CHAPTER 34 - "SEBASTIAN AWAKES"

"We must be cautious and prepare," William T. Spears, Head of Reaper Affairs, said. "If indeed Decco is testing the waters for vulnerabilities and weaknesses within our group, it is safe to conclude that he will be sending even more minions, and there is no telling just how many demons he has under his hold, or how strong some of them will be."

The others agreed on this point, and they each expressed their own concerns on it. It appeared, and in the short amount of time that had been together, that Mathu Kelvin had become a welcome ally in their midst, once a cold-blooded enemy. But his declaration of when Sebastian awoke and when once he finished he had to tell him and give him was accomplished - would he truly leave them to fend for themselves against a powerful foe that in all likelihood without him they may very much would not stand a chance against?

But what demon would be next?

"Correct," Mathu Kelvin said. "Decco will very likely continue to send stronger demons against us. Why fight if you can have others do the work for you?"

"That's the coward's way of thinking," Ciel said strongly.

"No, Ciel Phantomhive," William said, "that is the way of the world. A true leader exploits his enemies weaknesses and then strikes. It is assuredly a very smart way of thinking and to victory."

Ciel grumbled, knowing the Reaper was right.

"Only to the point of allowing your warriors do all the fighting and then come in to stand over the corpses," Lukas corrected William. "If this is done, then he is not a leader but an exploiter of good, honorable men."

Ciel looked at Lukas with an eye of respect, and then looked at William and found him nodded softly.

"You are correct, Lukas Phantomhive. Your Alexander the Great was a great leader…at first, but then exploited his good, honorable men - after they had fought with him for years, conquering surrounding lands - when they refused to obey orders of a questionable manner and wanted to return to their families because they were tired of constant combat. As punishment, Alexander had them walk through a desert for weeks, where days by boat would have been faster; he killed one-quarter of his men this way, falling dead from heat exhaustion and starvation. There have been many other cases of men of a similar nature in human history turning sinister for their own selfish means, as well."

Lukas put up a hand, not needing a lecture. "No, all of them were just protecting their own best interests, protecting their way of life. Some fall by the wayside, but others are selfless - and then are betrayed by men with that sinister intent of mind."

"Again, you are correct, Lukas Phantomhive," William said. "You know your history well."

"When I was under the influence of Bryon Kelvin, I was educated well. My teacher, whom I believe…was honorable, the man who taught me much of history, and the way of the world, was not the same man who trained me to kill and be an assassin. I know this somehow…I still don't remember who he was, but I consider him like a mentor, in a way. And one day, I will to thank him for all of what he taught me." He turned to Sebastian. "Much like Sebastian, in his own way, has helped my brother grown and learn…"

"Sebastian is my butler, nothing more," Ciel said straightly. "Do not make him out to be anything more."

"Oh, I suspect him to be much more than you are willing to admit, brother. Much more."

Ciel frowned, almost to the point of a scowl. And Lukas produced a thin smile of confidence.

Knox spoke up, "But this is a good thing, right?" Everyone looked at him. "The more demons Decco sends against us, the greater the chance it will give Sebastian time to awaken."

"Knox is correct," Salem chimed in. "The more minions Decco throws at us, helps us. Although, I am sad to say…the once happy Sebastian a felt a moment ago, has evolved, or rather closed himself off to his emotions, into his present form."

Mathu Kelvin glanced at Sebastian. "Can you sense what happen to his wife and kids?"

He started to go to him, but Renfrew Phantomhive stood in his way and forced him back with a little telepathic push. "Don't touch him! Let his life cycle finish, so he can return to us intact."

Mathu Kelvin pointed an accusatory finger at him. At this moment, he was human-like once more, non-electrified. "If it wasn't for you, Sebastian would be here - and we'd probably would not be in this situation at all. All of us already know the secret you tried to keep from him, about Belial, and the knowledge housed inside Lukas's mind, even how to free him. So, at this point, his dreaming is pointless!"

"Not so." Salem mused with a hand cupped around his chin. "Who knows what secrets Sebastian may have to tell us from his past - special abilities that may be able to help us now. Does anyone know how old he is?" The question was put to all, but everyone eventually looked to Renfrew.

Renfrew's eyes widened defensively. "Me? How would I know? I only rendered him unconscious and began his life cycle. If anyone would know, it would be Lukas."

Lukas looked shocked. "How would I know?" he said, as everyone now looked to him.

"He has been entering your mind on an almost nightly basis for weeks attempting to recollect forgotten memories of your dark past," Renfrew explained. "Your consciousnesses must have intersected at one point. In lament's terms, your mind's rubbed."

"That's disgusting!" Ciel protested.

"If they had," Lukas said, ignoring Ciel's remark, "I certainly would have remembered." He took a step back away from Renfrew. "And you are not going to put me to sleep in hopes I can remember."

All of sudden, Ciel raised an arm and slapped Lukas hard across the face. Lukas put a hand to his left cheek, his face cringing in pain. "Owwww! What the hell did you do that for, Ciel?" he demanded.

"It is common knowledge that when certain mechanical objects do not function as designed, a simple hit to them, jostles the inner workings, to then make then function properly, albeit temporarily," Ciel explained simply. "I sometimes do so with the gramophone, and it always works."

"I AM NOT AN OBJECT!" Lukas shouted loudly. "I am a human being - wait!" He closed his eyes. "I see…a city on fire."

"Sebastian is a demon. Hell, perhaps?" Ciel offered.

Lukas shook his head, he kept his eyes closed. "This is a city of stone filled with…" He tiled his head slightly, "…snow? No, ash! I don't know whose eyes I'm looking through, but the vision I'm seeing is a place saturated in white, and erupting fire, and loud explosions. A volcano is erupting! It's spewing ash everywhere, showering down upon screaming and panicked citizens in tunics. There are corpses everywhere, suffocating from its toxic effects - with such intense heat, it's scorching flesh instantly!"

"How many volcanoes have erupted in the last, say, two thousand years?" Mathu asked the Reapers.

As Salem was the oldest, the Reapers looked to him. "Quite a few," Salem answered. "But I do know of two cataclysmic volcanic eruptions that caused destructive consequences we are still learning more about even today. Mount Vesuvius that buried the Roman cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum, among other cities in that area in 79 AD, and an even greater volcano eruption much earlier in the middle-half of the 2nd millennium BC, some four-thousand years ago, completely obliterating the civilization living on an island in the Mediterranean Sea. This island is known as Thera, once home to a people known as the Minoan's."

Ciel eyed him. "Atlantis?" he said suspiciously. "As in the volcanic eruption that destroyed the island in a single day and night according to the Greek Philosopher Plato's account of it?"

"Sadly no," Mathu corrected him. "Plato did write of a civilization that planned to conquer neighboring island nations, a highly advanced culture that were well beyond their means, but Thera was not Atlantis." He chuckled. "I…uh…well, the Fallen Reaper in me, kind of set them on a path of annihilation when we gave them the means to use make deadly weapons and they destroyed themselves with them."

"Only after Reapers got involved to stop your foolishness!" Salem said. "You gave them the knowledge to build vast weapons of destruction! They attacked us, and we were forced to destroy them!"

"Plato borrowed the story for his own needs in an attempt to reinforce the collective of his nation, but according to story lore, the story was passed down by Egyptian's to the Greek philosopher Solon, who then claimed the story was even older than they claim. Are you saying, it is even older?"

Mathu Kelvin nodded. "A lot older, kid. Ten thousand years ago. And that was merely when Atlantis was destroyed. Even older than that. And so am I." He smiled wily-like.

"That's a tremendous time span between them; Atlantis, Thera and Pompeii," Ciel said. "Ruins of Pompeii were discovered about two hundreds years ago by accident while the king of Spain contracted out for digging to begin for a canal in the area, and it would make sense that Pompeii may be Sebastian's city of birth since it was destroyed by fire - albeit, Sebastian is a demon and lives in Hell." He snorted a smirk. "It is the also the only one of the three still remaining, and not completely annihilated. Information from Pompeii, including citizens flash frozen, buried by ash and such intense heat - the outer forms of their bodies are being excavated - as still being cataloged, as well the surrounding city."

"You are quite a historian, Ciel Phantomhive," Salem said surprised.

Ciel opened his mouth to say something, but then looked away. "Well, Sebastian educated me on its history," he said softly. "A person of my status and position is not afforded the luxury of attending a normal school, so he is also a teacher to me, educating me on a variety of subjects, including math, science, music, and histories of the world."

Lukas chuckled under his breath, this proving that Sebastian was much more than just a butler. "And despite his schooling, your test scores need great improvement, brother."

Ciel scowled. "Yours are no better, Lukas!"

"I have never attended school, but I am so much more knowledgeable of the world than you!"

"That's because you traveled the world to murder people!"

Ciel's expression straightened as Lukas scowled at him with a hardened stare. "That was cold, brother," Lukas said. "You know that I had no choice, I was brainwashed by Bryon Kelvin to be an assassin. I was being facetious a moment ago. But you still don't know how to take a joke."

But Ciel did not apologize, folding his arms across his chest.

Mathu Kelvin put up his hands in a gesture to yield. "Hold on, this is no time for arguing," he said. "Do you remember anything else?" he asked Lukas, getting back on subject.

"No," Lukas said, averting his eyes away from Ciel, but he was still very much angry with him. He looked to Kelvin. "So how does this help us?"

"May I be of some assistance, possibly?" Abberline said, walking up to them. "And in your group discussion of whatever you may be talking about, you seem to have forgotten about us." He gestured to himself, and to the Phantomhive servants standing near the crypt. They had been standing apart from the rest of them so not to get in the way, even when the demons arrived. "Perhaps if you allow us to-"

"What could you possibly insert into the conversion that would be relevant?" Ciel demanded.

"You don't have to be rude, Ciel." Abberline frowned. "I am a detective, after all. And if you are discussing a problem, perhaps I can help you devise a possible solution or a scenario to help find one."

"It is not necessarily problematic, but we are attempting to ascertain if Sebastian may have some secret weapon within his demon arsenal to help us with our enemies," William explained.

"With your collective front, would Sebastian even be a difference maker if awake? I have overheard your conversion from nearly the beginning, we are not so far away as you think. Is this Decco all that powerful? I found it unsettling that there are forces beyond this world - demons, Reapers, men of a insidious nature…" He looked at Kelvin. "But I am a man of logic and I keep an open mind. I hope I can provide any help."

"Master - look!" Finny called out, waving over. "Sebastian is waking up!"

They all went and crowded around the lain butler. Sebastian's eyes began to flicker, then opened. He remained still, but looked around at all the faces. "My word, am I dreaming?" he said.

Abberline held out his hand and Sebastian took it, helping him to stand. "Inspector Abberline, why are you…standing here…in the Phantomhive family cemetery plot with distinguished company?" He noted the servants, with Abberline, and Reapers Ronald Knox, Grell Sutcliffe, William T. Spears, with Salem, also know as the Undertaker in town, and Renfrew Phantomhive, the ghost. But he also felt someone else.

"Sebastian!" both Ciel and Lukas said out in unison.

"Master Ciel, Master Lukas - what has happened?" Both attempted to explain things, but their voices were overlapping and nothing clear could be understood. "One at a time, please. I'm confused, and frankly, rather quite shocked to see so many people here…together…those that should not be seen amongst the others." Referring to humans seeing Reapers and ghosts… "But please, can someone start from the beginning?"

But it was Mathu Kelvin who stepped forward from behind the attending Reapers - the someone else felt. Standing firm, Sebastian immediately put himself in front of Ciel and Lukas in defense and then raised a hand.

"Wait!" Ciel said.

But Sebastian didn't hear him and used a telekinetic thrust - an invisible displacement of air - to throw Mathu Kelvin heavily away from them. The Fallen Reaper was tossed into the air, unexpectedly, and crashed a distance away into an tall erected tombstone stone statuesque snapping it asunder. The statuesque of a woman, adorned like the goddess of Athena of ancient Greek, can crashing down and broken into several pieces, it's head rolling towards them. It was grave of one of Ciel and Lukas's great dear aunts.

"Sebastian, stop!" Lukas cried. "He's a friend now."

"A friend? Master Lukas, your taste in friends is highly questionable," Sebastian said. "Especially after what he attempted to do to you only months back. He tried to kill you and Master Ciel."

"We know," Ciel said. "But things have changed recently."

"Indeed." Sebastian looked around, this time actually taking notice of all those in attendance. "What a motley crew, indeed."

"Owwww," came a hurt voice in the distance. Sebastian had sent Mathu Kelvin flying in his human-form. His Fallen Reaper powers would heal him, but he was probably in a lot of pain at the moment. The moon shone in the sky, and Mathu Kelvin stubbed to his feet in his white suit aglow in it the moon's brilliant hue, ironically like some angelic being; he felt the back of his head. "I should really blast you for that," he said loudly, his voice carried by the silence of the place. "But out of interest for a common enemy, I'm willing to overlook the misunderstanding of it right now."

"I will, as the saying goes, need filling in of events," Sebastian said lost. "Apparently a lot has unfolded since my induced slumber…"

William took the liability, as he believed he could better articulate events in a matter that would be both unbiased and quickly said. After he was finished, Sebastian took a moment to reflect.

"It will take the sacrifice of innocent blood to bring back Belial," Mathu Kelvin said, momentarily glancing at Ciel and Lukas. Sebastian didn't like that and scowled at him. "You have a difficult choice to make, Sebastian Michaelis. You can either keep things as they are, or…"

"It will be my decision to make," Sebastian said firmly.

"Don't become hung up with attachments, Sebastian. You are a demon, not a human. This is your chance to free Belial from the purgatory Decco has entrapped him within. Morning Star send me to you and told me that this to be is done." Kelvin held up the piece of the Hope Diamond. "With the Gate Keeper - Ciel Phantomhive, and the Key Master, or holder of the knowledge - Lukas Phantomhive, and the power source to open the void, your mentor, trainer, and master, can finally be released from a two-hundred year imprisonment by you rival."

Sebastian snatched the gem piece quickly from Kelvin's hand. "I will take this and I will decide what will be done," he said discourteously. It was obvious Sebastian still had bad feelings towards him. "You have delivered your message and the gem. Now, not to sound too rude but - get lost!"

Kelvin eyed him skeptically. "This is not like you, Sebastian Michaelis. You are not yourself. The last time we met you were calm and collected, and regardless of us fighting, you never spoke ill-like."

"I have recently recalled things I wish had remained in the past, they are very painful." He gave a displeasing look to Renfrew Phantomhive. "And it is true, I am not myself. The pain is close to the surface. It will take time to fade."

"We don't have that time," Salem said, inserting himself into the conversion. "Renfrew said if we awaken you before the life cycle completes itself, you would be disorientated. However, I believe this has occurred notwithstanding. We don't have time for your feel sad. No matter what it is, it must be brushed aside for now, or your masters will die at the hands of one of your most hated enemies."

Sebastian agreed, looking back at Lukas Phantomhive and then at Ciel Phantomhive, whose covenant seal embedded within his right eye could be seen by everyone.

He still had contract with Ciel - a special contract, in fact. What other demon would purposely chain himself to a human, become his personal slave only to obtain his soul at a later date; whereas any other demon would just take the boy's soul and devour it and then go on to another victim? He had considered this since being wit Ciel Phantomhive as his butler, but he hadn't reasoned why until now. No matter what, he still had an attachment to humanity and the covenant he had with Ciel Phantomhive was the only legitimate - one that not even Morning Star could deny - way he could be here.

Was it in defiance to Morning Star stealing his son away? Perhaps. But he was also doing what a demon did, no matter how else it may appear. He would devour Ciel Phantomhive's soul. In the meantime, the contract remained firm and he like any law in civilized society, a gentleman always abided by it.

But since Kassy had died and he sent his kids away, he had achieved his main objective. He was again within Morning Star's good graces, for now.

He had just awoken from a disturbing slumber filled with memories he wished he had not recalled, that he wanted to forgot, thought he had forgotten, and one of them was the death of his wife. A woman he so dearly. He felt disorientated, not himself. And remembering her death resulted in that. It would take time to recover from the shock of recalling his entire two thousand years of life dreaming, returning back to the present time. And he was beginning to feel very hungry, expending all that energy dreaming.

"I must know one thing before things escalate once more," Mathu Kelvin said. "What happened to your family? Your pregnant wife, your twin boys, and to your friend and manservant Bryan. It is like a book, a page turner that suddenly has been stopped and the reader told to wait for a sequel."

Sebastian snapped him a crimson glare, raising a hand, as if to toss Kelvin back again. "I may be a demon, but there are certain things I do hold dear. You will never speak of my family again!"

"Sebastian Michaelis," William spoke up. "Your 'history' may require telling to us if a plan of defense or attack can be formulated to fight your rival."

"Decco is not my rival, he is my enemy!" Sebastian said still looking directly into Kelvin's eyes, as if to say, "You are my enemy, too!"

Kelvin eyed him, but he did not "flare-up" into a human lightning rod. The last thing that was needed was a fight to break out between contradictory allies.

"In the last two hundred years, he has murdered so many friends of mine, including demons, and anyone even remotely associated with me attempting to locate Belial, including a very good friend of mine."

Kelvin's eyes widened. "Bryan?" Sebastian glared at him again, but the look was obvious he had guessed right. Kelvin put up his hands in submission. "I'm sorry, how did he die? I mean, he was a Fallen Reaper."

William was now very interested. "A Fallen Reaper?"

But Sebastian said nothing in reply. An uneasy tension between Sebastian and Kelvin was felt by all, as if they were ready to pick up where they last left off.

"Johnny Lazarus? But you're supposed to be dead!"

Abberline's voice was clearly heard through the minute silence of the moment and everyone turned towards the direction it was said.

Standing in front of a marked tall square tombstone that bared the name of a Phantomhive member who died 150 years ago was a young, blonde hair boy about the age of ten. He wore all black that contrast and made stand out his angelic-colored hair.

"Who is that?" Ciel demanded.

"You're worse nightmare!" the boy said.

To be continued…