Chapter 33.2 A fragmentary passage~: Title at the end of the chapter.

Somewhere in the Omniverse after Kazuma's and Yozora's meeting.

Third Person P.O.V

"Oi Aqua where are you?" Kazuma yelled walking on the halls of his mansion.

"Don't yell inside the house!" Someone else ironically yelled.

"You are also yelling!" Kazuma pointed to the white-haired loli. "Wait a moment, this is my damn home! I can do whatever I want!"

"*tcht* This is how you treat a guest, no wonder you died as a virgin," Celes-chan said with a smirk on her face.

"That was thousands of years ago! And how does that relate to this!?" Kazuma yelled once again in annoyance at the comment.

"Anyway, how did Aqua's boyfriend took the notice of being sent to the DXD world?" Celes-chan said quickly moving from that conversation.

"You can't just change the subject that fast...but he took it very well, he was even excited about being sent before the plot started," Kazuma replied knowing that he will not win the argument.

"Strange...any idea why?"

"No, he offered to tell me but I didn't want the spoilers." After Kazuma said this, Celes-chan just looked at him with a deadpan expression.

"Idiot."

Kazuma's blood pressure raised after her reply but decided to ask what is important. "Where is Aqua? I have some souvenirs for her."

"Still in her room. "This time different from before, Celes-chan's tone sounded a little bit sad.

"*sighs* That baka getting depressed for something out of her control," Kazuma said with an annoyed tone, yet his face betrayed his words.

Ever since what happened at the Greengrass mansion, Aqua has been depressed. Not because of Daphne's declaration but of Yozora's words when he was alone. Currently, only Celes-chan and Kazuma know about the relationship between Aqua and Yozora, so when she started to cry, everyone thought she was overreacting to a simple "crush".

"I will go with her, maybe what I have will cheer her a little bit, we'll talk later," Kazuma said walking towards Aqua's room.

"Wait," Celes-chan called out to Kazuma. "How is his mental corruption."

"Not as bad as it should be." Kazuma started to remember the times when Yozora lost a little bit of control. "I still don't know if it is because of his irregular soul or because of his origin, but I do not doubt that if it was another person with the same strength as him, he or she would be already lost their sense of self."

"Don't tell her about this, I've done what I can so she doesn't realize what is happening to Yozora."

Kazuma nodded at her words with some grievance visible on his face. "I feel bad to hide things from her. But in her current state, she would do something stupid, but sooner or later she is going to find out."

"I know," Celes-chan said still with a calm expression. "But at least we can delay it a little bit until he finds a way through this. How high do you think are his chances?"

Kazuma closed his eyes thinking about all the achievements that he had accomplished in the last couple of years. "The question is not if he will overcome this, just when."

"Huh? Pretty big compliment coming from you." Celes-chan snorted. "To think that you will complement a "bishounen", though it makes me curious why would you say that?"

Kazuma smirked at Celes-chan. "Let's just say that if someone has a bigger ego than that arrogant fool, it would be him," Kazuma said no more and started to walk toward Aqua's room.

....

Once Kazuma was in front of her room, he didn't bother to knock on the door and just entered Aqua's room as if he owned the place.

"Special delivery for the future Mrs. Hoshimura" Kazuma said in a merry tone with a little mocking, but his tone didn't sit well with the ambiance of the room.

There is barely any light inside the room, and dozens of bottles were scattered all around the floor, and Aqua was laying on her bed absentmindedly looking at the floor. "Go away," Aqua muttered in a low tone, not even bothering to look in Kazuma's direction.

Kazuma ignored her and walked towards her bed and took a chair out of nowhere to sit near her. "Come on Aqua, here I am bringing something to cheer you up and you are giving me a cold shoulder, how heartless you can be." But his words fell on deft ears as she did replied and just moved to face the opposite side of the room.

Seeing her attitude Kazuma could just sigh at the situation, usually, he wouldn't have the patience for this kind of thing, but for Aqua someone whom he considers like an annoying little sister of his even though she is older, he would make an effort.

Kazuma just sat still looking at Aqua with a lot of concern on his face. 'Can't blame the lad for wanting to move on, from his perspective no one remembers him so even if he could return to his former world, it would be pointless since his existence was erased from it. And even if I wanted to tell him about Aqua, she asked me to not tell him as this is something that she needed to do, but looking at how currently she is...'

He could only sigh at this situation, of course, one of Kazuma's reasons to give "that" to Yozora was to make him talk to Aqua... 'is not the right time, Celes-chan agrees with this, heck even that damn bastard of Fuga thinks the same.' feeling a little headache Kazuma decided to take one of the bottles o Aqua's drawer, but after taking a sip of it Kazuma raised an eyebrow in confusion.

"This doesn't have alcohol"

"I quit."

"What?"

"I quit drinking 5 years ago."

"..." Kazuma was having a hard time believing what Aqua just said. "Oi are you serious? Okay, listen I am sorry that I told Yozora that you killed him being drunk, dick move on my part, I should have said something else to cover you...wait what happened to Yozora was 3 and a half years ago."

"..."

"..."

"..."

"Oi oi oi, don't tell me that you are pregnant! I know that you gained some weight but I thought that you got fa- kuh!" But Kazuma couldn't finish his words since he was sent flying to the closet wall creating cracks all around it.

"Who the hell are you calling fat!"Aqua said gazing at Kazuma.

'This damn gorilla goddess' Thought Kazuma to himself but didn't say anything to avoid being hit once again.

"You thought something don't you?" Aqua said cracking her knuckles like a thug.

"N-no," Kazuma said avoiding looking Aqua in the eyes. 'Damn she was always violent but not like this! And what with acting like your everyday thug? Curse you Yozora, I know that this is your fault!'

"A-anyways, so why did you stop drinking if that's not the case?"Kazuma asked since he knew how much Aqua loves to drink 'Hell I saw her once "secretly" going to the "Danmachi" world to get Soma's wine"

But at Kazuma's question, Aqua's face became atomic red. " I- was going to p-propose him," Aqua muttered softly that most of the people would not even hear, but it was enough for Kazuma to hear. His answer though...

"Huh? Kazuma eloquently said. 'Chotto mate! What the fuck! Don't get me wrong I do not care that she was the one to propose on the contrary I am glad that she finally followed the Dao of true gender equality. Why does the man have to be the one to always make the next step? seriously that is annoying as fuck... though I must admit that I am a little jealous that Yozora was going to be proposed to by Aqua, well he technically got proposed to by two girls if we count what the Daphne girl said the other day. Bishounens are unfair to the rest of the regular people...focus Kazuma, this is not the time.'

"But that doesn't explain you stopped drinking"

"Y-you k-know," Aqua said shyly becoming even redder.

"I know what?" Kazuma asked even if he knew where this was going.

"W-when a couple marries.... theydoalotofprivatestuffandafteracoupleofmonthsthereisababyinthewaysoitisnothealthyforthebabyifIconsumealcohol. (they do a lot of private stuff and after a couple of months there is a baby in the way so it is not healthy for the baby if I consume alcohol.)" Aqua said so quickly that normal people would not understand, but Kazuma was not normal.

"*Pfff* Hahaha what's with that dumb logic hahaha!" Kazuma said cracking in laugh until he fell on the floor. "My stomach hurts."

"What's dumb about that!? Even if I am a goddess, alcohol can-"Aqua tried to explain but Kazuma interrupted her, after his laugh died off.

"Not that, I mean not because you get married it means that you will have a baby. Magumin and I have been married for ages and still don't have a kid and on top of that fertility in beings like us is very low, to begin with, so you would have to have something that..." But Kazuma stopped midway through his phrase looking at Aqua fidgeting her fingers. "You have something to increase fertility, don't you?"

"C-Celes-chan found out what I was going to do, so she gave me that as an "early wedding gift"... Don't ask me why she had that."

"I still don't understand why she knew it before me." If Kazuma was being honest, he felt a little hurt that she didn't talk about it earlier.

"It wasn't my intention to tell her at the beginning, I was just going to expend a year on his original world before going to another... But after meeting I decided to stay another year and that became another and another until I realized that we already were living together." Aqua smiled fondly at the memory of those days. "But then, I started to worry about the time we could expend together. While I had over 100 years of vacation time, our life expectations were severely different, so the time we could expend together would be very little. So one night I partially unlocked a fragment of my powers to see if there was a way to extend his lifespan...and that was when I realized that Yozora's soul was different...it was exactly what Celes-chan was looking for."

When people like Kazuma or Aqua go to lower worlds, they have to seal their powers to not mess with the natural order of things. So, as she was only going for vacations Aqua sealed most of her powers and didn't even use most of what she didn't seal.

"I was overjoyed about that since I wouldn't need to worry anymore about him dying before me and I knew that he would accept as he was getting bored of most of the mundane stuff. I knew that if he was born in a different world, he most likely would become a "protagonist" of that world. So I quickly went to Celes-chan and told her that I found one candidate for us and when she investigated him...she found everything and started to tease me for hours, luckily I was able to convince her to not tell anyone else until I was ready but with the condition that I would help her to create the system that Yozora was currently using."

"So at night when Yozora was sleeping, I gathered information about his soul so Celes-chan could work on the system, but once the research went reached a critical point she needed my direct help because I had direct contact with Yozora's soul...a year I had to be away from him just a year, something that before it would feel as if it just a day passed...but at the moment one year seemed like an eternity. So on our last night before going, I had to lie to him about why I needed to leave for a time even if I didn't like to, but it was at that night that I just knew it."

"I got so excited about the idea of doing so, that I didn't think about it and told Celes-chan about it...that was when she gave me that after teasing me for a couple of hours. I had everything, I was going to take him to his favorite place, prepare dinner take a walk...pretty cliche stuff but cliches are cliches for a reason, or so Yozora says." Aqua chuckled a little bit.

"Everything was planned and after the part where I needed to help Celes-chan was done I prepared everything as fast as I could, if I have to be honest with you Kazuma I was nervous... most of me was confident that he would say yes, but a little part of me was scared that he would reject me, but I swallowed all my negative thoughts and decide to go to him...or at least that was how things were supposed to happen." The merry ambiance that permeated the whole room dropped instantly as Aqua started to remember how what should be one of the best days of her life, became one of the worst.

With everything that Aqua said Kazuma felt very conflicted. As Yozora's direct supervisor, he needed to watch over him most of the time, admittedly he slacked a little bit before the start of his mission since he found it boring and repetitive...something that made him surprised after seeing his progress in such a low-leveled world. But there are things that he noticed, the first one being that he never liked to talk about his family not even to Li currently is the closest person to him, even if Yozora knew that he knew about it because of the Dream-Cycle, he avoided the subject as if was a plague. And the other thing and the most obvious one...he avoided female affection. Sure, most of the time he excused himself because of the age gap between them, but with Lady Death, that excuse went to the sewer, but he kept brooding about his former girlfriend, heck even before going to Hogwarts, Kazuma saw Yozora a few times looking somewhat depressed while looking a young couple and thought that he should suck it up and move on.

Don't get Kazuma wrong, he kinda likes Yozora as he is a funny lad and takes his work seriously when it comes to things related to his survival, but since their interactions were very limited it was hard for him to take it personally... or that was the case before Aqua little slip tongue. And after seeing her so distressed and learning everything he feels bad... okay he feels like a dick. But you can't blame him as in Yozora's file there was just the mention of a girlfriend that he hasn't seen in over a year...

"And because of "him" now he is now forgetting about me, such a fitting punishment for a useless goddess that could not save her boyfriend," Aqua said in a self-deprecating tone.

"Aqua..." Kazuma tried to say something but his words died out in his throat. He is the main reason or at least the "he" that made Aqua's name a synonym of "useless goddess" but hearing Aqua's self-deprecating tone, he wishes that he could go back in time to take back such words but there is no medicine for regret.

"You know, I thought that finally would have the chance to be happy like you are with Megumin."

"Aqua is not your fault..."

"OF COURSE IT'S MY FAULT!" Aqua finally snapped as tears started to fall from her face.

"I was supposed to be a goddess and take care of the people of Axel but I could not do anything! What is the use of a goddess that cannot save her people?... That couldn't even save her friends!" After saying those words Aqua fell to the floor.

"Luna *sniff* Taylor *sniff* *Dust, Iris *sniff* Mitsurugi, Vanir, Ignis...Yozora, I am sorry *sniff* I am sorry for being a useless goddess!"

Kazuma kneeled where Aqua was and hugged her "Aqua is not your fault."

"It is," Aqua said as she clings to Kazuma. " I thought that I could be happy this time, that things will be okay...but...but once he finds out who I am, he will hate me for lying...for killing him."

"Everything is going to be okay." Kazuma consoled her friend/sister.

"He hates me." Bitterness was palpable in her words.

"He doesn't ."

"How can you be so sure?

"Cause he never badmouthed about you," Kazuma said bluntly. "While I am technically his "boss", he is the kind of guy that would shamelessly express his distaste against anyone and from time to time, I have seen him cleaning and taking care of Durindana with a tender expression, even if it is always in perfect state inside of Armirger."

This made Aqua a little bit less depressed. "Here," Kazuma said taking out the dishes that Yozora gave him.

"I don't know from where did he get this weird obsession for cooking but I bet my money that at least half of his dimensional pocket is full of food," Kazuma said trying to make Aqua laugh, but he was ignored as she kept staring at the food.

There were plenty of dishes around them, many that looked like they were taken out from 5-star restaurants, but from all of them, Aqua took one of the plainest looking ones, a bowl of miso soup.

Aqua materialized a couple of chopsticks and took a little piece of tofu and another, a little bit of seaweed, and then took a sip. Aqua didn't notice but tears started to form in her eyes, as she started to remember the good moments with Yozora. "It's warm."

Aqua keep eating without muttering further words until the bowl was almost empty."Kazuma."

"Yes?"

"I don't want to be useless anymore."

Chapter title: A goddess lament.

....

Hello niece and nephew it's Uncle Author and I hope you enjoyed the chapter.

First of all I want to thank everyone for the support that you have given me when I published the messages of delay in the updating and on the last chapter. *Uncle Author bows*

Originally this special chapter was going to be the introduction of chapter XXXIV but I decided that it deserved its own tittle.

I know that it's drastically different from what I usually write since most of the times I wrote things that are with a lot of comedy elements and overall it's always on the "light" side.

But this chapter or at least this part was something that I have been planning for a long time for a reason and an important one at least for me. That the Kazuma and Aqua I am writing it's different from the cannon. Sure I am trying my best to keep their "essence" as much as possible, but what they experienced in this novel is drastically different.

I've been foreshadowing this since chapter 3 and there are some hints here and there, last chapter was one of the most obvious since Kazuma confirmed it.

But take note that this not be always the case since my heart can't take the fact of writing a lot of "dark" stuff...yeah I'm kind of weak with this. But after a crossover fanfiction of Highschool DXD with One Punch Man and Three Life Times(Web Comic) my heart is not strong enough.

And why I decided to post this kind of "depressing" chapter well... it's April. *Self emotional damage*

In a couple of hours I will publish another kind of special chapter, that will help a lot. And don't worry that this special chapters are interrupting the writing of chapter XXXIV, I was working on the three at the same time... Don't ask why sometimes working on multiple chapters helps me to write faster hahaha.

So with anything else to say, thank you for reading this special chapter.

If you like this ff so far please make a review on the main page , this will help me a lot so more people get interrsted in reading it.

Also leave a comment with your thought on this chapter and maybe drop a stone or two since. (Stones are addictive.)

Se you again in the next chapter!

*Uncle author goes to cook some rice*