The Difference between Heaven and Hell
By: Koneko Hanyou
PrologueThe pained screams of the damned made their way down the stone hallways of the sweltering underground city. Tongues of flame measuring at infinitesimal temperatures peeked out from cracks in the floors and walls. Gehenna- the City of Yokai and the living place of yokai, evil spirits, and fallen angels. Deep in the center of this city was the palace, the living quarters of Satan as he ruled over his fiery domain. The gates over the entrance were made of black marble and embedded with flecks of gold. Above the gates stood an arch with these symbols, inscribed on it. They stood for the words "Tokoro No Waruii" or "Place of Evil". The courtyard was made entirely out of black marble. Every few feet was a bench carefully crafted out of pure jet and inlaid with patterns of peridot. The halls of the building were all paved with the deepest of stones and the walls were adorned with tapestries depicting historic events in the dimension's history. They displayed such things as the fall of Lucifer, and all his angels from Heaven to the place now known as Hel; an army of yokai and devils slaughtering an equally large army of angels and seraphim; and finally, Michael, the Arch angel, casting Lucifer and all his followers into Hel for all eternity. The palace was divided up into four sections: the outer courts, where His Majesty, Satan, received the newly arriving souls; the inner courts, where the Royal Family lived and took most of their meals; the harem, where the women of the family mainly took their leave to rest at day's end; and finally, the servants living quarters.
In the inner courts, one of the sons of Satan slept peacefully on his mattress and pillows of angel feathers and bedding of black velvet and silk. This, was Satan's second oldest and most favored son, Ienu. With sleek, silver hair down to his waist, honey-golden eyes, and razor sharp fangs and steel-like claws, he was an almost exact portrait of his father. The only difference lying in the hair color and ears. Ienu had silver dog-ears poking out of the top of his long mane of silver hair. Satan had pointed ears like an elf and ebony black hair ending in the middle of his back. Their temperament was exactly the same, both of them being feisty, short-tempered, and very impatient. Except for having a few small differences, they were almost exact copies of each other.
Ienu's mother had been a half yokai, but she had been very powerful, powerful enough to be the leader of the earth bound canine yokai (dogs, wolves, jackals, coyotes, etc.), but sadly, she was killed in a battle against the angels many eons ago. Satan also had 3 other children: his youngest son, Shinji, was a mischievous little water yokai whose greatest joy in life was to torment Ienu. Shinji had Satan's temper and when he really got mad, it showed through maybe not quite so admirably. His eldest son, Lumon, was a cold-hearted yokai who held a deep seeded hatred against Ienu and was also Satan's messenger between Heaven and Hell. This left Kilanai, Satan's only daughter. Kilanai was an underly emotional fire spirit who didn't seem to flinch or change her expression no matter what the occasion, but one only had to look into her eyes to be able to read the true emotions that refused to make themselves known on her normally placid face. Although Kilanai appeared to constantly be fighting with Shinji, they did not, as is appeared, hate each other. They just could not get along.
On that morning, as the wails of those sentenced to eternal torment under his father's rule reached his ears, Ienu grinned peacefully and snuggled deeper into his bedding. His peace did not last for long, however.
Chapter 1Bounding through the heavy, stone doors of Ienu's bedchambers was none other than his younger brother, Shinji. A cheerfully mischievous smile plastered on his youthful face, Shinji spread his tiny wings and floated silently over top of his comatose elder brother. Snickering uncontrollably, he took a deep breath and hollered at the top of his voice, " IENU! WAKE UP!"
Unfortunately for both Ienu and Shinji, since Ienu was the heavy sleeper he just happened to be, he just moaned, waved his hand in the air and rolled over, back into his cozy bedding.
Seeing that his brother had not awakened, Shinji pouted for a moment and thought about what he would do next. Suddenly, a light seemed to flicker into life over the little water yokai's head. Stretching out his palms to face Ienu, he smirked and focused on his palms, which had begun to glow a bright blue-green. "WAKE UP!"
Water burst forth from the palms of the roguish yokai, engulfing Ienu with a cold and sudden wake up call. Gasping and sputtering into full wakefulness, Ienu attempted to grasp his surroundings and comprehend what was happening in his still dazed mind. "Who the… Who the HEL!" About 3 feet in the air over Ienu's bed, was Shinji, doubled over with mirth. When Ienu had been splashed with the cold liquid from Shinji's palms, his body had changed the way all yokai, devils, or evil spirits who resided in the realm of Hel. His limbs shrunk, bringing his height down from six feet and two inches to about three feet and one inch. Because of this he looked chubbier than normal.
"Hahaha! Ienu's gone chibi!" Shinji giggled.
"Shinji! What in Hel's Fire are you doing!"
"What does it look like? Harassing you and waking you up, of course."
"Fine, but why wake me up?"
Shinji would have answered, but he had lapsed into another fit of giggling and was trying to talk between bursts of laughter.
"Hahahaha! You…you look a SO fu… funny when… when you go chibi! Ahahahaha!"
Just as Ienu was about to pounce on his brother and tackle him to the ground, just to prove that he was awake, Kilanai, his elder sister walked into the room, looking as sleepy as Ienu felt.
"What's going on in here? Why all the noise?" She asked, her flat, monotonous tones ringing around the room. "Shinji, what are you doing to Ienu this time? Are you harassing him again?"
At the same time Ienu and Shinji answered "YES!" "NO!"
Rolling her eyes, Kilanai muttered something in Helian (the official language of the Netherworld) and extended her arms, palms first, towards Ienu. From her warmly glowing palms burst forth a stream of flames. Her cry of "Kaji No Roi!" or "Fire of Darkness!" echoed through the room as the flames engulfed the miniature, chubby body of Ienu and restored it to its original proportions. He closed his eyes to savor the feeling of being his normal size again and allowed an expression of peace and contentment to slide onto his face. But the expression disappeared almost quicker than it had appeared. The one that replaced it, however, was not one of happiness and contentment, but one that glared death and hatred into the eyes of the younger yokai. Ienu slowly approached, taking care to slowly edge a silver serving platter off of his bedside table as a shield. As he continued to bear down on Shinji, he growled one barely audible word: "Shinji…" Since Shinji was still giggling uncontrollably, he was taken unawares when Ienu grabbed his leg and hauled him bodily out of the air and onto the bed for torture. "Shinji! You are SO dead!" The little yokai managed to squirm out of his older brother's grasp and flew up out of his reach. "Nyah-Nyah! Can't kill me! I'm a yokai! Nyah-Nyah!"
"You are so stupid! I'm a yokai too, baka (idiot)! I am also a devil! Die!"
"Ahh! Ahh! Kilanai! Help me, please!"
"Shut up, you little wretch!"
"No! No! PLEASE! Stop!"
"Die, Munchkin!"
"KILANAI! HELP!"
Ienu jumped up and caught hold of the flighty little yokai's miniature leg and pinned him to the floor. He wrapped his arms around his back and sat on his back to prevent him from squirming and causing trouble. "Now, you little menace! Do you give up? Have you had enough yet? Huh?"
"I give! I give! Now let me up, you huge oaf!"
"Why you little…" Lucky enough for Shinji, he was able to wriggle out of his brother's grasp before he was suffocated.
Ienu removed himself from the floor and dusted himself off. Just as he was beginning to recover from the sorrow of not being able to maul and totally mutilate Shinji's body, two even more annoying creatures made their presence known by bursting through the double doors which led to his bed chambers. "Master Ienu!"
"Oh no! Not those two!" moaned Shinji
"Oh yay! You're awake!"
'Oh yes. Yay, indeed.' Thought Ienu.
"Yes! You look oh so refreshed this morning!"
'She must be blind.'
Before him stood his two extremely irritating personal attendants, Neko and Koneko. They were both cat yokai and because he was half dog yokai, Ienu hated them more than almost anything else in the universe. His opinion of them was that they were quite annoying and just took up space in the nether world. Looking at the two eager and overly cheerful faces before him, Ienu wondered exactly why his father had given him felines for attendants. 'Ugh.' He thought 'Cats. What moron invented these creatures anyway? Certainly not my father.'
"Oh master Ienu, you look like you enjoyed a peaceful night's rest!" purred Koneko.
'Suck up.' Ienu thought. "Hey, why don't you two go and spoil someone else's morning? Maybe Satan would like to have you around." As soon as he said this, Ienu knew it was the wrong thing to say. Neko and Koneko's eyes suddenly became large, watery, and seemed almost unreal because of their unnatural size. Their mouths drooped surprisingly low as they whimpered "You…You don't want us here?"
"Uhh…"
"Don't you like us?"
"Err…"
"You don't, do you?"
"Wha? Of course I…"
"Waaahhhh! Waaahhhh! You don't like us! Waaahhhhh!"
'Ugh' "Okay, Okay. I'm sorry. Listen, I don't hate you."
"You…You don't?"
'Yes, I do.' "No, I don't hate you."
"Really? YAY! Anything you need us to do for you?"
"Yea, can you get me some water with lots of ice?"
"Yes, sir!"
"Right away, sir!"
"Sure thing Ienu! Coming right up!" shouted Shinji with an impish grin.
"Shinji! No, you little-" But it was too late. Streams of unbelievably cold water mixed with ice cubes met Ienu square in the face once again causing him to change form once again into his chibi form. Luckily for Shinji, the force of the water knocked Ienu unconscious, preventing him from killing Shinji once more. "Master Ienu!" shouted both Neko and Koneko as they rushed to the senseless inu (dog) hanyo's side. "Oh Master Ienu!" purred Neko
"Are you alright? Don't worry. Koneko's here now."
"Master, you mustn't try to move just yet!"
"Uhhh? Ohhhh no. Not you." Muttered Ienu in a voice barely above a whisper.
"Shh. Listen to him, Neko. Doesn't know what he's talking about."
"Yes indeed. He hit his head harder than we thought. Don't worry Master. We'll take care of everything."
"No! I want to be the one to-"
"You're in no condition to do anythi-"
"I said I wanna do it and that's what I'm going to do! Kilanai! Hit me!"
"Whatever. KAJI NO ROI!" Almost at once, Ienu's body began to grow back to its original size, enabling him to throw off the two over protective felines. "You two! Water! Lots of Ice! In a glass! Now! Go!"
"Y-Yes Sir! Right away Sir! Going Sir!"
"GET!"
"Going!" said Neko
"Gone!" yelled Koneko
As the pair scurried out of the room, Ienu approached a giggling Shinji and muttered two words "Shinji… dead." Once again, the hanyo grabbed his serving tray shield and began his assault on the devilish Shinji. As the two chased each other around the room, Kilanai sat in the far corner, rolled her eyes and loftily said "Yokai…"
Hours later, on his way down to the dining hall for his morning meal, Ienu sat himself down on one of many stone benches that spanned the halls of the palace. Sitting down to think over the hectic morning, Ienu thought back to the last time, many centuries ago, when he had learned not to upset his attendants in any way. The consequences could be quite…disastrous.
Flashback
A young boy
sat in the middle of an empty room using his powers to entertain
himself by setting chunks of rock and stone on fire by staring at
them intently and sending them flying across the room.
Hearing
footsteps, the boy looked up from his destructive entertainment and
saw his two attendants, Neko and Koneko enter the room. The pair of
vivacious, cunning felines made their way toward him and spoke,
"Come, young master Ienu. Your divine father awaits your presence.
You are to accompany him on his journey to the annual bridge
meeting."
"I don't wanna."
"Please, young master.
Come along. Do it for us?" purred Koneko, batting her eyelashes
seductively at the young prince.
"Why would I do it for you?"
Ienu snapped "I hate you! I hate cats! Especially cat yokai.
No!"
"M-Master Ienu! Surely you don't mean that!"
screeched Neko
"Yes I do! Leave me alone! I hate you both!" At
this, Ienu turned and was about to continue setting the stray stones
on fire and flinging them at the walls. His revelry was stopped when
he felt a terribly dark aura begin to grow behind him. "Now, Master
Ienu, I know you don't really mean what you said, do you? But just
incase, that was quite inappropriate and you must be punished for
this."
"What? Punished…? What the…" But Ienu's
protest was lost in his throat. What he heard was not the same
simpering, sweet, annoyingly cheerful voices he was used to hearing,
but a new, strange, dangerously menacing voice. No more did their
eyes contain the same gleeful sparkle, but a desire for blood and
death. Over the tops of their bottom lips protruded one of their
razor sharp fangs as their claws like six-inch steel spikes extended
from their fingertips and they circled closer and closer.
An hour passed. Had it been an hour? Ienu could no
longer remember. Many times had Neko and Koneko beaten and kicked him
in the head during the last hour that his memory had started to blur.
His eyes had grown all dark and puffy from the many beatings received
from the two cat yokai. His muscles were sore and he was stiff all
over. Many were the horrific gashes that marred his previously
unblemished skin and added to his hideous appearance. The blood had
dried in clumps in his silvery hair and stained his now ragged and
torn haori.
Barely hanging on to the cliff edge of
consciousness, Ienu thought he could faintly hear Koneko ask him,
"Now, young master, have we learned our lesson for today?" Hardly
able to manage a whisper, Ienu was able to gasp out a feeble "Yes."
Unfortunately, his exhausted attempt at speech was not enough to
pacify the already angered feline twins. "Not loud enough."
Purred Neko, and violently kicked him multiple times in his already
sore stomach, causing him to have to wind knocked out of him yet
again, as had happened many fold within the past hour.
Wanting badly to escape the furious torment of the two devious
felines, Ienu tried again tried to answer his captors' query, this
time in a slightly louder voice. Again, Koneko found his response too
weak and kicked his body again. Over and over the painful procedure
was repeated and by now at least six of his ribs had broken. On their
final blow, the breath was forced from the young boy's lungs so
violently that he began to cough up blood. Desiring desperately to
escape, Ienu mustered all the strength he had left in his battered
body and hollered a good, strong "YES!"
Finally satisfied with his answer, Neko and Koneko exited the room,
leaving their young charge to slip slowly and painfully into
darkness. Before losing all consciousness however, Ienu heard the
rotten pair remark, "We must tell the young master's father what
he's been up to. I doubt the Lord would be at all pleased." No
longer able to hang onto the precipice of consciousness, Ienu
succumbed to the darkness, which had been edging at the corners of
his vision for the past hour.
When the boy came
to, his father's familiar face swam before his eyes. His father's
normally stern eyes were laced with concern for his son as he lay on
his bed and began to regain consciousness. Seeing this, Satan's
face lit up as he gently placed a warm hand on his son's trembling
shoulder.
"Ienu!
Finally, you have awakened! Are you feeling well?"
"I'm
fine. What happened?" Ienu asked.
"You obviously do not
remember."
"Uhhh, no. You're right. I don't."
"Well,
according to Neko and Koneko, you were attacked."
"Yeah! By
them!"
"No, by a group of rogue yokai. Neko and Koneko saved
you by chasing the trouble makers off."
"No! They were the
ones who-"
"Saved your life. Now, do you not think that you
should show your gratitude?"
"Uh, yea. Sure." His answer was
decided for him when he glanced quickly at the felines' faces and
saw that once again their eyes contained the same malicious gleam he
had seen earlier and a longing for death and bloodshed.
"Ienu,"
began the boy's father, "Why did you think you could take on a
whole group of yokai by yourself? Haven't I told you multiple times
not to try to take on yokai larger than you? Especially when you are
outnumbered!" This inquiry puzzled the boy. Hadn't he just been
minding his own business, when Neko and Koneko, refusing to accept
his negative reply, had attacked him ferociously and without mercy?
How in Hel could he have been fighting yokai? Unless… Yes, that had
to be it. It was Neko and Koneko's cover story. They would never
say anything to anger or upset their Lord. And attacking the Lord's
favorite son would surely have earned them a place in one of Hel's
darkest torture chambers for all eternity. Many of the vassals and
retainers of Satan pulled the same trick. If something went wrong
with an operation assigned to them, the yokai set to perform the task
would be able to shove his mistakes onto the shoulders of a lesser
yokai. Satan knew all about this, but he did not have the time to
deal with them.
"But, Father, I…" Ienu began, but was
silenced by his father.
"But what, Ienu? Three very well trusted
witnesses clearly place you at that spot! For attempting to lie, you
shall receive a harsher punishment than I first intended to bestow
upon you." Seeing that this statement had made an impact on the
boy, Satan continued on. "Originally, I was only going to forbid
you from traversing forth into the city for a century. Now, I am
forced to revoke your Helian powers for TWO centuries!"
Ienu,
realizing he was defeated and there was no arguing now, lay back down
on his bed, lowered his and replied in a resigned voice, "Yes, my
Lord Father. I will heed your divine word." With that, Satan rose
and left the room with Neko and Koneko flanking him, leaving Ienu to
drift slowly back to sleep.
End Flashback
Rising from his
place on the bench, Ienu decided he wasn't so hungry anymore. He
began to make his way down the dark stone hallways to the fencing
yard where he would spend hours practicing with the katana (sword) he
had inherited from his father, the Shadow of Evil. By practicing
everyday with his blade, Ienu had learned how to bring out it's two
secret moves, the Sign of Hel and the Seal of Death. During his
practice, he could normally forget all around him as he attempted to
pass his training simulation for the day. Why were these memories
suddenly deciding to surface and haunt him now? Why all the sudden
the memories of the Bridge Meetings with Heaven? Why the memories of
the Celestial Consulate? 'Get a hold of yourself!' said a small
voice in the back of his mind, 'You call yourself a Helian prince?
Thinking of angels! Yuck! Don't poison your mind with their
fluttery white wings! What a waste of time! You must FOCUS!'
'Focus. Yea, right. Focus.' Thought Ienu.
But Fate, she is a
funny thing. She never listens to the hearts of those who are woven
into her fabric of time. Never.
