Chapter 237: The Silver Saintess

Inside of a dark, run down old storage facility, upwards of around seventeen naked men and women were lying inside.

Around half of them were women, and the rest were fit men of various ages.

They were all naked, covered in a questionable yellow crust and shivering from the cold metal floors they had no choice but to rest on.

They had been given only the barest of possible comforts.

A couple of thin blankets that had to be shared, a few pieces of shoddily cut meat of questionable origin, and four buckets that were taken and dumped out everyday only to be brought back a few minutes later.

In the middle of the room, a man and a woman were lying side by side each other, equally broken and not saying a word.

Their hands were just centimeters away from each other, with both of them wanting to touch each other and yet both feeling as though they couldn't.

The wonderful thing about expressing physical affection with the one you love is that you are able to allow them a closeness with you that you would not normally afford other people.

It has a self afforded 'authenticity'.

But when your body is forcibly taken from you, it becomes difficult for some to share that same kind of intimacy as freely as before.

Suddenly it is as if you are offering your partner something that is 'dirty' or 'tainted'.

A flawed line of thinking, but an undeniably common trait in those who have lived through abuse.

And for those who are still living in their hell with no ending in sight, these traits only seem to worsen.

To escape this seemingly destitute and hopeless fate, nothing short of miracles are required for salvation.

Suddenly, the doors to the storage facility were kicked open and a ray of light shone from outside.

Instinctively, the humans inside huddled into corners and tried to avoid looking their captors in the eye.

The last thing that they wanted to do was look more pitiful than they already felt and send their depraved captors' instincts into overdrive.

"Mom! There are more over here!"

The eyes of the captors flashed open with renewed delerium.

Looking up, they found two young women standing side by side in the doorway.

One was a young, pink haired girl with a slightly dumb-yet well meaning roguish demeanor behind her.

The other was a dark skinned girl with long grey hair and empathetic black eyes.

"You poor souls... I can smell death all around you."

"A-Aubrey, don't be rude!"

"Ah! T-That's not what I was saying, Serana! I mean that people have actually died in this room."

"Oh, right."

"You girls are going to make us look bad..."

Members of Sei's squad were going around with their weapons and stabbing the creatures in either the hearts or the carotid to give them quick deaths.

They never even had a chance to put up a decent fight to begin with.

"..." Out of the corner of her eye, Sei saw something that made her come to a relatively short pause.

Releasing the girls' ears, she drifted over to a somewhat troubled member of her squad.

Clarissa Hall was the youngest member of Immortal Moon before it disbanded.

She was a cute, well mannered young girl who was looked at by all of the members as something of a little sister to the group.

Due to the fact that she had gotten her blessing from a Celtic god at the ripe age of sixteen, she had a tendency to be rather childish and was looked after by everyone in nightfall almost as much as Cami was.

And now, this very same young girl was repeatedly stabbing the same corpse over and over again, a very faraway look on her face.

Almost as if she wasn't really all there.

Sei drew closer towards the young girl and caught her sword by the pommel before she could mutillate the corpse even further.

"A-Ah, Squad Leader?"

"Clarissa dear... this one is already gone. There is no need to continue this any further."

The young girl looked down at the macerated pile of meat underneath her and she became slightly sick.

"I-I... I don't know what happened I was just thinking about all of this stuff and I.."

"I get it." Sei delicately took Clarissa's sword from her grasp and embraced her as closely as possible.

"This would be incredibly hard for anyone, needless to say someone as young as yourself. Would you like us to arrange a transport back to base for you?"

"N-No ma'am, I can keep going. I want to keep saving people... I'm sorry I lost my head."

"Sweet girl, you don't need to apologize... I just want you to take a beat for a bit and stick close to me for some time. Will you do that for me?"

Clarissa was finally released from her place between Sei's heavenly breasts and she lowered her head respectfully.

"Yes, Mrs. Saint. I will stay close by."

"...Ehehe...hehehehe.."

"..?"

Clarissa watched as Sei went from a respectable leader and maternal figure to a giggling high school girl with pink cheeks and twinkly eyes.

"Mrs. Saint, huh..? I always imagined that it would sound wonderful and it's honestly better than I could have hoped..! I-I can't wait to see him again and tell him!"

"Damn it, shrimp! You broke my mom!" Serana took her mother under her wing and tried to stop her from spiraling further into a fit of delirium.

"D-Don't call me, shrimp, washboard! I was just trying to be respectful!"

Serana growled as she folded her arms across her chest out of a mild sense of inferiority.

In the middle of their argument, the sound of shattering glass suddenly rang out from the window, and a large stony projectile came flying through the window.