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-36-
An angel.
An honest-to-god angel.
With bated breath Aiko stared at the creature before her, illuminated only by the strange, magical orbs of light that floated around her. She could scarcely believe her eyes. An angel. It was everything she could have ever hoped: The angel's hair shone like gentle starlight in the foxfire, each individual thread like spun gold. The skin was pale, yet rather than reflecting the greenish-blue tint of the surrounding light it glowed with its own dim light, and that light showed pale skin like fresh cream. Wings-real avian-like wings-were splayed across her back like the old renaissance paintings that so favored their image. The creature watched her with bright, blue eyes from within a sharp, feminine face, and as their eyes met Aiko felt her heart skip a beat.
Indeed, the angel Holy Bell was everything Aiko Morisato would have ever hoped for in an angel... and yet everything she was not, as well. Her golden hair, so fine at first glance, was dull, dry and appeared coarse to the touch. Her creamy skin was scarred with what looked like pox-marks, and a second glance revealed blemishes and bruises not immediately made obvious by the light. Her flesh looked loose and thin, hanging from a frame that was far, far too skinny for Aiko's comfort. The wings looked shriveled and covered in coarse bumps, the plumage Aiko had expected on her initial peek absent of even the smallest of feathers, and as Aiko stared they fluttered uselessly at Holy Bell's back. For all the light that so illuminated the angel's eyes, they were dark as they fixed themselves on Aiko. It took Aiko a moment to recognize it as fear. Fear of the stranger who'd intruded into her nest.
"Oh god..." Aiko breathed, and now she understood why the deities had all been so closed-lipped about the angel in Belldandy's room. "Oh my god." Now she understood why Urd had made a deal with Keiichi and why Nebo had bargained with Keiichi on ensuring the angel had her privacy. "Oh god...damn it!" Now she understood why Belldandy had been so quiet whenever the topic of angels arose, whenever her angel's name was dropped in conversation, of why the door to Belldandy's room always seemed to lock whenever Aiko passed by and why Nebo discouraged her from witnessing the angel first hand.
She felt something painful constrict in her chest, was unaware of the hands that moved to cover her mouth in horror at the creature before her, and had to claw past the sudden and insane desire to break down screaming. Break down screaming and, and, Aoshima.
At once Aiko came to a sudden and complete understanding: Belldandy's angel was debilitated. Belldandy's angel was weak because of the actions of a mortal, and that the fear that stared out at her from a face too thin and too worn was the fear of a mortal, fear of further damage, and not of Aiko personally. She feared the strange mortal that had entered the room that was her sanctuary, and who even now loomed in the room's darkness, watching the angel with wide and bulging eyes.
All this Aiko came to know in the span of an instant, and it left her in shock and left her reeling. "This is horrible," she whispered, "I-" Oh god, she never should have come here. Not to this room. Not to see this angel. Maybe not even to this house. "I'm-I'm sorry," she said, and the words sounded weak and flat to her own ears. "I shouldn't have-oh god, I'm so sorry."
Before her, the angel watched her with a rigid pose, her fleshy wings-like those of a plucked chicken, and what a horrible comparison that was-the only thing that moved on her person. The rest of her might as well have been a statue; motionless, like a terrified rabbit who'd scented a coyote.
Aiko grimaced at the act, feeling a lump of guilt settle in her chest. She stepped back, trying to look as harmless as possible. Some of the tension eased in the angel's muscles, and hesitantly, her eyes never leaving the woman, Holy Bell returned to shredding pages from what looked like one of Keiichi's old rate manuals. The student bit her lip, observing the angel's activity for several minutes before finding her voice once more. "I'm...I'm Aiko."
The shredding stopped.
Aiko stared at the angel's hands. They looked bony and scrawny in the foxfire. Weak. As though the very act of tearing out pages from a book took effort. The woman hesitated a moment longer, and then continued. "I'm... I'm a friend of Belldandy's," she said, "Has she...spoken of me?"
The angel didn't move. Now even her wings had stopped fluttering, and instead the feminine creature watched her with wary eyes.
"Is there... can I do anything for you?" Aiko tried. "I mean, I don't know what I-what I can do, but...can I try to help still? I-I want to help."
The angel said nothing.
"May I...may I approach you?"
The angel's head tilted ever-so-slightly, as if in consideration of the proposition, and Aiko felt a little blossom of hope rise in her chest. Though it was hesitant and filled with trepidation, the angel at last inclined her head in a nod, and Aiko took a single, small step towards her. She stopped to observe the angel's reaction, taking note of the way her wings rose as if in reflex before relaxing once more, like a startled cat whose fur would bristle instinctively.
"...You can't speak, can you?" Aiko asked, and this time was a little more successful as the angel gave an abrupt head shake. "So... yes or no questions then, right?" A nod gave Aiko a bit more confidence, and encouraged by the small opening communication, Aiko took another small step forward. Again the wings rose, but not so high or so sharply as before. "You can stop me at any time, okay?" Aiko said. "I don't want to make you uncomfortable... I just want to help. Just hold your hand out and I'll stop whatever I'm doing, all right?"
Again the angel nodded, still watching her with wary eyes, and Aiko took another larger step forward. The wings twitched, stayed high and splayed on the angel's shoulders for a moment, and then slowly settled down against the angel's back once more.
"Is there anything I can do for you?" Aiko asked. "Are you hungry?" The angel shook her head. "Thirsty?" Another headshake. "Um..." She saw the pillows and blankets stacked around the angel's thin frame. "Are you cold?" This time there wasn't a head shake, yet the angel looked uncertain, as though debating on the wisdom of expressing any kind of affliction to Aiko. She gave a small, tentative nod after considering Aiko's question, and Aiko moved closer. There were blankets draped around her in such a manner as to keep her wings free from being tangled, and Aiko pursed her lips. "Is it okay if I cover your wings with one of the blankets?" She asked. "It might help warm you up a bit more." Wouldn't there be a lot of blood vessels in the wings? Like in hands and feet?
Aiko, whose major in college was computer technology with a minor in Calculus, had no fucking clue. Her experience with birds amounted to the pigeons on campus and her roommate's sister's cockatoo, appropriately named 'Richard' because he was such a dick. Aiko had almost lost a piece of her finger to his beak, and the entire experience had sworn her off birds for life. But the angel looked cold, she wasn't an asshole named 'Dick', and Aiko didn't really see many other options to try given that her cheap-ass brother didn't believe in electric blankets. Her parents had a kotatsu, which was fucking amazing during the holidays, but they'd brought that with them all the way from Japan, and unless angels could pull some serious 'kotatsu-manifestation' magic, Aiko doubted she was going to get one of those for the angel either. So...cover the wings (maybe?) cover the hands, the feet, and the head, where some of the major heat loss happens in a human. The angel looked human enough, so perhaps it was safe to assume she'd work like a human?
...Aiko was probably going to regret that assumption later.
But that was for Future Aiko to worry about. Present Aiko was currently wrapping a heavy quilt blanket around the angel's shoulders and covering the naked wings tucked tight against her back. With each movement the angel would fight to observe her, squirming beneath the blanket to keep her eyes on Aiko as though fearing the college student might yet still attack her. Aiko, having long recognized such actions in herself after long years of therapy, kept her movements slow and deliberate, pausing and backing away on occasion when it looked like the angel was growing too anxious in their shared proximity.
She relaxed a great deal more when Aiko finished and stepped away. "Is that any better?" Aiko asked. The angel was bundled up in so many layers of blankets at this point that only her head was visible, reminding the woman a little of a cozy Eskimo bundled in furs. She stared up at Aiko from her throne of pillows, and then squirmed once more beneath the covers to free her hands and grab the book she'd been tearing pages out of. Tearing a fresh page out of the book, the angel set about tearing long strips from it, and Aiko watched with a slight frown as long, soft, ssshhiiek's filled the silence.
The woman eyed the strips as they gathered in a tiny pile before the angel. "Hey." The angel paused to observe her. "Can I see one of the torn bits of paper?"
The angel fixed her with a bemused look, and then nodded from within her large nest of blankets. Aiko reached for the one nearest her, and aware of her strange companion's alert gaze, tied the paper in a gentle knot and began to fold it repeatedly. A tiny little star began to take form under her hands, and being extra-careful with the torn edges, Aiko carefully folded the final end into a little pocket before squeezing the star's sides, sharpening the points and making the little star pop up in a burst of ink and old paper.
"Still got it." Aiko beamed at the tiny little star, messy though it was with its torn edges, and looked up to her silent companion. The angel stared down at the tiny origami star in fascination, and her smile growing, Aiko held the little creation out for the angel to take. The entity took it with a pair of fingers, then nestled it with both hands close to her face, as though trying to figure out how Aiko had managed to create such a little piece of art with a strip of ruined paper. It was an absurd, yet somehow adorable captivation, and Aiko felt her smile grow larger as the angel looked from the star to Aiko and back again, and then gestured to the little star in her hands.
"You can keep it," Aiko said. "I can always make more-"
The star vanished into the depths of the blankets, and before Aiko could finish speaking the angel had shoved the remaining pile of shredded strips of paper towards her, the request clear: More.
Despite herself, Aiko laughed, delighted to have so enchanted a creature of such mythical reverence. "Sure, I can make more," she said, and watched the angel's face break into a large, toothy smile filled with such exuberant joy that Aiko couldn't help but mirror it.
A bit more choosy with her paper strips now, Aiko selected one that appeared a bit more even on the torn edges, and set about folding the paper once more, ensuring she went slowly so that her new friend could watch her step by step. Popping the new star, she again handed it to the angel, whose entire face was now alight with wonder over the new star. "Do you want to try?" Aiko offered, "It only looks complicated. It's really easy." The blue-haired woman selected two new strips from the pile between them, then offered one to the angel, who grasped it with tentative hands. "Do you mind if I sit on the bed?"
The angel nodded with enthusiasm, and smiling, Aiko made herself comfortable on the bed's edge, facing towards her companion. "So first..." Like all the times in public school ranging from Elementary School and up into College, Aiko went step-by-step through the process of making an origami star, watching with a teacher's eye for any signs of error from her companion and providing gentle corrections when necessary. The first star came out a little lopsided, yet the angel looked immensely pleased regardless of any imperfections, and quickly searched the pile of strips for another evenly torn strip of paper.
This was cool. Hell, this was awesome. She was making Origami stars with a fucking angel. And she was better at it than the angel, which admittedly, was also kind of cool.
"Want to make another?" Aiko asked, yet the angel was already reaching for a new strip of paper for her second star. Aiko watched her work, the smile on her face so large it was beginning to hurt, and then started on her next one. "You know, my mother, Takano, taught me how to make origami stars." She thought back to her mother, and how Takano had taken an entire week off from work to help tend to Aiko after she'd been raped, searching for various different ways to soothe her daughter. "They were easy to make, and they... I don't know, cleared my head, you know? Like, it was meditative or something." Takano had given her an old coffee tin and had told her to fill it to the brim with stars-a simple task that had kept her hands busy and her mind focused for hours. "I was so focused on making all these tiny stars that I couldn't think of what had happened to me, and in-between the therapy sessions, I found out they helped calm me down when I was about to freak out."
The angel glanced at her, listening attentively and without judgment as she finished crimping the corners of her second star, this one closer to Aiko's perfected ones, and then moved to her third. "There's something peaceful about it, don't you think?" Aiko asked, and found the angel nodding. "I found out I enjoyed it a whole lot back then-there was just this sort of... peace that would wash over me, which I always attributed back to spending all that time making stars with Takano." She smiled wistfully at the memory, where the scents of hot green tea and homemade dango touched her nose. "She taught me some more origami as well after I filled up the coffee can."
The angel paused and gestured to her. Like what?
The young woman smiled. "All sorts of things. Little paper shuriken, tiny cranes and chubby sparrows, puppy dog faces, boxes, jumping frogs, flowers... I can teach you some of the easier ones, if you'd like, once you're tired of making tiny stars."
The angel smiled and shook her head, as if ridiculing Aiko: Me, tire of stars? You're joking. It made Aiko laugh again, and to her delight, she found her friend join her. And though her laughter was soundless, there was a sense of joy and freedom that accompanied it, and the two beamed at each other like a pair of long-time friends before delving back into their work of crafting star after star.
When they ran out of strips of paper, Aiko moved to new origami, tearing a new page out of the old field manual-this page in particular listing out various Navy acronyms-where she folded it, tore it in half, and demonstrated how to create an origami crane while her angel friend watched on in wonder. While the angel busied herself with her first attempt at this new project, a moment of ingenuity struck Aiko and she pulled out her phone and opened up a note app, and when the angel stared at her in question Aiko handed it to her and showed her how to use the touchscreen's keyboard feature to type out her thoughts.
Like magic the communication barrier between the two of them vanished, and while Aiko prepared new bits of paper for cranes and stars and now frogs, the angel introduced herself as Holy Bell, and while technically Belldandy had never spoken of her, she knew of Aiko from Belldandy's almost-nightly talks with her. Between crafting stars and cranes and frogs, Holy Bell typed her thanks to Aiko, surprising the college student by thanking Aiko for helping Belldandy in her time of need, and for showing Holy Bell how to craft tiny stars from shredded paper. To think one could still find beauty from something so destroyed. The text read, your tiny stars have brought certain circumstances into a new light.
Aiko flushed at the praise, something rare for her. Had it been a normal person, Aiko would have laughed it off without a second thought. But the words emerging from an angel, and one in such obvious deterioration as Holy Bell, gave weight to the praise, and the compliment left her as red as a tomato. "It was nothing," Aiko said, feeling the heat in her cheeks spread up into her ears and down her neck. "I just wanted to help. I'm glad you're enjoying the origami lessons, even if I'm probably a really shitty teacher."
She was then scolded for calling herself a 'shitty teacher' in the angel's next little text, and it made her laugh, made her blush darken, and she promised the angel she'd stop swearing in front of such a 'holy being' such as Holy Bell.
More bits of origami were shown and taught and mastered, and stories were shared between the two-silly stories shared mostly by Aiko of happier times growing up with her family, and showing pictures of her older sister, Megumi, dressed in her terrifying persona of 'Toph' while working with her fiancé, Mark 'Joker' Hendrick, as a national liaison for the organization, Bikers Against Child Abuse. "Megs' is awesome," she told the angel. "She travels all over the country promoting the organization and helping set up meetings with parents and kids who got hurt and have to face their perpetrator in court. 'Toph' is the nickname she goes by whenever she's meeting with kids.
She looks intimidating. Holy bell wrote. The woman in the picture wore a deep scowl on her face, her hair tied back in a small ponytail as she stared at the photographer from behind a pair of mirrored sunglasses. The woman was dressed entirely in leather, her arms folded as she leaned against an old motorcycle.
"Nah, that's just how she looks on the job," Aiko said. Taking the phone back from the angel, Aiko scrolled through her phone and to another image, then passed it back to Holy Bell. "This is her back home with our little brother, Keigo. It's a total switch from the picture before, isn't it?" The next photo showed that same woman again, only this time her hair was down, where it fell to her earlobes in a medium haircut. She wore a silly grin on her face, poised with a laughing boy with messy dark hair and merry brown eyes. The two shot a pair of victory signs at the camera, with Megumi draping an arm around Keigo's shoulders.
Holy Bell stared at it for a moment, then gestured to her arms.
"What? Do you mean Meg's tattoos?" Aiko asked, and the angel nodded. Aiko grinned. "Yeah, she's got two full sleeves, one of which she got done all the way back in Japan. You'd never know it when she's acting as a liaison for the BACA Chapters though. That first introduction is all professionalism and formal outfits, and the sleeves don't extend past her wrist, so no one ever sees them until she shows up with a bunch of bikers at a family's house a couple days later." She chuckled. "Takano and Keima were pissed when she came to visit with the new sleeves one day. They thought she'd run off and joined a gang like MS-13 or something. It was hilarious."
Holy Bell requested the phone again, and handing it over, typed in a single word: Yakuza.
Aiko read it with some surprise, then shook her head. "No... Definitely not Yakuza." Under her breath she muttered, "Though I guess, in a way she kind of did join a gang... but no, Megs isn't a part of the Yakuza, and having the sleeves doesn't automatically make her one either." She paused, observing Holy Bell carefully. "That's right... Belldandy mentioned that... there were some affiliations with Yakuza back in Japan." She paused. "Japan... you've never seen Origami before despite being in Japan?" She handed the phone over to Holy Bell.
The angel nodded, typed a line of text, then handed back the phone. There was no joy in Japan for Belldandy. The message said. Only pain and sadness with Aoshima. Any happiness we found was given to the children we discovered before we were able to set them free.
"I see," Aiko murmured. "Belldandy doesn't like to talk about that aspect very much... the kids she found in her first year with Aoshima." Holy Bell nodded. "I got her to open up a little...maybe once or twice, but she's pretty tight-lipped about that time. It must have been a painful experience for her.
It was. The phone read. Before that time Aoshima did not understand the full depths of control he had on Belldandy. Holy Bell looked sad. He did not realize the full extent to which he could control her until she inserted herself between him and those children.
Aiko observed the angel in silence, taking a moment to examine the pain and sorrow that had crossed the angel's face. It was the face of a martyr. One well-versed in self-sacrifice and familiar to the pain that came with it. "...How connected are you to Belldandy?" She asked. "Like...really? I kind of understand you guys have a connection, but like...how deep does it go?"
Holy Bell observed her, and for a brief moment the look on her face was so alien that Aiko was at once reminded that the person she was speaking to was not human. Not in the slightest bit. Sure, she may look like a human, she may act like a human, but that didn't change the fact that the creature before her was as alien as the stars in the sky. Regardless of the strange and unlikely friendship that had sprung between them in a matter of hours, the fact remained that this creature was still an angel. A creature designed by a god. A creature that held some kind of symbiotic relationship with a god, and one that perhaps ran deeper than Aiko's initial understanding of it.
Our connection runs deeper than the blood in our veins. Holy Bell's response was enigmatic. I am the negative that is like her, but not. I am the nemesis. The Other Half. I sense the thoughts she cannot bring to light, and feel the emotions she runs from, and I balance those aspects of herself that she fears to acknowledge. I am the hidden strength, pride forsaken, the shadow of joy, the bound rage, and the unspoken fear.
Aiko read the strange commentary and looked back up at Holy Bell, feeling her arms break into goosebumps. For the first time that evening, she questioned the wisdom of meeting the angel before her, and began to consider the consequences that might arise from her small little discussion with this 'nemesis'. The word alone sent the hair on the nape of her neck rising in alarm; it was a word with little positive connotation. A word like 'enemy', a word like 'adversary', 'opponent', and 'bane'.
The college student fell silent for a long time, then, and felt the angel's eyes upon her, her gaze long and piercing and as alien as the wings that sprouted from her back. I am the monkey on her back, were the words that came to Aiko's mind. I am the past she must face, the actions she must acknowledge, and the truths she must accept.
The woman pursed her lips. "Belldandy never referred to Aoshima by name," she said. "Not if she could help it..."
I am aware. Holy Bell said. But I am the spirit unbound by weakness, she continued, and I refuse to allow a name to control me. She gestured to herself as Aiko read the text. It is only my body that has weakened since Belldandy's imprisonment by Aoshima, Holy Bell continued. My spirit remains unbroken. Belldandy needed strength when her own began to wane, and as her angel I gave everything I had for her, so that she might yet withstand the trials presented to her. She huffed, and Aiko detected a note of long, stubborn pride in the phone text, despite the angel's decrepit form. And as her angel, I will continue to be that strength for her- whether she realizes it or not- until she has gained the strength to stand on her own two feet again without the aid of her angel. There is a tiger chained to her back, and it has been clawing and biting and screaming at her for the past decade. And when she could no longer stand its assault, I came to bear its burden instead, and I will continue to do so until she is strong enough to cast aside those shackles and set that tiger free.
There was a strange ferocity in the statement that Aiko could not place, and as she looked back to Holy Bell she saw it reflected back in the angel's bright blue eyes. Blue eyes like those of the white tiger Aiko had once met as a child, still a kit that cried and played and had stared up at Aiko with eyes like the sky itself. In that gaze Aiko suddenly wondered if perhaps that alleged tiger wasn't sitting before her right now, its shackles and chains wasted muscle and featherless wings.
She could think of nothing more to say to the angel, and so instead offered the phone back to her. Aiko paused, waiting to see if the entity would speak more on the subject, yet instead the angel gestured for more pictures. Deciding to let the matter drop, the woman went back to her photos, showing pictures of Takano and Keima, Keima with his messy salt and pepper hair and Takano with a long streak of white in hers, and then to some of her college friends back home. More pictures of Keigo, then a couple with both Keiichi and Keigo together when he'd come down to visit the family before his last deployment.
Between stories and origami and shared pictures, the two continued through the night, in good company and without worry or fear of what the dawn would bring. One with a night filled with wonder and impossibilities, and the other happy and content for the first time in close to a decade. Aiko forgot about the unsettling dialog provided by Holy Bell, and the rest of the night was spent in relative peace. Their joy was shared, and their laughter filled the darkness of the room, illuminated as it was only by another angel's magic.
And with the morning sunshine, it was how Asgardian Deity First-Class, Third-Category license holder Nebo found them when he went to check on Holy Bell with the rising sun.
XXX
"Wake up." Something shook her shoulder, and gritting her teeth, Belldandy ignored it, rolling to one side and feeling something push into her cheek with pillow-like softness. It smelled familiar, like lavender and jasmine. Urd's scents. It was soothing, and sighing to herself she made herself comfortable against it, curling up within the blanket and allowing her drowsy mind to tug her back into the depths of sleep.
"Bell, wake up." Urd's voice, a loud whisper right next to her ear, pulled her from her rest once more, and grimacing, Belldandy opened her eyes.
And found herself staring directly into her sister's cleavage.
With the start of a shout in her throat, the goddess jerked back, only for Skuld to stifle her shout as the younger goddess wrapped a hand around her mouth. "Quiet!" The youngest Norn whispered. "It'll hear you!"
What? What? What will hear her? Where was she? Why was she-why was she outside?
She squirmed against her sister's grasp, her eyes still wide and slightly panicked, and Urd shushed her, refusing to move an inch. "The fucking puma's back," she whispered hotly. "The motherfucker is back, and it's fucking asleep right beneath us!"
Belldandy, predictably, froze at this announcement, and stared at her big sister with large, startled eyes. Urd's gaze left her face for something above her head-Skuld, perhaps-and with a slight nod Belldandy felt her sister's hand leave her mouth.
"Are you fucking serious?!" Belldandy whispered to Urd. "Right beneath us?!" Her voice began to rise in her panic, and this time both her older and younger sister shushed her. "Urd, what the fuck?!"
"That's my line," Skuld grumbled in her ear.
Belldandy looked like she was creeping closer towards the edge of panic. "This is why we sleep inside, Urd," she hissed. "So that we don't have to wake up after sleeping in a fucking hammock to a fucking wild animal sleeping beneath us!"
"Has it always been this big?" Skuld whispered, peeking over her shoulder and down at something just outside of Belldandy's field of view. "I swear, I've never seen a cougar this big before. It's fucking enormous!"
"Fuck you both," Urd retorted. "This is why we sleep in a fucking hammock! So that fucking predators don't come and chew on our asses while we sleep! Why do you think we're so high up?"
"Fuck me?" Belldandy bristled, "Oh no, fuck you, if that's the same motherfucker from before, then all it'll need to do is stand on its hind legs and then it'll be gnawing on your head, and then you can kiss your ass goodbye because you're going to be processed through the digestive tract of a fucking puma, and the end result is you coming out a puma's ass a pile of shit!"
"Fucking hell, Bell!" Skuld's voice was strained. "Were you always like this and I was too young to understand it or did those guards really have that big an impact on you?"
Her comment was ignored.
Urd narrowed her eyes at her sister. "Well if that's the case, would you like to wake up the bastard and scare it off?" She demanded, "'Cause it ain't much to toss you to the fucking wolves!"
"Aaaand now I'm in the Lion King," Skuld muttered, still looking over her shoulder as she eyed the puma beneath them. "Fuck me. I'm going to watch Scar murder Mufasa all over again. Fuuuuck." She paused, squinted, and then her eyes widened. "Oh fuck." The words were a whisper. "Ooooh fuck. Guys?"
Belldandy and Urd didn't hear her. "Do it," Belldandy dared her. "I'll drag you down with me!"
"Guys?" Skuld edged into Belldandy's back, yet still neither sister responded to her.
"Don't tempt me, Bell!" Urd growled. "I've done things you can't even imagine in the ten years you been gone. This ain't nothing but a drop in the bucket for me!"
"Guys?!" Skuld reached behind her and patted Belldandy's shoulder, trying to gain her attention, "Bell, Urd, could you guys shut up for a moment and-"
"Oh, and you think I haven't done my fair share of atrocious deeds, Urd?" Belldandy snapped. "Just because your mother was-"
"Will you two lice-covered shit-stains shut the FUCK UP?!" Skuld screamed, and both sisters paused in their argument, staring back at Skuld in surprise.
And finding the puma that had gained their sister's attention staring at them with sleepy golden eyes.
All at once the argument between Belldandy and Urd came to a grinding halt, and with matching expressions Belldandy and Urd stared in mute horror at the beast before them. The puma had gotten bigger since Belldandy's confrontation with it in the woods, and its shoulder easily crested the hammock, allowing the cougar to stare down at the three sisters like a mother overlooking babes in a crib.
The three sisters stared up at the puma with wide eyes, and the puma stared down at them with calm ones of its own. "Well... shit," Skuld stated. "Um... guys? A little help here?"
Neither Belldandy nor Urd said a word.
"Assholes," Skuld muttered under her breath. In a louder voice she said, "Uh, hello. Um... sorry for, uh, waking you?"
The puma chuffed. All three sisters felt it's hot breath hit their faces. It was rank with the scent of cat and meat. They cringed.
"Um..." Skuld appeared to struggle with any words for the massive beast. "Uh... so, I think we all know that you're uh, not a… um... not a normal puma. Like we're, I guess, not normal... people?"
The puma squawked. Coming from such a massive beast, it was a sound that was almost humorous to hear. Skuld didn't move. Belldandy and Urd, however, neither with any understanding of cougar body language or the meaning associated with the sounds they emitted, almost rolled out of the hammock in their panic.
Yet the puma appeared far from aggressive, and indeed, if the Norns listened carefully they could actually hear a soft purr emerging from the large cat. It gave another high squawk, chirped, and then turned and left the hammock in favor of the forest.
For a long moment no one spoke. Belldandy opened her mouth and closed it when no sound emerged from her throat, and then opened it again, where she managed to force out, "What in the ten realms of the nine worlds just happened?!" She felt anxious over the experience, upset over the loss of her own composure because of a puma catching her off-guard in a hammock of all things.
"Well you weren't doing anything!" Skuld spat.
"But you just- when did you- why on Midgard would you-" Belldandy stammered out a retort that would never be finished, for it was in that moment that the Norn grew Aware.
Of what it was hard to say, but she sensed it in a manner she could not describe, a sense of familiarity that was so close as to be at the very tips of her fingers, and yet just far enough out of reach that the identity of the presence was out of her grasp. She felt a tug, and turned her attention to the direction the tug emanated from and saw the house. "Holy... Bell?" She murmured, and felt that familiarity grow into a whispering voice. A voice she knew, a voice she recognized, a voice she'd forgotten after a decade of hell but now remembered all at once as it called to her for help.
"Holy Bell!" The woman's magic propelled her out of the hammock, ignoring the shouts of her sisters, and as soon as her feet touched the ground she was off, propelling herself towards the house's back door with such force that it shattered when she came close. Her magic was around her now, responding to the sudden and agonizing distress of her angel, and like a ravenous wolf it destroyed anything within a foot of her. Tile shattered. Wood splintered. She saw but did not see Lind's sleeping form on the recliner and Nebo missing from on the couch, and when she grabbed the stairway railing it exploded in her grip. "Holy Bell?!" Her heart was racing. Racing with excitement and racing with fear, for she could sense her angel now and what she sensed was terror and what she sensed was anger, and as such those emotions in turn blossomed in her breast.
She found Nebo in the hallway and felt her anger flare, saw her vision grow tinged with red, and knew that he was the cause of her angel's distress. The man was backing out of Belldandy's bedroom, his face a grimace of heated rage that might have matched Belldandy's had she seen her own expression. He clutched his head with both hands, hyperventilating through clenched teeth as he stared into the room before him. A black aura was manifesting around him, that which Holy Bell was whispering warnings about yet Belldandy ignored, and as she raced to confront the man that black miasma consolidated into a form, and oh... what an awful, awful creature it was.
"What are you doing here?!" he exclaimed, seemingly unaware of Belldandy's presence at that moment. "I warned you before, don't approach the angels!" The thing which emerged from the man was black and rotting, the combined fusion of a Ssaratu and a Seraphim made flesh and abused and tested over the millenia. Its form was bipedal, its flesh black and with an oily sheen. Its face was a gaping pit, the bone twisted and malformed, with long, twisted and fleshy tendrils that sprouted from its scalp like dreadlocks. They writhed with a life of their own, long and pulsing with red, bulging sacks of fluid.
A high-pitched ringing began to fill the air, like the song of wind whistling through a cave, and the sound was horrible enough for Belldandy to clutch her ears, trying to ward off the sound as it grew louder, clearer, sharper to the point where it was no longer whistling, no longer singing, but screaming.
"Luna Spirit!" Nebo roared, and try as she might to drown the screaming out it stayed ever-present, as the sound she was hearing was not that of a physical sound but the mental shriek of an angel whose strength knew no bounds and who could not be contained by the god who was its host. She felt her arms break out in goosebumps, felt the hair rise across her arms and up her neck, and felt tears blur her vision as the sound grew to the point of being unbearable, and Belldandy feared she might deafen herself lest she go mad.
The beast was massive- how could she have ever mistaken such a creature for an angel? This emaciated thing with its exposed ribs and intestines, this wretched monstrosity that lumbered first on two legs and then on four, clutching and clawing at its warped and terrible head as if in pain as its innards spilled to the floor.
She wanted to scream but couldn't, wanted to flee, to fight, to sob in the presence of the abomination yet instead found herself paralyzed, watching through watery eyes as the creature keened before lumbering into her bedroom.
It was only then that she remembered her angel, and as Nebo collapsed to the floor, clutching his head in much the same manner as his Ssaratu, Belldandy found herself in motion, racing after the beast even as she heard the Tic moan the creature's name once more, "Mooney..."
Mooney. Mooney the Luna Spirit. Mooney the Looney. Lunacy.
Lunacy.
Oh, what a cruel play on words. The Ssaratu, the Watcher, the Nemesis,born of the Old Flesh of the Ancient Ones and who bore truths that drove even the gods insane. This was no angel. This was the embodiment of madness.
And yet there her angel stood, thin and featherless and trembling, her withered wings outstretched in a display of defiance as she stood between Lunacy and the bed, one arm holding down a body whose head was covered by blankets and pillows.
Aiko.
Aiko, curled up and trembling and victimized by Lunacy's shriek. That same wretched scream that even now manifested within Belldandy the will to strike, the desire to attack, the wish to cause harm for no other reason than that she was afraid and that the scream brought with it pain, and oh, Yggdrasil, it just wouldn't stop.
That was when the window in Belldandy's room shattered, and World of Elegance appeared, Noble Scarlet in her wake. Frantic, they raced inside the room, wings large and expanded and as alarmed as Holy Bell as they moved to join their sister's side. The scream grew louder, and Belldandy's knees buckled as she tried to drown it out, yet though the angels flinched they held their ground, barring the way between the Ssaratu and the bed.
Yet none of them attacked.
Not even World of Elegance, who appeared the most frenzied of all of them, took so much as a threatening step towards the Ssaratu.
Unable to think, Belldandy exclaimed her confusion across the link between herself and her angel, stronger now than ever since her initial manifestation, and an image returned to her from Holy Bell.
Ansuz.
Ansuz, holding her close.
Ansuz, carrying her in her arms.
Ansuz, letting her ride on her mother's shoulders where all the world lay out before her.
Mother.
And just as its children refused to raise a hand against their mother, so too did the Ssaratu. It thrashed and writhed and shrieked. It rushed forwards and leapt back right before touching any of them, and the thick, fleshy tendrils swept above their heads but did not touch so much as a feather, not so much as a lock of hair, on any of the angels who stood before it. The children would not strike. The mother would not harm. And though they were afraid they pleaded with their eyes, pleaded with those voices no gods could truly hear, and for such a frenzied creature who cared only for its children it was only through such means that it listened. Slowly, its fury abated, and the horrible scream that was its voice began to lessen, to soften, scaling down from a shriek into a song, and from a song into a whistle as its insanity began to ebb.
The Ssaratu clutched its head and moaned, and it was a sound so deep that Belldandy could feel her bones vibrate with the sound. Shaking, the Norn found the strength to push herself to her feet and almost feared she might drop once more when the trembling grew uncontrollable. Her clothes felt clammy against her skin, clinging to her frame as if she'd trekked a mile through the deserts of Purgatory and dark with her sweat.
Nebo appeared in the threshold, clutching his head in a manner that mirrored the Ssaratu before him. He propped himself up in the doorway, panting harshly and looking as disheveled and exhausted as Belldandy herself. His thick, curly hair clung to his forehead, and sweat beaded his temple as he sucked in one ragged breath after the other. The man grimaced, his eyes squeezing shut as he bit back a moan, and some small bit of Belldandy wondered if his Ssaratu's manifestation brought him pain.
With its exposed ribs and hanging organs, Belldandy wondered if manifesting brought the Ssaratu pain.
There was a thunder of stomping footsteps up the stairs, and then Urd and Skuld were in the hallway as well. "Bell-" Urd began, and fell silent as both she and Skuld caught sight of the menacing creature within the bedroom.
"Holy fuck..," Skuld whispered, and Belldandy glanced over at them, just in time to see Urd insert herself between Skuld and the room's threshold, staring at the creature within with wide eyes.
The whistle inside Belldandy's head began to fade into a high-pitched chime, and at last but with some effort the Ssaratu turned away from the angels before it. Its form became transparent, its features obscure, and soon it became like the miasma it had originally manifested as before consolidating into the horrific creature that was its nature. It dissolved, bit by black bit, and returned to Nebo, who flinched when the black aura touched him and gritted his teeth, as though holding back a cry of pain.
And then the Ssaratu, Luna Spirit, Mooney the Looney and Lunacy incarnate, was gone.
The entire room breathed a sigh of relief, and Holy Bell removed the hand that was keeping Aiko's head buried beneath the blankets. Aiko immediately pushed herself up with a panicked gasp, "What the fuck was that!" And then froze once more as her gaze came to rest on not only the two new angels within the room, but the assembly of gods staring at her as well.
The woman released a weak laugh that almost sounded like a sob. Belldandy, almost having been driven to a frenzy by the horrible creature that attempted to pass for an angel, found she couldn't blame her. Not for the sob at least.
"H-hey guys, uh, what's up?"
She was met with silence, and World of Elegance slowly turned to face the woman, her face descending into a mask of anger that wouldn't have looked out of place on Nebo's own face, had the man not been so exhausted. Aiko shied away from the irate angel, scrambling across the bed and falling off the other side in her haste. Yet before the black-winged angel could go for the mortal, Holy Bell grabbed her shoulder. World of Elegance wheeled to face her, and in a display that was almost identical to her body posture in front of the Ssaratu, Holy Bell began to speak.
What she said no one could hear, but Belldandy caught small snippets, '...op... he... lpin... ko... to...'
World of Elegance paused to listen, and then to the surprise of all present began to speak and gesture wildly as well, pointing first to the large gathering of deities near the threshold, then to Aiko, who peeked up with some reservations from where she'd fallen on the other side of the bed.
Holy Bell interrupted her midway with her own argument, and the room's occupants watched as the two angels argued with mute words.
Belldandy tore her eyes away from the strange display, finding Urd watching the scene with just as much confusion. "What is she saying?" she asked.
"I... don't know," Urd replied. "Elegance shut off her end of the link."
"They can do that?" queried Skuld.
"If you let them." That was Nebo, looking like he'd seen better days and like he was past the stage of anger and closer to collapsing on a moment's notice.
Belldandy looked back at Urd. "You let World of Elegance do that?"
"Yeah…" Urd said. Her gaze was still locked on the two arguing angels. "I... try and give her a lot of independence. You know... because of my childhood? From when I freaked out over her appearance?"
"Oh," Belldandy said. "Right."
They continued to watch the strange scene in silence, and through it all Aiko stood staring with wide eyes, trying to gain Belldandy's attention. "Guys?" She whispered hotly. "Guys? A little help here? Please?"
XXX
Keiichi awoke to his alarm going off and a massive sense of dread in his gut.
"There is no way in hell I'm going in to work this morning," he grunted. He'd already missed his usual PT show time with the rest of Team 12, and while that could be excusable at times, he'd need to call McGuinness to let him know there was no Earthly way he'd show up when his sister, six gods, and all their respective angels were chilling at his house. He groaned at the thought, recognizing the source of his dread as all of those residing entities (and one baby sister), and covered his face with his hand. Sighing, he grabbed his phone from where it rested on the nightstand and stared up at it. As he'd predicted, there was a text from Jackson asking where he was and if he was good. Well, that was good. Jackson was technically his supervisor, and tended to be a bit more sympathetic when it came to excuses. McGuinness was a bit more of an ass with that sort of stuff. Especially since the Norns had taken residence in Keiichi's house. And Peorth fucking with Mac and his crew. And, well... everything.
The man sighed to himself, then unlocked his phone and sent a quick text response to Jackson, 'Got a chill run'g in rain.' It said, 'Fever. Don't want to come in to spread the love.'
Jackson's response was as expected. 'kk i let tank no'.
"Thank god," he breathed. Right. So that was one problem out of the way. But that also meant he needed to try and get these issues resolved ASAP if he wanted to make sure that excuse held true. Mac would only let the excuse of a fever fly for so long, and in reality Keiichi really, really wanted to get everyone who wasn't Urd and, well, maybe Bell out of the house- depending on if Belldandy wanted to stay or not.
He paused on that line of thought. Now that was something he had never considered... if Belldandy did leave, what would Urd do? Would she still stay? Or would she leave as well? Would his life suddenly return to 'normal' with Belldandy gone? Or would Urd, no longer able to go home, stay with him?
For a brief moment he tried to imagine his life as it was before, without either of the Norns present and leaving him alone in his three-bedroom house. It would feel... empty. Depressing, perhaps.
"Guess I'd get a dog or something," he grunted. "May need to speak with Urd if Belldandy decides to haul ass. Figure out what she's got planned without her sister to play watchdog with."
Speaking of sisters...
Aiko was gone.
Maybe she'd gone to the bathroom before his alarm had gone off or gotten up a little early for whatever reason.
Hell, for all he knew, maybe she was downstairs making pot brownies for the house so everyone could chill the fuck out. That sounded like something Aiko would do. He'd heard stories. Mostly from Megs, but one time from Keigo as well.
Yawning mightily, the man rolled out of bed and strolled over to the bedroom door. Might as well see what the rest of the house was doing and face the world for whatever horrible misfortune it would give. He opened the door and took a step out into the hallway, and his eyes were immediately drawn to the large cluster of deities that surrounded Belldandy's room.
...Or he could go back to bed and sleep in and not deal with whatever Crazy Norn Shit was going on at six-thirty in the morning.
He squinted at the deities, seeing Skuld and Urd and Belldandy clustered together, and even seeing a hint of what might have been Nebo as well. "You know what?" Keiichi said to himself. "No. Not this early. Fuck it. Go back to bed, Jank, it's not worth your time."
He turned back into his bedroom and shut the door behind him, and then fell back into his bed and slept for two more hours.
XXX
"Hold still." With gentle hands, Urd adjusted the position of Aiko's head, shining a penlight into Aiko's left eye before pulling the eyelid down. "Yeah... you're getting a potion. Nebo, you too."
Nebo, who sat across from Aiko at the dining room table, grunted yet did not protest. He was too busy holding a bag of frozen peas to his temple.
"Watch them for me, Skuld," Urd said, then turned off to the kitchen. "Don't let either of them out of your sight."
Skuld grunted. "Like either of them could make it to the front door? Nebo looks like he's about to go into a coma and Aiko's got so much blood in her eyes that she'll faint and smash her head into her own car."
Aiko winced. "Really?" She squeaked. "It's-it's that bad?"
"Mortals were not designed to be in the same vicinity as a Ssaratu," Nebo grunted. "Nor an angel for an extended period of time."
"True," Lind muttered, eyeing Aiko critically from where she leaned against the wall. She and Peorth both had been awakened by the Ssaratu's manifestation-or rather, their angels had awakened them at the sound of the Ssaratu's song. "Angelsdon't exist on the same plane of existence as mortals. You can interact with them, yeah, but you spend too much time around them without proper protection, and..."
"Your brain starts to melt," Skuld said bluntly. Aiko stared at her in horror. "...Okay, so maybe it doesn't literally start to melt, but it goes into overdrive trying to process what it's seeing, got it?"
"And combined with a creature even we gods have difficulty standing beside..." Belldandy muttered, eyeing Nebo harshly. "At least Holy Bell no longer needs to maintain a secondary link through Peorth." She sighed.
"Right. Got it. Aiko did a no-no. Understood," Aiko said. "Today I learned it's a bad idea to hang all night with an angel and then have Cthulhu freak out on you for doing it. Got it. Crystal clear. No more angels for Aiko." She winced as Belldandy put her harsh eyes on her. "Sorry, Belldandy. I shouldn't have done it." She stared down at the table in front of her, taking note of how her left eye had trouble focusing on the grains in the wood and how everything had an ugly red tint to it. "That was...pretty stupid of me."
"It was," Belldandy agreed. She sat across from Nebo and next to Aiko, tearing up long strips of newspaper and making tiny origami stars of them. Skuld was watching her in curiosity. "And I'm not mad at you. I'm disappointed." Aiko's head hit the table. "You didn't even ask me if you could meet my angel." Oh god, her heart. The guilt was too much. "And you should count yourself lucky that Holy Bell is such a gentle angel. Had it been World of Elegance, you might not have a head right now."
"I'm sorry!" Aiko moaned.
"You scared Mooney," Nebo grumbled. He adjusted the bag of peas on his head and closed his eyes with a sigh.
"I'm sorry!"
"We know you are. But that doesn't change the fact that you did it," Peorth said. "So stop apologizing. Just don't do it again."
Aiko groaned and buried her face in her arms, as though trying to hide herself from the gods around her. "Can I make it up to you guys somehow?" She asked, her voice muffled in her arms. "Like, I don't know, make you guys some brownies or something?"
"No Aiko," Urd said from the kitchen. "We don't want brownies, we want you not to go looking for angels again."
"What if they were special brownies?" Aiko raised her head. "Would that work? Special brownies that show my love for you?"
"Aiko, I've been in the States long enough to know what your idea of 'special' would be, and the answer is still 'no'." Urd didn't even look up from the potion she was mixing. "You're thinking that weed will have the same effect on all of us and just want to see us get high."
"No I don't!" Aiko cried. Though that would be kind of funny to see.
"Ew," Peorth muttered. "Weeds are considered ingredients in this land? How disgusting."
"Different kind of weed from what you're thinking of," Urd replied, pouring her current potion into a glass before setting it in the fridge and working on the next one. "And for the record Aiko, chances are it would affect us in ways you wouldn't expect. Not all of which you'd find funny."
Belldandy paused from her little pile of stars, then looked over her shoulder to stare at Urd. "How would you know this?" While she was distracted, Skuld stole one of the tiny stars, examining it with the same curiosity of an angel hours before.
"You forget who my mentor was?" Urd called back. "Potions and drugs aren't that different-I had to test all the potions I made from scratch, and let me tell you, shit got fucking weird." Her next potion she put on the stove, letting it heat up from there. "And that's not counting all the fucking ingredients I had to sample. I got so high one time that mentor said I was raving about me meeting Tiamat, for fucks sake. Apparently I ran around the house with a fucking shovel screaming about how everything has eyes and that I had to unbury her still-beating heart."
"So... the bad kind of weird, then," Lind surmised.
Urd grunted, removing the potion from the stove and pouring the contents into another glass. Then she removed the potion in the fridge and brought the two glasses-one hot and one cold-to the occupants at the table. "Drink." She placed the cold glass in front of Nebo and the hot glass in front of Aiko.
"Thank you, Melammu, you're a blessing," Nebo muttered, and tossed the entire contents of the glass back like a single shot. He gasped and shuddered, and for a moment it seemed to Aiko as if steam erupted from his nostrils, before he sighed and leaned back in his chair, all at once more relaxed.
Aiko stared at the glass in front of her. "So... will this get me high?" She asked.
"No," Urd said. "It'll undo the negative effects associated with sharing a bedroom with a Ssaratu and an angel and help your body recover from the experience.
"Oh." Aiko almost sounded disappointed. "You had me going there for a second."
"Keiichi's a Navy SEAL," Urd reminded her. "He can't have recreational drugs and I'm not in the habit of playing around with them when he could get in trouble.
"Urd, stop acting like you deal on the side," Belldandy scolded, returning to her previous task of making origami stars. "Aiko, drink Urd's potion. It's for your health."
"Drink it all at once," Urd said. "The aftertaste will knock you silly."
Aiko eyed the goddess but did as instructed, recognizing it was probably better to do as a goddess ordered rather than argue with her. The liquid inside looked like melted pink wax with a smell just as unappetizing. She sipped it, then grimaced. "It tastes like hot kool aid."
"Just drink it, Aiko."
Drink it she did, all of it at once, and when the aftertaste hit her she gagged and swallowed and held her stomach, cursing and swearing that Urd had poisoned her and that if this was for seeing the angels, sweet merciful god she was sorry.
And just like that, the pain and the nausea and the weird, out-of-body feeling that had been clouding her head since seeing three angels and hearing a horrible screaming in her brain was gone, and Aiko felt almost instantly better. "Jeeze, Urd." She was shaking. "You know, you should really be a doctor. Or maybe a pharmacist. That shit is amazing."
Yet Urd ignored her comments and Belldandy continued to make her stars, and so distracted was everyone in the dining room that they never noticed that Peorth had long since vanished towards Keiichi's room.
A/N: The next chapter ends this arc. As one of the readers pointed out, this whole arc, all (soon to be) 9 chapters of it, spans only about 36 hours. Wow. We really hope we did not bore you too much with it.
Comments of a Madwoman: Sorry this week's chapter was so late. There were some complications involved on how to post it. Think of this as Part One the season finale for this part of the story. We'll get to Part 2 soon enough.