CHAPTER 4

"What are you doing here? You shouldn't be here. You're too pure to be here."

"You needed me."

"You should have left me be. You've sacrificed enough already."

"I wanted to though. I'm not fallen."

"You will be."

"So what?"

"Do you know what touching me did?"

"Bound us together for the rest of eternity?"

"The bond already did that to a point."

"How do I know what I did if I didn't know what was happening?"

"I suppose even archangels don't know that one."

"I'm still lowest in that line."

"She won't be happy you know."

"She's never happy with me. What's that?"

"That?"

"That box."

"Oh, that would be the memory box. You won't like what's in it."

"You opened mine."

"You were in a life and death situation."

"That doesn't change the facts."

"You won't like it."

"You told me that."

------------

The room was lit only by the sunrise seen through a white marble arch. A little girl with purple hair sat on a raised wooden step, looking out.

"Who am I Azar?"

"You are Raven." Replied the woman standing off to the side. The light illuminated her short white hair; her eyes were closed.

"No Azar, who am I?"

"You should be meditating."

"They talk too loudly, even mentally."

"You shouldn't be…"

"I'm not snooping Azar. They simply don't give a single regard for other's sensitive ears just because they have none themselves." The young girl wrinkled her nose in annoyance. "It's hard not to listen."

The elder woman chuckled. "I suppose that's true."

"Don't try to change the subject."

"That was snooping."

"You're thinking loudly again. And I already know what happened between those two."

The woman sighed. "You're not going to like this. Why must you be the most adept student I've ever had? You're only eight but you have the knowledge and wisdom of someone at least thirty years your senior."

"So that you have someone to brag about even though we both know that everyone else knows something that keeps them from caring a wit beyond despising me."

The woman unfolded herself from her lotus position. "Come with me Raven."

The small girl followed the much taller woman through the twisting halls. They both knew the halls well, neither paused for a second. They stopped in front of a large door. "If I wasn't high priestess, you wouldn't be going in here."

"I could get in."

"Then you know what is kept in here."

"It isn't hard, the wards are too old and were weak to begin with."

"The wards are younger than you. It is part of who you are to be able to figure out how simple the lock really is." Azar simply pushed open the doors and walked in, Raven following closely behind. "You already know your mother came here already heavy with you."

"But not by who. It seems that the name is too bad to say."

Azar sighed. "Fear of a name only brings more fear of the person them self." Azar stopped in the middle of the room in front of a fountain. "Raven, your father is Trigun, the ruler of the Makai."

Raven stared at Azar in disbelief. "I know it's hard to believe," said Azar, staring at the top of the fountain. "You've never shown any signs of being demon or half demon, or anything other than human. Well here's another thing, you're mother isn't human either. She was once an angel. But then she fell to Earth because she, well she wanted to be human. She wasn't truly fallen until Trigun took her. He seduced her, made her think he was a 'good' guy. Then after he got Arella pregnant he showed his true form. You were born in this very room, so that your energy would be masked from him. Then we suppressed your powers, the demon ones. You still have your mother's empathy and telepathy, but your demon ones become tied to the empathy, that's part of the reason I have you meditate so much, so that you will know how to when your powers come out."

Raven was just staring into space, the words registered but she couldn't really believe it, yet she knew it was true. Just as she had already known Trigun was the ruler of the Makai. The wheels in her head were turning too fast for her to really process things, until it connected something. "Is that why I have the dreams?"

"What dreams?" Azar looked at her in disbelief. If they were like what she was thinking…but no, it couldn't be true. Her powers were suppressed with the best seals and wards that she could come up with. Sure clairvoyant she could have been anyway, but Angels weren't normally clairvoyants, Demons often were.

"Fire dreams, lava, there's always four red eyes." Raven looked into the distance. "Why are all the others my age so different? And why are they farther behind? Sometimes I have dreams that happen later, Mom always says it's just de je vu, but why would it happen so often if it were just that? And she always looks scared when I tell her about them. Sometimes I have them when I'm meditating. There was one that was about an Angel coming to me. But sometimes I see a world of floating chunks of earth, connected with pathways. Azar, why do I have to help bring him to Earth? Why do I have to be older than ten?"

---------------

"She's a freak! No one but Azar and her closest assistants can do things remotely close to that. It's not even Angel, never mind Azarathian or human."

"Well it's not like she is human."

"I don't care, it's still wrong. It's against the laws of nature."

"If you're going to talk about me behind my back, could you have the decency to do it somewhere that I can't actually hear you? Physically at least since you all think so loud." The women turned scarlet, having realized they had forgotten the one they talked about was in the room with them. But she was used to it by now, like she was used to knowing that it would be less than two months when she could have to use her powers. And that she would leave mere days after the death of Azar.

But then, eleven year olds shouldn't be able to surpass everyone but Azar should they?

--------------

"Freak! You should never have been born!"

More chunks of dirt and rock and whatever they grabbed rained down on her. They had been planning this for months, waiting for the perfect time to strike against 'the freak.' Bruises already covered her small body, curled into the fetal position in an attempt to protect herself.

"Go back to where you belong!"

"You'll be the end of us!"

Raven shook her head, her body numb from pain. It's not true; I'm not a freak! I'm not going to be the Destroyer!

Ah, but you will…

Who are you? What are you doing in my mind? Only Azar can get here…but she's gone now.

I've always been here, but they locked me away when you were a child. I can protect you…

…They locked my powers away though, not a voice…

I am your power. Let me help…

Alright… A surge of power ran through her as she suddenly was forced to take a backseat in her own body. It frightened her…but made her feel wonderful, like she could do anything and no one could stop her. It invigorated her as she felt her body stand as though it had never been hit.