unknownrival | [RL - Tea with Vanessa after lunch.]

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[RL - Tea with Vanessa after lunch.]

Hopefully this would go better than Vanessa's last visit.

Issei sat on the top step of the ones leading up to the temple. Let's see, he'd confirmed that Vanessa would be dressed appropriately, he'd warned the other monks that a woman would be having tea with him, and he'd steeled himself for being teased nigh-constantly during the visit. Unless he was forgetting something, he was ready to receive his guest.

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"Two hundred years?" she parroted, looking at him strangely. "That's...a really long time. Are the other temples and shrines here that old as well? Has anyone made a more modern one since things turned about in this new age or what?"

"Oh, there are certainly more recently made temples in Japan, as well as older ones. Just not in Fuyuki, since it's a fairly small town," he answered. "It's certainly at least a little older than two hundred years, anyway. The church that's also in town is much more recent."

"What church would that be, Issei?" she asked after a long moment, pausing to take out a book on world religions and flip through it. It obviously had been read in a while, and it was obviously older, but it still caught her eye. "I didn't think the Japanese were really ones for Christianity, if that's the kind of church you mean."

"The church near the other side of town," he replied, gesturing vaguely in one direction with his hand. "You're right, but Christianity has been growing in Japan, so this church is more modern. No one I know frequents ours, however... I never liked the priest, he disturbed me for years."

Her head jolted up at the mention of disturbing priests, which she knew about herself all to well. She snapped the book shut before replacing and leaning against the bookshelf, arms crossed.

"What was so disturbing about him?"

"Just his whole aura was... he frightened me. I was fairly young when I met him the first time, so I didn't know what it was about him at the time. ...And then recently someone who'd been in contact with him before his death told me exactly how evil he was." Issei shuddered. "I knew I was right about him."

She cocked up an eyebrow at that, a bit of that same anger rising up in her gut, just like it had earlier. She gripped her elbows harshly, though it was hard to see or tell. "What do you mean by 'evil'?" If they were anything like the priests in her world, well...she wouldn't be too happy.

Issei glanced around the library - no one was all that close to them. He lowered his voice just in case. "Last year he was using an ancient magical ritual to summon the incarnation of all evil into the world. He was doing this with the help of a magical servant, which he kept in existence by feeding him children's souls."

There were very few people Issei was genuinely glad were dead, but Kotomine was definitely one of them.

Her fingers clenched and relaxed around her elbows as she thought. "I can't decide if that's worse or better then what came out about the priests in my world," she murmured, walking over closer to him so he could keep his voice as low as he liked.

"If you're thinking of - ugh, I don't even want to say it. I hate that kind of thing as well, especially because people shouldn't abuse their religious authority and their follower's trust. But at least it's rare for most priests in my world to kill people..."

"So...he was some sort of cult leader?" she tried again, wanting to understand all of what he'd said. She pulled away one of her hands to notice that there were red blotches on her skin from where she'd gripped it so hard that the red blotches on the bandage had rubbed off against it. She didn't really care; she'd call Franken later on and see if she needed stitches or not.

Issei shook his head. "No, he was just one person who almost brought doom upon us all, mainly because he could. I will never understand how anyone could think that way."

"Huh," was all she had to say to that. She didn't fully understand some of the supernatural things that went on in other people's worlds, and she wasn't understanding this right now. She looked back at her bandage where more red splotches were starting to show. "I should go home now," she said abruptly, giving him a smile. "I have to talk to a doctor to see if this wound needs stitches."

"Wh- oh, that's fine." Issei bowed to her briefly before straightening up. "Please let me know if you ever want to do something else together. I'd be happy to see you again. And I am sorry, once again, that you were injured."

"No, it's not your fault, love," she replied, leaning down very quickly to give him a kiss on the forehead before she knocked the toes of her shoes against the floor again in order to keep them on. "See you around~" And she walked out of the library.

Issei stared after her for a few moments. "...I, err, um, wh-what just happened?"

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[RL - Tea with Vanessa after lunch.]

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