saudade; raiden ei

ᴠɪɪ. blade

"Miss Y/n! Over here!"

'Hm?' The soldier glanced in the direction of the voice, and saw her hazel-eyed friend waving at her from inside a room.

Y/n stepped inside the open doorway, and was immediately blown away by the sight before her. It appeared to be a dining room of sorts, and there were possibly hundreds of people within it.

As she walked over to the maid, slowly the conversations, laughter, and even the sound of clashing plates all stopped.

It was so silent that you could hear a pin drop, yet Y/n forced herself to keep moving as to not draw anymore attention to herself. Which, it seemed, worked, as when she reached Ayame the talking started back up again.

Y/n exhaled in relief.

"Good morning, Miss Y/n. Are you doing well?"

"Yes, Ayame. Thank you. I didn't expect there to be so many people.."

"Heh.. Well there is a lot of servants living here."

Her eyes widened.

"These are all... servants!?"

Ayame nodded, and Y/n groaned, resting her head on the table.

"Give me a moment..."

The maid and some of her other friends stiffled their laughs. Looking up, Y/n recognised them as the two girls that had been with Ayame on the day they first met.

It felt like forever ago.

Noticing her stare, the two immediately looked away.

"Anyway." Ayame continued, but Y/n's concentration had remained on the pair. They spoke in hushed voices, and she couldn't help listening in.

"-I can't believe Her Excellency would do such a thing."

"I can. She's cruel and heartless. Have you ever seen a single emotion from her? She doesn't enjoy anything because she has 'no need', and treats us all like bugs despite the things we do for her."

"Now that you mention it.... Ugh, I'm just so sick of this already! I wanna go homee!"

While the maid kicked her legs like a child, Y/n was stunned. Their description sounded nothing like the Ei she knew. Her Ei's gorgeous eyes were always swirling with emotion, and she could never be heartless or cruel.

Also, the fact remained that Ei never once left her Plane. This had been tugging at the back of Y/n's mind for a while, but now she truly wondered.

How was it possible that she was still giving new orders?

The soldier asked a question, carelessly interrupting whatever Ayame had been saying. The maid looked mildly irritated, but quickly got over it to give her an answer.

"How do you feel about Her Excellency?"

"Well... She is my boss.." Her friend spoke with hesitance. "It's not like any of us can speak out against her."

Looking around the room, some other servants at the table avoided Y/n's gaze. She realised that it wasn't just the select few that felt this way.

They all did, and that was a fact that shocked her.

Despite their opinions, Ei's emotional eyes were firmly engraved into her mind.

It was all wrong. Something wasn't adding up here.

Simultaneously, Ei was still meditating.

Her eyebrow twitched.

Okay, trying to meditate.