A woman was sitting on a throne made of crystals.
The crystals were shinning as though they were producing their own light. Before the woman on the throne, stood a man in his late 20s with grey hair.
"Are you sure about it? This is the last chance I'm giving you to reconsider your decision to form a 'Spirit - contract' with me" said the man.
"Leave this place human!! The Sovereign of spirits never forms a contract with any being. That's a law established by our ancestors" said the woman with pride and turned away from the man, dismissing his presence before her.
"Fine!" The man sighed, and that he charged at the woman on the throne. The man had the advantage of his superior speed and using his speed while the woman was looking away he put chains around her body.
The woman couldn't even react to his god-like speed.
"What is the meaning of this?" said the woman shocked and anger clear on her face.
The man sighed again and said, "I am sorry. I don't want to do this but you left me with no other option. After you have spent a few decades in these chains over this throne, you might come to understand our propositions better", proclaimed the man with not much of apology reflected in his expression.
"And don't you worry about your subordinates. We have already found a way to make contracts with them while bypassing the requirement of their consent for the same" said the man while walking away from the throne and the chained woman.
"Wait, leave my people out of your conniving strategies. They don't deserve to become slaves of your race. Please!" shouted the woman in despair after the man.
"One has to follow the rituals established by the nature. A spirit must choose its contractor, not the other way around. It's against the laws of this world" said the woman while still struggling in her chains and calling after the man who was almost out of earshot.
"We will test that theory," said the man while looking over his shoulder to get one last look at the woman he had come to claim and reluctantly he left the woman behind.
"NO WAIT!!!" shouted the woman.
The woman realized her eyes were closed and that could only mean that she has been dreaming. Her own shout woke her up.
She looked around and after seeing dull corridors which use to be filled with the laughter of young spirits once upon a time, her heart sank. Her dream has been a nightmare, a reality of her world, of this world.
While she was reminiscing about the past she felt a faint presence of a being near the cave. So she started to call after it for her aid.
When the person she called turned out to be a kid she could not believe how lucky she had been.
She thought it would be easy to sweet-talk him, in order to free herself from these years old chains.
But, the most shocking part was his scarlet eyes that were glowing due to the mana he was packing. She thought that if she played her cards right, he could help her to gain enough mana that would bring her back to her peak strength.
She didn't care anymore if the method was forbidden or not. All that was on her mind was that if she could harvest some more human souls she could at least help out her subordinates who were now forcefully contracted and were made slaves.
If she regained enough strength, then as the Sovereign she could severe these forced contracts by her authority and free the slaved spirits. But when she used her skill to synthesize his soul, she was forcefully pulled inside his body and felt a spiritual connection with the kid's soul.
When she opened her eyes afterwards she found herself on a mountain peak covered in snow. There was a man sitting on an ice throne-like structure.
He had a snake coiled around his neck and a trident that was dug in the ground next to him.
With a calm and serene voice, he said "Yo!!"
The spirit looked at him in a daze and then another voice reached her ears.
"Please stop acting like Tharun, it doesn't suit you," said the woman sitting next to him.
The spirit had not noticed her there immediately as she was so taken by the image of the man on the ice throne. Now she looked at the woman and could not believe her eyes.
She had been quite arrogant and prejudiced about her own beauty but after seeing the woman in front of her she felt like she was nothing more than a speck of dust as compared to her.
"Fine! Let's do this again. Ahem! You seem lost child" said the man while looking at the spirit.
The spirit got her bearings back and asked in a small voice "Where am I?"
"Hmm! the perfect answer to that question would be, somewhere you shouldn't be, I guess," said the man.
"Huh?" the spirit was lost in thought. Where they messing with her. What was going on? She could not understand anything that was happening.
Then the spirit heard someone's sigh and the woman spoke, "You are somewhere in the infinite cosmos. But that's not the answer you were looking for right? So the answer to your question would be that your soul is currently linked to that child's spirit."
"Ahh! All right?" said the spirit. She could not understand what they were trying to say at all.
"Hmm to put it simply you are currently being held captive by us or being kept alive, whichever makes you feel better. You are quite lucky that we frequently observe this kid otherwise his soul would have devoured your existence" said the man.
"How's that possible? He is just a kid. He could not have such powers even if the powers exists in the first place" said the spirit in shock.
"Well it is quite possible to have that kind of power when you bring in dozens of gods and their blessings into play," said the woman as a matter of fact.
'What are they saying, am I dreaming?' thought the spirit.
"No you are not dreaming and we know this whole soul-related talk could be quite tough to understand. So that's why we initially told you that you are somewhere you shouldn't have been in the first place" said the man with a gentle smile.
"Let us ask that useless intern to come with some presentation regarding this for next time!" said the woman sitting beside the man on the throne while shrugging and shaking her head.
The spirit had no words to speak. She just looked at them in a daze.
"You have diverted from your path child. How could you use skill forbidden by your own race, that too on your savior" said the man.
"Humans are despicable beings they don't play fair so why should we, my lord?" said the spirit trying to defend her actions. By now she had already deduced that the persons in front of her were definitely gods.
"Fair enough! Then it should be fine if his soul consumes yours because that's what you will get" said the man.
The spirit's face became pale. She had lots of responsibility and an important mission to save her subordinates. "Please have mercy, my lord," pleaded the Spirit.
"Why? It's only natural that you face consequences of your own karma" said the man with a gentle smile.
The spirit became speechless. Then the woman came to her assistance.
"The child offered you a helping hand. Why can't you work together against the common enemy?" she said.
"Because he's human. Since humans of this world can't be trusted. Our alliance is nothing but a daydream" muttered the spirit casting a downward look as she did not want the gods to see the hatred of humans in her eyes.
"Haah! For the sake of that argument, let me show you something" said the man and snapped his fingers.
The spirit's vision completely blacked out and then she saw glimpses of Satvik's life in both worlds. From losing his parents to losing his limb.
'He was telling the truth' she thought with wide eyes.
"He has been chosen as my apostle, child. To save your world from the clutches of Ashanti. And, he is going to need all the help he can get. Our aid is restricted but you can assist him, you have the power" said the man.
"Although he has our blessings, a lone soldier can't fight the whole world on his own," said the woman.
"With your help, it can make a lot of difference. If you just could let go of that…. ha…. umm… prejudice against humans" said the man with a smile.
The spirit was now mulling over this thought. She felt ashamed now.
He offered her a helping hand and she just went straight for his soul. Even a demon lord would have shown gratitude to his savior. She then looked at the duo and nodded while saying, "Very well! To repent my actions, I will assist him with everything I got."
"Very well, best of luck!" said the man and snapped his fingers. The spirit then vanished from the peak.
"I have a feeling she misunderstood what we meant by the alliance. She seemed pretty naive for her age and position" said the Goddess.
"Tharun would have enjoyed it, hehehe!" said the god while laughing dryly.
Then both sighed in unison. They already knew what will happen next.
_____________________________________
Satvik still had his eyes closed but he had regained his consciousness. Then suddenly his nostrils picked several floral fragrances at once. It was like he was lying in the fields of several different flowers.
Then he felt the warmth of someone caressing his head. Although his whole body was feeling cold his head was in someplace warm and cozy.
"Mum?" he muttered while slowly opening his eyes.
"I am not your mum" a voice muttered very near to Satvik's face.
He opened his eyes and tried to look around him, everything seemed blurry. He then saw a pair of multi-hued eyes looking down at him gently.
He then said, "Am I hallucinating?"
"You are not hallucinating" said the person.
Then as Satvik's senses restored his eyes were wide open due to shock and fear. He immediately stood up and started running away.
"Wait!" said the woman.
"Oh hell no," said Satvik while running for his life.
She then restrained his whole body in a tight embrace from behind and the woman said, "Why are you running? I want to apologize for my previous actions."
"Apology accepted. Now let me go, you brute. Who tries to kill their Knight in Shining Armor?" said Satvik trying to squeeze out of her grip.
Although he enjoyed the sensation and her floral scent, he knew very well that a person should not always think from his d**k.
"How can you call a beautiful lady such as myself a brute?" she said with puffed-up cheeks.
"Then just let go of me. I've already helped you. Instead of showing gratitude, you tried to kill me, have some shame" complained Satvik.
"I'm already apologizing for that. Just listen to me once okay, I promise I'll let you go unharmed after that if you want" said the woman while Satvik was squirming in her grip.
Satvik nodded and the woman let go of her hold.
Satvik moved a couple of meters away from her and said, "Now talk!"
The woman sighed and said, "I humbly apologies for my previous actions. All that rage and resentment clouded my judgment" she said while bowing.
Satvik nodded and said, "Fine, I can understand".
The woman didn't expect that he would forgive her that easily. She then gave him a beaming smile which made the other look away.
"I am willing to join you on your endeavor against our enemy. If you are willing to form a contract with me?" she said while blushing.
Satvik ignored her blushing. His main focus was on thinking of merits of having a spirit contract. Spirits were beings that were believed to be the manifestation of mana itself and were great at controlling mana and magic spells.
If he had her help it would lighten the burden on his shoulders. He would never let go of such a golden opportunity. So he nodded in agreement.
Then the spirit beamed a gentle smile and said "To form a contract with a spirit you first need to summon the spirit and once they are willing to accept you as their partner, you must name them in order to bond them with the contract."
Satvik nodded and prepared himself for the worst enemy of every anime protagonist, naming a person. He looked at the spirit from top to bottom in his mind and only said one-word 'Onee-San' or 'Noona'.
"First can you speak a phrase for me?" requested Satvik with pleading looks.
"Okay fine! What do I've to say?" she agreed.
"Can you say, Ara-Ara?" he said with serious gaze.
"ARA-ARA," said the woman.
Satvik's felt palpitation in his chest and thought, 'There it is. Although she's lacking the emotions, but that was it, she was an Onee san.'
But he himself cringed out after thinking about naming her onee san. Then he came up with the best alternative.
After what felt like an eternity he finally decided on her name and said, "Your name will be Rias."
A woman was sitting on a throne made of crystals.
The crystals were shinning as though they were producing their own light. Before the woman on the throne, stood a man in his late 20s with grey hair.
"Are you sure about it? This is the last chance I'm giving you to reconsider your decision to form a 'Spirit - contract' with me" said the man.
"Leave this place human!! The Sovereign of spirits never forms a contract with any being. That's a law established by our ancestors" said the woman with pride and turned away from the man, dismissing his presence before her.
"Fine!" The man sighed, and that he charged at the woman on the throne. The man had the advantage of his superior speed and using his speed while the woman was looking away he put chains around her body.
The woman couldn't even react to his god-like speed.
"What is the meaning of this?" said the woman shocked and anger clear on her face.
The man sighed again and said, "I am sorry. I don't want to do this but you left me with no other option. After you have spent a few decades in these chains over this throne, you might come to understand our propositions better", proclaimed the man with not much of apology reflected in his expression.
"And don't you worry about your subordinates. We have already found a way to make contracts with them while bypassing the requirement of their consent for the same" said the man while walking away from the throne and the chained woman.
"Wait, leave my people out of your conniving strategies. They don't deserve to become slaves of your race. Please!" shouted the woman in despair after the man.
"One has to follow the rituals established by the nature. A spirit must choose its contractor, not the other way around. It's against the laws of this world" said the woman while still struggling in her chains and calling after the man who was almost out of earshot.
"We will test that theory," said the man while looking over his shoulder to get one last look at the woman he had come to claim and reluctantly he left the woman behind.
"NO WAIT!!!" shouted the woman.
The woman realized her eyes were closed and that could only mean that she has been dreaming. Her own shout woke her up.
She looked around and after seeing dull corridors which use to be filled with the laughter of young spirits once upon a time, her heart sank. Her dream has been a nightmare, a reality of her world, of this world.
While she was reminiscing about the past she felt a faint presence of a being near the cave. So she started to call after it for her aid.
When the person she called turned out to be a kid she could not believe how lucky she had been.
She thought it would be easy to sweet-talk him, in order to free herself from these years old chains.
But, the most shocking part was his scarlet eyes that were glowing due to the mana he was packing. She thought that if she played her cards right, he could help her to gain enough mana that would bring her back to her peak strength.
She didn't care anymore if the method was forbidden or not. All that was on her mind was that if she could harvest some more human souls she could at least help out her subordinates who were now forcefully contracted and were made slaves.
If she regained enough strength, then as the Sovereign she could severe these forced contracts by her authority and free the slaved spirits. But when she used her skill to synthesize his soul, she was forcefully pulled inside his body and felt a spiritual connection with the kid's soul.
When she opened her eyes afterwards she found herself on a mountain peak covered in snow. There was a man sitting on an ice throne-like structure.
He had a snake coiled around his neck and a trident that was dug in the ground next to him.
With a calm and serene voice, he said "Yo!!"
The spirit looked at him in a daze and then another voice reached her ears.
"Please stop acting like Tharun, it doesn't suit you," said the woman sitting next to him.
The spirit had not noticed her there immediately as she was so taken by the image of the man on the ice throne. Now she looked at the woman and could not believe her eyes.
She had been quite arrogant and prejudiced about her own beauty but after seeing the woman in front of her she felt like she was nothing more than a speck of dust as compared to her.
"Fine! Let's do this again. Ahem! You seem lost child" said the man while looking at the spirit.
The spirit got her bearings back and asked in a small voice "Where am I?"
"Hmm! the perfect answer to that question would be, somewhere you shouldn't be, I guess," said the man.
"Huh?" the spirit was lost in thought. Where they messing with her. What was going on? She could not understand anything that was happening.
Then the spirit heard someone's sigh and the woman spoke, "You are somewhere in the infinite cosmos. But that's not the answer you were looking for right? So the answer to your question would be that your soul is currently linked to that child's spirit."
"Ahh! All right?" said the spirit. She could not understand what they were trying to say at all.
"Hmm to put it simply you are currently being held captive by us or being kept alive, whichever makes you feel better. You are quite lucky that we frequently observe this kid otherwise his soul would have devoured your existence" said the man.
"How's that possible? He is just a kid. He could not have such powers even if the powers exists in the first place" said the spirit in shock.
"Well it is quite possible to have that kind of power when you bring in dozens of gods and their blessings into play," said the woman as a matter of fact.
'What are they saying, am I dreaming?' thought the spirit.
"No you are not dreaming and we know this whole soul-related talk could be quite tough to understand. So that's why we initially told you that you are somewhere you shouldn't have been in the first place" said the man with a gentle smile.
"Let us ask that useless intern to come with some presentation regarding this for next time!" said the woman sitting beside the man on the throne while shrugging and shaking her head.
The spirit had no words to speak. She just looked at them in a daze.
"You have diverted from your path child. How could you use skill forbidden by your own race, that too on your savior" said the man.
"Humans are despicable beings they don't play fair so why should we, my lord?" said the spirit trying to defend her actions. By now she had already deduced that the persons in front of her were definitely gods.
"Fair enough! Then it should be fine if his soul consumes yours because that's what you will get" said the man.
The spirit's face became pale. She had lots of responsibility and an important mission to save her subordinates. "Please have mercy, my lord," pleaded the Spirit.
"Why? It's only natural that you face consequences of your own karma" said the man with a gentle smile.
The spirit became speechless. Then the woman came to her assistance.
"The child offered you a helping hand. Why can't you work together against the common enemy?" she said.
"Because he's human. Since humans of this world can't be trusted. Our alliance is nothing but a daydream" muttered the spirit casting a downward look as she did not want the gods to see the hatred of humans in her eyes.
"Haah! For the sake of that argument, let me show you something" said the man and snapped his fingers.
The spirit's vision completely blacked out and then she saw glimpses of Satvik's life in both worlds. From losing his parents to losing his limb.
'He was telling the truth' she thought with wide eyes.
"He has been chosen as my apostle, child. To save your world from the clutches of Ashanti. And, he is going to need all the help he can get. Our aid is restricted but you can assist him, you have the power" said the man.
"Although he has our blessings, a lone soldier can't fight the whole world on his own," said the woman.
"With your help, it can make a lot of difference. If you just could let go of that…. ha…. umm… prejudice against humans" said the man with a smile.
The spirit was now mulling over this thought. She felt ashamed now.
He offered her a helping hand and she just went straight for his soul. Even a demon lord would have shown gratitude to his savior. She then looked at the duo and nodded while saying, "Very well! To repent my actions, I will assist him with everything I got."
"Very well, best of luck!" said the man and snapped his fingers. The spirit then vanished from the peak.
"I have a feeling she misunderstood what we meant by the alliance. She seemed pretty naive for her age and position" said the Goddess.
"Tharun would have enjoyed it, hehehe!" said the god while laughing dryly.
Then both sighed in unison. They already knew what will happen next.
_____________________________________
Satvik still had his eyes closed but he had regained his consciousness. Then suddenly his nostrils picked several floral fragrances at once. It was like he was lying in the fields of several different flowers.
Then he felt the warmth of someone caressing his head. Although his whole body was feeling cold his head was in someplace warm and cozy.
"Mum?" he muttered while slowly opening his eyes.
"I am not your mum" a voice muttered very near to Satvik's face.
He opened his eyes and tried to look around him, everything seemed blurry. He then saw a pair of multi-hued eyes looking down at him gently.
He then said, "Am I hallucinating?"
"You are not hallucinating" said the person.
Then as Satvik's senses restored his eyes were wide open due to shock and fear. He immediately stood up and started running away.
"Wait!" said the woman.
"Oh hell no," said Satvik while running for his life.
She then restrained his whole body in a tight embrace from behind and the woman said, "Why are you running? I want to apologize for my previous actions."
"Apology accepted. Now let me go, you brute. Who tries to kill their Knight in Shining Armor?" said Satvik trying to squeeze out of her grip.
Although he enjoyed the sensation and her floral scent, he knew very well that a person should not always think from his d**k.
"How can you call a beautiful lady such as myself a brute?" she said with puffed-up cheeks.
"Then just let go of me. I've already helped you. Instead of showing gratitude, you tried to kill me, have some shame" complained Satvik.
"I'm already apologizing for that. Just listen to me once okay, I promise I'll let you go unharmed after that if you want" said the woman while Satvik was squirming in her grip.
Satvik nodded and the woman let go of her hold.
Satvik moved a couple of meters away from her and said, "Now talk!"
The woman sighed and said, "I humbly apologies for my previous actions. All that rage and resentment clouded my judgment" she said while bowing.
Satvik nodded and said, "Fine, I can understand".
The woman didn't expect that he would forgive her that easily. She then gave him a beaming smile which made the other look away.
"I am willing to join you on your endeavor against our enemy. If you are willing to form a contract with me?" she said while blushing.
Satvik ignored her blushing. His main focus was on thinking of merits of having a spirit contract. Spirits were beings that were believed to be the manifestation of mana itself and were great at controlling mana and magic spells.
If he had her help it would lighten the burden on his shoulders. He would never let go of such a golden opportunity. So he nodded in agreement.
Then the spirit beamed a gentle smile and said "To form a contract with a spirit you first need to summon the spirit and once they are willing to accept you as their partner, you must name them in order to bond them with the contract."
Satvik nodded and prepared himself for the worst enemy of every anime protagonist, naming a person. He looked at the spirit from top to bottom in his mind and only said one-word 'Onee-San' or 'Noona'.
"First can you speak a phrase for me?" requested Satvik with pleading looks.
"Okay fine! What do I've to say?" she agreed.
"Can you say, Ara-Ara?" he said with serious gaze.
"ARA-ARA," said the woman.
Satvik's felt palpitation in his chest and thought, 'There it is. Although she's lacking the emotions, but that was it, she was an Onee san.'
But he himself cringed out after thinking about naming her onee san. Then he came up with the best alternative.
After what felt like an eternity he finally decided on her name and said, "Your name will be Rias."
