Chapter 142: Rekka: Ahaha, How Could I Casually Invite an Aeon Onto the Train? (Feeling Guilty)
"Good morning, Sister Himeko."
"Good afternoon. And on your head..." Himeko's words trailed off. She stared at the two vibrant, leafy branches sprouting from Rekka's hair, a thoughtful, almost weary expression settling on her face. They looked disturbingly familiar.
"Let's not worry about that for now, Sister Himeko," Rekka said, rubbing his hands together with a sheepish grin. "I need a replacement."
"...What." Himeko's expression froze. "What did you do today?"
"Today I..." Rekka's bravado faltered, a flicker of guilt crossing his features. "Uh, nothing. Nothing at all."
"Rekka." Her voice was calm, but it held a familiar, steely edge. "I remember telling you something before, didn't I?"
"Yes! That I'm not allowed to just throw away important things!" he recited dutifully.
"Mhm. So, did you lose your Express Pass? Don't worry, if you lost it, I won't blame you—after all, such things are inevitable." Himeko picked up her coffee cup, her movements graceful and deliberate. "You certainly didn't carry it on your person and then, with a face full of joy, give it to... some Aeon, right?"
She took a slow sip, her golden eyes lifting to pin him in place.
"Cough, cough!" Rekka choked, his gaze darting wildly toward the ceiling. "Sister Himeko, what are you saying? Am I that kind of person? How could I possibly do something as ridiculous as giving an Express Pass to an Aeon? Right, Sister Himeko...?"
A faint, knowing smile touched Himeko's lips. "Oh? Is that so? Then tell me, where is the pass you were supposed to keep safe?"
"I... uh..." Rekka scratched his cheek, his voice dropping to a mumble. "I very formally, very seriously, and very earnestly gave the Express Pass to the Aeon of Abundance..." He quickly added, "I didn't just give it away casually! I gave it after careful consideration."
Himeko raised a hand to press against her temple, a soft sigh escaping her. Well, she had been prepared for this.
"Why did you give Them a pass?"
"Because... because I thought it was very Trailblaze," Rekka said weakly.
"And then? Did They accept it?"
"They did," Rekka nodded, brightening. "They said that whenever I go to their domain in the future, They will set out on the journey with me."
"The pass can be replaced." Himeko set down her cup, her gaze falling back to the two new branches on Rekka's head. "But these... did They give them to you, too?"
"Maybe." Rekka touched the top of his head. "They grew after I woke up from a nap. I don't know if it counts as a return gift."
A short while later, Rekka had his replacement pass in hand.
"Too tense, too exciting, too Trailblaze," he muttered, stretching his arms over his head. The most nerve-wracking part of any Trailblaze adventure was always the debriefing with Himeko afterward, especially when he needed something replaced. It was the only time Rekka ever felt truly guilty.
'This is very Elation,' he thought, adding a mental footnote to his own behavior. He wasn't entirely sure why he felt so timid while on the Path of Elation, especially with the lingering aura of Voracity still clinging to him. It couldn't be that Elation was being contaminated by Voracity, could it?
This universe was full of too many strange things—Memory Stealers, Fictional Historians, Cremators—all of them constantly adding events that never happened or fabricating entire swaths of messy, contradictory histories.
'(If anything is wrong, it's all the Fictional Historians' fault!)'
"Right, let me see how HooHoo is doing."
Ever since taking a bite of Rekka that morning, the carnivorous Rafflesia from Onnivak had been twitching non-stop in its corner of the greenhouse. Now, numerous snake-like vines had sprouted from its main body, writhing restlessly.
"Strange, why does this look so familiar?" Rekka murmured, observing as HooHoo violently rummaged through its nutrient soil.
'...Voracity?'he realized with a jolt.'Wait, did the power of Voracity from my body transfer to you?'
Munch.
Munch, munch, munch.
The sound of grinding and chewing echoed clearly in the greenhouse. HooHoo wasn't just eating soil; it had coiled its new vines around several of the special alloy steel bars used for support frames, snapping them into pieces and swallowing them with a few sickening crunches.
The Mimic Girl portion of the plant poked its head out from behind the main Rafflesia bloom. Her once-delicate face was now twisted with a nearly fanatical craving, her hands constantly stuffing anything she could grab into the feeding maws that had opened along the vines.
"Don't move."
Rekka carefully reached out, then slammed a sealing cube onto the Mimic Girl. A powerful force field immediately flared to life. He knew one wouldn't be enough, so... he kept going.
One hundred and twenty-eight cubes, nested one inside the other, were barely enough.
Layers of shimmering force fields materialized, forcibly stripping the fragment of Voracity from the Mimic Girl and trapping it in a complex prison of energy. The fragment thrashed frantically within the containment field, like a furious snake trapped in a transparent cage.
"Don't move," Rekka commanded, adding more layers to the prison. This thing was far too dangerous. Even just being near it, he could feel a powerful temptation radiating from the fragment, a psychic whisper urging him to take out the Pure World Golden Blood and feed it.
"—Take out that tempting, delicious blood..."
"Don't even think about it." Rekka added another layer of insurance.
"—Don't resist, don't refuse..."
"If I did whatever you said, wouldn't I lose face?"
Although Rekka's physical stats were relatively weak in his Elation state, his Sanity was exceptionally high. He possessed a powerful ability to accept and adapt to anything he perceived, making him highly resistant to madness.
"Quite a handful." Rekka shook the cube, now a complex lattice of over a hundred nested layers, feeling the violent vibrations from within. "Just stay in there quietly, you glutton."
He turned his head and looked at the Rafflesia, which had slumped weakly next to its pot. The Mimic Girl shrank back slightly, then extended two slender green vines, coiling them around Rekka's wrist as if to appease him. She rubbed against him gently and pouted her pink lips, signaling for him to drink the fresh nectar she offered from her mouth.
It was a special privilege. The Mimic Girl only ever gave Rekka nectar produced directly from her mouth; the nectar others drank, or that was put into containers, came from her palms. During her time on the Astral Express, the clever plant had even learned to change the scent of her nectar from its natural, carrion-like odor to a fresh, floral fragrance. Her evolutionary speed and survival instincts were truly top-tier. After discovering that everyone disliked the smell of rotting meat, she had immediately adapted.
Of course, even though her nectar's scent had changed, it still retained its miraculous ability to turn the unpalatable coffee Himeko brewed into a drinkable, flavored beverage.
Well, there was a high probability it would, not a certainty.
"Alright, alright, I'm not blaming you. It's normal that you couldn't handle that thing." Rekka reached out and gently rubbed the Mimic Girl's head, incidentally taking a small jar to collect a bottle of nectar.
He tucked the silver cube sealing the Voracity fragment into his pocket, patted the soil off his hands, and stood up to survey the damage. The greenhouse looked like it had been ransacked. Culture soil was overturned everywhere, and the thick alloy steel bars lay in several pieces, the clean cuts marred by corrosion and gnaw marks.
"Rekka? Are you tearing the house down in there?" a familiar voice called out from the doorway.
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