Background: It was a stupid idea I came up with while playing Devil May Cry. I mean, come on. Daughter of Squall meets son of Dante. It sounded so rediculously funny that I just had to. So I did. In the beginning, this wasn't meant to be serious, or even to actually exist in Kyrie's universe at all. It was just too weird not to play with, y'know? But it grew on me. Damn you, Ky. I guess it's set more or less a couple of years after the end of Retribution Nor Redemption. Enjoy, I hope. Do not read, however, if you've got a really narrow view of relationships or sexuality (keep the other two stories in mind, in other words--Kyrie and Rodger have been together for a long time and they're very secure in one another). You might get warped. Heh heh.
Also Note: In the interest of... well, myself, really, this is written under the theory that "demon" is a term that incorporates all hellspawn--"devil" is used specifically for a humanoid, intelligent, "higher demon". So all devils are demons, but demons are not devils. Just in case there's any confusion.
Descendants of the Mundane
Chapter 10
by Orin Drake
"That really hurt.
A lot." Rodger admitted as they were well on their way again.
"I imagine." Kyrie
grinned, relieved that all was healed and well. For the time being,
anyway.
"I can't really imagine
what being impaled was like." The brunette continued offhand, stretching
away the slight tenseness in his inner thigh. Not the worst setback,
considering the other possibilities.
John raised an eyebrow and
glanced back. 'Was like'?
The girl shrugged dismissively
at the silent inquiry. "Things happen. You know how it goes."
Yeah, he did. But,
along those lines... "Remember that voice you thought you heard?"
Curiouser... "Hard
to forget." She admitted.
The half-devil nodded, letting
his thoughts wander for a moment before stumbling back upon the subject
at hand. "I think I heard it, too. When the Marionettes were
attacking. It... called my name. Saved my ass."
Another pause for thought.
"Did you recognize it?" she asked simply.
He'd never had reason to
lie to them. And, frankly, he was pretty sure he never would.
As for himself, however... "I'm not sure." And he wasn't, really.
But he had a very weird instinctual tickle at the back of his mind... which
he was actually trying to ignore. It was weird, and not necessarily
right, but it seemed somehow essential at the time.
His response, however, received
a none too mild glance between his companions. He may not have actually
been turned around to see their reaction, but he felt it certainly
enough. Had they read more into his words than he'd meant, or had
the words themselves merely not made enough sense to serve as a satisfactory
answer? "Maybe I was just imagining things." He diverted.
Valid enough, perhaps.
Their journey continued as
quickly as it had been momentarily halted. A little pain and some
passing of energy never hurt anyone... too much. When kept in context,
anyway.
They were definitely getting
closer. As though the growing significance of the demons in their
way hadn't been enough, John could simply feel it coming. Just through
that larger portal they were stalking was where he'd found the way to the
world of his two companions. And had he been able to have gone just
a little further past, he was certain he'd have found something even more
terrifying and magnificent...
But that was not a thought
he should have been focussing on, and he knew that as soon as the thought
had begun to sneak back into his head. It was akin to a myth and
nothing more. But it was a fantastic myth. The idea of such
a place was almost too much for his curiosity, and far too much to be allowed
to sit and wonder about...
Two eyes of almost devil-quality
crimson snapped him out of the millions of possibilities. She hadn't
been staring or anything. It had only been a glance--but the glance
had lasted a while. Longer than she'd meant for it to, certainly...
but she'd been in her own little world for a moment there, as well.
The walls seemed to be moving in on them in a number of poignant ways.
Rodger waited along the
side and slightly behind them both. He had a feeling in his gut that
he simply ought to clear the way. Kyrie wasn't connected to Hell
or anything (well... not seriously, anyway), but he'd always known she
could seem damn close were the mood and situation just right--and he wouldn't
have still been breathing, let alone married to her, had he not learned
to read those shifts. She was going to call the other boy on something
he might not like. And for some reason, the brunette had simply felt
it necessary to remove himself from the conflict.
"The voice." Her tone
was smooth, gentle--but lacking kindness.
John could almost feel the
back of his neck heating up. He didn't mean anything by the slight
curl of his lip--it was just so natural. He felt, more than anything,
defensive
all of a sudden. This place, and his bloodline... it built up pretty
suddenly. "Yes." He attempted in the same tone.
"Who did you think it was?"
she kept her eyes level, but her stance and shoulders unreadable.
Yes, the walls around them seemed to feed off of the slightest bit of tension,
somehow able to amplify the emotions and send them back while absorbing
the essence of them. It was a dangerous place to be, and she understood
a simple question could turn into an all-out battle if the wires were tripped
just so. She'd try her damnedest not to let that happen, though.
Too close now. Even she could sense that.
The half-devil took a needed
moment to steady himself, to remind himself that he was not backed up against
the wall. These were not people he needed to fight with or hold things
away from. One of the passages through an inner wall of Hell was
so close... Its negativity was spreading fast with every step nearer...
"Ever hear of Joy Division?" he even managed to blow his own thought process
apart with that one.
An... interesting answer.
And not even in the game of a question asked to avoid another question.
"No." She admitted simply.
"Hm." He took careful
breaths, forcing himself to ignore the adrenaline that did not belong in
his veins under the circumstances. Would having been born a normal
human child have been too much to ask? "They were a band. That
did a song I was reminded of. 'Love Will Tear Us Apart'."
Kyrie allowed her lips to
quirk ever so slightly. Interesting title. "You'll have to
attempt some karaoke sometime."
He returned the quick gesture
of an attempted smile, bringing his heated blood down a bit. No,
the walls did not appreciate smiles and jokes. Maybe they'd lay off
for a bit. At least until they were within reach of the doorway.
"I thought it might have been... my dad."
The girl let silence reign
for a while. Just thinking. How... interesting. A consciousness
in Hell, able to control something? Or speak out somehow? She
had much to learn of the place. But it would confirm that dream of
his that lead them all there in the first place. Whether that was
a good or bad thing...
The silver-tressed boy continued
after a moment, his heartbeat slowly pulsing back to normal. Half
demon, maybe; but he was half human, too. Humans found it easier
to suppress and pretend. Hey, that was funny. That'd keep the
negativity at bay for a little longer. "We're getting closer.
To him."
"He's 'on our way' then,
so to speak." She charmingly oversimplified to the point of idiocy.
"Cool." Turning to her husband and walking backward, she continued.
"We'll stop on the way home and pick up a soul, okay?"
"Fine by me." Rodger
couldn't help but grin. Another disaster successfully avoided.
Drawing closer to the other two again, he let the nervous quiver in his
stomach work its way out.
No. The walls of Hell
did not appreciate them coming so near to so precious an area. But
they would wait to have demon energies unleashed upon them. Just
a few moments. Not so much as blinks of an eye in the grand scheme
of things. Still so hard to wait, so much breath to be held...
When they got there, when they realized they could go no further... only
then... and slowly... so very slowly...
"So when did you two know
it was love?" John grinned, much more interested in asking a sudden and
possibly volatile question than he was in the answer.
Rodger pounced first, wrapping
an arm around his wife and squeezing hard. "First time I felt her
up."
The three of them laughed
at that, sending yet more of the invasive negativity scurrying off.
Kyrie jokingly pushed her way out of the embrace and dusted herself off.
"I think maybe it was when we were less than embarrassed about getting
a case of condoms from my aunt."
"A case?" As surprised
as John was in one sense... he was absolutely not in another. It
certainly served as necessary amusement. "Wow. Uh... did your
parents know?"
There was a mild attempt
on her part to retain some sort of composure. "Can't imagine they
didn't.
I mean, at the train station-"
Rodger groaned at the memory.
That kiss. That long kiss that left him aching and very much red-faced,
right after everyone had met or caught up. In front of all of them.
"That was an unfair use of feminine wiles, I'll have you know."
"Oh, I know." She
winked, doing a hot off the catwalk supermodel pose before catching back
in step with the other two. "It kept you coming back, though.
Sucker."
The half-devil smiled genuinely
at the two of them. Yeah, it was one of those storybook romances,
alright.
"You ever suffered the bloody,
infested, diseased bite of love?" Rodger asked ever so sweetly.
It seemed to have been a
million years since he'd found himself laughing so hard. Perhaps
not the smartest thing to completely drop one's sense of direction so suddenly,
even if it was for a good refreshing burst of terribly inappropriate laughter.
Too blessed by good friends to be in Hell. Stopping completely, he
found that he had to pause and take a few full breaths before he was able
to wipe his eyes and respond by strength of will. "I don't know,
really."
"Aww." The couple
cooed, giggling.
Kyrie went on, smiling even
as the subject got damn close to serious. "There are different kinds
of love, you know."
The half-devil found himself
glancing back at her knowingly. True. There were loves other
than "full-blown soul mate romantic" or whatever it was. Seemed almost
a ridiculous concept after the rest of his life... and moreso after recent
events. Turning back to the journey at hand, he stopped dead.
There. On the other
side of the chamber that they were just about to enter--he could see
it. The door to the next level of Hell. It was as undeniable
in sight as it was in taint. He recognized it, besides. Only
that time it hadn't been... "Locked." He breathed, his heart sinking
in heavy downward spirals.
By the time the gunblader
had recovered from the very visage of the door, there was no sense in asking
what he meant. The door itself looked like a giant, solid wrought
iron number found in horrifying children's stories... but somehow, it was
so much deeper than that. She realized that what she sensed emanating
from it was not something her eyes could see--rather it was a more hidden,
more primal sort of sight born of intuition and things the brain couldn't
usually divulge. There was an energy to it, so dangerous and terrifying
that there was no way anything but more of Hell could be on the other side;
and at the same time, there was almost a... safety about it. An assurance.
A magic energy surrounding the door... that felt nearly impossible to open.
While that was quite nice
in one sense, it was also a little bit devastating in another. If
that "lock" was going to be hard to remove--and it most assuredly would
be, given the cirumstances--then their chances of getting through in a
quick and easy manner were looking pretty damned slim.
Certainly the perfect idea
for a trap. The sound of a million tiny footsteps rose from a whisper
to a raging sea behind them, and turning to look at what it might be was
not
a wise move. Even for John, this was new. New, and different,
and not good at all. He bolted toward the door, hoping perhaps that
getting a little closer to it would give him some sort of advantage over
figuring out how to open it--but the energy that surrounded and bound the
gateway lashed out at him as he approached, leaving his shoulder with the
feeling it had been stricken by a bat made of ice. Instinctually
grasping his smarting shoulder as it stung with freezing cold pain, he
let his sight wander just behind him. Okay. This is not
good. All that time, all that way, and the door was locked...
The question, "What are
they?" seemed a little too obvious to Rodger, darting right after his
wife into the chamber and as far away from those things as possible.
They looked like spiders... but at the same time, they had the tails of
scorpions coiled over their backs. That was bad enough. As
was the fact that there seemed to be an army of them marching in sync,
approaching quickly. No, what was by far worse was that each one
looked to come to about knee-height on any one of them.
"We don't have time for
this!" John oversimplified with massive annoyance, shooting. Just
shooting. He ignored the still aching shoulder, managing to hit almost
every mark--but it didn't matter. For every shuddering demon body
that exploded in red, another would fill its place and come closer.
Backing him up, the brunette
pulled the pistol and had at it in rapid succession, handing it off to
the other boy every six shots as he had before. There was hardly
time to think about the nightmare image, and that seemed best. If
any of them had let the sheer number of the disgusting things into their
field of consciousness...
Kyrie pulled her gunblade,
glaring momentarily at the door as if that would do any good--and felt
a pulse. So strong, sudden and so very... unnatural that pulse, beating
through her chest, around where the Materia resided that she nearly lost
grip of her weapon. That pulse was... deeply familiar, but also...
astoundingly different. It felt like darkness looked.
Swallowing, it all kind of came together; Sephiroth's momento was... beating
inside of her.
The constant, overlapping
clack-clack--BANG!
of the pistols were almost entirely drowned out by another pulse of the
energy surrounding the door. But their situation was getting desperate,
here. She couldn't afford the time to figure it out logically.
Closing her eyes, she tried to summon the shard like she did with any Materia--to
no avail. It wasn't entirely responsive to her. It was
responding to the doorway in front of her.
Ignoring the shots and marching
steps increasing in significance behind her, she took another long look
at the barrier... and recognized something like a keyhole that certainly
hadn't been there before. No, not quite that--she just hadn't bothered
to see it, before. It "glowed in the absence of light" as
the momento did. The slightest of grins illuminated her face as she
stepped forward, unharmed by the protective shield. Sephiroth,
you bastard. You've been to Hell and you never told me.
Whether or not that was
true could wait to be proven. She reached out as if there were a
knob to grab--and the barrier shattered like glass. She pulled back
instinctually to avoid being cut, but there were no shards to be cut by.
It was a shattering of magic, nothing more. Maybe the door to Hell
really was locked from the inside. If so, they were busting the fuck
out. "Okay, let's go."
The almost stupidly simplistic
command left the two boys with a moment's pause before they glanced over
their shoulders to... an open doorway, swirling with a million impossible
colors. Right behind an almost innocently nonchalant girl, motioning
for them like mad. Had there been time for more words, she'd have
used a couple of choice ones to get them moving, but the international,
multi-world language of scooping air toward herself in mime of "Hurry
the hell up!" would just have to do.
Luckily her efforts did
not go unnoticed. An all too practiced blast in the face of a leaping
monstrosity and John brought up the back quickly, one more shot over his
shoulder.
There was an awful lot of
darkness at first. Then came a smell... sulfur. Brimstone.
A sound, maybe? A dull thud... no, several. Three, four maybe.
Possibly more; it echoed too much to really tell.
Feeling. Viscous.
Slow. Cold. Then standing. Definitely standing.
Sight was last to bless
her with its presence, and what met her eyes was as surprising as it was
eerily beautiful. Spines, shards, crystals... of ice. A chamber
of it, layers and clusters of almost mundane, slightly shimmering frozen
water. And damn but it was cold in there.
"We made it." John's
voice sounded weary and far away, even thought she could see him right
next to her.
"Are you sure?" Rodger shook
his head in a way that seemed far too slow to be anything but dream-like.
"It... doesn't feel right."
"It takes a minute."
The half-devil informed him, wrapping his arms around himself. "I
remember cursing this place because it only gets colder."
"Wonderful." Even
in the surreal, slowed down state of things, Kyrie's sarcasm shot and aimed
true. "And now where to?"
"And now--" John turned,
aiming for a place across the chamber, but was forced to pause. Physically,
he could not have made it any further--a three-faced, full length mirror
had merely come to rest in their path. Covering each of the large
oval surfaces was what appeared to be steam... at first. As the three
of them looked toward it, the mirrors seemed to clear themselves, becoming
not reflective, but...
Three gateways. Three
separate, life-sized images from the clearing steam: Dante, Seifer, and
Sephiroth.
"A fucking test."
The silver-tressed boy cursed to himself. "Some devil is having fun
with us."
That seemed less than a
good thing, to be certain. "So what do we do?" Kyrie felt it her
duty to ask the most obvious question.
"Fight it." He simplified
with a sigh. Those damned creatures needed something to entertain
themselves with... but did they have to chose their little group, and right
then? "It'll take whatever form it can to draw your mind away.
You just have to fight it. Confuse it. Make it stumble over
its own words. Then the mirrors will disappear."
One for each of them, then.
One demon to conquer, to talk their way out of. Yeah. No problem.
Hopefully.
John knew that the mirror
reflecting his father was his alone. It was unquestionable... and
just a little too freaky. As for the other silver-haired gentleman...
the half-devil didn't even need to be told. That was Sephiroth; undoubtedly
the creature of evil and grace he'd heard of. There was no denying.
But then, there was also that middle mirror... cold and vicious as those
illusionary eyes were, there was something about the stance, the mannerism,
that told him it must be one of Kyrie's relations.
And for once, she would
not have to take Sephiroth. While this let Rodger breathe easily
in one way... he wasn't quite sure he was up to the challenge. He
could accuse that illusion of an awful lot, but talk his way out of it?
Well... too late now.
Taking a look into the eyes
of what seemed to be the younger, Garden version of her father, she caught
the amber glimmer in them. Not Seifer. She understood
quickly. It's Seifer controlled by Ultimecia. A slightly
new dimension of mind-fuck. Oh goodie.
So. This was it.
Separation. Three pairs of eyes met quickly, flashing a nauseating
mixture of fear and self assurance. The boys then turned to the last
living bloodline of Leonhart and Almasy, expecting her to say something,
anything of power or substance... but she shrugged. What was there
to say that hadn't been said? That wasn't already known and shared?
Well, alright. Just
one thing Kyrie needed to say. "Your father was really hot."