FFOmega

Part I: Bitter-Sweet Dreams

Chapter 16

Kyoto sat atop the building in the dead of night, his legs dangling over the side of the skyscraper, his hair blowing in the constant wind. He was watching the world around him, watching the people move in the night without a care, and watching the way the world seemed to swallow them up without them knowing it.

Kyoto knew something was going on with Harry. He had felt a pulse of Demonic energy from him, and it had spiked to an insanely high level for a Halfling, higher than many full Demons. The boy was truly Awakening, and that marked a very bad thing.

Kyoto was familiar with Karma, or Fate. One with his past, was able to have such allowances, especially since the woman wanted to meet one of the few people she had little to no knowledge of or control over. She had taken to him, and cried for him, as it was just after another of his rebirths, and he was traumatized after "Shadowy Night". It had been a horrible event, and he had quite literally had a mental break and lost every evidence of himself and had forced amnesia on his own mind just to forget what he had done. It was the lord of all Defense Mechanisms.

"Shadowy Night" they called it. Few alive knew anything about the situation, it was one of those things that millions of sick, sick people still try and get away with and have been, since the beginning of time. He had killed tens of thousand people, on his own, and there were few to no accounts of it. Because anyone close enough to watch,

Died.

He made certain of that.

Within 3 hours, hundreds of people were dead, and by the time the sun rose after that night, the city was burning and all that was left of an entire city of people was ash and the smell of burnt bones. The very site of the place was eroded by the blood spilt, and the air still never got the smell of iron out.

He still had to fight back tears.

Pushing himself off of the building, he landed in a back alleyway. He missed Jamie, he wanted to see her, and it wasn't even as much as a romantic, sexual or emotional attraction. He needed help. He needed someone to tell him that he wasn't going to lose it completely, that he wasn't going to slip and kill everyone.

Walking down the street, stress on his mind, some guy walking down the street bumped shoulders with him, or more, bumped his shoulder into Kyoto's ribs. Turning his 6'5" form to the much shorter man, Kyoto leveled his eyes at him. The man had spoken angrily. "Watch where da fuck ya going, ya go'damned freak!" The man spoke in a broken accent."

Kyoto looked at the man, before he pulled out a cigarette and his lighter, and, lighting it, he took a drag before blowing the smoke in the man's face. The man sputtered before ripping the cigarette from Kyoto's hand. He threw it on the ground and stomped on it, thinking it made him look imposing. By the time the man had looked up again, Kyoto had another one lit and was smoking it again. "That wasn't very nice." He said in a low growl. He pulled the cigarette from his lips as the other man spoke.

"I said shut da fuck up! Don't makes me hurt ya!" The smaller man said. Kyoto let out a throaty laugh, before his eyes narrowed dangerously. "Don't look at meh like dat, ya bastard!" And then the man's shouts were screams, as Kyoto put his cigarette out in the man's eye.

"Do. Not. Fuck. With. Me." Kyoto spoke slowly, as if talking to a little child, before he pushed the whimpering man back and into the wall. Blood was coming from his eye, and his eyeball was gone. Kyoto lit another cigarette and began to smoke it, before cursing low, seeing he was running out of them. He only had 4 more. That wouldn't last half an hour.

"Goddamned humans…" Kyoto shook his head before leaping atop a small building and looking around the area, figuring out his location. After finding out, he headed east. He was going to see Jamie.

-----

Baretta opened the barrel and dropped all of the 6 bullets onto the ground. He slipped one bullet into the revolver and spun the barrel before stopping its spin. He pulled a chair out and sat on it, across the table sat another form.

"What are you doing, you crazy bastard!" He shouted.

"What do you know about a one…" He looked down at a post-it note in his hand, as if he was reading the name on the card. He knew the name, it was psychological, psyching him out. "Harry Potter?"

"Na…na…nothing. I don't know nothing!"

"Ah, the double negative…" Baretta leaned back in the chair and placed his feet on the table. "So, again, what do you know?" The man across from Baretta opened his mouth to deny, when Baretta leveled the gun at him and pulled the trigger.

"Click."

"Well…he's…he's crazy, I tell you, he isn't right in the damned head." Baretta casually raised the gun to his own head and pulled the trigger. A Click-ing sound once more, another empty chamber. "And so are you!"

"You know, you shouldn't take liberties of insulting people who have you life in their hands." He pointed the gun again.

"Click."

"Wh…what do you want from me! I can give you money, I can give you whatever you want…Power! I have power! I can give you so much power."

"Do not think you can offer me power, human. You are but fecal matter to me." And he put the gun to his own head, the side at the temple, and pulled the trigger.

"Click."

"One of us is going to get shot. Now, tell me what I want to know, and you could walk out of here, or limp at the very least."

"I don't know what you want from me!" Click. The man sighed loudly, then watched in shock as Baretta raised the gun and pulled the trigger. And the bullet flew out of the chamber and hit Baretta in the side of the head. He slumped off the side of the chair and hit the ground.

The room was quiet, before steadily there was the sound of someone standing. And staring, the man watched as Baretta stood slowly, wiping blood from his face to reveal no evidence of having just shot himself in the temple, before he sat back down. He opened the gun and placed one bullet in and spun the chamber again, before sitting back in the chair. "Now, what do you say we try this again?"

And the man known as Cornelius Oswald Fudge pissed in his pants, and fainted onto the ground.

-----

Footsteps.

"Karma."

"Hello, sweetie. I am so sorry for all of this, and that we only seem to meet when the world seems the most against you, I apologize so much. But I needed to see you. It is almost time, but there is one more trial. Things are seriously going to go downhill from here on out, and by the end of the year, nothing about the world will be sacred to you but a few things. And those things and people, you will seek to protect. The question, really, is how far are you willing to go to protect the people you love."

"Until the ends of the earth." Karma was quiet for a bit, before she nodded.

"We may have to see the truth in that statement. But for the moment, I think I have to let you go. Be protected, young love of mine, and do not, under any circumstances, allow those people in this world to break you up from what you know you must do."

And she was gone.

-----

He awoke in the hospital wing, and he attempted to roll out of the bed. Only to find he was magically tied down. He felt the magical ropes holding him, and it took him a moment to remember that he no longer had a wand to free him. Anger surged through him at the things that caused things to deteriorate like that, and he pieced together the reasons why.

Using his anger, he wiggled his hands loose and yanked at the ropes holding him down. He felt the draw on the Demonic Energy he knew was his own, and then he felt the ropes almost burn, only it wasn't like fire burning, as it didn't produce heat, it created cold. And after the biting cold, he was free. He stood and left the hospital wing.

As he walked through the hallways, he scowled after a student who stared at him. Upon reaching Gryffindor Tower, he entered and walked up to his room. Classes in the middle of the day were going on, so he wasn't found. He gathered up a change of clothes and other such things and went into the bathroom. After a long shower and a change of clothing, he placed his gloves back on, finding a few differences.

They didn't seem to be leather so much anymore, as some kind of pliable metal. The steel studs on the top were a warped black with twines of sky blue through them, and they were sharper-looking, however no bigger. They had veins of a darker black along them. He stretched his hands before he opened his trunk, feeling a pulling from it. He rifled through, and pulled everything out and found the metal case. He opened it and stared at the sword. He pulled the sword out, and could feel a pulse of energy. It was a banging, pulsing, pounding feel in him. And he felt something going through him, and he dropped the sword, locked the metal box, and slid the case under his bed. He placed everything back in the trunk before leaving. It was almost time for the classes to be out, and he wanted to be out of the dorm and somewhere where they wouldn't automatically look for him.

He left and headed down a hallway. As he was walking a corridor, he saw Snape spot him and run his way. He turned and began to jog away. As he was going, he saw McGonagall coming the other way, so he made his first turn. And he found himself in Myrtle's bathroom. He didn't have a wand to lock the door. So he kicked the side of the door, denting the side in so it would be harder to open, and as he looked around, he saw the sink, and realized where he was being lead to.

And walking over to the sink, he hissed, and the sink opened, and he slid down into the Chamber of Secrets. As he did, he heard the shouts of the teachers behind him, shouting out his name, and threats that he had better return.

-----

The Chamber was surprisingly warmer than he thought it would be, actually it was fairly warm. But the moment he had entered the middle of the room, there was a raging heat as all of the candelabras flared up and a ring of fire surrounded the center of the main chamber. And the mouth of the statue of Salazar Slytherin opened, and there was the sound of footsteps, heavy footsteps. And from the whole emerged a large warrior.

At the very least, it was 7 feet tall, with dark-red body armor that was slightly metallic in nature, making it reflect the flames rising and falling around them. In one hand was a huge single-bladed axe, and in the other, a long black, obsidian staff, with a sparkling red jewel on the top. And from the back of the large warrior, was a huge pair of upward-pointing wings. The creature had long gray hair and a long gray beard as well, but the skin of the creature was a dirt-color, and its eyes were a bright hazel color and oddly large.

"What the hell…" Harry muttered, before the ring of fire flared up, and the creature spoke in a deep, rumbling voice, as if in response.

"Who goes there!" He seemed to demand more than ask.

"What are you?" Harry asked. The creature seemed to observe him.

"I am a test. Fight me and win, and I shall reveal my nature and the Secrets this Chamber doth hold. You must be worthy of such, as you have spilt blood within this sacred Chamber, and drawn it as well. And…do I sense a Demonic Aura about you?" Harry nodded, having no want to anger the large figure before him. "You may call me Kasus. With different spelling, it would be Latin for 'Fall' which, I mind not at all. And as I said, this is a test, and you may not leave until you beat me, or you are dead. There are facilities for which you may stay and sleep, eat, doctor upon or even entertain yourself, but you may not leave."

Harry stared at Kasus for a long moment, before he nodded. The ring of fire flared as he crouched down. After a moment he leapt into the air and spun, kicking outwards. However, he was batted from the air by the side of the axe's blade, falling and staring at the large image Kasus projected.

Bringing his legs close to his chest, he kicked out, the momentum sending his body upwards. He tried for a leg sweep, but Kasus jumped up over his leg. Harry punched upwards, and Kasus seemed to reel for a moment, and Harry followed up with a kick that did little. And as he was about to attack once more, he caught a backhand that sent him spiraling into a wall.

Blinking back into consciousness, he looked around. Kasus was crouching low inside the ring of what was then ashes, using a stone across the blade of the axe he used. "How long was I out for?"

"Ah, it's relative, really. Some might say for ages, others, less than the flap of the wings of a hummingbird. Time, however, would say about 20 minutes, give or take. Put up a fair fight considering." Kasus chuckled to himself, still sharpening the axe. His wings stretched every so often, as if to a continual beat or rhythm.

"Where can I go to like, clean up and stuff?" Harry asked.

"Well…mostly just over to the right. A drop of your blood will open it, and inside even deeper, a drop of mine to open the door within. But be wary, if and when you are able, you may not love the contents within."

Harry stood and staggered over into the room. Staring into the old mirror before him, he wiped away the grime on it, and looked at his reflection. His eyes were weary looking, and there were droplets of blood on his cheek from his forehead, and his hair was dingy, matted together in several places, and so dirty is looked brown instead of black. His clothing was in horrible condition, but two things on him were in pristine condition, still as pure black as ever. The gloves, and the boots.

He looked into the sink bowl, running water into the porcelain sink, splashing water on his face. This was all, in some way or another Dumbledore's fault. But paramount to even that, it was his own. Until he beat the damned creature, he wouldn't be able to see Blaise again. He wouldn't be able to hold her. Wouldn't be able to feel like anyone really gave a little bit of a damn about him. Not the person they all thought he was, but who he really was.

Balling his fist, he slammed it down onto the sink. Shocks of black energy singed and burned the sink where he hit and in a webbing pattern around it. He looked from the sink to his hand, the hand that had destroyed his wand, he knew it was gone, he could feel the lack of its presence. The hand that had done so much damage. The hand that belonged to a person, no, a creature. The creature he was.

Looking up into the mirror, he looked at his reflection one last time before pulling back with his right hand and punching not just through the mirror, but cracking the rock behind the mirror as well. However, he saw none of this, nor did he see the swirling dark energy around his hands, as he spun from the glass fragments falling from the wall, stalking from the room. He kicked the side of the bed, making the large, heavy wooden four-posted slide and screech across the stone floor, and crash into the wall, knocking over a bedside table on the way. And where the bed was, Harry dropped down and began to do pushups. And when his arms couldn't take it anymore, he kept going, harder and faster. When he began to sweat, he pushed harder, and when the sweat blurred his vision, he closed his eyes, and went off of instinct. Time was no matter at all, all that mattered was pushing it until either he felt stronger immediately, or he died. He ended up falling to the floor, exhausted, while trying to do push-ups with his legs up on the wall, while he pushed his body up and down at a near vertical base.

The moment he tried to stand up, he changed his mind and began sit-ups. He continued more and more until he found that he could no longer force his body to bend in the middle no matter how much free will he expended on it. And flopping down onto his back, he attempted to try harder, try again, but he couldn't, and fell into an exhausted slumber.

-----

Kyoto's footsteps were silent, normally, but he wasn't in a mood to regulate any of his movements, to be fluid. He was in a destructive mood, and it was actually hard for him to be as clumsy as he was being, but he intended to work at it. He had knocked down several things, like newsstands and small old ladies, but he was in no mood to care. His normally silent footsteps echoed loudly in the night, his feet hitting the concrete like a gunshot through the night.

He heard the person approaching him from what seemed like miles off, and he still kept on. He was in a very pissy mood, and he could feel the little shit's Demonic aura from several blocks away, and it was stupid of the Demon to come after him.

Demons had classes, and Kyoto was happy to say that, of the Locked, he was top-tier, for the most part, only one person sat beside him, and she was gone now, for he had killed her...

The next few levels could get lucky and kill someone much stronger than them, it was all relative. But then there were the bottom-feeders, the ones that would allow their Lock-Guard to get tighter until it severed a limb before they fought someone of high power. If they couldn't cheat to win, they wouldn't fight. He knew who this was from 2 blocks before they met up, and it was a very bad time.

Pressing his Demonic energy out, hoping to scare the little runt off, Kyoto kept heading to Jamie's house. He wasn't in the mood to leap or anything, he was too tired, much too tired. Tired of everything. The figure hung back, and only arrived the moment Kyoto walked upon Jamie's house's lot. And he started some stupid speech, but Kyoto cut him off with a hand motion. "Leave, you little fucking shit. Now, before I kill you."

"The little shit had the presence of mind to laugh. No, not the presence of mind, the lapse of judgment…"

"I have come for my Key, you morbid-looking shit." He was dressed like a prep. He had bleached tips to his gelled hair, and he was wearing a polo shirt and some khaki shorts. He had a sweater wrapped over his shoulders, and he wore Doc Marten's. Overall, he was an insult to Demons everywhere, and upon seeing him, Kyoto decided that the continued existence of the "man" before him would be thusly taken as a personal insult to him.

"You look like a fucking idiot, or a goddamned Country Club reject." He turned from the prep and started to walk. He heard the footsteps behind him, and spoke forward, but just loud enough for the person behind him to hear. "Stop now, imp, before bad things come to you. I do not like your kind, I can not stand those such as you, and I am in a bad mood."

There was silence, and Kyoto had almost made it to Jamie's door before he heard words. "And should I cry over the poor baby's bad mood? Who gives a shit, fight me now, I demand it!"

Kyoto turned to him and was about to speak when the light in the front room came on and the door opened, and there stood Jamie, holding a dagger to her side, looking wary. She smiled brightly, seeing Kyoto, but stopped as she heard a voice. "Who's the bitch? Some late-night whore? I could use some lovin' after I kill you. How much, baby?"

Kyoto growled low. And his voice rattled and almost seemed to go through static, coming in an out of Jamie's human auditory range. And as it went longer, it got more feral. Suddenly he was gone, and the prep was on the ground. And raising his leg, he stomped on the other man's shin, shattering it, actually sending bone fragments shooting through his skin and out across the ground as if shot from his leg by a gun. He did the same to the other leg, before moving up and stomping on the prep's kneecaps. He did the thighs, before moving over to the hands, and then the forearms and up to the upper arms. He reached down, and his once-nailed but now-clawed hands reached and ripped through the man's polo shirt, and he grabbed either side of his ribcage, and he pulled, opening the ribcage up until the ribs simply cracked and broke away from the bases, some fragments coming out from his body, others left to drift inside. Stomping on the shoulders, the man before him cried as much as he could, with his lungs flooding with blood.

And in a voice that could be none other than Shadow, but was sounding more and more like Kyoto, words came from everywhere and nowhere at once. "Did you know that the human body holds quarts of blood? And that it is possible for a human to drown in just cups? Good thing you aren't human, eh? Did you also know that, as a Demon, the worthless one you are, that you really won't die until I kill you, or someone more merciful than I?

"Your blood will continue to replenish as you lose it, your nerve endings dying and repairing. You will feel this constant pain before it goes away just long enough for a reprieve to make the pain worse when it returns, it could be a horrible existence. Especially blind…unable to see anything to give hope, unable to visually plead with someone for help, considering you're incapable of speech when you're drowning in your own blood." And suddenly there was a bottle of alcohol in the white-haired man's hand. He poured it on the man's pelvis, before lighting a cigarette and taking a drag then dropping it. And the downed man's pelvis area immediately went up in flames. "Oh darn, did I do that? Let me put that out for you." And raising his foot obscenely high, he stomped on the man's pelvis. Jamie flinched just watching as the heavy boot broke through all resistance and literally hit the earth below the man's body and created a small indentation in the ground.

Pouring the rest of the bottle on the man before the lighter lit a stray bit of the alcoholic beverage, the long-haired form watched as the man laying prone beneath him lit ablaze. He watched for a while, even kneeling and placing his hands there, as if getting warm, before he stood. Pulling his leg back, he kicked the man across the ground, the dirt padding out most of the flames. With another kick, he made the man on the ground look up at him. He chuckled lowly to himself, his white hair falling and in the other man's failing sight, he looked like a pure white angel, dressed in all black.

The Angel of Death.

"Good thing that I am in a merciful mother-fucking mood, right, bitch? Because I could leave you here. But first, I did say something about blind…" Kyoto leaned down and with his fingers he poked out the man's eyes. There wasn't even enough of the man's throat for him to scream effectively. "Well, that's about all the fun for today, boys and girls, tune in next week, same Bat time, same Bat channel." He muttered, before raising his leg and stomping on the man's head, exploding the heated contents across the lawn, the skull fragments mixing with the fat that composed the brain, and creating a weird mixture, the flames having licked both and created a blackish tint there as well.

Kyoto turned to Jamie. "So, how about we go out for coffee? I have nothing left to do for the next few hours, and I was just in the neighborhood. What do ya say?" Jamie looked at the figure before her before the knife clattered down the stone steps in front of the house before her body slumped, losing power of movement in almost the same order as the now dead man on her lawn had lost skeletal structure, before she sank onto her wooden entryway floor, gripped in the comforting hand of unconsciousness.

-----

Blaise was livid. She was pacing her room, armed with everything she could get her hands on, including every wand left somewhere where the owner had misplaced it. She would use them, even if they didn't work correctly, she could throw the damned things. She had even stolen all of the dinner knives from her table, and made a second trip to the kitchens.

Snape had decided to pull his Bastard Card, as she called it, on her. He was being a complete and total bastard, saying she knew where Harry was, and knew how to get to him, he was "sure of it" and he had placed her under "House Arrest" so she couldn't go and "rendezvous" for a "lover's tryst" as he said. And she wasn't staying in her room while Harry was in the school, being damn-well hunted by half the staff and being called a "Dark Lord in Training" already, putting part of the school against him immediately. He needed her and she needed him. She didn't feel safe, and half the reason she was armed and pacing as she was, was because several of her housemates had taken it upon them to attack her on her way back to her room, saying different things about her. Her reputation was as tarnished as the trophy room was, now that no one was getting into trouble with their Head of House for assaulting or harassing her. But she didn't care at all.

All she cared about was Harry. She would feel a cold in her left hand every so often, and could almost make out a faint dark gray glow around her hand, and she knew it was coming from him. And whenever she would do something with that hand while it glowed as such, weird things would happen. Once she had been in the middle of a duel against Pansy, who had challenger her, saying she wanted Blaise out of the girl's room if she won, and Pansy had cast a strong, Dark, pain curse at her, and the glow had been there, and Blaise had raised her hand to take the attack instead of her face, and the magic had hit the smoke-like gray aura and had seemed to be sucked in and the hand flared for a moment before the smoke dissipated.

She had wondered about this, until she got a hold of the Demon book from Harry's things with Ron's help. No one in Gryffindor really was against Harry, but almost all against Dumbledore, as they had heard everything that had gone on, and Ron was being exceedingly helpful, slipping the book to Daphne who slipped it to Blaise. And the book revealed what she needed to know, in words that meant nothing unless read correctly. The gist of it was, Demonic energy fed off of Chaos, Destruction and Death. And Wizarding magic was nothing more than destruction. Magic was destruction, plain and simple, nothing more and nothing less. Any spell done destroyed something to get an end result, from the "Killing Curse" destroying the soul, to the Levitation curse destroying, to a degree, the hold gravity possessed on a given item. It was all destruction. And Demonic energy fed off of it.

She sighed. If Harry was getting control of his Demonic side, he would at least be slightly safe from a good deal of magic in the school, despite his lack of magical focus, and last she heard, he was in the Chamber of Secrets. And he was the only one in the school who could go down there. And no matter how worried she was, it was better that way.

Blaise sighed and left the room to Defense Against the Dark Arts class. She took her seat, and the class was about to begin, when Zacharias Smith raised his hand. "I'd like to challenge Harry Potter for his seat in the class." There were murmurs arising around the class, as the seat was empty. "And I figure, since he isn't here, he forfeits."

"That was low, Smith, low as hell!" Dean exploded. "Why I oughta…" He reached over his shoulder for his huge war-axe when Seamus put a calming hand on his shoulder, shaking his head.

"Well, since Mr. Potter isn't here, technically…" Ms. Madison began, but Mr. Long put his hand on his shoulder and shook his head, directing her with his eyes.

During the entire conflict, with the class and the teachers all murmuring, speaking or getting involved, Blaise was silent. Silently stewing, the rage within her causing her chair to shake. She stood, angrily. "No, Smith will fight me. And when I beat him and he is groveling at my feet, he will know not to be such a bloody prick in the future!" Blaise declared. She headed toward the front of the room, her eyes narrowed, her hair tied back, and fingering the triggers for all of the holsters attached to her body.

"Ms. Zabini, you can't fight Mr. Potter's battles, it states only family members, betrothed or spouses, legal Seconds, Executors of his estate or otherwise-stated people." Blaise walked to Ms. Madison, who had spoke, and showed her the markings on her left hand. The woman stared, knowing what it was, or was supposed to be.

"He's a…he's…"

"He's a half-Demon, yes, and I guess by legal standards, I am betrothed to him, or whatever that stuffy fucking word is. Now, lets get this shit over with so I can get out of here and find him…please...I need to find him..." Blaise was almost pleading, and Ms. Madison looked to the smaller girl, smiling sadly as she saw the tears shimmering in the girl's eyes, and she nodded.

"Single duel. Smith has no weapons but his wand." And the duel began. And lasted no longer than 15 seconds. Blaise tackled Zacharias and punched him in the face a few times before pulling out a knife and holding it to his neck.

"You don't deserve his seat. You couldn't fill Harry's Quidditch jockstrap with your whole goddamned body, remember that, and you might stay alive to graduate. Cross me again, Smith, and I will kill you."

By rules of the duel, Zacharias won, because Blaise pulled a weapon on a weaponless opponent. As she went back, she was fuming. And suddenly something happened that, theoretically, wasn't supposed to happen after she turned 11. What would seem like accidental magic. The chair next to her flew at Smith, slamming into his shakily-standing form. He fell backward, the chair leaving a bruise. He set it down by the angry girl, and made to sit, when suddenly the chair disappeared. He fell to the ground, to laughter in the class, along with angry muttering, stared and glares. He conjured another, much better looking, and as he sat down, Blaise stabbed a knife just millimeters from his crotch, into the chair. He raised an eyebrow, before swallowing audibly and standing.

"I think I'll stand, Potter can have his bloody seat, it's not good enough for me, and the company in the area is lousy. A bunch of bloody blood traitors, punks, bitches and whores aren't my normal group of friends, and I would prefer to stay uninfected."

He was lucky to make it out of the class alive. It was close, and was it not for the fact that he had moved from the area he spoke of as he said this, he would have been little more than a small pile of goo. As it was, he was out, for a while, guaranteed. It would take at least a week to re-grow his genitals, as Blaise hadn't missed that time.

And as she left the room, she pulled a blade or her wand on anyone who came too close to her, even her friends. And she went up to the Room of Requirement. She needed to be alone. And as she entered, the door disappeared from the outside, and she was inside, crying her eyes out into a pillow, everything in the room meant to remind her of Harry, down to the walls. She needed him, she wanted him back. She cried all through the night, missing all of her classes, which had been cancelled, oddly, for some reason.

-----

Harry's second match with Kasus wasn't long. However, something happened very odd. When he had disarmed the staff, he had caught it. He attempted to blast a spell, but all it did was make him tired, but it did send a jagged blast of pale blue energy. Kasus covered his body with his wings, and the energy splashed across it and seemed to do little to nothing. And Harry was knocked out by a tail he never knew Kasus had. When he awoke, the staff was next to him. He looked to Kasus, who looked like he didn't even notice the object's disappearance, so Harry lifted it before heading away. However, he stopped, and thought for a moment.

He needed a House Elf. Suddenly Kasus looked up to him, "Do you need something?" He asked.

"Well, I didn't know you would be here, otherwise I would have brought my weapon. I have a sword that I think could be of some kind of use to me here."

"Well, too bad." And Kasus went back to his axe. Harry lifted the staff and walked away, placing it to the side. He had no use for it if all it did was tire him out. Lifting the mattress onto the wall, he began to punch the mattress, taking out his anger and frustration on it continuously. He beat it until the mattress no longer existed, worn away, the feathers on the inside littering the floor. He pushed it out of the way and began to hit the stone wall. His hands grew numb, and spirals of blood surrounded his forearms, but he kept going. For hours upon hours, he hit the wall, until the wall was wearing. When that happened, he moved to another space of wall.

When he no longer felt like the punching was having anymore effect, he walked over to the four-poster frame, now nothing more than the frame. He grabbed the canopy and used that as a means by which to do pull-ups. And he continued these until his shoulders were sore and his biceps burned. And for another night in a row, he passed out on the floor of the room.

-----

Jamie awoke to laying on the couch in her living room. She sat up to see a form in the corner of the room, huddled up. She stood and walked toward the figure, and saw the spirals of pure-white hair coming out of the black form, and realized who and what it was. It was Kyoto, and he was shaking.

"Kyoto…" He didn't move. She placed her hand on his shoulder, and he jerked harshly from her touch. She tried again, and he growled and moved away from him. He shot her a look over his shoulder, and Jamie literally fell back onto her behind, staring at him in complete and utter shock. Plastered on his face was a look she could only liken to when Blaise was a small child and had gone through her first major traumatic attack.

A man in the ministry had been going on a particularly long crusade about how the Zabini family was a long-lived dark family, and broke in to prove it. It turned out that he had run into the girl as she was heading back from the bathroom in the middle of the night, and she had slashed the only thing on him she could reach after he had attacked her. His Achilles tendon was ripped, and the way he fell insured he would never walk again, despite magic. And Jamie had found the girl huddled near her door, shaking despite it not being in tears, and refusing to be touched.

Kyoto was traumatized. Years and years of living, and the dam had finally broken. And Jamie was not sure she would be able to help him. She was familiar with the human mind, but the oldest patient she had ever treated was only about in their 80s, and that was an easily diagnosed and dealt with case of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. That case of PTSD was only 3 days old.

Kyoto's was looking at a few millennia. And he was shaking on the floor of her sitting room, crying on her floor while he squeezed his hands shut so tightly that his own claws were peaking out of the top of his hand, having punctured right through. Tears fell down Jamie's face as she watched Kyoto shaking. He was turned from her, but he spoke as if he could see her.

"Don't cry for me Angel, I am but a Demon who finally realized that that is all I will ever be. There is no happy ending where I become an Angel again. There is no redemption for someone like me, there is no 'making up' for the things I have done. Please, don't think to shed tears for my past sins, all they will do is drown you."

-----

Harry sighed. It had been another 2 days of fruitless attempts to win. He had attempted to use the staff at one point, and all it did was, once again tire him, but less than the previous time. He had noticed upon waking up from a front-kick by the large form of Kasus to find a spiraling kind of warp of the staff going up and down along the cylinder, and the worst warping was where his hand had held the weapon. He realized as he looked at it, what was causing that.

He could sometimes feel the energy, the cold in the room, and it hadn't taken him long to realize it was his Demonic energy. Kyoto was capable of harnessing the energy in a lot of different ways, but said that it generally only worked to break down the barricade wall between his mind and Shadow. However, the white-haired man had told him that Demonic energy is invaluable in a world run by wizards but said not as to why. And during what would be the 4th match, Harry realized why.

Kasus had retrieved his staff in exchange for losing his axe, and had blasted Harry with some kind of magic. Harry had had the presence of mind to do something he had been working on, which was surrounding his hands with his Demonic energy. And the spell had hit his hands, and while the force pushed him back, the spell disappeared. And the energy around his hands flared up larger than before. And upon awakening from catching the staff atop his head as he stood, staring at his glowing hands, Harry realized why this had happened. Demonic energy ate magic. And the more it ate, the bigger it got.

It was like a fire, and the school he was in might as well have been a square mile of gasoline.

-----

In the hospital wing, the man known as Albus Dumbledore was sitting up in a bed, popping lemon drops as if they were some kind of narcotic, an almost consistent motion from the bowl to his mouth and back again. He was glad for the calming drought they were dipped in, as he would be needing it. He was confined to his own ward in the white wing of the school, away from the prying eyes of the students.

It would not serve well for them to know that their headmaster, whom they had all the trust and faith in for their protection, the leader of the leading magical school in the area, was, for what Pomfrey figured to be the next few weeks,

Not more than a muggle.

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