This story has been adopted from Ninja Wings, where it was originally called "Wings of a Black Angel". It has been re-named Colored Feathers.
edit: this is undergoing serious work right now.
edit 2: I was in pain while fixing this. PAIN.
Disclaimer: Don't own D N Angel.
Once upon a time, there was me.
The black angel stirred in his slumber, shifting in the confines of his tamer's mind before dozing off again. For the first time in hours, he was peacefully sleeping and not causing enough of a disturbance to cause Daisuke to clench up from the overwhelming feelings of wrongness that the angel was radiating.
The red headed teen shook his head before heading down the path away from his school, gazing at the red and black birds that were chirping happily. Without a care in the world, Daisuke decided, shaking his head and sighing with frustration as he slowly made his way home after another long, and boring school day. It was the end of the year, and all of the final exams had to be done by the end of day, or else the fury of the teachers would rain down on you.
Woe was the students that got sick today, he mused. He would not want to have to retake the exams, which he had struggled on in part from a lack of studying (training was his priority) and the distraction that had taken residence in the back of his head (aka, Dark). Hopefully, he passed all of them, but that didn't change the fact that he still had training to do later tonight. Which meant he couldn't just go home and pass out with exhaustion, which was exactly what he wanted to do.
Daisuke groaned at the thought. He would have to deal with training later, and it was almost guaranteed to be brutal, since his mother no longer had to worry about keeping him in good enough shape to send to school. On top of that, he'd be dealing with Dark, who had been way too annoying during classes all throughout the entire day. He just wouldn't shut up.
The angel had kept fidgeting almost the entire day as well. When he hadn't been fidgeting or distracting Daisuke, he'd been huddled in the back of their mind, muttering to himself. It wasn't as if anything he said had even made sense – Daisuke had lost track of what Dark was saying after the angel complained about how cold it was for five entire minutes when Daisuke knew that it was warmer than it had been all year.
Dark had eventually become such a distraction that Daisuke became so sick of it that he threatened to send the dark winged angel back to the painting that he was created out of. It seemed to have worked, as Dark had stilled and fallen into an uneasy sleep for a few hours, which eventually led to the event in math.
Daisuke was pretty sure the angel hadn't meant to do it, but Dark had suddenly jolted awake and nearly took over the body, all the while screaming and ranting in some unknown language halfway through the mathematics final. Daisuke had jerked up and nearly fallen out of the chair as Dark continued on before he forced himself to keep control of the body.
After that whole issue, the angel had been quiet and had eventually fallen into a peaceful sleep. Daisuke didn't have that luxury, and spent the entire time after the finals trying to figure out exactly why Dark had panicked. He hadn't come up with a reason yet, and he knew the thief wouldn't tell him anything.
All Daisuke wanted to do was to find out what had thrown Dark so off his game, get his training over with, and go to bed and sleep for as long as possible. Reaching the front door of his house and opening it, he stared at the rows of traps and realized that his earlier assumption on training being much worse would be true.
"It's too quiet," Dark murmured within the mind of his host, attempting to shake off he feeling of paranoia that had haunted him throughout the entire school day. Attempting to be quiet, he went over the course of the day, including all the times he'd felt like he was being watched.
Wake up, go to school. Feel like someone was following Daisuke. Attend a way too boring school day along with several of the instances where he felt like he was being watched, being scolded by his tamer, then a blank gap in his memory where he'd fallen asleep. Then a memory of Daisuke telling him to shut up. Dark had remained quiet for the rest of the day, not knowing exactly why his tamer had yelled at him, but knowing that he had missed something between the time he went to sleep and got yelled at.
The feeling if being watched by something was back though, and it was enough to make Dark start to fidget again. There was also a feeling of something unnatural in the room, and as he tried to pinpoint exactly where it had come from, he suddenly felt nauseous and tired.
Something was wrong, he realized as he took control of the body in a way that Daisuke slept completely through. Sitting up, he glanced around the room before getting out of bed and wandering over to the window, taking a few breaths in. He reached out and attempted to open the window, only to find that somehow it was stuck. He fiddled with the lock for a second before shoving at the window, which eventually opened with a squeaking sound.
He mentally noted to get that fixed.
Clambering out of the window, he grabbed hold of the roof and hauled himself onto it, shivering a bit at the breeze. He stood there on the roof for a second before shaking his head and looking up at the stars. They seemed incredibly close tonight, he decided, sitting down on the edge and leaning back to get a better look.
He felt an urge to call Wiz to him and see if that theory was true, but it was quickly crushed by the overwhelming fatigue he felt. He sat there for a few minutes and breathed deeply, noticing as the breeze turned into cold wind that was now causing him to shiver as his thoughts drifted from one thing to the next.
He sat there for a bit longer until he was almost shaking from the cold. He probably would have sat there longer, but Daisuke chose that moment to wake up from his slumber and noticed that the angel had control of the body, they were outside, and Dark was shivering.
"Dark?" Daisuke asked the angel, mentally nudging at him for a response. When there wasn't a reply, he tried again. "Dark, what's wrong? We should be asleep."
The angel snapped to attention, purple eyes refocusing on something as he stood up. "It's nothing, kid." He replied absently, crossing his arms. "Just… Just go back to sleep, okay?"
Ignoring any of Daisuke's protests that something was clearly wrong with him, Dark slipped back inside through the window and closed it. He took a step back towards the bed before turning and relocking the window as a precaution.
"Dark? What was that for?" Daisuke asked, already drifting back to sleep.
"Nothing."
There were no more words exchanged between the two as Dark curled back into bed and relinquished any control he might have had on the body, glancing at the picture Daisuke kept with them. Just as a precaution, the redhead had insisted.
He closed his eyes and attempted to go back to sleep.
Two minutes later, he was in the back of the shared mind pacing again.
Realizing that the human he shared his soul with was actually bone dead tired and would most likely be sort of upset if he was bothered again by the thief, Dark tried to suppress the feeling of paranoia and sit still until he eventually fell asleep.
It had to happen eventually. Right?
He remained quiet and motionless for about thirty seconds. After that, he decided that the whole idea was useless and promptly gave up on it.
A half second later, he decided that it wasn't just the paranoia making him act like this, it was the highly attuned instincts from living as a thief for three hundred years and managing to not die.
"Dark... go back to sleep..." Daisuke mumbled into his pillow, sounding fairly annoyed with the angel. Obviously his (horribly failed) attempts at being quiet while thinking the subject over hadn't quite worked out.
"My bad." he said, attempting to sound like himself, light-hearted and joking. It was hard to pull off, but there was a possibility that it would work. A slight possibility but it was worth a shot, he decided.
"Oh..." Was the only reply that he got from his tamer before Daisuke was asleep again.
Dark mentally groaned, crossing his arms. God, he decided. Daisuke was useless.
He wished he had a bottle of anything – pain killers, sleeping pills, medicine, he wasn't feeling picky right now - that he could take and drop into a blissful coma-induced slumber.
Three minutes later he was glad he hadn't fallen asleep as a soft scraping sound caught his attention. Outside the window, a soft yellow light flickered into existence, tinged with blues and greens. The scraping sound got slightly louder.
As the nauseous feeling from earlier came back in full swing, Dark was so preoccupied trying to get his tamer to wake up that he almost missed the figure that landed gracefully on the floor.
The same figure that had somehow managed to open the window that Dark had struggled with for a good two minutes silently. The black winged angel scowled. There was no way that was fair.
The resentment towards the figure for being able to open the window without any resistance or trouble only seemed to swell in size as Dark figure out who it was.
Dark stiffened up, eyes locking onto the figure as a swear made itself to the tip of his tongue, aggravating him even more when he found there was something stopping him from saying it. He watched in a forced silence as sinew and muscle contracted in a primal way, folding together and retracting with a sickening sound that made nails on a chalkboard sound pleasant.
Krad.
Behind him, the soft flickering light continued to pulse with an irregular rhythm, sending the shadows moving across the walls in patterns. The light seemed to radiate from a gold circular instrument hovering in the air behind the angel.
Pale eyes narrowed at him, and white clothes crinkled as Krad stood up, reaching into a pocket for something. Dark's renewed efforts to wake Daisuke up were only met with a startling sense of emptiness. Something was terribly wrong here.
Tossing a small vial that he had pulled out up and down, Krad smirked cruelly at him. Dark took one glance at the vial and the almost fluorescent looking purple liquid inside it before a sinking feeling made itself known in his gut. Just by the looks of it, it was probably something poisonous because it was glowing, he decided. Krad smiled this time, teeth sharp enough to draw blood glinting in the light that flared up sharply from the instrument hovering behind him.
That was the second that Dark noticed something was wrong. Krad's eyes should have been gold, not the color of dried blood. Now that he noticed it, the wings had been different – a muddy off-white color instead of the stark white with lighter hues that he was accustomed to seeing.
Damn. I have to deal with two Krad's? Or Krad and an imposter? What did I even do to make karma treat me like this? Was I like, a dictator or something in a past life? Dark mused silently before realizing he was completely off track and focused on the imposter Krad again.
The was a clinking sound as the imposter removed the cap to the vial and let it drop to the ground where it rolled under the desk. The imposter smiled again and Dark had to wonder how something obviously evil could look like it wasn't in pain by doing something normal like smiling. In his defense, Krad looked like he was about to have a heart attack when he smiled.
"You recognize this, don't you, darling?" The stranger whispered and Dark shuddered. Had that thing just called him 'darling'? After making a note to go buy some brain bleach after this ordeal, Dark forced himself to continue to pay attention to the stranger who was really freaking him out.
Maybe because the stranger looked like Krad of all people and called him darling.
Yeah, that was probably it, he decided.
The stranger obviously didn't notice how Dark had stopped paying him any attention at that point and continued talking. "You'll have fun in hell. Maybe if you share my religion, you'll see Krad there." He whispered and tilted back Daisuke's head and poured the glowing purple liquid down his throat.
As soon as he did, the imposter dropped the vial and let it smash to pieces on the floor before turning and disappearing through the window, the instrument and the light following him.
So not fair, Dark grumbled before it became impossibly hard to breathe. The lack of air almost seemed to be accompanied by a shift in pressure that left him with a ringing headache and a peculiar feeling almost like fire running up and down his spine.
Daisuke, wake up! He rasped out before stilling, his consciousness flickering before fading into the void.
Something was wrong, Daisuke realized a few minutes later when he slowly woke up for no discernable reason. Sitting up, he glanced around the room, eyes trailing over the open window and the white feathers over the floor.
White feathers. Alarm bells ringing in his head, Daisuke reached out for Dark only to find nothing but emptiness and a trace of panic that disappeared a half second later. Suddenly feeling very exposed and weak, Daisuke stumbled out from his bead and over to the feathers.
Halfway there, he steeped on a mixture of broken glass and a strange purple liquid. To his dismay, he immediately started bleeding and the purple liquid almost started to appear as if it were glowing.
Something's wrong. Dark? He called out, panic forcing itself into his mind when he received no answer. Dark?
The only answer was a cold breeze that came in through the window and left no answers for the redhead.