Chapter 7: An Unpleasant Surprise
Sebastian entered the front entry of the bathouse to a pleasant atmosphere of fear surrounding her. She took a deep breath in as if trying to inhale a pleasant smell then let it all out with a smile.
"Ahh the smell of despair." she said as she walked down the main hall past an exotic array of guests and weaklings who called themselves workers.
Sebastian followed quietly observing some of the sweating workers and cowering in corners and behind walls. He let out a sad sigh but frankly this was just as it always had been...for most of her life anyway. The people around her soaked in fear and above all hatred for her.
Haku was in Yubaba's office discussing the gaping hole in the wall and how it was to be fixed.
"That little brat putting a huge hole in my bathouse!" her raspy voice yelled. "And I put YOU IN CHARGE OF HER!" Haku simply stood still his face expressionless as he listened to the old hag overreact over a simple issue that could be fixed with a wave of a hand. He was looking back in his memories of what had happened earlier. Her crushin the innocent frog who had done no wrong when those around her were actually fond of her even if it was only for a bit. He had offered her a elping hand and she acted as if he had drawn his sword.
'I just don't get the woman, but none the less I despise her whether or not she was "chihiro".' he thought as Yubaba finished her ramble.
"Ahhhhh I've got an idea." Yubaba had an evil grin on her face as she walked over to her desk rumaging through a drawer of papers.
Pulling out one of the files and placing it on her desk she opened it up revealing a few photos and a minor file that barley had any information at all on Lucifer or her Sebastian.
She started to cackle over her own genious plan, "That man servant of hers according to this has been with her since the dawn of her existance. If she want to kill my slaves than I'll have to return the favour, HAKU fetch someone who can peform the task...we'll play with her heart and see if she dares to cause anymore trouble in my bathouse!"
Haku bowed and left quietly flying out of a large window at the end of the hall he changed to his dragon form sending pearl scales flying about revealing a majestic snake soaring throught the air away from the bathouse. Though he didn't notice the pair of skeptical eyes glaring at him from her room's balcony.
"Where do you think he's goin?" Sebastian asked.
"Don't know, don't care either, if he wants to be Yubaba's lapdog then let him." Lucifer responded turning away from the window and sitting down at her desk, sliding out the drawer that was underneath she pulled out a skatch pad and a mechanical pencil. (I can't draw with normal pencil I HAVE to use mechanical any other artist out there have the sae problem?!)
Sebastian leaned over her shoulder to see the skeloton of a rose being swiftly sketched by a delicate and deadly hand.
"You havn't drawn that kind of thing in a long time..."
"I know but for some weird reason that boy's hand reminded me of her."
"Ah when he offered it to help you up?"
"...Yeah..."
"Alright then I'll leave you to you're drawing." Sebastian sat down in a chair in the corner of the room pulling out a book, the pages had several sccribles in them in pen crossing things out and replacing them with others. It was a book titled "The Devil", the human's stories of what they believed had happened all those years ago. Picking up a gold pen with a thin tip he began to write in the book more as he flipped each page correcting the naive human's so called "truth" about Lucifer. However nearly everything was incorrect in some form or another, it was as if the humans had been given random chunks of a puzzle and made up their own pieces to fill in the blanks.
Placing thin black framed glasses on his face he read each line carefully, as night quickly fell and he turned on the lamp beside him.
Hours passed and soon Sebastian's eyes had fallen closed however the woman at her desk remained quite awake as she shaded in the dark parts of the rose as she was nearly done. She dropped her pencil onto the desk as she filled in the last little part of the rose's petal, looking over the picture she held it up to make sure she hadn't missed something then quickly filed it away in her drawer filled with many others of her drawings though once she had placed it in the drawer she never took it out again. After closing the drawer she twisted in her chair looking at the man in the corner whom had fallen asleep leaning on his hand that was propped on the arm rest. His glasses were sliding a bit down his nose and he lightly held onto the book in his lap.
Looking down at the book she carefully slid it from his hands flipping through the paged a bit to see what he had done, "Heh sometimes you are a complete mystery to me." she said with a small grin as she slid the glasses carefully off his face placing them on the table beside the chair and turning off the lamp. Heading out the door quietly closing it slowly behind her careful not to wake the sleeping Sebastian.
"As she slowly shut the door she stood in an empty and dark hallway, the workers had gone to sleep and the bathouse was closed for the night. Lucifer took in the pieceful silence walking down the hall towards the elevator. Though when she came to the automatic doors and decided to head down the stairs instead feeling somewhat happy at the moment making feel less lazy then usual. She arrived at the third floor or so walking down the long pathways that lay in a square formation, soon she came upon the bridge that ran from one side of the path to the other. Walking slowly, listening to the little patters of her barefeet on the glossy wood, she stopped at halfway on the bridge leaning on the railing looking down at the bottom floor. She sighed enjoying the peacfulness that allowed her to rummadge through her old thoughts.
MEMORY:
Lucifer ran through the long marbled hallways, past servants and doors until coming upon a large grand one. It was a bright white door with golden metal lace and silver handles.
With a large smile she pulled the large doors open with ease heading into a large room where her mother sat on her grand throne made of the same marble with a red silky cover along the inside for comfort.
"Oh hello my dear!" she said rising from her chair and heading down the large steps to the child whom waited below.
"You should be careful running around you might get hurt." she leaned forward over the last step reaching out her hand to Lucifer who at her age sturggled to climb the grand steps.
She reached towards the tall woman with hair as red as blood and eyes a beautiful brown. She wore a gorgeous dress of red silk that matched her long hair perfectly.
Lucifer's hand touched the tips of her mother's fingers...
END:
Lucifer's thoughts were cut off but the image of the gentle helping hand her mother had offered at the time remained.
"What was I like...two maybe three at the time. Tch I was so naive."
She remained there leaning on the railing unaware of the green eyes that watched her from the top floor. Haku stood with a fairly disgusted look of hatred in his eyes as he looked down at the back of the Devil.
He remained quietly staring at her noticing her hands tighten into fists for an unknown reason. "What preparing to kill someone else? Thinking of your next victim." Haku whispered almost inaudibly.
"No...No I don't think that's it."
Haku spun around to see that servant of hers walking up beside him and leaning on the railing looking down at Lucifer.
"What?" Haku spat out.
"I don't think that's what she's thinking about or preparing to do." Sebastian repeated.
"Well I didn't ask you." Haku looked back down at the woman.
"Haku..."
"...Yeah?"
"When you look at her...what do you see?"
"Pfft is that a trick question?" Haku asked fairly surprised that Sebastian would ask such a dumb question.
"Depends on your answer..."
"Well then that's easy...I see nothing but a cold blooded demon who kills for sheer pleasure and desurves nothing but hatred from others." Haku had a look in his eyes that read that he would kill her in less than a second if he recieved the opprotunity to do so.
Sebastian let out a dissappointed sigh that said he expected nothing less than what he had responded.
"Yes Haku...but Hatred is all she's ever recieved...ever since she can remember."
Haku gave him a confused look silently telling him to go on.
"When I look at her...I see a powerful woman...who has the greatest potential...but has been hated, despised, thrown away for reasons that she desn't even know...and so after being hated for hundreds of years she slowly became what those accused her of being. She wasn't always like this you know. If you were surrounded by pure hatred and called a murderer and so on...would you have turned out qny differently?"
Haku didn't respond but his expression softened a bit and remained confused.
"Would you care to hear the story of The Devil?" Sebastian asked.
Haku thought for a moment but nodded and was led into their room where he sat in the corner chair as Sebastian sat at the desk rumadging though papers until pulling out a stuffed file that looked as if it were about to burst and placed it on the desktop.
He sat backwards in the chair and began.
"Haku you know of the 5 correct?"
Haku nodded, "They're the 5 rulers of the spirit world each controlling one of the five main elements, they're also pureblooded...why?"
"Well that plays a huge role in this story I am about to tell you. Now you spoke of them each containing one of the five most powerful elements in both worlds, these five elements are represents by the five points of a pentegram, The top being Spirit and clockwise from there, Fire, Water, Earth and Air. Now you also mentioned that these five were pureblooded, well what many don't know is that there is a secret Law that forbids in "impure" breeding between two different points of the pentegram star that was passed by the spirit council. This prevents unnecessary event's and debates blah blah blah, but what it secretly prevents is tha breeding of a child more powerful than you or anyone of the spirit council could even fathom. Because those cowards of the council were afraid of such a child being born that when the Five were assembled the law was the first of many to be passed."
He paused for a moment making sure that Haku was taking all this new information in.
" Now what if two of those elements had fallen in love and gae birth to a child, what do you suppose would happen to that child?"
Haku didn't have an answer to the strange question that seemed to be leading somewhere and so he gave a shrug.
" Well let's go back a bit, is there someone you know that has been marked in someway that you've never seen before?"
Haku thought for a moment but soon remembered Lucifer's strange tattoo...of a PENTAGRAM!
"Lucifer...has the mark of a pentagram on the left side of her chest by her shoulder, it's thin lines glow a dark red as if from the inside and the lines look as of they were engraved." Haku said quietly.
"Very good..." Sebastian said in a tone as if he were speaking to a dog that had just learned to sit.
"Now going on from there what if I were to tell you that she is the only one in this entire universe that bears that mark?"
Haku's eyes looked surprised..."The only one...?"
"Yes and now I will continue from where we left off. It was never spread to the public or told to anyone outside of the council or the five but there was indeed one case of an "impurity" born between two of the five. Between Fire and Spirit."
Haku's eyes seemed to widen in surprise...'how does he know all this then?'
"Now Lucifer is somewhat odd looking no? Her hair is a strange sombination of two different colors, she could pass if she wanted to for a male or female...a very pretty male but still. She os very strong both magically and physically and without even lifting a finger she's killed to people without even breaking a sweat. Her eye's are a dark bloody red...her fangs are always extended never retracting...need I go on?"
Haku nodded a "No."
"The point is she's the ONLY ONE OF HER "kind", noone knows anything abou her but me and she has a strange marking of a pentagram on her chest along with her strange appearance...now I belive you can figure out who she is considering you are an intellegent being."
The answer was in Haku's head but he still hadn't really processed it and took a moment before his eyes widened and he looked into Sebastian's seemingly pleased yet sad red eyes.
"...She's that illegitemate child..." Haku whispered mostly to himself.
"...Yes you are correct...Lucifer is the byproduct of Kyoko and Sasuke gods of Fire and Spirit. Now imagine the being that would be created from two of the most powerful elements known to both worlds, she was created from Fire and the Darkness half of the Spirit element."
"Darkness half?" Haku asked confused by the statement.
"Yes there are two halves to the Spirit element, one half is Light and the other is Darkness. Lucifer's father was god of the Darkness side. She looks extremley similar to her father though her hair and other aspects and characteristics ar a combination of both her mother and father. Her father's hair is a pitch black similar to the color of a crow's feather while her mother's is redder than an apple and a very dark shade resulting in Lucifer's iconic black hair with a red outlining. Her fangs are from her father, her smooth skin her mother's, her physical strength comes from her father her magical strength her mother and so on."
"What about her eyes?" Haku asked wondering where she had gotten those murderous bloody eyes from.
"...Now those are a different you'll learn where she got those later. Now... now that you know relativley who she is in relation to rank and bloodline how do you think and impure child such as herself would be treated?"
"...Well for one the council would be infuriated most likley hating the child insisting on her death or something, she would most likley be rejected by everyone around her, but what about her parents?"
"You are on the right track, you are correct the council despised her and wanted her killed within the first week of her birth and punishment would fall upon Kyoko and Sasuke afterwards or at least was supposed to. You see her mother refused to have her child killed, she had grown attached to the baby within the first minute of her birth and refused to let her go dissregarding the fact that the child was impure. But her father had other ideas...he despised the child seemingly more than the council, he wanted her dead practically the moment he saw her dark brown eyes. He saw her as a sin and as a dishonor towards himself, ironic considering it was half his fault that she was born. Scratch that nearly entirley his fault, he fell in love with Kyoko in the first place, she fell in love with him second."
Haku looked shocked at what he was hearing, her own father rejected her? That's nearly imposible, for a spirit to reject their child takes alot of hatred, their attachment is several times stronger than a human's to their children, the amount of hatred required to throw away your chlld was unfathomoble.
"Now...due to her mother's persistance she convinced the council to let Lucifer live as long as her existance was never known to those outside of the 5 or the council. Now you'd think over time her father would forgive or become more loving but it was the opposite, the more she grew the more her father hated her, he punished her severley for miniscuel actions, you've seen her without her shirt, how do you think she's gotten all the scars?"
"...Well I would assume by there shape they are whip marks, but a normal whip shouldn't inflict enough damage to scar especially someone of her power." Haku concluded.
"Yes well after her father observed her power of which succeeded all of the five's power combined he realized that she even at the age of 10 was well stronger than him. In fear and in realization that he was no longer dominant over her and hadn't been for a long time he had a special "device" created to punish her."
"Special?"
"Well Sasuke went to the council who keep in mind still didn't like Lucifer, and explained something along the lines of her becoming "out of control" and "needing discipline" which of course is bull shit, she was a tomboy and would tend to get into trouble hoping for attention from others and was a bit rebellious but nothing to the extent that he had told the council. But the council bought his lies and agreed to create a special weapon that could only harm Lucifer nd Lucifer alone but could not inflict even a scratch upon others."
"And this weapon would be...?" Haku asked trying to get to the point.
"It is a whip but it is...how do you explain it...imagine a whip but one that been set on fire and is obviously made from magic."
Haku nodded understanding the premise of the object.
"That's really the only weapon that's able to inflict damage that she can't heal instanly and leave a scar even if she does. I've treated her a few times over my servitude when her father's gone a bit overboard so to speak and gotten a few of the scars to fade to dissapear but others are just to severe. Her once smooth and perfect skin now perminantley marked by the hatred of others. She was aloud to live with her mother for a perios of time that is before she was about 15 to 17 as I recall. You see as time went on she started seperating herself from her mother and the servants who were afraid of her power and hated her just as much as her father no matter where she went. Emotionally she had lost all feeling of attachment. Her mother had turned on her when she was about 3 for reasons unknown to both her and myself. Her father never had loved her in the first place, the other pureblooded children looked at her as if she were a monster and... excluded her we'll say from anything and everything. She's always been alone and believes she always will be. Not even I have truly seen inside her heart or mind, what she's thinking or what she's feeling, not all the time. She hides her thoughts and feelings well better then you ever have."
Haku was a bit taken aback by this statement, he had mastered a straight and emotionless face, if a man who's spent practically his entire life with her couldn't read her than noone could.
"Anyway as time went on she became a bit more "threatening" in a way. Her mindset changed and slowly she became what everyone treated as if she was, "A monster","A demon", "A killer and disgrace" and so on. If everyone around you had treated you like a monster wouldn't you become just that?"
Haku nodded looking a bit more understanding of her situation as the story went on.
"Her..."Pranks" we'll call them became more violent and more severe. She has killed several of the servants simply to irritate her father or because she simply had the urge to kill. She would weaken pillars or rig weapons so people would be crushed or injured. And as a result her punishment or "whippings" as people would call it became more prominent and severe though her body seems to have grown numb by now."
"...Wait so in summary so far, she's basically like a monster that everyone hates and treats like shit, after being influenced by the way she was treated she became what they accused her of being...so what?" Haku wasn't really getting the point here other then that this was like a autobiography or something.
Sebastian let out a sigh in regard to the boy's impatience, 'That's what I get for talking to a dragon I suppose.' he thought to himself thinking of how he should continue the story so he would understand.
"Well...resuming...at the age of 17 both of her parents were at their breaking point as well as the council. She was simply too powerful to exist, she would create an "imbalance" as they put it. She herself was becoming more...daring...shall I say by the minute. Frankly she probably would've killed both of her parents had she not been "banished" so to say."
"Banished? You mean like in the human stories?"
"In a way yes...and no you see the human's stories of what they saw are not totally accurate by any means. You see Lucifer is no "fallen angel" by any stretch and the "falling" part occured during one of the most severe whippings she has experienced so far. You see the council and the other of the 5 had agreed that she couldn't be kept hidden for much longer before she made attempts to take over the 5 or the council which was complete bull but that's not important. Anyways they had all agreed that they needed to "place" her somewhere where she conveniently couldn't escape from...what the humans call "Hell" but it's just what we know as the underground level of the Spirit World. Of course it was the perfect place, no spirits ever went there due to the extreme conditions, she could survive but couldn't escape thus getting her out of their hairs for the time being however their little spell didn't last long. See you'd be surprised but Lucifer is quite intellegent in both books and common sense, she could even be considered smarter than genious. It took here a mere 24 hours to figure out a counter spell to escape but she decided to wait a while so that when she escaped she could lye low for a while and have some "fun" as she called it. Now the "falling" the humans refer to is actually literal, she did fall from the upper palaces place of punishment designated for her whippings. What the humans belive to be heaven. See she had gone a smidge too far and let just say "played" with her father's noble sword and left the palaces a bit short on staff. This was the "golden opprotunity" to seal her away. She was punished so severley that she was knocked unconcious from the intensity of the wounds her body was rapidly trying to heal, resulting in her falling off the "edge" so to say of the palace grounds and down into underground or "Hell". I myself volunteered to serve her which her father willingly allowed me to do so, I was transported to "Hell" and have spent my entire life as her servant since."
Haku looked like he ha seen an alien, "Why would you VOLUNTEER to serve someone everyone hated!?"
"Well you see I did not hate her, I never had and never will, because I am able to see what others cannot. Her sadness and sorrow, her hatred and loneliness etc. So what not a better way to stay by her side than serve her?"
Haku still looked at him as if he were the dumbest man on this planet.
Sebastian let out another sigh of exhaustion picking up the book that he had spent years correcting bit by bit and handing it to Haku.
"What's this?" he asked looking over the cover.
"It's the human's story of Lucifer, I've taken the liberties of noting and correcting it for nearly a decade, I believe you should read through it, it should help you to understand her better." He walked off into the hall leaning over the balcony to see Lucifer still standing on the bridge. Haku quickly joined him looking down at her as well.
"Now I ask you again, What do you see when you look at her?"
Haku paused...thinking...he didn't quite see her as the demon he had before...his gaze had softened looking down upon the tortured being who looked rather unthreatening at the moment. He looked up at Sebastian for a moment to see his red eyes looking back at him still filled with sadness, he looked back at the bridge...she was gone!
"What you guys lookin at?!"
Haku felt one hand on his left shoulder looking slowly behind him to see glowing bloody eyes that looked quite diabolical at the moment. With wide eyes he swallowed and waited for Sebastian to come up with an answer.
"You why?" Sebastian blunty responded.
"Welp not anymore...say Dragon boy what did you think of my story?" Lucifer said eyeing the slightly nervous dragon amusingly. "...What story?" was all he could think to respond still startled by her "inhuman" speed for a spirit.
"Ahh common I heard you two the whole time, by the way Sebastian try to ask for permmision before you go blabbing about me to the entire world." She said looking at him not with an angry look but rather one that indicated that she was only slightly annoyed allowing Haku to relax a bit.
"I know but he is the one who's supposidly in charge of you while you're here, I figured with your rudeness to him earlier that he deserved a bit of an explanation." Sebastian retorted rather cooly.
Lucifer dropped her arms to her sides allowing Haku's tense body to relax a bit more, enough to the point where he was comfortable.
"Well I suppose I'll let it slide this time Sebby but no more stories for anyone else. And as for you Scaly don't think that just because I have a sad back story means that I'm gonna be any nicer to you or anyone else in this bathouse." She walked off slowly towards her room but ubruptly stopped at the doorway, "Oh...and Scaly...if you ever offer me a helping hand again say goodbye to it before you do." Her eyes glowed for a moment in warning then dissappeared past the door.
"Well why don't you go and get some rest I have a demon to attend to." Sebastian walked into their room closing the door gently behin him leaving Haku alone with the book in the silent bathouse.
'When you look at her what do you see?' the question echoed in his head as he walked down the hall and into his bedroom.
A/N I no your welcome for once I didn't leave a super cliffy ending but that question is gonna keep poppin up and it's meaning will become clearer to Haku as the story goes on. Sad back story for Lucifer but you have to admit it's a great one! Please R and R till the next chappie!