You can thank half days for this chapter, I had time to do this. Finally! Enjoy!
Mason just thought his mind was playing tricks on him, but sure enough, Sephiria was behind him. He could imagine her eyes glowing blue in the dark, penetrating his inner emotions, a unique quality she picked up after arriving at Chronos. Originally, she was just supposed to be a mindless experiment, wrought from one of Wilzark's more eccentric schemes. Like Eve's hand in the Eden project to allow Chronos to control the whole world, Sephiria was supposed to be their mindless little doll. A living weapon he reasoned, fit only for Chronos, made only for Chronos, and to stand only for Chronos.
She had been the bargaining chip in an alliance between the Minamoto Clan of Japan and Chronos to negotiate major dealings in the Underworld and would aid both parties' worldwide influence. Sephiria had already been good, very good, when she arrived on Chronos' doorstep. He had been her caretaker as they developed her abilities into a host for the nanomachine known as Black Lightning. It had permitted her domination over her cells to create elements, the ones of old and new, even more than her original abilities.
But there had been a price to that one thing.
Sephiria used to be such a smiling child, but her transformation had been absolute. Once you saw those red eyes take over the iris, Mason shuddered inwardly at the thought. You were dead. That much was a fact.
Being the test experiment had hurt her, and once the experiment was deemed as a failure, it had been HIM. HIM of all people to comfort her, to take her under his wing. He had sculpted her into the perfect Captain, intelligent, demure, manipulative, and empathetic, you name it, she would understand. Yes, she had been his daughter, and something told him, she enjoyed his fathering as much as he did. Why was he thinking about this now? when she was staring at him so murderously, ready to take back what was rightfully hers?
"So," he croaked, "you came back."
Sephiria didn't reply as her footsteps were heard through the entire room. Mason felt a flash of fear as her cool fingers danced upon his throat.
"I should kill you," Sephiria murmured, more to herself than anyone, "I should kill you to protect this world to going to the dogs."
"You couldn't," Mason felt sweat dripping down his face, running onto her fingers. Damn, she knew he was frightened of death, and she gained greater power by his show of fear in this psychological warfare.
He thought he heard her laugh, "Fortunately for you, Lady Luck seems to be on your side because I promised someone I wouldn't kill anyone."
"Train Heartnet, I presume?"
"Take the sword out of the vault," Sephiria commanded sharply, avoiding his inquiry bluntly. Considering his options, Mason had more than one way to loop around the will to obey.
"OPEN SESAME!"
The vault door was throw open, however, at once, Sephiria was surrounded by all the remaining Chrono Numbers, each armed with their characteristic weapon of choice.
Mason held Grasscutter teasingly before her. "It looks like I have you in checkmate. Saty, care to do the honors?"
"With pleasure."
Mason saw Sephiria's eyes dart to see the slowly approaching figure of Saty and was surprised to find that she was highly amused. As Saty grasped Grasscutter in her hands and held it to Sephiria's throat, Sephiria chuckled audibly.
"How fascinating. It appears that even with that folly I made you still haven't severed all ties with me yet, Kitsune-chan. Look, even now you're trembling."
Mason sharply turned to find Saty's grey eyes suddenly wider, almost fearful as she moved to slit Sephiria's throat. Her hands… They were shivering, causing Grasscutter to easily be ripped out of her hands as Sephiria with the astounding speed she was known for. The blade glowed with a golden light, almost as if the two had been finally reunited. Sephiria, however, did not look triumphant as she surveyed the scene; her eyes narrowing as she quickly realized something. And she did not look happy about it.
"Kill her!" Mason commanded.
In a flash, before anyone could move, Sephiria was gone. Mason felt a small smile of satisfaction shift to his face, everything other than Sephiria stealing the sword, was going according to the plan. Still, the emotions that had returned were unprecedented, he would have to control them better in the future.
He placed a comforting hand on Saty's shoulder. "You did well."
Saty looked at him mournfully as she glared once again at her trembling hands. "I thought I had grown stronger since then, since that time. But it seems that the distance between her abilities and mine has grown so that my powers appeared to be diminished. Damn!" Her fists clenched as she snarled in aggravation. "I thought I could kill her when the time came, apparently, I can only when the trembling stops."
"I can help you," Mason smiled as he saw a flash of Sephiria's face in Saty's. "I can teach you the art of assassination, all you have to do is listen to what I have to say."
He thought he heard someone ridicule him for his actions, someone urging her not to take the offer. Was it Sephiria's voice? Was she that ingrained within him so she constantly could berate his conscience even now?
"I'll think about it, I still haven't decided what I wanted to do yet."
No, Mason thought sadly, as he walked out of the room with Belze by his side, I haven't either.
-X-
Sephiria returned to the current hideout in Izumo that her Uncle had managed to 'convince' the owner to let them have for the night. Smiling at the familiar sword in her hand, she focused her mind at the issue at hand. Her eyes narrowing at the thought, she burst through the available open apartment window. Her sudden appearance startled Sven, Train, and Susanoo who were drinking coffee at the circular kitchen table.
"Where's Eve?" she demanded.
"In there," Sven replied, "why-"
Sephiria ignored him as she crashed into the bedroom where Eve apparently was innocently reading a book. Her voice echoed ominously in the apartment, reverberating as she uncharacteristically screamed, "TI'IN!"
Immediately, Eve's calm form was replaced by a small brown haired girl looking ten years old with her hands up in surrender, her eyes wide when she looked at Sephiria's azure. "I'm sorry, Saty made me do it. Rikugo was supposed to kidnap her, while I would pose as her. I'm really, really sorry. Honest! I didn't know! Please! Don't kill the Messenger! WAH!" Sephiria dragged her out of the room by the scruff of her shirt, finally stopping her tirade; she placed the shikigami in front of the three sheepish men in the kitchen.
"Please meet Ti'in, one of the twelve shikigami under the command of Saty Minamoto, one of the most powerful Onmyouji that has come into the existence since Abe no Seimei. She was posing as Eve, and I'm sure not one of you noticed."
She groaned as she looked sadly at her Uncle, apparently she would have to perform that worst case scenario duty. Feeling like the weight of the world had once again fallen on her shoulders, she steeled her resolution. "Alright, since Eve has been captured with hostile forces, we are going to need to do this. No mistakes are allowed, we only have one shot to allow her to retain her soul. Got it?"
Nods all around. Good. Somehow, she felt as if they were saluting her off, like a kamikaze pilot heading off to their line of duty.
-X-
"I'm loading the databases into Eve's nanomachines' mainframe," Kanzaki murmured to Mason, "it should take twenty four hours at the maximum for it to fully upload and be absorbed completely and irreversibly." Saty watched the events sullenly, wondering why Tsukiyomi had sent her there anyway. Of course, the revenge was reason enough, however, why did she have to go on and watch those people plug in commands to that innocent child. She did regret her part in that, it almost reminded her of Sephiria, and how she would come home from Chronos looking more and more disturbed as the days went by. No, her older sister would never mention anything that would happen there, but whatever they did, she changed because of it. Saty doubted that Sephiria would have murdered everyone if she hadn't gone to that wretched place.
That day it was raining. But you couldn't really tell the difference between the falling rain and blood, it eventually just mixed together in pools that hallowed the ground. Everyone was on the floor, dead. While Saty was just running away as fast as she could as she watched Sephiria's advancing figure.
"Why did you murder everyone? WHY?" Saty cried out as Sephiria caught up to her, her grips preventing her from escaping. Saty bit her in frustration, however, Sephiria's face was like a mountain, unemotional throughout the wear and tear of the seasons.
"I had my orders," she replied as coldly and detachedly as before. "I was supposed to assassinate all of the Minamotos, but I don't think I have to kill you."
"I wish you did!" Saty continued to attempt to wrench herself free. "Then I would have died honorably like everyone else!"
"Well then, live with hate. Loathe me, curse me to the end of the earth, perhaps one day you'll be able to avenge their deaths." Sephiria looked at the horrified faces of the dead and sighed softly. "I did warn this would happen if they did not appeal to my demands. Ah well, at least I had a chance to verify my existence."
Saty looked up into her normally laughing elder sister's face, you couldn't tell if she was crying or not, the rain mixed flowed from her face like tears. "I guess the next time we meet will be on the battlefield, see you later Umi." Her sister simply disappeared after that, leaving her with the scores of bodies in the cold rain. There was a fine line between hate and love, and her love had just slipped into the depths of hatred.
Saty smiled as she remembered that name. Umi. The ocean, the sea, it had been her name since she was born, though she preferred Saty now, a nickname that did not spark the interest of so many. It permitted her to blend with the society, and become just one of the nameless citizens that no one cared about. Like the ocean, she had bided her time, like the pull of the tide, training to avenge, and training to kill. Her drive had caused her to become the star Onmyouji known in her 'other' world, and therefore allowed her to reign and dominate the legendary twelve Shikigami who were only commanded by Abe no Seimei. But why? Why did her resolve that was so resolute fail to destroy Sephiria when she had her in her grasp? She thought she had improved but…
Glancing at Eden's monitors, Saty noticed out of the corner of her eye movement, and was surprised to see Sephiria's face before the camera went black. Grabbing her seals, she looked at Mason pointedly. "We have intruders in Sector 4, may I dispatch them?"
"Do what you want with them," he said with a smile, "do as you please."
-X-
Rinslet was surprised to discover that the Captain actually had a heart. Not only did she manage to recall all the available Sweeper Alliance members to aid the assault on Eden, she actually seemed to care about what happened to Eve. She didn't know where the bitchy Commander who manipulated her enough to go to Creed's headquarters went, but she sure as hell wasn't there.
"The assault is simple," she said quickly, placing a point on the blackboard that had a picture of Eden. "I'll distract them long enough to lure them down to Sector 4, this area." She pointed to the cargo area of Eden. "This will allow all of you to proceed to Sector 5, which is right here. This is three sectors away from Eve's location and the closest entrance to that area. You will get there by this hatch that I will tell to land you there. Consequently, my entrance will probably distract the other Numbers enough to allow you to jump two sectors, after that you'll have to fight your way to the room. I'll do my best to try and break in from the top of the ship with the distraction. Also, word of warning, do not try to destroy Eden in any shape or form, that will speed up the melding process with Eden… Kapeesh?"
"Question actually," River said politely raising his hand. "Why are you helping us anyway? I thought you were one of those crazies that are devoutly loyal to Chronos or something like that."
Sephiria's smile was tight as she turned to face the window. She paused for a second, as if unsure of how to answer. "I am afraid you're confusing me with Baldor and Kranz. I have no intention of blindly following the Elders, several incidents have proved this point, though I am sure none of them will matter to you. Anyhow, I'm fighting against them simply because several points have put me at odds with them. As of now, we are all in the same boat. We'll leave it at that."
Well, it was impressive how they did manage to escape Chronos and her view for how many months? Ages they lay hidden in space. She glanced up at the night sky, it was peaceful full of twinkling stars, not a cloud in sight. Almost like someone above wanted to witness the battle coming. She turned her head sharply as she heard the sharp clang of metal ringing out into the night. Glancing at Jenos, she gripped his hand in hers as they jumped into the prevailing wind that carried them into Eden's hull with ease. It was going to be a long night…
-X-
Sephiria buried her face in her hands as she looked at the whip on a pedestal she had sealed away for so long. Gripping Grasscutter, she slowly reached out to take it. It was time to lose herself in the stream of time that was going to engulf her. It was time for her to return.
"Hello Inari. Have you decided to take me up again?"
Just an important note, that last quote in bold is like this internal voice or maybe soul imbued in the whip speaking to Sephiria. Just thought I would say that for clarification. Wow that was a short chapter. I promise the next one will be longer. And more exciting. I cross my heart hope to die, stick a needle through my eye. I promise!
Thanks for reading.
Reviews? (Does puppy dog face).