Another week has come and gone, so an update is here!
Question time!
Asile3762: She's still 100% human. I don't really remember what chapter it's in, but I think I made a section about Sebastian wondering what he was going to do with her after Ciel is out of the picture. I don't want to go too in-depth on what I'm planning to do with her (because, of course, that would be huge a spoiler), but Sam will stay with Sebastian once Ciel is gone, I just won't tell if she does it as a human or not ^^
Ellen-and-Keats4eva: My favorite episode? Hmm… I'd honestly have to say it's tied between episode 25 and 26. In episode 25, I love how Ciel learns to be independent and take care of himself, yet still remains confident and sure of himself. I also love the scene where he finds the Queen. In episode 26, I love pretty much the whole thing. The fight with Angela/Ash and the end where Ciel is explaining how he wants Sebastian to take his soul as painfully as possible are some of my favorite moments in the entire series.
HahynGirl: Sam doesn't really have an actual connection to him. When she was younger, her brother told her a scary story to keep her in bed (Chapter 4: Training I). It was about a demon and the demon's name just happened to be Claude. She's never actually met him or anything, she was just terrified of the demon in the story because she was so little. I may have him show up in the story at one point though.
Ah, the mark~
As Sarah said, it's what the abbey views as the first physical sign of a demon's hold on a person, and of course, because an Angel created the abbey, the idea is probably correct. Sam is still human, but I wanted to push the fact that she is a demon's soul mate and that means something is bound to change about her. She is Sebastian's and his alone, so it only makes sense that there would have to be some kind of mark, no matter how small, so others would know it.
Vamanos!
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Everything around him… simply wasn't. The abbey, Sebastian, Sam, the reaper, the angel… It was all gone. All that was left was thick, smoky, mist that floated around him, suspending him in the endless abyss.
"Ciel… Ciel Phantomhive."
The angel's serene voice echoed around him and Ciel blinked slowly, trying to clear his hazy vision. He blinked a few more times before focusing on a small patch of light. It glowed brilliantly in the world of grey. Slowly, he could see more of the patches and Ciel focused on one, trying to make sense of it. After a moment, his vision became clearer and he noticed that each patch of light was really a single frame of one of the video reels from the Cinematic Records.
"Look. This is your past," Angela explained, voice kind and gentle. "Some of it shines brightly, and some of it remains shrouded in darkness."
Ciel's head tilted lightly as he tried to grasp onto a memory. He reached out a hand and Angela's light chuckle echoed around him.
"Ah, so that is the past you choose."
His hand touched the frame, slipping through it as if it was only a mirage. The frame started to glow brilliantly and Ciel was engulfed in the white light. His vision faded to black, and then…
Inferno.
He gasped, looking up at the mansion around him. Everything was engulfed in flames and the blaze and black smoke blocked his view. Slowly, almost unnaturally, the fire blew to the side, exposing the room before him. He saw a figure sitting in a chair.
"Father!" Ciel called, ready to sprint into the room. He froze though, eyes widening as he took a large step back.
An angel was in the room with his father. Her wings were folded loosely, as if she was waiting for the perfect moment to leap into the air and fly away. Her right hand was coated in blood. It dripped onto the floor like red raindrops, trailing down her fingers in rivulets.
He stared at the angel, eyes narrowing in recognition.
"You're…"
Angela's face smiled back it him, purple eyes void of any emotion. She leaned forward, placing one hand on each side of Ciel's father's head. She lifted it slowly so it could face the young Earl.
The horribly mutated countenance of both his father and mother stared up at him. The stitches that held the two together were sloppy, loose, and widely and unevenly spread across their skin. Their mismatched, dead, eyes bore into their son from his place across the room.
Ciel fell to his knees, hands covering his mouth as he wretched.
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Sarah frowned, adjusting her robes as she walked to the door of her room. Someone had been pounding on it furiously for almost five minutes. It had woken her from her sleep and the redhead had grudgingly pulled on fresh clothes and quickly combed through her hair to look presentable.
Sarah unlatched the door, ready to give the person standing outside a piece of her mind, if not, at least a lesson on etiquette and a stiff talking to about how improper it was to wake someone at such a late hour of the night. She threw open the door, the words of reprimand never making it past her lips.
Sam stood in the door way, eyes wide in terror.
"Samantha…?"
"They're gone, she took him," Sam murmured, gaze distant.
"She?" Sarah's eyebrows scrunched in confusion as she began to lead Sam into her room. "Samantha, you need to be more specific."
"She took him. She took Ciel."
"Who took Ciel, Samantha?"
"Angela… The angel."
Sarah's silvery blue eyes widened and she dragged Sam the rest of the way into her quarters, slamming and bolting the door behind her.
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Sebastian and Grell appeared on a white bridge. The butler turned around quickly, eyes scanning the area.
"Where is he…?"
Grell sighed and turned to the demon, about to speak, when his eyes fell on the building before them. He jumped back with a shriek.
"This is the Grim Reaper Library!" he exclaimed, eyes focused on the shimmering, gem-like building. "I don't know if you're aware, but this is where the Cinematic Records are kept," Grell explained.
Sebastian's eyes narrowed and he began to walk towards the building, stride fast and determined. The redheaded reaper trailed behind him.
It only took a few moments for the two to reach the building.
Sebastian extended a gloved hand, pushing the heavy, mahogany door open. His red-brown eyes widened a smidgen as a standard death scythe flew at him. He moved his head to the side, avoiding the weapon. Grell ducked with a screech, the scythe clipping off a few strands of his hair before retreating back into the hands of William T. Spears. The reaper sighed, frowning deeply.
"Ah, as I suspected, it is you…" William pushed up his glasses with the edge of the death scythe's blade. Sebastian's image reflected in the lenses. "I thought I smelled a rat."
"Will!" Grell cried, running through the door.
"To think a demon would have the nerve to set foot in here," the reaper glared.
"No, hold on, Will!" Grell pleaded. "I'm looking for the Doomsday Books like you ordered!"
"Honestly…" he sighed, closing his eyes, "A grim reaper, and you invited this filth into our territory… You're a disgrace. Are you actually trying to be demoted even further?"
Grell blanched and shuddered, holding up his safety scissors pathetically.
"Wh-What will it be this time?"
"You call me an invading rat," Sebastian interrupted, "but I do believe you have another infestation to be worrying about," he finished bitterly. William's yellow eyes widened for a moment before narrowing and flickering quickly to the doors behind him.
"The angel."
"That's right."
"Excellent. Looks like I'll have more over time tonight," William sighed, pushing up his glasses.
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Ciel winced, slowly raising a hand to his throbbing head. He sat up, noticing absent mindedly that he had been laying on a plush couch. He opened his eyes to look around and gasped, seeing the floors upon floors of pristine book shelves spread before him.
"So you're awake now, are you?"
Ciel gasped again, turning to see Angela seated across from him.
"Really, it was you- Angela Blanc," he spit out her name from his clenched teeth like it was a foul word. The sky haired angel only smiled sweetly down at him.
"How did you enjoy the record of your past?" she asked sweetly. "Did it feel like being wrapped in soft velvet," her eyes narrowed mockingly, "or perhaps sand paper against your skin?"
"Shut up!" Ciel ordered. "The hand I saw… the priest's… That was his hand. That was my father's hand."
Angela didn't even blink, only continued to smile serenely down at him. Ciel's visible eye narrowed in malice and his teeth clenched together.
"You killed them, didn't you…? But, why? Why did you kill my parents?" he roared, jumping to his feet. "What did you stand to gain?"
"Killed?" Angela repeated, appalled. "What a disturbing thing to say. I'm not the only one who harmed your parents. But you know that, don't you?"
Ciel flinched, eyes widening in shock.
"Didn't your butler…? No, didn't you kill them again?" Angela smirked, eyes dark and menacing. "It was you who gave them their second death."
Ciel froze, he could see the image of the priest with the horrible scar that looked like stitches… The face he couldn't see… He had shouted for Sebastian. He had given the order.
Angela laughed softly.
"You're rather brilliant. In the face of such a distorted past, you some how manage to remain sane." The angel stood, unfolding her wings.
"How could you…?" He hissed, clenching his jaw.
"You are a truly unclean human," Angela sighed. With one stroke of her powerful, white, wings, Angela was in front of the young Earl. "But, underneath all of those impurities, there is a glow that would be such a shame to extinguish."
She reached out, grabbing Ciel's chin and tilting it upwards so he was forced to look into her eyes.
"Well, Ciel?" Her wings extended forward, hiding the young Phantomhive under a cloak of feathers. "Shall I alter your unsightly, impure, past for you? Would that help you find peace at last?"
Ciel pulled back, swatting away her hand.
"Nice try, but you're the reason I'm impure!" he snarled. Angela's eyes closed slightly and she smirked, raising her outstretched hand. She placed it over Ciel's eyes and the Earl began to relax. His vision went hazy and faded to black.
Angela's smug smile was the last thing he saw before passing out.
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"How did you find out about the angel?" Sarah demanded, pushing on Sam's shoulders so that the strawberry blonde sank into a chair. Sam didn't reply, only stared up at her sister with a slightly horrified look on her face.
"You knew about Angela all along?" Sam asked, barely believing the words herself. She paused, chewing on her lip before freezing, shock flitting across her features. Her eyes narrowed with malice "Did you know that she was going to take him?"
Sarah shifted lightly on her feet, guilt flickering in her eyes.
"Samantha, I-"
Sam shot up from the chair.
"No! You knew! You knew she was going to take Ciel and you still let him go to that meeting with the priest!" Sam shrieked. The strawberry blonde paced back and forth in frustration. "Great! Just, great! My sister's the lackey of some stupid, sadistic angel!"
"Samantha, please just listen to me-"
"NO! Ciel's life could be in danger right now because of you! How the Hell did you even meet Angela? At some freakish occult?"
"She came to me… in a dream…" Sarah murmured, gaze unfocused as if she was reliving the memory. Sam rolled her eyes.
"Right. Very original, Sarah."
"I'm not lying," Sarah seethed, cheeks flushed. Sam matched the redhead's vicious glare with her own. Slowly, Sarah's faded and she sighed, flopping into a chair. "She came to all of us, all the nobles that she wanted financial aid from so that she could create the abbey… She told us that we needed to create our own convent, that the world needed to be made pure again… So I left my fiancé and headed for Preston with the others…"
Sam nodded, silently telling her sister to continue.
"When we arrived, all of us heard her voice. She introduced our leader and instructed us on how we were to live our lives from that day forward. She told us to follow ever order she passed down to us, no matter how cruel or unseemly. She said that every treacherous action committed for the sake of our goal, no matter how awful, had it's proper place in God's new world…"
Sarah's eyes closed, skin stretched taught and jaw tensed as if repeating the story aloud was just as taxing as experiencing it had been.
"We were told to keep her existence a complete secret, and that her exposure could mean the end to not only this abbey, but all of our lives. I may have believed in her with all of my heart, I may still, but I was always terrified of her."
Sam's sharp glare softened slightly, but she remained rigid.
"So the Doomsday Books…?"
Sarah sighed.
"I was never allowed to know what they truly were."
Sam frowned but nodded.
"How many others know about Angela?"
"One other."
Sam raised an eyebrow at the statement in confusion.
"I thought you said that she revealed herself to all of the nobles she needed assistance from? Two people wouldn't make that much of an impact, especially not money wise."
The redhead let out a cold, bitter, laugh.
"I did. Humans aren't perfect. Sometimes, a noble who had been lavished with riches their entire life couldn't deal with the strict, non-materialistic life of the abbey. Sometimes, the temptation to tell a close friend or loved one that an angel had visited them was too great. Sometimes, she was just in a foul mood…"
Sam slouched down in the chair opposite Sarah's with a heavy sigh. Her mind repeated the words that had haunted both her and Ciel for the past few months over and over in her head. Unclean. Unnecessary. Unwanted…
"Great. Just great. Another freak bent on destroying the 'unclean.' Just what we need…" The strawberry blonde scowled, mind working a mile a minute. She turned to her sister.
"When does everyone else start to wake up?"
"It depends. Tomorrow is a Sunday, so around six A.M. We hold prayer sessions in the chapel."
Sam glanced at the old clock that was hanging from the white-washed wall on the opposite side of the room. 12:56 A.M.
"Okay, so we have about five hours to get rid of the glass, clean up the blood, move the priest's body, and come up with a valid excuse for his death. It's going to be hard, but I think we can manage."
Sarah blinked, her mind slowly registering what her sister had stated. Her silvery-blue eyes widened in horror and she paled.
"B-Blood? Pr-Priest's body?"
Sam sighed as Sarah collapsed to the ground. She walked over and grabbed her sister under the arms, proceeding to drag her out of the room and towards the deserted chapel.
This is going to be a long five hours.
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"The angel… she would indeed have the ability to tamper with the Cinematic Record."
"You mean they can change the past?" Sebastian frowned, turning to glance at William as they walked briskly down the hallway.
"I doubt even God could do that," the reaper frowned, glasses flashing in the light. "But still, an angel can give a false sense of peace. Someone who has experienced trauma great enough to break his or her soul may wish for all memory of that past to be wiped out. However, it will haunt that person forever… no matter what.
"An angel's powers leave the past unchanged. They simply manipulate a person's impression of it to make him or her think it wasn't so negative after all."
The three reached the large double doors leading to the library's main area and Sebastian flung them open. He froze upon seeing the sight before him.
"Young master!"
The reels of the young Phantomhive's Cinematic Record were unraveled, floating in the air around him. His head was laid across Angela's lap, eyes twitching behind their lids as he dreamed. The angel looked down at the brilliant glow emitting from the boy's chest almost fondly.
"His past is being rewritten, being cleansed," she smiled. "Soon, he'll be as pure and clean as freshly fallen snow."
"Cleansed?" Sebastian seethed.
"Hatred is painful," Angela smiled. "No one wants to harbor it in their hearts. Ciel is no different."
"Young master," Sebastian called, ready to sprint forward and retrieve the boy from the angel's hold.
"Don't be hasty," William warned, though he sounded as though he was reprimanding a child. The demon paused, red-brown eyes narrowing into an icy glare at the reaper. "You can't stop her right now. If you do, the child's past won't be properly contained inside of him, and as a result, he will become something less than human."
"Yes," the angel smiled, "pure as the freshly fallen snow."
"My young master… being purified?" Sebastian spit out, teeth clenched.
Angela chuckled, purple eyes glimmering hauntingly.
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The blazing Hell was all around him, choking him with black smoke and dancing flames. Ciel fell to his knees, covering his eyes as he sobbed. The pent up sorrow from the past years was slipping out. He slammed his eyes shut, praying for the torture to disappear, and strangely, it did.
The crackling of the fire eating away at the manor along with the acrid smell of thick, black, smoke simply vanished, leaving dead silence in its place. A familiar voice called out to him in the quiet and Ciel cautiously moved his hands away from his eyes to look.
Standing before him in a flowering field full of white feathers… were his parents. They smiled lovingly at him and Ciel's eyes widened in shock.
"There's no need to grieve over our deaths," his father smiled, chocolate brown eyes shimmering with warmth. "You can abandon your sorrow."
"That's right, Ciel," his mother agreed, her long, golden hair swaying lightly in an invisible breeze. "We hate to see you suffering needlessly like this."
"You're lying… Liar! My mother and father were killed!"
"We were," his mother replied, gaze soft and compassionate, "but in that moment we saw a bright light." Ciel flinched. "It was a tranquil, peaceful glow wrapped in love. In death, your father and I were finally able to become one in body and spirit."
"Yes, that's right," his father grinned. "And now that we are truly joined, we can embrace your body and spirit as well."
Ciel's wide eyes dawned half shut and clouded. The once vibrant cerulean blue was now cast in black shadows. His father extended a hand towards him.
"Come, Ciel."
"We love you so much," his parents said together, matching smiles shining on their faces.
"I love you too… father, mother…" Ciel murmured, taking a shaky step forward… and then another, and another. Soon, he had made it half way across the original distance between him and his parents.
"That's right, Ciel! Keep going! We don't bear any grudge towards anyone," his mother smiled, spreading her arms wide in a welcoming gesture.
"Yes, come closer, Ciel," his father ordered. "Don't be led astray by things like hatred and pain."
Ciel was almost there now, only a few steps away. His father extended a hand for the boy to grasp onto.
"Free yourself from all such emotions- unnecessary, unclean."
With those words, the young Phantomhive froze in place, a shudder racking through his body. The warmth he'd been experiencing in his heart, the comforting feeling of peace, was gone like the flames of the candles Sebastian blew out every night before he fell asleep.
"What is it, Ciel?" his father asked.
"What's wrong, darling?"
No…
"no…no… No."
"What, Ciel?" his mother questioned, raising a gloved hand to her lip as she tilted her head in confusion.
"No, I- I don't… I don't want…"
"What are you saying?" she asked, horrified. "Please, Ciel!"
"Maybe you… never bore a grudge," he shuddered. "But still… that has nothing to do with me… Nothing. It can not change my hatred!" he bit out. The words pained him, knowing that they were true. He would never be at peace. Never.
"But, Ciel," his father frowned, eyes brimming with worry and… anger? "How could you say that?"
His mother leaned forward, grasping onto his shoulders.
"Please, think about what you're really saying!" she begged. "I thought you loved us, dear!"
"I do love you, I always will…" Ciel sobbed. "…and that's why it hurt to lose you."
The young Earl's left hand clenched into a fist, the Phantomhive family ring glinting from its place on his thumb.
"After that, hatred was all I had left…"
"Why don't you just let it go-"
"I can't!" Ciel shrieked. His father's eyes widened in shock at the boy's outburst.
"Ciel…"
"If I let go of my hatred, then the person I've been since that day disappears with it." His jaw clenched and his head snapped up so he could look his father in the eye. "That's not me! IT'S NOT ME!"
His mother drew back in shock.
"But, darling!"
Her image blurred, making a sound like static. Ciel's father did the same. Both faded in and out of existence in rapid spurts, always coming back for a moment before flickering again. Ciel's eyes widened in panic, the flaming hell of truth slowly burning away at the rosy image before him. His saw his parents as Angela had truly made them, the deformed monster that she was trying to hide with smoke and mirrors.
Ciel's hands clutched at his temples and he let out an ear splitting scream.
"Please, Ciel!" His mother begged.
"I won't… let go…" he vowed, teeth clenched. "I will not let it go."
His hands fell away from his face and he stood up straight, facing his parents.
"I WILL NOT LOSE MY HATRED!"
The two adult's screamed. A blinding light spread from Ciel's chest, destroying the image around him. For the second time that day, the young Earl's vision faded to black.
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Woo! I really liked writing that last part… even if it was all about Ciel with zero Sebby or Sam :(
I had a blonde moment when I was typing this though. One of my dogs started barking right when I was in the middle of writing Ciel's hatred proclamation. I was getting pretty fed up when it went on for over a minute, so I screamed at him to be quiet… only it came out as: "SHUT IT, CIEL!" I have never seen a dog give me such a confused look. Hey, at least he was quiet afterwards :P
Until next week my fellow lovers of Black Butler~
(Wow, I'm really running low on not-pathetic goodbyes)
