Thank you thank you thank you to my new Beta, Tieden! You did a wonderful job!

Authors Note: Hey all. So at last you get my interpretation of what Gankutsuou is. I feel the anime left this open for our own consideration, so I hope you enjoy my imaginings. :P

We're wrapping this story up now. I think a few more chapters ought to do it. Thank you all for reading.

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On my way to Edmond's abode, I walk down the residential street of Le Val, where the houses are nestled together as if they were all carved from the same block. He is walking beside me, deep within his own thoughts.

The sun is new in the morning sky, making our shadows long thin lines. His hand dangles at his side, and I contemplate taking it, but things feel a little awkward, not uncomfortable or unnatural, but new. I don't know the rules of our relationship yet (if I can call it such a thing at this point), and I'm far too anxious about overstepping boundaries to take such a risk.

We reach the little path that leads up to his door, the stones lined on either side by attractive plants. Vines stretch up over the face of his stucco home, clambering over the red curved bricks of the roof. It's a charming site, and somehow it fits everything I know about him. He fumbles with a key, opens the door, and disappears inside.

I'm well aware of an old man glaring at me from across the street, muttering to himself about inconsiderate neighbors, and I blush.

While Edmond gathers his things, and makes a call on the next-door neighbor about watering the seeds he's planted, I notice a piece of paper tucked beneath the mat. I retrieve it for him, and when he reads it his face falls, and a blue and grey shade engulfs the street as a cloud momentarily blocks out the light.

"What does it say?" I ask.

He shuts the door, grabbing a bag and hoisting it over his shoulder. "The Forbin is making port in two days-time. Captain says they're being followed by something, and they have reason to believe it wants me."

"So, we know how it will come." Jadea's voice pipes up from the street, where she had managed to approach us unobtrusively. "Good. I have sent my mistress to the moon for the time being. She wanted you both to know of her protests, however. Her royal highness wanted to be here to support you, and sends word that she is willing to trust in my judgment concerning your…special situation."

I'm glad she's being subtle. I doubt Edmond wants the entire neighborhood to know about Gankutsuou, and I've drawn enough attention to him during the last week.

"Shall we?" the elderly lady asked. And without another word, she shuffled away.

I keep my peace for about ten minutes, but as we are heading away from the town, and away from the docks, I can't help but ask where we are going.

Her feathered head shook, and she motions for silence, telling me only that I will know all shortly.

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Tucked within the cliff sides of Le Val, a network of caves intertwined and embraced beneath the surface of the rock shoreline. Like miniature mountains, they half surrounded the city, keeping watch over the cove. A volcanic eruption formed them beneath the ocean in ancient times, and since then the salt water polished and smoothed their once rough faces. Buried within the wall, if one had such inclination, chunks of seashells and porous igneous rock waited to surface, easy enough to chip out with chisel and hammer.

The slippery darkness of the cave prevented most visitors from venturing deep within. A perilous journey, yes, but other forces kept most at bay. The villagers could not tell you what, or why. Perhaps the stories of the elders had taken root in their minds, frightening them as children, taking life and logic as adults. Perhaps they possessed an instinctive aversion to the place, simply feeling the power as an ominous foreboding. For whatever reason they unanimously agreed the caves were off: haunted, or inhabited by legendary heroes and sprites, such as Gradlon or Magotine.

One way or another, most people steered clear of the caves, and as they plunged within, Edmond felt the hairs on the neck stand straight.

Albert, having worried the old woman would fall on a slick rock, carried Madam Jadea's pack. A lantern hung from a brown belt at the side, giving them some light as they left the late afternoon sunshine for the cool damp tunnels.

As they traveled, Jadea would stop, make a clear marking pointing in their direction, and continue. "No point in waiting any longer then we have to." She would mutter before padding along down another steep hill.

For such an old woman she moved with agility and grace, only asking for a hand to get down some of the more perilous drops.

They walked for hours, to the point their feet and backs ached. As they hiked down into the belly of the caves, Edmond felt something strange within him. His body began to glow, not with the markings of the demon, but with the same strange light. The creature within him took great breaths and seemed to attain fantastic alertness. He felt the power hum through his body, beat within his veins, as if every blood vessel found itself coated by the demon; enhanced, aggressive, and treacherous.

The brightness of his body dwarfed that of the lantern, and Jadea extinguished the flame, which now looked sickly in comparison to the blaze emanating from Edmond's being.

"We go no further." She announced, indicating to Albert that he should place her pack on a nearby rock, which he did gratefully and gingerly.

"What's happening to Edmond?"

She rummaged in the outer most pockets, producing items of strange effect: sage, salt, red dust, and even full cloves of garlic. These she cast around the room in a circle, building up a perfect little mound of white on the blackened floor. Behind the pile of herbs she placed polychromatic stones and figurines, many of them adorned with animal heads, horns, or with bodies almost human but never completely so.

At the place most near Edmond she left an opening, turning to him once she had lit the flames of four candles. "There are places of great power in this world. We stand at the threshold of such a place. The creature within you is of a different race, an astral one. They lived before our species, beings of pure energy, capable of changing stars and moving fate. They helped form the world, lived and coexisted in harmony, creatures of feeling – without thought, or language."

She walked to Albert, opening her pack to reveal camping gear. She asked him to help her lay it out, and continued her story. "When man came, they explored the world, and found the places where the astral beings came and went. We have always known that these places had some special property. We built monuments, shrines, and created stories to explain them. The fey under the hills in Ireland, the obelisks and pyramids of Egypt, the cathedrals of your France, many of these monuments mark such sites of power. Not only on Earth, of course. Such beings also immerged on Janina, bearing the reflection of our people."

Albert hesitated in laying out a sleeping roll, feeling a shiver go down his spine as something within Edmond pulsed. There seemed a danger, something animalistic about him now, frightening and raw; almost wriggling. When he looked up he found Edmond staring at him, and something unsettling stirred in his expression.

Jadea stepped between them, closer to Albert reassuring him by squeezing his shoulder. "When exposed to man, these creatures evolved. They gather the knowledge and awareness of all they see, and change. Man's mind, our ability to think and to reason, makes us different then the creatures they met before. Animals as we might be, our minds and language give us the power to create great evil, or great good. Our power polluted the minds of Gankutsous' kind, giving them language, thought, planning, and plotting. Some linked with man as benevolent figures, adopting delusion - becoming man's gods or angels. However, those first exposed to great fear, greed, or pain became what we call demons."

She turned her gaze upon the creature writhing within Edmond. He was growing frantic, as if embraced in trance at the overflowing energy around him. She looked through the host, seeing past skin and flesh, drawing him to her attention slowly and methodically. "By your nature and the way you interact with human kind, I think you, Gankutsuou, must have been a creature of great energy: the cavern king, born in the thermal energy of this world, taking refuge in the places close to the burning core of the world. Unfortunately, when you met man they were certainly fearful, hungry, lost, and probably dying. You became the incarnation of hunger, of greed, of survival. You crave resources, feeling, and life. However, as you have traveled within mankind, that hunger transformed. Rather than merely seeking to consume without end, you subconsciously seek to heal the pain. You seek fulfillment. You are seeking satiation. As your host meets his own needs you grow closer to healing those wounds, to adopting his balance and energy. This is your journey, stretched out before you, one that has no guide, and that time will reveal."

If her words reached the demon, there was no indication. His mind reveled in her voice, in the sensation, in the power around him as an infant fixates on light or shapes.

She continued, apparently satisfied that he would understand on some level, "The creature stalking you, however, is one of domination and war. Undoing the hurt of that being will take a compassion and power greater than that within you."

She placed a hand on Edmond's face, swept away the beads of sweat, and forced the hungry stare away from Albert and to her own resolute expression. "If brought back to these places, the nature of these creatures rises, and they can be sealed back from where they came. We must seal this creature away, or he will dominate and destroy you. Instinctively you found your host, a host that could change your nature with his will. While you hungered and craved, Edmond waited. His self-control and powerful mind will change you, balance you, and show you those parts of humanity that elude you. But neither of you will survive if this being goes unchecked."

Edmond's breath cracked as he struggled to suppress the drives within him. He wanted desperately to pin Albert and have his way, to rip his clothing of and take his need in him again and again, and drink of his blood, bring in his life force, to absorb him, know him, and consume him. These feelings, he knew, originated from the vampire life form within him, but he ached within their reality. She was right, however, his will power and self-control held the demon back. He held on, loving and protecting the younger man. So, this is why death had sent him back. He had over powered the demons tremendous power by loving Albert before, he could do so again, they could change each other, and they could heal. It made such simple sense.

However, this place changed the rules. Here the demon's nonplused raged and his spirit literally clawed for freedom. The sheer force of Gankutsou had multiplied, the momentum of his desires speeding towards destruction like a meteor falling through the atmosphere to bedrock.

Jadea pushed him gently towards the herbs. "You must enter the circle. I can contain you, and the demons within it. If your will and balance prevails, and you can weaken him, I will send the creature back to the void. There are more, and they will come in time. It is Gankutsou's duty, as the cavern king, to bring them back to the caves a schisms in the world, and heal them, or seal them away until their time comes."

"He is weak." Edmond managed to gasp, "Stronger here, yes, but he spent his energy saving my ship and crew. I don't think we can manage battling with another demon at full strength right now."

"I know." She whispered, "but right now he is all we have."

0-0-0-0

My heart is aching. I can't stand this. Jadea has completed the circle with him inside, and I am sitting on my sleeping bag with my knees tucked up to my chin.

He is thrashing, and moaning. Some of his clothing is torn, and he has marks on his skin from places where he has scraped on the floor. The light is growing brighter, and with every passing moment I see more of Gankusuou and less of Edmond. At times it seems Edmond has even grown another pair of eyes that will pear up at me, not like the shimmering purple eyes that signify the demon is present, but litteraly another pair of human eyes. I wonder if this means they are integrating more completely, blurring the lines between where one begins and the other ends.

From time to time he grips his head and cries out. He'll scream things like: 'no,' or 'I won't hurt him,' and I know he's talking about me.

I think Edmond sensed this lurked within him, on some level he knew this out of control hunger existed. I think perhaps he avoided me, and hid to protect me. I think he was genuinely afraid of facing me, but for more reasons than he realized.

Jadea has assured me Gankutsou could not leave the circle, and that I'm safe as long as I stay out here. A few times I try to walk forward, to comfort him, to reach out and do something – anything, but she tells me if I step inside I won't be able to come back out, and I'm sure those fangs are for more than aesthetics. Besides, I'm not sure what I could do. If I draw closer Edmond wails, and my presence at this distance seems enough to torture him.

I have no idea how much time has passed. He is in so much pain, and I am completely helpless. When I find myself crying, as silently as possible, Ganktusuou's voice coos to me, calls me and tells me I'm beautiful, telling me he wants to drink me in and let me fill him.

It's unsettling, to say the least, and yet I cannot hate him. So much of our experiences make sense now. He was drawn to Edmond because of the holes in Edmond's heart. Edmond ached and hungered, as he did. They flailed out to fill that hunger, to fill the voids within them, seeking easy answers that appealed to the nature of broken men...and demons.

Everything Edmond did to my family was fueled by the hunger; his own. Gankutsuou could not be blamed for that. Edmond was afraid of hurting, and afraid of pain. He sealed away his humanity, and thus acted inhumanly. Yes, what he did to me was cruel, and it still ached within me.

But, I understand him. I understand both of them. They wanted to heal, just as they do, though they have no idea how. And, as I watch them suffer on the ground, moaning my name, I realize how much of my pain, how much of my hurt they have carried and felt. Franz did not die for someone's revenge. He died as a savor, to me, and the two beings struggling for their hearts. That…would make him happy.

My father was the sort of man who could have twisted pure creatures into demons. He helped twist Edmond. If what Jadea says is true, than the tragedy I experienced had a purpose. My mother always said the key to surviving suffering is to find meaning. She may be right. This meaning eases the ache.

Edmond goes calm for a moment, only one, and looks to me. I sense within him a man who is facing fate, possibly to disappear, and speaks his peace.

"I love you." He says it simply, honestly, and falls back to his torment before I can respond or process what he said.

I know he loves me. I always knew…the evidence was there. My heart, my love saved him from his own revenge. I saved the human from consuming agony, as Franz saved me.

So, I think, in that light, while I can never forget the hurt, I know better what they were seven years ago, and what they are now. And, I think, part of me is ready to forgive the demon.

As soon as the realization strikes me, a blackness from the tunnel behind us dwarfs the room, pushing back the light, as a glowing red figure steps slowly, zombie like into our cave.