REM
Ray smirked victoriously as her opponent collapsed. A blue holographic screen appeared with the match's data information.
"Round 7 Blue Razor V.S. Black Shinigami- WINNER- Black Shinigami! LOSER- Blue Razor!"
She stood from her battle crouch as the audience cheered from the stands. Her name us Ray Black, a girl of about 5'5 height, with black hair and red eyes. As to why she's in a battle... Last month SAGA Game Corporation released a REM RPG, known as Geomagnitude. The game is a virtual reality, where players have the choice or either being human, elf, beast or mage and live out as the character of their choice, like a second life. Ray has been playing since the game was released.
She is classified as a human, her occupation is a warrior and her type of warrior is a ninja. Her armor consists of chain mail, that is underneath the armor and protects her from sharp tools, and shoulder plates, all of which are black. Her clothing consists of the basic ninja garb that is required for ninjas to wear, black baggy/tight garments, black sandals, and a small pouch, which is located on her right leg. Her hair is up in a high ponytail and around her face and head is a black mask. Her weapon is her fateful katana Kage No Kiri. Its handle is black with specs of red, the blade itself is pure black, however the edge of the sword is crimson red, looking as though its been stained with blood.
A boy from the stand cheered loudly, "Wow! That's amazing! Keep fighting Black Shinigami!"
Another boy, who happened to be a fan of Blue Razor, glared at the boy. "Shut up! Blue Razor is way better than he is!"
The other boy became offended, but ignored him and continued cheering.
Ray sighed. The same problem continuously occurred, because of her appearance mostly everyone thought she was a guy. The reason she is fighting as of now, is because she enrolled in this special event tournament. The tournament, was to honor the success of the SAGA Corporation and its game designers. The prize of the tournament is a mystic sword and a rare Demon Lord humanoid pet, which is extremely rare to come or pass up. She smirked as she walked off the battle field and into the expected hug of her best friend X-Fire.
"Amazing! You were great Ra-er… Black Shinigami!"
Ray laughed and broke free from her best friends hug of death. "I wasn't that great." She replied with a frown.
X-Fire looked at her with envy. "Well, at least you're allowed to participate in events!"
Ray flinched at the hint of jealously in her tone. "S-sorry…"
X-Fire sighed her orange hair flung over her shoulder. "No, I'm sorry. I shouldn't of snapped at you R," Her amethyst eyes full of regret. "I'm just upset, because I'm the corporation president's daughter, I'm not allowed in on any of the special events…"
Ray put a hand on her best friend's shoulder. "Prima…"
"ROUND 8! WOULD BLACK SHINIGAMI COME BACK INTO THE RING? GREEN-TEMPEST IS WAITING!"
Prima smirked before smacking Ray hard on the back and into the ring. "Go get um R!"
Ray glared at her friend, who just smiled back, before sighing. She glanced at her opponent.
"BEGIN!"
A loud bang was heard in the underground rooms. A wolf-beast stumbled out of the room appalled. He tripped over some of the rubble and fell oh his butt. He raised his fuzzy paw/hand to rub his head. He froze as foot steps made themselves louder. The beast paled, quickly got up and ran, ignoring the dead mutilated bodies of his companions. He was down right terrified! He had to get away! he cursed loudly as the REM helmet rejected his request to go offline. He panicked, that was the fifth time he tried to log off! Fear quirked its way up the beast before he realized what the problem was. His eyes widened. 'Oh no! This is not good at all! I must warn the boss!' The wolf suddenly screamed in agony as a white arrow went through his shoulder blade and into the wall behind him. His body sunk to the floor, back against the the wall. The unfortunate wolf's eyes began to water as a pool of red made itself known around him. The footsteps grew louder until they were completely quiet. The wolf glanced at his destroyer. Tears made way to his eyes, his snout twitching in pain. "P-p-please…. l-l-et m-me g-go!"
The cause of all his pain and suffering looked as if he would consider his plea. However, the wolf's hope faded as the man smiled an evil smile before plunging his hand into the beast's heart.
The beast howled in pain and watched as the bloody man pulled out his hand and licked the blood off. The wolf with the last of his strength, pulled out his weapon, a double sided blade, with one blade blue and one blade red and stabbed the horror responsible for his comrades slaughter.
The being just looked at him, emotionless, before releasing a powerful white burst of energy, causing the underground cave to explode and collapse.
Ray was so close to winning! She got in front of the stunned and bloody Green-Tempest, and was about to land the final blow, when suddenly her intuition told her to grab Tempest and jump. Quickly Ray attempted to grab Tempest however, Tempest didn't let her. Instead, she jumped up and got ready for another attack. Sighing in relief, Ray used her ninja skills and jumped high into the air.
Suddenly a loud explosion happened on the battle field. The ground broke up and blasted everywhere. The audience screamed on surprise, but quickly calmed down, believing it to be a part of the fight. Ray's eyes narrowed in concentration as she jumped from rubble to rubble. A loud scream made itself known. Alarmed Ray turned her eyes to tempest, who had been struck down and crushed brutally by a boulder. All the flying rocks fell down and Ray landed, an expression os shock and horror on her face. The audience was quiet as well. Ray being the kind person she was, used her katana and sliced the boulder in half. What she saw made her want to puke her guts out. Instead of a stream of blue digital code(that usually represented when a player had died and was resurrecting), there was a stream of red digital code that she recognized as a termination code. But, thats not what made her so…. repulsed. It was the fact that Green-Tempest's body was mutilated. Her body was bent at odd angles, blood everywhere, her head had been bashed in and her brain was exposed. Ray shivered in disgust and was about to notify the sponsors/refs. on what just happened. Ray thanked God that none of the audience could see Tempest right now. Before Ray could summon the referee, another loud scream made her jump into action. That scream belonged to Prima. She jumped around the huge destroyed battle field and her eyes, along with the entire audiences widened in horror.
Prima was on her knees screaming and crying at a headless, disfigured, bloody, guts exposed body that Ray recognized all too well. "DADDY! DADDY! NOOOOOO!" A stream of red data surrounded the deceased body.
"Prima!" Ray yelled as she quickly advanced to her shocked friend. Then another explosion occurred, only this time it was in the audience stand.
Prima and Ray watched in horror as the audience was flat out murdered by an unknown force. Ray fearing for her best friend's mental state at the moment, placed her hands in front of her face, so Prima could no longer see the horrors unfolding.
"My arm! It's gone! Gahh!"
"Why? Why can't I log out?"
"GAHH!"
Ray forced herself to look away from all the destruction.
"Help! Please! My sons in there!"
At that remark, Ray left Prima's side to quickly help the woman and possibly save a life. She dug and dug, but much to her horror, all she found was a child's bloody stump, which she presumed to be what was left of the poor youngling. At seeing this the mother broke down into tears. She suddenly stopped crying and fell onto the floor, a white feather lodged deep in her back. The red digital code appeared.
Ray stared in rage at what was occurring around her. " Just what is happening?"
Outside of the REM was just as bad as the inside. Doctors rushed about the hospital, new patients were being constantly rushed in. All of which were in the same condition, a death-like coma. The doctors scrambled around, trying everything in their power to wake up these unfortunate patients. They continued trying to find a remedy for this sudden unknown break out in comas.
Ray growled in frustration as every person she attempted to save, was "erased" from the game. Finding the fact her companion had been silent for a while, she turned to face her. "Prima…" Her eyes widened as she took in the sight.
Prima had her eyes wide open in confusion as well as shock, a pure white sword logged in her chest. The person holding the pure white yet yellowish blade, tilted his head in curiosity at Prima as if examining her.
"Hmm… How weak… Not even worth my time." He pulled the sword out of Prima's chest and red ruptured everywhere.
Ray growled, a dark aura surrounding her. Her sword glimmered with a killing intent. She got up and charged at the man. "HOW DARE YOU!"
The man blinked in surprise. He quickly lifted his sword to block the girls. However, the girl anticipated this and used her swords special ability.
"Urla della notte!" A black wolf appeared out of nowhere and charged the man. As it got closer it transformed into a howl and released a black huge sound wave.
The man, unable to dodged, got hit and was sent flying back into the rubble.
Ray calmed her breathing. "P-prima.." She took in the sight of her best friend.
As if acknowledging her name, Prima grabbed her arm. "R….R.. a…y?"
Ray grabbed her hand. "Y-yah! I'm here Prima!"
Prima smiled. "T-t..a….k..e…t…he D….a..rk.. W…ings..…" She shakily placed her hand in her purple and silver robe and pulled out a black sword.
Her eye widened. "P-prima I can't take that! That belongs to the win-"
She glared at her. "You're the winner! You survived!" She coughed up blood. "I-I don't know how he had the other twin blade to the Twin Wings, b-but he somehow does… S-so I can only plead that he isn't who I suspect him to be. For if it is him, we will all be in great danger inside REM or otherwise. An NPC Demon Lord whose code was supposedly deleted, that my father unknowingly captured to be the pet prize of this tournament…"
Ray's eyes widened as she took the information in.
Prima coughed violently as she took her final breath. "R..a..y… d-d..on't l-o-o-se…" Prima's grip on her arm slowly relinquished and the all too familiar red data code appeared around her body.
"P-p-prima…" Ray's tears dripped slowly down her face. She looked away from her friends remains, unable to continue. Her gaze landed on the blade Prima gave to her, The Dark wings. It was a little shorter than her Kage No Kiri, The blade was one hundred percent black all except for the purple stone in the center handle of the sword. Around the stone, there were a pair of long raven looking wings, made of metal of course. All in all it looked like a medieval sword, a pure black medieval sword.
The sound of boulders being hurdled across the field returned her attention to the one behind ALL of this. Fists shaking in rage, she stood up with both blades in hand. She glared at the man.
The man stepped forward, brushing off any dust from his golden white robe. His eyes landed on Ray with a content smile. He chuckled darkly, his holden eyes burning with amusement. "Now this is a first," he said with a purr, "no human's been able to stand up to me before.~ I believe I'll be able to have some fun now!~" He charged forward, sword drawn.
The sword was the twin to the Dark Wings, the White Wings. It was identical to its twin in every single detail except for a couple facts. The blade was ninety-nine percent white with one percent yellow. Unlike the Dark Wings, the stone in the center of the handle was a bright yellow amber. Around the golden stone, there were a pair of long angel looking wings, which were also made of metal.
Ray immediately brought the sheathe of the Dark Wings to block his attack. A loud clang resided in the area. Ray glanced at the Demon Lord's expression. It was one of of humor, shock and surprise. Seeing this as an opening, she pulled out Kage No Kiri and attacked. "Danza di sangue!" The blade glowed red as she swung it at the demon. The red rim dug slightly into her thumb, absorbing the blood before the barrage began. Huge red crescents flew towards him in a silent rhythmic pattern. She jumped back and landed in a crouch to watch her handy work.
The man quickly got over the shock of seeing his other half's weapon and blocked the first barrage of graceful bloody crescents. The remainders danced around him, attempting to cut him. The last round of blood moons attacked and he deflected them all with his sword. However, the last crescent was stronger than the others. With a ridiculous amount of strength, the crescent pushed him back and in the process cut him. Growling to himself, the man charged up his aura into his sword and slashed the bloody moon in half, it then shattered into a million tiny pieces of red. Before he could blink and or smirk in triumph, the girl was in front of him. Reacting quickly, he brought his sword down upon hers in a clash. He stared into her ruby red eyes that seemed to be filled with determination, rage and sorrow. His lips twitched upwards in an insane smile. It had been ages since he found such a good playmate! After his other half was sealed, he'd been as bored as hell! Now, here he was fighting such an entertaining battle with a woman no less! He purred in delight. "Tell me what is your name human?~"
Ray glared at him before jumping back in a defensive position. "None of your business!" She charged at him. Using her speed, she was able to get behind him again. She reared her left leg up in preparation for a round house kick but, she was surprisingly caught by him in mid attack.
The man smirked as he caught her foot. He then pulled it. The result of this action would be the female loosing her balance. Taking the opening, he attacked her with his sword and managed to shallowly cut her.
Ray grit her teeth in pain. 'It's just a cut!' Retaliating quickly, she spun kicked herself out of his hold and powerfully kicked him in the face before using another sword ability. "Black Vuoto!"
The man flinched as the kick made contact with him. He growled as a group of huge black holes appeared around him. "Damn it!" He was sucked into the closest black hole. The Demon was in five seconds of an icy climate and strong winds. He was then spit out in the center of at least four black holes. A huge black tumbling wave of energy, that similarly sounded like a wolf's howl, washed over him, rendering him immobile. 'S-shit!' A black mist slowly approached him, each time it approached him the speed of the mist grew greater and greater. Finally, the mist was coming in on him fast, taking the form of five black shuriken with a red flame painted on them. Quickly he painstakingly reached for one of his snow white feathers and yanked one out and burned it with his magic, a white flame bursting viciously then dying down like the calm after a shuriken were literally an inch away from him. He regained his mobility and quickly released a ball of white energy. The two attacks collided and he and the female warrior were blown back from the force of the explosion.
The smoke cleared, revealing the two combatants to be in a serious stare down. A stream of red dripped down the man's cheek.
Ray's ninja mask was shredded to pieces, revealing her slightly cut face.
The man smirked as he rubbed his two face injuries. "You're pretty good.." 'and beautiful!'
Ray just smirked and and rubbed her bloody cheek. "Pretty good yourself."
The Demon Lord chuckled as he flipped his long golden ponytail back. His white angelic looking wings shuddering with his body. He regained himself. "My name is Krad, Demon Lord of all," he joked as he gave a quick bow. "what is yours, my devastatingly beautiful opponent?~"
Ray blushed. "B-black S-shinigami…"
Krad laughed. "Not your username, your real name.~"
Ray looked at Krad suspiciously. "Ray…. Ray Black."
Krad's lips twitched with amusement. "A beautiful name for a lovely goddess of death."
Ray once again blushed slightly before regaining her composure. "Compliments will get you nowhere. I will defeat you!" She unsheathed the Dark Wings and sheathed Kage No Kiri.
Krad's eyes narrowed into golden slits. "As you wish my lady.~"
She disappeared from Krad's sight, then reappeared behind his back. She dove in for the kill.
Krad smirked at his goddess' strength as he blocked her attack. He retaliated.
The fight carried on for hours and soon both parties were covered in gruesome wounds.
Krad stumbled slightly as us wounds oozed blood. His gaze trailed to his female adversary, who looked as bad as he was. "It's about time we finish this my ruby." He flashed a tired smile.
Ray glared. "I agree."
Krad charged forward putting all his energy into a huge powerful veil of light onto his sword. "Piume leggere!" A huge whirlwind appeared, filled with white lighting an feathers. He charged.
Ray focused all her remaining energy into the sword and charged forward. "Morte vortice!" A huge black whirlwind appeared with black lightning and feathers. The exact opposite of Krad's.
"I WILL NOT LOOSE!"
"YOU WILL NOT WIN HUMAN!"
A loud explosion sounded, debris, bodies, feathers and hints of lightning scattering everywhere. The smoke cleared revealing the out come.
Krad choked as blood erupted out of his mouth. He smiled at his goddess. "Heh… I never thought I would be beaten by a mere human…"
Ray stayed silent, the White Wings blade, embedded in her shoulder blade. She coughed as bolos oozed from her shoulder.
The Black Wings blade was implanted right in the center of Krad's chest. In one side and out the other. The outcome was obvious.
Krad smirked grimly. "You got me."
Ray just glared.
He laughed. "Do not worry all the people I have killed here will be restored. In the real world, they will regain their conscious."
Ray's tense stance released and an expression of relief played across her face.
Krad smiled. he pulled Ray into a tight embrace. His wings shielding them, giving them privacy. He wrapped his arms around his goddess.
Ray squeaked in surprise. "What are you doing? Release me!" She attempted to push against him however, Krad's hold tightened.
Quickly, he pulled up her chin and placed his lips upon hers. He smirked as her eyes widened to an unbelievable size. He pulled her closer, enjoying the blush on his goddess' face. His smirk intensified as her eyes fluttered closed and slowly kissed back. He pulled away from lis lovely deity and kissed her cheek. He whispered in her ear, "Addio mia dea, fino a quando ci incontriamo di nuovo."
Ray blinked in confusion. She glanced at her supposed to be nemesis.
In return he just smiled. Then a hug blinding light appeared and surrounded Krad.
Ray shielded her eyes. When the brightness died down, Krad was nowhere to be seen. All that was left, was the Twin Wings and the light rain of white feathers.
A boy's eyes slowly fluttered open. The doctor, who had been assigned to the boy, gasped in surprise.
"Nurse! Nurse! Patient #3 has awoken!"
Screams like this could be heard all over hospitals who had coma patients. The epidemic, that caused hundreds of people to go into a coma, had finally ended.
Approximately a month passed. All REM players had regained their trust of the system. The accident now mostly forgotten, a mere legend. The only information, that the SAGA Game Corporation mentioned to the players and the world, was that the online player "Black Shinigami" saved everyone's life from a computer virus, that a hacker created. This is where things were kept a secret. The only people to know that the accident occurred because of a Demon Lord NPC that gained self awareness was Ray, Prima and her father. Other than those three, no one knew the truth.
Ray sighed as she evaded another fan club. For once she was grateful that her job was being a ninja. Almost everyday now she was always jumped by her fan clubs. They were always either trying to stalk her, thank her for saving them, hack the net in hope of getting personal information to who she was outside of REM and or become like her. She sighed again as she jumped down from her hiding spot. She glanced at her belt that now held three swords. The Dark and White Wings were the only proof that Krad had existed. She stared off into the sun set. 'Krad…' Ray failed to notice the Twin Blades glow.
Shaking out of her thoughts she headed to her secret base, once again failing to notice two figures land on a roof behind her. Suddenly, two shadows with wings appeared behind her. 'Great another assassin.' Tensing she unsheathed Kage No Kiri and turned to give her stalkers a round house kick.
The two mysterious figures smirked. One grabbed her leg, preventing the attack from making contact. The other got behind her, wrapped his arms around her from the back and de armed her.
The figure behind her released a husky chuckle. "She doesn't look to happy to see you."
The one holding her leg gave a hearty chuckle that made shivers go up her spine.
Her eyes widened in shock as she now officially saw the attacker. Her heart thumped as if it were a stampede.
"Hm~ I don't think thats the case Dark." The man reached forward and pulled off her mask.
If it was possible for Ray's eyes to grow any larger, then she was most certainly doing it. Her lips trembled as she muttered the name she had missed. "K-krad?"
The man smirked before brushing a strand of black hair out of her face. "Who else could it be?~"
Feeling threatened and a blush coming to her face, that she did NOT want HIM of all people to see, she used her other leg and kicked Krad in the face. She then twisted her body around and kicked Dark in the face as well, flipped in the air and landed in a defensive crouch.
The one known as Dark rubbed his abused cheek. "Ouch!" he whined childishly as he pouted at Ray.
Krad just snickered at him before turning his attention fully on her. "Still haven't lost your touch I see.~"
Ray glared. "What do you want Krad? How are you still of REM? Why are you here?"
Dark snickered as he began poking his other half in a teasing manner. "Awww!~ She's mad at you!~"
Krad growled inwardly before smacking his annoying hand away and proceeded to ignore his idiotic half. "For starters I'm here because I want to be~" He placed his index finger on his chin in a teasing gesture.
Dark put his hands up to his mouth to prevent himself from laughing. He had NEVER seen Krad act like this before. Just proves how long he's been sealed away. He had to face the other way to prevent any laughs from bursting out of his lips when he saw his raven's facial expression of shock and I'm-going-to-murder-him.
Krad continued, trying his best to pretend he did not see his other half prevent himself from laughing. "For the next question, after you stabbed me in the heart, leaving me on the brink of death, I simply sealed away the last of my energy in the White Wings and I have been regenerating ever since."
Ray flinched at the part directed at her.
Seeing this, Krad smirked and decided to mess with his lovely Death Goddess. "Aw~ You feel guilty?~ Don't worry, Im as good as new!~"
Ray's face became bright red, she literally had steam coming out of her ears. she stuttered,"I- I M-M-OST CER-R-TAINLY D-O-O NOT FEEL GUIL-L-TY NOR DO I C-CARE!" She waved her hands around her frantically trying to make her point while glaring at the two.
Krad just inwardly smirked at the cute reaction.
Dark, who could no longer contain his laughter at seeing his Raven's adorable reaction, released it. "Hahahaaa!~ Ahh!~ Man! You are too cute! I just wanna hug you and squeeze you to death!" He was now rollin on the floor laughing with a blush on his face.
Ray and Krad twitched, both thinking the same thing. 'YOU'LL HUG ME/HER OVER MY DEAD BODY!'
Krad glared. 'Dark the day you hug MY goddess is the day I rip off your wings and feed them to the Noiracion tribe!'
Ray, who at this point of time stopped making an imbecile of her self, glared harder. She ran over to Dark, who was still rolling on the floor laughing, and jumped him and started attacking.
Krad, at the scene of seeing his other half get beat up by HIS angel, burst out laughing enjoying the sight, hearing Dark's cries of pain and cries for him to help.
"Ouch! Stop it! I'm sorry! Krad! Help!"
"I'll destroy you!" She punched him.
"OOF!" He got the wind knocked out of him.
She punched him. "THAT'S FOR CALLING ME CUTE!"
"GAH! NOT THE FACE!" He retorted, "BUT YOU ARE!"
She bit him.
He called her short.
She scratched him.
He failed at biting her.
She bit him again. "GRRRR!"
"GAH! LET GO!"
This continued on for at least thirty minutes.
Ray, who was still beating the crap out of Dark, stopped attacking the mauled Demon Lord as she remembered that Krad had not yet answered her last question and the fact that he didn't give her a straight answer for the first one. She got off of Dark, made her way to Krad and glared at him. "Answer my questions! What do you want?"
Krad gazed into her ruby red eyes. "You.~"
At hearing this, Ray stepped backwards and proceeded to gape like a fish. She turned red with embarrassment as well as rage. "BE SERIOUS!"
"Fine." Dark spoke as he suddenly appeared in front of her. Her rubbed his "wounds" and dusted off his clothes.
Ray blinked as she took him in. His hair was a short spiky purple. His front bangs were extremely long. His eyes were a deepish light/dark purple. He wore the exact opposite of Krad. A black tank top adorning his chest, revealing a tan, strong muscular chest. Around his neck was a blackish purple raven feather. Around his wrists were white bandages. He wore black jeans with chains attached to them. On one chain was a pair of metal black wings, on the other was a black cross. Unlike Krad, his wings were pure black. All in all he was smoking hot. She blushed a bit.
Dark saw the blush and smirked. "Oh!~ Checking me out are we?~"
Ray blushed even darker. "No!"
Dark snickered. "SURE you're not. Anyways, as to what we're doing here, we are yours.~"
Ray blinked. "Eh?"
He smirked. "Your Demon Pets. You're our master. You have both of our weapons. The person who holds our weapons must have the traits of a strong soul."
Ray's hand flew to the Twin Blades. "You were sealed in the Black Wings?"
Dark nodded. "Ya, I'm Krad's other half."
Ray blinked in confusion. "Other half?"
"Yes, Krad is the light, even though he's evil."
Krad shot a glare at him and Ray giggled.
"And I'm his opposite, the dark." His eyes sparkled with playfulness.
Ray's eyes narrowed and she gulped. "How did you get sealed? And how did Krad avoid it?"
Dark's eyes narrowed at the memory. "Krad escaped the sealing of himself by going into a deep sleep in the lake. I however, was not so lucky. I was caught by a high level mage and was sealed into my own weapon. The condition of the sealing was that I could never escape. However, if a pure soul that was filled with strength, courage and intelligence were to wield my weapon and learn the names of my attacks from their heart, I would be released. They thought that such a soul was impossible so I would be sealed forever. I've been sealed in that thing for ages."
Ray blinked.
He suddenly smirked. "Then you came along, wanting to avenge your friend and save everyone. You wielded me and learned the names of the attacks. You released me."
Ray nodded, dumbfounded.
He smirked and looped an arm around her shoulders. "You kicked Krad's butt with me and heck you used me pretty well!"
Ray sighed as she pried his arm off herself.
Dark and Krad suddenly smirked. They spoke at the same time. "You know, Krad/I wasn't lying when he/I said we wanted you."
Ray blinked, a sudden shiver running down her body. "Eh?"
Dark smirked. "I want you too!~ After seeing how well you could handle me, it was love at first fight!"
She slowly and quietly backed away form the two Demon Lords.
"Oh no you don't!~ You're not escaping from me my raven!~" Dark exclaimed as he wrapped his arms around her waist, preventing her from escaping.
Krad smirked as he wrapped his arms around her from the back. "You're not going anywhere my goddess.~"
Krad and Dark gave a lopsided smile and the kissed Ray's cheek. Dark on the left, Krad on the right.
All Ray could say was, "EHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH?"
How she survived with two perverted Demon Lords, only you can imagine. For that, is a different story.