A/N: The rating changes in this chapter, to M. Here's why:
*Religious themes come into play, loosely, but they are there. These themes, among many others, such as what I plan with the doublet system, and the angles and devils themselves, are what I feel earn this series an M rating as time goes on, because we will reach a dark point, eventually.
A/N#2: Sorry about the debacle regarding a repost of chapter three...I'm having internet conectivity issues, and I clicked the wrong file due to that. Please excuse the inconvenience.
Chapter 5
When he'd first kissed her tears away, he'd felt as if he'd somehow made the perfect choice. The moment, in his mind had been prefect, and idealistically, he didn't think of what might happen in the aftermath. Everything had consequences, and he knew one day, they would probably be a payment far worse than he could fathom. Keiichi would accept that, it was a price he knew he'd pay one day.
If he were just a little younger, a little more naive, he was sure he wouldn't have actually swallowed that cursed pill. Yet fate had fallen upon him as a light of hope, even if the very light would be that of a fire, ready to burn him at whim.
Being a demon wasn't easy, and although Keiichi assumed he would have to subject himself to quite a few new things, he didn't expect that he would be thrust into his new life so quickly. He knew goddess had several things they had to do, in order to maintain a heavenly body. However, he didn't assume those selfsame goddesses would be the ones to walk him through the new rituals of a demon. Perhaps it was just as well, he didn't really want anyone else around anyway.
"Are you sure about this?" Keiichi asked, looking at the odd sight before him. Clad in only a towel, he found it quite disturbing to find Urd sitting alongside Belldandy in his own bedroom. His hair was wet from having just gotten out of the bath, something he'd been instructed to do.
"We have no choice." Urd told him, her voice thickening in displeasure. "I don't want to be in here anymore than you want me to be." The supplies she had before her were not things that most goddesses troubled themselves with, but, Urd had gone shopping recently. Someone had to deal with the new demon in the house. She was the only one who knew the rituals that demons would unquestionably abide by. "It can't be helped."
"Demons are unholy creatures by nature." Belldandy told him. "So, they take part in what our father calls the seven deadly sins." With a glance to her sister, and the materials before her, she found herself a bit overwhelmed. "Since I'm a goddess, I do my best to purge myself of those seven things, however, demons subject themselves to them."
Keiichi gave it some thought. "The ones found in scriptures?"
"Yes and no." Belldandy laughed a little, perching her chin in between her thumb and first finger. "That's the thing about mortals, they're uncanny." She said carefully, offering the man before her a smile as she digressed. "You see, our father made them astoundingly aware of the greater creation round them. They're so correct, and yet, so terribly wrong. However, regardless of personal beliefs, which we rely on for heavenly and unholy shares, there are only two absolute things." She bowed her head slightly. "I'm sorry, I can't explain it well. The system is quite complicated."
With a long suffering sigh, Urd shook her head. "What she means Keiichi, is that there is only good fortune, and misfortune." Urd told him easily, the idea of unity came simply to her, as both forces existed as one in her very own soul. "The system force governs that by assuming that there is no right, and there is no wrong. It's up to creation, to determine for themselves what is good and bad. We as goddesses, and you as a demon, will live up to that expectation...in doing so, you'll generate unholy shares, which in turn, are the source of your power."
Urd began to light the candles that were strewn about the room. "Belldandy, being a goddess, can't even touch what I'm about to give you. It would do damage for her to try." After the room was set aglow, she returned to her seat next to her sister. "However, due to my bloodline, I don't suffer from the same aversive effects." She placed a tray in front of them, filled with vials. "These are the essences of those seven vices, and they make a demon's nature exactly what it is." She uncorked one of the glasses before her.
"Do I drink it?" He asked, almost afraid to touch what he knew was not sitting on the inside of those little bottles.
"I'd hope not all at once…" Urd said uncapping the one nearest to her. She took the dropper from her tool kit, and plucked exactly one droplet of the dark colored substance. "Every night you'll light candles and measure out exactly one drop from each vial. Depositing them into this dish." She said, continuing to do as she explained. "After you bathe every night, you'll drink this mixture before you get dressed, baptizing yourself in the vices that make you who you are."
He took the dish that was given to him, and swallowed the potion as he was instructed. "Now what?"
"Blow out all of the candles, and then you're done." Urd shrugged. "If you don't your ritual every night, you'll stunt your growth as a demon, if you don't do it often enough, you'll eventually cease to exist." She took the time to secure the vials well away from Belldandy, in a small cupboard she'd gotten for Keiichi specifically for such a reason, but she didn't dally around.
"Well, alright then." He did as he was told, going around the room, blowing out the seven candles Urd had mounted on each of the walls. "You goddesses take something similar, right?" He wondered, holding the long towel around him as Urd left the couple, now that her job was done.
"Yes, we do." Belldandy told him, as she went to his dresser to get him some pajamas, knowing he would make a beeline for them anyway when he was done. "Gods and goddess are told to take the cures of mankind, while demons take what ails mankind."
"The cures of mankind?" While Keiichi knew well of the seven deadly sins, as they were something strewn about the mortal realm almost all the time, he knew little of what could possibly cure it. "You mean the good fortune?"
"Humility, kindness, abstinence, chastity, patience, liberality, and diligence." Belldandy said, ticking them off on her fingers. "Those are the cures for pride, envy, gluttony, lust, wrath, greed, and sloth respectively. After goddess drink their potion, they say a prayer." When the final candles were blown out, she went over to the overhead light, switching it on while Keiichi dressed. "The reason you blow out sacramental candles, is that it signifies the absence of light, or your darkness as a demon." She told him as she unfolded the bedding for the night.
"Oh, I guess that makes sense." Pulling on his pajama bottoms, he gave her an odd look. He was used to seeing Belldandy reclining on his futon, in fact it was something that he found quite cute, especially when Belldandy found herself engrossed in a book, or her knitting. Tonight, however, seemed a bit different. "Bell, did you know you're molting?"
"What?" She gave a glance over her shoulder, her wings were protruding a bit and blue sparkles were falling from them. "Oh, that's Holybell." She smiled at him, and plucked a feather, with a gentle puff of breath it turned into tiny little sparkles. "She does that all the time to bless the area around her. It's one of those things angles do when mortals aren't looking."
"Right..." He said then, clicking off the over head light. For not the first time that day, he wondered just what he'd gotten himself into, but as she slid into bed, and into Belldandy's arms with a yawn, he realized that it didn't really matter at that moment, tomorrow would be another day.
…
As Urd and the other goddess expected, the pill changed very little about Keiichi, at first. A few months had passed, but, besides being able to understand and speak with angels, he had no other power of which to notice. Sometimes a spark of electricity would shoot out from his fingers, or fire would cling to him if he got too close, but that was normal for any creature attuning with the elements that controlled creation.
Still, he was very much a demon growing in power, of this, they knew well. Keiichi was more in tune with the tiny things in his life that he never noticed before, and it was a new experience for him every day.
He could feel the wind whisper to him now, and animals had voices, words he could understand. Items sometimes became less tangible, as if, for whatever reason, he simply couldn't touch them anymore. It only happened for a few moments at a time, but, it gave him a cause for concern. Other things changed too, such as his perception of the woman he loved.
So many things made sense to him now, including Belldandy's angel.
Holybell slipped out from her master, and greeted Keiichi slowly, reaching out to hug him. She closed her eyes, searching for the power within him. Though that power didn't yet have a voice, she clung onto him desperately, taking in the feeling the powers brought. A deep light was glowing from his soul…a dark energy, and as she held tightly to him, she also held tightly to it as well.
When the angel pulled away, he looked into her deep, beautiful blue eyes…the serenity had returned, and so too did the calm. Even Belldandy seemed happier, as if she too, had been basking in the unholy light building within his very soul. With a kiss on his cheek, she returned to her master, and took her perch.
That was another thing he pondered about, yet, he didn't say a word until that evening.
"Belldandy, when you named Holybell, did it ever worry you at all?" He asked, looking at the little black egg that rested on his chest.
With a soft smile, she considered that. "Well, not particularly."
"I didn't think so." He said, raising one arm behind his head to prop himself up a bit. "Doesn't it seem a little weird having someone else know every single detail about yourself?" He mused aloud. "Like, all of your memories, things you'd much rather forget…doesn't it feel odd to know at any moment, someone else knows?"
That was a very obscure question, but, Belldandy took it for what it was. "Quite frankly, as a goddess, I knew from a very young age that my angel would take part of my life in every single way." She offered him a tiny blush, at that. "Through all of the times in my life, including times like this, I knew she would be there." Part of her couldn't wait for Keiichi to hatch his counterpart within the next few hundred years, but she understood that he might have anxiety about it. "You shouldn't have anything to fear, but, if you are afraid…talk to Urd. She can help with that better than I can."
"I'm not afraid, just curious." He murmured then. "I wonder what type of things they experience, and how."
"Hmm." Belldandy hummed, as she snuggled deeper under the covers. "I can't say, I'm not an angel."
He shrugged a little, toying with a ticklish spot on Belldandy's back. "I never noticed it until recently, but every time I kiss you, I feel Holybell within you."
"Well, yes, you should. The more your power grows, the more you'll begin to understand her." She pushed some of her long fawn hair behind her ear. "You'll probably begin to feel her presence during other times too."
A bit shyly he looked away. "Tonight, I did…for a little while." When he met Belldandy's soft gaze again, he shook his head feeling silly. "Now though, I almost wonder where she is…it just feels a little empty, and I wondered why."
"It's about to rain. She's outside in the forest someplace right now, but I can see why you'd miss her." Belldandy said then, sitting up a bit as the blankets fell from around her form. "I don't know what it might be like for demons, but for a goddess like myself, I was acutely aware of it." She got up, padding over to the window to let the fresh air in. "When you were a mortal, I was very unsure about you. I was worried that you were simply giving into a mortal vice, whenever we made love." Even now, with her body bare before him, a shadow bathed in moonlight, he could see her returning to bed. "There was always a connection missing."
"How is she doing?" Keiichi asked genuinely concerned still.
"She's in higher spirits." Belldandy smiled when Keiichi covered her back up, and rolled onto his side to gaze at her. "Holybell began to get better when she was able to reach into your soul. Even if it doesn't yet have a voice, that power is something she can read, she can speak with you through it."
"That's good." He murmured. "Is that why I can hear her sometimes? Whenever you and I are close by, I sometimes hear a voice that's different from yours."
"Hm." Belldandy nodded. "As long as our physical forms are somehow touching, even if it's just by holding hands, you'll be able to hear what she has to say." Then she closed her eyes, humming a bit to herself, before continuing her line of thought. "However, because angels and devils are voices for our very souls, you'll only hear Holybell speak if she wants you to." With a bit of an off handed shrug she opened her eyes again. "Angels and devils are able to communicate and understand each other, without the physical forms of their masters actually touching. They have their own social structure too, just as you and I do."
"Isn't that kind of strange?" Keiichi asked then.
"Oh, not at all." Belldandy laughed. "Holybell and World of Elegance talk all the time. You'll learn quickly to tune it out when you hatch your devil."
"Um… isn't that an invasion of privacy?" Keiichi said then. "I don't really know if I'd want someone listening in on me all the time."
"If she really doesn't approve of me listening in, she'd just cut communication for a bit." Belldandy said, realizing all of this came natural to her, but for Keiichi, it didn't. "We choose not to, because we are so close…but there are some who like the idea of privacy. World of Elegance, for example, hardly leaves her communication open. Urd never hears what our angels gossip about."
"I'm afraid to ask." He said, rolling his eyes.
"It's all part of being a goddess. When you have your devil, it'll be easier to understand." She leaned up to kiss him. Her fingers threading through his short, messy tresses. She could feel callouses on his fingertips as they caressed her cheek and she could also bask in his comforting unholy light, emanating from within.
He might have been a demon, but, she melted into his embrace anyway.