A/N:
For my love, ToktelasAndTea, the painting is now officially on canvas and hanging proudly in my little black room. For my readers, thanks for waiting while I sift through the many voices in my head telling me where I should go with this story. I don't quite understand what you lot liked about my writing style but thank you, they are macabre to say the least and not easy to digest (unless you secretly lived a life where torture is your hobby, I completely understand you). Your compliments and follows are very much appreciated. Putting the pieces together wasn't easy mainly because I just don't have the time nor the patience to sit still these days. I have so much on my plate and escaping into my own little world is barred to me until my schedule dies down. Let me reply to some reviews here. My inbox is somehow not cooperating with me.
Allie: No, they will be in there, but on different sides of the war.
Windying: I understand completely.
RENAImochi: Thank you little one. Much love.
Nekocandy4life: Yes it does hurt. Very.
NothingLastsFor3v3r: Thank you. Updated.
Mr (?) Awesome: Reading hundreds of books (not kidding, really) helps.
NanaliJoci: In this chapter, I grant you your wish.
ToktelasAndTea: You're too kind my love. I would reply in length but I fear others would realise the extent of our virtual love. *grins*
Chapter 10: Reunion in Death.
Little One, I beckon thou… Open your mind to me… I have been waiting for so long…
He was here again. A voice that felt like… home… It was filled with truth and promises. It was calling to her… so familiarly… She wanted to ask who it was, she had an inkling, but somehow, whenever she tried, a block put a cork in her memories, effectively creating a stoppage. She somehow knew, the voice was a being she was unworthy of in her mortal state. She felt unclean in her human form. Among all the voices that had visited her through the years, this was the voice she had always longed to hear the most. The purest and sincerest of all the voices, void of lies and filled with a suppressed love. For her…
A gust of wind blew the shutters of her windows wide open and it hit the walls with a slight soft thud. The silver of the moon streamed unbidden into her chambers through the yawning gap in the wall. Like a marionette being strung along by its puppeteer, she rose from her bed, eyes half lidded and floated towards the opened windows. A million hands gently pushed her along until she found herself being carefully placed on a standing position on the sill. Wide awake now, she surveyed the moon lit backdrop presented to her and with a slight smile on her face; she placed one foot in front of her and felt herself free falling into space from the fifteenth floor of her apartment.
She stretched her arms towards the silver moon and flashbacks assailed her like fragmented memories patched together from a previous life. It was the same moon, only crimson in color, a golden ring around it, as though forever eclipsing the sun. The blood moon floated gloriously behind a magnificent castle, with golden turrets and white marble walls. In her mind's eye, she saw two large rivers forking around the castle from the red mountains behind it, forming a dyke so deep and filled with molten fire coursing rapidly and viciously towards an underground pool of inferno just underneath the granite bridge pathway. The pathway itself was painstakingly carved with runes of roses and thorns, odd symbols and imageries of the tortured damned. This bridge led the way through a magnificent golden gate that opened up to her as though saying to her this is the entrance to the castle.
This is the entrance to home…
"I want to go home…" she whispered, her voice sorrow filled and thick with unshed tears as she closed her eyes against the moon bearing witness to her free fall.
Only she did not plummet to her death. As though she had suddenly burst wings, she pointed her toe gently to the ground and placed her right foot neatly on the flat surface of the pavement, followed by her left foot. The little girl who saw her thought her an angel who had fallen from heaven and timidly left the safety of her apartment's threshold on the ground floor to take a closer look at the beautiful woman who fell from the sky. The little girl would remember the woman until the hour she died because she was so breathtakingly beautiful. Her eyes were closed, her face tilted to the moon and her palms opened to her sides as though waiting for a lover to hold out his hands to her. Long, wavy black hair, made messy by the fall, curled down her spine, stray strands framing her pale face. An invisible breeze left her flowing white sleeping gown billowing slightly around her ankles.
"Nee-chan?" the little girl asked in an awestruck voice, mesmerized by the beauty in front of her.
She would remember those eyes. Her sticky hand tugged on the woman's white gown, disrupting the fallen angel's train of thoughts. Those midnight black eyes, with crimson pools swirling in its depth slowly opened to her at the sound of her sweet innocent voice. Held frozen by the sight, her scream was cut off quickly with a slash of sharp talons across her small throat. Gurgling in her own blood, effectively drowning her, the little girl's pain was short-lived. A smile graced the woman's lips as she revealed lengthening incisors. She picked up the lifeless body of the child, cradling it to her bosom preciously. With a slight bend of her knees, she pushed upwards and was propelled back to her apartment on the fifteenth floor. The little girl was one of many who had died to feed her incessant gnawing hunger.
Yes… Feed my little one. Your powers need the blood to awaken itself. It won't be long now my child. A few more weeks before you turned your eighteenth moon and we will be reunited… Our family would be together once more…
She had let Him in. It had begun three years ago, just as she had turned fifteen. That was the first time she had heard him speak to her. She remembered the night so vividly. Her mind was in its usual cacophony of voices, and she had sat quietly, enjoying their bizarre conversations and participating in some when they talked to her. When the clock chimed midnight the voices took their leaves one by one, bidding her adieu, wishing her a blessed fifteenth birthday in different languages which, oddly, she somehow knew. The silence perplexed her because they never left her mind alone. Never. It was then an insidious shadow seeped and pooled into her mind and a short-lived fear after, she realized that the other voices had not left; in fact, they were actually still there but were kept silent because this being was present. She knew then that she was in the presence of the strongest of them all.
When He spoke to her that first night, cozy warmth flooded her. Her fingertips tingled and she remembered seeing a light blue fire engulfing her hands. She knew then that something colossal was at foot. She knew then, as though she had known for a very long time, that she was different, that she wasn't exactly human. Slowly but surely He had broken the walls that barred her powers and awakened a hunger that could not be satisfied by mere human food. As the days changed, she knew the hungrier she was, the stronger she was becoming. She knew she had an insurmountable amount of suppressed magick – the voice had told her enough times.
Tonight was different. Tonight was special. She could feel her powers finally blossoming. There were only three rituals left. This child she had scooped was not accidental chance. She knew the being behind the voice in her mind had drawn the virgin child to her, calling to her, waking her up from a sleeping state. Smiling at the thought of the near completion of her metamorphosis, she shed her nightgown and left it to pool at her feet, the cool air leaving goose bumps on her smooth translucent naked skin. Stepping away from the garments, she dipped her bloodied hands into the child's gaping throat and smeared red trails on the floor, forming a circle and an inverted pentagram.
"Tet, Rag, Ram, Mat, On… I call upon thee the powers of the protective circle… Accept my sacrifice of blood and purity… I invoke thee the Powers That Be… Allow me into your embrace…"
She stood in the middle of the inverted pentagram as it glowed blue with cold fire and whispered incantations in a language completely foreign to her native Japanese. She traced symbols in the air with her eyes closed as her lips kept moving. When she had completed the protective circle's spider web, she picked up the child and held her sideways; allowing the sweet crimson liquid to pour into a golden goblet embedded with red rubies and a talon-like handle. When she had drawn enough blood to fill the goblet to its brim, she held the cup above her, slowly tilting it towards her face. The still warm viscous liquid felt alive as though the child's soul was protesting against the arcane blasphemy as it flowed downwards in lovely thick ribbons.
All the while she chanted and sang to the voice in her head, calling Him to her.
"Accept this sacrifice O Father in Infernos. Accept this tribute of life. Accept this elixir that feeds our hunger. In the name of Lucifer, the Morning Star, I beseech you. Demones in infernus, ut arcum me, demones in infernus, audite me, demones in infernus, ego levo vos. Lucern Ferre, Patris, invoco opes!"
She could feel the fissures in her memories cracking. The powers flowed through her veins and the blue fire raged, circling around her forming a wind tunnel that mirrored the movements of a tornado. Images of a man, not much older than her, a brother perhaps, flashed through her mind. Black jet hair tied into a ponytail, reaching down to his hips, amber gold eyes that slanted at her in mischievous cruelty and a slash of pale red that revealed pearly white teeth punctuated by a pair of sharpened incisors, smiled at her. A name nagged in her mind and forcing her strength of will through the fissures, she was barely able to reach for it and grabbed it.
Masamune…
"Nii-chan…" She whispered, "Nii-chan, come to me,"
"RAIU?! NOOOOO! NOT AGAIN! NOT AGAAAAINNN! WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?!"
Masamune was startled from a deep sleep. He sat up in bed so abruptly that it took him awhile to stop his head from spinning. He closed his eyes and listened hard. Someone had called him. His eyes travelled the darkness, saw nothing and heard nothing. He swore he had heard a voice. He knew it was someone very familiar and dear to him, someone he had spent millennia with. A small tremor tickled his spine, leaving him tingling head to toe. His eyes widened at something unseen to the naked eye. He jumped out of bed and left the confines of his sleeping chambers quickly, slamming the doors opened. The loud echo of the slam magnified the silence that greeted him right after, a reminder to him that the house had been empty for months now saved his solitary existence. He smiled at the memory of his 'dearly departed parents' as he trudged hurriedly down the stairs towards the kitchen.
Rummaging the kitchen drawers he finally found it, a simple kitchen knife sharp enough to slice through the epidermis of the skin. He had walked through this 'ritual' in his head, memorizing the items he would need and the symbols he would need to carve. He found out months ago that he could not channel his powers without the aid of his father. He had voiced his frustrations time and time again when the seizures overtook his hold on reality every time he attempted to take control of his own powers.
"Why can't I do it, Papa?" Masamune growled between clenched teeth as he pressed his head between his hands. The head splitting pain created havoc with his nerves and more than once tears of blood had left twin traces on his cheeks.
"You are not complete Masamune. Your mortal form cannot sustain your tremendous powers. Do not beat yourself up, you are doing amazingly well," Lucifer whispered, sending warmth and support through their mental connection. This was the way Masamune had coped, the way it had always been for a good few months.
Lucifer had been breaking the barriers to Masamune's locked memories and significantly large remnants of it had already resurfaced albeit fractured; like watching static on bad TV. He had troubles unlocking his daughter's memories however because Raiu's powers were those 'absorbed' from the High Priestesses before her. She bore in her core the purest demon blood; fed and forged in the sacrifice of the whitest light of innocent souls; boiled black by the terror inculcated in their brutal deaths. Her powers were dependant on the innocence and purity of sacrificial virgins' life sources, unmarred by the ugliness and malignance of the world whereas Masamune's was easier. Acts of violence triggered his thirst for blood and he only needed to mutilate, drink and bathed in the orgasmic erotic ecstasy of his victims' life sources to feed his growing powers.
Walking quickly through his house, knife in hand, Masamune threw open the door to the basement, slamming it shut behind him, engulfing him in total darkness. There was urgency in his steps as he half walked, half hopped hastily down into the dark basement. His eyes dilated into midnight opaque orbs, enabling him to see and maneuver his way in the obscurity. His incisors lengthened significantly; his demon form barely revealed. Taking his shirt off, leaving only his pants on, Masamune stood in the center of the darkness and inhaled.
"Ignis vigilaveris," he breathed into the nothingness before him and immediately, just as the incantation left his lips, bright blue fire leapt to life in all corners of the basement room. He stood in the middle of an inverted pentagram in the middle of a protective circle, carved shallowly but evenly into the cement floor, forming a two-inch dipped canal in the ground. The twin points symbolizing the horns of the goat faced outwards in front of him, their end-points meeting the wall adjacent to the floor, where a mirrored pentagram – carved as deep as the one on the floor – continued the flow of the infinite circle.
Masamune smiled as his eyes greedily observed the unconscious naked form of the crucified girl nailed to the wall of the mirrored pentagram. The girl was blessed with the right ample curves that when stripped naked, their bounciness would turn a hormonal teenage boy the most lustful creature on earth. Her dark brown hair, plump red lips and big brown eyes; her slim long legs and smooth skin were the very fantasies most teenage boys would love to open up and feast upon. Most. Masamune thought disgustedly. He had his heart and his eyes set on another brunette, with intellectually deep emerald eyes… and most certainly not the female kind.
Ah… this girl confessed to me a few weeks ago. Too bad, she is quite pretty but such a waste of brains and beauty. I have no feelings for this pesky mortal unfortunately. She should have left it alone when I rejected her. Instead she came crawling to my home, stripping naked in front of me and begging me to take her virginity. All in the name of love. How… disgusting… Masamune mused to himself darkly.
"Of course, you being a virgin was the perfect fit into my unstable shift in powers," Masamune spoke to himself, addressing the unconscious girl in retrospect.
Stepping forward, Masamune slapped the girl awake. She had been nailed to his wall for a good three days now and he had been bleeding her slowly but surely. He was mildly surprised that her will to live was resiliently strong despite having degraded herself in his eyes. Big, brown eyes looked at him pleadingly for release, in fear of the demon she had inadvertently sacrificed herself to. Masamune smiled, revealing his incisors, and was awarded a terror-filled scream which was silenced halfway as he plunged the knife into her adrenaline-induced heart. The panic-stricken pumps of her heart caused by her fear effectively released geysers of crimson blood into his face and ultimately filling the carved grooves on the floor.
Quickly, knowing time was of the essence, Masamune carved the symbols into the air, repeating incantations he had learned from his father. He closed his human eyes as his inner eyes opened. The demon eyes that could travel between dimensions through time and space searched desperately for the voice that had called him, all the while the ancient incantations never leaving his lips. He could feel the pentagram was ablaze with blue fire, its cold heat searing his human skin, blistering him the same time it was building into a screaming stormy vortex.
"Accept this sacrifice O Father in Infernos. Accept this tribute of life. Accept this elixir that feeds our hunger. In the name of Lucifer, the Morning Star, I beseech you. Demones in infernus, ut arcum me, demones in infernus, audite me, demones in infernus, ego levo vos. Lucern Ferre, Patris, invoco opes!"
He heard her then. His eyes snapped opened as he reached for her through time and space and entered her dimension through the blood bridge he had build from his protective circle. Already his skin was healing from the blisters of the fire that do not belong in this world. The portal opened into an unfamiliar bedroom. He stepped into the threshold of another protective circle, into an identical vortex created by a woman who had an uncanny female resemblance to him. Her eyes were closed but as she whispered the call to a sibling she had never met in this lifetime, her eyes slowly opened to reveal similar midnight opaque orbs and she stared for a brief moment at the being standing in front of her, called to her as she was just about to reach her breaking point.
"RAIU?! NOOOOO! NOT AGAIN! NOT AGAAAAINNN! WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?!"
The door of her bedroom slammed open and by the doorway, her human parents stood in horror. In their eyes, a man; no, a boy on the verge of becoming a man in his own right, was standing side by side their daughter. The eerie resemblance between the two was supernatural. A portal-like hole ringed by cold blue fire had carved itself into the wall of their daughter's bedroom. The fire leapt from the boy to their daughter intermittently, as though it was alive, and they watched in fear as the blue fire began to crystallize around its edges the same time their daughter had laced her right fingers into the boy's left hand. The vortex grew stronger, the fire crystallizing more as it swirled faster around the unearthly beings standing in the center of the vortex.
"W-What are you?! You're not human! Y-Y-You're the devil's spawns, you are?! THE DEVIL'S SPAWNS?! I should've known it! I should've killed you when you murdered that girl three years ago?!" Nagasaki Shirou screamed at the top of his lungs. His wife screamed alongside him. Their eyes were filled with horror.
"Ah… Yes, you should've," Raiu whispered, "Igne abeunt in cultris interficite et inflammabit,"
The vortex came to a sudden halt; the crystallized fire sparkled like diamonds and strangely resembled medieval throwing knives, crude but deadly; and in a slow matrix shift, the diamond knives turned to point themselves at the intruders by the door, Raiu's human parents. Petrified and unable to move, in a sickeningly choking speed, the knives launched themselves forward, stabbing the Nagasaki's multiple times. As the knives embed themselves into their flesh, they disintegrated into flames and consumed the bodies of both humans, burning every last trace of evidence that they were ever there in the first place.
"Nii-chan…"
"Imouto-chan…"
They had barely acknowledged each other before Father Time's curse had finally broken through Lucifer's imperial barricades. Darkness consumed them as they collapsed onto the floor; their powers had reached their breaking points, their mortal forms unable to contain their blasphemous existence.
And Lucifer… Lucifer staggered backwards with tears of blood marking their pathways down his cheeks – Beelzebub and Asmodeus immediately broke chains and were there to catch him – as the other Ministers Belial, Leviathan, Astaroth and Behemoth concentrated and pooled their collective powers to aid their commander's final task; casting the ceremonial robes, made with Lucifer's shorn wings, into the alternate portal. Lucifer forced himself to watch, on one bended knee, breathing heavily through the pain – as the portal closed on itself – he watched the ceremonial robes take the form of two black ravens with ruby red eyes nodding regally at him and he watched as they stood guard by his children's sleeping forms.
The agony-filled pain that had cut through him as punishment for barricading Father Time's deadly curse was not enough to suppress his exultation.
His children were now together.
Laughter, manic and euphoric, rang through Pandaemonium…