Sorry for this taking so long, but as you will see this chapter is hella long (seemed like the right word to describe it) and thus it took long to write. I always have a hard time to find a place to stop writing without it seeming like the story had been cut like a ham or something (I suck at metaphors, sorry...) If you can believe me, this is not even the longest chapter I have written, not even the second longest.
Yeah, sorry about the inconvenience again and I hope your not too disappointed with this. Flame me if you want. I'll be glad to read any critque (did I spell that right? Oh well...)
Chapter Four
Lilith
Bezanthume saw a field void of all life. There were no other things alive as far as he could see from his point of view. He was lying on the ground and leaning casually on a scorched husk of a tree. His body felt heavy and feverish, just like it always did after he used his fire too much. It would pass in an hour or so, but it still made his body feel tired and forcibly caused it to relax a bit. It did seem like he had been the one to reduce a field full of life to a barren wasteland, so he probably did deserve a breather.
His head turned left to right and he surveyed the smoldering ashes spanning out as far as he could see. He felt how a feeling of joy and excitement rushed through his body, but his mind started to wonder how he got here in the first place. Wasn't he just at Inoue Orihime's apartment?
Bezanthume tried to raise his hand to draw the required symbols to cast a spell that would tell him if he was under the effect of any spells, but found that he couldn't get his hand to move from its place behind his head. He noticed in surprise that he had his hands behind his head in a relaxed manner. He tried to make any part of his body move, but found that it was in vain. He was not in control of his own body anymore. His body still felt heavy and utterly relaxed. His world descended into darkness as his body closed its eyes.
His body opened its eyes and he felt his head turn to the left. His eyes blinked a couple of times and then they were able to make out a glimmer of blue light in the horizon. He felt how his body reacted to seeing this light with a mixture of anticipation and forced indifference. For some reason Bezanthume thought that it was what human teenager males felt like while interacting with beautiful women. Was this really his body? Maybe this was some weird possession gone wrong and he was trapped in some horny human teenager's greasy body.
He felt how the body's muscles flexed and it shot up from leaning on the scorched husk of a tree. The wings on his back ruffled their feathers as a sign of his nervousness and let out a surge of energy that blew the tree to thousands of pieces. Yeah, it was definitely his body, but how did he get here and who the hell was controlling it? Who the hell would even have enough power to possess a demon? It was practically impossible, even for another demon.
The blue light came closer and closer and Bezanthume felt how the ground under his feet started to shake slightly. The vibrations told him that there should have been a huge rumble resonating in the air, but Bezanthume could hear nothing. Now that he thought about it, he had been unable to hear anything at all after that time in Inoue Orihime's apartment. The surrounding was a scorched wasteland, but he still should have at least heard the scorched tree blow to bits, but he didn't.
A blue orb of light flew over his head the speed of a modern fighter jet and Bezanthume turned around to watch its flight. The orb descended in a wide circular pattern and its speed decreased dramatically with every lap. As the speed of the orb of blue light decreased, so did the light emanating from it and eventually Bezanthume's eyes started to make out a winged form amidst the pure blue light. The light from the orb dissipated completely when the winged figure passed directly over Bezanthume's head after making one last slow circular lap it landed right in front of Bezanthume, just a couple of feet away from him.
If Bezanthume was more or less a characterized image of a demon, then the person standing in front of him right now was a characterized image of an angel. She had long golden hair flowing down her back and she was wearing pure white robes that looked like they shone their own light. Bezanthume felt how his heart rate started raising rapidly and how it started to feel like something was pressing down on his chest.
The female angel's wings were very much like Bezanthume's and were only different in color layout. Where Bezanthume's wings were an impenetrable black color, her wings were that of purest white and where Bezanthume had lines of fiery-red feathers, she had lines of feathers blue as the sky. And just like Bezanthume, the color of the lines on her wings was the same as the color of her eyes and Bezanthume didn't seem to get his eyes off of her luminescent blue eyes. Somehow it was hard for him to make out any fine details about her face. It was like his sight was obstructed by some spell meant to alter his perception.
His attention turned to her full cherry red lips and he saw them move. She was speaking, but Bezanthume still couldn't hear anything. He said something back and whatever he had said made her smile. He felt how his heart skipped a beat. Seriously, there isn't a strong enough spell in existence to cause a demon's view to be warped like this. He might have been just a passive observer in his own body, but this was really getting disturbing.
His arm reached out towards her face. Bezanthume had a brief glimmer of hope to cling on to, as it seemed like he was going to rip her face off. He started cursing his own body when his hand only ended up cupping her cheek. This was absolutely crazy! His heart was beating so fast it was about to burst, he was sweating profoundly, his breathing was ragged and he was definitely not ripping the wings off of this freaking angel! And what was the cause of all this? One woman with sparkly clothes and wings! This was not him!
The woman's significantly smaller hands wrapped around his wrist and she leaned her face leaned on his palm. She closed her eyes and opened her mouth, letting out a soft moan. Her grip on his hand tightened and she planted a faint kiss on his wrist. His heart was bordering on exploding and he thought that he felt a pop when she opened her eyes and glanced up to his eyes while slowly moving her tongue across the spot she kissed. Then she planted her lips back on it and he could feel her teeth sink in through his skin and his blood shoot out into her mouth and down her throat.
"Bezanthume, are you alright?"
"GAAAH!!" Bezanthume screamed when he was shot back into reality. What the hell was that all about? He got up to a sitting position and his eyes shot around frantically and he was greatly relieved to see the claustrophobic confines of Inoue Orihime's apartment. It didn't seem like he had left the place to begin with. His eyes eventually came upon an extremely shocked looking Inoue Orihime. She was grabbing her chest and breathing rapidly. He had seemingly scared her, Big Deal.
"How long was I out?" Bezanthume asked in a purposely harsh tone. He really was in no mood for any bullshit just now. He had no idea what just happened to him and he felt light-headed for some reason.
"Oh! Well… uhm… you were like that, sleeping that is… when I myself woke up, so I just thought that I shouldn't… wake you, but then it looked like you were having a bad dream and I –"
Wait a minute! How long was I out?" Bezanthume got up to his feet and towered over Inoue Orihime. He enjoyed watching her scared face and loved the smell of the pheromones she was letting out, but he really
didn't feel like smirking right then and there. Was he out for hours? He usually was out for about ten minutes and then woke up with a hell of a headache, but he never was out for hours. It would be inconvenient if he would be immobilized in the heat of battle for too long. He couldn't be killed by mortal weapons, but the spells that could trap him lasted longer to cast than ten minutes or so and it was usually like so that he was fighting against everyone else and they were trying to find a way to kill him.
"Well, uhm… You had done so much, so I just thought that it would be nice to let you sleep it off…" Her words faded out under the weight of Bezanthume's gaze that was filled with an inhumanly strong aura of hate. Only emotions he had shown in front of Inoue Orihime were either amusement or hate. He was fine with that; he really didn't wish for her to start thinking of him as an equal, it would be too bothersome. She could just keep on thinking of him as an immoral beast for all he cared.
"How long was I out?" Bezanthume asked with his voice dripping with murderous intent. He would not kill her, but she didn't know that. Inoue Orihime opened and closed her mouth a couple of times. She was practically reeking of fear and that caused a low growl escape Bezanthume's throat. This didn't help Inoue Orihime get over her fear at all. Her knees buckled and she slid down the wall. She was sweating profoundly and Bezanthume could hear how her heart beat against her chest. Maybe he was taking this a little too far. Seriously, humans were so weak!
"Oh, don't bother! I'll just dig it up from your mind when I have time… Wait, did you say I was having a dream?" Bezanthume said with his voice returning back to normal and giving Inoue Orihime a chance to gather her thoughts. He had succeeded in scattering her thoughts and almost bending her mind to its breaking point by simply by staring at her… Bezanthume had to wonder about the unbelievable frailty of the human mind.
"Yes, it seemed like you were having a nightmare. You were speaking in your sleep and –" Inoue Orihime said. If Bezanthume would have been drinking something right then he would have definitely choked on the beverage, Inoue Orihime seemed to perfectly fine. Talk about recovery…
"I do not dream, demons do not dream." Bezanthume said, but then stopped to wonder if this was another exception to another rule. His contract with Inoue Orihime was more than extraordinary, more or less by the fact that she seemed to be completely unaware about the whole thing. He glanced over to Inoue Orihime. Maybe he was bound to her in more ways than one…
"You don't? Your nights have to be boring then… I couldn't live without my dreams. Once I had a dream about a stuffed turkey and roasted pork chasing me through a field…" Inoue Orihime babbled on and Bezanthume tuned her out while concentrating on more important matters. He remembered that he had made copies of the ring he had put on Inoue Orihime, just in case if it were to break and would have to be replaced. He could read the enchantment there and get some answers to some important questions that were burning in his mind.
He stepped over to the collection of six rings on the floor and picked them up using his claws. He opened his overcoat and dropped five of the rings inside, but kept the last one hanging from the claw on his index finger while checking what symbols were written on the inside of the ring. Just like any other magical engraving it was incomprehensible to anyone other than the one who cast it and it took him a while to adjust his eyes to see behind his own concealing script. Then it took him another good while to believe what he saw.
Orihime
"Are you listening to me?" Orihime asked when she finally noticed that Bezanthume wasn't paying any attention. She noticed that he was standing in the middle of the room with a silver ring of unknown origin dangling from one of his claws. He was turning it around with another one of his claws and seemed to be reading something engraved on it.
"No…" Bezanthume said in a low voice and the ring dropped to the floor. His hands were visibly shaking. "No… This can't be…" Bezanthume mumbled in a low voice. Inoue Orihime followed her own instincts and rushed over to him. She looked up to his eyes and saw them fluttering like they had done back in Las Noches and also when he was extremely hungry. She had concluded that it was not a good sign and decided to try and bring him out of the stupor he was in.
"Hey, Bezanthume, are you alright?" She said and nudged him a little. Bezanthume's eyes stopped fluttering and concentrated on her steel gray eyes. They were a little dimmer than usual and his arms had gone limp on his sides. His claws were uncomfortably close to her neck and she took a reflexive step back. Bezanthume's eyes suddenly started to burn bright red and his hands shot out towards her neck. He wrapped both of his arms around her neck, slammed her against the wall and raised her up to level with his eyes frighteningly easily.
"How did you know?" Bezanthume said with his voice as a monstrous rumble. Orihime realized that she had never seen Bezanthume angry, really angry that is. The other times she had been able to feel something like inhumanly strong feeling of anger was when he had been just slightly annoyed, but now when he was filled to the brink with rage it knocked the wind right out of her lungs and made her whole body go limp. She was going to pass out soon; she could already see black spots dancing in her eyes.
"NO! You're staying with me now! Tell me how you knew or I will slaughter everyone you know and love!" The volume ofBezanthume's rumbling voice made Orihime's head hurt and it was harder and harder to fight against the invading darkness, but there was no doubt in her mind that Bezanthume could and would do the things he said and she forced her eyes to stay open and directed at him.
"I… I don't… know what you're talking about…" Orihime was able to croak out with Bezanthume's hands wrapped around her neck and with the weight of his inhuman rage smothering her. She heard a low growl escape his mouth as he moved his head closer to hers. The feeling of overpowering rage intensified.
"Do not lie to me, you bitch! There's no way that something like this could happen by accident! Who told you about the ritual? Tell me!" Bezanthume leaned in closer "Their deaths will be slow and I'll make damn sure that they curse your name on their last breath…" Bezanthume whispered in her ear. She could feel his frenzied breath on her neck and the light from his eyes burning her cheek. He must have noticed that he was strangling her, since it felt like the grip of his hands loosened a little and Orihime was able to breathe to some extent.
"I'm sorry…" Orihime said. She wasn't sure if she was apologizing to Bezanthume for not knowing the answer or to her friends for their slow deaths. Tears welled up in her eyes and Bezanthume's glowing red eyes looked even more inhuman through her distorted view of the world. Bezanthume let out a roar that shook her to the very bone and then threw her on the wall on the opposite side of the room like a piece of trash. She heard a soft crack coming from her side on impact. She felt immense pain radiating from her right side and tasted blood in her mouth. Bezanthume kept on raging like a mindless beast and his hands
were engulfed by fire. He trashed around and drove his hands through walls and ceiling of her apartment, either by accident or because he just felt like he had to hit something. His hands seared straight through her walls, but still didn't cause a fire. He suddenly turned towards her and his eyes got even brighter. He growled a series of incomprehensible words and Orihime felt how her most private thoughts and memories were suddenly violated.
She had been aware that Bezanthume was able to hear her thoughts, but now he was rummaging through her mind forcefully and intentionally. Every single embarrassing or painful memory and thought was pulled out and she was forced to relive them as Bezanthume searched for something that wasn't there. She could hear the mocking voices of her classmates while they forcefully cut her hair short. She could feel her brother's blood on her all over again. She could –
The invading memories were suddenly pushed back into her subconscious and the overpowering atmosphere of hate lessened. Orihime opened her eyes and saw Bezanthume squatting over her with his hands between his legs. His claws were too close for comfort, but when she tried to move away a shockwave of pain radiated from her side. She had probably broken a rib or two; internal bleeding or damaged organs were not out of the realm of possibility either. She looked up to Bezanthume's eyes. Perhaps she was trying to find a reason for all of this, or she was waiting for him to help her. When she saw the burning hatred radiating from his eyes her hope was crushed completely.
His eyes were blazing in a darker shade of red and radiated pure hatred. Even though the feeling of immense hate in his eyes was scary and unsettling in itself it was not the thing that scared Orihime the most about him right now. There was something different about the hatred flowing from his eyes now, instead of being the uncontrollable surge of rampart emotions it had been a second ago there was something coldly logical and cruel behind the light of his eyes. If Orihime had been afraid for her life before, then now she was also scared for her soul and sanity. What was looking down to her now was something that would gouge out your eyes, twist your arms out of their sockets and then rip you apart piece by piece keeping you alive and conscious the while time, then it would heal you and do it all over again.
"Stop that." Bezanthume's inhuman voice rumbled and he nudged her with his hand. Pain radiated from her injured side and she yelped from the pain. She became aware of her own sobbing and the tears running from her eyes and the snot running out from her nose. Not the most photographic scene possible, but she was scared out of her mind and it was a miracle she hadn't wet herself. Bezanthume nudged her again and she winced from the pain, but…
It felt like it didn't hurt as much now that it did the first time. She became aware of a constant itch on her injured side and a sense of throbbing, but the pain was definitely gradually fading now that she paid attention to it. What the hell was going on? Was Bezanthume healing her?
Bezanthume
Shit, so it was true… She's actually healing from an injury that severe in a matter of minutes. This was not good, not good at all. And to top it all off it did look like the princess was unaware of what she had done. He had not found anything suggesting that she had knowingly forged a contract like that. He had known of the
circumstances that led to it for quite a while, but his mind just had refused to piece it together. He nudged Inoue Orihime's side again and this time her facial expression only changed slightly. She looked astonished by her recovery rate and afraid of his facial expression. He knew that the anger was still in his system and he would have to be careful not to blow up the whole town.
Out of the emotions demons were able to feel anger was the one most closely tied to the control of their powers. If a demon was not able to control their anger after it reached a certain point then they would lose their minds all together and disperse into the space around them as raw energy and pure elemental power. The more demons felt the bigger the chance for their deaths. That was exactly why there were so little demons left, immortal as they were, but if a race does not breed it is bound for extinction.
Bezanthume got up and sighed deeply. Inoue Orihime heard it as a growl, but he actually couldn't care less. He started walking towards the window with the intention of going out and spread his wings a little. He was curious about what this "France" was like. He had picked up some mental images of the place when he was searching for the silver rings. And the fact that then there would be a whole continent between him and Inoue Orihime did sound appealing.
"Wait!" Inoue Orihime screamed and stumbled towards him. Bezanthume stopped and turned his eyes towards her fully aware of the mental images it caused in her mind. He noted that her left leg seemed to be in a weird angle and she tried to avoid putting any weight on it. Was it just a sprained ankle or a broken bone?
"Please don't hurt my friends!" Inoue Orihime sobbed and clung on his coat. The buildup of mental trauma from her stay in Las Noches, Bezanthume's manipulative taunting and his current actions were just too much for her to stand anymore. Bezanthume noted this fact and then continued to examine her leg. Her ankle was not in an abnormal angle, it was her whole foot. He pushed Inoue Orihime down and then he had to stop her from curling up into a ball. He did this by slapping her in the face with the back of his hand. It was just pure luck that he didn't break her neck. It was hard for him to control his strength when he was filled with anger.
"Please…" Inoue Orihime mumbled. It was a show of her impressive mental fortitude that she was still even somewhat conscious. Bezanthume knelt down to examine her leg. So, it had been a broken bone after all. If her new regenerative powers were to heal it now she would be a cripple for the rest of her life without corrective surgery, and that was impossibility in itself because of her regenerative rate. Humans were too frail for their own good…
Well, better get to it, Bezanthume thought and placed his left hand on Inoue Orihime's knee. He caught an offensive thought from Inoue Orihime's barely conscious mind and decided not to even try to be delicate about this. He wrapped his right hand around her ankle, pressed down on her knee a little and then pulled and twisted with his right hand until he heard a soft crack when the bone was set back in place. As expected, Inoue Orihime screamed from the pain before passing out.
Bezanthume got back up and was about to fly off when he caught a glimpse of the scene he was just about to leave behind: Inoue Orihime's apartment was practically torn into pieces and Inoue Orihime was lying unconscious in the middle of it all with torn clothes and dried up blood on her, but without a scratch on her. Yeah, that definitely would not cause any suspicion…
Bezanthume sighed again, brought his hand up and snapped his fingers. The space around him twisted and shimmered. He closed his eyes and tried to remember what the small room had looked like before. After a couple of seconds he thought that he had all the details he could remember. Of course he could reverse time in the space of the things he broke, but this was more cost-effective. Messing with the natural order of things took its toll on him and having to go out hunting so soon after he just satisfied his hunger would be tiresome.
He opened his eyes and looked at Inoue Orihime's apartment. He saw no great mistakes with his work. The walls were whole again and there was no sign of the scorch marks. He looked down to Inoue Orihime. Her clothes were still torn and she had dried up blood on the side of her face. He reached down to her body and then raised it by her shoulders. The shirt of her uniform had been torn pretty badly and her bra was showing. He turned her over and checked her top to bottom. There seemed to be no other fractures in her bone structure and fixing her clothes and cleaning up her face seemed to be the only thing for him to worry about. That was easy enough.
He laid his hand down on her chest, concentrated on the fabric of her shirt and then reversed its time until it was in the time where it had been whole. Then he introduced the piece of cloth to its new stream of time and Inoue Orihime was wearing a clean and only slightly wrinkled shirt. Now he just had to clean out the dried up blood on her face and she would be acceptable to random surprise quests that might ask too many questions. He carried her over to her bed and set her on it, actually set her down, he didn't drop her this time. Having her wake up now would more than bothersome. He walked into her bathroom, grabbed a towel and drenched it under the tap. Sure, he could use some nifty magical trick, but it wasn't really needed right now when he could just simply use some good old water to simply wipe off the blood.
He walked back over to Inoue Orihime and slapped the towel on her face. He raised the towel a couple of seconds later and noticed that the water had dissolved some of the dried up blood and it did look like he would be done with just a couple of wipes. He wrapped the towel around his knuckles and then carefully brushed off the blood the best he could. He grabbed her chin and turned her head side to side to see if he had missed a spot anywhere. He nodded in a sign of approval and then dried the towel by engulfing his hand in fire for a split second. He threw the towel back in the general direction of the bathroom and once again turned to leave.
And once again he remembered something just before he was about to leave. He had threatened her with the lives of her friends earlier and she would undoubtedly think that he had gone to kill them if she woke up and he wasn't there. So, he needed to leave a note. He looked around and didn't see anything he could write on, not that he even knew how to write Japanese… Guess there's no going around it: here come the nifty magic tricks. He would have to learn to write Japanese as soon as possible.
Bezanthume spelled out a short string of words and engraved a message in the ceiling above Inoue Orihime. That way it would be the first thing she saw when she woke up and she probably wouldn't freak out that much. The letters were luminescent red symbols that went straight into your mind upon eye contact and thus translated the message into a language you could understand. After they got into your mind they lived a short life watching your life so far to relieve their boredom and then died away. He was sure that Inoue Orihime would be "creeped out" if he told her that and that's why he used this particular spell. Messing with her head just never got old, or it hasn't just yet.
Bezanthume walked to the window and tried to think if there was anything he forgot. He spread his wings when he couldn't think of anything. He jumped through the window and then launched off into the sky engulfed by the light of his wings. He created a shield around his own form that transcended space and matter thus making something like wind resistance obsolete. This way he could fly through the clouds without tearing them apart with the excess kinetic energy from his wings. Right now he didn't want to raise any kind of suspicion.
He flew in a straight line until he arrived at the ocean. He dropped his shield and swooped down to the water, low enough for him to feel the water splatter on his face. He glanced behind his back and saw two huge pillars of water reaching towards the skies. The heat and propulsion from his wings caused the water to vaporize and shoot up into the air. This was one of those tricks that humans were easily impressed by and he had used it before to make his existence known. Even though he was trying the exact opposite he couldn't resist the temptation of having a little fun by passing close to a cruise ship. He could hear the shocked screams of the passengers when the ship tilted to its side and the steel structures wailed and were stressed almost to a breaking point. It wasn't just the massive column of water crashing on the side of the boat with the force of a tidal wave, the pure kinetic energy from his wings also partly presented itself as heat and caused the steel structures of the ship bend under the weight of the water.
He wasn't really sure if he was relieved or disappointed when the ship tilted back after the mass of steaming water passed. If the ship would have been broken apart and everyone in it would have been exposed to the boiling hot water within the column of water he would have been one happy demon, true to his nature. But on the other hand he would be forced to turn back time as soon as Inoue Orihime found out about this and he would have to go and bite people again.
He didn't stay there to ponder about what ifs any longer. He turned his face towards to where he thought this "France" was and rose above the clouds. He stayed right at the edge between the heavens and the clouds to minimize the chance of colliding with an airplane. His matter subsiding field would transfer anything in front of him back for about ten feet and would be destructive if he was to go through something carefully constructed like an airplane. The airplane would stir the clouds before rising above them he would have more than enough time to adjust his flight.
He didn't have to worry about things like this before. There might have been a few flocks of birds below the clouds, but the sky above the clouds used to be his domain, a place where he could go and know that there were no inferior beings to bother him. Not a single offending thought invading his senses. He flew for about half an hour before descending below the clouds again to see how long it would take him to see France.
What exactly was drawing him there anyway? He had picked up mental images about France, but it had not been anything that especially appealed to him. All of the mental images had been too bright, happy and romantic. Ugh, "romantic"… one of his least favorite words that humans had made up. Acting like something not one human can be to gain something very basic and animalistic in nature. It was simply ludicrous just as a concept in itself.
Bezanthume flexed his wings and then started flapping his wings slowly back and forth to hover in place. There really was something drawing him to "France", something or someone. Could it have something to do with the "dream" he had? Was the woman with white wings calling him? More and more questions popped up in Bezanthume's mind as he hovered there above the clouds. Why would she be in France? How
was she calling him? And if she was not calling him, then why did he think that she would be in France? Who was this woman?
"Lilith…" Bezanthume mumbled. He thought that was her name. He had a feeling that he remembered something, but when he tried to reach the memory again it slipped away completely. Well, he had lived a long life and spent the last couple of millenniums trapped in an orb, so a little amnesia was understandable. He decided to shrug it off for now, since he couldn't actually do anything about it. His memory would come back in time, if given enough time, anything was possible.
He closed his eyes and concentrated on his extra sense. After a couple of seconds to cool his nerves Bezanthume started to make out faint lights of sentient minds. Most of the lights of the human race were dull and not too bright. They were small, intense and extremely pure when they were born, but life had the tendency to dim out the purity out of their minds and souls. The thing that fed his powers the best was just that untainted pure light of their soul within their bodies. The state of their bodies had nothing to do with it, but if someone was raped, beaten and tortured, then their light usually did dim, flutter or just simply die out. Innocence was what he was looking for, as that state produced the brightest and purest light. With enough practice and intimate knowing of someone's mind he could track anyone with this ability of his. Right now he was trying to tune his senses to detect the light of the woman in white from his "dream". If this woman existed, then she would have to come to him, not the other way around, but first he had to know if she even existed in the first place.
After a couple of minutes of trying he was already ready to give up. Every other light had faded away and all he saw was impenetrable darkness, no bright blue light in sight. There would be no delay if the light would have been there. Well, she might not be in France like he thought, so he shouldn't give up yet. He turned his head slowly to the side and made a complete circle by slightly adjusting the angle of his wings, still no blue lights.
Bezanthume sighed and leaned his head back. Guess it was just a dream after all. His first honest to god dream and he was affected this much. He happened to keep his eyes closed and his extra sense active. He noticed a glimmer of light in the corner of his field of vision. Bezanthume turned his head towards it and memorized the location. He opened his eyes and allowed his eyes to adjust to normal light again. She is above me, well, that was surprising. This hood obstructs my vision…
Bezanthume concentrated energy on the tips of his wings and then flexed them downwards forcefully. He was shot up towards the skies and felt the air get thin around him again. That would not bother him that much if he didn't stay up here too long. There were spells he could use that would nullify the ill effects completely, but there was no actual need to use them. He saw no reason that he would be here longer than a few minutes. He flew towards the place where the light had been at full speed. If what he saw in his dream was true, then this woman was at least as fast as he was. The light didn't seem to be moving at the time, but he didn't know why it was staying in place in the first place, so it might start moving anytime now.
Bezanthume flew in a straight line and after a moment he realized where exactly he was going. The moon was looming right in front of him in all of its grey and dusty glory. The dead husk of a star had inspired poets and romantic idiots down on earth from the dawn of man, but Bezanthume had always seen it just as what it was: A cold, lifeless rock that leeched its enchanting light from the sun. As a demon he did feel some sort of… comradeship towards it. The moon was weaker in its light than the sun, but it was also the
only light in that fabled valley of darkness. Thinking about the obvious metaphor here made him feel a strong sense of déjà vu. It didn't feel like he had thought of it himself…
The moon's surface was just a measly kilometer away and Bezanthume turned his flight to run along the surface of the moon while slowing down constantly. He closed his eyes and saw the blue light right after his extra sense activated. It looked like it was somewhere on the surface of the moon below him. Bezanthume stopped in his tracks with a great flash of red light and a shockwave that stirred the dust gathered on the surface of the moon. The light was somewhere below him and it was still not moving, even though he made no attempt to hide himself. What did this mean? Was she sleeping or something? If she was anything like him, then she should have her other senses just as alert as they were when she was awake. Well, angels were pacifist idiots anyway…
Bezanthume shut off the lines of energy on his wings and let the gravitational pull of the moon draw him down slowly. The light was not directly under him, but it seemed like he would land on walking distance to it. Why was it staying still like this? If this light was that female angel he had seen in his "dream", then she should either be charging at him or flying away. And if she was somehow incapacitated, then there should be some change in her light signaling her erratic emotions.
This was getting interesting. Bezanthume felt how his feet made contact with the surface of the moon. He turned his heading towards the light and started walking; well it could be called hopping rather than walking. The low gravitational pull of the moon had its side effects. The sense of lightness was disturbing Bezanthume. He opened his eyes when he was just a couple of steps away from the bright blue light. His eyes adjusted back to normal light and he looked around and noticed that he was standing in one of the many craters on the surface of the moon, but more importantly, he saw no sign of the female angel.
Why was he even trying to find her, to kill her? No, he needed answers, answers about his dream. That was probably it. Well, it was impossible to fool his extra sense, so she had to be here and the only place where she could be out of sight here was under the dust of the moon. Bezanthume spread his wings out on his sides and braced himself for the recoil. He gathered kinetic energy at the tips of his wings and then let it out while flexing his wings in a wide arc. Because of the low gravity on the moon he was blown back either way. Bezanthume turned the tips of his wings to point up and blasted a small charge of energy to get himself back on the ground. The blast of his wings had upset the fine dust lying on the bottom of the crater and now there was a cloud of fine dust floating away. Because of the lack of atmosphere it didn't stay there to swirl and settle down again. The dust was blasted away and then it either floated away into space or landed somewhere else drawn by the weak gravity of this desolate place. He was able to see something white on the bed of the crater. He walked closer to get a better look.
Bezanthume had found the woman from his dream, but he never thought that he would find her in the state she was in now. She was lying at the bottom of the crater with her wings spread out at her sides. She had two silver spears driven through both of her wings. The two spears were at the point where the blue lines of feathers separated to mimic the bones on a bat's wings. Her white wings were stained with the blood that had gushed out from her crippled wings whenever this happened. Bezanthume stood there and checked over her body and couldn't help but notice the reason she was incapacitated. There was a hilt of a blade sticking out from her chest. He somehow froze in place for a second and recorded every detail of the scene before him. And she had been alive all this time…
Bezanthume shook himself out of his thoughts and walked over to the spear that was driven through her left wing. He placed his foot right next to the place where the spear was driven through and placed his hands on the spear. He grabbed the spear tightly and then pulled it out from her wing. The blade of the spear was saw-edged and small chunks of her flesh were ripped along with. He felt the spear get incredibly hot in his hands and he threw it away before it was able to burn through his gloves. Hallowed steel, what the hell?
He stepped over to her other wing and kneeled over to it. To avoid severe burns, he would have to use other means to extract the other spear. These were powerfully enchanted weapons in the past, but the delayed response to his touch implied that the spell had weakened considerably over time, so he should be able to cut them. Still, his claws were exactly what the steel was enchanted to deflect, so he would have to use his wings. The line of feathers running along the top of his wing gathered heat even when he didn't will it and could cut through most metals, they should do.
Bezanthume spread his wing out and then laid the tip against the ground. He concentrated on gathering heat on the edge of the wing and then when he thought it was more than enough he nudged his shoulders and sliced the spear a couple of inches above the wound. The steel was white-hot and melted away like a candle on the point where his wing had cut the spear. Bezanthume waited for the steel to cool down before placing his hands under the wing and carefully lifting it off the spear. He laid the frail looking wing down and stepped over to her body. He looked at the hilt of the blade sticking out of her chest and the dried up blood surrounding it and staining her white clothes. Well, there was no going around it…
He placed his right foot on her chest and reached down to the handle of the sword pierced through her chest. His eyes happened to land on her eyes and his hand stopped right before he was about to grab the sword and pull it out. Sure, he would get burns, but he would heal soon enough. The woman's eyes were open and the translucent blue eyes he remembered from his dream were looking straight at him. He felt something resembling a sandbag being pressed down on his chest for a second, but the severe symptoms of a charming spell were gone. He narrowed his eyes and let a sadistic smile creep up on his face.
"I'm sure this is going to hurt…" Bezanthume said and closed his hand on the handle of the blade. He flexed the muscles in his leg and straightened his back and pulled the sword out of her chest. He stepped off of her chest and dropped the sword on the ground next to her head. Bezanthume hissed furiously for the pain of the third degree burns on his right hand and used every single profanity he knew before the pain had lessened enough. Angels were sadistic bastards! And they had way too much time on their hands to make up an enchantment like that and put it on a sword!
Bezanthume turned his eyes to the female angel once again. Why wasn't she moving? He took out all of the things tying her down. Bezanthume kneeled to look into her eyes. Yes, he saw the faint light of life in the back of her eyes, so she should be moving already… That is if her metabolism was as fast at healing as his, or even remotely alike. Maybe she needed an atmosphere to regenerate, or holy water, or hallowed ground… He had no idea what it could be, but there was no way he was going to take her into a church.
Bezanthume slid his hands carefully under her torso and under her knees and picked her up on his arms. She was extremely light, even if you took the low gravitational pull of the moon. She must be built like a bird all around. He remembered how she seemed so at home when she flew in the skies in his dream. She had been smiling. There was the feeling of something heavy pressing down on his chest again, but it subsided in a matter of seconds. What the hell was going on? The spell she put on him back then must have
been one potent charm for it affect his perception even now. The effect had dulled considerably, but it was still altering his perception and that bothered Bezanthume greatly. Bezanthume wondered if the spell would be broken if she were to die? No, probably not. Angels were good with enchantments and charms; there was probably some kind of booby trap here.
Bezanthume sighed and launched off of the surface of the moon. He engulfed them both in his red light to repel the heat from the friction when they entered earth's atmosphere again. He could handle the heat easily, it would actually be refreshing, but he wasn't so sure about the angel. He didn't want her to burn to a crisp when he went through so much trouble to get her out of the moon… Now there was a surreal sentence, even for someone like him. This whole situation was more surreal than anything he knew: A demon helping an angel instead of torturing her to death slowly, like his blood screamed him to do.
For some reason he was able to ignore his blood's call easily, it just seemed like torturing her to death wasn't something he could do… Seriously, he would have to find a way out of the effect of this spell.
Bezanthume reached the level of the clouds and dived right through. If it was oxygen she needed to regenerate, then it would be better to fly low. He decided to take a heading towards Japan. Going to France didn't really appeal to him that much anymore. He flew as fast as he could and only about hundred feet above the ground. The force of the shockwave he was leaving behind made the trees blow over and for buildings to shake as they would in an earthquake. There was more than a few people and cars thrown in the air by the massive gush of wind as well. Bezanthume noted all of this when he flew over a small town on the coast of Asia and happened to glance behind his shoulder. A small smile curved his lips up, only if he could get the permission to do that in a larger scale. War was his favorite pastime and he was talented in it. His team always won.
He arrived above the islands of Japan and closed his eyes to home in on Inoue Orihime's mind, Karakura Town. Lights flashed into existence around him and everything else was reduced to darkness in comparison. He filtered them out one by one and eventually there were lights in only one way, slightly to the right from the direction he was going right now. He had honed his senses to pick up minds that were "special" in their ability to control their souls. He counted about a half a dozen, three of which were especially bright or intense, three fluttering and faint and fluttering and one, the brightest one, was a light shade of pink. Every other kind of light was a plainly colored as white, dull light and the only exceptions to that rule were either angels or demons… He turned to the pink light and opened his eyes again.
"Damn that air-headed bitch…" Bezanthume growled. He had a hard time believing that anyone could do something like this by mistake, but he had seen the circumstances leading to this and had to face reality. He turned his attention to the lean figure he was holding in his arms. He had not felt her move at all, but it did seem that the wounds on her wings were closing up. He was more worried about the wound on her chest. The enchantment on the sword had been considerably more potent than the ones on the on cast on the spears… He was worried? What the hell! Demons do not worry for an angel's life! He wanted to get rid of this spell as soon as possible.
He reached Karakura Town, turned himself and the angel intangible, steered himself into Inoue Orihime's apartment and stopped himself by creating a nullifying surge of energy within his body, to lessen the impact on the world around him. He looked around the apartment and when he couldn't see her he listened for signs of her using the bathroom. He was not going to tempt his fate again by barging in there while she was in there. He didn't hear anything, so he had to conclude she wasn't there. Where was she, buying groceries? Possible, she would be hungry, she did miss her lunch, but was it even time for that yet? How long had he been gone anyways? His perception of time was probably fucked up because of that angel's spell, so he didn't trust his own judgment.
He looked around the apartment for a place to place the angel on. The bed was too narrow for her wind span, so it seemed like the floor was the only viable option. He kneeled down and placed her on the floor, careful not to damage her frail wings. He looked into the angel's eyes again. They were staring up into the ceiling, but he definitely still saw the flame of light in there. If everything else failed, then Inoue Orihime could try to heal her, Lilith, yes, to heal Lilith, the angel.
Bezanthume averted his eyes with a little too much effort he would have liked for there to be and then sat down on Inoue Orihime's bed. He retracted his wings and laid himself on the bed. His legs were touching the floor and both of his arms were on either side of the bed, but it was better than standing up, or flying for that matter. He just flew to the moon and back, so he deserved a break. Bezanthume closed his eyes to try and at least find out if Inoue Orihime was close by or if she heading back, he could do that much without actually directing his eyes. The darkness came and he could feel the lights around him. So many lives shining their own light, but still doomed to be extinguished someday, so many possibilities, so many ways to die. Poor humans… Bezanthume felt the lights swirl around him and his eyelids were getting heavier and heavier by the second. The idea of getting up and shaking off the effects of the spell seemed completely ridiculous. This felt so comfortable that he could just –
Ah, fuck. Not again…
Yeah, the ending is identical to the last chapter, but I really do have a hard time finding a place to stop writing, so I had to come up with something. I'll be a happy little ferret if you were to leave a review, or PM me about anything that bothers you or a question you would like answered. Needles to say, I will not answer any question in the sake of the story, but I'll try and answer in some way... Well, it's up to you points finger reader.
Crazy Laughter