"Are you insane?"
Abraham's startled voice broke out with genuine fear behind it.
Never once in his five millennia of existence within the cruel lands of the Great Beyond had the unfading boy ever felt true dread.
Yet, something about what Eleanor had said in that moment shook him to his very core, an impossibility for someone who craved death like it was dessert.
The Angel of Providence seemed surprised as well; her placid expression turned into a weak smile as she saw the boy take worried steps backwards.
"I thought you'd wanted to enter Hell and fade away. This could be your perfect opportunity."
She regarded him coldly, an action that he did not appreciate, sneering at her in response.
"This isn't ethical… It's inhumane!"
Feeling his back touch against the cool stone wall, he watched in terror as the blonde priestess grinned warmly.
"I promise it won't hurt… Or well… I'll try not to make it hurt!"
Her forced optimism did not reassure him; his heart was only hammering harder as she walked towards him slowly.
"NOT A STEP CLOSER!"
Holding out his hand in front of him, he made her stop in her tracks, the Angel behind the small girl chuckling at his panicked expression.
"The great Abraham is cowering before a teenager… How pathetic!"
Anger surged through his flesh as he heard her insults, his retort coming soon after.
"Cowering…?"
His frightened expression instantly flattened, and his muscles relaxed, his body moving away from the wall and towards the center of the alleyway where the blonde girl stood.
"I'm afraid of nothing!"
Proudly punching his own chest, he closed his eyes, preparing for the worst.
Eleanor, however, stood silent, her gaze not falling on the boy, but rather on the Angel beside her who mocked the child incessantly.
"Shouldn't I explain what I need you both for first? What if we needed to go to one specific area and do something there?"
Lady Strixen froze, Abraham following soon after.
"Ah, well…"
The green-eyed woman rubbed the back of her head while the black-haired boy shrugged and turned his gaze to the ground, dejected.
Quietly murmuring a disappointed phrase under her breath, Eleanor walked towards the winged woman and placed her right hand on her left wing.
"What are you…"
There was a short flash of light as a spell was cast.
In less than a second, a weak glow surrounded Strixen's form, gently humming like a machine's heartbeat.
Nodding slowly, Eleanor turned her eyes to Abraham, who watched with bated breath.
Walking over silently, she placed her right hand over her core and her left hand on his forehead.
"Is this some sort of ritual?"
He spoke in a whisper, trying not to disturb the girl's concentration even while doing just the opposite.
"Sort of…"
She pressed her fingernail on his forehead, drawing a tiny droplet of blood.
"Ouch!"
Nearly jumping backwards in shock, Abraham looked at her with a hurt expression and a desire to flee.
Still standing where she had threatened to disappear, Lady Strixen observed with mild interest.
"Did Lady Ariel teach you this? It is reminiscent of a ritual I once saw her mother perform on lost children."
As if remembering the former Queen of the Angels, a warm look appeared on the True Angel's face, one that Eleanor hadn't seen before, yet couldn't spend the time dissecting.
"Yes. Using blood as a holy conduit, you can insert all sorts of magical supplements."
Closing her eyes and focusing on the tight feeling within her core, she tried to extract pieces of her corruption.
Let them flow through me… Like a river…
Taking slow, steady breaths, she allowed her consciousness to enter a state of flow, the gentle feeling in her chest turning cold.
Her heart rate spiked, and sweat poured out in droves, her own bodily regulation failing to classify the God Slayer's corruption.
To Eleanor, however, such pain was nothing compared to what she had felt after the Knowledge Barrier had nearly killed her from the overload of information she had been bombarded with, so she could easily withstand the symptoms.
When seconds dragged into minutes, and her mana core began to dry up, Lady Strixen performed her task to perfection.
As the Angel who was a devout disciple of the God of Disease and Medicines, she was allowed some authority in that realm.
And with that in mind, slight amounts of that medical property could be transferred to others, something that she placed into practice with her hand against the girl's back.
Feeling the corruption near Eleanor's core begin moving in the direction that her finger willed, she inserted her own sort of 'semi-corruption'.
This would act as a blockade, filling in the region where the dangerous corruption had resided and forcing it out through the ritual.
Knitting her brow tight, the Angel struggled to restrain the horrific substance that rotted away anything it touched.
Furthermore, right next to the mass of corruption, a core in possibly the worst shape she had ever seen pounded relentlessly on the verge of complete overexertion.
There wasn't much time left, and both Eleanor and Strixen knew it.
Forcing the remainder of their energy into their tasks, the first to complete their job was the blonde-haired girl, her finger still pressed against the bloodied boy, now reaching his skull.
"Ouchie! Ouchie!"
In a flash, his blood turned pitch-black, his eyes popped like balloons, and his head rotted to the ripe age of nearly one hundred.
His limbs turned purple, and his mouth dripped with a sticky solution that resembled melted lung, his life snuffed out in less than a millisecond.
Before his body could hit the floor, Strixen completed her task, constructing a makeshift blockade within the blonde girl's chest.
"Done…"
Her breath was ragged, yet she was in no position to complain, her eyes instantly darting to the completely mutilated form of Abraham, his flesh already beginning to cool.
Eleanor panted hard as she stared at the corpse, her own skin pale and fragile as if it would rip at the simplest of touch.
On her face, there was an expression of pure anguish, the image of the dead child burning its way into her mind.
"I-It… I-It worked…"
She fell to her knees, her consciousness waning and her head pounding as the residual corruption found new places to hibernate within her.
Using the opportunity to push the substance to the very edge of her being, she sacrificed the already suicidal boy to fracture a portion of the corruption, allowing her to spread it out more thinly inside her.
In simpler terms, when she had passed her corruption to his body, and he combusted, the wicked energy had shattered into smaller pieces before returning to her, ones far easier to break apart than the one giant clump that had resided within her before.
Lady Strixen bent down, grabbing the small cufflink around the boy's wrist, one that Eleanor had always ignored.
"It's an heirloom from his life."
The blonde girl looked at her weakly as the black-haired woman examined the object in her hand.
"It was probably a gift from his parents, but even the Angelic Archives have no records on an item so old. Those born during the Dimensional War typically left the world soon after, and it seems that he was no exception to that rule."
Sighing, she glanced at the sky where, directly overhead, a Spore was already growing, preparing to drop the seemingly immortal boy back down to the land of the dead.
"Will… Will he retain his memories? Most other spirits lose them if they die, but he doesn't seem to be normal…"
She had hesitated to ask beforehand, worried she would get an answer that she didn't quite like and would interfere with her resolution to help the boy achieve his dream of perishing completely, whatever the method.
Is it humane to call it help when I've just killed him and he didn't fade?
Waiting for the Angel's reply, she tried to stand, only to fall against the bloodied wall and struggle to keep herself up.
Lady Strixen shook her head before responding.
"Yes. He'll be the same Abraham as you remember. Though his resentment for you might have grown."
The green-eyed woman smiled at Eleanor, who sent her a grin of her own, barely balancing herself against the concrete wall.
Then, her eyes fell on the cufflink within her guardian's hand.
"Can I ask you a question?"
The Angel of Providence shrugged.
"Sure."
Thus, the blonde-haired girl continued without hesitation.
"Why is it that Abraham believes that the Angelic Order is stealing his money every time he is nearly at the total? There is nothing for them to gain, so it truly makes little to no—"
She was cut off before she could finish.
"He thinks that because he is far smarter than most."
Eleanor froze, her hands instantly darting to her ears to make sure she was still alive and hearing correctly, even at the danger of slipping after losing the extra support of her upper limbs.
"W-what?"
Lady Strixen frowned and continued.
"If Abraham were to successfully gather the requested amount and bring it to the Angelic Order, we would be obligated by Soul Pact to aid him. However, the pact doesn't forbid us from doing whatever we want to prevent that from happening, even if we have to steal from him for that."
The priestess's mouth hung open at the blatant acceptance of the crime, and any faith she had had in the Angels was on the verge of collapse.
"B-But that's not right! He just wants to fade! Why not let him?!"
Her voice trembled as she tried to wrap her head around the appalling revelation, stuttering slightly.
A sad expression soon reflected on her guardian's face.
"It's simple. Abraham is one of the greatest mysteries in the universe itself. He is an enigma that even the Lord cannot decipher. Never before has someone been born with the brain of his, one capable of emulating an adult's thinking even at the youngest of stages. Furthermore, he has the unique characteristic of being naturally impervious to fading."
She paused, noticing the Spore on the ceiling drooping down as if it were about to fall.
"Also… It is safe to say that he is a sizable deterrent."
Out of all the excuses she had given, the last one angered Eleanor the most.
"A deterrent…? A child? Are you using a child as a deterrent? To what? Stray cats? Other kids? What in the name of the Lord would be afraid of a small boy like that!"
Throwing her hands up in exasperation, she witnessed a pang of fear cross Lady Strixen's face.
"No…"
She trailed off, a tremble behind her words.
"Rather… He's a deterrent against something far worse."
Glancing upward and then into the distance, she sighed.
"A deterrent to what resides outside the walls of this city. That boy is a threat to the one being that can endanger even the Angels dwelling within this safe haven of the Great Beyond."