The Sleep of the Dead
The sleep of the dead is not as dreamless as many would suppose, but nor do the dead dream. The demoness dreamt of a door, of opening it, and reducing a child to a gibbering mess. The tiny pea of humanity left within her quivered and shrank by a fraction too tiny to measure, horrified by the child's cries. When the demoness awoke, she remembered nothing. Then her alarm sounded.
"Good morning bad morning horrible morning, Imps, demons and tentacle things, whatever's wrong for you," The DJ said in his horribly charismatic voice, "It's time to rise and shine, new souls to buy, new souls to process and more work to do to make you do even more work! But hey, it's Hell, kiddies, as the Dark Lord says. We've got some Ozzie oldies for you this morning with a song you can all sympathize with, 'Facing Hell'. This is DOOM radio, bringing you hits from up top every day commercial free, preferred station of Elites everywhere and the Dark Lord himself."
As the heavy metal started shaking the bed of hot irons and grating them into different positions, it's occupant groaned and rolled off of it, leaving sizzling skin still attached to the irons, filling the room with the smell of burnt flesh that she could not stand. She held her nose as she stumbled over to the wall-panel, the holes burnt into her back slowly prickling as they pulled themselves back together, quickly healing. She stabbed a finger at the keyhole, letting it take her fingerprint then open so she could hit the 'clean' and 'ventilate' buttons immediately. The sizzling skin and muscle disappeared into thin air, and the whole room immediately took on a minty smell.
"Jeez, of everything down here, that's the one thing I'll never get used to." She shuddered as she reached for the closet door, pulling it open to find... leather. And on top of that, thongs and things that wouldn't even qualify as a bikini top as the order of the day. "MERV! What did we talk about every day for the past thirty thousand years? CLOTHES! Not scraps of cloth, not leather bikinis, CLOTHES!" She yelled up into the closet, knowing it would reach the ears of Merv, the Operator of the EAC12, or Elite Apartment Complex number 12. Operators were just a tiny step below Elites, so they couldn't be ordered without direct authority, like most souls, but a one-on-one ass kicking was by law un-punishable, no matter the rank of the kicker or the kickee. For the last thirty thousand hell-years (two and a half earth-years), Merv had placed in her closet any number of ridiculous outfits more fitting for S&M porn than work, even though seeing such outfits worn around the 'office' wasn't uncommon.
"Yes ma-am." Came a nerdy voice from the closet as the rack withdrew and was soon replaced with something more fitting... if hardly less evocative. On the rack, it looked like a simple sweater and sweat pants, but she knew that once she put it on it would tighten into a form-fitting cat suit. So form-fitting that it looked like it was painted on. She sighed and decided not to try to argue him down today. Occasionally she could get him to send her a plain, entirely normal set of clothes, but that took too much effort most days. And she was wary of them, since he'd sent her that supertech erotic-model nun's outfit. She didn't want to remember that day, and neither did he. She quickly suited up, feeling the fabric tighten and sighing gladly as she realized it was neck-less; high-necked outfits always felt like they were choking her. She jumped a bit as she felt a prickling in her scalp, reaching up to feel the nekomimi that had just been sewn into the top of her head as the cloth came around from below to attach thin black whiskers, the back of the suit suddenly lengthening into a long, sinuous tail. She shivered a bit as each of the three appendages hotwired themselves into her system.
"Was that really necessary?" She asks the ceiling angrily, her tail twitching unconsciously to reflect her ire.
"No, but Carl over in 11 bet me twenty bucks I couldn't get you into the suit. Besides, you look cute." The ceiling replies with a dorky giggle.
"Well, if you don't want me to collect my share, I suggest you give me something normal tomorrow. The first time," She lobbied, trying to work this to her advantage.
"Uh, yeah, sure, how about the dark swordswoman outfit? You seem to like that one."
"That'll do, Merv."
Setsuna didn't even wince when her feet hit the broken glass of the street, stepping quickly around the younger souls that hadn't gotten used to it yet mincing their way slowly along, leaving far thicker trails of blood behind them than those who walked without hesitation. A few of what she liked to call 'classical' demons moved by, hulking dark-shaded forms shaking the ground with their footsteps, manacles around their wrists and ankles binding them to Hell until they were released to end the world. It was a long walk to her assigned workplace, but she was used to it, and arrived in just under an hour. She waved to the gateman as she walked past, stepping onto the first level of an area commonly called 'The Million Stairs'. To someone who hadn't been there before, it would appear to be a million stairs, though it was in fact two million. Clever mirror work and a confusing pattern made it seem like an uncountable number, but someone who knew where they were going would step up no more than a hundred for each floor, and usually far less, depending on the floor. She was on the eighth floor of fifty, and was grateful for it, having only 563 stairs to climb each morning. She could already see others trudging far above to the higher floors, several of them doing circles, spirals, loops, and other acrobatics to get to their floor.
She got to her floor and entered, her suddenly bloodied palm print granting access to a place loathingly known as 'the office'. Endless rows of cubicles to give a sense of futility, though it was again a mirror trick, something that could only optimistically be called green sludge in the water tanks, nasty, but a good pick-me-up. Someone had decided to hang themselves again, and with an actual rope for once, instead of neckties or her once-upon-a-time try with a string of them. Strangely, she thought it gave the room a festive Halloween-ey sense, and snickered at the thought as she pushed the body aside on her way by. She dropped down into the uncomfortable hard-plastic chair, wriggled the pencil tray loose, and grabbed the writing implement that seemed to have the least splinters, pulling a page out of the never-emptying incoming tray.
Oh, great... she thought, today's special: Shikima import/export inventory. While she knew that only the worst of the worst and the uncooperative were traded with the Shikima for energy and other services, it still brought up a queasy feeling in her stomach, though she couldn't quite discern why. At least the Dark Lord wasn't sexist about it: at least as many men went over as women, though it netted fewer goods in trade. She sighed and began checking, filling in, dating, initialing, dotting the Is and crossing the Ts, etc.
On the third page of infinity, a head popped up over the side of her cubicle with a loud, whiny 'hey!' Setsuna's eye twitched a little as the woman she considered part of her own personal hell began quite literally spewing today's gossip. She swore that if she cut the woman's head off, it would still keep talking when she went over to pick it up and boot it out the window. It was a tempting thought, but she knew it would just prompt something worse being put in her place. So she simply kept filling out paperwork with an occasional affirmative or negative noise. At least this place was predictable, she thought, until she felt a meaty finger tap her on the shoulder.
Kuso! I just jumped to a conclusion, didn't I? She thought, silently groaning as she stood and turned to see what the Hell Knight wanted. The grotesque, seemingly eyeless monstrosity simply stood there for a moment.
"The Dark Lord wishes your presence. Come." It finally spoke in its raspy metallic voice, turning and walking away. She followed a bit shakily; when the Dark Lord sent someone to get you rather than just called, it meant he wanted to see you right now, rather than waiting for you to find your way through his ever-changing labyrinth of a castle. That usually wasn't good, to say the least. She followed it through the streets, carefully avoiding the trail of acidic blood it left behind; not out of any fear of pain, for it hurt much less than the glass, but so she didn't keep the Dark Lord waiting while she lost her balance from lack of proper feet. After a few miles of walking, the castle's front door was finally in sight, and she could only wish that the Hell Knight would walk faster... they could run across Hell in under an hour at a top speed of a few hundred miles an hour, so why couldn't they walk faster than a trudge? She personally thought the Dark Lord had been playing too many mortal video games, though she daren't say it aloud. The Hell Knight reached the front door and it slid open easily, closing as soon as she stepped through, almost clipping her heels.
The halls were a sickening smorgasbord of colors, made to throw off the sense of direction, and the angles were deceiving. She could tell why so many got lost in here... and was glad, for once, that the Hell Knight was leading the way. She expected him to lead her through a direct path in the labyrinth, but rather than use the path, he simply walked forward... right through the wall, and it split open for him.
Figures, she thought, quickly following before the wall re-formed. The beast in front of her simply walked straight ahead, through every wall, and she followed, noting the occasional haunt setting a trap for the lost and hoping that she'd never be summoned without help. They soon reached the main section of the building, where various demons, most quite strange-looking in a humorous sort of way, ran about, screaming in horrible languages not meant to be understood by human souls. She thought, for a moment, that if she ignored the voices, it resembled some mortal stock-exchange, with people running about crazily and arguing over prices and whatnot. Then it was gone, and they walked on by. Down a hall, across some pits the Hell Knight floated over while she had to walk or jump, spikes, snakes, coals, whatever the Dark Lord could think of when he was putting his home in order, she supposed. Those crocodiles were an annoyance she wished he had left out though. Soon enough, they reached the anteroom of the Audience Hall.
"One Setsuna, First Class Elite Demoness, Order of the White Wings." Said a squirrelly secretary demon in English, which she thankfully understood; the Dark Lord was more likely to be lenient on you in these little meetings if you could speak his own language. She snickered, at times, thinking that Satan being gaijin was rather fitting; not here, of course, within earshot. Then she heard a voice in her mind...
I heard that, Setsuna-chan... He said in His usually sardonic voice, using the suffix on her name with an especially cheery tone that was guaranteed to annoy.
Oh hell... she thought, realizing that here, he would naturally be picking up her every thought.
Bingo, girly. Come on inside, where I can torture you face to face. His voice was always friendly-sounding, somehow, but at the same time teasing and sarcastic. She thought there were quite a few things in the way Hell worked that resulted from his penchant for jokes and irony, and was reminded of this assessment as she opened the tiny hidden human-sized door in the center of the giant imposing iron ones that didn't actually open. Another joke of his; watching those who had already wandered through the maze try to open the giant doors with no success at all would be quite amusing. Naturally, the room was large, though one step took you from the door to the front of the looming throne, for His convenience. On one side was an old wind organ, where an even older ghost sat, playing something ominous as she took the one long step and few short ones to the bottom of His throne's platform and kneeled at the base. The Dark Lord, named mortally as Max Crowley, was not a huge ugly demon, as many would suppose. He looked entirely human, except for two tiny horns poking out of his temples, hardly visible under the unruly black mop of hair. He wasn't an ugly man, but nor was he pretty: some would consider him as having rugged good looks that fit with his average-looking yet strong body. She, of course, only noted this objectively: her tastes ran rather in another direction.
"Good Evening." The Dark Lord spoke, giving a small flourish from his lazy seat, "Setsuna-chan," The organ-playing ghost had gotten even louder about it now, and was in a repetitive part of the ominous tune, "Cut it out, grandpa." He said, and the organ stopped, though she could hear the old ghost grumbling about young-uns and their lack of respect for his music.
"Good Evening, my Prince. How may I be of service?" She said in a properly submissive voice.
"First of all, cut the crap. I get enough of that from the regulars and the clients. Sit or stand however you're comfortable." He said, shifting positions on his throne for comfort, "Second, review if you will your record of existence as you know it. Short version, please, we don't want to be here all year."
"Uhm... Okay..." She starts, a bit surprised, wondering just what it was he called her in for, and with such urgency.
"I called you in so fast because I feel like doing this now rather than later. And the rest I'll explain in a moment." Max said, with a smirk.
"Of... of course." She changed position to a more natural kneel, "During my first drop into the generators, I chose Emotional Torture set to high. I do not recall anything before I came out of that, but that is what I was told. According to the Operators, whatever I saw in there caused so much pain that it nearly overflowed all the batteries before I forced myself to block out all memory of my life and death up to that point. I awoke one week later with no memories, but retaining my basic knowledge, including fighting. I spent one earth-day, approximately ten thousand years here, as a lesser soul before I was promoted to Elite Demoness, Fifth Class, and accepted into the Order of the White Wings. Nothing significant happened before my promotion." Indeed, the lives of the lesser souls were monotonous and left no room for anything to happen that would count as significant. Her promotion had come as a surprise to everyone: no one was even allowed to train for Elite without having at least one earth year under their belt. She had taken the test and passed it with flying colors the first time, having plenty of knowledge, perception skills, and fighting skill. Even though Operators only had to have a month, a day was completely unheard of for either. And then she had been placed in the Order of the White Wings. They were few and far between, the Elites of the White Wings, and were generally considered strange regardless. It was a suspicion, among the lesser souls and Elites alike, that the White Wings were pet projects of His Darkness, or Special Forces for him to call on if Hell were ever threatened by another like the Timeless Lord, so long ago. She was of the opinion that it was either and neither; they were there for whatever he wanted, be it pet project or protection. Fortunately, she had not paused for but a moment, and so continued.
"Upon moving from the barracks to the apartments, I began having troubles. Approximately one year below after my promotion, I attempted to hang myself with a string of neckties, which had been the only thing provided to wear that morning by my building's Operator, Merv. Excuse my stupidity, Your Darkness." She gave a small bow.
"That's fine. I remember that, actually; you did it in the middle of the street, off a lamp-post. I thought it was rather funny; you naked and hanging yourself with a string of neckties. Too bad they couldn't hold your weight. In fact, I thought about asking you out after that, cute as you are, but as you noted when entering the room, you wouldn't have been interested, so I passed it off." Setsuna looked shocked for a moment. She knew well that he could, in an instant, know everything about anyone in His Realm, but certain facts usually left unsaid could still be shocking, when said crassly as he just had.
"Er... right..." She started again, "After that, I became determined and read the laws, and soon after was able to negotiate Merv down on the outfits, though he still occasionally catches me with a surprise."
"Yes, the catgirl look, while not quite to my particular taste, is very cute. You do know your tail is twitching a little nervously, right?" he asked, giving her a surprise, as she had forgotten her outfit today.
"As you see... I adjusted to office life, began learning all the tricks to getting around and keeping generally in your good grace, so to speak. I've resisted the temptation to kill the tart you sat next to me at the office, and she seems immune to all persuasion attempts. Nice touch, there, Your Darkness."
"Thank you." He replies simply, "And that is all, correct?" She nodded her response, "Well, with your early promotion, not so unprecedented as you think." He smirked at her slight discomfort every time he said something in relation to her thoughts, "I think it's time for another."
Setsuna blinked in confusion for a moment. A promotion? There was only one position above Elite, so very coveted because you spent more time on earth, and therefore away from generator-time, and she certainly wasn't fit to be...
"A Tempter," He finished her thought, "I believe you have potential, Setsuna of the Order of White Wings. There is, in fact, a special case that I believe only you could complete. If you succeed in turning this single soul to us, you will be given full rights as a Tempter and three full earth years of full seniority."
Setsuna was shocked beyond belief. This soul he speaks of must be more powerful than anything I have ever seen, and as white as snow. She thought to herself; position as a Tempter was coveted. Seniority as a Tempter was competitive and even more valued. One year of seniority was only given if a Tempter completed a quota for the year, usually thirty souls, which was very difficult to do. Three years for only a single soul... it was unbelievable. Fifteen years of seniority meant that you were free of Hell forever, reincarnated to a new life or given a human body and set loose on Earth until you died once again. All other positions in Hell offered that only hundreds of Earth years into their stay, at the very least, which translated to billions of years below. A soul worth three years... it would have to be powerful and nearly impossible to turn... so why would he send her, who hadn't even gone through the usual training, when he should be sending the most experienced Tempter on staff? She didn't have any chance at all of turning such a soul, so why...
"Not that I mind you having your internal monologue, but it's getting repetitive now." She winced as he spoke, seeming bored now, "I'm sending you because this is a special case. Yes, the soul is very powerful, but not impossible for you to turn. Last year it would have been impossible, but she lost her girlfriend a year ago tomorrow, Earth time, and is still in shock. She's about to come out of it, so now's the best time to hit her. Be warned, though, that you will have opposition; heaven is sure to send their best." He smirked at that, as if he knew a secret, "I have confidence you'll be able to do it. You're strong, and persistent, and that's all you'll need."
"I am at your service sir. When do I leave?" She asked, resigned to her mission, impossible though it might seem.
"Don't be so gloomy. And you leave immediately." He said, "After I give you your mark of office, you'll be immediately sent to Earth Control Center. An Operator there will give you the details and show you how the Bad Shoulder system works."
"Confirmed, sir." She answered simply. He finally stood, not quite slouching but not standing straight either, and withdrew from behind his throne a sword, once sheathed in plain-treated wood, now black and burned just short of losing structural integrity.
"I made this especially for you, Setsuna, the blade 'Ariake no Fungeki'." He said, taking slow steps down the pedestal.
Ariake no Fungeki? Fury of dawn? That's a little... awkward. She thought to herself before catching herself from more.
"Yeah yeah, I know, awkward. So Japanese ain't my first language, so shoot me." He says with an annoyed tone, finally stopping in front of her, holding the sword out in both hands. She took it reverently, and then the world around shifted away...
End Chapter 1
AN: Who is the soul in question? (as if you didn't know...) Who will be Setsuna's opponent? And why the hell(excuse the word use) is Setsuna in hell to start with? Why can't she remember anything? Find out in the next episode of 'The Sun Does Not Set!'
Credits: Catten gave me the title, known here as Iamet, if I'm not mistaken. Neesan, known here as Houndemon, did the pre-reading. Akamatsu-sama did the important characters, I did Hell and the background characters, including Max Crowley, also currently known as Satan.
Curious yet? Good.