My name is Angra Mainyu.
Most just call me Abe-san, though.
Currently, I’m working as a bartender in Ahnenerbe.
Other than mixing drinks, this job is about talking to customers, listening to their grievances and sorrows, and being a shoulder for them.
I don’t even get paid for it. Hell, I should be the one paying them. I love this. I can simply be here, mix drinks and listen to everyone whining to me.
So yeah, that’s what I do.
Ahnenerbe is a place where a lot of people come to ease their burden, every night.
This is one of those nights…
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Second Night
Murder, My Sweet
I was standing behind the counter as always, wiping the cups that were the pride of the bar. Having been used by Queen Victoria herself, they were something we used only in the finest occasions. My employer, the damned cat, had told me that if I so much as left a finger-print on one of them, I would quickly find all the evils of the world stuffed up my ass.
It sounded somewhat promising, but I let the chance pass me by.
It was at that point that the bell rang at the doorway, informing that a new customer had entered. At the moment, there wasn’t anyone else in the bar but yours truly and V/V with her ever-present complains about the food that was served to her here while we were working. Apparently pasta napolitana made by the loving paws of a cat who couldn’t even talk in a comprehensible way was not enough for her. And when we had offered her some grilled fish, she had become very, very pissed off. Now she was ramming her fingers to the keys of the piano, in an act of a not-so-silent rebellion about her treatment here in Ahnenerbe.
Tonight it looks like she’s playing a rendition of Warren Vaché’s “I Can’t Get Started”.
--- But I digress.
In any event, the customer entered the bar, accompanied by the aforementioned chime of the bell. I looked up from the mugs I’d been wiping and saw the familiar, leather-jacket-clad figure of Ryuogi Shiki approaching the counter. Shiki was one of the regulars here, though her current life-situation had resulted in her visiting less and less. So, she sits down and raises her finger, at which point I rummage through the shelf to get her the usual.
Heated-up sake. You know, to drive away the cold of the night.
So I pour her a cup and she accepts it without a word, but I can’t help but to notice that’s looking a bit annoyed at the moment. So, being the person I am, I stop my working and lean at the counter.
“Well, that’s not a happy face, Miss Ryougi. Something bothering ya?”
Hearing my words, she downs the small cup and reaches out for the carafe to pour herself another. It’s clear that she’s planning on going through those cups with quite the speed.
“I wouldn’t exactly call it a “bother”, but something’s definitely wrong”, she answers. “Most of the guys would say I’m pretty blessed when it comes down to it, but if you asked my own personal opinion, I’m starting to think that enough is enough.”
Of course, I have no idea what she’s talking about, so being a bartender, I decide to pry a little further. That’s part of my job description, pretty much.
“Blessed? In what way?” I ask.
“Well, in appearances, of course! Suddenly I am like the golden girl of Type-Moon, appearing everywhere as a cameo or in-joke. It’s not that I’m not flattered, but enough is enough”, she says with a slightly miffed tone and downs yet another cup.
Being a character appearing only in a fandisc and in a silly fighting-game spin-off, I immediately feel the urge to strangle the girl, but I decided against it. It would have looked pretty bad in my resume.
“What is the problem exactly? Most of us would be happy to get many appearances? You don’t see Saber going around and talking about how it’s bad that she gets so much screen-time wherever she goes.”
Ryougi sighs and gazes at her cup with a slightly melancholic expression. It is the kind of expression that comes only for movie stars who notice that the script they chose did not end up becoming the block-buster hit of the summer. I think I saw Will Smith wearing one after Wild Wild West.
“Well, something like that would be fine. But me? It’s getting completely ridiculous. One day, I was at home, minding my own business when whoosh! I’m suddenly abducted to an alternate time-line where I have to beat up crazy maids, robots, Azaka-look-alikes who want to bone their own brothers…wait, isn’t that a bit redundant?...anyways, and alchemists and what-not. And on top of that they throw this crazy vampire at me who keeps on making the people who talk about powerlevels groan. And that all in just one afternoon!”
The cups are being emptied one after another, and I had to admit, I was sort of expecting another personality popping up soon if she’d have continued that. However, in a strange moment of self-realization, she pushed the carafe away and continued talking without alcohol boosting her not unlike Arondight.
Though I guess with the amount of alcohol she had downed, everyone must’ve been using For Someone’s Glory in her eyes.
“But that’s not all. I decided to take some time-off and play videogames, when whoosh! I’ve been sucked into the videogame and have to grind ridiculous amount of low-level critters in order to get back. If that’s not ridiculous, then I don’t know what is!”
To me, it was beginning to look like the typical syndrome of a small-time heroine who suddenly made it big, and was caught in the landslide of popularity. Your typical Rocky-style-story, but instead of people yelling “Fennish Monjaah” or whatever they are singing in that song, the only thing she had in waiting was more birthday robots and weird Russians who would want to break her. Or, worst of all, people who would pity the fools.
I still waited for the day that Kuzuki would say that.
“But you’re young, right Miss Ryougi? Why not enjoy this thing while it lasts? Nobody will be popular forever. Just look at Matou Sakura. Despite being constructed into one heroine like the rest of them, her popularity lasted for about two weeks after the game’s release, after which she’s been stuck on lower positions of popularity polls, even below her own Servant”, I tried to cheer up Shiki.
At that point, we both could hear a wailing sound coming from the table where Matou Sakura was still sleeping away after few too many Bloody Mary-drinks. It was a painful sound, I tell you.
“Oh, I wish it was that easy. But you know, that’s not the extent of my problem! I have a child which I need to feed, despite the fact that her papa-complex is stronger than Shinso’s desire to bone ordinary high school students. Then I need to pose for every damn magazine in a kimono instead of easy and pretty dresses like rest of the heroines. Do you have any idea how hard it is to get something like that on?? Not to mention that my husband has no job, thinks he’s a detective, and has an unofficial employer who, instead of paying him, uses her money in buying board-games that are disguised as being antique”, she continued her complaints, and to my horror, caught hold of the sake-carafe once more.
It was at that point that I started realizing something. Now, mind you, I’m no expert when it comes to women. My only experience is with a white-haired devil that still claims to be a girl, despite the fact that she walks around without a skirt on and has nasty habit for bondage. But even I could see some signs, and these were starting to look like ones I had been hearing about.
So, like the brave bartender I was, I went ahead and asked from the missus about my theory.
“Miss Ryougi…are you sure you’re not just PMS’ing?”
Well, the rest of that talk could be summed up pretty easily. Ryougi Shiki turned red as a tomato, gulped down the contents of the carafe before proceeding to throw it straight to my face, and then stormed out of the bar, growling in a way that would have made Berserker, all of them, shiver in fear.
At that point I figured out it was best to be a good Samarian, and I called up her hubby, informing that there was a pretty terrifying monster approaching his house. Mr. K thanked me and told me he was going to hide with their daughter. According to him, it was like this every month.
Thankfully the two part-timers showed up at that point, and I had them clean up the remnants of the carafe, while I dragged the purple-haired tentacle-horror out of our bar before she decided it would be good idea to turn the whole place into Waku-Waku-Sempai-Land.
Later, I heard that someone who looked exactly like Miss Ryougi’s husband had tried to hit on her while she had been on her way to home. Poor bloke had the “life” of his family-jewels cut before he could react. I hear that he’s currently petitioning the Einzberns to do something about the unfortunate results.
I’m just glad that it wasn’t me.
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Yeah. There are plenty of strange nights in Ahnenerbe.
Some weirder that others.
But one thing’s for sure
They are, always, strange.
Originally Posted by Gaia
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