39 The Line

After what felt like hours pouring into Themis's terms and conditions like honest-to-god lawyers, Riku almost let out a sigh of relief the moment he put down his pen and stared at his finished handiwork. It wasn't much, but the fact that he managed to go through each and every page was something that he was still proud of, especially as someone that never really like doing paperwork in the first place.

"It's finally over, right?" Shizu desperately asked, her right hand shaking as she gripped her pen far too tightly. "We're done signing stuff?"

"It looks like it," Riku nodded. "We've looked at everything this thing had to offer, and we did our best to rig stuff to our advantage."

It was a hard process to go through, and he was certain that he would never want to stare at fine print ever again after all of this was over. The fact that there were conflicting clauses were a pain to parse through, and the fact that they both had no expertise in law didn't help smooth things along. They essentially relied on logic and common sense to decipher all of this stuff, and it was only through Riku's prior experience with contracts did they actually manage to navigate through the some of the more convoluted clauses that almost seemed nonsensical at first glance, but actually made sense when paired up with another clause almost four pages later.

"I never want to go through this again," Shizu sighed as she leaned her head back onto her chair. "There's a reason I was self-employed before all of this..."

"Agreed," Riku eagerly nodded as he took the stack of papers in both hands and lightly straightened them out on the table. "We can at least move on with our lives now knowing that we found something of interest in this stuff."

His fellow Champion nodded in agreement. "I... kind of think it won't matter in the long run, but the fact that we can draw our weapon at least once in here is going to give us some leeway in case a fight happens."

The former assassin hummed in satisfaction at that reminder. He was still proud of the fact that he caught a clause stating that while they were not allowed to draw their weapon against any persons within the Dicastery, they were still allowed one instance of doing so in case of unprovoked assault or, say, a Champion trying to kill them within the premises. It was so well hidden that he was sure that none of the other Champions would've caught it, and since there was a clause forbidding the use of weapons entirely, that one clause would be there trump card in case the situation called for it.

"It's still better to be safe than sorry," Riku chuckled. "Anyway, let's get these forms submitted so that we can get on with our lives."

"Oh, Nyx's still asleep though," Shizu pointed out. "Should we wake her up?"

Looking at his goddess, Nyx was indeed still fast asleep despite all of their constant whining and occasional screams of pain at having to read fine print. It would seem that the goddess was just a heavy sleeper, one that currently had drool dripping down the side of her mouth as she mumbled and smiled to herself.

"She looks like she's dreaming about something good too," Shizu lightly giggled as she leaned in to poke at their resident goddess's sleeping face. "Wow, she's still asleep after that?"

"If she doesn't want to wake up, then we let her sleep for a while longer," Riku shrugged. "It's not like we'll be leaving her here anyway. We can always wake her up before we move on."

Giving his fellow Champion a nod, they both stood up from their tables and made their way to the next window where they were told to submit their forms. Surprisingly, they weren't the only one submitting forms it would seem, and they both found themselves lining up behind two other Champions that looked absolutely miffed that they were there in the first place.

"Oh, I didn't think that we'd see others like us here," Shizu absently noted. "I expected them to be done with this stuff, to be honest."

"Same," Riku shrugged. "I guess they took their time with the forms as well."

At the very front of the line, a rather short white haired woman was currently scowling and arguing with the woman in the window. She was wearing a blue business suit that somehow looked both old and new at the same time. The two daggers hanging by her hip was all the indication he got that she was a fighter, but on how good she was, he would have no idea until he saw her fight.

"What do you mean I have to do it all over again?!" the white haired Champion argued, her German accent coming out strong as she leaned into the window. "I already told you I don't have time for this!"

"Again, ma'am, you're not allowed to have erasures in the forms," the poor woman behind the counter weakly argued, her voice cracking as if stopping herself from bursting to tears. "I'm sorry, but those are the rules-"

"Huh?! What kind of stupid rule is that?!" the female Champion whined, her own voice cracking from anger. "I can't waste anymore time here! I have a game to win!"

"T-Then please do your best to sign the forms again!" the woman cried out as she handed the irate Champion another set of forms. "You don't even have to sign them all! Just replace the forms that have erasures on them!"

At the outburst, the Champion seemingly got stunned as she backed off, regret instantly washing over her as her shoulders slumped.

"I-I'm sorry," the woman sighed as she took the forms. "I'll... I'll be back in a bit..."

And with that, the white-haired Champion wordlessly got out of the line and back to the one of many tables provided for them. Riku didn't know what that woman's deal was, but he could already tell that she had a lot of pressure on her back for some reason. Well, that was something he could use in the future. As for now, they had a queue to line up to... and a defense he had to prepare if his hunch was right.