The shopping mall was the same temperature inside no matter what the season is. The light is the same, the scent, the polished floor, the tense faces on the shoppers. Only the piped music and the fashions change. People aren't people in here, they're consumers. They see one another as obstacles - both to walk around and wait behind for a turn to reach the tills.
The only smiling faces are the ones who sell, their humanity used like a crude fishing line to real the buyers in. It's a friendly enough place if you've got digits on your card if you can line the pockets of the purveyors. The shopping mall is sensory overload. Only overtures for purchases are permitted in here; the messages and carefully styled images to seduce consumers are wherever the eyes may fall.
There is everything anyone wanted and very little that was needed. To move through the crowd means getting closer to other people than the monster would usually allow, On a normal day, the dark blue haired demon wouldn't be caught dead in a mall. However, today he was forced to make an exception as he walked through the suffocating floors of erratic heartbeats and loud voices.
The visible eye flickered downwards to look at the head of blonde hair that looked almost golden in the warm light that streamed through the windows overhead. She was wearing a pair of jeans, sneakers, and beige sweater that clung to her figure. Two scrawny arms were wrapped securely around his left arm, the petite and delicate frame was pressed heavily into his side, and her large green eyes wandered every which way, drinking in everything the mall had to offer.
Cordelia hadn't moved more than an inch away from him after they entered the mall. She was pressed so close that more than once she had faltered, tripping over Ciel's foot, but the demon was always able to right her before she fell flat on her face. He was sure that if it weren't so crowd, she would have taken off on her own and spoken to every friendly face she could find. He was still fathoming how he had allowed this to happen, it was utterly that a cat's fault. He's never wanted to drown an animal so much.
4 hours earlier
"So, it's been decided that you shall take the Miss out and stock up on proper attire for her. While in the mean time, Sebastian and I shall search for any leads on Adrian Craven." He had jumped at the sound of the voice in his head, low and demanding while looking up at the cat seated on his butler's shoulder. If Sebastian had heard anything he gave no indication.
"Why can't you take her?" He asked out loud while glaring at the cat with his sole eye.
"Because, I still don't have a fix on this timeline. You know how it works and more about the odd machinery within it. Just take her shopping and obtain the proper clothing for her. From what I have seen the attire the females of this generation wear are not..." The cat seemed to be struggling to find the correct wording to describe some of the more unseemly clothing women and girls wore. "Well, they aren't what my Miss wears so make sure she fits in, besides Bastion says humans in this time take their females out shopping all times on these date things."
Ciel has found that taking Cordelia shopping was possibly the most embarrassing thing he's done in his long life, and he's done cross-dressing before. The girl had no clue what anything was and was quite frankly rather helpless. They spent over an hour in Victoria's Secret with her trying on bra after bra. She had no clue how to get the thing off and on and had insisted that Ciel helping her take if off after she had managed to put it on.
At the memory, Ciel could feel the heat rising to his cheeks, to his surprise she hadn't been as well-endowed as he had first thought. As it crossed his mind he swiftly shook his head back and forth to erase such thoughts. He was going far too deep into a place he didn't think he actually wanted to go.
"What wrong?" Ciel paused in his steps, feeling warm fingers brush along the side of his right cheek. He swiftly jerked his face out of Cordelia's grasp and pulled away from her completely. She was too close and being as clingy as...he didn't dare even think her name as his temper grew. The two stood in a middle of a sea of people staring back at one another.
Cordelia's eyes were like a glass mirrors, simply reflecting what was in his own, unable to fully understand the situation. They might have stood there for eternity if not for the sound of a stomach rumbling, the blonde's arm swiftly reached out and encircled her mid-section. Her eyebrows had wrinkled up with confusion while she looked down at her stomach. Ciel's temper had faded as swiftly as it had risen as he looked at the blonde, it was the little things that she did reminding him of another lifetime.
"Let's go." He reluctantly extended a hand allowing Cordelia to reach out and grab it. It would start with a hand, then she'd wrapped an arm, the both her arms, before finally plastering herself to his side. As annoying as it was he slowly getting used to it. Cordelia found a small place filled to the brim with different sweets.
After ordering for her, the pair took a seat at a table in the back. They sat across from each other, Ciel stared out of a nearby window and Cordelia's eyes wandered around, sucking in anything she could see with her emeralds. Once her sweets had arrived, Ciel was startled out of his window glaring as a new taste brushed his tongue.
At first, it was brief but grew stronger until it bloomed into a rich vanilla, he turned his head to watch Cordelia drinking a milkshake with her lips pulled upwards into the barest of smiles. This was the first time he's seen her do that but move on to a more important matter.
"How are you doing that?" The question came out as more of a demand and had the girl flinching again. The large eyes lifted from where she had been staring at her drink and up to meet the royal blue of his own.
"What am I doing?" Ciel's eye cast itself downwards and away from the green ones. Cordelia went back to slurping, however, was discontent with Ciel's behavior and so pushed her shake away from her and sighed softly."Would you like to hear it again?" She's found that the young demon was in the best of mood when his mind was at work. She could understand that to a point, the needing to keep busy.
He gave no vocal answer but return his eye to her own. She's lost count how many times she told him her tale since last night yet didn't mind retelling it for it felt like she was getting something off her chest. "I was born in the Sengoku period, a period in Japanese history marked by social upheaval, political intrigue, and near-constant military conflict and not to mention the increasing amount of yokai plagued the land. I have no clue who my father was, but my mother came from a small village with a scare bloodline.
The village was well hidden and protected from the eyes of outsiders, rarely did anyone ever set foot outside for it was not considered a necessity. The people become independent from stepping outside due to being able to harvest crops and hunt for meat from inside the village's limits. My mother worked as a maid to a higher up in the village.
Yet by the age of sixteen, she was exiled from the village on supposedly false accusations of murdering her employer. Sometime during her exile, she met my father and was taken to his village where they planned to live a happy life. However, he was called to war and never returned, she had planned to begin her travels again wanting to see the world.
That came to a halt when she found she was pregnant with me, she remained in the village deciding to have me and then leave, although the village was attacked and take over by a warlord before her plans could be put into motion. My mother was kidnapped and became a prized treasure by a man named Tokugawa Ieyasu. She reminded his prisoner for three years with me." The blond paused, waiting a moment to see if the monster across from had anything he wanted to ask. The several other times she relayed the story he often had a question or two, but right now he seemed focused on listening.
"She vanished during the third year and I never saw her again. Tokugawa adopted me as his daughter, he kept me locked away in a room full of books. So I spent a great deal of my time reading. I found that where it took me five days to read every book there it would take a normal person five years. Tokugawa said he took my mother because he had heard a myth that the people from her village possessed unusual abilities.
He was correct in that deduction, I have perfect, superhumanly keen observational skills, and can notice even the smallest details. I have inhuman senses, intuition, comprehension, adaptability, perception, and investigation skills, deductive/inductive reasoning skills, strategic/tactical skills, analytical skills, problem-solving skills, logic skills, and calculating skills.
I can easily and perfectly analyze multiple streams of information simultaneously, and perform an infinite amount of calculations and simulations (from simple to unimaginably complex) simultaneously in my head without any outside aid. This allows me to practically predict the future to a very accurate degree, quickly solve any puzzle or problem, and work any situation into in my favor by instantly coming up with perfect plans (adjusting if necessary) and always knowing the right move needed for success.
I can read extremely quickly, and can easily read multiple books in multiple languages simultaneously and recall limitless amounts of complex information as well as easily understands whatever I learn, and never forgets it. My mother's bloodline gave me superhuman mental abilities. Tokugawa made me his prized Tactician, I won countless battles for him in return for him supposedly saving me... from what I still do not know.
But these abilities took a toll on me both physically and mentally, I am often plagued with apocalyptic and prophetic nightmares, sometimes they would get so bad that I would be unable to keep anything within my stomach, I would lose sleep, and slowly I found such stress and sights was killing my body and mind. There were too many terrible conclusions that would happen if I told Tokugawa this so I kept it to myself."
"I fought for him for a decade, during what he promised would be our last battle, a yokai appeared, she ripped apart both armies like they were nothing, Naturally panic ensued, several someones ran into me, I fell, hit my head and lost consciousness. When I came to I met Shiina, although she didn't have a name at the time. She had the book chained around her neck, said that I was the only one who could remove it.
I did so more with in mind of my own survival than to help her. The book woke up as soon as I touched it and a mysterious voice appeared in my head. The book revealed that my world has undergone countless reincarnations in the past and is fated to a cycle of correction, destruction, and rebirth until "true enlightenment" is achieved and that I have been chosen by it to deem the people, places, and things of the current world worthy or "unworthy" of being carried over into the next. This voice was that of a magical sentient record relic book called the Book of Prophecy." Cordelia raised her arm, showing him the small chain and charm around her wrist.
"I was supposed to record anything of worthiness into the book's pages for the next world by simply doing something called a Scan. I never learned exactly what a Scan is because I did not do as was requested of me. Having the world destroyed would result in my termination as well, so I decided to put a stop to whatever destruction was coming and to right any wrongs of mankind to prevent future ones.
I did not and still don't understand what this "true enlightenment" is but I made it my goal to achieve it. Shiina was chained to the book to serve as both my guide and my guard, till the world's end came upon us. With Shiina's help, I made a plan and executed it flawlessly. We searched over a year all over Japan until we found old temples from a book I read, it had said that majos(witches) used the temples to summon monstrous creatures to do their bidding.
I didn't care much for the history that surrounded it just that their magic was used there. I found runes on the wall, it took me a long time to copy them into the book, decode their means, and then recode them into blood glyphs that I could use using the books magic. To me the glyphs are a mystic language called spells. I managed to find spells to enhance my lifespan and give me longevity, depending on how you use the term I suppose I become immortal in a sense.
Where I was weak physically I grew stronger mentally and magically. With the book I am able to harness energy to cast spells, conjure shields, and weapons, and in a way make my own magic, still even with my magic I found that I still remain to weak to take on all threats on my own. Shiina became my strength, my guardian, my friend. I made the mistake of trying to bring out her full potential with magic, her body rejected it and she lost her sight because of it." There was a lapse in the story as a distance faraway look appeared on Cordelia's face. Her shake had melted by now and a great number of people had already left leaving the two of them inside.
Ceil's attention had been completely centered on her, so he had not noticed the time passing around him. As his blue shifted away from her he looked at the window above displaying the darkening sky. Dusk had fallen and they had spent more than enough time here. Cordelia had enough modern attire to last her a year. He uncrossed his one leg from the other and lifted the elbow that had been propped against the table to hold his chin as had he listened to her tale.
He rose in such an elegant and inhuman manner that the eyes within the room were automatically drawn to him. Ever since he became a demon he's noticed that the human eyes were naturally magnetized to him he had grown used to it. However, a particular pair of eyes had him mildly tensing his lean body. They burned through his clothes and would have seared the flesh from his back and bones if looks had the ability to do so.
His curiosity told him to look over his shoulder and find the eyes, but another sense something more demonic said it was time to leave. He moved around the table and instead of waiting for her hand, reached out with his own and grabbed Cordelia's. He often forgot that he was stronger than before and the blonde was rather tiny, he pulled and she flew up tumbling into his chest. He did not see the expression on her face as he mumbled a soft apology, he was already pulling away from her and leading the way out hastily.
The pace he had set for himself was a rather swift walk, but Cordelia's legs were moving in a rapid sprint just to keep from getting dragged behind him. Ciel continued to pull her around until he found a side door that led outside of the mall. As he opened it and stepped outside he relaxed a little bit as the feeling of being in danger faded away.
The heavy panting coming from a few feet behind him reminded him of Cordelia, he turned and released her hand as she bent over, placing both her hands on her knees, looking ready to dry heave. He stood there watching her with a touch of concern though said nothing. After she had finally got her breathing under control she righted herself and gave Ceil something more than the vacant dollish expression she always wore.
Her lips were pressed in a tight frown and her arms crossed themselves over her chest as she glowered at him. The two fell into that awkward silence again, it did not last longer than a second or two before Ciel got that spine tingle sense of danger. His body suddenly felt extremely heavy, like gravity was crashing down on him. Even with his demonic strength, his arms moved at a sluggish pace as he reached for Cordelia.
His fingers just manged to brush against the surface of her hand before everything stopped. As if someone has just hit pause on a movie, there was no sound on silence, nothing moved and everything appeared to cease to exist. Then a large silver iris with a black pupil in the shape of a thin diamond revealed itself as the Book of Prophecy awoke and enlarged itself.
The chain links clattered noisily on the sidewalk a white glyph appeared, circling around Cordelia and Ciel's feet. Just like that, crushing weight vanished, movement became possible. The demon boy reached out to catch the blonde before she could crash into the concrete, he moved behind her , pressing her back to his front, to stabilize her and offer some sense of balance. Cordelia suddenly lurches forwards and would have landed flat on her face if not for the arm around her waist, everything she's eaten in the last few hours comes up and out of her mouth in a disgusting colorful displace.
Ciel couldn't tell what was more repulsive the fact that had thrown up or the fact that he could taste the vomit in his mouth? Turning his eye away from her throw up, he finally takes notice of his surrounds. There were birds in flight overhead, cars on the roads still as stone, people on the sidewalks unmoving, time had stopped moving.
"It's been a long time, Humanity's Keeper." The voice seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere at the same time. In front of a the mall doors stood a tall man who's hair had been bathed in sunlight and eyes the same color as the sky. He wore a white suit and had the gentlest of smile on his lips.
"Not long enough, Patience."
This took me two days to complete and I still don't like it, but here it is.
I've revised this chapter, I just around the end and a little bit of Cordelia's story has changed.