous to be around my sweet Night.

​As for Vivianne not liking Night, Death was no fool.

​Who wouldn’t like Master? Night was like a pearl cast among swine like them. As a fellow swine, Vivianne would eventually fall for him after seeing his glorious ways.

​And Death would not allow something like that. Her eyes shifted to Sara. They gleamed dangerously for a moment, and then her eyes moved to Anna, her own mother. Some warmth returned to her gaze.

​But her gaze hardened again when she thought of a new possibility, something others would scoff at, but Death knew otherwise. Night was far too kind, and he definitely wouldn’t mind a person’s past, especially theirs.

​And her mother, Anna, was now one of them...

​Death’s eyes darkened.

​Her Master, Night, was hers. Hers and hers alone. And she wouldn’t leave anyone who tried to take that away from her.

​Mother... I am afraid you will have to join them if you interfere...

​Even if the other person was her own mother.

​Her master plan to take ’care’ of all those around Night had been pushed away because of the recent events, but one would be a fool to think she had given up on it entirely.

​In fact, she had been sharpening her knife all this while and waiting for the chickens to fatten and grow careless

...

​Vivianne, who was chilling in her room drinking tea with her stiff hands, suddenly felt a chill run down her spine.

​She awkwardly turned her stiff neck around but couldn’t tell if what she felt was a hallucination or real.

​It seems my senses are stiff as well, giving me wrong intuitions. What can possibly harm me in a Divine Grade Inner World?

​Not gaining any clues after looking around, she went back to drinking her tea in peace.

...

​[Dream] sat on a comfortable chair as she kept writing in a thick diary.

​The diary contained all the plans she had created for Night and the others to grow stronger.

​Suddenly, her intuition picked up something.

​Her purple eyes glowed, and she tried to peer into the river of destiny to see what it was. But after repeatedly checking, she found absolutely nothing.

​She returned to her planning when she didn’t see any immediate threats to Night in the future.

​Unbeknownst to [Dream], while she was able to spot death flags effortlessly, this time things were different.

​This time, the problem was not a death flag.

It was Death herself.