The pain in my heart as I lean against the door frame into the sitting room and watch Noriko being carried out of a hole in the wall on the opposite side of the room is so great I can hardly stand it. But then I can hardly stand to begin with.
The explosions pulled me out of bed, sword in hand, Barago following me, but there was not just one woman with special powers, who's still here to keep me occupied because she has a vendetta, but four other men also with differing special powers. The rest of our companions managed to stay alive, but they couldn't prevent what's happened.
Once again cloth is headed my way. Once again, as in Calco, I manage to dodge and cut them, but collapse. The pattern is repeated over and over. I manage to fight half-way across the room, as if a stumbling drunk holding a sword. My ultimate goal is Noriko, of course, no matter how far she is from me at the moment. The woman is irrelevant...until searing pain goes through my upper left arm and the entirety of everything below that line falls to the ground.
I scream at the pain and grab my shoulder. The blood pours out of the cut arm. I'm in shock, but somehow through the pain, the mental confusion, and the worry, I hear the woman say, "...Cutting off your arm wasn't enough. Once we squeeze the blood out of that girl and offer it to Lord Silent Mask he'll reward us..."
The shock to my system of those words is even more than all the others combined since the explosions, and all this on top of Banadam this morning. Blood...out of? Offer? The power within me escapes and sparks around the room. It starts with a single small spark that doesn't let the woman leave the room out through the door she was headed for. As the words sink in, the sparks explode out more and more and it almost hurts more to keep them in than let them out.
They can't! I reach down and grab my arm from the floor and set it, then push it up onto the stump of my arm. The pain returns and I cry out again. The reactions of the body aren't things I'm paying attention to, though. I press my arm into place and let the power out. The power is part of what heals me quickly and I need to get to Noriko, now!
Everyone in the room is crying out and cowering as the sparks increase in intensity and the woman is panicking. I can feel her fear rising at the same time as I feel my hair begin to change color. Somehow I manage to hold the power level there as the power of rage surges through me and I can't care. My fear for Noriko is greater than my fear of what others see, and honestly, I'm still lost in the mental fog of my ailment.
My healing arm flexes with a reflexive jerk, then the hand turns into a claw to match the level of power I'm holding, raging inside of me and outside as the power still sparks around the room. Perhaps I'm holding at this level because the rest is leaking out. I can't spare any mental power to think about it.
I'm finally able to raise my arm and move it, settling it back into place. I clench my fist, then my eyes are on the woman, still standing in the doorway, staring at me in horror. She flinches from the teeth, eyes, ears, everything that is me when I'm at this level, then she screams, "He-he's a monster!" and darts away.
I'm after her immediately, leaping out the door to land on the wall. I push off and each step is a bound that takes me five times as far as a step of a man. I'm pushing her. I want her to lead me to Noriko and her nest of men who need to die.
She's on her horse by the time I make it out the front door. She lashes it harshly and it's running as fast as it can. I smells me and wants to be away as much as she does. I leap to the roofs, very tall in this city, and then from roof to roof, following her from there so that the horse doesn't smell me.
She leaves the narrow street for a broader way. She's headed for the center of the city and the buildings set on high hills. I leap down to the street and continue to follow her, but I hear my name. I look back and it's Banadam. He isn't who I need. I turn back to my quarry, tracing her path, returning to the roofs as soon as I can. I don't need more people seeing me. That will bring more delays.
At one point I do pause to breathe and confirm the building the woman is headed for. I try to reach for Noriko, calling for her desperately, but I can hear no reply and can't feel anything but the rage and fear. It pushes me onward more desperately. I must get to her!
The woman jumps off her horse at the door to an opulent building, likely a temple. She runs through the door, slamming it shut behind her. I can hear a bar being slid across it as I reach it, close behind her. I keep moving, running into the door with my shoulder.
The impact echoes through the room beyond the door loudly enough I can hear it outside. One fist hits the center of the door, surrounded with power and an energy shield. The door buckles. The other fist hits the same place the same way and the door and the bolt give way.
I push the doors open with both hands and walk through, glaring at the men in the room arrayed to face me. The woman backs up and flees to the back of the group. The two temple guards, holding spears, shiver then run. Nine men remain to face me, but they don't have Noriko with them. Her scent passes on through the next set of doors.
I run towards them and they run to meet me. I leap over them, intent on stopping the deed that's planned. I'm trapped by a whip that has lashed around my ankle and I fall to the ground. I'm immediately up and spinning around on my hands so that the man holding on to the whip is flying through the air crashing into all of the other men in the room. He lets go of the whip and flies through the air to crash into the wall some distance away.
I'm up on my feet again instantly and kicking the whip off my foot, looking for the door Noriko was taken through. "We can get him!" They're talking themselves up, and they talk about the increase of power they'll receive for killing one human girl who isn't theirs to kill. They come at me again, weapons raised. "Die, monster! The girl is ours!"
"DON'T BE RIDICULOUS!" The power of the anger at their presumption rises in me and my forehead splits. I barely notice. The power explodes out from me and blows them back and shakes the whole building. I suddenly feel the demon farther back in the building as it reacts to my power. I'd been hidden from it until that moment. I know where to go now.
"I - I feel amazing strength!" exults one of the men in the room.
"What is this?"
"Could it be...the girl has been sacrificed? Is this the strength we were promised?"
No. It can't be. I try to reach Noriko again, both with my mind and physically. Surely they can't have been this fast. Such things take ritual and time. Surely not?
I'm slammed with nine different attacks all at once, much stronger than what they'd been trying before. Stop! My frustration grows. Always! Always men make me push too hard to reach my goal of peaceful living! I move fast, faster than ever. My energy shield is almost impenetrable. I continue to head for my goal, ignoring them. Then suddenly I'm held fast. I can't move to dodge or reach my goal. "Out of my way!" I cry, demanding the one thing I require from them.
I'm not released and I feel the armor coming on me as my power increases again, the anger I feel at being held from the place I need to be bringing it on, and bringing enough power to break out of my unseen bonds. "I said - Out of my way!"
I send a wave of energy through the room and every man is lifted up and slammed hard into the walls of this large antechamber, large enough to hold the standing worshipers of the city in it. "GET LOST! ALL OF YOU, OUT OF HERE!" I will not stand for the delay any longer.
The energy explodes up also, blowing a hole in the roof of the building above me. The whole building shakes dangerously. The remainder of the roof over this room collapses down, falling on the men in the room, and even the woman where she was hiding. The life in this room is finally still and I'm satisfied.
I run forward again, now unrestrained from leaving this room, and enter the inner parts of the temple. My whole body throbs, and I remember this pain brings something frightening, but not what. I'm focused only on getting to where I need to be.
I round a corner, following the scent I'm locked onto, and am blocked again. This time by a swirling tower of water. I call up the wind to protect me, swirling around me, but I only want this thing out of my way. I call up the energy and blast at the water creature and it only separates it, then it coalesces again. I did damage, but it was very slight.
I dodge as it swirls up to entrap me. No matter what I try, it can't be harmed in any major way, and it's delaying me from my goal. I pause, watching it, trying to think, trying to understand how I can get it out of my way. It begins to spin, with a sharp point at the end of the spinning cyclone that darts forward quickly and slams into my chest, pinning me against the wall.
That's even more irritating, that it's pinned me. The spinning point does nothing to me. My energy shield can't be penetrated by the likes of this. However, it's now also pinned with me. I collect all of my power of anger, sorrow, irritation, and fear and push back against the point of the spinning water spout, until it's far enough away from my core, then I send it all in one great explosive attack. The spinning water spout can't escape the power. I've penned it in with air the same as I penned in the first demon, locking it to the rock.
The majority of the water demon disappears. Some water splashes to the floor and I land on it, my feet snapping into their black scaled, clawed form. My arms and hands had already changed as I attacked the demon, and I fall to a crouch, holding myself up with one hand.
The energy from the attack continues on, not slowed or abated by the destruction of the demon, and explodes out of the building having gone through a large number of rooms to get there. The building rocks and pieces of it start falling.
DESTRUCTION. It's the focus of my being, but somewhere, something inside cries out, No! Wrong!
DESTRUCTION. It throbs through me, demanding to be let out. Must stop. Will hurt... (Hurt who? I've forgotten.)
The next throb is not a throb, but another tearing of even this scaled and armored body. From my back emerge two things and I can't hold back a cry of agony as I fall to my hands and knees, even already as mostly a demon. I feel them rise from my back and then expand. No! I beg, whimpering in that hidden place that's trying to stop this.
My wings flap down to rest at either side of me and power surges naturally with that simple motion, fleeing me to slam into every wall in either direction until it's released from the building. I can feel it continue onward and outward, unimpeded since this is the highest building in the area in those directions. It goes for miles and my crying heart sobs.
The next throb is a throb of pure pain. I'm a child on the floor in my home again, crying out in pain, wishing for anyone to help me, to make it stop. I hurt. ...Why does my heart hurt like this? I whimper it, cry it, wanting to understand, wishing for it to stop.
Slowly some things come to me as I pant, waiting for the pain to calm. I was looking for something. ...I was searching for someone. ...What? What was I looking for? Who was I searching for?
...I don't know. I can't see anything. ...This hurts so bad, I moan. This is killing me. A scream is ripped from me and I feel power leave my body to go slamming into the roof above me. It's both a relief from the pain, and causes more pain in my heart at the same time.
I sob inside, there on my hands and knees, and then...there's something different. Something coming towards me that my soul wants desperately. Sweet, warm, light, and somehow calling to me, desperately trying to reach my own pained heart. I turn to look, trying to sit up slowly to see without harming. Someone is running towards me, through the darkness of this place I'm in and they're encircled in light.
"IZARK!" I know this voice. The light she brings with her is beginning to dissolve the darkness around me and with it I find some relief from the place I'm trapped inside. The memory of who this is tries very hard to break through, to come back to me. A name breaks through: No-ri-ko.
I can suddenly see my surroundings and the roof crumbling above her. I direct a small portion of my power at it, brushing it away so that it can't fall on what I protect. I keep her protected until she's near me. Then I'm afraid. No. I can't protect you from me. Don't come near, Noriko!
She's already there, throwing her arms around my neck. "Izark, it's okay. I'm here. You are still beautiful. You are still kind. You are still Izark. You have protected me. It is enough."
The arms around me warm me, comfort me, push back the fear, anger, and other emotions with the peace and hope they hold in them. I want to hold her but I'm afraid of hurting her, so I can only stand and sob inside in relief that she's alive, that she's come when no other person would come, and at the time I most desperately needed someone to come and help me not become the thing I don't want to become.
I soak up all the love Noriko's willing to give me, all the belief that I am good, that I can reverse this in the end. I'm desperate for those things to fill me. I want those things, not what I almost became, what I was almost lost to.
I can feel the wings receding quietly into my back. The hard scales lie back down and my claws recede. I'm able to breathe a little easier, the overwhelming power leaving me, too, as if the demon is slowly backing away, unable to continue to be destructive as long as love has me in her arms.
When I can breathe more normally, I know that my hair has changed back to black, my ears are no longer pointed, and my skin no longer scaled and black. The horn, too, recedes.
The first changes leave me, and I make sure I truly have human hands and arms and am amazed. The scales that were on my arms from when I was a child are even gone. I can finally hold Noriko, and I do so, tightly, but not too tightly. I bury my head in her neck, to hide from the destruction that's been left behind, although they brought it on themselves, yet again. I sorrow.
"Noriko. Noriko." I can only shiver and shake, my fear of what comes next upon me. She keeps the rest at bay. But we need to escape before that "next" comes for us.
I take deep breaths, holding on to her faith, until I can lift her in my arms. I protect us with a shield as I take us from the now crumbling building in great leaps forward. We manage to get clear of the building as a whole before it completely collapses in a great rushing groan that sends dust and debris wafting out in all directions. I can only hope we can escape unseen and the people of the city will think everyone inside either has died, or must be dug out.
