The next day, Mchi woke up rather early to go and see someone very important to him.


    As he waited outside of Celeste''s quarters, he found his mind drifting back tost night''s family affairs; the explosive and the mellow.


    Try as he might''ve, he couldn''t get his mother to talk to him any further about the situation with Aubrey once she stopped crying.


    She apologized to him and Camille for showing them something unsightly, then tried to clean herself up as if everything was normal.


    Mal tried to talk to her the best he could, but… she shut him downpletely at every turn.


    *Click!*


    The door Mchi stood in front of swung open, and he was greeted by the sight of a beautifully charming Celeste.


    Though she looked a little surprised to see him, and hid most of her body behind the door.


    "O-Oh, Morning, Mchi... How can I help you?"


    Mal smiled somewhat sadly at the mature beauty and held up his hands in surrender.


    "You don''t need to keep acting so skittish around me. I promise I''m not going to jump on you."


    "I know that, I just... don''t want to leave room for anyone to misunderstand our rtionship..."


    "Misunderstand? How?"


    "Y-You know how, just... What do you want from me?"


    Mchi realized that maybe he wouldn''t be able to get anywhere with Celeste like this.


    So instead of continuing to press the situation, he decided it was better to just get her in a morefortable setting to talk.


    "I came here cause I needed your medical expertise. I was hoping you''d do a bit of stic surgery on me."


    "Eh!?"


    "Imnts to be specific." Mal shrugged.


    Stunned, Celeste emerged from behind the door.


    Mal was able to get a much better view of her veryrge chest that was barely being kept within her nightdress.


    "What''s the matter? Miss the days when you were still prom queen? Or had your husband started ogling other young girls and you want to get his attention back?"


    "Ha-ha." Malughed dryly.


    "..." Celeste ced her hands on Mal''s chest and squeezed his pecs.


    "Honestly I don''t see anything wrong with these. I''ve seen worse ones on Brazzers."


    Mchi smiled at the knowledge that Celest basically just confessed to being very familiar with pornography. "You''re funny, but that''s not really what I meant... Or did you just want an excuse to touch me?"


    Celeste quickly realized how her joke might have looked misleading and ripped her hands away.


    "What? Done feeling me up already?" Mal teased.


    "D-Don''t joke with me!" Celeste punched him in the stomach with a strength that should not belong to a human woman in her forties.


    Chuckling, Mal pulled out two small items from his pocket and held them out in front of Celeste.


    These were the totems that Bast and Raijin had given him.


    "What are these?"Celeste asked curiously.


    "Ah... Equalizers." Mal shrugged.


    "I need you to put this one in one of my fingers by taking out one of the phnges." Mal held up Bast''s totem that was shaped like a w.


    "And this one..." Mal held up the totem from Raijin in the shape of a drum. "I guess you should put it in my lungs somewhere?"


    Celeste''s jaw fell open.


    "You...You''re not joking. I''m not a stic surgeon, you dolt! I was a scrub nurse!"


    "So you''ve sat in on surgeries before, right?"


    "Y-Yes, but I-"


    "Great! I knew you were the woman for the job."


    "Do you want me to murder you?"


    Mchi chuckled as he patted her on the shoulder lightly. "Don''t worry, I''m pretty sure that here isn''t much you could do to me that would cut my life short like that. Besides, I trust you to take care of me."


    Mchi waived her away with a smile as he began walking away from the mature beauty.


    "I''ll be waiting for you in the medbay. You can feel free to take your time, yea?"


    "I-I..." Celeste wore something of an incredulous expression as she watched Mal walk away from her in apletely unbothered manner.


    Honestly… she missed when he was still just a sweet young man who listened to her every word and had a bit of doe-eyed innocence left.


    What had happened to that sweet young guy?!


    Could she possibly trade in this deviant version she had now for the previous cuter model??


    ''W-What am I saying, he was never c-cute!!'' Celest shook her head so hard that she nearly sent it rolling down the hallway.


    No matter what, she would absolutely not fall for any of Mal''s whims or spend any more time with him than necessary!


    And she certainly wouldn''t help him when it came to imnting those weird little objects in his body since it was already perfectly fine!


    ''N-No, not ''fine'' I mean…!''


    Mchi heard Celeste scream out in frustration and m her head in the door from all the way down the hall.


    -


    Mchi''s odd medical request wasn''t a spur of the moment decision.


    This was one of the only normal things his mother was able to talk to him aboutst night before she inevitably asked him to leave.


    Apparently, these two little totems were basically like consecrated divine power.


    Sometimes, gods can take an item bearing no physical significance and infuse a bit of their power into it.


    Though differently from the blessed humans, there is no acting ''tether'' connecting the gods to their blessed items.


    Once they dump a portion of their power into an item, they cannot just take it back out at will if it is not in their possession.


    And if the items are imed by someone else beforehand, they just lose it altogether.


    Though they can eventually umte it back after a few thousand years- depending on how much they discarded.


    Should the power inside of the item be fused with the body of another, it bes theirs permanently.


    Nyx noticed the items in Mchi''s pocket after she finished crying and was mildly surprised by it.


    She was the one who ensured hm that the items were safe to use, and that they were a fairly big gesture.


    This was the only normal moment that they hadst night, and he wished that he would have tried harder to keep the mood light.


    Truthfully, he was worried.


    He''d never really seen his mother behaving like this before, and he didn''t know how to snap her out of it.


    That said, he figured that talking to his sister would likely be the key.


    But since yesterday, Aubrey had been avoiding him and making herself hard to reach; almost like she knew what he wanted to talk about and wasn''t having it.


    ''I wonder if I should just tie her up and force her to talk to me... and then I''ll probably feed her to Thea right after.''


    Mchi peeled off his shirt andy on thefortable medical bed in sickbay.


    Gwiya slid into his hands and he began petting him absentmindedly as he stared up into the ceiling.


    "Hey guys?"


    "..." The snakes turned their heads towards Mal.


    "How long do you think that it''ll take her to get here..? If she shows up at all."


    "..." The snakes looked at each other as if they were having a serious wager amongst themselves.


    They eventually turned back to him and shook their heads; almost as if they were telling him ''she''s noting'' with absolutely zero hesitation.


    "Well what do you bastards know? You don''t even have brains..."


    The snakes bit Mchi on his thighs and stomach.


    "Whine all you want, won''t change anything." he muttered.


    As soon as the snakes started to bite Mal in the face this time, the automatic doors to the medbay slid open with a hiss.


    Celeste emerged wearing some of her old scrubs and an annoyed look, but Mchi couldn''t help but light up in spite of her death stare.


    "Damn..."


    "D-Damn what, boy?!" Celeste covered her body in mild embarrassment; worried that her old scrubs might''ve looked as tight as they felt. "A-And why do you have your shirt off?!"


    "How else are you supposed to get to my lungs...?"


    "I was going to cut through your shirt!"


    "The hell!? Why would you do that?!"


    "B-Because, I just don''t want to see you without a shirt on!"


    Mchi finally noticed some simrities between the way that Celeste was currently behaving and how Sei used to act when they first started dating.


    He would onlyter find out that it was because she was embarrassed by the situations they often ended up in and didn''t know how to hide her interest.


    The thought that this might also be the case with Celeste was more than enough to put a smile on his face.


    "W-What are you looking at me like that for?!"


    "No reason." Mal smiled as hey back on the table.


    For some reason, he felt like this was going to be the best surgery he''d ever had.