Assassin's Silver:
chapter six
by YamiHikari
Disclaimer- I don't own Demon Diary and unless you LIKE pain, do NOT steal any original characters. Thank you.
YamiHikari's Note- Here we go again. Oh yeah, one night I had this dream about going to a bookstore and seeing more Demon Diary related stuff and reading it and all I can remember about one was that Eclipse was being the stereotypical rebel bad-boy in anime. I think he flung a potato from a fork and hit someone on the head with it... and he was wearing a bandana... o.O;; it was funny... and I based one character off of that, but I don't like the character... no I don't. He's mean. Keeps on trying to kill poor Konar- kun. Ah right. After this story is completely wrapped up, I will post something else on fictionpress.com, which will feature Aysel and Haeon. Yeah. If you're interested and I finish soon, look for the author GinSaku on fictionpress.com, 'kay?
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'Damn!'
Her air was out. She could hold her breath for just a few seconds more, but that was it. Closing her blind silver eyes, Aysel waited, completely submerged underneath the frigid water. 'Haeon.'
She breathed.
-----
'There.'
He'd found where the elf was, but she was still rapidly moving. Viewing the location in his mind, Eclipse said one word and vanished.
-----
Sharp, white-hot pain lanced through her body. They were beginning to tear her apart; she hadn't known water could do such a thing before now. Now it was wasted knowledge. 'Whatever bastard said that drowning is an easy death should be shot...'
Now the words were slipping from her rapidly and a cohesive thought was getting harder and harder to form as the seconds fell; sand from the hourglass.
------
Energy collected at the palm of one hand.
"Dark Strike!"
The black-clad arm snapped out, fingers splayed as the mezraez sheared through the air and through the crystalline and deadly ice. Shards scattered, some skittering madly across the ice. The water was already collecting and preparing to harden again. Dark eyes narrowed, and Eclipse spoke the words "Ice Blade."
The water did harden, but clear through to the bottom and in the way that he had commanded it to. At the bottom of the well-like structure was the crumpled figure of Aysel, torn and bleeding but maybe still alive. Maybe.
Dropping to the lake floor, retrieving the elf, then hastily teleporting out, Eclipse placed his left hand on the back of her sodden garment. It gleamed slightly and he waited.
A few seconds passed before the body reacted, doubling over and retching. Red droplets trailed down her pale face as she coughed violently, spewing water and the sprites evicted forcibly from her lungs. Blood colored the water that was now soaking into the white snow, and she took a breath of the chill winter air, then was wracked by another fit of coughing.
Pulling her shuddering form closer, he flickered out again and back to where the others waited.
-----
As the demon materialized, the others only turned. No yelps of surprise, no gasps, no twitch of the shoulders in expectation of an unwelcome visitor; they just turned. From the faded looks on their faces, with only a spark of fear keeping the eyes from looking dull and lifeless, it was clear that they had been expecting the worst.
Kneeling to set his burden down in the patch that was clear of snow, Eclipse fixed his own gaze on Chris. "Cleric. Get over here[1]."
"Cleric" began to open his mouth to protest, to state that he had a name, but he stopped suddenly and obeyed. He stepped quickly through the mud, footprints showing clearly. The spirit that had been assigned to him fluttered ahead, hovering just above its summoner.
Aysel managed to turn her head in his general direction, but her eyes were distant, unfocused. Chris, now disregarding the label that read "Dry- clean only", whatever the hell that meant, on the inside of his shirt, sat down in the mud, then reached out a hand hesitantly. His other rested on her shoulder as he said softly, "Try not to move."
Slender frame trembling with the effort of not coughing, she tipped her head downwards slightly as assent. Supported on both sides by Eclipse and Chris, she closed her eyes and let herself relax.
Light shone around the outline of Chris's hand as, for the second time in as many minutes or less, he was called upon to do a healing. This one, however, was more serious, more life-threatening, more important than just a simple graze. The sensitive tissue in the airway had to be repaired as did slices in the lungs themselves.
Expression serious, all antics and theatrics forgotten, the cleric renewed the torn flesh; healed the cuts, the gouges, the vivid crimson marks in the fair skin. At each pause the two could feel the tremors growing fainter, weaker. Finally, they seemed to stop altogether.
Chris started to take his hand away, but he paused halfway. As an experiment, he moved the hand slowly back and forth before her face as her eyes had opened again.
They didn't move. Stunned, he gaped. It had been suspected, but how could she moved about as easily as she had, had she been blind, as this simple test seemed to have proved?
The patient stirred slightly. "It's entirely too cold to be out here after having had a dip in that blasted lake," Aysel stated in a carefully bland tone that nevertheless somehow managed to be scathing, voice quieter than it had been. Still, she had spoken.
Erutis and Raenef started forward; to apologize, to express their relief, to help her up, they didn't know. But they were stopped by Eclipse rising, lifting Aysel.
"Raenef, bring them back to the castle. We'll meet you there."
He departed after that, leaving the three to blink at the air now rushing to fill in the space recently vacated. Chris pushed himself out of the mud, which released its hold on him with a squelch, and walked over to Rae and Erutis. Already linking hands with Raenef, Erutis reached out to touch Chris's shoulder.
They followed.
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Breathing hurt.
Yes, the tears had been healed and yes, at least she could breathe, but the areas were still new and became sore after just a few inhalations. The same went for the new skin.
"Trim your blasted nails sometime," she grumbled, trying to dredge up the energy to shift position. "Better yet, get your hands off me, demon."
A faint, almost imperceptible flush of anger appeared on Eclipse's pale face. What had come over him to make him salvage this one life from the lake? Whatever the feeling had been, it sure as hell wasn't present any longer. Sliding his left arm out from the backs of her knees, he let Aysel's feet drop onto the floor and stepped away.
"If you don't like it, you can walk on your own, elf," he said tersely.
The instant that Eclipse had stepped back, she'd fallen. Slender body curled slightly, wet strands of silver hair clinging to her face, she placed one palm flat on the floor. Aysel's other hand did the same, and she tried to push herself back up. Her arms shook violently with the effort and she rose a few inches before they gave out and she dropped back onto the cold marble.
She opened her eyes. "Point made. You'd better be happy, bastard." They closed again.
"Too unimaginative to think of another way of transportation?"
"I'd die before I crawl, fu-"
"Eclipse!"
The incomplete word stayed incomplete as Raenef dashed in, sliding to a halt at Aysel's side and kneeling to try and lift her from the cold floor. He had managed to lift her upright when Chris and Erutis had burst into the room through the wide open door, panting. As they helped Raenef to bear her weight, he gazed at Eclipse, green eyes wide with reproach.
"Why?"
"Master Raenef, I-"
"I slipped." The two words, almost inaudible, were all that the elf said before subsiding once again into silence.
Though the brief explanation did not seem at all plausible, the young Demon Lord hesitated only a moment before accepting it; what else could he do? His gaze flickered from the pallid face next to his, then to Eclipse.
"We got this. You can go now."
With a slight incline of his head, the demon signified that he had understood, then left.
"There's a bed the next room over," Erutis said, tilting back to meet Rae's eyes as he turned back.
He nodded. "Right." Then he ducked to avoid the light that bobbed by his head.
"No! Hey, quit it, I said! Get away!" Chris was attempting to wave his own off with one hand. "Away, I said!"
Aysel's lips twitched in what might have, could have, been a smile. "Contract dissolved. Rae, same for yours."
After he'd obediently repeated the first two words and all the sprites had vanished, the three half-dragged, half-carried her into the other room and deposited her in the bed. Only when they saw the slightly darker patches appear where she was did they realize what should have been obvious: the elf was still sopping wet.
"Damn. She could catch pneumonia like that..."
Erutis glanced over at the dark-haired cleric questioningly. "Eh, shouldn't you know how to treat that kind of thing?"
He coughed lightly into his hand and mumbled something incomprehensible, glancing over, embarrassed, out the window.
"Say what?"
More mutters.
"Come on, spit it out."
"I... ah..."
Raenef snapped his fingers. "I get it! He spent all his time memorizing stuff to kill demons instead of healing the really serious stuff! I mean, if you just learn how to heal flesh wounds, then it's pretty much the same all the way, but he didn't learn stuff for colds, right?"
Face now bright red, Chris became unduly fascinated with his still- muddy boots. "Didja really have to put it so bluntly?"
Erutis sighed. "Then what can we do, huh? We're supposed to get the wet stuff off, right?"
"Ah..."
"Urm..."
It was at this point that the sword master noticed the two others backing away, both trying to be inconspicuous and both now a lovely, bright tomato –tomahto- red. She blinked for a moment, then realization dawned on her.
"Good grief..."
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YamiHikari's Note- mmph. I checked on my computer, and this is the shortest chapter, excluding the preview which doesn't really count. Anyway, May 30th was my birthday! Happy birthday to me! I live in chopped up trees! I mighta been descended from a monkeeeey! But happy birthday to me! ;; ... I need to get to Barnes and Noble SOON to get the LAST VOLUME OF DEMON DIARY! GAAAH! And in case anyone is wondering, I do not write shounen-ai/yaoi or shoujo- ai/yuri. Nope. I just don't. So in relation to some previous reviews, well... brandishes a paper ARTISTIC LISCENSE!! hiding behind the paper But it's amusing, since the two series that I have fics posted on right now are kinda famous for their yaoi ficcies, and here I am with straight pairings. Eheheh... but GW does have its fair share of straight stuff. I mean, look at Aishiteru.com. I had FYH posted there with the first two, unrewritten chappies, but abandoned it. I felt sorry for the webmistress who had to do all the work, so I stopped. ... I should go to sleep now... I got this major thing that I need to do to pass on to the next grade day after tomorrow and I gotta mentally prepare myself. Yeah. I can do this.... I can do this... I can do this.... deep breath Anyway, ja!