Chapter 12 - Powerless
Author's Notes: Thank you readers, for supporting me up to this stage (especially my invaluable imperial advisor, who has put up with me for so many years even though I'm just this narcissistic, bland girl who keeps yakking about her work... bleh...) And those reviews! I love you guys, I really do, even if I risk sounding like a soppy drama-mama, I still have to say it! You are the best! Oh yeah! (Flashes the peace sign). And without further ado, let's proceed with the story! Yay!
Waterlily
--- In the background, some silly song about "I will survive (without reviews)" blares out, disturbing the general peace while neighbors kept yelling at her to shut up. ---
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"So what is it you want?" She stared at the one in front of her, finding an uncomfortable sense of familiarity about his face that she couldn't place, regardless of her valiant tries to remember him. It was as if he was not as foreign to her memory as she first thought him to be, and yet she could not fully grasp the reason for it....
"You might not want to stare at me for too long a period, even though I have to admit that I do possess a charming face and graceful bearing. You could find yourself falling for me if you're not careful, my dear." He displayed a smile that exploited his brilliantly white teeth to the maximum, indicating his egocentric tendencies for not the first time.
"I find it so terribly hard to believe that in the magnificent history of Angels full of virtuous saints such as the Lord himself, there lies this dark chapter where a black sheep among the flawless others was allowed to roam freely till this day! I would be truly ashamed if you were to divulge that to anyone! Do me a favour... forget that you were ever one of us... for you have forsaken our path a long time ago!" She spat at him in contempt, trying to find a way to rein in the nausea from rising up against her throat.
But the image of the mocking Redrumiel with translucent wings kept popping up in her mind, refusing to leave no matter how hard she tried to block them out.
"But I still am one of you, although I have chosen a relatively less-trodden path. I have wings as you do, albeit of a darkened colour. I have a mission as you too possess, albeit one which comes across as unorthodox. In essence, however, we are but of the same constitution!"
"Unorthodox? WARPED is more like it! And you can stop now! I do not want to hear it! Do not think that I will be easily fooled... you're trying to tip me over to your side by brainwashing me with your abominable theories, that 'we're so different, and yet so alike.' Argh, spare me the thought, please!" She tore at her hair with an exaggerated frustration, then quickly flattened her hands against her ears when she saw that he was about to speak again.
"It might even interest you to know that I was the first who bore the name of 'Angelwing'..." He grinned at her knowingly, waiting patiently for her response.
Or rather, a lack of it.
For she had entered a "wonderful" world of dark dreams then, having been knocked out cold by his revelation.
An hour slipped away while Celestine dwells in her dreams......
"Feeling better?"
She could faintly hear a voice far, far away, as if talking to her from a distance of many miles.
Opening her eyes, she jumped up with fright as the image of Redrumiel's face loomed hugely within her view.
"AHHHH!!!" She screamed, and proceeded to reward him with numerous slaps.
"Hmm... that felt much better!" She exclaimed, patting her chest with satisfaction.
"Are you satisfied now?" He glared at her glumly, as anyone would if they were to be treated like a punching bag (or rather, slapping cushion....).
"Not really... I have a huge headache, plus I just had a horrible nightmare, something about you being an Angelwing or something." She shuddered at the remaining traces of the "dream" that still left an impression in her mind.
"It isn't a dream. It's reality." He corrected her with the air of a strict, nerdy schoolteacher, jerking a finger in the air to emphasize his point.
"Yes it is." She refused to accept it, for from the bottom of her soul she rejected being associated with him.
"You can continue to try to fool yourself, but you can never escape the fact that I am your ancestor, that I have a part in your very existence...."
"That was so many eons ago, for which I am grateful...." She whispered a silent prayer of thanks to Hyne.
"Fine... suit yourself. But know this... our lives are far more entangled than you think... And when you fully learn of the truth, you will not be able to deny our relationship any further!" He was upon her in a second, lifting her chin forcefully with his fingers such that she could not avoid looking into his eyes.
A blazing flash of green fire burned in his pupils, and even that was only a faint representative of the real one that flared incessantly in the deepest corners of his core.
"What... relationship?" She felt that she had been scorched by the fire, only the burns were invisible to the naked eye.
Still he continued to hold her gaze, as if punishing her with it, not letting go even as cold droplets of perspiration started condensing along her high brow.
"Le...et me go...." She could only utter weakly, feeling as if her energy was all but sapped away by him.
It was only when her face started to show pallor that he released his grip, and fierce gaze.
"More insolence from you, and it will be even more severe than this...." He spoke in a voice with a temperature akin to the snow from the Shumi Village mountain peaks.
She didn't answer, afraid that something foul would come out of her mouth.
No one threatens me and gets away with it lightly! How could he violate me in such a way?
Only the image of his emerald eyes with that hellish fire stopped her from giving him a sock in the eye, which would have been gratifying in the short run but disastrous to her chances for escape in the long.
Yes, she was still trying to make a dash for it the first chance she got, even though the possibility was getting tinier and tinier with each passing second.
From her sharp-eyed observation, the Redrumiel guy only used the opening whenever he felt like leaving his abode.
The only time that had occurred was when he had to return Quistis to the Garden... a hopeful assumption she had made.
Does that mean I'm stuck here? Hyne's pity... that's the worst thing that could happen to me!
"You will not be able to leave this place, unless you obey my orders, or unless you end my life. I would say that the first choice is infinitely much easier. Take heed, though... faked obeisance would not fool me, for I can read your mind like an open script..."
"As you have clearly demonstrated by constantly intruding and perusing at my private thoughts!" She yelled.
"And your choice is?" He chose to ignore her last line, as if it mattered little to him.
And he probably thinks that way, too.
"I will never, ever, listen to your orders! What do you take me for, a marionette of yours that would lift its hand whenever you pulled a string? Well, fat hope! You can burn me, whip me, throw me into a pool of boiling oil, and I would not yield to you! Do you what you will, and be quick!"
"How apt that you mentioned the marionette..." He replied in a tight, controlled voice. "Well, maybe that is what I plan to do with you. But first... let us enjoy a movie..."
He snapped his fingers.
Immediately, the entire place was shrouded in shadows, leaving a single broad ray of light shining on the eastern wall of the hall, the only one unadorned by murals or other decorative items.
A scene appeared on the wall under the illumination of the light.
Waterlily...... Celestine thought to herself as the familiar profile of the girl appeared. What has she got to do with this? And what is she doing outside Headmaster Cramer's room at this hour?
The girl in question opened the locked door of Cid Cramer's room with only a slight yank.
She slinked stealthily on the carpet, carefully timing her steps in synch with the Headmaster's loud snores so as to mask any sound that she might have created.
She stares at the couple, who are deep in their slumber and blissfully unaware of the immediate danger they had been suddenly thrust into.
She appeared to be engaged in an internal struggle of some sort, her face contorting between an expressionless, dull one to another filled with sorrow... and despair...
Hesitating a little, she slipped a sickly-looking hand into her shirt.
And pulled out a dagger with an edge glinting sharply with the pale light of the moon.
"NO!!!! DON'T, WATERLILY!!!!" Celestine shouted at the top of her lungs.
Great splatters of crimson painted the screen as she watched in numbing, horrified silence......
Though she was not as attached to them as Zell, Quistis, Seifer, and the rest of the SeeDs were... but still it pained her beyond belief to witness such......?!
The bitterest taste rose to her mouth... as the bile threatened to spill out of it, a reflexive biological reaction that she could barely control.
She couldn't think... her mind nothing but a vast piece of blankness... bogged down by an impenetrable fog.
She couldn't shed her tears, for a force was holding onto the tear glands, squeezing them tightly closed.
She couldn't speak, her voice chased down her throat by the dryness of her tongue, and tightness in her chest.
She couldn't see, her eyes imprinted with the stomach-turning picture that kept playing in her head....
But she could feel.
The darkness boiling at the bottom of her stomach, spreading towards every single one of her cells like a cancer.
A mixture that she could not quite identify, one that the Great Lord had cautioned them time and again never to accommodate... not even a single drop of it to be allowed in them.
But his words were the furthest thing on her mind right now...
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It has begun......
Let the AKUZOKSEI start!!!
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"What the hell do you mean by AKUZOKSEI?"
It is an Anglish word... I think you would know this.
The full explanation shall be given in the next chapter. You should be able to guess its rough meaning, though...