Title: Mom, I'm Dating a Satanist (So I Won't Be Home for Dinner Tonight)
Author: E. Reeze
Pairing: RikuSena, Future Threesome pairing
Summary: Sena didn't realize that you could go any further down the rabbit hole…but he supposed meeting with a few Satanists might do that to him. AU Slash Occult
Hello all! This is Erin speaking, half of our little duo. Now, normally I'm going to try to keep A/Ns to a minimum and have them be short and sweet, but this story needs a few words before we get started. Mainly warnings, and not the usual 'this is gayness, stay away if you don't like gay boys' warning.
Yes, this will include slash. Mainly, HiruSenaAgon. Later on though, so don't fret about that. The warning that is most important, however, concerns occult practices, magic, and spirituality. Because all of those things will be involved. There will be paganism, Satanism, and magic. Lots of magic. So this is my warning to people who don't like the occult/ 'super'natural: Stay Away. This is also my disclaimer: I am not promising to accurately represent Satanism as I am not a Satanist nor do I plan to interact with the Church of Satan anytime soon. Not because I fear them, but because I am lazy. Also, my brother and myself are Pagan Witches, but we aren't portraying Wiccan practices or Witchcraft practices totally accurately (um, this is fiction, after all) and so please don't think every Wiccan acts this way! I made this story to highlight how stupid I think it is when Wiccans and other Pagans are like "*ANGRYFACE*OMFGNOWE'RENOTSATANISTS THEMBEBADPPLZ! D" while begging for religious freedom in the same breath.
More warnings: AU. As said, gayness. Lots of it. That should cover it. Oh, this story is based in the U.S by the way! Just so you know~
Another disclaimer: I do not own Eyeshield 21 or any of the characters I'm torturing. Nor does my brother. We make no money off of this.
Chapter One: Ostara
Here, the trees are blooming and you can get the sense that the world is actually warm again. We aren't walking home in the dark anymore. Instead, we're smelling wildflowers and climbing on rainbow colored rocks.
Riku had a guitar pic clamped between his teeth; part of the bright purple plastic reflecting the sun as he distractedly shuffled it from one end of his mouth to the other. Sena wanted to take his eyes off Riku's mouth, he really did, but the way the small pic danced between his lips was too enticing. He was going to catch Sena if he kept staring, and then he'd give him that secret, almost perverted smile he'd taken to giving Sena lately. Which, honestly, he didn't mind. Except Mamori was right next to them, and Sena doubted she would appreciate the semi-lecherous glances Riku would toss him.
"Just think, you guys," both boys glanced towards Mamori as she started speaking, her eyes turned towards the clouds above them, moving leisurely across the pale blue sky, "today, you'll be initiated."
Riku almost choked on his pic, his hand was even on his way towards his throat in the typical 'I-am-choking-help-me!' posture, and Sena was ready to freak out, his hands already in the awkward fumbling motion of not-really-helping, but he luckily opted to spit it onto the ground rather than inhale it into his windpipe. Mamori didn't realize, of course, what was happening, and simply turned to them.
"Are you guys okay?" Riku glared half-heartedly at her question. Sena just fiddled with the hem of his shirt, no longer able to look at either of them. Riku nodded an affirmative before picking up his pic, grimacing, and slipping it into his pocket. Unfortunately, Mamori's attention was only placed upon the smaller boy as Riku fell silent once again.
"And you, Sena? Excited?" His eyes danced to my adoptive sister and Sena managed a weak smile.
"Y-yeah."
He supposed he was, considering everything that he had gone through. His thoughts were whirling about as all three of the teens fell into companionable silence again. Sena sighed. If he didn't calm down, if he didn't focus—and this time not on Riku's sometimes unintentionally sexual habits—he wouldn't be ready for later today. Sena distractedly thanked the gods that he had been trained specifically to calm his mind, shut off the harassing thoughts, or he would've been far past a mental breakdown. He just had to focus on one specific thing…
Trees.
There were trees. Trees were everywhere, actually. Mostly oaks and big pine trees, planted decades ago. There was a tree behind him, an oak that they had decided to settle under, and it was keeping the strengthening sun from blinding them. His eyes fell closed, and he started counting my breaths.
Twelve…eleven…ten…nine…deeper, let me go deeper…eight…seven…six…five…there's Earth beneath me, Sky above…four…three…two…one…
He could feel the tree better. If he just pressed his mind a bit more against it, Sena would slip inside and be able to feel everything. The birds building nests in its branches, its roots reaching down far, farther into the ground, the water table. If he could just let his mind, himself slip into the tree then he would be able to feel everything.
It was the strangest feeling, projecting his mind. Mamori hated it when Sena did it, mainly because she had never been able to do it too well and was always worried that he'd mess up and have his mind get stuck. Riku had his mind get muddled, when they started projecting years ago. He was dazed for the rest of the day, still partially inside the crystals the boys had been using. But that's the worst that could happen, with what they did. Dizziness, exhaustion, and irritability…they'd been hearing the same warnings since they were kids, about the subtle dangers of their craft. At first, Sena had been scared to do much of anything.
But now, now he could project myself into a tree and just feel everything it was and become one with it. When his mind was almost in the tree, he could feel the strange sensation of vibrating and shaking that always came along with projecting. He suspected no one felt the same as he did, which honestly bothered Sena at first because it was a frightening experience. The shaking, the almost imperceptible feeling of being torn in two pieces (however gently) had nearly kept him from projecting on a regular basis (which would have made Mamori happier, no doubt). Instead, he sunk further into the tree, and the shaking passed to be replaced with the sturdiest feeling he had experienced that day.
He felt to the bottom of my roots and just stayed there, soaking up the power of the Earth and bathing in the Sun's light, until he knew that he was as balanced as he would ever get. He slowly pulled myself up, pressed back into my body and thanked the tree. Most magical, public people talk at long length at how the trees, the rocks will speak with them. They'd never spoken with Sena, but he knew, deep past his stomach and in his core, what they were saying in their silent words. So he knew when the tree returned his thanks as he returned to himself. Counted up and opened his eyes.
And was met with starlight.
He almost screamed. He did the first time he ever opened his eyes to starlight, because he hadn't been expecting it and suddenly being bathed in strange, ethereal purple and white light was unsettling no matter how much he had been trained.
"You should have expected it this time, Sena," came a cheery voice behind him. He jumped. The great oak that he had projected into was gone, as well as the other trees. Everything that was physical had been swept away, replaced by shimmering dots of light in the sky and an eternally setting sun splashing the sky in pink and deep blue. Sena didn't have to look up to see the full moon hanging like a giant in the sky, and he knew, from past experience, that beneath his feet were constantly blooming wildflowers. He drew a quick breath before turning to his spirit guide.
"Suzuna! You scared me," he said, glancing down at the flush of white and blue flowers under his feet. She just laughed, brushing past him and leaning down to smell one of the bigger plants that was blooming. He followed her, his hands finding their typical position of tugging on his shirt.
"You get scared too easily," she commented. Sena grimaced; it was the truth. He may have gotten over his rather insignificant fears concerning magic, but he was still as jumpy and on edge as he had always been. But he figured that was the way he was supposed to be, since Riku nor Mamori nor Suzuna had tried to fix him. Well, Riku wanted Sena to be more confident, and he still tried to get the boy out of his shell on rare occasions, but for the most part he had taken to letting the small brunette be.
"Stop thinking about him!" Suzuna snapped, her eyes narrowed as she faced Sena directly. He blushed, embarrassed at being caught. But Suzuna was already moving on to other topics, directing him away from thoughts of the white haired boy.
"You're supposed to be initiated today," the spirit guide said, flexing her bat wings and dancing over to her charge. When Sena had first met her, during a vision quest that Mamori had (obviously) protested, she hadn't had wings or a tail or anything strange really. She looked like a normal teenage girl, with short hair and a pixie figure. Of course, Sena had to have the luck of getting a spirit guide that transformed. Which wasn't all that lucky, because the first time she got her wings they had ripped out of her back and Sena would get nauseous for a week after every time he saw her. They had shrunk from their original humongous size, now only little additions to her back. Her sharp tail tapped his arm, and he smiled hesitantly at her.
"Yep. Seventeen years, and I'll finally be initiated."
Suzuna leaned back, her ethereal body floating above the ground, and shook her head. Sena felt his blood get a little colder.
"I don't think so."
"Huh?" he breathed; not exactly sure he comprehended her words. Suzuna only shook her head again, her thin eyebrows drawing together and her big cat eyes narrowing.
"I don't think you're going to be initiated."
Sena wasn't clairvoyant or a seer or anything like that, and his skills with Tarot were iffy at best. Monta was their fortuneteller, and since he started reading for the entire coven he hadn't been wrong once. And his spirit guide, some rambunctious canine type creature named Sakuraba, consistently provided information about the future. So Sena hadn't been expecting Suzuna to come up with such an abrupt prophecy, much less with the serious nature attached to it. His spirit guide was more inclined towards jokes, often played on her charge. Maybe this was just a joke, an especially cruel one. He shifted, his eyes stuck to the ground.
"What do you…what do you mean?"
Suzuna huffed. "I just don't think it's going to happen. I have a bad feeling about this, Sena." She turned away from him, and her wings were growing, expanding to the size where she could easily fly with them. Sena tried to slink back into the scenery, knowing exactly what was coming. Suzuna had flown with him before, and he hated it. She went too fast, she had no regard for his spiritual body, and the last time he had almost been impaled on a tree. "I'll show you," she promised, and he shuddered.
"I, uh, hah, nah, that's okay. You can just—"
"No, no. Let me show you," she stressed. And he was screaming, because Suzuna has grabbed him under his armpits and was carting him through the sky and he couldn't not scream. Being toted around like a handbag by a slightly demonic spirit guide hadn't been on his list of to-do's that day, except apparently it was on Suzuna's because she wasn't putting the brunette down even when he started using the highest pitched shriek he could.
"And, here we are," she said nonchalantly, dropping him from what he thought was a fifty foot drop. He landed fine, of course but was shaking and gasping for air anyway. "Look," she nudged him, and Sena directed his gaze towards the new scenery.
He had been exploring his sacred space for years, often times traveling with Suzuna across the mountains and hills and deep caves that existed in his own pocket of the spiritual realm. But he still didn't know everything about it, and sometimes entirely new areas would replace past explored and memorized territory. It seemed a hopeless quest, trying to uncover every bit of the almost-imaginary world that existed, and the fact was only pronounced as he glanced around.
"A pond?" he said, slowly walking towards the shore. Suzuna nodded, pressing him closer.
"Keep looking…" she urged, her hands still pushing on his back. He leaned as far as he could, eyebrows furrowed as he gazed at the water. Suzuna crept up behind him, her hands pushing slightly on his back and he didn't put it past her to shove him in just for a laugh. He was almost ready to give up when the surface shimmered and realization dawned on his face.
"Just keep looking," Suzuna whispered, leaning next to him. Her eyes were narrowed, the slit-like pupils growing as she watched the water churn and bubble as images started appearing. Suzuna wasn't keen on experiencing the vision again, and she knew Sena would freak out by the end of it, but she couldn't just hide it from him. She was his spirit guide, and she knew she had gotten the message for a reason. It didn't matter if it was just the interconnected web of minds of all of humanity that contained the knowledge or if it was the Universe itself; she had been charged to deliver the information to Sena, and so she would.
The water spluttered and flew into the air, congealing into a circular sort-of mirror that displayed, for a moment, both Sena and Suzuna as they were. A shadow crossed the mirror, leaving only Sena's reflection remaining. His wide-eyed, shaking reflection.
"What…what is this…?" he stammered, pushing back into his guide. She only hushed him.
He was there, in the water-mirror, and yet it was different. A blindfold was covering his mirror-self's eyes, and his hands were tied behind his back. The image would have frightened him, and the bondage didn't sit too comfortably in his stomach, but he knew what he was seeing. It was an initiation ritual. Every pagan child knew what one looked like, how it was performed.
But just because he knew what happened didn't mean he could suppress the gasp that tore from his lips when he saw a thin knife being pressed against the blindfold. It was a test, to see if the possible initiate could truly give themselves up to not only the gods but the coven. A test of courage, trust, bravery…and one Sena had been dreading since he had heard of it.
Before his mirror-self could even move forward or utter a single word, a giant bat landed on the knife. And that did make Sena scream, because the bat was at least as big as he was and positively frightening. The shaking worsened and he nearly closed his eyes, except Suzuna hissed for him to keep watching.
Then the bat wasn't a bat, but a man. Or at least, Sena thought it was a man. The features, the face, everything was cloaked in an odd transparent veil that Sena couldn't pierce no matter how many runes he started signing to counteract deceit and lies. Suzuna grabbed his hands, which had been slowing drawing the runes in the air and shook her head. "It won't work. I already tried it…"
The man held his hand up, a smirk adorning his face, and seemingly challenged the holder. Blood splattered across the mirror, obscuring the image except for the man's impaled hand. And the smirk. The man's smirk simply wouldn't go away, even though his hand was bleeding and the knife had cut through entirely.
This new, concealed man held up his hand and all the blood—all that had splattered onto his clothes and onto the ground—congealed into a ball above the knife that now slid from it's fleshy hold and that stupid smirk—Sena hated it, hated the way it sent chills down his spine and make him want to vomit—just got wider. Until thin, nimble fingers snapped and mirror-Sena was covered in the blood, soaked in it and real-Sena screamed, louder than before and louder than when Suzuna had been flying with him because suddenly he was coated in that nasty, filthy blood and—
"Sena!"
Bright sunlight hit his face, streaming through the thick leaves of the oak tree. He blinked, still shaking, before concerned hazel eyes came into view.
"R-r-r-Riku," he wheezed. His hands came up and wrapped around the other boy, and he distantly took note that he had fallen down somewhere along the line onto his back. Mamori was yelling, but that was far, far away and all Sena cared about was that the disgusting feeling of thick blood was gone. All that mattered was that he didn't have to see that sickening, gleeful and sadistic smirk anymore.
"Whoa, Sena…Sena," Riku shushed, gathering the trembling boy in his arms. The white-haired teen wasn't sure exactly what to do. He'd had a shaking, shivering Sena under him before, plenty of times, but not like this. At least, not for a while. He hadn't been paying attention to what Sena had done after the boy had grounded himself; Riku had been able to feel Sena's energy as it flooded and mingled with the Earth. It had to have been something awful—the last time he had screamed when he was out of it had been when his spirit guide got her wings.
"Riku…Riku…" Sena sighed, his breath finally slowing and his hands falling to rest on Riku's neck. He nearly buried his head in the other boy's neck and kissed it, just to ground himself further, but he knew that would cause Mamori to freak out even more. Instead, he curled tighter to Riku.
"What happened?" Riku murmured, pressing his lips close to Sena's ear. The boy shuddered, this time in pleasure, and tightened his grip.
"Vision…I had a vision," he gasped. Footsteps pounded around him, Mamori's shrill voice calling for the rest of the coven to gather near, and suddenly he was pulled from Riku and standing on his wobbly feet.
"Ground yourself, Sena," his mother said, her hands coming to clamp on his shoulders. He nodded weakly and searched for the Earth's power beneath his feet, sought it out like a baby for its mother's milk, and when he felt the gentle pulse he plunged in and drank it all the way up to his crown. His body stopped shaking, all the tremors draining away, and he was able to open his eyes properly and look around at his coven.
"What happened?" Mihae pressed, guiding her son over to a bench. A few people made to join them, Mamori at the front, but Mihae shooed them off quickly. Even her husband didn't join the two, opting instead to chat with one of his covenmates. Sena tried to smile, but his face felt to stretched and awkward to accomplish it.
"I…I had a vision," he repeated.
"Of what?"
"…My initiation." He could barely force the words out. He had been working towards this day since he had been born practically—he was homeschooled, taught about herbs and magic and the stars and planets and how they affected people, had grown up with the trees and learned how to grow his own garden at a young age. He had been studying endlessly to be able to be initiated into his mother's coven. If he told her what he had seen, if he told her about the bat and the blood, she might call of his initiation. And then what? All those years of studying…would be worthless. Or, he'd have to wait another year and Riku would be initiated but he'd still be a little kid, waiting to become an adult.
Her hands just clamped down harder.
"What happened?"
Of course, when she asked like that he couldn't well lie. His mother was able to draw up a powerful gust with a wave of her hand, making smoke dance in intricate patterns, and he had considered lying to her? No, she would see right through that. A powerful Witch like Mihae would pierce through the lie and grab the truth right under him.
So he told her. Her eyes got bigger, wider, as he continued to tell the tale. He had to ground himself again before he could finish, to keep the fear from devouring him whole.
"Sena…" his mother said, low and under her breath. His hands instantly flew to his shirt, pulling and tugging and teasing at it. He didn't want to face this—it wasn't fair. He didn't even understand the vision. He didn't understand any of it.
"Y-yes?" he stammered.
"It was a bat? You're sure?" she pestered, and suddenly it clicked in his mind. A bat. The symbol for rebirth, renewal. And he had to let out a little laugh at that, because it was so fitting for an initiation ceremony that he should have a vision—a frightening vision—that included a bat. Maybe it was just stress working its way out of his system. That had to be it. The blood…well, the blood could be any number of things and the man could…could just be a possible challenge that would further him along to regeneration.
He nodded his head, firmly, and his mother let out a slow sigh and smiled.
"Then it's fine, I think."
"I…I can still be initiated then?"
Mihae's smile got a bit conspiratorier, and Sena was reminded yet again that his mother had a more mischievous side than Mamori ever would. It showed through now, bright and biting, and her hands slid off his shoulders and clasped his hands, stilling them.
"As long as Mamori doesn't hear about it. She'd put up a fuss."
Sena nodded, and then his mother was guiding him back to the group and he could practically feel the gears in her head working as she came up with a plausible excuse to Mamori. Quickly, quietly, before she left to attend to the overprotective sister-figure, she leaned to him.
"I'm proud of you. I'm proud you've come this far."
And then Mihae was off, sidling next to her husband and chatting softly with Mamori. The others were gathered around him, Riku catching his eye and giving him that stern, solemn look he'd given Sena even before they had started—well, Sena wasn't sure exactly what they had started, but he'd directed that look at Sena since they were children. Sena nodded to him and smiled weakly before brushing off the other's worries, a shaky smile plastered to his face.
The vision was a good sign. It had to be.
†
Bat:
Rebirth. Ritualistic death. Initiation. Growth.
†
He hadn't been present when Riku had been initiated, of course. Until he was initiated, he couldn't be privy to that sort of knowledge. Even though he knew what it would be like, look like, even smell like. They always used a mixture of myrrh and sandalwood for their rituals, and the initiation included just a bit of sage. Sena could practically smell it, separated from the group as he was.
Mamori refused to look at him now, even though her word would grant him access into the circle once his turn came. She was clearly biting her cheek, her eyes farther away then they ever got when she attempted to float outside her body, and Sena was almost worried she wouldn't hear the call for them to join up with the rest of the coven.
"Are you sure you're okay, Sena?" she asked, suddenly turning on him and locking him with a stare that, he realized, was trying to imitate his mother's. And while he loved Mamori dearly, since she had always taken care of him, especially when he'd been bullied and Riku had to leave for a few years when they were younger to learn in Europe, she would never be the Witch that Mihae was. Mihae, who seemed subdued and like a gentle housewife to the outer world, but who had many times had the Goddess invoked into her and shown not only what a great Priestess but a decent, fair Witch she was. Sena wondered, briefly, if he would turn out to be more like his mother or his father. His father, who was still powerful in his own right but dealt more with the subtle plays of energy and light and shadow then the concrete elements Mihae worked so intimately with.
Mamori held herself back, was too afraid to delve deeper into the rabbit hole that was their lives. She had seen before her eyes as magic worked sharply and swiftly against the bonds of mainstream reality. Yet she was still afraid, deep in herself, what that magic could bring forth.
"I'm fine," he comforted her. She sighed.
"The vision you had, though…" her voice trailed off, and Sena just smiled at her more.
"The bat is a common symbol for rebirth. And that's a good thing to see right now, isn't it?"
Mamori nodded tersely, and then her head snapped up at the beckoning call. Instantaneously, her face melted into a mask and her hand clasped Sena's as she led him to the circle.
The very real, very physical circle.
Sena gasped. He had seen circles before now, of course. Created them himself, with salt and water and oil and even flower petals. Had seen glimpses of flickers of the reality of the circle, but more often just felt the pressure and weight of the energy around him. The heat especially was familiar to him. Even in the dead of night in winter, when he should have been freezing, the circle would be so full of energy it kept him almost sweating.
This circle—it glowed. He saw Riku, barely, through the haze of energy that was swirling around the coven. His breath wasn't coming in properly, though he was grounding himself and trying desperately to feel the power of the sun above him. But he couldn't get over the physical reality, the fact that he would become apart of that circle, that he could maybe one day also summon a circle so powerful.
Hardly, a bitter, self-hating part of his mind snapped, but he'd had practice stuffing such doubts down. They had no place in the magic circle.
Mamori tugged him closer to the circle, to the Eastern side where Monta stood waiting. Sena gulped. Natural that Monta was there, being one of the coven's already initiated members and a close friend to Sena. Riku had protested Monta being initiated before them—didn't they have equal standing in the coven?—but Mihae had explained that as a seer, and a powerful one at that, Monta needed to be initiated earlier. He'd already studied extensively, since he knew what he was destined to do from a young age, and was more prepared than either of his two friends.
A door had been cut, sometime when they were walking over, and Monta stepped out of the circle with a blindfold and cord. Sena shuddered. They were going to bind him and blindfold him, and while he knew it was a part of the experience, he didn't have to like it. Still, he placed his arms behind his back and closed his eyes, Monta left to do the blindfold while Mamori tied the knot. Monta had always been a little weak when it came to cord magic.
"Ready?" Monta asked quietly, and Sena smiled genuinely.
"Yes," he murmured, and the smile dropped and he was led towards the circle.
Towards his future. He knew that the initiation would be stressful, even knowing what would happen. He could feel the tension and excitement building in his stomach, making him tense, and then there was fear too, from the vision. Which didn't make sense; just because there had been blood didn't mean it was bad. And the bat had clearly represented initiation.
Right?
He felt the energy of the circle about to envelope him, take him and warm him down to his core. A flutter grew in his heart—this was what he had been working towards for years. Even when he had been teased, before Riku taught him to use his magic to direct the bullies' attention elsewhere, he hadn't dared dream of giving this up. To the outside world, he'd still be that weird hippie kid. To his coven…his mother's coven, he'd finally be included. Acknowledged. Accepted.
And then, the energy broke and dispersed and the coven cried out as the energy flooded away like incense smoke. The warmth of the circle, tight and pulsating, was replaced with the heat of the growing sun. Sena knew something had gone wrong, Mamori's hands were crushing his arm now, and he could feel Riku slide next to him and pull him from Mamori. There was a tense, dangerous aura flickering around Riku and Sena knew that whatever had happened—he hadn't seen—had been very, very bad.
Of course, he could have figured that out from the sharp gust of wind that whipped past them. Mihae had released it, calling upon some forgotten magic to intimidate whoever had destroyed their circle.
Because it had to be a human. They had invoked the deities, the Guardians, so it was unlikely that a spirit had crashed in on the ceremony. A spirit wouldn't interfere unless Sena had some great, Universal significance that no one had realized, but humans certainly would.
"Riku…" he started, but the blindfold was off his eyes and the cord fallen from his arms before he could properly ask. Riku was in front of him, guarding him, but Sena still shifted so he could get a look at the people that had bothered them. Not many people bothered Witches anymore—fundamental Christians, an occasional cop with a grudge, but not the average person. Most people didn't even come to the park that they worked their magic anymore, for the simple fact that they knew Witches were likely to be there and wanted to afford them their privacy. Magic took incredible amounts of focus, after all.
Sena couldn't suppress the gasp that whisked past his lips.
He didn't know the men, had never remember seeing them in waking life, but they had smirks on their faces that instantly threw him back into the vision Suzuna had shown him. Though the men looked completely different from each other, he couldn't deny that their…expression were equally full of a taunting malice that sent his hammering heart straight into his feet. He couldn't feel the Earth under him though, and that was perhaps the worst thing.
"Excuse me," Mihae said sharply, stalking over to the men with a ferocious look on her face. She seemed about to devour a demon. Which was what one of the boys looked like, Sena noted. Dyed blonde hair and a fanged smirk, with pointed ears…he'd never seen anyone so…frankly, evil looking. And the other boy had dreadlocks, long ones, and seemed entirely too pleased with himself. Too confident. The confidence oozed out of the pair like pus from a popped pimple, and while it was entirely disgusting, Sena found himself for a moment jealous that they could put on such airs.
"What are you doing here?" Mihae demanded.
The blond demon turned his green eyes to the Priestess and the smirk only grew, larger, meaner.
"Having some fun," the demon commented off hand. Everyone around Sena was tensed, he was tensed, but the pair in front of them seemed perfectly content to stand around a bunch of pissed-off Witches.
'That's not normal,' Sena thought. 'Normal people are at least a little bit afraid of us.'
So that meant the men had to be…not abnormal, but not the everyday kids that ran down the street and bumped into Sena as he tried to rush home from spending an unnecessary amount of time at Riku's house. They were not the loud fake-Christians who promised burning at the stake, because those people always got wide-eyed and backed off when they saw the real, physical power of a Witch. So that meant that Sena had to consider, for a very uncomfortable minute, that these men might, in fact, be Witches like them.
Sena found himself unintentionally pressing into Riku as he slid behind him a bit further.
Those green eyes flicked to him, but only for a moment. Still, Sena couldn't breathe, not now. His voice, his tongue, his lungs were all tangled and jumbled up.
"Oh? Fun? Maybe you don't know, but we were conducting a ritual and—"
"We know, fucking Priestess." Now, that had a few of the coven yelling in angry and scandalized tones, but the demon just pressed on. "Which is why we interrupted."
"You have no right," Mihae started, eyes going dangerously narrow and challenging the obviously younger boy. He just waved his hand.
"Whatever."
Sena was about to faint from lack of oxygen, but he couldn't take his eyes off of them. So confident, so sure that they could get away with their transgression, so blatant in their 'I-don't-give-a-fuck' attitudes, and Sena felt something catch inside of him that shouldn't have caught and it twisted until his vision blurred. Until all he really saw was the pair, all he saw was—
Oh.
It was an enchantment.
He slipped his hand into Riku's and squeezed, because just not seeing Riku didn't mean he didn't know where the other was. They always knew where the other one was, ever since Riku had come back from Europe. Riku glanced at him, cautious, and then squeezed back. And Sena could see the world again, not just the two demons who had tried spelling him.
The spell had been so strong, so enticing…
Black magic, his mind provided him.
"Who are you?" This time it was Shuma who spoke, his voice just as commanding as Mihae's. Of course. He was leader of the coven after all, Mihae's partner and Priest. The dreadlocked boy only turned his sunglassed-gaze to the older man, his expression not altering in the slightest.
"What's it to you, Wiccan trash?"
Mihae hissed, as did a few other members of the coven, but it was Mamori who spoke, seeming to materialize in front of both Riku and Sena and making both boys groan under their breath. Sister Mamori to save the day. Like usual.
"Why don't you leave us alone, you stupid Satanists?" she snapped.
And Sena clamped down on Riku's hand hard enough to make the boy wince, because it was bad to throw out accusations like that in their community. They had worked so hard to separate themselves from the Satanists, the baby-sacrificers, the animal-killers, and did Mamori really need to start a Witch War? They'd been started over less serious claims, and if those two men did belong to a nearby coven then the whole town might be at the mercy of angry Witches. Mihae might not have prescribed to dark magic, but she wasn't above using the grey stuff when it came to defending her family.
It made sense though—the spell the two had just used, it had to be dark. It was full of bad energy, maliciousness. They had tried to mess with his mind, at a very deep level, which no ethical Witch would do.
"Ah, she caught us, Agon," the blonde commented, turning to his companion and looking almost mock sorrowful. "You're right; we're big, bad Satanists!"
"Why don't you leave? You've had your fun," Shuma prompted, his eyes cold. The two men sneered, just as chillingly, but moved to leave. Sena sighed. Their presence made him just as edgy as when he was younger.
Then those green eyes locked on his again, and then the other man's eyes, and Sena didn't even try to figure out how he could be staring into two pairs of eyes at once because this whole situation had been enough of a mind fuck that he didn't need to break his brain any more than he already had.
The blonde smirked, but the one he had called Agon just rolled his eyes and grabbed the thin wrist, dragging the demon off with him into the trees.
And that's when Sena just couldn't take in anymore, and fainted.
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