BLACK CLOVER: The Whisperer - Yuno Grinberryall

CHAPTER V. The Demon Inside

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"... who are you?"

Whoever he was or whatever he was, he voiced no response.

Xierra sighed. "No answers? All right, then. I guess that I'll have to look for another way of knowing your identity." She steeled her resolve and rested her head on her palm, propping herself straight whilst cocking her head to the left.

She crooned for a minute or two. "Are you an enemy?"

As I have said before, I am not.

"Well, you answered that question, why didn't you answer the first one?" Upon receiving no other response from the voice, she frowned. "Can I trust you?" she continued.

Who knows? Maybe yes, maybe not.

A grunt was elicited from her lips, vexed at the voice's response. He was dodging her questions and she didn't like it at all. It seemed to her that he would only answer all the questions but his identity.

"Hmm..." She contemplated her choice of words. "Do I know you then? I don't remember ever hearing your voice."

He hummed. You can say that. We met... once, in the past.

Xierra scoffed in return. She blinked and leaned forward, looking at nothing but thin air as if the one she was talking with was standing in front of her. "'In the past'? How can I not remember you, then? Or perhaps, were you just someone who didn't talk when we met?" If they did meet, she would remember them, no matter how far into her memories she dug.

The children from the neighboring village whom she only met once or twice, the merchants who stopped by once in a while, even travelers that only spoke a word to her—Xierra remembered them all. It confused her why the voice wasn't a part of her memory.

His voice was quite soothing to hear, despite his mischievous way of talking. She would definitely remember someone like him. Whoever he was, surely she must have had some kind of encounter or conversation with him.

Understandably, you are unable to remember me, Master, he began slowly, hesitation in his voice.

"What do you mean? And I notice how you've been calling me 'master' for a while now."

Well, we didn't exactly... talk.

"Huh?"

Xierra was stumped back, startled by the pillars of black cloud forming in front of her very eyes. Pointed ears began to twitch, she noted them as fox ears, as they were the ones that appeared first from amidst the sable curtains. Then, she saw a faint glow, slowly growing clearer. A fox emerged from behind the dark clouds that rivaled its fur, blacker than the starless night.

Her eyes met its golden ones; an unusual color for a fox to have.

As far as I know, foxes have yellow or green eyes. And it's not uncommon for them to have dark brown or blue eyes, Xierra recalled, frowning as she thought back to the books she had read before. And she was pretty sure that the gold in its eyes was very different from the usual pale yellow most saw in foxes.

Xierra pursed her lips, not knowing what to say at the unexpected entrance.

"I guess it'll be a waste of time chatting like this," the foxlike creature began—assuming that it was a fox—possessing the same voice as the one from before. Xierra could only conclude that the fox in front of her was the voice's true appearance, although none was confirmed.

Hard to believe that a fox can speak, but then again, magic exists, so who am I to say about it? Xierra flatly looked at the fox before her.

The fox tilted his head and twitched one ear, catching more of Xierra's attention. The way his eyes droopily gazed at her hid a hint of mischievousness, and the way his mouth somewhat formed a curl by the ends only made Xierra imagine what his smile would look like if he was human: Sinister.