"Tch!"
Gabriel clicked her tongue in disdain, but she did not refute what Sato had said earlier.
So... this girl actually knows how awful she is?
Sato stared at Gabriel and thought.
"Hey, Nishimiya is coming!"
Suddenly, Gabriel tilted her chin, signaling Sato to look behind him. When he turned, he indeed saw Nishimiya Shouko jogging over.
"Phew..."
When she reached them, the girl let out a soft breath. She looked slightly out of breath, her chest rising and falling gently beneath her knitted outerwear.
Sato glanced into Nishimiya Shouko's basket and saw the packaged ground meat.
"Here, this is for you."
Sato handed the vanilla ice cream to Nishimiya Shouko.
Unexpectedly, she did not take it right away. Instead, she turned to look at Gabriel, then gently pushed Sato's outstretched hand toward her.
"Oh! I don't need it, you can have it!"
Gabriel raised an eyebrow and said.
Both Sato and Gabriel knew exactly what Nishimiya Shouko was trying to do. As they looked at her with complicated expressions, a mix of feelings stirred in their hearts.
Even though her life had been full of unease, the girl in front of them was still kind to a fault...
Human nature was something difficult to define.
Most people simply hovered on the boundary between good and evil, while those who reached true extremes of either were exceedingly rare.
Under normal circumstances, Gabriel might have taken the ice cream from Sato without hesitation. But now, she knew what was inside it, so she naturally shook her head and refused Nishimiya Shouko's kindness.
"Then take this one."
Sato handed the other ice cream to Gabriel.
Gabriel looked a little surprised. "You're not eating?"
"I'll just buy another one."
It was just ice cream after all. Sato was not so broke that he needed to argue over one.
With a firm attitude, he stuffed the two ice creams into the girls' hands, then went back to the cold drink shop and bought two more.
One of them was for Kanna, he suddenly remembered.
From the shopping street to Aoyama Apartments was only a two or three minute walk. The three of them quickly arrived downstairs.
Nishimiya Shouko lived on the second floor. After parting ways there, Sato and Gabriel continued upstairs together.
Gabriel tilted her head and glanced downstairs. Nishimiya Shouko's figure had already disappeared around the corner.
She raised her head and asked Sato, "When will your medicine take effect?"
Sato shrugged. "I don't know."
"You don't know?!"
Gabriel's eyes widened instantly. You don't know, and you still dared to let Nishimiya Shouko take it?!
You don't even understand what it is, and you still gave it to her.
A knot formed in her chest as she said in a low voice, "If something goes wrong with your stuff, I'll personally send you to hell!"
She lifted her head, glaring fiercely at Sato with her violet eyes.
Hell?
Sato thought for a moment, then said in a slightly odd tone, "Hell doesn't sound too bad. Isn't Vigne-san from there?"
Although Vignette was a demon, she was unexpectedly kind, almost like she had been born into the wrong place.
And there was also Satania, whom he had met before. The so-called future ruler of hell was actually afraid of a small puppy, which was pretty ridiculous.
"Huh?"
Gabriel looked genuinely surprised, then the corner of her mouth twitched. "What you're talking about is the Netherworld, right? Vignette is from the Netherworld, not from hell!"
"Hm? Aren't the Netherworld and hell the same place?"
Sato was equally surprised.
"Of course not. Just like humans live in the human world and angels live in the heavens, the Netherworld is simply where demons live."
Gabriel rolled her eyes. "But the Netherworld is very close to hell. Hell lies beneath it. Any soul burdened with sin is cast into hell and burned by hellfire!"
"No judgment? Like the eighteen levels of hell, where the more sinful you are, the deeper you go and the harsher the torture?"
"That's just a story humans made up!"
"In hell, only the souls with heavy sins suffer the burning of hellfire. Who would even be there to judge them? The pain of hellfire burns the soul itself!"
"Then what about reincarnation? Like the six paths of rebirth?"
"I don't know about that. I've never dealt with it."
"So going to heaven is fake too? You don't have something like a reincarnation pool?"
"Of course not!"
Gabriel sighed helplessly. "Humans, angels, and demons aren't really that different. We're just different races with some innate differences. We're also born the normal way. How could humans possibly reincarnate into angels after death?"
"So that's how it is!"
Sato listened with great interest. This was probably how the world was set up.
"If people burdened with sin go to hell, then what about ordinary people? Where do their souls go?"
"That... I heard they return to the origin of the world. Anyway, it's complicated, I don't really understand it either."
"Then do you have wings? In legends, angels all have a pair of wings."
"Of course I do. They're just not needed in the human world, so I keep them hidden."
"Are they there from birth? When you were just born, were they like baby chicks, with barely any feathers, all bare, like... like the chicken wings you see in supermarkets?"
"Urusai!"
Gabriel suddenly turned back, shouting at Sato in embarrassment and anger. The girl's irritation shot up rapidly.
What do you mean chicken wings? Those are angel wings!
Her face darkened as she glared at Sato. "Are you the 'Ten Thousand Whys'? Where are all these questions coming from?!"
"Ahem, I'm just curious. Don't mind me!"
Sato laughed awkwardly.
...
At the same time, Nishimiya Shouko entered her home and was changing her shoes.
"Onee-chan, you're back!"
Nishimiya Yuzuru walked to the entryway, picked up the basket Nishimiya Shouko had placed on the floor, and after glancing inside, said, "Are we having hamburger steak tonight?"
Nishimiya Shouko smiled and nodded.
"Mm, we're having..."
Suddenly, her voice cut off. She covered her mouth in shock.
Just now, it seemed like another sound had come out?
Nishimiya Yuzuru looked up at her in confusion. "Onee-chan, what's wrong?"
Nishimiya Shouko shook her head, signaling that it was nothing.
It was probably... just her imagination.