Chapter 153 - "They've Lost Their Minds..."

"I noticed earlier that you two were quite emotional as you took your first bites of the pear…" Fumio resumes his questioning.

"It's not surprise, nor gustatory pleasure, but strangely… longing. Why is that?" He asks.

"…" The couple refuse to answer. They did not expect Fumio to notice that much.

Fumio shrugs at the couple's silence, already expecting it.

"It also seems like you've had a fruit as good as this before. That reminds me, if what I read on the internet were quoted from The Bible and Avrhamic Scripture, that you two lived in the so-called 'Paradise', a garden that's name I don't recall.  Is that true?" He continues to ask.

"…" The couple again remain silent as they look at each other, knowing each other's discomfort with the questions.

"Come on. Just tell me if it's true or not. It's not like you don't lose anything if you say 'No.' I won't even ask where you two were born." Fumio attempts to coax.

"But if that 'paradise' really existed on earth, and you two came from it … then just say 'yes'. I won't ask where it is anyway." He adds.

"You can think whatever you want." Ahdem shrugs.

Despite his casual tone, he knows, and his wife knows, that it will not take long for Fumio to figure out answers even without resorting to torture.

"Alright…" Fumio shrugs in return.

"So you two are real, and so is paradise. Does that mean then…  that God is too?"  He asks.

Despite the couple's refusal to answer once again, his eyes that can see a speeding rifle bullet in detail, just saw the crack in the two's poker face.

"Are They alive?" He continues to ask, confident in his assumption.

"..." He is met once again with silence, but with glares this time.

"Well. If They are, They're probably an indifferent existence. Or maybe they gave humans superiori powers and let the gates of heaven and hell open, and just watched on Their throne from the clouds for Their amusement. Either way, They're an asshole." He resorts to insults hoping to get a reaction.

To his chagrin, "..." he sees another crack in the couple's expressions.

"IF THERE'S A GOD OR GODS OUT THERE, HEAR ME! AND YOU MAY STRIKE ME DOWN!!!" He suddenly yells out in a booming voice and lifts his face to the direction of the sky. 

He wants to incite more reactions from the two, and wants to have fun doing it.

"Wha-" The couple is startled, but seeing that Fumio's attention is not on them, they continue to sit silent.

Fumio meanwhile, waits for ten seconds or so, before "hahah.", returning his attention to the couple with a laugh.

"Huh. Maybe they're not around? Ever tried calling out to them like that before? The first humans after all must have some brand recognition from God or the gods." He asks the couple with a smirk.

He knows that the couple will not answer him. He is simply trying to gauge how effective his display was, and he is pleased with his assessment.

He once again looks up and raises his middle finger to the direction of the sky.

"IF YOU'RE SO POWERFUL, WHY DON'T YOU COME DOWN IN HERE AND FIGHT ME? YOU PIECE OF DIVINE SHIT! You…" He continues to yell all sorts of insults.

At every insult, Ahdem and Havvah feel like they themselves are being insulted.

"BWAHAHAHAHA!" To add insult to injury, the hear Nishiki, who was busy doing his garden duties from the outside, laughing boisterously, obviously hearing Fumio's insults.

"O, WHERE ART THOU WRATH? COME ON! LET THIS BLASPHEMER HAVE IT, O' ALMIGHTY SMITER!!!" Fumio at this point is simply having fun.

The stress, the guilt, the exhaustion, and the frustration that has built up in his heart ever since the first death in his hill, is eased up a bit by the catharsis brought upon by his ridiculous and carefree insults.

All the cruelty he has seen in the past year alone, has made him angry and he did not know how to release it. Now that he found out that there is a God, he became even angrier. He wants to know why God or other gods, if they too exist, are letting all injustices and atrocities happen to good and innocent people.

Even though he felt angrier, it also makes him feel a bit better as now, he found something, despite symbolic, to blame and vent his anger on.

"YOU-" He is about to go another round but "ENOUGH!" Havvah yells as she can no longer listen.

"Whii o ah.." Fumio is taken aback and tongue tied by the outburst he was not at all expecting.

"You ignorant, ungrateful child!" Havvah adds through gritted teeth.

"Then please. Help me get rid of my ignorance… God's daughter." Fumio spits the latter part of his sentence in disdain.

"He would not let this happen if he is still around." Havvah defends her father's honor.

"…" Fumio's eyes widen.

"He's dead?" He asks.

"I hope not." Ahdem shakes his head.

"Shall we tell him?" He asks Havvah.

"haaa… I don't care anymore." Havvah simply sighs in defeat, but she feels she can trust Fumio with the knowledge.

The two's exchange excites Fumio.

"Father didn't die. He left." Ahdem tells Fumio.

"Left?" Fumio leans forward in interest.

"Yes. He gave us the fruit of knowledge, commanded me and my wife to expand our species, and left." Ahdem sighs, remembering the final encounter.

"The forbidden fruit, or something? …" Fumio asks.

Ahdem shakes his head.

"The first generations knew of our story accurately. After hundreds of thousands of years however, by the time Avhram started Yehudism, many details of what really happened have been changed either due to mistranslations or faults in the memory of those who passed on the stories.

"Some of those changes were the Fruit of Knowledge being dubbed as the Forbidden Fruit. Or that it was Lucifer who tricked us to eating it, when it was Father who gave it to us. We never even met a demon until we summoned one." He explains.

"Fascinating…" Fumio is compulsively recording it in his brain.

A few moments later, he has formulated more questions based on Ahdem's claims.

"That's a lot to unpack, especially you living hundreds of thousands of years.  But first. Why did he leave?" Fumio asks.

"Loneliness, perhaps?" Havvah shrugs.

"I never realized it for a long time after he left, but from my memories of him, he looked lonely."

"And his last words make more sense the more we learned about the world." Ahdem adds.

"Last words?" Fumio gets excited at a God's last words.

"Yes. 'I leave you behind to look for something equal or even bigger than I.'" Ahdem recounts.

"For someone so powerful… it must indeed have been lonely." Fumio nods.

"Anyways. It's not useful to me." He shrugs it off easily however.

"So. Which came first? You two or the demons and angels?" He moves on.

"They did." Ahdem says.

"Ever wondered why God made them?" Fumio asks.

"We don't know. Like Ahdem said earlier, we didn't know about their existence long after Father left." Havvah answers.

"I see." Fumio nods.

"And you said you summoned a demon… how did you do that?" He moves on.

"It was included in the Fruit of Knowledge." Ahdem explains.

"Using these?" Fumio pulls out the two treasure fragments he took from the couple while they were unconscious, and plays with it between his fingers.

"Yes." Havvah nods.

"Do you know what these are? They obviously belong to one treasu- tree." Fumio asks, basing his knowledge on Red's theories that Red once blabbed about but never concluded.

"We do not know either." Ahdem shakes his head.

He wants to hide from Fumio that he has more of the treasure fragments, and some of those fragments match each other.

"And I wish we never summoned one…" He sighs in regret.

"How do you mean?" Fumio frowns, seeing the man's shoulders dip.

"When our numbers were sparse, every one of ours was extremely valuable. But how were we supposed to survive against lions, alligators, rhinos, and giant snakes? Not to mention periods of extreme global freezing.

"We needed help. Maybe that's why Father left us the knowledge to summon demons to protect us, and angels to heal our sickness." Havvah explains.

"That's understandable…" Fumio nods.

"But why the regret?" He asks.

"We suspect that the more people summoned them, the stronger the connection between heaven and hell became. It was especially so in the centuries before the Great Harvest when wars were widespread in the world. More wars meant more people resorted to secretly summoning demons to their ranks." Havvah explains.

"…" Fumio feels conflicted.

On one hand, he understands the two's abuse of demon and angel summoning ensured that humanity survived against the wildlife, but on the other hand, he cannot ignore that their actions led to the most disastrous event in mankind.

Seeing the couple's faces of regrets however, and knowing even more that they are honest due to his truth powder, he cannot bring himself to hate the two.

"Fortunately, we had the Archangel and Prince of Hell who helped us." He can only console the two.

"Yes. Fortunately." The couple nod.

"Huh... Ever met them?" Fumio asks.

"We did meet them once around 20,000 years ago, when we summoned them for protection. They spent a few hundred years with us until one day, they both just left disappeared." Ahdem says.

"I thought they betrayed us after learning some of our magic. We didn't think they would reappear during the Great Harvest and help us." Havvah says.

"Huh… So the Catholic Church were honest about that." Fumio nods.

"Do you think they're still alive? I mean, they're two ranks above the strongest demons and angels that walked the earth during the Great War. They might even be stronger than S-Class superiori." He asks.

"I don't know." Ahdem shakes his head.

"Closing something that was created by Father himself might have been too much even for their caliber."

"But I hope they still live… They deserve our personal gratitude." Havvah adds.

"I hope so too." Ahdem sighs.

"We need their magic."

"That's right. Some demons I spoke with can feel the connection to hell again. It's not a good sign. We should find a way to prevent it from opening back up again." Fumio gets worried.

"Heh…" Ahdem chuckles suddenly.

"What?" Fumio asks.

"You see the threat clearer than even the S-Class members of the Brotherhood of Adam." Ahdem smiles at Fumio.

"How many S-…" Fumio is about to ask before he realizes something.

"Wait. The Brotherhood is named after you. Do you own them?" He asks.

"Hah. No. I have no longer have association with them." Ahdem scoffs.

"Ah. Well. That's a shame." Fumio is disappointed.

"I don't think it is. They've changed. I resent that they are still using my name." Ahdem says, feeling blood rush to his head in anger, remembering the things that the organization is currently doing.

"So, they know about incoming threat then." Fumio diverts the subject away from the organization's name, hearing Ahdem's reaction.

"What do they think about it?" He asks.

"I once heard that they want Hell's gates to appear sooner so they have more demon cores to harvest." Ahdem says.

"They've lost their minds…" Fumio is stunned.

"…" Havvah, who is hearing of the information for the first time, is also in disbelief.

"You should spend time with them. The arrogant f*ckers.." Ahdem sighs helplessly.