24

(A shorter chapter than usual, so that the next chapter will be a lemon)

"Mamina-chan" Persia called

"Y-yes Persia-chan?" mamina replied.

"Don't you think waiting for them a little longer inside, like I told you, would have been a good idea?" asked Persia.

"Now that you mention it, I think you're right." replied Mamina.

"Do you also remember me telling you that I had a bad feeling?" asked Persia again.

"Sure, you said that after you had a chill remembering what kei-sama said" replied mamina.

"I think you went a little overboard esdeath." said lelei.

"no, I don't think so" replied esdeath "they both have kei-sama's scent, so they should be useful in telling us his location." she made up an excuse on the spot.

"Can you unfreeze them?" asked shino "they look like they will freeze to death."

"I can try" said esdeath "but the only times something I froze disappears is because it cracks and disappears into frost." she said as she watched the rabbit and cat girl's eyes fill with tears "But I guess master kei can do something."

"Please, you have nothing to worry about, we heard that you are kei-sama's escorts" Mamina said with ice from the tips of her toes to her stomach.

"And we were entrusted to take you to his room" said persia "But as you can see we have a little mobility problem" she said in the same situation as mamina "we wouldn't want to lose our legs either, so please, would you be so kind to take us to kei-sama's room, we will give you the directions." said Persia.

"It's okay" replied lelei while waving her staff a little " In any case, I think losing your legs would be too much trouble for us" and after lelei's words, they rose just a little above the ground.

They opened their eyes in surprise but quickly led the way while the others in the squadron just followed the girls.

lelei wasn't using anything too complicated, in fact, she was just using something she was already born with, and that was telekinesis, and even though it wasn't that strong with a little mana in the equation it could work wonders and incidentally keep her from getting too tired from using it.

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"This is kei-sama's room," said mamina.

"What about the captain?" came the voice of the old man itami was chatting with.

"Captain?" persia put her hand on her chin thoughtfully "Oohh!!! you mean kei-sama's lackey" said persia realizing who they were looking for.

`Lackey?" thought everyone except for the girls.

"his room is down the hall" said mamina "And not to rush you guys or anything but I think I'm losing feeling in my legs."

mentioned mamina while Persia agreed with her.

"You guys can go get the captain we'll take care of this" said shino and mari, completely forgetting about itami.

The rest of the squad just nodded and went to itami's room.

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As they opened the door, kei's familiar laughter reached the ears of the newly arrived girls.

"Ohh!" kei looked at them for a moment then greeted them "Welcome girls" was all kei said.

"Are you okay kei? they didn't do anything to you?" asked lelei as esdeath kept staring at the two maids on the side of the bed.

"Yes I'm fine you have nothing to worry about lelei" said kei as he turned his gaze to a shivering mamina and persia.

"What happened to them?" asked kei as he pointed at both of them.

"A little problem... but I think esdeath can explain it to you" said lelei with a blank stare.

For her part esdeath only looked at lelei as a traitor, she thought she would help her but when she tried to see lelei's face, she only avoided her gaze.

"Well?" said kei "Who will give me an explanation?" asked kei.

"I thought they would be a good source of information" said esdeath firmly and clearly, looking directly at kei.

"aha" kei noticed that she was clearly lying, but decided to ignore it "why don't you unfreeze them?" asked kei again.

"mmm...well...I don't know how" said esdeath looking at the floor as her white skin changed to a healthy red.

Everyone in the room, were now really shocked, the girl who seemed so calm and cool was now blushing like a teenager in love.

Mamina and Persia were seeing something surprising, the image they had of their aggressor changed completely, right now seeing the situation she was in they wanted to give her a hug and tell her that nothing was wrong, and not to worry, and that they would somehow get out of that situation.

"You don't know??" kei was a bit confused because according to what ciel said, the magic esdeath got was like re zero, so as such it wasn't ice magic if not temperature control magic.

"No" esdeath answered again and it was true esdeath never knew how her magic worked, if not she usually just thought about what she wanted to do and did it so for her to freeze something she just had to think about it.

The fact that anything she froze would crack and disappear into frost was because in her mind she kept having the image of wanting to freeze so when she tried, the thing or subject she wanted to unfreeze was so cold that it would end up cracking and disappearing into frost.

Kei's brain stopped working for a moment as he saw the unusual image he had of esdeath "Come on don't worry" kei approached esdeath, who looked up slightly "everything is fine just think of something warm and do it slowly" kei said as he gave her a kiss on her forehead.

"KEI-SAMA WAIT" was heard Persia's voice which looked at kei somewhat nervously "kei-sama won't let us lose our legs right..."

"Sure..." said kei as he hugged esdeath affectionately and looked in Persia's direction "I won't let you lose your legs, after all I've always wanted to try high level healing magic... you'd be surprised what it can do" said kei sending shivers down everyone's spine in the room.

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"Bozes, Panach" piña's voice was heard in the room "they attacked the self-defense forces when we had guaranteed their safety..." said piña while sitting on one of the seats in the room.

"And that wouldn't be so much of a problem if you hadn't attacked kei-sama" said piña massaging her forehead.

"That brings us to this situation, serious treaty violations and the possible annoyance of someone we shouldn't bother" said piña as she looked at the two women standing in front of her "they possess the power to wipe out armies and defeat dragons."

"They may even use the incident to start the war" said piña crossing her arms "And what will happen to the empire... it's obvious isn't it?"

"Yes" replied Bozes while panach just remained silent.

"I would like to punish you but from now on, you will be completely protected by your master slave pact with kei-sama" said piña

"But I have already decided" said piña looking into her eyes.

"..." Bozes just held eye contact while waiting for an explanation.

"We must make him forget what happened, and you will use your body to accomplish that" stated piña "I don't think you would disagree, after all you seemed very happy calling him master"

"well, that was..." Bozes tried to explain herself.

"mmm...?" piña raised an eyebrow "as far as I remember, Kei-sama at no time explained that the pact somehow changed your personality" piña said with a sly smile "so everything you've done so far is of your own free will... or am I wrong?"

"..." Bozes didn't know how to respond to piña's statements.

Bozes couldn't help but think about what piña said, which caused her to turn red and slowly her breath hitched under piña's gaze causing her smile to grow bigger.

*Cough* *cough* panach, was just witnessing the whole situation so when they suddenly became quiet she decided to intervene, although somewhat uncomfortable because given the talk, a thought came to her head and that was that she would not object in taking her partner's place.