Lillith (ChrolloxReader)

Chapter 10

"Indeed, it's wrong to keep you near me;
One could call me cruel and deceiving.
But in your sacred air, I am full of light.
Your loving arms are the true delight
To which I am lost."

"Persephone" - Tamino

‼️CONTENT WARNING: THIS CHAPTER CONTAINS EXPLICIT CONSENSUAL SEXUAL CONTENT‼️

Chrollo's POV

Training (Y/n) had gone well as the week passed, in more ways than one. Her mind was sharp and agile, and I found that her learning style had much more to do with observation rather than being thrown into hand-to-hand combat; her mind was analytical, and she seemed to find ways around a confronting problem in something leaning more toward a mathematical procedure. It was endlessly intriguing to me, watching her wide eyes zero in on me as I explained and demonstrated concise and effective uses of Zetsu, feeling her attention span elongate when I narrowed in on the science behind a precise use of the perfect millisecond.

I, myself, have never leaped at the opportunity to train another—I couldn't seem to wrap my mind around the thought that there were those who simply did not understand strategic progression, and I'd never carried with me a specific method to which I follow closely. But she continued to satisfy me, and to fascinate me. It was as if, in the many months that we'd spent together, she'd always been watching me, and silently duplicating my abilities, my intellect. Perhaps it was subconscious, another curiosity to lend itself to my theory that soul ties acted as a magnet—she picked up on my actions, and I, her, and it was a never-ceasing instinct to do so.

I'd allowed her to study the floor plan while I skimmed through the few boxes of original manuscripts and sheet music left over from our heist at the music museum. On Tuesday and Wednesday, I'd been gone for the majority of the sunlight hours to pawn off what I decided had lost its luster, and lacked interest. The inked scrawl on the disintegrating parchment no longer held much value to me—I'd already studied the lot of them. In an effort to sell them quickly, I lowered the usual price for such coveted originals and met with a few well-known collectors in quiet, hooded towns not much more than a few hours from York New. In the end, I'd finally cleared my music room of the clutter, and packed together a sum of around seventy billion jenny.

Within the two days that I'd been away, I'd also engaged in a few bouts of minor theft to obtain more accessories to give to (Y/n)—petty crime was a familiar place to me, and it often soothed my thoughts to do so alone. It brought me back to a time when such was all I'd ever accomplished, and I enjoyed dedicating the items I stole to my lover. I'd taken a twenty carat diamond necklace, and a pair of diamond earrings, both of the sets being embellished with sapphires and emeralds in the crevices and links. I easily pictured the delicate additions to her elegant form, and ultimately decided, inwardly, upon being the one to do her hair. I wanted it pulled up—it would better reveal the graceful arch of her neck and allow the dangling earrings to compliment her smooth skin.

But I carried my reasons for choosing to do these things in solitude. It successfully aided in my efforts to repress the threatening emotions I seemed to feel so much more deeply around her, the emotions concerning the death of Shalnark and Kortopi. Their relentless tug and pull upon my memories, their unremitting tendency to bring back those pointless sensations of loss and heartache, seemed to subside as I spent time alone and shut off the chatter of my mind—succumbing to the most primal of these instincts, I believe I'd once told (Y/n).

Pointless, because the Spider lives on; pointless, because I, nor any other human in the universe, hold the ability to travel back and change the way fate had played out. And still, those pointless sensations lived on remotely, while at the same time churning and festering unforgivingly, agonizingly.