Author's Note: Wowie, bonus chapter? Better enjoy it while it lasts, I'll be focusing on stockpiling chapters from now on
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Royman Mardeel, for all his years working for the Guild, had dealt with a great many unreasonable people.
He had stared down furious Gods threatening to tear down the building over a tax dispute. He had mediated between Familia captains on the brink of open warfare in the middle of the Pantheon's main hall. He had even personally delivered news of adventurer deaths to their Familia in his earlier tenure.
He had never, throughout his time working for the Guild, been turned down so flatly with so little ceremony.
"No."
One word the man had uttered out, not even a sentence. He hadn't even turned to fully look at him.
Royman tugged at the collar of his suit, feeling the sweat roll freely down the back of his neck. He glanced instinctively behind him, toward the stone floor, toward the hidden staircase that led down below the Pantheon. He could feel the weight of those ancient blue eyes from beneath even now, patient and waiting.
He straightened his jacket and cleared his throat, trying again.
"Sir, I understand that this is… unexpected. And I apologize for approaching you in this manner." He kept his voice at a careful murmur, making sure not to draw attention to themselves, but curious gazes and whispers were beginning to coalesce, as he was in charge of the Guild after all. "The person requesting this meeting is not someone who makes requests lightly. In fact, it is the first time he has ever made such a request at all. That alone, sir, should tell you-"
"It doesn't."
Royman stopped.
The man in front of him, Yuji Itadori, being the name he was given, still made no move from his position. He was still set leaning against the stone pillar, arms folded, watching the foot traffic of Adventurers and Guild workers alike with some sort of detached patience, waiting for the Loki Familia to finish their business, most likely, is what Royman surmised. It didn't help the fact that his hood was up, making it harder to get a read on the man's expression.
"Then perhaps," Royman pressed on, slowly running out of options, "If I could at least convey the nature of the-"
"You were told not to antagonize me."
Royman's mouth snapped shut. His eyes widened, and a new layer of sweat joined the current.
The man finally turned his head, ever so slightly, just enough for Royman to catch the glimpse of his other eye as well as they stared at him. It wasn't a threatening look, but that's what made it worse. It was the look of someone being mildly inconvenienced by a fly, noting it, and deciding whether or not to bother swatting it.
Sure, Gods in the past had given him grief and looked down on him for being a mortal, but they understood the backing that was behind him. All of that didn't matter to this man before him.
"I heard you muttering it to yourself before you came over." Yuji said, adding on, "A bad habit."
Royman's composure was barely hanging on by a thread.
"So you were given instructions before approaching me, from whoever wants this meeting." Yuji pushed off the pillar and stood at his full height. Royman, who was not tall by any standard with his years of overindulgence, had to tilt his head back to maintain eye contact. "Which tells me this person somehow, through some means, already knows enough about me. Enough that I need to be handled carefully."
There were no words of pride within his tone. He merely stated the facts laid out before him.
"Given all of that," he continued, "I'll say it once more. I'm not interested."
He turned to walk away.
"He said he might refuse!"
The words came out before Royman could stop himself, a last act of desperation. Regret welled up inside him immediately once he realized his actions.
Itadori paused.
He didn't turn back, just stopping in place, hands in his front jacket pockets as people weaved around him, giving him looks of annoyance.
"H-He said if you refused, to tell you he was… present when you arrived in this city. That he would very much like to speak with you himself. And that if you choose to leave, he will not call on you again."
A breath passed for a moment.
Royman braced himself, nervously fidgeting and shifting from one foot to the other.
"Lead the way."
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The private staircase was accessed through the back of the second floor, behind a door that would have been invisible to anyone who didn't know exactly where to look. Royman produced an incredibly dull looking key from his jacket, unlocking the door and holding it open with booth hands in a posture that managed to be both servile and deeply relieved.
Looking down, the stairs descended in a wide, slow spiral. The light from magic stone lamps above faded within the first few steps, replaced by the low glow of actual torches set into iron brackets along the wall. The air was cooler and carried a scent of stone and something else beneath it.
Yuji took a glance at Royman before stepping down. Royman did not follow past the base of the stairs, stopping at the first turn into a dark passageway, pressing himself against the wall and gesturing forward. It conveyed the feeling of please proceed, and I will absolutely not be accompanying you any further, his eyes were very keen on studying the floor beneath him.
Yuji gave him a mild look and continued forward. The passage ahead was wide enough for two people to walk side by side, with the walls cut from the same dark stone that lined the lower floors of the Dungeon, though there seemed to be a bit more thought and uniformity put into them.
The torches were placed at odd intervals along the passage, barely lighting up the passage way enough to guide people forward.
At the end of the passage was an archway, and beyond it was a chamber, the Room of Prayer, was what Royman had called it.
Yuji stepped through and didn't expect the sight before him. He wasn't sure what to expect in the first place. Something more imposing, maybe, since he assumed that Gods loved their grandstanding. The room was wide but was severely lacking, with the ceiling high above covered in the shadows of the room. There were no furnishings, no decorations, only four torches that lined each corner of the room.
In the centre of the room was something akin to an altar, carved from a single piece of stone. Upon it, sat with the stillness of something that had not moved in a very, very long time, was the man.
'Not really a man, in this case,' Yuji thought to himself, beholding the figure in front of him.
White hair falling loose past his shoulder, with blue eyes open and calm, tracking Yuji's approach with the unhurried attention of someone who had the patience to stay in the same spot for hundreds of years on end. He had a white robe covered by a black cloak resting across his shoulders, draping his entire body.
From first impressions, he looked like a very old human dressed in modest clothing.
Yuji stopped in the centre of the room, hands in his pockets, as the two stared at one another.
He'd spent a long time, a very long time learning to tell the difference between things that looked dangerous and things that were. He'd also spent just as long learning the difference between power that announced itself and power that had simply run out of reasons to.
This one had run out of reasons a long time ago.
"Yuji Itadori."
The voice was low and unhurried, echoing within the room.
"That's the name I'm going by." Yuji tilted his head, unbothered by how the man knew of his name. "And you'd be the one who founded this city."
"Among other things." The man on the altar did not move. His eyes never left Yuji the moment he entered the room. "I am Ouranos. I have been watching over this city and the Dungeon beneath it for one thousand years. Longer than most Gods choose to remain in the Lower World. Longer, I suspect, than you have been alive."
"I don't take losing bets," Yuji said simply.
Ouranos regarded him for a long moment. "So it would seem."
The torches softly cracked in the chamber. Far above them was the Guild, but the noise and chatter never reached down below, leaving the silence to hang between the two.
"You arrived in the Dungeon," Ouranos said. "Not through it. Not from the entrance above. From within."
It wasn't a question, but a statement from the opposite of him.
"I noticed," Yuji stated.
"The Dungeon noticed as well," Ouranos replied, pausing as if to measure his next words. "I have sat in this room for one thousand years. In that time, I have felt the Dungeon shift, change, react. There is very little it can do that still surprises me." His blue eyes stayed steady on Yuji's. "Your arrival surprised me."
"Congratulations on that, I suppose."
If Ouranous had found Yuji's response as flippant or rude, he gave no indication. "When you appeared, the Dungeon did not spawn monsters to kill you. It spawned them around you." He folded his hands across his knees. "That distinction matters. The Dungeon does not shelter what enters it. It does not extend courtesies to intruders. What it did that day was something I have only ever observed once before, at the very beginning, when this city was nothing yet."
Yuji was quiet, silently listening. His expression never changed, but his focus shifted to the Gods' words.
"It was curious." Ouranos uttered out.
"About me."
"Yes."
The old god's gaze moved over Yuji slowly, not as a way to size up a threat, but more so an old scholar upon encountering a text he encountered in a different language, searching for its translation.
There was a peculiar look to his gaze as he examined Yuji. Not one of suspicion, nor awe or revulsion. It was a gaze that carefully assessed the man in front of him, trying to see what category the man opposite of him would fit under.
"And what about you? Are you curious about me?"
"I have lived long enough, "Ouranos said, "to understand the difference between curiosity and concern. I am concerned. And yes. Somewhat curious."
For the first time since entering the room, Yuji's expression shifted. The corner of his mouth pulled upward, very slightly.
"That's the most honest thing anyone's said to me since I got here." He withdrew one hand from his pocket and lowered himself to sit cross legged on the stone floor, meeting Ouranos's gaze from below.
"So. What do you want to know?"