Hidden under Moriyana's mansion was the newly built laboratory for all ilk's of experimentation. In vials of giant glass, was a row of clones floating in luminous blue liquid. Lifeless, they seemed, but fed deep inside them was the fragmented soul of the slime queen.
"So?" Standing in front of one such vial, Haruki stared at the otherworldly beauty stranded inside the glass. "Do you think we're ready to finally give her soul a body?"
"I don't know, but…" Stepping forward, Fay looked up at the clone trapped inside the vessel. "We don't have much choice but to try, the fragmentation has made her soul much weaker and her memories that she used to mumble out have been wiped up completely."
Leaning her head against Haruki's shoulder, she too stood there admiring the innocent-looking girl. Her hair burning a luminous rainbow glow made her seem dazzling inside the glass, and her slender limbs and flat tummy trigged the motherly instinct inside Fay.
'I wonder if we can call it our child?' Turning her head to Haruki, she planted a gentle kiss on his cheeks.
"How did you come up with such an innocent vessel?" Running her hands down Haruki's arm, she took a step back.
"It reminded me of the first time I saw Asmodia," huffing out a sigh, he finally looked away from the girl. "She appeared as innocent as a maiden and as dazzling as an angel. A mirage I'm sure, but I wanted to capture that essence when I created her."
Amused by his reasoning, Fay had her eyes fixed on him while she explored what exactly he meant by those words. However, breaking the peace was the sound of clanking hells, coming down the stairs into the basement laboratory. The rustic pipes recirculating the mana-fused liquid inside the glass vials, creaked out loud every time a step was taken on those rusty stairs.
Almost blinded by fumes leaking out of the very pipes running all over the walls, Moriyana jerked back and was almost about to fall.
"Shadow hand…" Haruki whispered and a pair of giant arms caught Moriyana from behind.
"Don't wear high heels in such a damp environment if you don't wanna fall," tired of giving her the same warning, Haruki couldn't bring himself to yell at her.
As the hands around her disappeared, Moriyana made her way further down into the lab. Wearing a sparkling red dress with a deep v-cut that reached, she was obviously trying to show off her body. A bit irked by his remark, she began stomping her way toward Haruki. Bouncing out of her short dress, the flesh on her ass moved like jelly as she finally stood before him.
"I'm running a business above this place, so don't expect me not to flaunt in every conceivable way possible!" The makeup, the lipstick, while it made her look stunning was still a bit distracting to her master.
"Whatever," although he was disappointed in her act, to some degree Haruki was glad that unlike him Moriyana hadn't changed one bit. "What do you want?"
Bemused by his question, Moriyana frowned her eyes and just glared at him for a moment.
"What do you mean what do I want? I'm part of this whole operation, I don't wanna miss the final steps," sweeping past him, she walked straight over to the chosen vessel. "After all, I wanna know how it must've felt when Mother made me."
"What?" Fay blurted out, surprised by Moriyana's words. "The mistress made you?!"
Provoked by her voice, the vessels holding the fragmented soul of the slime queen began shaking in place. Slowly raising their heads to the noise, they all, in unison, screamed at Fay for disturbing their slumber.
Deafened by the screeches, the women in the room quickly covered their ears, while Haruki on the other hand conjured a pair of earplugs plugged into his ears. Turning to the vessels, he held his hand directed towards them and did what had to be done.
"Soul manipulation!" Sucking the pieces of the queen's souls out of the clones, he had them all flop lifeless inside their liquid prison.
Quickly conjuring a decorated ring with a stone of concentrated darkness as its jewel, he forced the soul inside. Enclosing the ring under his finger, he turned to check on the ladies around him.
"If you're both done, we should start," ignoring the two for a moment, he moved up closer to the clone he'd picked to be the soul's vessel.
"Y-yeah, sorry," Fay mumbled from the back, but Haruki's mind was too taken by the final step to register her void.
All he could see was the final step in the puzzle, a puzzle that would allow him to take over his enemies by recreating them from their ashes as his soldier. But more than that, he felt a rush that elated his senses and made his mind race through the sea of possibilities he was about to venture on. And yet, even now something more urged him to put that ring on the clone's fingers. Which was…
'I feel like a god.' he thought. Teleporting the ring inside the glass, a pair of shadow hands gently pushed the ring onto her finger.
"Everything…seems fine," moving closer alongside Moriyana, Fay's eyes stayed focused on the girl. "Maybe using a catalyst to transfer the soul to a child-like body was the move to go make, after all."[1]
"We should wait for some movement bef-" Looking up at the girl's eyes Haruki just realized what the others were already seeing from afar. Her blue eyes wide open, she gently pressed the other hand onto the glass. "It worked."
In a moment of absolute awe, the three couldn't bring themselves to avert their eyes from the luminescent beauty. However, as a hint of fear emanated through her eyes, the admiring view turned into a horrifying sight.
"Fuck, she's drowning!" Upon hearing Moriyana's words, Haruki shook his head to bring himself back to his senses.
In a moment of haste, he conjured a hammer to break the glass, instead of using teleport on the infant's body. But all of it mattered not even the slightest when a beam of bright light shooting out of the girl's hair consumed everything and all present inside the basement. Blinded by the light refracting into all shades of colors, it took a while for everyone to recover even after the light retreated towards the girl.
"Did we fail?" Haruki yelled, but as his eyes laid on the little girl laying out of the shattered glass vessel, he knew that couldn't have been the case.
'The ring it still hasn't broken so the soul should be intact!' Checking the girl's pulse, a sense of relief washed over him.
"She's alive," he muttered, turning to the other two with a wide smile.
[1] Note: She isn't going to be a Lolita character, and her role in the story will not hold any sexual connotations. If anything, she's there to be cutesy and charming, much like Tiara and Doroke.
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