Bonds Are Made To Be Broken

The covenant was broken.

A searing pain cut through Ciel's head, the epicenter of the torture being the boy's right eye. Ciel's hand flew to his eye, pressing fiercely against the black silk eye patch. He inhaled shakily, trying to ward off the sudden heaving in his stomach as the pain wracked him. What had happened? He tried to clear his thoughts. The pain was ebbing slowly, allowing reason to pry its way back into his brain. He had felt pain like that only once before, when Sebastian had seared the contract into his blue eye. He felt oddly hollow as the pain trickled away and the ache dimmed to a constant throb.

Fear. That was what he was feeling. A cold weight was sitting in his stomach and he felt as though someone was slowly pouring ice water down his could he not feel Sebastian? He whipped his head around and found that he was engulfed in darkness. The only light seemed to be emanating from him, or somewhere right above him. The floor he found himself standing on was reminiscent of a chessboard. The black and white squares were highly polished and his pale reflection stared back at him.

Think! he commanded himself. He and Sebastian had been tailing the angel. The revenge he had worked so desperately for was close at hand. Hand... Sebastian had been injured. Ash, the angel's current form, had taken Sebastian's arm. "That bastard!" Ciel spit forth with venom dripping from his words.

How did he get here, though? He remembered feathers. White feathers, not the soft black ones that Ciel would find now and then around the mansion. Sebastian had used his own body to shield Ciel from the heavenly projectiles. The young Earl had been thrown to his back with Sebastian draped over him. The butler's larger body was a warm weight, protecting him against the danger and the chilled evening air. Ciel had instinctively put his arms around the older man as he fell. When he pulled his hands away, they were dripping crimson. Ciel's expression was etched with a mixture of shock and concern as he sought out his butler's face. The blood soaking his hands was already cooling and becoming sticky.

Sebastian's eyes found his Master's. They stared into Ciel's blue eye and for the first time, Sebastian had, in all sincerity, asked for a favor. "Please close your eyes, Young Master," he had asked. "I cannot risk marring your image of me."

His voice was soft, so tender and unlike the normally mocking lilt that often passed the butler's lips. Ciel didn't question it further. He stared at his devil protector and closed his eyes. Ciel felt Sebastian's weight shift off of him and then a searing pain ripping through his eye socket had jolted him to his feet.

The boy shook his head. Sebastian had been protecting him. He was always protecting him. Where was he now? More importantly, where was the angel now? Most importantly, perhaps, where was Ciel now? The darkness was unnerving. A shiver coursed down the boy's spine, raising gooseflesh. He spent so much time in the darkness, surrounded by the creatures of the shadows, and dealing with matters that should never see light that the black of night had ceased to bother him quite some time ago. Well, apart from those nightmares, but he surely wasn't sleeping now. It gave Ciel serious pause to realize how much this vast, dark expanse of nothingness was unsettling him.

Perhaps it was because for the first time, in a very long time, the boy stood alone. There was no shadow-wreathed knight by his side to ensure the denizens of the dark would not lay a hand on him. Sebastian was Ciel's pawn, as he liked to claim. This was true; the orders that moved the demon and urged him forward to manipulate, kill, draw suffering, and exact revenge came from the mouth of the tortured thirteen-year-old boy. The power, however, came from the demon. Ciel swallowed thickly. Was his genius, his strategy and his will any good at all without the power to back it up?

His heels clicked loudly on the polished floor. The echo did nothing to calm his nerves, making it sound as though another walked with him. There should be someone walking with him. There should be a dark presence a few paces behind him. The lack of the demon's human form following on his heels was even more disconcerting than having no earthly idea where he currently was. It did not matter in which direction he turned. The black and white squares spread out around him, and the only illumination hovered just above him. Where the hell are you, Sebastian? Came the uneasy thought.

With no direction, his eyes drifted downwards to settle on the polished marble beneath his feet. He stood on a large black square, his pale features staring back at him. It was almost like black glass, and he found himself wondering what it was he was actually standing on. Glass? Marble? Something else entirely? His reflection disturbed him. A boy with scared eyes and worry etched in the way his lips tugged down was looking back at him. Ciel scowled at himself. He was no cowering boy. He was the Earl of Phantomhive. He reassured himself this had not changed as he ran his thumb over the spot his family ring used to occupy. He forced himself to take a deep breath and he slowly watched his eyes harden with resolve. He still had a goal. He was still Ciel Phantomhive.

Slowly, the boy lowered himself down onto one knee. He balanced himself by pressing one small hand to the ground as he continued to look at his reflection in the eerie, dark tile. He was returning to himself. A sharp, stabbing pain pierced his right eye suddenly and he winced his eyes closed. He forced them open again with a sharp breath and refocused on the image of himself. Something caught his attention. It was almost as if he could see deeper into the reflection than what was currently surrounding him. He could still see himself kneeling and looking down into the floor, but if he turned his eye just right, he could see beyond his reflected image. His eye slid up just slightly and past his visage he saw... himself.

Ciel saw himself lying quite still with his eyes pressed closed. He recognized the crates and building materials stacked about his small form. The reminder of how small and vulnerable he actually was did not sit well with him and his lips tugged downwards in a grimace. Ciel resisted the urge to spread his fingers over the dark surface. Some fear was keeping him from trying to touch the image before him. He watched as dark swirls curled around his prone form. They crept in slowly, not unlike the fog rolling off the Thames. A thick wisp began to curl about his ankle, black smokey tendrils, like fingers, slid up one pale leg. His free hand brushed at his ankle as he crouched, as if his actions would have any effect on the strange reflections before him.

The darkness continued to slowly, oh so slowly, encroach on the boy. He watched the facsimile of his own small body, unaware of the mist coming straight for it. Ciel was afraid of the darkness that tried to wrap around him. He squeezed his hand into a fist. Rationally, he knew he was in no danger. It was just darkness, just mist, and it was just a reflection. Yet... What did he really know about anything at this moment? His great strength was in what he knew, what he could deduce and what advantage he could calculate. The boy found himself agitated and confused and neither of these states of mind did him much good. The tendril moved to slide up the boy's leg further and a patch of the ground on which his reflected self was lying cleared. A sizable splatter of blood drew Ciel's eye. Harshly, he tore his eyes away from himself and let them search through the black reflection and the thick tendrils of fog to find another blood splatter and another.

He froze. Ciel stopped his eyes from moving any further. He was looking at his body lying on the bridge. He was looking at the mists that had attacked him as Sebastian threw his body in the way of Ash's attack. Ciel remembered...

"Please close your eyes, Young Master," Sebastian had asked. "I cannot risk marring your image of me."

Curiosity would not get the better of him. He felt he owed Sebastian that much at least. While Ciel was certain nothing would change his impression of his butler at this point, he still had agreed to the request. His eyes slid along the vapor trails back to his own form. Click. Ciel's eyes grew wide and they took in the reflection of the boy who was perched on the floor, looking into a reality he was a part of a short while ago. Click. Just as he was about to turn his head to find the source of the footsteps, movement caught his eye. Over his right shoulder, a man approached out of the darkness. Ciel almost relaxed... Almost. The suit that emerged from the darkness was not familiar. It was not the comforting black that signified power and hidden secrets, but the stark cold radiance of white, where sins were shrouded in purity with the false promise of salvation.

Ciel raised his head and black hair fell across his eye. His gaze lifted higher, past white trousers and the hilt of a sword. They slid up a fine, white waistcoat and over a flowing cravat. Ciel gritted his teeth as he took in a soft smile set in porcelain skin and his blue eye practically burned as it bore into familiar lavender eyes set amongst a mess of white hair. He whipped his head around, but over his shoulder there was only darkness. The emptiness around him echoed with a deep laugh tinged with amusement. Ciel knew this type of laugh. He was very familiar with a laugh that held mockery, with a laugh that was patronizing and filled with feigned warmth. However, instead of feeling a familiar mild irritation, this laughter made him want to simultaneously be ill and lash out with all the might his thin arms could manage. Shaking to control his fury, he turned his eyes back down towards the floor where Ash's shoulders were shaking with the last vestiges of his mirth.

"You bastard." The boy's voice was a raspy whisper as he stared into the pale, reflected eyes. Ash's lips curled into a gentle smile again. The sincerity he was able to convey was a mockery in and of itself. At least the demon had the good taste to be open with his distaste, even though to the unwary it seemed his features were laced with a mischievous charm. Ciel's entire body went rigid. The image of Ash raised a white-gloved hand and laid it upon the boy's shoulder. The warmth seeping through the material of the glove also easily permeated Ciel's shirt and jacket. His eyes slid to the side, to look at the not-here-at-all hand. The warmth and the weight were present and real, but Ash did not stand behind him. A growing sense of unease settled over Ciel as he looked over his shoulder confirming that he truly sat alone on the stone floor. There was no man clad in white standing behind him, and yet when he turned his eyes back to the stone, Ash's reflection gazed back at him. It was in reflection only that the divine usher of massacre had his hands on the boy. His mind warred with itself as he could feel the weight of the man's hands on his body, but his eyes confusingly told him two different stories.

"Relax, Ciel Phantomhive," Ash cooed. "I shall not hurt you. You have choices to make."

Ciel gritted his teeth and pushed his hand against the floor as he tried to raise himself to a standing position. Surprisingly though, the phantom weight on his shoulder kept him neatly crouched on the ground. "Unhand me. NOW." The strength was back in his voice and the crisp syllables echoed across the black nothingness.

Anytime now. Ciel grimaced with dark thoughts, Surely Sebastian is not in such dire straights he would leave me to deal the angel on my own...

The smile never left the aristocratic face, but the humor drained from Ash's light purple eyes. He leaned his body forward and Ciel could feel the weight on his shoulder increase. With the white visage hovering over him, the boy felt at any moment a barrage of feathered projectiles might pierce him, drawing his blood to flow freely over the reflection on the floor. The angel spread death and bathed the world in the blood of the wicked and impure in an attempt to snuff out the unclean. Ciel scoffed to himself at the parody the angel presented. At least when he dealt death, it was honest. Ash's other hand slid from the hilt of his sword and touched the nape of the boy's neck. Ciel's head dipped as he tried to escape the grasp he could not see. That deep laughter echoed around him and the boy was struck by how icy and final the notes were. The man's laughter chimed like church bells with the finality of a funeral. Clothed fingers slid up his neck. The touch was too familiar, too gentle and it made Ciel's skin try to crawl off his body. He ceased his struggling a moment later when he felt a slight tension across his eye. His gaze darted to the reflection of Ash's eyes and in them he saw amusement and something else he was very familiar with - conceit.

Ciel felt Ash's fingers entwined in his hair one moment, and the next the strings holding his eye patch in place slackened. The silk fluttered to the floor and the reflection leaned his head down next to the boy's ear. He was so close his whispered words and warm breath tickled Ciel's ear. His right eye remained tightly closed and he once again tried to force himself to stand. When that proved pointless, he looked down. The eye patch at his feet rested against its reflected counterpart.

"Open your eyes and see that you have been freed. You will be made pure yet, Ciel Phantomhive. Now only the easy choices remain."

Freed? Confusion clouded through Ciel's visible eye. There was only one way for him to be freed. "As you are still here," the last word was ground out between the boy's teeth with such distaste that even Ash raised a pale brow, "and my soul still intact, then there is no freedom."

"Little do you know, Master Phantomhive. So little. Here I thought you were of above average intelligence."

"You know nothing of me!" the boy shouted back. Ash's presence at his back, over his shoulder, was smothering. Ciel stared hard into the reflections at his feet. Silently, he willed Sebastian to hurry and to wake him from whatever bizarre nightmare he was currently having. He was no stranger to nightmares and reliving his worst days over and over during his long nights. They had felt quite real on many occasions, wrenching him from slumber with the screams pealingfrom his own throat.

This was different. It felt oddly surreal and the angel's incorporeal form pressing against him in such a familiar fashion felt so alien, so licentious.

"So distracted. Very well then. Let us fix that. Out of sight, out of mind, after all." Ash's grating laughter fell about Ciel's ears once more and the visage before him clouded over. All that remained before him was his own current reflection with Ash bent over him and his eye patch lying on the cold floor. The man smiled indulgently, and Ciel found it sickening. "I know a thing or two about you – How you came to be dragged into damnation for example," a pregnant pause passed between them as Ash's reflection continued to smile. "how to get you out again, Master Phantomhive."

Ciel's brow furrowed and his lips pressed in a firm line, not masking his aggravation in the slightest. His small frame shook with defiance, wanting nothing more than to throw Ash's offending hands from his body and pummel the creature. Ciel's talents were not physical, though. If this infuriating phantom wanted him to prove that he still held the upper hand by having control over a demon, so be it. Ash wanted him to be purified, wanted him out from under his Contract with Sebastian. Was it possible the angel had found a way to best the demon? The realization that something utterly unthinkable would have to happen in order for the contract to be broken slithered beneath his skin and Ciel shivered. No, Sebastian had told him that he would uphold their contract even through his own death. Ciel closed his eyes to calm his thoughts and was left with a seed of dread taking hold.

Ciel blinked and opened both eyes. That was the moment when he felt coarse rope coil around his intestines and begin to squeeze. At the same moment, he felt as though his lungs had somehow become void of air, and then filled with cotton so that he couldn't take a proper breath.

Over his shoulder, Ash smiled serenely. Ciel stared into the floor. Two bewildered yet unmarred blue eyes stared back at him. "No!" he shouted at the reflection. This was not possible. The hollow feeling inside him filled with fear at his racing thoughts. His mind refused to accept such a thing, it was horrific. Sebastian surely couldn't be dead. Ciel had ordered him to defeat Ash. Nor would he void their contract. How was this possible? It just wasn't. This was not possible. Ciel's heart raced and he felt himself rock backwards as black spots clouded the edges of his vision. A few more ragged gasps in an attempt to catch his breath echoed through his ears, before he became aware of nothing at all.