March of the God

March of the God

Chapter 11: Rubberband

I really wish I would have updated more over the summer. TT-TT Sorry, guys.

Disclaimer: I don't own Konjiki no Gash Bell or anything I may mention. However, I do own my OCs.

Warning: I drop the f-bomb. Or rather, Sawao does. Still, it's just me typing.

In addition, this chapter, I think, goes a little beyond teen. It's nothing so gruesome as the whole story should be changed to M, just a little blood and something that looks like (or is) mental illness. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.

If you think this seriously needs a ratings change, please tell me and I will seriously consider it. Thankyouverymuch.

I sat there, my back against the wall, gaping at the girl who called herself Proteus. Teo pulled at my arm in some weak, confused effort to get me on my feet, however, I had exhausted the heart energy that was necessary to stand. Not to mention the splinters of wood and shards of glass in my back were really beginning to become irritated and it hurt like hell itself. "Sawa… Sawao, a-are you okay?!" the boy muttered as he tugged on my limp appendage. I didn't reply.

"Answer me!" Proteus demanded, her eyes narrowing. "Is this girl Naoko Takamine?!"

I nodded to the girl with the knife. "Yeah, that's my sister. You know her?"

Teo, however, was far more enthusiastic about the prospect of saving a girl he'd never met. He made a tiny advance on Proteus. "Where is Naoko?!" Teo asked. "Sawao and Demi want her back… and… and… Rue! If… I-If I can't save Rue now… we'll fight you again and save her then! Where's the guy you're working for...?! Where's Babylon Angel at?!"

Damned stupid kid! I mentally cursed. This was exactly why I'd been lying about being able to read Teo's book. I didn't want to get dragged into all of it, I didn't want to be hurt. …since I accepted the book, I'd been hurt and now it looked like I'd have to go on to do something bigger. Great.

We'd been utterly defeated, crushed by two girls, the older of whom I was sure was younger than me. The other one was about five years old and had pink hair she kept in two little ponytails— you do the math. I didn't want to fight, we didn't even deserve to. I knew I was a wimp, but my state was worse than I imagined.

Proteus gritted her teeth and I could swear I saw her hand clench on her pink book tightly as if she were involved in some great mental conflict for a while. Behind her, Rue sat up and slowly tottered to her feet.

This was bad… Her demon was on her feet. Proteus herself could stand, and she had a knife. All we had going for us is that Teo was standing up.

God, we were pathetic.

My streak of defiance in the face of doom surfaced again. "Spit it out or you'll be late for tea time," I demanded, attempting to summon strength into my voice. Not much, if any, of it came. Seeming masculine was definitely a lost cause by now.

Making a good show had always been my strong point. Always, I had been able to smile to the faces of people I hated, act cool, confident and street-smart in front of my peers when really I would like to just go home. Even that had failed me, I was at the end of it. And my so-called 'talent' got me trouble.

Just as the words had left my mouth, the picture of my sister clattered to the floor and my eyes widened as Proteus's knife inflicted a shallow but incredibly painful wound as the metal blade made a quick swipe across my chest. I let out an incomprehensible cry of muddled up swear words.

I gathered enough power to lift my hand to my chest and put a little pressure on the wounded area with my fingers, palm and even forearm as if it would close up and stop bleeding if I placed my hand there. I had no such luck, the open wound still bled and still hurt like hell.

Proteus gave another of her seemingly forced smirks. She said, "Taman Zlatan. It's an old town in Siberia that was set up by company of Croatian oil prospectors. It's mostly kept afloat as a stop for bush pilots— which you'll need to get there— and because of small tourist traffic to see the cave system in the north in mid-summer. Not so far down a road— if you want to call it a road— to the west is a petrified tree by a shallow gulch that runs for about a mile. Poke around down there, not too far from the tree, and you'll find and entry to a small cave. We'll be there."

She flicked her knife back into the handle, did an about-face and started walking towards the door, Rue in tow. "Let's see if you can 'save' the other seventy-nine humans and the other seventy-eight demons, shall we?"

As she reached the door, Proteus turned her head and shoulders slightly, looked at me and said, "For future reference, I skip tea."

Well, usually I skipped tea. Occasionally, when lunch hadn't been to my liking and I knew dinner wouldn't be, either, I'd have a frappuccino and a granola bar or something of the type. (Nothing that would easily come up if I shoved my finger down my throat.) Of course I didn't tell him that.

I rushed out onto the street, looking about. I quite honestly expected the police force to come screeching around the corner to take me in the next moment.

Of course they didn't. As I walked down the street, literally lugging my poor partner by her wrist, I repeatedly mentally scolded myself. "Stupid Aston. Stupid! Aston Martin, you're as dumb as your name."

I'd deliberately defeated the purpose of the whole mission. Deliberately ruined it. I'd ruined it, in a moment of emotion, confusion and anger, by railing off what I'd read on a sign post outside the town's oldest store. (I was also considering railing off any mildly offensive name I could find for the Japanese, but I chose to use the knife.) And then I went on to give details about where our base was— and the whole reason I'd even broken into the house was to make sure the Prince kept away. Now he'd have a shot at walking right in, to a waiting army of demons manipulated to be merciless, manipulated to be able to tear off his head without even a little moral qualm.

It wasn't the flimsy attempt at harassing me on my English heritage that got me going. That just snapped me out of my thought abruptly enough to squeeze a quick decision out. As for cutting him… I honestly didn't know what I was thinking in doing that: …trying to inspire fear? Or maybe I just wasn't thinking.

And it wasn't like I could go back and threaten to kill him if he dared come near. He was probably calling the police already. They could come at any second, I kept thinking.

Maybe, I thought, they wouldn't be able to find the cave. But on that godforsaken wasteland, a tree was a rare sight. Even the black spruce, which was common tundra arbor, wouldn't grow. They'd definitely find the opening. Quite honestly, my only hope was that the Japanese boy's parents wouldn't allow him to go out of the country on short notice for such far-fetched reasons.

Yes, I was sure that would be the case. No parent would allow their child to suddenly up and go to Siberia to go fight demons.

The pink-haired demon stumbled beside me, her short, tired legs unable to keep up with my brisk pace. Her knee hit the concrete, and to my surprise, she let out a little wimper.

"Do… do you need to rest?" I asked her, realizing that my chest was heaving and I was completely covered in a thin layer of sweat. I was breathing heavy— the fight had taken its toll on me, too. "Does your knee hurt?" I honestly didn't expect an answer.

"Ever… everything hu-hur-rts…" she stammered out. "B-but I… I…I'm ha…ppy."

"H-happy? Why? You're injured!" I exclaimed.

"I… I… I a-am, ye-es…" she said calmly, "Bu-but… I'm ha-ha-happy because… becau…se I… I'm Rue. I kn-know I'm Rue… n-now I…do."

During the fight, I had automatically assigned her the name the Prince had called her. Never had I felt a sense of revelation in knowing her name, it just wasn't the time. Despite this, I felt a smile coming over my face. "Yes. You're Rue." I would have ruffled her hair, but I was afraid I would hit a sore spot on her head.

She imitated the gesture in a tiny, stunted way, as if she wanted to smile broader, but simply couldn't. Her purple eyes, however, remained blank for the most part.

"Do you need some help?" I asked her. "I could carry you."

Rue looked up at me, her eyes still blank. I took this as a 'yes', and I knelt down, virtually grabbing her under her legs so I could lift her into a piggy-back position. With her small size and the pink book, which now seemed to be large and ungainly in my hand, it was a little difficult, but I managed by leaning the book against my leg while getting her into position. Once she was hoisted onto my back, I picked it up again before I stood. Rue was weightless to me, but moving my own body was beginning to wear on me.

The little girl gripped my sleeve and sunk a little lower onto my back as I began to walk, stumbling between signposts and telephone poles. Anything that could provide support was needed.

Although I had been going at a rather quick pace earlier, my mind hadn't been on my exhaustion— I hadn't even considered it. Now that I noticed the burning feeling in my throat and the weakness in my knees, it was impossible to speed up. Spell-casting was tiring, I decided. I'd need to be far more careful about when I used spells in the future.

I continued on for what felt like a long while until I came to the bus-stop Babylon Angel and I had parted at. The entrance into the city park wasn't far, then… He'd promised to meet me on a bench in the park, due to the fact that no one went there at nighttime.

Once I got into the little park, I slid the knife out of my pocket and opened it up as a precautionary measure. No one from within the surrounding blue shadow approached me, nor did I see any people along the sides of the pathway or under the trees, although I could see some motion from under a decorative footbridge maybe 100 meters away. I was sure, though, that my figure and the glint off my knife were easy to see, as I walked in the lit pathway.

"Aston!" Babylon Angel exclaimed upon seeing me, "What happened to your arm!?" He didn't ask about the huddled mass on my back that was Rue.

"Oh… I cut myself on accident," I said, looking at the drying red stain caused by the blood from the superficial wound I'd inflicted on myself. I put the blade back into the handle and stashed it in my pocket.

"That'll happen…" he muttered. "So, was the mission a success, corporal?" Babylon Angel asked brightly.

I nodded. "We won."

"I knew you would, Aston! Did you make it crystal clear to them that they should stay away?" he asked.

I then lied. "Yes."

"Good job!" he said, jumping towards me and giving me a squeeze. This aggravated the bruise I'd earned from being hit with the floor lamp, and I nearly dropped Rue as I recoiled. …I could only imagine what hitting the ground would feel like in her condition. I would have dropped her if she didn't cling to my blue vest, which she more than likely had gotten blood on. The blood that had diffused through the sleeve of my shirt sponged off on the white polo shirt he wore, but he didn't seem to notice.

"Oh! Sorry," Babylon Angel said.

"You're not really a man, are you?" I asked him, smiling.

"I so totally am!" he said, pouting. "It's just more fun to be like this!"

"You have a point," I said as I set Rue down on the park bench by the bag of things Babylon Angel had bought in Korea and two unconscious figures. "Babylon Angel?" I said his name.

"Huh?" He'd been staring off in the general direction of one of the elaborate, European-styled lamps that served to lighten the path.

"Who are they?" I asked, pointing to the two. One was a girl with fair skin and hair that must have been dyed, and the other was a small boy that, for a split second, I feared was a corpse by his deathly white skin tone. However, when I dared examine him closer, his little shoulders heaved ever so slightly from his breath, and his facial muscles relaxed, allowing his tiny mouth to open.

"Half-mamono. The other half is human. I picked them up because… well… they were interesting," he said, still smiling brightly. "Actually, it was kind of compulsive. I really must be a kleptomaniac, huh?" He laughed.

"I'd say so. You used the chloroform, didn't you?" I asked Babylon Angel, collapsing onto the last free space on the bench. This too caused my tiny wounds to send out shocks of pain, and I winced. "Ugh! …I'm okay," I said, leaning back onto the back of the bench. I had things to ask Babylon Angel, but I was tired. Honestly, I wanted to just lapse into sleep for the time being, nothing more.

He nodded. "Yup. Worked like a charm! …we really should get back…" Babylon Angel said. "Do you need a rest first…?" he asked.

"I can manage until we get back," I replied, getting to my feet, which was considerably harder than I figured it would be. "After all, I'm not the one flying at God-knows-how-many miles per hour. Hanging on isn't as difficult as you'd think it might be." Anything to get to a place where I could sleep.

"I'm glad I perfected the spell while I was in the Makai, then," he said, smiling. Babylon Angel walked out into the pathway that ran through the park, his bare feet making no noise against the red brick of the walk. He took a look at me and smiled a very odd smile before muttering, "Shi Biron."

Long, beautiful white wings seemed to form from the very light, starting at his shoulder blades and reaching upwards before tilting down at their joints where they rest, folded, on his back. He threw open his arms, stretching, and the white wings did the same— they straightened upwards, the tips going up almost into the branches of the taller trees.

A few feathers fell, glowing as they lazily drifted towards the ground. Before they reached their destination on the trodden walkway, the pure white feathers of light burst noiselessly and dissipated into nothingness.

Someone, presumably the figure under the bridge, yelled about Judgment Day.

I'd seen this spell a few times before, however it never ceased to amaze me. "Could you pick those two up and bring them over here?" Babylon Angel asked, breaking my trance. "I'll carry the older one… You hold onto your partner and the little one, okay?"

I did so easily, thanks to Babylon Angel's serum. I was a little sore, though, which was odd because I didn't overexert myself physically. Maybe my low level of heart energy was taxing my muscles? I set down the girl. She looked about my age, probably a little older, though. He picked her up around the waist, paying no heed to the way she slumped over his arm, as if she were a rag that had been thrown there.

I walked a short distance down the path and knelt down so Rue could grip me tightly around the waist. I held the other child in the same way Babylon Angel held the girl with the white-and-black hair.

"Ready," Babylon Angel said, spreading his wings, cautious of any nearby trees. "Set!" He adjusted his hold on the girl and moved his feet just a little. "Go!" He ran towards me at high speed and took off just meters before he reached me. I threw my free arm up.

Still low, the hand of his free arm clamped high on my own, and I did the same. I shut my eyes— I always hated this part. For a moment I felt as if I'd just been hit by a bullet train from behind, and to follow it up, was being sucked through a wormhole headfirst. However, the unpleasant sensation stopped, and I opened my eyes to see the earth far under me rolling away. We were airborne.

I was glad… so, very glad…. to leave Mochinoki City behind.

"Sawao? Sawao?! Are you okay?!" Teo repeated, shaking the boy's arm. "Sawao!"

"Yeah. I'm fine," he said. But he didn't get up. Instead, Sawao stuck his hand into his pocket, searching around for something in there. He pulled out a little white-and-green box and a purple object. Sawao opened the box and pulled out a long, thin white cylinder and placed it between his lips. After raising the purple thing to eye level, he tossed it aside. "Damn… always out when I really need it… Teo," he said, "if you go into the foyer, there's a chest of drawers… the one with the picture on it. In the bottom drawer on the left, there'll be a bunch of candles. In there, with all the candles, there will be one of those," he said, motioning at the discarded purple item, "only it's bright green."

Teo obeyed. After digging through a whole drawer of miscellaneous decorative candles, he came up with a transparent lime green cartridge with a clear liquid in it. He rushed back to the living room and handed it to Sawao, who flicked his thumb across the top of it, causing a tiny flame to spurt out. It was the liveliest thing in the room— Teo stood transfixed, and the older boy's motions were slow. The way the motion of Sawao's arm pulled ever so slightly on the skin of his injured back seemed to be paining him.

Teo blinked as Sawao touched the fire to the tip of the object between his lips before removing his finger from the green thing, extinguishing the little flame. He shoved it into his pants pocket and inhaled.

He shifted his position on the wall a little and brought his arm up, this time to remove the object and exhale foul-smelling smoke that made Teo cough. The red book still rested by Sawao's side.

"We lost, didn't we, Sawao?" Teo asked, sitting a few feet away from him on the carpet.

"Yeah," Sawao answered flatly. "We got our asses handed to us."

Teo, who really didn't think they lost that badly, was about to protest the use of the word 'ass', but he chose not to. It didn't matter what Sawao said. "Do you think we could get to Siberia?" Teo asked.

"Probably," Sawao answered in the same flat tone. "Mom's agent loves me. She'd get me first-class round-trip tickets to heaven, hell and Hawai'i on a private jet-liner if I asked."

"Do you think we could win?" Teo asked, posing his third question.

"No," Sawao's answer came, "No, we couldn't." He put the white object back to his lips and took another puff before blowing the smoke back out.

"That's what I thought," Teo said. "I have another question."

"Shoot," Sawao said.

"What are you doing right now?"

"I'm smoking a cigarette," he said. Still his voice was flat, none of the complacent, light humor and subtle wit that usually flavored his manner of speaking. "It's an amazingly effective way to kill yourself over the span of thirty years or so."

"…then why do you do it?" Teo asked him.

"Because it calms me down and helps me get back into the mindset of a sane person," said Sawao. "That and I'm addicted to nicotine."

"Oh… I see. Sawao, I have just one more question for you," Teo said. "It's the big one."

"Go on," Sawao said, still puffing on his cigarette in between phrases.

"Why did you lie about being my book-reader?"

Sawao didn't answer, and Teo didn't push the matter.

An hour passed in silence. Most of Teo's wounds, although they hadn't been too severe, had begun to heal already, and he had considered asking Sawao if he needed help with the little shards in his back, but he held almost a fear of breaking the silence.

Sawao had gone through several cigarettes, pulling them from the little box and lighting them almost methodically. He extinguished his butts on the bottom of his shoe, and then simply dropped them right there. Teo hated the smell, but he didn't protest.

He didn't care. The real Rue, he thought, was lost for sure inside that familiar shell. And he couldn't save her. He couldn't save her at all. He didn't have the right to care, he couldn't even save his own cousin.

But his throat felt dry, and soon he was yearning for water. He knew he could reach the sink if he used a kitchen chair, and that he could drink, forget princely etiquette, from the tap without a glass. Teo wobbled to his feet and walked off down the main hallway.

He walked through the foyer to the adjourning kitchen. No sooner was he in the doorway to the room of his destination than the main door to the house flew open, revealing the last person in the world Teo wanted to see. In the hour he and Sawao spent in silence, he'd come to the conclusion that he was going to have to face Mallory eventually, but he hoped that time would somehow stop before he ever did.

She wasn't in a good mood, either. "I smell blood," Mallory said, her nostrils flared and her eyes wide. She looked down at Teo only with her eyes as she closed the door with the hand that wasn't clenched onto what looked like a piece of scratched up, thick Plexiglas that had cracked and torn apart by something that had been forced through the entire sheet. Something like Mallory's scraped fist.

Teo took a step backwards into the kitchen, not needing to ask to know that her search had come up fruitless. The footsteps softened as they proceeded down the hallway, and Teo, who had forgotten about the water at this point, felt as if there was a wide enough berth between him and Mallory for him to trail along after her to see what she was doing.

He made a slow advance from the kitchen, but quickened his pace when he noticed that Mallory turned into the living room, where Sawao was.

Once Teo got to the door, he peeked in. Mallory turned and shot him a glance as if to signal she knew he was there, but paid the prince no more heed than that.

"You look like hell," Mallory said to the slumped figure that was Sawao.

"You think I don't know that?" came his response. He extinguished his cigarette and lit another one.

"What happened in here?" Mallory asked, looking around at the state of the room before finally eyeing the red book at his side.

"Some bitch with a spellbook came and busted it up," Sawao said. "Said why she did it, but I forgot after getting the crap kicked out of me."

"Why am I not surprised you're getting the living shit beaten out of you by women?" Mallory asked him before extending the piece of Plexiglas. "Look. This used to be part of the wall of a bus stop before I broke it off. I'm damn lucky it shattered right. Familiar?"

Sawao nodded. Mallory noted Teo again by tossing him the shard. He stared at it for a moment before realizing what had been etched into the piece— that mark that looked like a skewed heart. "Babylon Angel…" he mouthed noiselessly.

"I asked around, and the two were last seen by the owner of a convenience store a block or two up from there. No one saw them anywhere past that point. In addition, the place reeked of chloroform," Mallory said in a quick, terse tone, "which is an anesthetic. I'm thinking I know what happened."

That person, Teo thought, that 'Babylon Angel' had captured Li Xiao and Demi, too.

But Sawao didn't answer.

"Don't you care?!" Mallory asked.

Sawao sat in silence, looking down at his lap for a moment more before looking up and saying, "No. I don't."

Mal's… no, friendly terms between the two of us had suddenly become inapplicable… Mallory's eyes opened wider than they already were, if that was possible. Her blue irises, which seemed just a little smaller than usual, were surrounded by the whites— no part of them was hidden by her eyelids.

She was scary, but there was no way I was getting dragged into any more of this. There was no way I was going up against that Proteus chick or the evil overlord she worked for. No way in hell.

This wasn't the bravado I displayed in desperation. There was no way I could make a show covered in blood, hair still wet from otherwise dried perspiration an entire hour after all had been said and done. This was an honest concern that I had to voice. I knew Mallory, and there was no gently persuading her— it had to be done outright. I didn't know what the consequences might be, but, call me a spoiled, there was no way I was going through another beating like that.

"What?" she asked.

"I don't care. And I'm not in a position to!" I said, leaning forward from my place on the wall. I attempted to wobble to my feet. Much of my heart-energy had returned, but I was injured. I took a look back at the wall when I leaned on it for support. The part I had been resting on was covered in blood. My blood.

"What are you talking about? You apparently can read the book. It means you can fight!" she said.

"I can fight!? Bullshit. I can get my ass kicked, and that's about it! I tried fighting, and I have a back full of pieces of wood and glass! If you haven't noticed, I'm bleeding!" I exclaimed.

"You know something," Mallory stated. "I was going to suggest phoning that symbol in to Kiyomaro and asking for plane tickets to America. Whoever-it-was you fought told you something, didn't they?"

"How do you come up with tha—" I started, but Teo interrupted me.

"T-They…" the prince blurted from the doorway, "They told us where we could find them! Exactly! So please call our parents and leave Sawao alone. He didn't do anything," Teo pleaded, "Mallory, please…" Teo was honestly terrified of Mallory, I could tell. He loathed her, he feared her. I could go so far as to say he saw her as some sort of subhuman beast that existed to act as his adversary. But that was inferring a little much.

Mallory's facial expression contorted into something of a pleased smirk. "Then we don't need our parents at all. We can save them," Mallory said to no one in particular. "We can take on responsibility." She meant that she could take on responsibility for losing her brother.

"Did you just hear me?" I asked, extinguishing my cigarette on my shoe. "No! I'm not doing it! No!" I sounded like a kid throwing a hissy-fit, and I was well aware of it. But it came out anyways, undeterred. "We are powerless. That guy has an army down there… we're a few kids! Our parents will handle it! I am not rushing into a goddamned cave so you don't develop mental issues about letting someone kidnap your brother! But that's not all. I'm thinking this is about your over-inflated ego that you've been fostering for God knows how long!"

She stood transfixed, hanging on every word. Her eyes were still wide, but her eyebrows raised in a surprised, dazed manner, and her mouth hung open slightly. I was getting off-topic, but I had to go on, it was spilling out even faster than my previous temper-tantrum.

"Mallory, listen, I've known you for what, seven years? I know that you think you can handle everything! You think you've got all the answers you'll ever need up in your head, because you're so damn smart! You think you're so strong. Physically, maybe. You couldn't take an army, though! There's no way in hell. And guess what, Mallory? Mentally, you're just like the rest of us!" I was treading uncharted waters here, I felt. "You act tough… you are tough! But that doesn't mean you have to be able to shut it all out and take on the world at a moment's notice! I've seen you cry because of what you couldn't do! Why can't you just do that again?!"

"Sawao… I was a child! And that's… t-that's completely irrelevant!" Mallory finally snapped, her voice much louder than before. She sounded almost helpless, and for a moment she closed her eyes. When they opened, they were no wider than they were at a relaxed state.

"Y'still are a kid, Mallory! We all are here! And yeah, it is relevant. You can only ask someone for even a little help if you admit you've already given up in the field. You love fighting, you'll never drop that. Our parents could take this whole situation blindfolded and tied to a stake, and they'd still commit total overkill. You just can't conceive the idea of crying to mommy and daddy, because nine out of ten, I bet you've never done it, and that's pretty damn sad. You've had this same 'I'm above everyone and everything' mentality for your entire life! And other people? God forbid you need to depend on them, especially after you think you've finally got all the answers! You know what? I'm not stopping you on your little self-glorifying mission! You can go to Siberia all on your fucking lonesome, Mallory, because you sure as hell don't need us!"

That did it. After a three-part moment of stunned silence, my feet left the ground, and my back and the back of my head were suddenly slammed against the wall, all in one instant. The ends of my jaw felt like they were about to shatter. I screamed, and I could swear I felt tears welling up in my eyes as I was pressed to the wall, held only by the upper part of my neck and my jawbone. Although the current position I was in had me staring up at the ceiling, I could easily guess what had happened. Nothing else could have.

The pressure of Mallory's hand on my jaw and neck was another indicator that she was holding me up against the wall, off the ground, with just one hand. The pressure of her darkly colored claws broke my skin in places, but I could barely feel it. Two or three tears streamed down my face, but I didn't start to cry. I didn't cry than what the current pain I was in had squeezed out of me.

She flicked her wrist backwards, and my chin lowered so that I had a clear view of her.

Mallory had such an imposing presence that you never noticed what a tiny girl she was. She barely reached the height of five feet. It was surely amongst the oddest things to think in such a position, but for a moment, all I could think of how small Mallory was…

She adjusted her grip on me before she started speaking. "Listen here, you selfish bastard, since I had to sit through that damn seminar, here's a piece for you, monsieur. And don't you think of opening your mouth, I could crush your jaw in an instant!"

I wasn't afraid. I'd been terrified of Proteus, but I wasn't afraid of Mallory. Teo, who I could see from my elevated position, stood frozen, aside from his terrified shivers and ragged breathing, at the door. The boy was silently sobbing. He'd stood up to Proteus way better than I had.

Mallory stared up at me for a moment before tears formed in her eyes and an odd smile spread over her face. "Yes… I could just crush your jaw. I could crush every bone in your body without any effort… I could even kill you!" She seemed ecstatic at the thought, as if it were a new concept, a thought no human had ever conceived. Suddenly, Mallory seemed to be a whole new person.

She smiled for a few moments before lowering me. With one of her hands, she then pushed me to the wall. I winced. "I could kill you, you know, so easily."

The tone of her voice was relaxed, unaffected by the points I had just seemed to have driven home. With all this talk of killing, I was beginning to become frightened. Mallory yelled and screamed a lot, I'd heard it over the phone and through walls, but this, this I'd never seen out of her. Or out of anyone, for that matter. I had been fearless a moment before, but now, now I was about to loose my mind.

Mallory grinned, her free hand traveling to under my jaw, but closing it gently on my throat. She smeared some of the blood she had drawn earlier down to just above my Adam's apple. "You know, Sawao, I could rip out your throat." For a moment, I thought she would honestly do it when I felt her nails pierce my skin. She withdrew them and laughed in a girlish manner I'd never heard from her before doodling something on my skin— it felt like a smiley face— in the blood she'd just drawn. She was toying with me, I realized.

The revelation didn't make this any less terrifying.

She stripped off my jacket. "Sawao, you're sweating," she said, still smiling. Under it, my button-up shirt was open all the way, revealing my clean white undershirt. Well, it had been clean until Proteus had soiled it with blood by cutting my chest. I was afraid to look down, but I felt what was probably a thumbnail enter the skin just above my right clavicle and trail down to the left side of my chest. I clenched my teeth and closed my eyes. The tiny scrape was inches away from the wound Proteus inflicted. "You know, I could shatter your ribs in an instant and even tear out your heart. But don't worry, Sawao," she said, running her index finger through the blood seeping from my new wound, "I won't. I'm not that mean." Her smile broadened before she brought her finger, covered in my own blood, to my mouth and forced it past my lips and my teeth. She wiped it off on my tongue the best she could. Some of it remained on my lips.

It was disgusting. I'd tasted my own blood before when I'd accidentally bitten the inside of my mouth or when I was attempting to stop a paper cut from bleeding all over, but this was in some way different.

For a moment, I feared Mallory would pull a fishhook, which with her nail and strength would rip through my cheek, but luckily she didn't. She withdrew the finger from my mouth without further incident. That, in no way, caused my fear to ebb.

"Isn't it such a great power to have?" Mallory asked, still holding me to the wall. "The power over life and death? It's really thrilling, if you think about it. Right now, I have the decision to choose whether Sawao— you— continues to exist. Most people have the power most of the time, but it's incredibly accessible for me. Do you know why that is?"

I dared to shake my head 'no'. She was terrifying. Awful. And at that moment, it came to me how ugly Mallory really could look. She was saying such ugly things from a mouth turned upwards into a cheerfully malicious smile, her long canine teeth ever accentuated. It was the first time I'd ever associated Mallory with the word 'demonic'.

Mallory, in the first place, was not pretty, as much as I'd like to think so. Now… now, wearing this hellish expression and saying these terrifying words, she seemed to be something that walked out of a horror movie, something hideous.

"Because I'm better than you humans," she said. All the while, her fingers remained along the paper-thin cut she'd just inflicted. "It's only natural that I should exercise such a power, especially here in this world, filled with people below me. I'm better than you by mere birth!

"Isn't it thrilling to be in such a position? Just imagine it, Sawao, walking among a whole crowd of people and knowing that you hold the ability to stop any one of their— or, in my case, all of their, I know I can do it— separate existences.

"And look," Mallory continued, "you're afraid of me, Sawao. You're about to start shaking, and let's not forget that cold sweat you're covered in. Right now, you'd say anything for me. You'd do anything for me to get out of this position, wouldn't you, Sawao?" The repetition of my name put me on the spot even more. "Braver people would just take longer to scare. Most sane people are afraid of death. So are many insane ones. …I have the power to control others, too! Do you have any corrections to my theories, Sawao?"

I finally managed to choke up words. But they were the dumbest words ever, although really, it was a question I'd love to pose.

"Where is this coming from?!" I spit out, reprimanding her again. "What are you saying?! Listen to yourself, will you?"

Mallory stopped speaking and her eyes opened wide again, as if she'd just snapped out of a sort of trance. After a moment of stunned silence she stepped backwards, reeling in horror.

"Oh my God," she mouthed. "I… I don't know what that was..." Tears, which she did not note by sniffling or attempting to wipe away began to stream down her face as she stared at the blood on her hands. "I don't know. I really don't know… E-excuse me… I need… I need to wash my hands… Disgusting…"

She walked at a brisk pace past Teo, paying him no heed, and up the stairs. I heard the sound of things falling and breaking, and some screeching. Mallory, thank God, was back to her normal self, to some extent. I had no idea what just happened, and I had no desire to know.

After smoking another cigarette or two, I finally decided that I needed to get the wood and glass shards out of my back, but I figured that I should wash up and get all the blood, all of which had turned brown and was beginning to reek, off of me first.

Teo, who at first had come up to me and apologized desperately (and needlessly) for letting the whole incident with Mallory go on right in front of him, had fallen asleep, curled up on the seat of a leather chair in the foyer. He'd cried himself to sleep. I found him as I walked through going to the kitchen to get some ibuprofen to numb the pain of my injuries, although it said on the bottle that it wasn't suited for such uses. I took two.

I then headed to the upstairs bathroom to take my shower.

However, no sooner than I walked in did I see Mallory sitting atop the counter by the sink, sucking on her fingers. Sucking on them, apparently, to get my blood out from under her nails.

"I really don't know what that was…" Mallory said in at fast, nervous pace upon noting my entrance. Her cheeks were flushed red as if she had been crying, and a digit or two of her fingers was still in her mouth. They seemed clean, but for a moment, I wondered if we were indirectly sharing spit, however the thought was soon pushed from my mind by Mallory continuing.

"Honestly. One moment, I was going to tell you off, but your speech, which was true, by the way, was an impossible act to follow… and then, then… I started thinking about how I'd never save my brother, how he'd never come back… and… I just began to think how much easier it'd be to just hurt you and tell you not to talk, and the next thing I knew, murder sounded like a logical option! It made it feel like it'd solve everything and… and… I'm sorry, okay?"

It didn't sound like Mallory talking. It wasn't like her at all, and it felt wrong. She was shaky, she was nervous… just like the person who had spoken of killing me, this person was not Mallory. Mallory was calm, cool and collected. That was the Mallory I knew.

"It's okay, Mal…" I said, returning to the use of a nickname. "Really, it's okay."

"I just threatened to kill you! But it won't happen again! Really, it won't!"

"Mal, quit it. I know it won't happen again… You popped under stress and said a whole bunch of things you didn't mean, right?" At least, that's what I hoped happened. I paused, and sat down by her on the counter. She'd sounded positively crazy. Now she just sounded awkward and unnatural.

"You… you know, I think I like it better when you're acting like a stuck-up above-it-all jerk. Don't be one, just act like it," I said. "Sorta. I mean, know when to ask for help." I smiled at her. "If it isn't obvious, my spine is made of Jell-O. Teo doesn't seem to have much of a backbone, either. Someone's gotta stand up tall around here."

"You're just feeding that over-inflated ego of mine," she said, almost returning the smile.

"Well, your ego does need to go on a diet, but we can't starve it, can we?" I asked.

She laughed. "You're not as dumb as you act, you know. But your spine is made of gelatin. You're flattering me right now on the exact same things you just lost your temper over. At least the gelatin of your spine seems to be able to consolidate if it needs to."

"Oh, thanks," I said, smiling. "Dunno how to take that one. Hey, Mal? Do you know how to get this shit out of my back? Proteus… the girl who broke in… knocked me into one of those little tables, and apparently it was made with something a step above plywood. Now my back's full of splinters and glass."

Suddenly, she became all-business. "Yeah, I've gotten a few bad splinters training with my father. I know how to handle it… Turn around and take off your shirt," she commanded as she reached down and opened a drawer. Without looking, she managed to fish a washcloth out. "This thing is going to be ruined, if you don't mind." She reached to the sink and washed her hands as she wetted the washcloth. However, she swabbed the wet cloth on my neck, presumably to erase the little doodle she'd drawn in blood.

I followed her order and gave a slight jump as the lukewarm water on the washcloth went over my back, clearing away the blood.

"You're lucky," she said. "None of these are too big, and all of them are pretty much superficial. They'll still hurt, but they'll be no real problem. We're going to want to dress all of this up with bandages after disinfecting it. Especially these splinters…" She then set to work removing the splinters and shards of glass with her claws.

Although the ibuprofen had kicked in— and henceforth the feeling of having fingers stuck into open wounds was considerably less painful that it ought to have been, thank God— I had to clench my teeth down on a decorative towel I'd taken off a rack so I could bear the hurt caused by her digging around in my wounds. In the long mirror, I watched her work with a quiet, dignified concentration and know-how. Occasionally, she'd mutter a next-to-silent 'dammit' when she slipped up, although I barely noticed her interjections, I was too busy with my own, but other than that she remained professionally diligent.

This was the real Mallory. Not the terrified Mallory that I saw when I told her off, the psychotic one who seemed to be enamored with her ability to push someone over the boundary of life and death, nor the apologetic, worried one.

"I'd appreciate it if you didn't tell anyone about that…" Mallory said, breaking my chain of thought. "Especially not my parents."

I was surprised she didn't say 'your father'.

"I like to think I've developed a pretty good relationship with them, and the last thing I want is for them to worry about me," she continued as she removed the last of the splinters. "You might want to take a shower and get the rest of the dried blood off. The cuts on your chest will probably start bleeding again, but not substantially, and you might not want to stand directly under the water. I'll aggravate your wounds. And don't use soap on them, we can disinfect them when you dry off."

"Got it," I said. "But Mal?"

"Hm?" she looked at me.

"This'll all be our little secret, okay?" I asked, putting a smile on. "I mean, Teo knows, but he's not the type to play the tattle-tale. No one else'll ever know."

"Thank you," she said, sliding off the counter. "Leave some hot water." With that last sentiment, she left the room.

And even if she hadn't asked me, I would have kept it a secret. I wished that all of Mallory's ugly sides, all of her weak, awkward sides could be little secrets kept between just the two of us.

Mallory has a few screws loose, yeah. …the character Dr. Kisugi from the Boogiepop series may or may not have inspired that. But no one's as effing creepy as Kisugi.

I feel like I shafted the cannons in this chapter. DX I mean, they're not even in it. But you see, they're either asleep, in a really passive and lazy mood or getting plane tickets online. .

But that's that.

Review!