Wrath

Of the seven deadly sins, she would never expect wrath to be her vice. But she liked to think that it was righteous anger, after all, Callisto wasn't the one selling orphans to rich people to do whatever they want.

But she had also never felt this weak. If she accused the church without evidence, she would be crushed under their influence. Who could she turn to?

Nox would call her ridiculous, Dane probably wouldn't care. Blake, she didn't really understand, but Callisto doubted he would go out of his way to help her for something that wouldn't benefit the family.

The probable support of commoners from her unraveling a trafficking scheme when every noble family would be at her throat to cover up their involvement wasn't much of a great trade-off.

All that was left was… Astaroth? He didn't have any bias towards the church and didn't care about the outcome. He was from Goetia and did offer his services, technically. He was the only person she could reach out to. But how long would it take?

All she wanted to do was destroy them. Kill the damned priests who held no qualms about selling humans. Callisto was antsy. The longer she waited, the less likely the children would be alive.

"Luka!" She called out to an empty room. In a little under a minute, Luka knocked on the side of her window.

"Milady, is there anything you need?" She looked over at his face. He was handsome, in a pretty boy kind of way.

But there was something she didn't really like about him. Maybe the way Luka looked at her recently, like she was the reflection of her brother Blake, and because of that, he adored her.

Nowadays, she wanted Luka as far away from her as possible. Unfortunately, he was a very good assistant.

"I need you to send a letter to the Scion of Goetia on my behalf. Tell him to meet me at the top of the bell tower."

Luka nodded without raising any questions or objections. Mindlessly, she patted his head, an action that she was used to being on the receiving end of, back in the good 'ol days.

It was the only action she knew of to reward good behavior. She swore she heard Luka purr as she reached up on her tippy toes and ruffled his hair.

Callisto quickly retracted her hand, reminding herself to never do anything remotely nice to Luka.

The Azel captain retreated with her orders. Callisto was a little impressed, considering he had all the knights' responsibilities, the captain's responsibilities, and then on top of that, moonlighting as Blake's shadow. Seriously though, how did no one notice he was missing?

------

For now, Callisto did everything in her power to keep the children in her sights.

After offering to give them magic classes, under a veiled threat of bringing in wizards from the Mage Tower to come in if they refused her.

The higher-ups begrudgingly let her do what she wanted, and though they tried to hide it, she could now see that some of the children seemed to be taken out of poor conditions.

The priests must have done something to prevent the kids from saying anything because whenever she tried to ask if they were being mistreated, the children looked confused.

But it also may have been because, for these kids, who had spent their life on the street, this was the best life they could imagine for themselves. She knew that thought process very well. And it made her even angrier.

It had been just over a week since Callisto had found the Saintess, and though no alarms had been raised, she could feel a greater tension throughout the temple. It seems that they had finally found out.

Without a body, they couldn't be certain of whether or not she had been alive, and most of all, they couldn't make a fuss about it.

After all, what would happen if they called for a nationwide search, only for people to discover lacerations that were too old to be done by any kidnapper?

It felt like they were watching her every move, whether it was the sisters that supervised her classes with the children, or the templars that started to patrol the premises.

Hopefully, they didn't have specific suspicions about her, since it seemed like they had just upped surveillance in general.

----

Callisto was shocked at how quickly Astaroth responded to her call. Though, she would have preferred that he had sent a letter before startling her at the bell tower in the middle of the night.

Sitting on top of the spire underneath the bronze bell was her favorite pastime during her stay at the temple. There was something about looking over the kingdom, feeling the cold wind blow, and not being perceived that she enjoyed.

Callisto did just say that she liked the cold wind, but it was a little too strong tonight. The wind blew through her hair, causing her hair to become disheveled.

She shivered as the cold seeped through her dress into her skin, and before she could even complain to herself about it, Callisto felt a jacket being plopped over her shoulders, warm hands adjusting the collar so that it covered her more properly.

Callisto yelped as yellow eyes bore into her, almost causing her to fall off the edge with how tense the sudden presence of another person made her.

Astaroth quickly pulled her back by the shoulders so that she would fall several stories to her death.

"Astar, you scared me." She complained, his nickname easily slipping out of her mouth. Callisto convinced herself that it was because the name was shorter, and not because of the weird sense of familiarity she got.

"You could have sent me a message alerting me of your arrival." The Goetian Scion gave her a tight-lipped smile, though she didn't notice how distracted he appeared.

"Thought you said you wanted to meet me as soon as possible? So, have you considered my offer?"

"No, but I have something that would benefit the both of us." He raised an eyebrow. For a split second, an image of another person doubled over the maroon-haired man, but when she blinked, it disappeared.

"How so?"

Callisto blinked a couple of more times, clearing her head of whatever the heck she saw.

"What do you think of outing the church of Lux for corruption?" She tossed him the ledger book. He opened it up, eyes still glancing at her in confusion, but looked through the pages regardless.

"This is…" He kept flipping, eyes traveling furiously through the crossed list of names.

"What am I looking at?"

"It's the ledger book for their child trafficking scheme." She said blankly, a harsh look coming over her face before settling down to neutral.

Astaroth frowned at her response as if he couldn't believe it. He looked over the ledger again, understanding dawning on his face as he began to connect the dots.

"That's…wow. But how are you going to expose it?"

"Well, I could use your help formulating a plan," Callisto said shyly. Shyly? When did she become shy around people?

She wrapped the jacket even tighter, a wave of embarrassment crashing over her. Maybe because it was the first time she ever asked anyone for help with something she couldn't do by herself. Yeah. That's definitely what it was.

"Interesting. I'm in." The corners of his mouth tilted up slightly, before looking out into the landscape, high above all the other buildings.

Astaroth turned to her, a suspicious glare on his face that made Callisto feel just a tiny bit scared. She didn't realize it before, but he had an intense aura that made people want to run away. Or at least, listen to what he said.

"What are you working hard for?" It felt accusatory, and Callisto bristled.

"It has nothing to do with you." The two had a staring contest for a few minutes until Astaroth broke the silence.

"Seems I hit a nerve, huh? Well, if that's it, I'm leaving. I'll meet you when I'm ready." He jumped off the tower like some kind of superhero, disappearing in an instant, leaving just Callisto in the warmth of the coat he left behind.