-48-
There is something innately wretched about darkness.
Something horrible about its vast, eternal nothingness, something terrifying about its insurmountable unknown and how its presence can haunt every corner and every aspect of one's life. It was impenetrable, the darkness; like a yawning void waiting to gobble up the unsuspecting; like a black hole swallowing a star. It was silent. A stealthy, sleek predator that lies in wait: both there and not at once, housing together those things both real and imagined and nothing but dust in the same moment of time, where Schrödinger's Cat was both alive and dead, about to kill and about to flee, about to breathe and about to suffocate, as in that moment of Unknown, everything was possible. The darkness housed the monster under the bed and the boogeyman in the closet right alongside dirty clothes and misplaced toys. It housed the bum in the street, the mugger in the alley, the murderer with a gentleman's smile and the rapist drunk or high out of his (her) mind right alongside the food cart, the trashcans, the cat chasing mice and the forgotten runaway seeking shelter from the rain. It was all those things and none of those things all in the same unforgettable moment, for the darkness, with its great unknown housed the one thing Man had discovered since the dawn of time: Possibility.
And oh... there was endless possibility in the darkness Belldandy, Keiichi, and Debra found themselves in. It was a complete darkness; an abyss of the sort that left children with thoughts of the boogeyman and adults with fears of burglars and murderers in their own home. It was an expansive darkness, a deep void of nothing that gave no hint as to what surrounded them nor even the distance to the door (and in that moment, that single moment in time and space, was there really a door? It could be miles away by now if it still existed, and if it did, who could say if it would open, or if it was not in reality the yawning maw of a beast brought to life, ready and waiting to swallow them up in a single gulp.)
It was quiet too. So quiet. That same kind of quiet that was so still, so silent that it left a man wondering if he'd lost his hearing along with his sight. But Belldandy could still hear Keiichi's pounding heart, so loud as to be right next to her ear and she could just as easily make out Debra's breath, rasping now with a frightened, almost hysterical edge to it that did not fill the goddess with assurance. She could hear her own breath, hear her own heart hammering in her ears and her blood pounding in her skull, and (there are scratching noises in the darkness like a giant spider, like a giant, chittering spider and it's not a friendly spider, not like Verdita or Kashi-chan but something else, something worse and-) the silence around her was heavy and still.
There's something in here with us. Holy Bell whispered; Belldandy's own voice reflected back to her from the depths of her soul. We aren't alone in here. But was there really? Of course there is! Holy Bell cried. Our magic went out! Even now it will not respond to our call-there is no light, no source of light to guide us. That means someone is actively combatting our attempts to illuminate our surroundings! But they were alone. There was no sound to hint that something else was with them (the chittering though-) no attacks for which they needed to retaliate (but the light-). Nothing, nothing, to hint at the fact that someone else, something else, dwelt with the two mortals and one goddess in the deep, dark, room.
She felt something back into her and almost screamed, stopped only by the sound of Keiichi's voice, "Bell, is that you?"
"It's me." Belldandy groped behind her and grabbed an arm.
"That's me," said Debra. "But thanks. Glad to know you care."
"Can you cast that light spell again?" Keiichi asked. "Not that I'm afraid of the dark but... if we get attacked, I'd like to know what I'm aiming at."
"I'm trying," Belldandy replied. "Nothing is happening."
"Wonderful," Debra muttered. "Just what we-" The woman stopped mid-sentence, and in the darkness Belldandy looked in the direction she thought she had heard her voice from, wondering why she'd fallen silent. "You guys heard that, right?" The detective asked.
"Heard what?" Keiichi asked.
"I don't-" Another pause. "There it was again."
"I don't hear anything," Belldandy said. But did she really? Wasn't there something clattering in the darkness? Something with clawed toes going 'clack clack clack' against the tile? Or was that the chittering of some monstrous creature with a chitin carapace? Surely her mind wasn't playing tricks on her, right?
"I don't hear anything either," Keiichi grunted.
"Keiichi, you're on your way to fifty percent disability pay with your tinnitus alone when you retire," Debra groused. "I consider it a miracle you can hear anything we say at all right now."
"Hey, I resent that remark."
"You resemble that remark," Debra grumbled.
"What?"
"My point, exactly." Debra sucked in a loud, noisy breath. In a louder voice she announced, "So... what now?"
Belldandy never had the chance to answer her. Not before something slammed into her from behind. Not Debra, not Keiichi, but something (large and chittering and it was crawling on her) else. She fell to the ground with a shout, and vaguely heard Keiichi and Debra crying out in similar dismay. The Norn tried to rise, only to feel herself pressed back down to the floor as a weight settled on top of her. She grunted, more irritated than afraid, and tried to shake it off her back.
And then she felt a hand settle on top of hers. "Hey my little Gaijin-flower, it's been a while, hasn't it?" A voice whispered in her ear (in her head), and Belldandy froze. "I missed you, Babe," Aoshima breathed in her ear, and she felt her heart skip a beat. She could feel that breath. She could smell that breath. That familiar stink of expensive French cologne and Cuban cigars. "Where've you been? I've been so... lonely since you left. She could feel another hand now. Another hand, hard and rough, connected to an arm that wrapped around her waist. She could feel it... it was so real, and she could feel it, working its way under her shirt and to her bra, slipping past the thin fabric and squeezing a breast hard enough to hurt, hard enough to make lights explode behind her head.
"Sing for me, Babe." She felt his hand slide to the other breast, heard her own sharp draw of breath as he pinched the nipple, but denied him the cry he was seeking.
He's not real. He can't be real, he can't be here, not here, there are nothing but demons here it's not him it can't be him- Her mind began to race as panic seized her heart. Terror stiffened her muscles, and she could feel Holy Bell flailing in her chest even as that same hand, that same goddamned hand- his left hand, he always favored his fucking left hand- released her breast and slipped out of her shirt.
"I've missed our time together, you know," the phantom continued, and she thought she heard the jingle of a belt buckle- another dreadful sound that had haunted her ten years of life with him. "You remember those times, don't you? Just you... me... and a camera, with the boys watching on the other end. You always used to enjoy that, didn't you? When I made you scream for them? In the darkness, filled with its endless possibility, her senses seemed heightened, and in her mind's eye she saw his face: Toshiyuki, leering as he held her down with one hand, unzipped his fly with the other, and-
And a hand was back at her waist, only this time it moved down, moved to her pants and undid the button. She felt the pants loosen, felt the zipper slide down and there was a pressure on her underpants. And then something cool. Something cool and cold like ice cubes, like a corpse's hand, sliding into her underwear and down further still- "Scream for me." Aoshima's voice was right in her ear, and she could feel his cheek against her own as he pressed his weight down on her. "Just you, me, and your little fuckboy with his hoe. Scream for me. Give 'em a show. You think they can't see? Oh, Bitch, why do you think they're so quiet?"
Carrie, it isn't real he's not here, he can't be here because Urd took care of him, remember? Remember? Holy Bell was shrieking so loudly that even if Keiichi and Debra were making noise, her angel and Aoshima's ghost drowned them both out.
"Bitch, I've always been here. You just forgot about me, that's all." There was a cruel hint of laughter in Aoshima's voice. "Don't you remember? You belong to me. Mind, body, and soul. And your Master just made an order. Scream."
"No," Belldandy whispered.
"What was that? Did I hear defiance right there?" She could feel his fingers- and she was certain now, those were indeed the cold, dead, fingers of a corpse, rub against her vulva. They felt stiff. Stiff and bony and mummified, and that brought with it a new image in her mind: one of Aoshima, dried and wrinkled and emaciated, his skin flaking away and crinkling like tissue paper, leaving sores underneath that did not bleed but were instead dried and salted like jerky. "Oh babe... I never told you this, but that shit turns me on. I fucking love it when they think they can fight." Laugher. Dry and raspy, and she thought she could feel dust strike her cheek from where he brought up pieces of his dried lungs. "Now scream."
She gritted her teeth but refused to open her mouth. She refused to give him the satisfaction, here in the dark where the others would hear, where Aoshima would win when she'd come so far.
"Come so far? Bitch, who you telling?" Aoshima cackled. "Look at you, on your hands and knees like a wanton slut, trembling like you want it with my fingers at your hole. You haven't done shit. Stop fooling yourself. You'd be fighting me if you didn't want it. Fuck, you'd be fighting me even if you did, 'cause that's just the kind of lover you are. He knows, you know. That other guy. He knows because you killed him. Just like you killed me.
Who's really the monster here?"
No no no nonononononono-
Don't listen to him! Don't listen to his lies, Carrie! Don't listen to him!"
"Scream!" She felt something penetrate her, cold and sharp and unyielding like an icepick-
And then Debra Johansson, Blessed Be Her Name, tripped over the Goddess Belldandy with a fatal scream, "Don't take another fucking step!" She howled. "Don't fucking touch me Ja-" The woman fell atop Belldandy, and it was this combination along with the explosive discharge of a revolver that ended the darkness and its wretched, endless possibilities.
The report was deafening in the enclosed space. An explosion of such intensity that Belldandy felt the reverberation from the floor into the depths of her bones, with a ricochet that seemed to zing from all directions at once. Her ears rang with such a shrill clamor that for a moment the Norn feared she'd gone deaf. However, it silenced Aoshima's voice as well, and she found she could almost accept her new state of hearing loss if it meant freedom from the man and his cruel words.
And it ended the darkness.
Somehow, by some way, the gunshot ended the darkness.
All at once light flooded the area; the combined light of not two illumination pells but five, all of such magnitude that it was almost blinding to behold. Their rays chased away the darkness as though it were a living thing, and perhaps, in that all-encompassing moment of blackness and silence that had been what it was: Alive and made real by the fears of the mind, brought into tangibility by the demon that controlled it, a demon that, even now, was slinking off into a patch of shadows born from a partially collapsed ceiling on the far-edge of the empty room.
She was small. Dwarfed somehow by the light of Belldandy's magic, clutching the sides of her head with an expression of agony engraved in every line and feature of her face. She collapsed in the shadows, as though seeking shelter from the light, but a second look showed the demon needn't bother; her eyes were blank; her corneas so milky the irises beneath could not be distinguished from the sclera. Her palms were red, and it took Belldandy a moment to realize it was blood dripping from her hands. Blood from her ears, she saw, and the demon- not Hagall but some other woman- took her hands away in favor of retreating.
Belldandy sat up. Her shirt was dark with sweat, but showed no signs of being tampered with, her pants still held tight against her hips with the fly still up. A hallucination then. Her mind playing tricks on her in the darkness. The goddess shuddered. She could still feel his lingering touch though. Still smell the undercurrents of expensive cologne and cigars and sweat and (rot and dust and degradation) feel his touch. You're fine, Carrie, Holy Bell whispered. Breathe. Deep, long breaths. You're fine. He's gone. We let our fears get the better of us. He's gone.
The Norn glanced to the woman who'd rather unceremoniously ended the darkness. Debra looked shaken, but otherwise, similar to Belldandy, unharmed. The revolver lay a scant inch from where she'd fallen, and the detective was heaving wildly, sucking in large, gulping breaths of air. Her attention lay not with the demon that had so stolen the illumination of Belldandy's lights but with Keiichi,brown eyes large, frightened, and almost childlike in their raw terror. Her left hand clutched at her shirt, as if willing her heart to calm itself. The woman shifted her wild gaze to the Norn. In it was painted the same frightened look that was on Belldandy's face, though the goddess was certain Debra Johansson did not even know a man like Aoshima Toshiyuki existed. You saw it too, didn't you? that look said. Something so awful and frightening it can't be spoken of in the light.
Belldandy tore her eyes away, having no desire to reveal to the detective that yes, that was exactly what had happened and that she too, had fallen victim to it. A nightmare. A waking nightmare made real by the expansive darkness that had so consumed them.
She looked instead at Keiichi and found him rising to his feet, his expression grave, angry, and upset. His eyes were bright with tears that left Belldandy guessing at what might have haunted him, and it was enough to rile her forgotten anger once more.
The goddess picked herself up, and with two armed and upset mortals- two armed and dangerous mortals at her back, the Norn advanced. The demon, the woman, rested propped up behind the wall of debris she'd hidden behind, the angle of the fallen ceiling just enough to hide her small frame from sight. But that was all it did. The woman appeared too wounded, in too much agony, to do much aside from clutch at her injured ears and pant. She did not react to the trio's approach, nor seemed aware of their presence as Belldandy stopped in front of her.
She was a pathetic sight when seen up close. Here, the demon's disability was barren and naked for them all to observe, and made all the worse by the blood still trickling from her ears. Her brown hair was painted and matted with the blood of her injury, and tears trickled down her cheeks as she fought through her distress. Ruptured eardrums? Belldandy wondered, and almost pitied the demon. Blind and deaf. A terrible fate for a demon of the Falkin variety. With not just one but two major senses taken out, she would be lucky to last the rest of the day before something else came and disposed of her.
"But you don't pity her, do you." Aoshima's taunting voice sent shivers down her spine, and with it came a thrill of rage as the world took on a red hue. "Look at you, as cruel as they come. She doesn't even know you're standing right in front of her. What a useless wretch." The edge of red lasted a moment- a brief second if that- but was enough to spur the goddess into action. She knelt and grabbed the demon by her extravagant blouse (Niflheim's finest, Belldandy was certain). The unknown woman released a peal of terrified shrieks that sounded more akin to an injured animal than a woman. The woman's hands wrapped around Belldandy's arm, and a line of rapid, terrified Falken chattered uselessly from the demon's lips. The words meant nothing to Belldandy; she'd learned a word or two here and there from Urd, but never enough to understand full sentences, never enough to follow what could only amount to begging from the demon she held.
Carrie... Belldandy... Holy Bell warned. She's helpless. She can't even answer your questions right now.
She hurt me, Belldandy told her angel. She brought... she brought him back.
And his voice is still with us, I know. Holy Bell's voice was soothing, understanding, but this isn't the way. Don't prove Aoshima right, Belldandy. Set her back down. She's been through enough. She's blind and deaf and may be like that the rest of her life. Be kind, Belldandy.
The angel's words struck a chord in the goddess, and for a moment Belldandy stood frozen, staring down at the raving demon trying to pry herself free from the Norn's grip. It was a weak attempt. Because she's a weak demon, Belldandy thought. All she's good at is stealing light, isn't it? Bringing everyone down to her level and then letting the darkness do the rest. That's all she can do, isn't it?" There was no hidden strength in the demon's hands. No magic at her fingertips about to manifest. Just the panicked wailing of a scared and crippled demon.
"And you're her tormenter, aren't you?" Aoshima laughed, and Belldandy felt sick. "Behold! The Great and Terrible Goddess Belldandy, Scourge of the Crippled and Monster of the Handicapped, is that it?"
She placed the demon back on the ground. The demon's wails fell into painful whimpers, and grimacing, Belldandy forced herself to turn away.
Go fuck an iron maiden, Aoshima, Holy Bell whispered. Aoshima said nothing back.
Debra was watching her with wide eyes. "You know, just for a moment," she said. "I thought you were going to kill her."
Belldandy said nothing, instead pressing past Debra in favor of examining the rest of the room. "What do we do with her?" Keiichi dropped in beside her, his voice uncharacteristically rough. Hard, almost.
"We leave her," Belldandy replied. "There is nothing we can do that her own people will not do in excess. Falkin demons are known for nothing if not their concept of Yosuga." She paused, then shook her head. "No... forgive me, that is not the correct word. I do not know if there is a proper word to describe the Falkin philosophy of 'the strongest survive'."
Keiichi said nothing, and Belldandy was uncertain if she was happy or not for his silence. They continued their search of the room in silence, leaving Debra with the fallen demon- little more than a crippled woman whom they may never know the name of- while navigating the perimeter of the room, Keiichi eyeing the walls for any clues on how to proceed and Belldandy trying to find some hint as to where the aura she'd been tracking might lead them next. It was hard. The room was saturated with demonic energy after the demon's blanket attack, and it almost erased the trail from her sight. They found one shadowy corner with a couple of old, ten-pound weights in a corner that looked to have rusted through. They passed pieces of broken metal springs and rubber-wrapped steel beams as they continued their investigation, hinting that the room may have been a gym in some past lifetime.
A section of dust and mold on the far south side revealed a door that had escaped their initial notice, and here Belldandy paused. She narrowed her eyes, angled her head, and glared at it. "I think the trail leads through here?" She sounded uncertain.
"I didn't see any other doors aside from the one we came through," Keiichi said. "Not unless Hagall used that fallen chunk of ceiling as another staircase to the floor above."
"No... I think not..." Belldandy looked back at the fallen section. Her eyes briefly traveled across Debra's kneeling form. The detective had ripped off portions of the demon's overcoat and had pressed the two wads of cloth to the woman's ears. In the silence of the room, only the demon's whimpering was audible, and a new emotion- that of grief - had come to mingle and dance with the pain on the demon's face.
Keiichi followed her gaze and was silent as well for a moment. Then he spoke. "I'm glad you didn't hurt her, Bell." A hand came to rest on the Norn's shoulder, and despite herself Belldandy jumped. "There's a difference between combat and crimes, and I'll admit, for a moment there I was afraid you wouldn't be able to tell where that line lay." He fell quiet once more. Then, in a softer whisper, said, "I'm glad I was wrong."
The man's hand slid off Belldandy's shoulder, and Keiichi moved towards the fallen rubble, with its demon and detective. He tapped Debra's shoulder, then gestured to Belldandy and the newly-discovered path. The woman nodded at him, then grabbed the demon's hands and pressed the torn cloths into her palms. She guided the demon's palms to her ears and pressed them firmly against the ear canals. "Hold them there," Debra said, and her voice seemed loud and disruptive in the silence of the room. Belldandy wondered why she was wasting her breath. It was doubtful the demon heard her. "Keep them there until help comes for you, okay?" She patted the demon's shoulders, as though in reassurance, then stood and followed Keiichi back to Belldandy.
"Is it safe to leave her here alone like this?" Debra asked as Keiichi cleared away dust and mold from the door's threshold.
"We can't take her with us," Keiichi said, not bothering to look back at her.
"If you're so concerned for her, you can always stay," Belldandy challenged, and was taken aback when, rather than throw back some retort, the detective paused and looked back over her shoulder as if considering the prospect.
"I..." She stared back at the demon, who'd curled up against the debris into a tiny ball of misery. "I don't like it," she said. "I mean... she's so... helpless like this. What if she gets attacked?"
"By who?" Keiichi asked. "Not us, and we're the people she was going up against, remember?"
"Yeah..." The woman lapsed into silence. "When we're done with Cholo-Lady... can we come back for her?" She looked at Belldandy. Not Keiichi but the Norn herself. "Is there someone we can turn her in to who'll be able to take care of her? Some kind of... authority? Maybe some kind of medical institute?" She paused, as if in consideration of her own words. "Do... demons and gods even have that sort of thing? We can't just leave her here."
"Not on this plane of existence," Belldandy replied, but she understood the detective's reasoning. It'd be irresponsible to merely... leave the demon as she was, especially with her already crippled. Her and... don't forget what happened to Urd, a voice reminded. You don't know what happened. An investigation will be conducted to find out what happened to Urd and Lind. Especially if Urd was involved. This could lead to an interdimensional investigation if Urd is truly gone.
Belldandy shivered then, and this time when she gazed back at the nameless demon it was with real pity. While she'd never met the Daimakaicho, she'd heard stories. Perhaps, in some horrid kind of way, they'd provided the blind demon a form of mercy by robbing her of her hearing. It'd be one less way the Daimakaicho's interrogators would be able to harm her, if what the stories said of their law-enforcement branch were true. And with the Daimakaicho's daughter no less...
"We'll come back for her," Belldandy decided. "She should be fine here alone. So long as she remains where she is, I doubt there is much in here that can hurt her. Once Hagall has been dealt with, we shall take her with us and figure out where to go from there."
She looked back at Debra, who appeared relieved by the Norn's verdict- another confusing act, if Belldandy was to judge.
"Come on then," Keiichi said. "Let's not waste any more time. I think I found where the door handle used to be." The man stared at the door, then took one step back and kicked the door near an old, rusted lock with a grunt. His foot slammed into the door hard enough to produce an echo, and Belldandy was surprised when the door flew open before them all, squealing on rusted hinges before colliding with the wall and rebounding back towards them. There was light inside, though the source wasn't electric and was far enough away as to only provide a dim illumination. Keiichi looked at Belldandy. "It looks like this one can see."
Belldandy marched through the door. "Then let's not keep them waiting any longer." Debra followed after her, and Keiichi, with a final glance back at the fallen demon, brought up the rear, covering their exit.
XXX
Her ears hurt.
Oh Nidhogg how her ears hurt. It was almost unbearable. The pain was so great that all she could do was suck in one ragged breath after another, one after another. And she couldn't even hear it.
It left her scared.
She knew the darkness. Had come to know it as her friend since she'd been old enough to understand that her blindness was not 'normal' for a demon. It had never bothered her, and had in fact helped her in more ways than she could begin to name. People feared the darkness, after all, and held no desire to understand it like herself. So she'd used it, and as it was her closest friend, it had allowed her to use it, to manipulate it to her will in order to gain an advantage over her opponents.
By the Great Serpent, she was in so much pain.
But those three... that mortal with her noise-maker... what did they call them again? Gaahhhn... Gun! A gun, that was what it was. The woman with the gun. The discharge, the explosion, and oh... fuck, why did it hurt so much?
She breathed deep, willing the pain to lessen, willing her ears to hear and knowing it was a futile attempt. Her ears had always been sensitive to sound. They allowed her to 'see' in the same manner her eyes did not, and it was what had painted the scene of Darkness, her old friend, wrapping itself around the odd trio of two mortals and a god and scaring them into submission.
But that discharge... that fucking discharge, and now even that was lost to her. No sight, which had never bothered her. But no sound... just... just the feel of her pulse through her veins. Just the feel of blood leaking from her poor, screaming ears, and by Nidhogg, was this what it like for those robbed of a sight they'd always had? This feeling of fear? Of desperation?
I don't want to be alone, she thought. Not like this. Who was to say she was safe like this?
And that woman... she hadn't heard her voice, but she recognized the sharp, metallic tang of gunpowder that clung to her after the discharge. She'd shown her... kindness. Compassion. Though Halval had gone out of her way to torture them, to stop their progress, to terrify them in the way only true darkness and the illusions their own minds conjured up... that mortal had shown her compassion where no one else, not her family who'd left her to flail on her own, not the Legion which left her to her own devices and who were perhaps nervous of her affiliation with the darkness, had ever shown her.
She'd heard rumors of such strange events from mortals before, but never experienced them herself. Mortals were mad, after all. Capable of cruelty one moment and kindness the next, depending on the mood that fit them, and despite everything else, despite all she'd been through, she found herself regretful when that comforting presence... that... kindness had left her.
Please come back, she thought. Please don't leave me here alone. Anything was better than... this.
I would know you if you would let me, she thought. I would abandon this Legion if you would help me like before, if you would bring me my hearing back. And she would too. A moment of pain and a moment of kindness. That was all it had taken to sway her allegiance to Legion, which had always been weak. They'd accepted her only because of her power in stealing the light, and she, in her desperation to be of value, had joined in order to belong.
She felt the ground vibrate beneath her. Once, twice, three times... she counted the different vibrations, holding her breath in a vain effort to be silent. Ten. Ten new vibrations. Ten new people who'd come from the same place the Gun-Woman and her kindness had first come from.
You know who that is, some part of her whispered, and felt a fresh spring of despair emerge in her heart. Yes. She did indeed know who those were, for she had been told horror stories of them in her younger days as a pup. "The Wilder are coming for you." The voice of her mother, of her father, their voices in low whispers to provoke a daunting atmosphere, rose in her mind. "They come for all little children who are bad boys and girls. They come with long claws. They come with sharp teeth. They come with deadly wit, and the knowledge of how to keep their meals alive for as long as possible." Her parent's voice had always scared her siblings in her childhood, but Halval had never felt that same fear. Perhaps because she was blind, and lacked the imagination that came with those words. Now though...
Now her imagination was sprung anew, a renaissance of monsters and ogres that came in the darkest of days and were so quiet they could walk unheard through a crypt. And indeed, they were quiet. Not just because she was deaf but because they were light-footed. She had to strain to feel their footsteps, and it was like attempting to feel a ghost; little more than a gentle breeze, almost indiscernible from the air around her. Come back for me, she projected back to the Gun-Woman. Don't let them take me away, please! I'll pledge my loyalty to you. I'll fight for you. I'll fight against Legion, just don't leave me here for the Wilder!
She could smell them now. Ten different scents from ten different tribes. The Damkianna's pets then. Of course. Who else but the Damkianna's pets would be sent for her. "They come for all little children who are bad boys and girls," the conjoined voice of her parents continued. "And you've been a very bad little girl, haven't you, Halval? They're here for you at the Damkianna's instructions, and you know what they'll do? A little nibble here, a little chew there, just enough to taste you. Then they'll wrap you up and haul you away, and whenever one of them is hungry... a little bit of the fingers, a little bit of the toes, until they're all gone. Then they'll chew on your arms and on your legs, going for the meaty bits, going for the fatty bits, but leaving the veins whole and intact so you don't bleed to death. They like their meat alive, remember? They like their meat chewy, and fear stiffens the meat. Gives it a special, special flavor that only Wilder can enjoy, and enjoy it they will, until they no longer can. Then they'll drag what's left of you before Damkianna Hild, and you'll still be alive, and you'll tell her whatever she wants to know because at that point, it's not about living. At that point, it's about dying, so that you can escape the nightmare of the Wilder.
Please don't leave me with them.
They were around her now. Staring down at her, she was certain. Perhaps licking their lips in anticipation.
Please come back.
She felt a pair of hands on her. Felt them pry her hands from her ears and felt the cloth that was catching the blood fall from her hands. She struggled and felt more hands come down on her, felt them wrench her arms up over her head, felt hot, moist air glide across her fingers.
Please no.
She felt something slice into the tips of her pointer fingers. Felt fire rise from the fingers and consume her hands as the pain traveled up her arm and to her brain.
She felt herself scream.
She felt the cloth that had been used to cover her ears-it tastes like blood it tastes like blood it's my blood oh Nidhogg please help me- stuffed harshly into her mouth, silencing her cries. Oh please oh please oh please oh please oh plea-
XXX
Debra froze as a scream rose from the room they'd just come from. "Fuck!" she swore. "That was-" Abruptly, the scream was cut off, and an icy hand of fear, of worry gripped the detective's heart. "We need to go back for her." She turned back down the hallway they'd been walking down, the dim light that illuminated it outside of Belldandy's magic emanating from the farthest door at the end.
Belldandy grabbed her. "Wait," she hissed.
"Wait? Wait? Wait for what?!" The detective looked back at the goddess incredulously, and then over to Keiichi, who was looking back down the hallway as well. The man's lips were pressed in a thin line, where dancing shadows played games across his face, making the SEAL look malevolent one moment, benign the next.
"Listen," Keiichi whispered.
But there was nothing to listen to. Nothing but silence.
"Whatever struck her is already finished," Belldandy whispered. "They're already gone."
"Gone?" Debra whispered. "Not dead? Gone?" She looked back at the Norn. "How can you be sure?"
"Whoever they were wouldn't have killed her," Belldandy replied. "The Doublet System would not allow it."
"The what?"
"The Doublet System," Belldandy repeated. "It is... there is a ceremony all demons and gods must go through. A safeguard to prevent massive murders on either side of the fence."
"What do you mean?" Keiichi asked.
The goddess hesitated, then licked her lips before continuing. "Our souls are joined with a demon whose identity is anonymous," she explained. "As a means to prevent us from killing demons, and to prevent demons from killing gods. Should a god die, the anonymous demon connected to them will perish as well. Should a demon die, the same will hold true."
Except whoever went for the blind demon wasn't a god, Debra thought to herself. It was one of the Suits. One of those... those demons that Belldandy sensed earlier. The ones with Urd. "And does that hold true for demons going for demons?" She inquired.
Belldandy looked at her strangely. "No... not generally," she said. "It would cause too much of an uproar between our two sides if that were to happen.
"Can you sense any other gods?"
Belldandy hesitated, looking back down the hallway. "No," she said. "I can only sense demonic energy."
"So you're saying that there is no way another god could be down here with us," Debra continued. "It has to be another demon, and you're certain that they didn't kill that blind woman because of this... doublet system."
"Yes," Belldandy said, frowning at Debra. "Is that so hard to understand?"
"It is," Debra replied, and felt her heart begin to hammer in her chest.
"Why is that?" Belldandy asked.
"Because you want to kill Hagall," Debra accused. Here we go... "Which means, if I'm to understand this correctly, you are also willing to risk the life of an innocent bystander by murdering this person." She saw Belldandy's eyes widen as the dots were connected in the Norn's eyes, and added the final nail to the coffin, praying it wouldn't get her killed.
"Murdering Hagall isn't going to bring Urd back, Belldandy."
She saw the Norn's eyes narrow in anger, saw the woman's arm spin towards her and thought, I'm going to die. She felt something grab her collar and grunted as an undefinable force slammed her into the wall. Stars exploded in her head, and her ears, just recovered from their half-deaf state after the gun discharge, began to ring a fresh, high din. Somewhere beneath the din she thought she heard Keiichi cry out, but it could have just as easily been her imagination. The detective blinked rapidly, trying to clear the lights in her eyes, and when they began to fade Debra sucked in a gasp. It's a tiger. She thought madly, and this time the stars that erupted in her vision were spawned by panic. Oh god, I'm pinned against the wall by Byakko.
Growing up side-by-side with the first generation of Morisato children to live in the United States had been an interesting childhood for Debra Johansson. One of exotic words and exotic foods. A strange sense of humor and unusual adventures through ghetto neighborhoods. Of spooky sleepovers and above all, stories. Stories of foreign islands that seemed distant and magical, like the undying Lands of Valinor from the Lord of the Rings, of the Summer Lands that were said to never grow cold. Listening to tales of Izanagi and Izanami, and the menacing, eight-headed serpent Orochi (not Urd, don't forget). Of brave little Momtarou, the Little Peach Boy who defeated an oni and Yuko-chan, the blind girl who saved her village with a damura doll. Stories of the Sun, Amaterasu, born from Izanagi's right eye and who hid in a cave after a dispute with her brother, Susano-o, the god of storms (born when Izanagi cleaned his nose, what a hoot!), and how it was only through Ama-no-Izume stripping down and dancing, of the laughter of the watching gods, that sparked the Sun's curiosity enough to peek out from her cave and drag her out into the world again.
Of the Four Heavenly Beasts (their tales ranging all over Asia, though Keima would claim they originated in Japan) that represented everything from the four directions to the four seasons. The majestic Azure Dragon of the East and Spring (Seiryu), the lithe Vermillion Bird or Pheonix of the South and Summer (Suzaku), the sturdy Black Turtle of the North and Winter (Genbu), and the tiger. The great white tiger of the West and Autumn and wind. Byakko.
And it was Byakko who pinned her to the wall now. Byakko, with her blazing blue eyes and snarling fangs. Byakko, made of a cold autumn breeze and the moving clouds in the sky. Byakko, whose stripes were the shades of trees and whose claws could pierce like frigid morning frost, with fangs as long as her forearms and whose breath steamed-or cooled, Debra wasn't sure-the air.
Byakko, whose fur was matted and covered in tar, a shadow of her former glory.
She saw it only for a moment: black poison that mixed and matted the once great, white coat into messy gray clumps. Black tar that looked like it had started to dry and flake off in some areas, but looked wet and shiny and new in other areas. Black tar that, even as Debra watched, seemed to reach up with a will of its own and cling to more fur, and Debra couldn't help but think to herself, It's poison. It's a living poison and it's consuming her. It's killing her and she doesn't even know it.
And then Byakko vanished, replaced by Belldandy in all her fury once more. "And what," the Norn hissed, "would you know of it?"
All at once the reality of Debra's situation came sweeping back to her-she was pinned against a wall by a goddess who looked very willing and very capable of killing her, and she'd just provoked the woman into violence. Deescalate it! Some piece of her screamed, Keiichi isn't going to be able to do fuck-all against her like this, deescalate the situation before she rips your head off!
"I know that you're hurting," Debra said, and fought to keep her voice calm, drawing on all her eight years of law enforcement discipline to keep herself as collected as possible. She didn't want Belldandy to see her fear. At this stage in the game, some piece of Debra was willing to bet her life that if Belldandy- if Byakko- smelled her fear, her life was over. "And I know that Hagall's death won't help that hurt."
Belldandy's lips peeled back in a snarl, her eyes glittering like precious gems in the light and god, why hadn't she seen it before, it was all so obvious now. "And what would you know of loss?" the Norn demanded. "Of pain, of suffering?" Her voice rose until she screamed the words out, but Debra refused to wince, refused to so much as blink in light of the goddess's rage. "What do you know of the pain this demon has caused? Of the death she's brought with her, of the sheer torture she's brought on me over the course of a decade?! What do you know of the sheer havoc she's wrought?!"
"Nothing," Debra said, her voice still calm, still cool, still collected despite the danger of the woman who held her against the wall, whose fist alone could splatter her brains against the moldy plaster she was pinned against. "I admit that I know absolutely nothing about this woman or what she's done against you. However I've seen some things in my life, Belldandy. Maybe not to the same extent as you. Maybe not even to the same extent as Keiichi, but I've seen some things."
She heard a deep rumble from the Norn, a rumble like the angry growl of a tiger (she'd been so stupid not to notice it before- she'd been courting death with a fucking tiger since running into Keiichi again) yet Belldandy held her silence. Watching. Waiting. An invitation, narrow though it was, to speak, and oh Lordy Debra, it had better be a good one, because if it wasn't, her journey was liable to end right there on the spot. Behind Belldandy, the detective caught a passing glance at Keiichi, scared and uncertain, his hand grabbing hold of the goddess's shoulder as he shouted demands that seemed somehow far off and feeble to the detective. She caught his eye and saw just how terrified he was, thrown into a situation where he needed to choose between his (goddess) girlfriend and his ex-wife.
Debra waved him down, but didn't smile, didn't try and reassure him, because Belldandy was watching her with keen eyes, watching her like a goddamned tiger about to pounce and rip her throat out. She sucked in a deep breath, and spoke, "I've seen a grown man break down crying in front of his daughter when he's trying to explain to a five-year-old how her mother died in a drive-by between two local gangs," she began, "I've seen the blank look of shock on a child rapist's face as he's been hauled into a court room and the dead eyes of his victim as she's told to explain to a judge and jury what happened to her. I've seen the fury of a father who wants nothing more than to murder that same man get thrown into a jail cell to cool off because he plans to make good on his threats, and I've seen the lingering trauma done by that rapist's deeds. I saw what made me want to become a cop, what made me want to help my local community, and let me tell you some of the shit I saw in my rookie year-that year that makes or breaks a would-be officer and either sends them packing or leaves them gunning until retirement. I've seen hate crimes based off race, where one group of men will beat another man to death based off the color of his skin. I've seen hate crimes based off sexual orientation, where a group of college kids threw another off the Golden Gate because he wagged his hips at them.
"I've watched the light go out in the eyes of a gangbanger as I held a bandage to his jugular, where a rival member has flayed him open like a fish. I've seen my fellow officers suffer consecutive gunshot wounds in an effort to protect a life someone else thought wasn't worth a damn, and I've had mothers and fathers and brother and sisters curse me out and call me a pig when I rang their door bell and told them that their sons and daughters and siblings were dead. I've seen life wash out of men's eyes like water in a gutter, and then watched their brother pick up the mantle of their gang life and continue the trend of violence-one life for a life, an eye for an eye, vengeance for their fallen brother, with the rest of their family pleading on deaf ears to let it go, to stop the hate, to move on with that life before it gets thrown behind bars or lost in the bowels of an alley like a bag of trash."
She narrowed her eyes at Belldandy, and with it came an indignant anger; a justified anger, of a woman who'd seen a wheel of death and vengeance with no end and had grown sick of it even as it had jaded her. "I've watched those same men get the same tattoos that marked their brothers, their cousins, their fathers for the same gang, and I've watched them meet their family in prison- not the fucking gangs they claim is their family but their honest-to-god blood in the same penitentiary and for the same crimes of murder, of drug trafficking, of car theft and black-arms deals and rape and robbery, and now here I am, stuck against the wall and looking at you, Belldandy, looking at a dumbfuck goddess and wondering, are you really any different from them? Cause from where I stand I don't fucking see it. I see what I've already seen: a sister who's just lost a sister due to some kind of violent act. A sister who's seeking vengeance under her self-imposed definition of justice, and who's just confessed that she doesn't care who dies with the person she sees that's so wronged her."
Belldandy's lips had pulled back in a snarl now, and Debra could damn-near feel the heat radiating off the goddess. Fine. Let her. From where Debra stood, the woman who held her pressed against the wall was no better than any of the other suspects she'd had to deal with over the years, and the detective had a sneaking suspicion that the Norn needed to hear this, if for no other reason than the sheer look of anger and shock that someone, and fuck it, let's be honest here, not just someone but a fucking mortal, would dare to speak to her in such a manner. "You'll kill and kill and kill if it means getting you to Hagall, isn't that right?" Debra challenged. "Because Hagall is the source of your pain, because Hagall is responsible for your suffering, because Hagall killed Urd? And in the process not only will you kill these demons, these people who work with her, but you'll kill those men and women who are their doubles too? Is that it?" Belldandy was trembling now, not just with rage but with something else too, something Debra had seen on only a handful of different people's faces before, and something that gave the detective hope, gave reason to believe that this one, this goddess might be one of the few people she managed to reach with words and words alone. Someone who might doubt their actions, someone who might question their resolve, someone who might hesitate before pulling the trigger that would end the life of… a mother, a daughter, a sister, a wife, who knew what Hagall had waiting for her back home? Who knew who she was connected to, if Belldandy's definition of a 'doublet' was to be believed?
"This isn't some animal you're planning on slaying, Belldandy." Debra's voice dropped into a low murmur, but one that Belldandy could hear just as well. "This is the life of another person you're considering. I've spoken with the gang-bangers. I've seen the hitmen and the murderers, Belldandy, and let me tell you something of a personal belief of mine: When you kill a person, a little piece of yourself dies with them. A little piece of your conscience, a little piece of your compassion, a little piece of what makes you good. It dies, and you don't come to regret it's missing until its already rotting in some dark and decrepit part of your mind, and that rot is a cancer, Belldandy. A tumor that's hard to remove and with a stench that follows you wherever you go."
"Now I don't know all of what Hagall's done to you. I don't know what you've lived through these past ten years, but I can see it on your face right now, clear as day, that it was cruel for you. But you know what? I've seen some good in you too. Maybe that's the real you- the untainted piece of you that draws a man terrified of women to your side and who makes a scared college student laugh and smile and take faith in you like the goddess I've only recently discovered you are. I know there's some good in you because I've seen the way Keiichi looks at you when you aren't being a complete bitch, and I've personally borne witness to some of the amazing feats you can accomplish- the amazing good you can do by cleansing a land of radiation or tracking down a scared, kidnapped girl. There has to be some fucking good in you somewhere, because otherwise Keiichi wouldn't be attracted to you, wouldn't still be behind you right now, scared shitless because you're forcing him into a corner between me and you, and you wouldn't have left that other demon-woman to live with the promise of us coming back to help her.
"Don't let that good die in you because you decided to kill another person today, Belldandy." The detective fell silent, the fight washed out of her now that she'd finished her spiel and her jaw aching from the speech she'd made. With it came fright rekindled, because if something in that long lecture didn't reach the goddess, then Debra doubted anything would, and she was certain that if the words were tossed aside like litter on a highway, then not only would Hagall's life be forfeit, Debra's herself would be in this exact moment.
A strange look overtook the goddess in that moment. Her face slackened, as if all the muscles in her face relaxed at the same time, and for a moment the goddess leaned forward-not so much forcing Debra into the wall as her body relaxing completely for a brief second. And then a whisper. "She's right, Carrie."
The strange incident was done and gone as soon as the words were spoken, and to Debra it was like seeing a light return in the depths of Belldandy's eyes. The goddess released her, and not only Debra, but Keiichi breathed a sigh of relief as well. Belldandy considered the detective for a long instant, and in that time Debra grew aware of just how small and insignificant she must appear to the woman before her. Here was a woman capable of manifesting guns on the whim of two regular humans. Who could leap across rooftops at an easy, loping pace of over thirty-five miles per hour, of a woman who could cleanse the land of a radiation that had destroyed it for over seventy-five years. Here was a tiger, its fur once white and magnificent and since matted and dirtied. And what was she in comparison? Why, just a lone mortal who knew how to run her mouth.
As if to complete this thought, Belldandy said one thing to Debra, "You talk too much." And nothing else, turning and continuing her journey down the hallway and to the next room, the room that would hopefully contain Hagall and Aiko and would put an end to this mad and terrifying journey. Debra watched her go, took a step after her, and almost fell flat on her face as her legs turned to trembling jelly beneath the resurgence of her weight.
Keiichi caught her and hauled her to her feet, wrapping her left arm, free of any weapon, around his shoulders to better support her. "Deb, you know I care about you, right?" Keiichi asked, and his voice was tight and strained; a combination of anger and fear and stress. Debra didn't blame him. She felt similar emotions running through her own head, making her both light-headed and thick-headed all at the same time.
"Yeah."
"Don't ever fucking do that to me again, okay?" Keiichi requested. "You two were so lost in your own fucked up world of 'Top Bitch' that I don't think either of you ever heard me screaming." The man sucked in a shuddering breath. "Please… don't ever force me to decide between you two like that again."
"Make sure you save some of your scolding for Belldandy too," Debra murmured, then patted his left shoulder with her left hand. "I can walk now, Mister Navy SEAL."
Keiichi released her. "I will," he said, and she knew his word was as good as a promise. "I'm going to have a long talk with her after all this is over." And then, in a lower voice, "I've never been so afraid of her before… even when she killed me- for a moment I was honestly afraid I'd have to shoot her to get her to let you go." In the light spawned by the magic, Debra saw that his hands shook against the grip of his rifle stock and magazine.
Debra froze when something that he had said registered. "Say what?" She looked at him in disbelief, yet Keiichi saw her look of horror and assumed it was for a different reason. Not Keiichi dying but him almost turning his rifle on an ally.
"She wouldn't let you go," he explained. "I kept shouting at her to let you go… kept screaming that I didn't want to but that I would if she hurt you, but…" He shook his head, morose. "I just want Aiko back." He grumbled, and fell into Belldandy's shadow, for a moment looking small and insignificant; a shell of his former self.
The detective watched him go, and was left with a strange sense of foreboding. I never should have come here, she thought. It's too late now, Debby. The voice of distant past whispered. You've made your bed, now it's time to sleep in it. You passed up the opportunity to abandon this suicide mission at a gas station a life time ago, and it'll be another lifetime before you see the light of day again.
Demons at your back and vengeful gods in front of you. I hope you're still as flexible as you used to be, because the time is drawing near for you to place your hands behind your knees and kiss your ass goodbye, and I don't think Heaven is awaiting you on the other end of that long road. Not with your current company. At this rate it's looking like Valhalla, and forgive me if I say you don't look of the sort to sit and mix company with great and ancient warriors who died in combat. No, you look more the sort that wants to live a long life and die peacefully for those pearly gates. Shame it doesn't look like those are coming for you in this life time, doesn't it?
XXX
The source of the light led into another room, this one an order of magnitude larger than the 'dark room' with what Keiichi had come to dub as the 'Bat-Girl'. The door to it crumbled at Belldandy's touch, and by the way the Norn jumped Keiichi was willing to bet it hadn't been her intent. It was spooky. She'd just touched it... and the door just disintegrated, as if it'd been held together by sheer force of will alone. A force of will that had been disrupted, or abandoned in the wake of their arrival.
With Belldandy leading, they walked inside, and Keiichi could feel the hair on the nape of his neck and across his arms stand straight in a stiff salute. I don't like this place. Was his immediate thought. This place is dangerous. I feel like I just walked into an ambush. It wasn't that the place was quiet, per se, nor even that it was empty; signs of life littered the room (arena-not a room but an arena, a voice whispered in his ear. Like some kind of cage match held deep underground). Moss and lichen decorated the rotten plaster in thick blotches ranging from white to green, brown to black. Throughout the walls were areas where the plaster had rotted through and collapsed, and the metal skeletons within were thick and hairy with mold. There was a distinctive earthy scent in the air around them, stale but dirty as well. Musty. Like an old basement whose walls were made of old boards that only just held the earth at bay, and that was just the start.
Someone had been decorating in the room. Old desks and drawers made of solid sheet metal lay like obscene statues around the room, some twisted like thick, metal rope and others with deep, hollow gouges punched into them, as if the Hulk or the Juggernaut had mistaken the metal for a punching bag and gone to town on them. In other areas were more desks, all metal skeletons of their former selves, twisted around each other like daisy chains, and some of them almost looked to have been fused together by either friction heat or blow torch, though Keiichi couldn't smell any smoke of hot metal in the air. Off near the farthest wall a group of these daisy-chained skeletons had been clustered together into a strange platform, one that reached well over Keiichi's head and probably rested just over Belldandy's. Keiichi stared at it with some trepidation. Some of the bars were bent and twisted in so many odd angles as to weaken the structural integrity of the entire platform, and strange, curved indentations littered the outside of the bastardized platform's frame. Like they were punched into place, Keiichi thought. Not bent with pliers or tools but with hands and fists. As they approached it, he brought his own hand to a section of the strange grooves experimentally. While his knuckles didn't fit- the owner must have had hands as large as his fucking head- they still matched, to an extent, the grooves that could have been made by Keiichi's own knuckles if the bars were made of play-doh and not rebar and heavy sheet steel.
A silly thought occurred to Keiichi in that moment. This room, large and auditorium-like though it was, reminded him of the old, makeshift gyms made by the regional soldiers as a way to stay in shape. The international gym of Lift Things and Put Them Down. In fact... the more that he stared at it, the more he couldn't get the image out of his head. We're in someone's gym, he thought. There was a stack of old metal frames that had been torn up and fashioned into weights with holes punched into them, using a twisted frame made of two pieces of rebar as a weight bar. There in one corner was a line of old bricks, their lichen-and-moss faces pointed up, to act as a weight bench. There were two protruding pieces of the wall's internal frame, torn out, twisted, and bent at a ninety-degree angle for dips. Beams that hung down from the ceiling that might be used like a make-shift pull-up or chin up platform. And now that he looked at it... hell, the entire perimeter of the room had been cleared away, cleaned up even, with those protruding beams that might get in the way either well above six-feet high or off in a corner where they wouldn't get in the way of a person running laps for cardio. Hell, there were actual grooves in the perimeter from where the constant laps had worn away the floor near the room's corners; a visible shininess that Keiichi wouldn't have noticed if he hadn't already suspected it existed.
"Well it's 'bout fucking time you got here." A voice, deep and raspy, rose from... somewhere. Everywhere. From the room itself. "I thought I was goin't' die a' boredom with how long you were taking." Something smashed down on the raised metal platform, and Keiichi heard Debra cry out as a wretched screech tore through their ears. There, a person, the owner of the makeshift gym, if Keiichi were to guess peered down at them. "Y'all had me wait'n so long I had t'entertain m'self!" The stranger, a man- no, a woman, no man had a pair of tits like that on a body that beefy- the woman drawled, her accent thick and strange to Keiichi's ears. Not Southern, but... something similar. A bastardization of a Southern accent, as if the stranger (demon, Keiichi reminded himself) had taken a liking to the accent and had adopted it as her own. A bastardization of a bastardization of English. It made Keiichi's ears want to bleed. Almost as much as his eyes by just looking at the woman.
Don't be Arh-nie. Be bee-ger, Keiichi thought to himself, and cringed. The woman was huge. She had to stand close to seven feet tall, dressed in a tight vest whose zipper looked ready to shoot off to parts unknown and short shorts that looked close to bursting at the seams just trying to contain her mass. The woman watched them, smiling down at them with a bronze face that reminded Keiichi of a spray-on tan, her hair the bleach-blonde he occasionally saw from Florida natives who spent their lives out in the sun. The woman was stacked. A body builder to the point of excessive, almost unhealthy in sight to the point where Keiichi was genuinely repulsed by the demon. Bro, do you even lift? It was only the belief that this person was a demon that kept his mouth from opening up and delivering that comment to the stranger, as he was certain this woman could rip him in half with her bulging arms alone, never mind the use of magic.
"So, y'all have fun w'Halval, did'ja? Did'ja?" The stranger slapped her knee and laughed, as if she'd shared a joke with them. "She a hoot, that 'un. One trick pony, but harmless as a fly." The woman smiled, and her eyes traveled from Debra to Keiichi before finally resting on Belldandy. Keiichi felt his arms break out in goosebumps as that gaze drifted over him. There was something almost... hungry about those eyes. "So you Ver-dandy, ain'cha?" she called down to the Norn, who stiffened at the pronunciation. "Oooh-hooo, baby-girl, I been wait'n for you." The woman's smile was broad and rapacious, and her eyes, bright green eyes like new leaves, glittered like hard gems in her skull. "Hagall told me all 'bout you, Hon. You an' me? We gon' dance." She cackled then. "Y'see, I been look'n for a good challenge. Them boys back home ain't worth the salt they weigh, but ol' Hagall-girly, she tol' me 'bout you. She tol' me all about you and who your mama is."
The smile vanished from her face. "You're Alal's daughter, aren't you, Din'Gir Verdandi?" The accent vanished as well, and the words came across clear and precise.
Belldandy sucked in a sharp breath, and her eyes widened in shock as she stared up at the demon. "What would you know of it?" She demanded.
The woman smiled again, but this time it was cruel. Cruel and cold. "I know all about it," she said. "I fought in that old war against your mother, the great Spooker herself, I'll have you know, though I was never... gifted the opportunity of facing her in combat." Again the smile vanished. "Your mother killed a lot of good people, you know. A lot of talented, good men and women. She and her unit were good at PSYOPS, you know. So good that when they slew those men and women, they died screaming and in terror, so scared of their own shadows that they couldn't even work up the nerve to fight back." The woman rolled her neck on her shoulders, and Keiichi's skin crawled as he heard the demon's neck pop in several quick successions. "I was mightily pissed off when I heard she left the service before I could pay her back for what she did. Mightily."
The demon stepped off the platform, and when she landed the ceramic at and around her feet crumbled in a ringing clatter. "But then ol' Hagall, my ol' buddy, ol' pal, ol' friend, came up to me and said, 'hey, you know The Destroyer's got a daughter? Not just one but two? And that one of them is here on Midgard right now?" She walked towards the trio, yet Belldandy appeared daunted by this nameless woman. She backed away, intimidated, and taking her lead Keiichi backed away as well, leveling his weapon on the woman as he listened to the woman talk, not fully understanding the conversation but knowing on some lower level that whatever grievances this demon held, it went back a generation or two.
It made Keiichi wary. Grievances that spanned generations ran deep, if Afghanistan was any indication.
"I'm no Valkyrie." Belldandy seemed to be aware of the danger as well, and was quick to voice her side of the argument. "Your anger would be wasted on me."
"Yeah?" The woman bore her teeth in something to hostile to be a smile. More like a snarl, like that of an angry bear. "You think so?" She continued her advance. "Because I don't think so. I don't think so at all. Not you. Not you, who whupped Hagall's ass buck-naked here on Midgard and not even at full power. Not you, who is not only the daughter of the all-feared Alal but also the Din'Gir Lugal of your people as well." Keiichi noticed with some worry that Belldandy paled at this comment, and wondered what both 'alal' and a 'lugal' were. Apparently, it was bad. Bad for Belldandy at least, which left him worrying about Urd as well, and to some lesser, minute level even Skuld, though the youngest Norn was not with them on this day.
"I'm not a warrior."
"Well bless your heart, if that ain't the biggest crock a' shit I ever heard." The woman said, and a twinge of that old accent came about once more. "You ain't a warrior like I ain't a woman. It's in your blood. Your nature." And then came that blasted smile again. That blasted cruel, cold, 'I've-got-something-up-my-sleeve smile that made Keiichi's skin crawl. "You just need the right motivation, is all."
An arm reached behind her, and a sudden burst of imagination engulfed Keiichi. It'll be a head. He thought. It'll be the head of someone Belldandy knows-maybe even Urd's head. Like a rabbit out of a hat. 'Abrakadabra, Alakazam, a little touch and a great big slam, out of my ass, here I come! Wham, bam, thank-you, Ma'am!' Only it wasn't a head. Not in the slightest.
Instead the woman pulled out something long and thin from behind her back. At first, Keiichi thought it was a stick; some long, thin tree branch or perhaps a sapling that had been up-rooted. Except that it was...spindly. Spiny, even. The branch looked too uniform in its size, bulging only in two areas- each a third of the way down the limb, where the strange sapling tapered off into a point. It was black. Black and shiny, except for a wide, yellow stripe that engulfed the midpoint on the second-third of what Keiichi could only think of as a joint, and... it was a limb. Of what, Keiichi was unsure, but he was certain now that what he was staring at was no branch, was no tree, but the disjointed limb of some kind of animal. If flailed like a stiff whip in the woman's hands, bending at the thick joints (it's the bee's knees! Keiichi thought) before she tossed it at Belldandy's feet.
Behind Belldandy, Debra sucked in a ripe, sharp breath and danced away from it, looking desperately like she wanted to scream but somehow unable to in her fright. She glanced at Keiichi. "S-sp-spy..." The word faded into a high keen, and the woman looked at the walls, looked towards the shadows, looked towards the holes in the plaster in the sudden and profane terror of someone who'd come across a creature she hates most.
"We found her trespassing, you know," the woman continued. Belldandy looked like she didn't hear her, the Norn's eyes a pair of small pinpricks in the light of the gym. "She'd been snooping for a while. A dangerous hobby for a little lady like her. We roughed her up a bit as a warning. Ain't no business of spiders to be playing in the affairs of demons and gods after all." The woman heaved a sigh. "But she just didn't get the message. It was all 'gaijin this' and 'youkai that' and kami bullshit that don't make no sense no how to good and decent folks like you or I." She shrugged, and Belldandy knelt, a hand that shook reaching out and gingerly touching the limb, as though afraid it might flinch. "Mind you, I'd been bored out of my skull at the time when I found her again." The goddess wrapped her hand around it and drew it close, holding the limb in her hands with the same sobriety Keiichi had seen samurai hold for their swords in movies. "So perhaps her death wasn't as clean or as kind as it could have been." The demon shrugged. "Figured I'd save you a souvenir though. A present from Japan with its youkai-freaks and-"
The movement was too fast to track with his weak, mortal senses. Too fast even for Debra, who might have had an edge with her heightened sensitivity. One moment Belldandy was kneeling on the ground, staring down at the leg, the leg, the fucking spider's leg in shock. The next she was on her feet, brandishing the stiff, thick trunk of the limb with both hands like it was the hilt of a greatsword that she'd just used on her opponent. Before her the demon stumbled back, her eyes wide and startled as she clutched at her cheek. "I would have the name of the demon whose shit I am about to wreck." Belldandy's voice was calm and even despite the intent of violence on her face.
The demon smiled, then. Not cold or cruel but excited. A worrying smile to Keiichi, and one that put just a hint of madness in the muscle-bound woman's bright eyes. "That's more like it, that's more like it, Verdandi my girl!" she cried, and the lunatic expression on her face brightened. "You stand before Thrymr, Din'gir Dumumi-lugal!" she announced. "Remember it well, for it shall be engraved on your broken body when what's left of you is brought before the Alal!" The woman's hand fell from her cheek, revealing a shallow, bleeding gash from where the spider's leg had whipped across her face. "I've been waiting for this moment," she breathed. "I've trained centuries for this moment; swam in the coldest of oceans that Jotenheim has to offer, meditated within the hottest of magma within Muspelheim's core. Trained in the most extreme environments and pushed my body beyond the limits of its capability. And already, it is you who draws first blood."
"What is it with all these women and their excessive chatter?" Belldandy muttered, and with no other warning lashed out at Thrymr, bringing the spider's leg, her weapon of choice, down on the demon in a diagonal sweep. Like a samurai-no, like a viking, Keiichi thought. There was no... finesse in her strikes. WIth just practical fuck-shit-up functionality-Belldandy began her attack. The diagonal sweep down was followed by a stepping vertical blow as Thrymr dodged away. Thrymr side-stepped, her smile growing larger as that side-step gave way to a well-positioned kick. The goddess ducked under it with the subtle grace of a cat, then slipped her weapon to her left hand as she caught the demon's exposed foot between her waist and her right arm. The goddess spun in an attempt to break the demon's leg, but Thrymr twisted into the turn, her knee curving into the spinning goddess and drawing the Norn close.
"Peek-ah-boo, Sweetheart." Belldandy's eyes widened as an elbow came racing for her brow, and she released her hold on the demon, deflecting the energy of the strike away from her face with her right arm. Keiichi heard the goddess cry out in pain, then launch her own foot into the demon's groin in a well-known and beloved tactic that made his family jewels throb in empathy. Yet it seemed to have no effect on Thrymr, who merely laughed at the attempt before raking her knuckles across the Norn's face in a backwards palm strike.
The goddess's face whipped back against the strike with such force that Keiichi could hear the woman's neck crack. Thrymr was merciless, however, and before the Norn could recover drove her fist into Belldandy's solar plexus with enough force to drive the goddess off her feet. The man saw Belldandy's mouth open in a mute, breathless scream of agony, and then fall limp and lifeless at Thrymr's feet.
Thrymr frowned. "Well that was anticlimactic. Is this really all The Destroyer's offspring has to offer? I've fought kittens more terrifying than this." She used her foot to roll Belldandy onto her back, the frown deepening when Belldandy flopped beneath her like a boneless husk. "How disappointing."
"Don't do it!" Keiichi could read her intent easily enough, and knew he was courting Death when the demon raised her eyes to observe him.
"Oh?" The woman's foot moved to Belldandy's head. As it rested there lightly, Keiichi's head was filled with repulsive possibility. She'll step on her and crush Belldandy's head, came one voice. She'll stomp her and leave Bell's head as nothing but a smear on the tile, whispered another. She'll drive the toes of her boot into her face and shred the bone, another cried. All of them could agree on one thing, though. She needs to be stopped before she follows through.
"And what do you plan on doing, Little Man?" Thrymr asked, her expression one of such honest curiosity that Keiichi felt insulted. She doesn't even view you as a threat! the voices in his mind screamed, and left him with the grim realization that to Thrymr, he probably registered about as much as a mosquito buzzing in the demon's ear.
"Remove your foot from Belldandy and step away from her." It didn't matter what she thought of him though. She'd acknowledged he was there, registered he was a presence, however minute and annoying he might be, and god damn it he was going to make it count. He wasn't about to let Belldandy get her head caved in any more than he was about to let Debra get her head ripped off. Not if he had any say in it, and though Keiichi Morisato had always been a short man, he knew how to bellow like the best of them. "I am warning you right now!" he roared, and his voice echoed back to him in the high walls of the gym. "Step away right now! Back away from Belldandy!"
Thrymr snorted, amused. "Well would'ja look at that. Little Monkey knows how to scream. That all you got, Son? In my experience all your race's good for is shit slinging and screaming, and I don't see you tossing your poo." Beneath her Belldandy stirred and moaned, a leg drawing to her chest in slow pain as she tried to roll onto her right shoulder and cradle her stomach.
Thrymr did not move her foot.
"This is my last warning to you!" Keiichi instructed, and now he brought his weapon up, resting his cheek against the stock as he peered down the red-dot sight at the demon. He pointed the dot squarely on the demon's chest (always go for center of mass), and kept his pointer finger extended next to the trigger. Not on the trigger though. Not yet. "Remove your foot and step away from the goddess! I'm giving you to the count of three!"
"Or what, Little Man?" Thrymr mocked. "You gonna fire that little pea-shooter at me?"
"One!"
"Keiichi, think about this for a moment, don't do anything rash," Debra sounded close to panicking herself, but then, she'd always been cautious when it came to the use of guns. For her, they were a last-ditch option for when there was nothing left, not a first-response weapon for a known and very dangerous threat.
"Oh, this gon' be good!" Thrymr laughed. "Come on then Monkey Boy! Let's see what that piss poor piece a poo can do!"
"Two!" Keiichi curled his finger around the trigger.
"Keiichi, this isn't a joke, fucking stop!"
"Three!"
Thrymr didn't move, in fact held her arms out to him in open invitation, as if to say; "Shoot me, you little shit!"
"Keiichi-"
Keiichi pulled the trigger, and the world seemed to slow to a crawl. Again, the SEAL was reminded of how strange fire fights could be, and how it was certain small, unnoticeable things that always seemed to stand out to him. He saw Debra reach for him, her hand grasping like an outstretched talon. He felt the jolt of recoil in his shoulder. He smelled the heated metal intermingled with spent gunpowder as the spent brass flew over his right shoulder. And he saw Thrymr's eyes bulge in intermingled horror, surprise, and realization as her body recoiled and blood sprayed from her pierced chest. Then time sped up, returned to normal, and the woman fell back, the look of surprise never leaving her face as she lost her balance and fell to the floor.
Keiichi didn't move from where he stood. "Deb, I'm going to approach Thrymr. Cover me. When we get close to Bell, drag her and get to cover." He paused, and though the demon didn't move Keiichi was unconvinced of her defeat. "I don't think this is over yet."
She's playing 'possum and you know it, the voice of wary experience sang, and Keiichi was inclined to agree. Keeping his rifle aimed at the demon, Keiichi drew near, his posture low and bent to give him a solid position in case he needed to fire again. Behind him Debra was quiet, her revolver raised up against one shoulder. As soon as they neared Belldandy, the detective grabbed her with her free hand, adrenaline brought on by fear allowing her to drag the goddess away from the demon. Keiichi heard a strange, garbled keen rise from the Norn, and prayed that Thrymr hadn't crippled the goddess with her blows.
He approached Thrymr, his weapon steady on the fallen demon. If she so much as twitched, he was going to shoot her again.
Unfortunately, the human eye could only track so much, and despite the heavy bulk of her appearance, Thrymr, Keiichi would discover, was a fast motherfucker. Even with his training as a SEAL, even with his experience in combat, it was all human expertise, and none of it could make up for Thrymr's beyond-human capabilities. Despite the sizable holes in her chest left behind by the AR-15, the woman still somehow managed to move at a fearsome speed. A hand was wrapped around his foot before he was even aware she'd moved, and by the time his finger moved to the trigger the demon was yanking him off his feet. She lifted him up as if he weighed no more than a doll, and Keiichi screamed, the rest of his body falling to the ground has he discharged his weapon once more. Yet by the time the AR-15 fired he was already upside down, already thrown through the air like a ragdoll, and the gun's own recoil tore it from his grip.
The world spun around him. His back impacted something sharp and protruding, and he felt something pierce through the upper right side of his back emerge just shy of his breast. His vision flashed red, and he could hear the heavy, rapid Ka-kow ka-kow ka-kow of his heart pounding in his ears. Somewhere, beyond that, he thought he heard screaming, but it was all but drowned out by the pulse drumming in his ears. The SEAL looked down at what had pierced him, and found a bent piece of rebar-one of the Thrymr's self-made pull-up bars-erupting from his chest. A fire of intense agony welled from the injury, and he stared at the injury in horror, only realizing in that moment that part of the screams he was hearing were from his own throat, his jaw stretched long and gaping to the point of aching as he howled.
The man tried to dislodge himself, but even an action as simple as moving his right arm was enough to bring a fresh wave of heated anguish to the injury, and for a moment the world took on a fuzzy, hazy tint to it. Don't black out, don't black out! The SEAL in him screamed. You'll die if you black out! You won't wake up again! Stay awake Fuckhead, stay awake! He sucked in a ragged breath, and even that hurt. Oh god, it hurts! Come on, Jank, you gotta get yourself free! She'll go after Bell if you don't unhook yourself from this thing!
He gritted his teeth and squeezed his eyes shut, grabbing hold of the red piece of rebar with his hand. The metal was slick against his palm, though, and try though he might the man was unable to maintain a solid enough grip on the metal to help relieve the pain. Kick off, Boss. Come on, get your feet behind you and push off. You gotta get off this thing! Get your feet against the wall behind you and push off!
He tried, but even that act brought with a pain of such extravagant brilliance he thought he might vomit. Thought he might black out before he could move his body into position, and what was Thrymr doing? Where was the demon in all this? Was she going to Bell or Keiichi? Was she going to Deb? Could Deb hold her off? Were the girls still alive?
He found fresh strength in his worry for the women, Bell and Deb both, and with an agonized moan managed to get the flat of his sneakers against the plaster. He bunched his legs against it, (oh god he couldn't stand it he was going to fucking die it hurt so much) and got ready to push his stocky, two-hundred-pound frame off the protruding rebar.
His feet punched through the moldy, rotting plaster instead.
Oh god he was pinned. Oh god, he couldn't get free. A surge of panic caught in his chest, mingled sweetly with the terror and the agony, and he kicked, trying to remove his feet from the new hole he created. Instead it brought with it a fresh wave of pain, and some small piece of his mind was aware that the screams and howls rising from him now were the panicked cries of a coyote in a bear trap ("Scream, Little Monkey-Boy!" Thrymr laughed, "Can't chew yourself outta' this trap now, can ya,? Can ya!?") Yet no matter how he struggled, her couldn't get free. I'm going to die here. The voice of panic began to sink its claws into his brain, slipping in-between the wrinkles of the soft gray matter as it began to exert its hold on him. I'm going to die here like a fucking pig on a meat hook! His vision started to gray, and with dismay her realized that the adrenaline was losing its hold on him, that he was blacking out, that he'd lost too much blood with the red that soaked his shirt through and was starting to soak into his jeans now, staining the blue into a deep shade of purple (Like Urd's eyes. Guess you'll see her soon, Janky-baby. Jank and Sheila lying in a grave, R-O-T-T-I-N-G) and that soon it wouldn't matter what happened to him because he'd be too dead to care.
God damn it. He thought. After coming so far, this is how it ends? I need to save Aiko...
And then he was free.
"Hang on, Keiichi." He heard a voice, distant and muffled beneath the pounding of his ears, but familiar as well. "Stay with me, I've got you. Come on, stay awake!" He pried his eyes open, the lids feeling like they weighed a hundred pounds each in his weakened state, and was met with silver hair. "Come on, Keiichi. Stay with me," the voice continued.
"Urd..?" He croaked, and a hand grabbed his left wrist, guiding it to cover the wound in his chest. "Oh god, Urd," he breathed. "I thought you were dead. Oh god, Urd, I'm so sorry. We never should have left you, oh god, you came back, you..."
He trailed off as the owner of the voice looked at him with a pair of shockingly blue eyes, bright and brilliant like the sky on a clear day. Belldandy. Not Urd but Belldandy. She brought him down to rest propped up against the wall. He stared at her in mild shock, and for a moment the Norn's features darkened, bringing Urd back to his fatigued mind once more before it cleared again. "Bell..?"
"It's me, Keiichi." Belldandy's voice emerged from Urd's mouth, and when he blinked the elder Norn was gone again, replaced with Belldandy once more. "I had to release my seal. Please, hang on a little longer. I need to stop the blood loss.
"You... what?" Keiichi stared at her blankly, and a feeling of cool enveloped him, soothing the flames that centered in his chest and back and expanded from there. It felt like he'd tumbled into a vat of aloe vera. Aloe vera mixed with some kind of hallucinogen, because Belldandy's hair was almost as silver as Urd's was and wasn't changing no matter how much he blinked. "You look like Urd."
Belldandy stared at him, and in her eyes he saw pain. Pain from loss. Pain from guilt. Pain from memory. "Thank you, Keiichi," she whispered. "I think I'll need her strength if I'm to win this fight."
"'M sorry," he mumbled. "Tried to hold her off... thought she was gonna kill you."
"You did well," Belldandy murmured. "Rest a moment with Debra. It's time I ended this fight." The goddess rose and turned her back to Keiichi, and again the SEAL was amazed at just how much Belldandy resembled her older sister in that moment. It wasn't just the hair. It was the aura. He could see it now-maybe because he wasn't in his right mind, but he could see it all right: thick and dense and filled with so much power it was almost unnerving to behold. Like when I first met Urd. He thought, and the thought felt distant and far away. Just bright and unearthly and swallowed by her own power. That's what it was like back then. That was what it was like now, and as he watched her another person came to join him. Deb.
Holy shit, I must be dead and surrounded by angels 'cause these two sure as fuck wouldn't be working so well together if I was alive, he thought, and stared at Debra with tired eyes as she came to stand next to him, kneeling beside the man and armed not only with his revolver, but the AR-15 as well. Fucking... hell. It's Sarah Conner and Ellen Ripley to the rescue, ain't it? One alien already down and now we got the Terminator to finish off. The thought made him laugh, and the laugh hurt. It made him laugh harder. Oh jeeze, man. You are beyond fucked right now. He tried to move and winced as fresh pain racked his form. If this fight doesn't end soon and we can't locate Aiko, you're going to be screwed to the moon, it won't matter how fast you get rushed to the ER.
He watched Belldandy, her resemblance to Urd so uncanny it was spooky (dead girl walking, dead girl talking), walk towards Thrymr, who stood leering at the goddess, a gross, excited smile on her face. "Now that what I'm talkin' 'bout, now that is what I am talking about!" The demon cheered. "I knew there was more bite than just ya' bark! Now let's get this party started!
A/N: Next chapter: The fight we all wanted but never got in the manga: Unsealed Belldandy vs. Thrymr! Taking bets now.
Comments of a Madwoman: Deb tends to ramble under stress and rant when she's angry. Who knows though, maybe something in her words snapped Bell out of her funk enough to stop her attempted murderous rampage...
