Chapter 50: Hero's Resurrection
(In keeping with my own concern for readers who get nightmares way too easy, I just want to warn you that this chapter gets creepy, as far as the creepy factor of my story goes, and that there is going to be a portion of very graphic violence, with blood and everything. I'll mark it off wth a line of asterisks so you know where it is.)
Akirame sat on the bed in the ice-cold room,. staring blankly ahead, yet her eyes weren't unseeing. They saw the images that sharply flashed behind them in her mind, changing and melting into one another like a slideshow on the spindel of a top. She was unable to sort through them, the real memories from things her imagination had dreamed up. The only clear detail that stood out in any of them were Riku's eyes, clear, sharp, glowing with life. Or maybe it was just that was the very last thing she saw before she died, his eyes, glittering with pain. Yes, Akirame still sat upright on the bed, she still breathed, she blinked, her heart still beat. But it wasn't the same Akirame. This Akirame was different. This Akirame was darker, unemotional, and brimming with anger just beneath the skin. The old Akirame wouldn't dream of harming someone. This Akirame would kill without blinking. This Akirame didn't so much as budge when she heard a gentle rapping on the metallic door, nor when it opened and footsteps softly approached, bringing along the scent of vanilla and Old Spice. Erik and Serena.
"Aki...are you okay?" Erik was wary. You don't have Irvine for a roommate without quickly developing a keen sense of danger.
"What do you want?" The voice was layered with ice.
Serena took a far more direct approach, and decided to put her life in immediate danger, acting like a stupid camper who decides to impress his friends by putting his foot on the trigger of an unsprung trap. "We're going to bring Riku back."
"Excuse me?" The trap gave a warning creak.
"Erik is in possession of an adequate amount of pheonix down to ressurect Riku, but we have to do it quickly, otherwise his memory will be completely wiped."
"What the hell do you think you're talking about, coming in and suggesting such a completely idiotic suggestion?" Just a bit more pressure and...
"Akirame, don't be so selfish, we all need Riku right now!"
Snap. She moved in a blur,her hand streaking like a rattlesnake with perfect accuracy to grip the mullato girl's throat. Serena didn't even flinch. "Aki, he's not dead, he's just asleep."
"What are you talking about!" Akirame kept her captive in place with one hand as she used the other to hold Erik at arm's length.
"It isn't his time yet. If we act quickly, we can bring him back with most of his memory intact."
"Bring him back from where?" Aki's voice was becoming hoarse with emotion.
"The Farplane, that's where his soul has gone, bound by the lifestream."
Serena was far too calm, for someone being threatened with the possibility of suffocation at the hands of a teen maddened by grief. Akirame's eyes didn't just gleam they burned.
However Serena's eyes remained calm, despite the heat. They continued to stare at one another, both determined to stand their ground. However, Akirame's eyes didn't constantly waver between past, present and future, planting flickering images into the mind. At last her grip loosened, and she turned back towards the bed. "She's dead, stop trying to get to her."
Serena narrowed her eyes. "Let her wake up!"
Erik was at a complete loss for what happened next. Akirame, although she was indeed still the exact same, changed. Suddenly she was slightly crouched over in an animal fashion, face twisted into the very essence of a snarl. "Make me."
Akirame leapt, and seemed to slow down in midair until she was moving at a snail's pace. Serena merely raised a hand, and in a voice heavy laden with authority, said "Leave her."
A bright light grew around her hand, in which appeared a small seal made of light itself, inscribed with strange, moving symbols. It flew forward and firmly planted itself on Akirame's forehead, and time came back with a loud thunderclap. While Akirame continued forward, and landed in a sprawl on the floor, something was thrown backwards by the force of the magic seal, and hit the bed with no sound at all. It was like a shadow, a mist shadow wrapped like a cloak around a body. It was a wretched, ugly creature, clawing frantically at the seal on its head. It gave a scream that made the windows vibrate. In a thousand languages all at once, it screamed for mercy. Erik wasted no time in crying out the obligatory "Oh shit, what is that thing?"
"A demon of despair, one of Sin's spawn. There'll be another one in this room somewhere, since they always work in pairs. Keep your eyes peeled while I dispose of this one."
Erik swallowed and watched as she, from seemingly nowhere at all, produced a long, beautiful stake of light from her clothes, and quickly thrust it down through the demon's body, and in a burst of shadows and light, it seemed to melt into the blanket, and nothing was left. There was a strange flicker of motion coming from the direction of the bathroom. "Serena...the bathroom.." He whispered, glancing in the direction of the slightly cracked door.
Slowly they crept across the floor, their hearts pounding as the room grew inexplicably darker and more sinister as they neared the ominous door. Sweating, Erik glanced over at her and nodded as he moved behind the door and put his hand on the doorknob while Serena readed herself on the other side of the doorframe. In perfect unison Erik yanked the door open while Serena produced a stake from the air and flung it into the room. There wasn't a single sound from inside. Slowly they both peered into the darkness, straining to see in the inky, endless blackness.

It struck from behind. Darkness engulfed all of Erik's vision, and he was violently pressed against a clamy, rubbery surface that pulsed and breathed. Hundreds of pounds of pressure threatened to crush him, and at the same time there was nothing there at all. There was blood, thick and sticky, pouring out of his body. He was perfectly intact. In one instant his intestines were being ripped right out of his body and spilling over his feet, in the next, he was whole. At last his will snapped like a stretched rubber band, and he felt a sharp, painful and endless peircing pain in his neck.
Serena screamed in defiance at the sight, Erik being flung against a wall by shadows, which managed to condense itself into the shape of a horrifying beast with an impossible mouth composed of fangs like those of a spider, two of which stretched, elongated and stabbed right through neck, bursting out on the other side. She extracted from the light in the air around her a long, glowing stake, and hurled it directly between the beast's shoulders, pinning it to the wall where it dissolved.

Erik fell to the floor and trembled madly from head to foot, sweating and deathly pale, eyes rimmed with red. "Erik!" Serena screamed, wrapping her arms tightly around him and holding him to her chest.
She gently pulled back the collar of his shirt, and as she feared, there were two "scars" of shadow on his neck, like a spider bite on the light. She knew exactly what would become of him, of what the direct infection to his soul would twist him into. There was no sense in trying to stop something that would make him far stronger. All she could do now was help him control himself. Otherwise, there was nothing she could do for him at the moment but wait for the fever to pass. First matters first, before more of those creatures came. She gently tugged on the thin leather string that hung about his neck, snapping it, and grabbed the leather pouch that dangled from it. Hurrying over to the sleeping bag which lay respectfully on the bed, she didn't hesitate to find the zipper and all but rip it open.
Riku's body was completely perfect, untouched by even the faintest signs of decomposition. As she reached out to brush away the hair from his face, she felt that his skin was still warm. Swallowing, she slowly opened the leather pouch and trembled in respectful awe at the flames that poured out. With one hand she tugged the zipper further down and peeled back the grungy material of the sleeping back to expose all of the boy's body. "It's time for you to wake up, Riku."
Akirame slowly pushed herself off the floor in a daze, and looked around towards the bed, and her eyes widened. She had to be dreaming. From the pouch that Serena held over Riku's chest, feathers made of fibers of flame floated down onto his body, enough to constitute a fistful. Suddenly, like an enclosed fire when the door is opened to introduce fresh oxygen, the feathers burst and the flame engulfed his body, eating away the material of his clothes. She was burning him alive! Slowly, Akirame forced herself up onto her feet, and like swimming through a dream, she moved forward. She had to stop it, she had to save him.
Slowly, consciousness started to return to him. He felt something tugging him along, leading him, guiding him to where he should be. He could feel the warmth, the need for him to get there quickly. His lungs, frozen up with disuse, took in a deep, aching breath. His heart jolted, and began to beat. Blood unfroze and resumed flowing. Wake up. His eyelids fluttered, then slid open. He found himself staring up at a white surface, burnt with the outline of a bird. A voice crying his name broke the spell-like effect, and he realized it was a ceiling. Expecting to find his limbs heavy and hard to move, he was surprised when his hands easily slid upwards to give him support as he sat up. The most beautiful girl he had ever seen flung themselves onto the edge of the bed on which he lay, utterly naked, and crawled over him, wrapping her arms tightly around his shoulders and crying hysterically into his hair. His heart burned madly with love, which spread to the rest of his body as the girl pressed her lips firmly, almost angrily against his. He was utterly, helplessly in love with this girl, he knew it. Sighing, he stared unseeingly as he wrapped a long, wavy lock of blue hair dipped in magenta around his finger. The question was, who was she?