Eve of the Earth
by Jaelly-Bean
Part Six: Bitter Goodbyes
Zephyr regretted letting Uriel the go the instant he left her alone in the garden. Rationally, she knew that she was no match for Sandalphon. He had already taken over her mind, invaded her, violated her soul in the worst possible way, and that girl… Sara, she needed help.
She didn't know how long she sat in that garden, her legs useless as she mulled over everything she had seen in Sandalphon's nightmare… and the things she had come to realize.
And when the explosion destroyed Raphael's house, Zephyr was struck hard by a piece of debris, making her world go black. Wet blood coated the side of her face when she regained consciousness, and yet that wasn't her concern. She was on her feet and stumbling through the wreckage of Raphael's house, searching for the only man she could think about.
Nothing but a crater remained where Raphael's front yard had once been, and Zephyr stood at the edge of it, her vision still blurred from the blow to her head. She peered around, trying to spot him… anywhere. Dizzy, she didn't pay attention to her footing. A loose piece of concrete gave way beneath her, and with a grunt, Zephyr fell down the steep slope of the crater. Kicking up dust and pebbles, her body tumbled to the bottom. She felt a piece of sharp rebar tear through the arm of her jacket, adding injury to her insult.
She came to an unceremonious stop in a puddle at the bottom, splashing water and mud. Coughing, Zephyr pushed herself up onto her knees, shaking her head to relieve the dizziness and disorientation. Her plum colored hair had loosened from it's braid, the ends trailing in the puddle. Growling with frustration, she inspected the cut on her forearm and watched her own blood slowly seep into the sleeve of her white jacket. On her other sleeve, water had seeped into the white fabric and stained it… pink?
Pink… From blood mixed with water.
Zephyr's heart started to pound as her eyes squinted and searched for the source of the blood. When she spotted him laying the water, she scrambled to her feet and stumbled towards him, kicking up rocks and water as she went.
"Lord Metatron!" She fell to her knees beside the naked and wounded child. "Oh…!" The High Seraphim of Heaven had a hole punched right through his tiny chest. What had caused the wound, she had no idea.
"Se… vy…?" Metatron said softly, so softly, as though it took all of his failing strength.
"No, my Lord, it's me. it's Zephyr."
"Zeph…"
Zephyr stripped off her white gloves and tossed them aside. Her bare, shaking fingers fumbled with the zipper of her jacket and she struggled out of it, ignoring the pain in her wounded arm as she shrugged it off. "Hang on. I'm gonna get you some help, okay?"
Sevothtarte had never allowed Zephyr to wear short sleeves.. or any jacket without a collar. He had always forced her to dress in head-to-toe white, partially because of the darkness of her skin being a 'stain'... and because she was female. A fresh breeze touching her skin was completely foreign, but she ignored the feeling, choosing instead to focus on wrapping the dying child in the fabric of her long, tailed jacket. Her clean white tank top didn't stay clean for long when she held the bundle of muddied and bloodied fabric against her chest.
"Just hold on, Metatron. LIsten to my voice, okay? I'm getting you out of here." Zephyr's black eyes searched the bottom of the crater one last time, hoping to spot Uriel… Michael… anyone. But settling dust and small crumbling rock slides were her only company, down there.
Climbing back out of the crater was the hardest thing Zephyr had ever done, physically. Her arm was throbbing, her head splitting open. Her breath came short as exhaustion and phsyical injury weighed heavy. The fingers of her free hand dug into the loose rocks and pebbles as her other arm held Metatron tightly against her.
She was almost to the top…
"Zephyrel!"
The relief of hearing his voice alone nearly made her collapse. "Uriel…!"
There he was, standing at the top of the crater's slope. And before Zephyr could tell him to wait, he was scrambling to her, his feet sliding over the loose rocks.
"Uriel, don't-"
"Let me help you."
He was at her side, taking the wrist of her free arm and draping it over his shoulders. And when his free arm wrapped around her waist and pulled her against him, she felt her weakness finally overtake her. The last of the strength she had she devoted to keeping Metratron tucked tightly against her as Uriel carried her the rest of the way up the hill.
She wished she could rely on his strength forever…
"Zephyr, how hurt are you?" Uriel asked when they reached the top.
"It's nothing a few stitches and a good night's sleep won't fix."
"Now isn't the time to be brave."
"Now is always the time to be brave," Zephyr said with dry smile. She pulled her arm away from his shoulders and wrapped both around Metatron, listening for his small moans and labored breath. "Uriel, what is Metatron doing here? What happened to him?"
"I'll have to explain all this later, Zeph. You need to get out of here."
"No, you need to explain now. What happened?"
Uriel sighed and brushed his hand through his hair, like he always did when he was uncomfortable. "It was Sandalphon… Sandalphon possessed his brother's body in the hopes of taking Sara and… conceiving a child with her. A child he could use as a new body."
Zephyr bit her lip, and nodded her head. She had a feeling… Once she knew that it was Sandalphon who had her in his clutches, before. Without Sevothtarte around to force-feed Metatron his medication, it was only a matter of time before Sandalphon reared his ugly, red eyed head.
"And why is Metatron wounded like this?"
"It was Azreal."
"Azreal?" Zephyr let the unfamiliar name roll off her tongue, her purple brows furrowing in confusion.
"A former Seraphim. Branded Fallen long before you were born. It seems… she has aligned herself with Lucifer. She stabbed him with a piece of rebar."
"But why?"
"To kill Sandalphon. And as far as I'm concerned, they were right to do so."
"You can't mean that." Zephyr shook her head.
"I do mean that. Look at what Sandalphon did to you…! I can't… I can't let him live to hurt you, ever again."
"But Metatrons condition can be controlled. It always HAS been controlled….! He doesn't deserve to die." The blank look that still rested on Uriel's face filled Zephyr with a broken, helpless dismay. "This isn't like you."
"Sandalphon almost took you away from me." Uriel said darkly.
"So you'll condemn an innocent child to die?"
"Maybe that's the right thing to do. Isn't that what you would do if YOU were in my position?"
''Perhaps. But that doesn't make it right."
"Who taught you to make decisions with your heart, and not your head?" Uriel said slowly, angrily. This wasn't like her, at all…! What little he knew about her life before then screamed that she would have been on his side about this.
And that simple statement from Uriel's quivering lips broke Zephyr. Did he really think her so heartless? She swallowed a lump in her throat and gave him a shaky smile, one as feeble and lost as she suddenly felt. "You did, Senpai…"
Uriel opened his mouth, but found his words turning to dust. "Zeph…"
"Look, I know that I don't have much good in me… but what little I have was put there by you."
Dark, trembling hands reached for Zephyr's face and she couldn't breathe. Just like in her nightmare, he took her face in his hands. Her arms ached to hold him, but all she could do was clutch Metatron tighter. She silently begged Uriel to kiss her like he did in her vision, that was all she wanted… all she ever wanted. He seemed to feel the same way as he leaned closer, slowly, as though waiting for her to resist and deny him.
But how could she…?
Her eyes closed and she felt his breath on her lips.
"Uriel, you giant fuck, where the Hell are you?!"
Uriel's fingers gripped Zephyr's loose hair with shaking frustration. He pulled her close enough to rest his forehead against hers. "Zephyrel… You need to go. Take the child and go."
"Find me." Zephyr said with a soft breath.
"Always." With his large hands still cupping Zephyr's skull, he tilted her face up to meet a short, brutally passionate kiss. The kiss was not something he ever wanted to rush, but in that moment, he had to steal it. Every time they parted, he was always so afraid he'd never see her again. That she would disappear, and that fear and desperation suddenly multiplied exponentially.
Left breathless by the weight of his kiss, Zephyr stumbled against him.
"Go." He murmured against her lips. "Go…! Before Michael comes and finishes what Azreal started."
She nodded, eyes pinched shut with the pain in her chest. She couldn't look at him again… she clutched the dying Metatron against her body and ran.
Doll let out a frustrated sigh when a stack of Uriel's beloved books fell from her shaking hands and hit the floor. She was so clumsy lately, the slip up didn't surprise her. All her movements felt so sluggish and strained… Uriel hadn't been back to wind up her spring in so long.
She knew she had to have faith in her master. Uriel wouldn't let her spring run dead and her soul disappear…. right?
The fallen books seemed way too heavy in her arms when she scooped them back up.
"Doll?"
Her shaking arms dropped the books all over again, and the dull thuds mixed with her squeal of surprise. "L-Lord Uriel! You're back!" Suddenly smiling so broadly, her cheeks hurt, Doll stepped over fallen books and hopped up and down on her heels. "Im so happy you're home! I'll make some tea and bring out some fresh flowers-"
"Doll. I'm not staying." Uriel said dully. "I'm afraid our battle in Heaven is far from over… I only returned to retrieve something we'll need." He slightly lifted the parcel he had tucked beneath his arm.
"Oh, so you aren't… staying." Doll tried to ignore the enormous weight of disappointment that settled in her sluggish body. "Is everything alright?"
Uriel's eyes seemed distant, almost glazed, when he set his parcel down on a table with a dull clink. "Doll, I found Zephyrel."
"Really?!" Despite all of her sluggishness, Doll's eyes lit up and a smile spread over her face. She knew exactly how important that girl was to Uriel. When Uriel still wore Persona, she would watch him sit at his desk with a letter opener, using the tip to carve her name a hundred times into the desk's wood surface. He would stay at it for hours and hours… Even with Persona still affecting him so, he hadn't forgotten that girl. And whenever she would ask, Persona wouldn't let him answer. Because the answer was painful… and Persona wouldn't allow Uriel to feel such things.
Only when Persona was finally shattered by the savior, did Doll finally pluck up the courage to mention the name that Uriel had carved into the surface of his beloved desk. 'She is my missing piece,' Uriel had told her, along with the entire story of how Zephyrel had come into existence.
"I bet she has become the sweetest little girl. Are you going to be bringing her home?" Doll asked quickly, excitedly, and a subtle dismay filled her when Uriel's soft smile turned dark and sad.
"No, Doll. I'm not."
"But why?"
"She's not a little girl, anymore. I was wrong about how long I had been wearing Persona… Decades have passed. Centuries, even. She is a grown woman, now."
"I don't understand why thats a problem." Doll murmured. "You told me that she's your missing piece. That if she were here, maybe you could feel whole again. You didn't say it then, but I… I really feel like you truly love this girl, this woman. So why?"
"Doll, I once heard a story about a boy and a fish." Uriel said, his lips curling into a miserable smile. "This boy loved his pet fish more than anything else in the world. And one day, he took his fish out of the tank, just he could hold it. He didn't know that the fish would die, and it did, right in his hands."
"... I don't get it."
"I feel like that little boy, Doll. I love her, yes. But I haven't the faintest idea on how to handle that love… or her." Uriel scooped his parcel back up and turned away from Doll with a flourish of his long cloak. "So it's best to just leave her in her tank."
Doll bit her lip as she watched Uriel leave without saying goodbye. Her hands clasped tightly in front of her, and she sent a prayer to whatever god might have been listening. A prayer for the true and total happiness of her Master…
Metratron was going to live.
Every time those words drifted across Zephyr's mind, she breathed a little sigh of relief. Perhaps out of all the things she had ever done in her life, she could at least add a single good deed to her list.
After she returned to the Anima Mundi's floating home base, the first thing she did was take a shower and tend to her wounds. Then, she sat on her cot in her small cabin, wrapped in nothing but a towel and a thoughtful frown.
When someone knocked on her door, she realized she had been sitting for so long, her hair had dried on it's own. "Yes?"
"Zeph? Uriel has returned and wants to see you."
"... Oh! Um…!"
"He's in the cabin across the hall. He says he'll wait."
"Thank you." Zephyr squeaked out and hurled herself to her closet. Inside was nothing but a few starchy white uniforms she had to wear while working for Sevothtarte, and a few grungy grey tank tops and pants. She sighed. Clothing was never something she really invested much time or money into. It was a little quirk of hers that Zaphikel had always liked to comment on.
When his name suddenly drifted across her mind, her heart leapt into her throat. No, she couldn't… could she? She bit her lip and reached up to the top shelf of her closet, pulling down a large white box. Taped to the top was a note in Zaphikel's handwriting…
'Every woman deserves to feel beautiful. - Zaphikel'
Probably his idea of a joke, which was why Zephyr had never even bothered opening the thing. She did so, then, and what she found inside nearly took her breath away.
As she had suspected back when she had first received the package, a dress was inside. A black dress. No doubt a mockery of the white she had always been forced to wear. She sent a silent thank to you to dead friend.
When Zephyr slipped into the dress, she felt like a whole new woman. Like a piece of beautifully sewn black fabric could have been the key to a new life. The black dress was long-sleeved, covering her arms to the wrist with soft black lace, decorated with tiny black crystals. The same pattern covered the entire dress, covering the ankle length black silk dress with a layer of see-through lace and crystal. It hugged her breasts and waist and loosened around her hips, flowing long enough to tickle her bare toes. The dress shrugged off of her shoulders, leaving them completely bare. The sensation of her own loose hair sweeping over her neck and shoulders was an odd… wonderful feeling.
With fascination, she let her own hands wander down her sides and over her hips, studying the way her own body curved and flowed with the dress. This had to have been what Zaphikel meant when he talked about how a woman should feel beautiful… and not just look beautiful. She found herself smiling slightly.
"Thanks, Zaphikel…" She spoke to his handwritten note, before stowing the box away again in her closet.
She didn't have any shoes to match the dress, so when she crossed the hallway, she did so barefoot. She smoothed a hand over her thigh one last time, to make sure her dagger was concealed against it. She suddenly smiled when she realized she would take time to strap a dagger to her thigh, but couldn't be bothered putting on underwear.
She felt more naked without a weapon, anyway.
Gentle knuckles rapped on the door to Uriel's cabin. "... Uriel?"
"It's open."
Zephyr opened the door, stepped in, and closed it again by leaning her back against it. She watched Uriel stand to his impressive six foot six, rising off his cot with a naked look of awe and fascination on his face. "Zephyrel… you look…"
"You mean this…?" Zephyr said, gently pinching the lace of her skirts. "It's just something I had laying around." She swallowed hard and stepped closer to him, suddenly tingling when she remembered the quick, desperate kiss they had shared such a short time ago. "You found me…"
"I told you I would." Uriel said quietly, reaching out to gently take her wrist in his hand. "This dress…"
"Zaphikel gave it to me."
That naked look of awe suddenly melted right off of Uriel's face. What took it's place was something careful, restrained, even slightly angry.
"Uriel?"
"I wanted to speak to you."
"I know. About what?"
"The others and I are leaving on one final mission… We're going to Etenamenki." Uriel said slowly, cautiously.
"Okay." Zephyr said with a thoughtful frown and a nod. "I'll go get changed."
Uriel's brain scrambled, and he reached out to grab her elbow when she turned away. "Wait… no. You're not coming."
"Oh, yes I am."
"No. You're not." Uriel's tone hardened into something final, and savage. "I won't let you."
She only smiled at him, like one would smile at a silly child. "You're not leaving me behind. Not this time, not anymore."
"It's dangerous."
"So?"
"Zephyr." He took her by the shoulders and forced her to look into his very serious eyes. "... I don't expect us to come back."
"All the more reason for me to come, too."
"Damn it, Zephyr." Uriel's frustrated grip tightened on her shoulders.
Zephyr only smiled crookedly when his hands moved to cup her skull, his fingertips digging into her scalp. Goosebumps rose over every inch of her skin. "My place is by your side. It always has been."
Uriel wanted to rip her apart. To beat some sense into her… He was saying they were most likely going to their deaths and this was her only response? He wanted to protect her, he wanted her to live. "You stupid, stubborn woman…!" He said, his voice bordering on a savage growl.
He pulled her closer, and the fabric of her black dress was suddenly pressed tight against the black cotton of his shirt. Her fingers gripped his waist.
"You masochistic moron…!" She hissed right back, her breath on his lips.
A very specific intention crossed Uriel's mind when he smashed his mouth to hers. But that intention dissolved the second she kissed him back. The second her arms clenched tight around his chest. The moan that came from his own vocal collar mixed with her very real one. His strong hands pulled her so close and turned them both. His feet carried them forward, searching for a surface. Any surface. Anything…
When Zephyr bumped into his desk in the corner, he arched his back and lifted her right off her feet, roughly letting her drop back onto the wooden top. They kissed each other again and again, softly speaking in rough moans and grunts, a language only the two of them understood.
Why did he kiss her? What was he planning on, the second before his mouth met hers? Why couldn't he remember?
Uriel swept papers and a lamp off the desk with a single wide sweep of his hand. The lamp hit the floor and the room flashed with the popping of the bulb. He knew there was something shameful in the way he pushed her down onto the desk, and the way he climbed on top of her like a rutting animal.
He gave himself a few moments of indifference to that guilt. Because how could something that felt so good be wrong?
Zephyr's legs clenched at his waist. Her dress pooled at her thighs. One of Uriel's hands gripped the turf of her hair as he kissed her, devoured her. His other hand dared to touch the smoothness of her calf, her knee… her thigh. On that thigh, he found the scratchy canvas casing of a knife strapped there. That wouldn't do…
His hand moved to the inside of her thigh, to rip apart the velcro that held the weapon there. His fingers brushed the uppermost part of her leg, that sweet junction that was so, so forbidden to his kind. Her cry suddenly rose so dramatically, he couldn't keep kissing her. No matter. There were plenty of other places to kiss. So he started on her neck as he tossed her knife to the other side of the cabin.
He touched her again in that spot that made her quiver and cry, and never once did he wonder why she wasn't wearing underwear.
"Senpai….!" She cried out breathlessly.
That single word made him groan. "Say that again."
"Senpai!"
All Uriel wanted to do was break every rule he had ever lived by. Who was God, anyway? How dare he make something as beautiful as this moment forbidden? He groaned again with the injustice of it all. Because as much as he wanted to consummate every feeling he had ever harbored for Zephyrel, he couldn't… something else was far more important. So his hand left that spot between her thighs and travelled slowly back up her body. Perhaps more slowly than what was necessary… but he wanted to savor what little time he had left with her. He kissed her so hard, he couldn't tell where he ended and she began.
His eyes pinched shut with a growing pain in his chest, as his hands clenched tight around her wrists and forced them high above her head. She froze when he did what he had been planning to do from the moment he kissed her, and he frowned.
"What are you doing?" Zephyr asked, her voice quivering as she tugged on the vines that were binding her wrists together and to the pipe on the wall.
"I'm sorry…" Uriel said, his voice scratchy with restrained pain and need. "But I can't let you follow me."
"Then don't go." Zephyr pleaded with him, and her legs tightened around his waist in such a way that made him never want to leave. "Stay with me."
"I can't." He kissed her again, even though everything inside of him screamed that he shouldn't. He touched her bare leg, again, if only to coax it away from his waist. "This is how I'm going to protect you."
"Protect me? How?"
His mouth was on hers again and his weight was once again settling over hers. He just couldn't pull himself away…! "I once heard a story about a boy and a fish…" He panted against her lips.
"I'm not a fucking fish, Uriel." Zephyr panted right back, between more kisses.
Uriel laughed miserably. "I know… But I'm that little boy."
"Don't do this to me, again." Zephyr pleaded with him when he finally managed to tear himself away. She sat up when he pulled her dress back down, twisting at an awkward angle, thanks to her bound wrists. "Please… You can't…! Not this time."
"I have to, Zephyr. I can't see you get hurt. I won't see you get hurt."
"So you'll leave me alone, again?"
"You've managed so long now without me…."
"No, I haven't!" Zephyr suddenly cried, her mouth twisting into a grimace, a sad attempt to keep herself from sobbing. "Don't you get it? I'm dead without you! I've always been dead without you…! Do not leave me again!"
"Zeph…"
"Damn it, Uriel, don't."
"I'm sorry." Uriel blinked tears out of his eyes when he turned away from her and headed towards the door. He fully expected to never see her again. Only three words from her gave him pause.
"I love you."
The clenching in his very soul made him brace a hand on his doorway. "... I know." He muttered. "That's the greatest tragedy of all."
He didn't dare look back before he closed his door behind him.
To be concluded…
A/N: Surprise, bitch. Bet you thought you'd seen the last of me.