Die: ... Wow, it's been a while.
Chazz: No shit.
Bastion: You should have updated months ago.
Die: *hits them both* NO ONE ASKED YOU!
Jaden: *looks up* Hey, where's Cali?
Die: She doesn't live nearby and hasn't been around my place for a while, I'm just updating since it's been so long...
Jaden: Oh, okay then.
Chazz: Hey, maybe if someone says the disclaimer, she'll shut up!
Bastion: Neither of these two own Yu-Gi-Oh! GX.
Chapter Four: Holy Healing
Bastion stepped into the gym, ignoring the harsh stench of sweat that permeated the air. Scattered throughout the building, students were going at some kind of exercise. It seemed like the only sport they didn't have anything for was Equestrian—which changed automatically when you went around the back. He sighed contentedly, looking around at the gym and at the single-mindedness of the people in it. "All right," a familiar voice barked, "you move the sword blade up into the position and then swing it down to counter any stabs in a forward sweep."
Bastion turned sharply, eyes wide. "You've got to be kidding me," he grumbled, watching Chazz moving his sword elegantly and forcing himself to not notice the elegance with which he moved the heavy blade. The demon sighed, tapping wooden swords gently into place with the blade in his hands, the only one whose weapon was steel and also handled his weapon with any grace offered by experience and comfort with the item in his hands. Bastion eyed the sword in his hand, curiosity getting the better of him as he edged closer, careful not to move so fast as to grab the attention of the focused demon.
Chazz pretended not to notice that he'd caught the scent of the other male, only a slight prickling in his wings betraying his nervousness at letting someone stay at his back, but he took confidence in the wire-wrapped hilt in his hands and his knowledge of how to use the blade more than well enough to take a head from its shoulders without a thought. Bastion watched the demon fix the positioning of blades, bark out commands, and sigh exasperatedly when someone absolutely didn't get it. He's really good at this.
Wheeling on his heel, Chazz's blade struck out in an uppercut that stopped merely a few inches from Bastion's head. "And that, students," the demon announced, lowering his sword to his side with a flick of his wrist, "is how you ambush someone following you without them realizing until it's too late for them to react."
Bastion took in a sharp breath. "What the hell?"
"You, my poor naive Misawa, just became an example for my class," the demon informed, casually adding, "and if you wanted to remain oblivious to me, you should have remained downwind. A demon whose traits lean more towards animalistic or vampiric in nature tends to have a more sensitive sense of smell than most."
Bastion flushed, "Noted, Princeton."
"You know, you're welcome to wait around, the class is almost over. I wouldn't mind giving you a private lesson."
Bastion gave him a suspicious look. "I don't know..."
He threw a smirk over his shoulder as he nudged a student's stance into place. "I promise, I won't kill you. I took up swordplay for my own defence, not to intentionally hurt others."
Still uncertain, Bastion looked at the students for a moment. He then concluded it was okay to trust Chazz. "Fine."
"Excellant," the demon replied, a single foot coming out to knock some footwork wider. "Would you prefer steel or wood?"
"Um..." He had no clue what to pick. "Wood, I guess."
Chazz nodded. "Wood... a fine choice for a practicer but not so much for practical use. Still, considering that Crowler disagrees with even me using the same metal blade I learned with, it's likely a good idea that you use one of the wooden practice swords rather than one of my own steel blades."
"Right." Bastion said slowly, wondering why the monologue was necessary.
"Still, I figured you'd be better starting with the steel," he continued, talking to himself as he absently collected the swords and stowed them away. "I had to because my style is more for a rapier, but you look like you could handle more of a broadsword type style."
"Well I guess I'll do that, then." Uncertainty crossed his face.
Chazz shrugged, letting his wings slip out a little and massaging the joints with his free hand. "We can do whichever, it all depends on what you want to do with it. If you want to be able to use the swordplay in the future, it's probably best to simply go straight to the steel, but if it's just for fun, wood's a fine substitute and not nearly as heavy or cumbersome." It was almost amusing that he called his own steel blade heavy and cumbersome since the demon handled it with such grace and precision that the weapon seemed to weigh next to nothing.
"I think I'll be good with steel."
The demon couldn't contain a grin at the news, delighted in a way he shouldn't have been about anything involving an angel, let alone this particular one. "It's been a long time since I've ever clashed steel to steel with someone," he remarked fondly, rummaging around in a locker and pulling out a beautiful sheath with a katana inside it. "I apologize for the lack of a broadsword, but this is another one of mine, and it'll likely take you a little while to build up some strength for the broadsword, so this will do until I can get the actual weapon in."
The angel took the sword, jumping a bit when his hand brushed the demon's. Had it been anyone else, he would've passed it off as tension, but he knew that wasn't it.
"So," Chazz asked lightly, folding his wings back behind him again, tucking them up to his back and against his shoulder blades, "shall we begin?"
"Let's." Bastion braced himself.
However, Chazz did not spring forward like he did before. Instead, he sheathed his sword at his waist and moved around behind Bastion, rearranging the angel's limbs with a feather-light touch, explaining things all the while. In fact, for the entire lesson, the demon did not make a motion to attack that wasn't part of the teaching curriculum.
Jaden purred softly, nuzzling into Syrus's stomach as the younger boy pet the now-fully fledged black feathers, glad his instincts had told him that another's touch would speed up the normally-painless process. He'd been through more than a few molts before, but never had it been quite so painful before.
Syrus smiled, relishing in the softness of the older boy's feathers. "Feeling any better?"
"Much," he replied, raising his green eyes up to look at those of his friend. "Are you afraid of me, Syrus?"
Syrus appeared surprised. "Why would I be?"
"Because I fell and became a half-demon."
"They deserved what they got and... you're still my friend, Jaden. I don't care if you fell."
The brunet stared at him for a long moment, then threw himself at his smaller friend, his newly-feathered wings wrapping the little angel in a protective blanket of night. "I love you, Sy. I love you so much."
The boy flushed. "Yeah, I love you too, Jaden."
"I'll keep you safe," he whispered, nuzzling the mass of sky-blue hair affectionately. "I promise."
Syrus flushed a little deeper. "Thanks."
"Do you want to go out today, Sy?" he asked, not wanting to imprison the other inside of their quarters simply out of sympathy for him. "I'm sure I could hide my wings under my jacket."
"Won't that hurt?"The younger asked concerndly.
He shook his head. "Not anymore, my molt's over."
"You're sure?"
"Short of someone actually yanking my feathers out, I'll be fine, Sy. Promise."
"Okay. If you want to go out, that's okay. I don't really care either way..."
Jaden smiled ruefully. "I likely should, I still have to apologize to Cienna for last night..."
"It might be a good idea." The younger boy agreed.
Regretfully, Jaden pulled his wings back, folding the inky appendages against his shoulders and covering them with his red Slipher jacket. He'd liked it when Syrus had ran his fingers through his feathers... it had made him feel important.
Syrus smiled. "Any idea where she'll be?"
The brunet shook his head. "Not a clue."
"Well I guess we'd better start looking then." Syrus said cheerily.
Cienna sat with her back to the forest and a sketchbook in her lap. Her pencil whisked across the page, depicting none other than Gabriel. A soft smile captivated her face as she came to a stop. "This one's good." She murmured to herself.
"You know, no Gabriel is complete without his Lucifer."
She looked up in surprise. "What?"
"Your sketch," Zane elaborated, combing through his dark feathers since he hadn't taken the time to properly groom them when he'd finished with his shower. "Are you going to add in Lucifer for Gabriel?"
"I thought about it." She said, keeping her voice calm despite her internal struggle at the topic. "But I usually don't..."
His feathers ruffled slightly beneath his fingers, which had paused. "Strange," he mused softly, "a demidemon who has more connection with an angel than a demon."
"That's not it." She replied evenly, flipping through previous pages to display a lot more sketches of Lucifer than Gabriel. "I draw them both. Just not together."
"Why not? They were both outcasts among their own kinds for being lovers." His fingers resumed their petting, straightening the drying feathers.
She looked flustered, "I just don't."
"Interesting."
She sighed, closing her sketchbook with more force than was necessary. "Why are you spending time on me, Zane? I'm just a half-breed."
"True," the demon stated absently, "but you're trustworthy and honest, unlike most with demon blood."
"What makes you think you can trust me? What do you even know about me?"
He was quiet for a long moment, fingers pausing again as he gave the matter some honest thought. "I don't know why I trust you," he murmured softly. "I just... do."
She raised her eyebrows. "That doesn't sound anything like the infamous Zane Truesdale."
He shrugged. "I don't need to put up that front around you since you obviously aren't impressed or intimidated by it, so what would be the point?"
"What exactly does that mean? Do you actually care?"
He sighed. "Do you know how an angel becomes a demon?"
"A single moment of darkness in the soul." Her thoughts were torn between Zane and Jaden.
"Yes, but do you know why an angel falls?" he pressed.
She thought for a moment. "Not really."
"It's because, in for that one moment, that angel believes he has lost something dearer to him than his own life," His voice was cold, harsh with memories half-forgotten. "He will be willing to do anything to get it back, and so thus he gains that thing back... at the cost of what he was."
She couldn't think of anything she could say, anything to make it better. She set a gentle hand on his own, offering a sad smile.
"That's how most angels fall. But Chazz and I... we were put together because we were alike. We didn't fall because we lost something dear. We fell because we turned fully into the dark."
Cienna didn't shy away or say a word, she just moved a bit closer, leaning against him lightly.
"Even then, though, Chazz and I are different. Chazz was dragged kicking and screaming into this when I... I embraced it fully."
She gently twisted her fingers through his, "You don't seem so bad."
"Maybe not now," he admitted, his wings shifting closer to himself, "but that's mainly because my little brother fished me out of the gutter."
"Syrus seems like the type." She said quietly, ceasing any advancement after feeling his wings shift.
His wings pulled closer still, trying to warm himself up from the cold memories. "Yeah, he's a sweet kid. I wonder why the hell he's my brother sometimes, but I guess the universe has a sick sense of humor."
"The universe doesn't do anything without reason." She murmured, squeezing his hand.
He laughed coldly. "Its reasoning must be pretty suck if it let what happened to Chazz actually happen."
She sighed, "Bad things happen. Awful things. There's got to be a reason." She sounded much less sure of herself.
"Yes, but why him?" he asked, stressing on the subject to the point where his fisting hand caught some of his feathers and ripped them straight from his wing without him noticing. "He didn't deserve what happened to him."
"Stop." She said quietly, turning and rocking forward onto her toes as she stared at the place where the feathers had been pulled. Her fingers skimmed over his wing, barely there. "You're hurting yourself."
He winced softly, removing his fingers as his wing shot forward into her hand, the few victim feathers still clutched in his hand. "Sorry," he whispered softly.
"No need to apologize." She murmured, turning to him. Her fingers traced his jaw, delicate, feather-light.
He smiled gently at the gesture as he turned his gaze down towards the feathers, carefully examining them until he found one that was unharmed from its trials. "Here," he murmured, pro-offering it. "For you."
She paused, slowly reaching for it, intentionally brushing her fingers against his. "Thank you..."
"Of course." He returned to brushing out his wings, trying to get out the last of the damp.
"Zane?" She was unusually soft spoken.
"Yes?" His voice was softer as well, gently encouraging her to go on even though his eyes remained fixated on his task.
"Why?"
"Why what?"
She gestured to the feather, to him, to herself. "Why all this? Why talk to me? Why give me the time of day? If there's something to this... I deserve to know."
"If you had asked me that a week ago," he said, "I would have been able to tell you, but now... I don't quite know that answer."
"What am I supposed to think, then? I don't want to... think it's one way only to find out it's not. I won't let you toy with me, Truesdale."
He sighed, pulling her into an embrace, his inky-black wings coming around to hide her from the world. "I may not know exactly what I want with you," he murmured softly, "but you sure as hell aren't a toy, Cienna."
She breathed out, instantly relaxing with him around her. "Don't you feel it?" She whispered, almost to herself.
"Feel what?" he asked curiously.
"I don't know exactly what to call it..." She paused for a long moment. "But there's something that... I dunno... won't let me keep away."
He bit his lip. "Sort of," he explained softly. "For me, it's that I always know where you are, sort of like what Chazz tells me is akin to how he scents out someone he's familiar with."
"Like last night..." She breathed. "That's how you found me?"
He nodded. "Yeah, but there was something else involved last night too. I just... had a bad feeling."
It was her turn to bite her lip. "Yeah..."
"Don't you think it would be prudent for us to check up on Chazz? I left him unsupervised with a dangerous weapon."
"I'm not sure he really wants me around." She said with a laugh. After a moment of silence, she laughed again. "Well I suppose it may take two people to keep him from killing someone."
Jaden plopped himself down on the ground, childishly crossing his arms and pouting when Syrus turned to look at him when he felt the jerk on his hand since he was leading the other boy around. "I'm tired!" the brunet complained. "I bet Cienna's off wherever it is she goes most nights and we're never gonna find her."
"We haven't even covered half the campus." Syrus said with a small laugh.
Jaden groaned, tipping his head back. "We'll never find her at this rate."
"Oh, c'mon, Jaden. Who knows, maybe she's right around here."
"No!" he demanded childishly, wriggling his ass to accentuate his point. "I am staying right here, so help me Syrus!"
"Well fine then. You can't find her to apologize." Syrus shrugged. "Who knows how long she'll be mad?"
"Hey," Jaden announced, distracted, "is that Chazz with Bastion?"
"What are you sm-" Syrus turned, gaping at the sight. "What the hell?"
Chazz and Bastion were so close it looked like the demon was practically plastered onto the angel's back, his mouth moving by the tanned ear as his pale limbs rearranged the sun-kissed ones appropriately to demonstrate the proper stance he was attempting to teach. "I thought they hated each other," Jaden breathed, green eyes wide and drinking in the view.
"Yeah, me too..." Syrus muttered in wonder.
"Yes, well, Chazz Princeton took up swordplay in order to feel safe, not to murder his enemies in cold blood."
"Still don't trust him." Cienna chimed with a laugh. She leaned against Zane ever so slightly. "Hi guys."
A yelp came from the other side of the room, followed closely by the clatter of a sword onto the ground. "Oh Gods, Chazz, I'm so sorry!" Bastion cried, looking at the bent-over Obelisk cradling his right hand to his chest with his left, his black wings having come out defensively.
Cienna threw a look at Zane, "Do we need to intervene?" Her gaze fell to Jaden almost immediately after, looking him over carefully.
"Let me see it," Bastion murmured softly, slowly approaching the other and gently reaching out to tug his right wrist from where it was tucked against his sternum.
The demon shook his head. "No. Chazz may hurt him, but he won't kill him."
"This is gonna be interesting..."
Chazz reluctantly revealed a palm that had a large gash down the length of it that dripped crimson blood heavily, his wings tense with Bastion's closeness and his own vulnerability. "It's okay," the angel soothed after a moment of inspection. "I'm not going to hurt you. In fact, if you'll let me, I'll even heal it for you."
The girl smiled. "Finally."
In exaggeratedly slow movements carefully watched by the injured demon, Bastion pressed his lips to the gash, peppering the broken skin with his mouth all the way up its length and ignoring the vermillion staining the pink.
"What the hell?" Jaden spluttered, green eyes wide.
Cienna stayed silent, watching the spectacle with a wide grin. She eased herself to the ground beside the brunet.
Bastion's mouth lingered over the injured hand, trailing back down the length of the healing cut despite Chazz's shudder.
"Yuki, don't you remember the phrase 'kiss it better'? It's a reference to the ability of vampire saliva to close wounds, though there are legends that some of the more powerful angels also had the same ability." Zane's wings ruffled slightly, bristling with his annoyance.
"No need to be harsh, Zane." Cienna cut in. She threw a look at the brunet. "But you really should've remembered that one, Kid."
"I don't blame Jaden for not remembering, it's a really obscure myth from an angel's perspective, and I don't think I've ever heard of a Nephilium having it," Syrus murmured softly.
Even though the wound was closed, the black-haired angel didn't want his angel with a scar on his hand, so he carefully ran his mouth up and down the cut once more, pulling away from a blushing Chazz. "Bastion..." the demon murmured softly, looking vulnerable, "I..." He shook his head, firming his jaw and his wings. "I think we should call it a day on the practice, all right? Just come around here on our next day off and I'll give you another session."
Cinna's grin widened. "Y'know, I was really doubting this would actually happen, but I was right again. I'm getting to be pretty acurate."
Zane raised an eyebrow. "Don't count on it, Chazz would give a lesson in swordplay to Gabriel himself if the angel asked for it."
At the mention of the infamous angel, Cienna's face became a blank mask. "Right. You know him better than me so whatever..."
Syrus bit his lip, slightly confused. He'd never heard of a half-angel having the ability to heal with a kiss, let alone one who would actually do so for a demon. "Hey Jaden," he murmured softly, "do you think something's up with Chazz and Bastion?"
The brunet looked at him strangely. "Like what?"
"I don't know. There's just something... off about this whole thing."
"What do you mean 'off'?" Jaden asked, cocking his head cutely to one side.
"I've never heard of a Nephilim that could do that. Or one that would do that for a demon."
"Hey!" the brunet protested, "I would've done it if I could!" Underneath his jacket, his wings stirred slightly, protesting against their confinement.
Syrus sighed, setting a hand on the boy's back, between his shoulder blades where his wings were folded. "Yeah, but you're one of the nicest people here..."
"I bet that's not true, there are bound to be other nice people!" He leaned into the touch, calming once they were connected.
"Not as nice as you."
Jaden blushed, hiding behind his hair in a manner that practically screamed if he had his wings out, they would have been used to hide behind as well. Syrus laughed quietly.
Cienna raced after Bastion, who was leaving the gym with a ridculous speed. "Hey! Bastion, wait up!"
He paused, not turning to look at her. "What do you want?"
"I just wanted to talk. Sheesh." She said, catching up to him and offering a smile. He waited rather impatiently for her to continue. "So Chazz isn't trying to kill you anymore, eh?" She grinned. "That's good."
"I don't think so," he stated. "But I don't understand how a demon's mind works."
Her grin grew. "You healed his hand."
"So? I flinched back when one of his feathers brushed my arm, and my blade cut his hand while he was positioning it. It was only right that I fix it."
"It's a good excuse." She said with a smirk.
He stared at her for a long moment with piercing slate-gray eyes. "I don't ask you about something that isn't there between you and Zane Truesdale, so you should manage to be able to do the same for Chazz and me."
She flushed, turning her gaze to the ground. "Sorry..."
"It's okay, Cienna. He just asked me out of the blue to do this whole swordplay-thing with him and I didn't turn him down to be polite."
"Cienna!" Jaden cried, suddenly remembering the point of his excursion. "Listen, Cienna, I'm sorry about last night, I don't know what came over me, honest!"
She turned, offering the brunet a smile, trying to fight down the images assaulting her mind. "It's fine. How are you, by the way?"
He smiled, happily wrapping his arms around Syrus as if he was trying to make up for the lack of his smaller wings having to hide beneath his red jacket by instead clinging to the smaller angel. "Fine. Never better, actually."
"That's great, Hun. I was a little worried last night."
"It's just molting, Cienna, I would've lived."
Chazz looked at his hand again, waiting for a line to appear that he instinctively knew wouldn't appear, the fingers of his left absently tracing the path of the gash that had been there earlier, before those wonderfully soft lips had brushed tenderly over the broken skin and...
"Admiring his handiwork, Princeton?"
Ebony eyes narrowed defensively. "What's it matter to you, Truesdale, jealous?" he scoffed, burying a hand in his black hair while running the other suggestively down the front of his uniform shirt.
"That's totally it. How did you know?" The teal-haired boy replied sarcastically.
"Simple," he replied with the same amount of bite to his words. "I saw the way you oogled my ass in the gym showers and how eager you were to get my clothes off last week."
Zane rolled his eyes. "Of course you did."
"Listen, as much as I would love for you to fuck me into next week, I don't do submissive, so get to the point of what you're trying to say, I have things I need to do."
"You were blushing pretty badly after the angel bastard healed you up. That's all."
"Oh shut up, Zane," he growled, turning his head to the side and bringing his wing around subtly so that the tip could hide his slightly pink cheeks. "No one asked for your big-headed opinion."
He smirked. "I know."
"So," he began, smirking himself as he threw himself on his bed, lounging on the mattress and tossing his shirt off to the side, the contrast of his dark wings and pale skin making him look sinfully erotic, "What's up with you and that Oliver chic?"
Zane shrugged. "Nothing."
"Then why exactly is it that our room and both of our beds smell like her?" he produced smugly. "After all, it isn't as if I could have invited her in seeing as I've been pretty much living on the roof for the past week."
Again, Zane shrugged. "Just because she's been here, something must be up?"
"Usually, no," he conceded, "especially since I found you two sleeping together this morning and you rather like having other people use my bed as a chair when they're visiting, but there's one thing you hadn't counted on that gave you away, Truesdale."
"Oh?" Zane said, still disconnected. "And what might that be?"
Chazz shot him a fanged grin. "The fact that I can differentiate how strongly a scent lingers on an object, and trust me, Miss Oliver's scent is far too strong for there not to be some interest on your part."
"Mmm." Zane did a fairly good job of hiding his reaction, with the small exception of his quick tensing after his roommate's words.
"Fine then," the vampiric demon announced, shifting his position so that his back was to the wall and his wings were firmly wrapped around himself. "I won't tell you what else I learned from her scent, simply because you're refusing to tell me anything about her at all."
Curiosity marked his face. "What do you mean?"
A single finger shot out, waggling at him. "Nope, you don't get to know because you won't give me anything in return."
Zane sighed, torn between curiosity and not wanting to inform his roommate. Curiosity won out. "Anything in particular you want to know?"
Ebony eyes gleamed mischieviously. "All I want to know is this, Zane: is she a playtoy or a potential mate?"
Zane's pause spoke volumes. "I... think she could be a mate." He lowered his eyes to the bed. "Now spill. What else can you tell?"
"Her scent," here the young Princeton paused, thinking about how to best explain it and going with the blunt version. "It's too holy for one with demon blood, even if it is a bastard. Part of me thought it was simply because of her hanging out around those two angels Jaden and Syrus, since all three of them have similar scents, but now that I've gotten hers isolated... I think it's something else, something involving the three of them rather than the two rubbing off on her."
Chazz: ... Yay, it worked!
Die: Actually, I just let you guys get on with it.
Chazz: *glares*
Jaden: Reviews mean more updates! And Chazz will give you a swordfighting lesson!
Chazz: NO I WON'T!
Bastion: *is trying to use katana from earlier*
Chazz: ... *goes to help him*
Die: Yes he will...
Jaden: Good night everyone! *falls asleep*