Chapter 16:

Ichigo's POV

Of all the things that I'd imagined for myself after these past months. Anything imaginable, I could conceive multiple crazy scenarios and they'd still make much more sense than the situation I find myself in right now was the most absurd.

Right now I was under the thumb of a tyrannical monster who has no issue when it comes to killing and manipulation.Usually humans feel something when they take a life, I've seen most bandits drink themselves to oblivion after their first kill. After that they just drink after every raid, maybe to forget their deeds for that short span of time.

They did eventually become indifferent to their jobs, but some sort of instinctual disgust still remains, I think it's what drives them insane, the guilt eats away at their sanity and leaves behind a broken psycho who'll do just about anything for stimulation, till now I thought it was natural. You can't kill so many people and remain the same.

Recently my hypothesis was thrown out the window by a certain man, the word villain fails to encompass just what he is in people's eyes. Those he saves fear him, but remain submissive under his shoe.His enemies die or join his ranks out of fear, and out of all those who surround him, your always one of the two.

Of these two I don't really know where I fall, on the one hand he was the one who killed my former group mercilessly, but it also true that he saved me from being powerless, I lost an arm, and most of what I feel is a warped sense of duty, hatred and some twisted affection for this man.

I'd love to tear him apart, feed him to the wolves and watch him suffer, but evertime he praises me I swell with pride, I feel the need to do even better and make him happy. The origin of these bothersome feelings is mostly unknown, yet I habour them and they drag me down everyday.

"Hey, ma'am are you okay?" Ryōshi's gruff voice broke me out of my stupor. The darkness that had been encroaching on my eyes also receded as my vision became clear again and all useless thoughts were discarded.

"Yes I'm fine, how far until we arrive?" I asked coldly.

"We're making good pace actually, only a few more hours and we'll start seeing out destination." Ryōshi assured, he seemed awfully polite for someone who was just turned into a slave a few days ago, his former boss was also killed by his current boss but honestly he seemed more interested in knowing more about his current boss than keeping his head down and not attracting his attention like most people.

Like me he craved what lord Ryū could give him and for that he'd happily sell his soul to get it, that's what made all of us stay honestly. He promised us greatness and most of us latched onto that promise.

"Anyway, I'm kinda surprised at how thoughtful lord Ryū is." Ryōshi quipped gesturing to my current outfit.

I grunted in annoyance and went inside inside carriage, I didn't want to deal with this.A week ago, he sent a drone to drop it off along with a note. It was an uncommon formal looking outfit that consisted of tight black pants and blazer that also clung tightly and emphasized my body, the outfit also came with black heels. Underneath was a blue shirt. He even instructed me to style my hair in a bun.

Of all he's ordered me to do this was the most confusing, the outfit itself was very comfortable, and didn't impede my fighting capabilities. He also gave me a briefcase to store my new dual blades along with a two dual pistols called colt scamp.

After reading the note alot of things had made sense, the outfit was a kind of exotic skeletal armor that could take blows from rifles, the reference wasn't really helpful since I didn't know how it would fare against a ninja, as for the pistols he had even taken the time to customize them in silver elegent lines all over the weapon, a useless and out of place gesture especially by him. Most out of place were the swords, they were purple and had sticker all over the surface. This strange behavior had worried me at first but after calling lord Ryū who seemed eerily happy he assured me everything was as it should be.

The note had all the necessary information about my new weapons and the different ammunition they used. He was meticulous in issuing me my rewards, of course I'd have expected nothing less, but some of his actions were contradictory to his serious and somewhat cruel nature. He seemed oddly....playful, from the cute doodles of himself on the note to the fact that he seemed to take his time to make me look as girly as possible, even adding cute decorations to my weapons. I had tried to argue against this of course, I even brought across sound reasoning as to why it was unnecessary.

Lord Ryū also insisted I accept the changes, it felt like I was dealing with a child, a highly unstable, powerful and cruel child.

Now I could only sigh at my misfortune as I lay on a hay bed inside a carriage headed towards another potential battle, I couldn't even take solace in being taken seriously anymore, not with my new equipment.

....

Special chapter, please tell me more about what you think of it.

As for why Nero's suddenly seems to be playful it's because I don't want an overly serious MC and thought I should make him more playful and easier to interact with. I just hope it isn't a change that will affect his overall charecter, and only something to add more depth to him while I slowly unravel his history as the story goes.