Stare into the Abyss
Disclaimer: Characters and premise are the property of Kazue Kato. I'm just borrowing them for a little non-profit horror.
Author's Notes: I ended up rewriting Yukio's last scene in the previous chapter. I was going for two steps forward, one step back, but from the reviews it came off a lot harsher than I was aiming for. In the rewrite I've tried to make sure Yukio's good intentions are more strongly emphasized… although he's still got issues with believing that he is, by far, the most qualified to judge what is in Rin's best interest.
Chapter Thirteen: A Demon's Heart
As the Neuhaus' truck rumbled up to a stoplight in the outskirts of San Paulo a spectral figured waved them to a stop.
"Great Mother," the La Llorona said as she climbed into the truck bed and prostrated herself before Shiemi.
"Hi," Shimei replied awkwardly. "Um, do you have any new information about where Echidna is being held?"
"We have seen the place where they discard the bodies of the Great Mother's grandchildren and great grandchildren," the La Llorona reported pressing her forehead to the floor-boards of the truck bed . "But we were not able to enter the True Cross' stronghold. Their wards would have alerted them. Honored Echidna and her sleeping daughters are within, but we do not know where... We haven't been idle! We have secured allies: An enemy of the one called Egin who rules this stronghold; although she is of the True Cross herself she ached for the murdered children. And her agent within the Stronghold; he has a La Llorona's heart."
"A La Llorona's heart?" Shiemi questioned.
"He ripped away a life that was entrusted to him to protect. He yet lies to himself about what he has done but such lies cannot last." The ghostly woman finally raised her head, tears streamed down her face. "We La Llorona know; eventually the lie fails and you must face the truth."
"A six hundred years ago I must have had a reason, I must have believed I was justified but all I remember is my baby's face as I threw her in the river. Too late, much too late, I saw myself true. I waded out into the river calling for my baby to forgive me." The La Llorona crawled forward and wrapped her icy hands around Shiemi's ankles. "Please, please Great Mother, release us from this world. There is no atonement, no redemption, there is only the creeping madness of endlessly wailing our remorse to a deaf god."
Shiemi stared down at the wretched creature before her, appalled by her crime but still forced to wonder when enough was enough. Did endless punishment with no avenue for correction or learning serve any purpose besides satisfying a need for vengeance? And if revenge was the only purpose, at what point did the punisher become no better than the punished? But their poor murdered babies, how could anyone ever make up for such a crime?
Shiemi felt Gaia stirring and for a moment she welcomed the Elder God's intervention, welcomed that she didn't have to pass judgement. Gaia reached out and ran her fingers through the La Llorona's hair. "Your chance for redemption and my granddaughters' salvation is one in the same." But Shiemi found that she couldn't ignore that she hadn't liked what she'd seen of Gaia's justice in the past. "Tell me about yourself," Shiemi asked the La Llorona, nudging Gaia back again. "What was your name?" she asked as they began the last leg of their journey.
At the Facility Yukio waited until Saul had retired for the night then brought Felix up from the cells and strapped the little boy down on one of the Infirmary's beds. Felix whined and squirmed unhappily against the restraints. Yukio smiled reassuringly. "I know it's been a while since you've been up here," he said. "And even longer since I've restrained you, but this is delicate. If you wiggle at the wrong time I might hurt you."
First Yukio set a pungent smelling wash on the table beside the Felix's bed and thoroughly removed every trace of the boy's previous seal. Felix wrinkled his nose then sighed in relief as his body reverted to the felinoid form he'd been born into. Felix's ears perked up and he gave Yukio a grateful look, clearly happy to be back in his natural state.
Yukio shook his head. "That's just the first step," he warned. "I don't know how the old seal would interact with the permanent one and I don't want to take any chances of messing this up." He glanced at the glovebox one last time to make certain that the witch bottle was standing ready, then he picked up a long, thick needle.
Felix whined in terror as he watched the needle approach his chest. "No! No! No!" he protested.
Yukio put the needle down and spent a few moments patting the child's shoulder reassuringly. "I know it looks scary," he said. "But after I'm finished you'll be human. I won't have to refresh your seal ever again and then you'll be able to leave. We'll find you and Leo a nice family to stay with. I promise I'll find someone who'll take both of you. I know how horrible it is be to be separated from your twin. That won't happen to you and Leo, I promise. Everything will be better soon. You just have to be brave for me for five minutes okay?"
Slowly, warily, Felix nodded.
Yukio picked up the needle again. He listened to Felix's heart with his stethoscope for several minutes. Then, in one smooth forceful movement he pushed the needle between Felix's ribs into the left ventricle of the boy's heart. Yukio carefully pulled back the plunger, gathering a small sample of Felix's heart's blood. After withdrawing the needle, Yukio monitored Felix's heartbeat for a few more moments to make sure it remained steady while he chanted an ancient Babylonian incantation to ward off evil spirits.
Still chanting, Yukio put the blood sample into the glovebox and cycled the loadlock while he slid his hands into the gloves. He quickly maneuvered the needle over the prepared witch bottle in the glovebox's rarified atmosphere then, making sure not to allow even a drop of blood to splash on the mouth of the jar, he emptied the sample into it and picked up the stopper.
Yukio switched to a second chant as he inserted the stopper and twisted it slowly into the mouth of the jar until the highly polished metal surfaces fused into one seamless whole. As the weld set the seals Yukio had soldered onto exterior of the witch bottle glowed gold for a moment then assumed a deep carmine color as the spell took hold.
For a moment Yukio let himself sag in exhaustion from the demands of completing the exacting mixture of science and magic he'd developed to transplant a demon-heart without a the aid of a major demon like Mephisto. Then he turned to Felix hopefully. As he watched Felix's fur started shedding in large clumps, his tail shrank back into his tailbone and his features rearranged themselves into a human face, even his eyes which had always, stubbornly stayed slit-pupiled and inhumanly gold, turned to an unremarkable hazel.
Yukio tilted his face up to the heavens and laughed joyously. Impulsively he released Felix's restraints, picked the little boy up and held him in front of a mirror. "Look, you're human."
Felix stared listlessly at the unfamiliar eyes in the mirror.
Within the hour Felix's vital signs began to drop. By ten that night Yukio put him on a respirator while he searched frantically for a way to break the seal. Three hours later, in despair, Yukio put the witch bottle on the floor of the infirmary, drew his gun and shot it over and over again. He didn't even stop when a ricochet creased his thigh, but the bottle withstood everything Yukio threw at it, just like he'd designed it to.
The next morning Saul found Yukio struggling to rig life-support equipment as Felix's organs shut down one after another. "Call it and collect your data," he ordered.
Yukio stared at his supervisor with blank incomprehension.
"This is an experiment, not a patient," Saul explained kindly. "We've gotten all the value possible out of this subject. Even if you keep him alive he's no good for further experimentation. So call it, do an autopsy and move on to your next subject."
"But he's human now, I made him human," Yukio protested. "You have to care about him now, he's human."
"You completely sealed his demon-heart," Saul corrected. "He's not human, he's a demon who has been severed from his heart. Nothing can live without a heart. He's a demon corpse that hasn't quite fallen down yet. That's all."
"No," Yukio decided. He turned back to Felix and continued trying to stabilize him.
Saul grabbed Yukio's shoulder and tried to pull him away.
In a heartbeat Yukio twisted out of his grasp and threw the older man across the room. As he drew his gun Yukio remembered that it was empty. He ejected the cartridge and reloaded before Saul had even begun to right himself. "Felix is a child," Yukio declared. "Try to stop me from saving him again and I'll shoot you."
Saul slowly pulled himself to his feet and backed out of the room, hands held up in surrender.
In the cages below Leo screamed in anguish. The seal on his stomach disintegrated restoring him to his full demon form. He shook the door, then started forcing himself through the bars. He took off skin and hair on either side of his skull, his rib cage caught but he forced himself through. For a moment he lay on the ground outside the cage panting as his broken ribs and almost scalped skull healed.
At the end of the hall the door opened to allow Rene in. Leo was up and running, his slipped past the older boy and shocked guard before they realized he was out of his cage.
Rene gave chase as Leo threw himself up the stairwell, "I'll get him!" He shouted putting himself between Leo and the guard. The spot between Rene's shoulders itched, he wondered how long it would be before the guard opened fire on them both. But then the stairwell door slammed shut and there was something else between them and the guard.
The facility alarms went off. Leo didn't seem to hear. He pressed on with a driving, single-minded intensity.
Rene tried to make use of his longer legs but still couldn't seem to close the gap between them. A door opened between Rene and Leo, a second guard started to step into the stairwell. Rene slammed his full weight into the door, knocking the guard back into the hallway. "Sorry!" he shouted as he picked himself up and continued chasing after Leo. If he could just get Leo under control before the guards caught up with them...
Leo reached the twelfth floor and started toward the Infirmary. The boy was in and among the startled guards so quickly they didn't have a chance to fire.
"Yukio, hell," Rene muttered finding new reserves as he realized where the berserk child was headed. He shoved through the hall and got to the Infirmary door only two steps behind Leo.
Yukio was standing over Felix, prepping a defibrillator in last ditch effort to force the little boy's physical heart to keep beating even though his demon-heart was beyond reach. Yukio turned as Leo burst into the room. For a moment Yukio and Rene's eyes met across the room. Yukio's were full of guilt and despair, his hands fell to his sides as Leo shrieked in rage and leapt at him.
Rene lunged and grabbed the smaller boy out of the air. They crashed to the ground together. Leo struggling and screaming to get at Yukio. Then the guards were in the Infirmary. Rene jerked as multiple bullets struck him.
To Yukio the gunfire sounded distant, unreal, even though he knew it should have been deafening in the enclosed room. Standing only a few feet from Rene and Leo, their blood splattered across him, it felt like lava on his skin. Yukio dropped to his knees, his eyes locked on Rene's mouth. He could see his cousin whispering to Leo. "It's okay. It'll be over soon. It's okay."
The guards pulled Leo away from Rene and fired on the younger demon one last time. Leo's skull flew apart as they ended any possibility that he could be a threat.
Yukio grabbed Rene and hugged him close, afraid that they'd execute his cousin next. He ignored the blood pouring out of Rene's body.
For a moment Rene's eyes remained on Leo, then he looked toward Yukio and somehow summoned up a smile. "It's okay," he whispered to Yukio. "Pretty cool way to die huh? Saving my baby cousin. Way better than liver failure."
Yukio shook his head, he shoved up his glasses and rubbed at the tears blurring his vision but only managed to smear blood across his face.
The guards kept their guns trained on Rene but didn't fire again. After few moments his body went limp. Yukio carefully lowered him to the floor and closed his eye. Then he stood up, went back to Felix and shut off the respirator.
One of the guards approached Yukio. "You alright?" he asked gruffly.
/Don't look up,/ a voice in Yukio's head ordered. /Don't let them see your eyes./
"None of the blood is mine." Yukio said after a few moments. He needed away, if any of them came after him he wasn't quite sure what he'd do. He started toward the hallway, stumbling unsteadily. One of the guards reached out to offer him a stabilizing hand. "Don't touch me!" Yukio shouted, his hand twitching toward his gun.
"Easy," the guard held up his hands and backed away. He followed Yukio down the hall to the elevator. "You can't go out on the campus looking like that."
Yukio pressed the button then stared at the red smear left behind on the panel. He looked down at the floor and saw blood pooling around his feet and thicker substances clumped on his clothes.
'Leo's brains,' his thoughts supplied helpfully and Yukio gagged. He turned and ran for the nearest shower, struggling out of his cloths and turned the water all the way to hot. The stinging water beat down on his head, Yukio stared emptily at the red-tinged water swirling down the drain.
Rene was dead.
Leo was dead.
Taking away what made Felix a demon hadn't turned him human, it only killed him.
Rene died protecting him, shot by the Facility's guards. Rene was dying anyway, poisoned over and over again until his body finally started giving out.
Leo died trying to avenge his twin; trying to kill Yukio.
He'd killed Felix. He was going to save them all, save them from being demons. He'd killed Felix. Felix wasn't a human who needed saving from the demon possessing him, he was a demon. Rin was a demon, Rene was a demon, Indigo, Meda, Leo, Kit, Kermit, they were all demons. They didn't need saved from being demons, then needed saved from the humans who were hurting them. Humans like him.
He hadn't been protecting Rin. Mephisto had exiled him from Japan because it was necessary, because he wasn't protecting Rin, he was what Rin needed to be protected from.
Yukio heard Rene's voice echoing in his head, "It's okay. It'll be over soon. It's okay." He knew what he had to do.
"This is it?" Neuhaus asked the La Llorona before ringing the bell outside a tidy apartment building in Rio's Botafogo district.
A moment later the door was thrown open and a red-head in short-shorts and a string bikini jerked Amaimon inside. "Don't you people have any sense of discretion?" the woman demanded as she harried them upstairs to her apartment.
Shiemi, being carried piggy-back by Shima as usual leaned close to his ear and whispered. "You should stop drooling now."
"Aww, Shiemi-chan knows I only have eyes for her," Shima replied. Once they reached the second floor-landing he let Shiemi slide to the floor but kept a hand on her arm until he was sure she was steady on her feet.
"I'm going to lose all the muscle in my legs again," Shiemi sighed to herself.
Shura ushered them inside her apartment then turned and glared at them. "So? What do a wanted criminal, a Hell King, a dead woman and a couple of kids want with me?" she demanded, hands on her hips.
Shiemi nodded to the La Llorona. "Maria says you're a friend."
Shura's eyes widened. "So the little girl's calling the shots? Interesting company you're keeping these days Neuhaus."
Note: Yukio sealed the witch jar using a technique called cold welding. If you bring two clean, smooth metal surfaces of the similar metals together under a vacuum the atoms of the two metals don't "know" which piece of metal they belong to and the atomic structure of the two pieces will fuse.