No God
By SMYGO4EVA
Sulfur...
Ashes...
The smell, the very scent of them both was almost suffocating to her, ricocheting every second in the throne room of the one and only Shogun of Sorrow, as he was called. To him, she was simply a part of the twisted game, knowing the insane glint on the demon's eyes, and she knew that fully well.
All for Toshiro…..
So that he would be all right, and the demon didn't keep his word.
Her senses were dulling, the world being the Pit of Hate reduced into two narrow slits and a muffled blur of incomprehensible noise.
This was all so nightmarish, yet it was her reality.
There she sat, in a corner in the hellish void, just there and nothing else.
Not a prisoner, not leverage, but as a mere trophy.
Shining and gleaming all for the master's amusement, in all of her faded and nonexistent glory.
Before she knew what was happening, the all knowing and encompassing presence of the only Deliverer of Darkness was near, and before she would brace herself, or even react, a blackened claw emerged, took hold of her, and threw her down onto the crimson, stone floor.
Pain beyond pain seized her whole form, numbness not enough to dull what grew onto her from her feet and traveled to her skull.
"You lying wretch, where did you get the sword?"
Hinamori flinched, knowing full well who that voice belonged to - the gravelly, archaic voice as thick as the shadowy tendrils that engulfed her form and had blanketed her onto the blood-red stone floor.
She forced herself to open her eyes, only to narrow them the minute the demon began to tower over, snarling and enraged to the core, that she actually felt that very anger that filled him asunder emanate from him.
Hinamori glared at the demon Aku, gritting her teeth, careful not to show her fear in front of him, and struggled in vain in free herself from the shadowy tendrils that were a part of him.
The sword?
What could it be doing here...?
Unless...
"I don't know what you're talking about."
"The sword, you fool, the sword that was made to destroy me, I have felt its presence here- You have it, don't you?"
She grit her teeth, almost hearing them crack under such pressure, and the spiritual energy coming from Aku was one of great ferocity and strength, enough to knock one out, but she had to withstand his wrath - she had to.
"I already told you - I have no idea what you are talking about." Before she could stop herself, Hinamori uttered quite loudly, "You must be mistaken."
As quick as a stroke of lightning, Aku yelled, single-minded anger very evident in his screams as they echoed and endlessly twisted around the corridors and crevices of the fiery hideaway. With one large hand outstretched, he grabbed Hinamori by the throat and hoisted her form high, stopping once her thin eyes met his own hellish ones.
"I am NEVER MISTAKEN! YOU HEAR ME, YOU INSOLENT FOOL! NEVER!" The fire in his eyes almost threatened to burn Hinamori with the amount of hatred and scorn he felt for her at that moment.
With that, what felt like an eternity to her, was only a mere moment in time.
He savagely threw her down onto the ground, still having the tendrils engulf her, almost to her torso, leaving her arms out to what he had in store for her.
Her arms felt like lead, her whole body was screaming out in pain, and she was taken back into reality when she felt his vicious claw grabbed a handful of her hair and roughly pulled her to her feet. Hinamori couldn't help but cringe and whimper as Aku continued his onslaught on her form and her psyche.
Aku leaned in close, almost to the point where he would bite her neck off at any given moment, but he simply yelled her ear. "I am going to ask you again, you lying wench, tell me where the sword is- where-where?"
"I told you, I don't have it, you creature-" Hinamori yelled in anger/desperation, her throat raw from repressed sobs of anguish that ate her very being.
Without warning, he threw her back down to the floor and raised his blackened arm, striking down, aiming for the girl's chest, her heart. Hinamori's eyes shot wide open, the shock of the talons hovering over her more than enough reason for her to roll over, dodging his blows as they continued again and again, only increasing in ferocity and in might. She tried to get up, but the pain she was denying got the better of her, only sliding back to the ground as the demon king raised his hand one last time, and stabbed two of his fingers near her neck, making her unable to escape his grasp.
The merciless claws had then seized her left arm and the tendrils had covered her up to her neck, the two fingers imprisoning her in the obsidian threshold. Aku raised his claw again, his eyes wild with both wrath and sadistic delight.
"You lying human scum, you know where the sword is - now tell me - WHERE IS IT?"
Hinamori was only half-conscious when she realized that a sharp, stabbing pain was upon her arm, his claw crashing down upon it and etching a word onto her flesh. She struggled not to scream, knowing that it would only please the demon king, but a high-pitched scream was torn into the air.
That scream was her own, filling her body with agony, feeling crimson pool from her arm, sprouting, writhing from then on, and onto the ground, coating her skin.
Every bone in her body screamed along with her, wishing to the love of an almighty that the agony would end, that it was all just a terrible nightmare, and that it was never real.
His sharpened talons continued their onslaught upon her arm, and anytime she tried to move, the obsidian coil would only tighten, likewise to a python that had caught its prey.
Hinamori screamed as her arm, engulfing fire filling her for the umpteenth time, her body burned with more pain, and her breath drew out from ragged gasps when from had felt like an eternity felt like it finally ended.
When she dared to open her eyes, Aku lifted his clawed hand high above her, her blood painted upon the instrument of her torture.
A sickening feeling in her stomach had threatened to shortened her gag reflex and make her almost throw up, but thankfully that feeling passed.
The demon king panted and laughed a distant and husky laugh, one that sent a writhing shiver down her spine, crawling and staying there.
"You should know your place by now, my dear Hinamori - you are not a prisoner here, only a trophy of what I had just begun. I will find that sword, and I shall destroy it, becoming truly the all powerful being in this forsaken world - the same world that has forsaken you."
The demon king then pulled away from her, releasing her from the onyx tendrils that were her prison, and towered over her, smirking as she struggled to stay conscious for just a little longer.
"It is of no use to fight back, little one - the time of your world's reckoning is very near, and you will see how you contributed to demise of the one you claim to have cared for. You would claim to love him, but you only have led him to his doom, my dear."
The only sound left in the room was the demon king's harsh cackling, surely thrilled at the world's impending destruction, and to soon be relishing the sound of Toshiro's anguished cry of defeat.
She was sure that he had then disappeared, hearing the voids swirl and close once again.
"Toshiro..."
Her words fell upon deaf ears, as she soon gazed upon her bloodied arm that held one word to her.
Wretch...
The marking would never leave her side - nor would he, as the marking was a part of the demon king, the one named Aku.
Momo Hinamori was a part of him now, a cascading, fading changeling in the twisted nightmarescape, and there was nothing left to say from that point on.
She then fell into the merciful embrace of unconsciousness, hoping to never return to the reality that was hers now.