Second half of previous chapter, part two. Enjoy!

December 3-7, 2013

Man is the only animal that can remain on friendly terms with the victems he intends to eat until he eats them.

-A

Hazel's POV:

Smothering blackness eating me whole, devouring me into the shadows as I struggled on the metal table, the bright light above me covered by a hand with long black nails, mocking laughter ringing in my head as I was sucked further and further into nothing… I jerked upright with a gasp, my hands covering my chest as I panted, registering the dark red and brown of my room and realizing I was in Kage and Akuma's apartment, my breathing calming just a little as I swallowed once. Nightmare. A bad one. Nothing more. It didn't convince me, and I shakily slid out of bed, thinking that maybe Kage and Akuma had come back from their training –which they hadn't, even after DK had proceeded to get bored and start whooping me, even after dinner– as I walked down the hallway.

Not a single light was on, and I was working more from memory and stubbed my toe plenty of times, cursing and rubbing it in the dark as I continued on to the living room. I sighed with relief as I saw the couch, my eyes almost adjusted to the dark, walking over and about to collapse on it as I heard a voice. "Don't sit on me kid." I squeaked and jerked away, my heart rising in my mouth as I saw two faint glowing eyes, a soft chuckle alerting me to exactly who I had almost sat on. "What are you doing up?" I closed my mouth, about to ask him the same question, hearing him shift a little on the couch as I sat on the coffee table, realizing I hadn't seen a room for him, unless he shared with Kage or Akuma. "Bad dream." I muttered, and to my surprise he didn't laugh. "Mm. Well our compatriots aren't back yet, so we seem to be alone in our misery." he said drily, and I saw his eyes blink once.

They were glowing a faint but actually not that disturbing red-orange, a bit like molten copper but a little more….red. I could at least tell where his face was, which was a bit of a blessing in this wretched darkness. "So why are you up?" I asked, and I heard a rustle, as if he put his hands behind his head. "Can't sleep." I raised an eyebrow. "You get nightmares too?" He chuckled a little, and I saw his eyes close as he shook his head. "Nah, I can't sleep. Like, I find it physically impossible. One of the nastier side effects of being a demon I 'spose." he said absently, and I saw his eyes shift down, as if he was looking at his over-sharp nails. "Can you see in the dark?" The glowing orbs shifted to me, and I saw a faint sarcasm in them. "Okay yeah, I guess you can. Sorry about that." I muttered, and he looked back down.

"So squirt, let's get to know each other. Your name's Hazel, you're a cannon weapon, you have black hair and copper eyes. Build on that." he said with a sigh, and I gave what I thought to be him an incredulous glare. "Hey, you have to answer some questions too. I can't have you knowing everything about me when I know nothing about you." I said indignantly, and he closed his eyes. "Fine, but I get three passes. We'll switch off, you ask a question, I ask, you ask, etcetera. You first." I stared at him, and then shrugged in agreement. "Uh…how old are you?"

"Nine hundred and eighty seven. This particular incarnation, three weeks. How old are you?"

"Fourteen. What do you mean "this incarnation?"

"I've been in at least four forms, my original, when I died, when I got fused to Akuma, and my newest, this one. More if you count being re-demonized and all that. Why were you in that lab?"

"I don't know, sorry… What was your real name?"

"Pass. Do you have family that might be missing you back home?"

"Yeah…my Nana and my parents, but they might think I'm dead. What happened to your face?"

"Excuse me?" I saw him start in the darkness, sheepishly rubbing the back of my head as I traced down my cheek in illustration. "The scar on your cheek. If you're in a new incarnation, then that means you got it in your original form, since Akuma doesn't have a scar like that. What happened?" He was dead silent for a moment, and when he spoke, his voice was harsh for a reason I couldn't understand. I think it was anger…but it could've been fear? "Pass. And don't mention it again." I nodded quietly, looking at my hands as I heard a gusty sigh from his direction. "Aw geez…we make quite a pair, don't we?" I shrugged, blushing a little at the we. "Kage wants to scout out the area we found you in. If there's one thing Nightstalker are good at, it's sticking their noses in and squashing the potential competition. We may not eat babies, but not all the stories you hear are blown completely out of proportion." I paled.

The only story I knew that he must be referring to was "The Clan of 1,000", which was sort of a folk tale/campfire spook story in my hometown. Legend had it that many hundreds of years ago, a clan of humans started building power in our area and continued to build power until they challenged the Nightstalker in rule, almost a thousand and more in numbers. The Nightstalker said they would send a person to meet with the other clan's leader, and they did. The person was a single man, and he killed every last clan member, down to the babies in their cribs, at the supposed "meeting". The really scary part was that the Nightstalker supposedly missed some cousins that hadn't taken to the martial way, and that every so often someone in our area would disappear because the shadowy assassins had found another person of the tainted bloodline and killed them.

"Good hunt, that." I squeaked, my mind gone way back, looking in shock at DK, my eyes now totally adjusted to the night vision. He was staring at the ceiling, hands behind his head. A faint smile was playing around the corners of his mouth. "Huh?" He closed his eyes with the faint smile growing just a little. "That one clan. It was a good hunt." I swallowed hard. "You…you were there?!" He chuckled a little, closing his glowing eyes. "I was the one they sent to exterminate the clan. And the part about us still hunting them down is utter crap. I got every last one." His eyes opened as he said that last bit, grinning to himself. I stared at him, in shock that the instigator to one of my favorite campfire stories was sitting –laying– just a few feet away from me. He raised an eyebrow. "You wanna hear about it?" I gulped, then nodded weakly as his eyes swiveled back to the ceiling, grinning to himself still.

"Well let's see…about four hundred and fifty years ago, the Nightstalker got wind that an ambitious little mud-roller wanted to be top dog and was gathering his own clan of thugs. They couldn't have that, so I was summoned lickety-split. They didn't like summoning my sister. She always tried to twist things around to her advantage, and she was never one for something this lowly. So I was dragged out of my own little pocket of afterlife, coming into this world with the scent of blood fresh in my nose. Sacrificed a goat, don't cha know. I came out right on top of its corpse, and the first thing I remember was the sensation of heat from its dying body, and the reek of freshly spilled blood hot and coppery as it swilled around the temple, the sound of its dying bleat crashing into my eardrums as I formed out of nothing." I wanted to flee in revulsion, but I couldn't move, too caught up in the story.

"It was pretty simple what they wanted. I was to go to the clan leader, have a short chat with him, and then kill every person related to him or in his little clan of "assassins". I didn't argue. I didn't care why they wanted the humans dead; I didn't care about killing them, I was just glad to be free of the dead zone I was trapped in. That's what happens you know, when you are recruited as a demon into the Nightstalker. You're stuck in an abstract reality of their afterlife, where everything's grey and dead and flavorless. Nothing like this world. I was so glad to be out and free; it was almost like being reborn. So off I went, like a good little lapdog. I still remember the shape of the moon that night…" He raised a hand, squeezing it into a fist like he was grabbing the moon. "So bright and big and full. Harvest Moon on a summer's night." he chuckled in a murmur, lowering his hand again.

"I killed that leader first. It wasn't an assassination, I didn't care if I was caught or not. I broke his neck right in the middle of proceedings, right in front of half the clan's warriors and officials. He had been reaching to shake my hand, and I simply reached over and snapped the fragile bone like a little twig. Humans are so very delicate after all; it doesn't take much to silence you. The others were so stunned. Nobody said a word. Their faces…it was priceless. All the noise in the world narrowed down to the torches, crackling, crackling, and I thought to myself, why not make their bones crackle as well? So I did. I crushed in their skulls like little bird eggs, and I felt it as their brains collapsed and squelched together. I snapped their necks and broke their backs as they tried to run. It was so amusing…none of them, so-called "hardened assassins", tried to fight me. They all ran." he murmured, and I saw his eyes gleam brighter, the hair on the back of my neck prickling as the somewhat sarcastic but still at least friendly demon devolutionized, becoming something primal, hungry.

Evil.

"The weaker ones were next…all the warriors had fled or died. I found a blade somewhere, maybe I killed the owner, I don't know. It was sharp and long, and it could do the job. Do you know, little human, when bloodlust creeps in and everything around you is outlined in crimson, that if you trace a line just so with a blade-" I gulped as he lightly ran a finger diagonal across his throat. "- it spatters the rest of your vision in red, so it looks like the world is drowning in madness? I played with that image with the rest of the men, and some of the women, but eventually that grew boring and I switched to something else. Did you know too, that if you shove a knife just under here-" He suddenly put a finger under his chin and pushed it up in illustration, making me gulp again as I imagined a real blade doing that. "-that it seals the jaw shut? They can't scream because the blade locked their jaws together and cut their tongue, but most can't anyway, because the knife pierced their brain. I finished the rest of the females off that way, and some of the older children, but it was too much of a bother to do it to the younger ones. They're too close to the ground to bother." He examined his nails as he said this, yawning a little.

"So I merely snapped their necks as well. Crushed a few skulls, mostly the babies that took too much time to grab. So that's what happened. I killed every last one of them and painted the walls of their sanctuary in blood and ichor. Took off after the survivors in the dark and hunted them down one by one with the blade I found and my bare hands. Not a single one got away, and I made a stack of bodies on the front porch to show what my masters wanted, a warning to stay out of their hunting grounds. Walked off covered in blood, blade in hand, looking at the bright pretty moon. Well kid? You still not afraid of demons in the dark?" His voice lowered slightly at the end, his bright white smile fading slowly until he was staring at me evenly, his eyes calm and challenging as he raised a sardonic eyebrow. I quaveringly shook my head as he snorted. "Yeah right. I can see your fear, and my sister can smell it. I'm not stupid Hazel." His voice was almost disappointed, and I flushed, looking at my hands. "I'm…that isn't you."

He snorted again, sounding bitter. "I'm not some sparkly vampire that changes its instincts just because I like somebody. I am a demon and there's nothing that can change that, which means I do things you think are evil and enjoy them. I don't change." he said sharply, giving me a glare from his couch, and I shook my head again. "You have. Kage and Akuma trust you and see you as their friend, which means you at least have managed to control your self-restraint. If I'm gonna be your partner, then I have to trust you no matter what you've done before, so you can make me stronger without me being afraid of you. That's all there is to it." I said firmly, standing and brushing my pajamas out before nodding to where he was and walking back to my room. His voice stopped me as soon as I reached the hallway, and I looked back at him. "Yo squirt, if you have another nightmare, tell Kage. She can manipulate it out of your system." I blinked at this generous statement, then nodded slightly. "Yeah…'night."

"Night squirt."

DK's POV:

I sighed, folding my arms behind my head and staring up at the ceiling as my mind drifted randomly, many new thoughts stirred up by my half-pint partner. It had been a while since anyone took a nice long reminiscence from me without A) Upchucking everything on the spot, B) Running for a bathroom or hiding place, or C) Becoming terrified of me for the rest of their life. Hazel had grinned and bore it, so to speak. I closed my eyes with a smirk. Not bad kid…not bad at all. You've got guts. Not much survival instinct or sanity, but guts. I sighed, opening my eyes wearily. Damn… I didn't feel tired, but it still seemed proper to sleep right now. But I couldn't. I literally couldn't. I had tried every night since Stein and Kage had worked together to give me my own body, and so far I hadn't gotten so much as the metaphorical wink.

"Damudorakkī ningen…" I grumbled, sitting up slowly as I worked the kinks out of my relaxed muscles. I slouched off the couch, walking silently down the hallway and opening Hazel's door, seeing her sprawled on her back in the bed, mouth open and drool dangling out of her mouth as her fingers twitched, upper body hanging perilously off the edge of the mattress as I chuckled. Then again, humans seem to have such stupid expressions in their sleep, I 'spose its nice not to chance looking like that. I thought wryly, closing the door again and walking to Kage's room across the hall, placing my palm flat against it and sending out a question to Salem, sleeping on her chair. A feline hiss greeted me, and a warning slash at the bottom of the door made me roll my eyes and step away, smirking. Animals and I had an understanding. They don't let me within five feet of them and I don't make the attempt.

We don't get along very well.

Another demon thing.

The more important occurrence was that I didn't hear Kage get up to sooth the snarling ball of fluff, so she wasn't home yet either. And… A soft knock on Akuma's door showed he was not in the residence either, or at least his bedroom. It wasn't very likely with those two to have one without the other, but in this line of business you took unlikely and added a pinch of salt for breakfast. A silent and quick mental look-over for the rest of the apartment confirmed my guess; Kage and her brother were still out doing whatever. I hadn't used the mental sweep on their rooms because I was pretty sure, had they actually been in them, they would've awoken into a full battle-high mode and once put down from that, would be extremely grumpy from being woken, two conditions that must be avoided at all costs. Trust me. It was more perilous to your health to have them grumpy from being awakened than to have them running at you in full "ALL MUST DIE" battle rage.

I continued to aimlessly wander through the apartment, picking up things, turning them over and over in my hands, then putting them back and staring out the window. When you don't need to sleep, or even eat, it adds a surprising amount of hours to your "day". On the plus side, this meant Kage and Akuma didn't need to invest in an extremely exhausting and vigorous alarm spell with yours truly over here, all wide awake and ready to guard. On the down side…I was bored out of my tiny demonic mind. I wandered into the bathroom, tracing one sharp nail across the faucet and turning it on, taking a couple slurps of the tasteless water. I glanced up, lifting one hand against the mirror to feel the cold as I stared at the hair-thin line that went from a little to the left of the corner of my mouth and traced up, hitting the opposite corner of my eye and continuing into my hairline, a long grey slash against my right cheek. It's still there…

An involuntary shudder racked my body, and I growled softly my thumb putting pressure on the glass beneath my nail as my muscles tensed. It is nothing. That life is nothing. I was nothing. I thought shakily, drawing in a long breath through my nose as I closed my glowing eyes, forcing myself to relax. Of course, that's what you'd like to think, isn't it…Gekido. "Jigoku?!" I whispered, snapping my head back up as I stared at the mirror, the glass shimmering and warping as another version of myself flashed onto the surface, its eyes dead and white. Don't deny it. That is a scar that you cannot brush away. It said in an echoing tone, and I gritted my teeth, clenching my fist on the wall. "Shut the hell up and get out of our mirror Mr. serufushadō, before I break it into tiny shards." I snarled, and it laughed hollowly, like a banging pot.

Can't kill me! I'm part of your sanity and you can't risk getting rid of me! You're in enough trouble as it is! You haven't been taking care of your mind very well and its going to pieces! It sang happily, and I growled, tearing my eyes away from it and stalking out the door. "Go dunk your head in a pond and leave me alone." I snarled, slamming the bathroom door and stomping over to the couch and throwing my legs up, glaring angrily at the ceiling as I tried to cool down. Ordinarily anger invigorated me, but it also made me want more, and more, to destroy and pillage and cause more anger, and it generally was a very bad cycle to get into, one I tended to avoid if at all possible. You can't run away from it…life goes round and round like a merry-go-round… Hello annoying self-voice, how are you today? Can't take a hint? Great, I hadn't noticed. "Kutabare! GET OUT OF MY HEAD ALREADY!" I roared at the ceiling, shoving a pillow over my face to muffle the sound in retrospect as I groaned, not wanting to chance if Hazel was as snippy being awoken as Kage or Akuma.

Can't get it out can't get it out can't get it out can't get it out can't get it out! I snarled, forcing myself out of the world and irritably closing my eyes, irritated beyond belief at my inability to even fall asleep, hearing the voice chant and singsong practically in my ear for at least an hour before it started drifting away, much to my gratitude. I realized dimly that I was actually falling asleep, my heart leaping at the sensation as I smiled and sleepily turned over, my fingers tingling as I sent up a barrier around the entire apartment to ward off any incoming busybodies.

Running, running as fast as I could, my sister streaking ahead of me as blood fell thick and heavy from her chest, her eyes glazing and breath rattling from lack of her soul as I mentally cursed Asura, offering an arm as she took it and held on for dear life, hearing shouts and screams in the woods behind us. Also the sound of rockets, and a deep-voiced bellow accompanied by the shhiing of a swung blade that made us run faster, knowing the owner of both voice and blade. "Kutabare kutabare kutabare! C'mon run faster!" Kyōfu snarled, yanking her arm out of my grip and streaking forward as I followed, my heart pounding in my chest as she breathed in deeply, inhaling the scent of my fear and growing in strength as I tried to calm the throbbing organ in my chest.

It's okay it's okay he can't get us he can't get us it's okay-

SLAM.

I screamed as I was pinned to the ground by a blade, the tip impaling my shoulder and holding me down as more minions jumped my sister, many losing their lives to her whipping, strangling shadows, but more coming as the one of top of me yanked their blade out, then quickly sliced my other shoulder as I cried out in pain, my arms now practically useless until I ate some souls, and with the way things were turning out- "So then, it is you two. You are the filthy traitors that have sold so many lives to that despicable clan of assassins." The Reaper's voice boomed across the clearing, terrifying, awe-inspiring, and I hissed, writhing frantically under my captor as my sister was pinned down in a similar manner. "Yatte! Get off us!" Kyōfu spat, struggling harder and continuing to curse in Demonic as I bit my lip to hold in screams, the blade waggling dementedly in my should wound as if the human was enjoying my agony. I understood the sentiment, but I really didn't want to die here.

Really.

Didn't.

Want.

To.

"DIE DEMONIC SCUM!" I screamed, struggling violently against the foot on my back and the blade transfixing my shoulder as my sister grinned up at the Reaper, roaring the words in his awful voice and swinging the black as night blade past his shoulder, then cleaving it down in a long stroke as I wrenched free of the blade, my left arm bleeding heavily as I scrambled forward, trying to stop this. The human caught me again however, under the arms, as the Reaper paused, looking at me impatiently. "We just wanted to live! Why couldn't we live! Stop it! Leave her alone! She's my sister! She's the only one I have! Stop it! STOP IT!" I screamed as the blade flashed down. I collapsed on my knees, blood spattering the night sky as I stared numbly up at the Reaper, tears starting to pour down my face and mix pink with the blood already there as I started crying. He wrenched the bloody metal free of her face as the person behind me let go, moved back, my weak legs buckling to the ground as I stared up at him.

"Please…leave me alone…I don't want to die…" I whispered, crawling backwards on my hands as he approached, my own sister's blood dripping off my face with the dried blood from the meisters and witches and weapons that was being soaked by my tears. "I don't want to die! Leave me alone! I don't want to die! Stop it! Please!" I screamed in panic as he ponderously lifted the blade again, and I saw the flat gleam of black beneath his mask as he paused and stared at me again. "So then why did you kill?" I froze, staring up at him like a cornered animal as he grunted and raised the scythe again, a single last tear falling from my eyes. "We just…"

SLASH.

We just didn't want to be like our parents…

Wet hot blood.

Bone smashing in.

Air humid and ground damp.

Convulsing limbs that grew weaker and slower in their movements.

Blackness everywhere, everything black, all but the red filling my eyes and soaking my hair…

I jolted upright with a gasp, my heart hammering almost painfully in my chest as I stared at the far wall, my eyes huge as I felt the sweat soaking my hair and clothes like blood had done so long ago, the memory so strong I could taste my death, all over again. I gingerly felt for my face, letting out a shuddering breath as I felt the thin line that the cut represented, sucking in air slowly and shakily as I reminded myself my skull was intact, I was not dying, and it was most certainly not blood that dampened my skin and hair. I'm fine…I'm fine…I'm fine. I mentally growled to myself, inhaling once more before I thought my respiratory system would work on its own, standing to do something. Anything. Eat. Drink. Use the bathroom. Something to remind myself I was still alive.

Maybe sleeping was something I could continue to do without, at least until I got Kage to purge my bad dreams.

* Damudorakkī ningen- Damned lucky humans.

I'm just gonna have this be like the demon's natural language or whatever, because one it sounds cool and two I'm gonna need that for reasons I shall explain later, 'cause I'm a jerk. X3 I'm also gonna put the translations down here, so it seems more like a foreign language.

* Jigoku -The hell?!

* serufushadō -shadow-self, more or less

* Kutabare -Extremely naughty demon word that I cannot translate for a T-rated story.

*Yatte- 'nother naughty demon word, but not as bad as kutabare.

Anyway…is that better? Less black forward/afterward and more writing? I'm tired, so I'm a' posting these and taking a break from Soul Eater for at least a day! *whew* Yeah…Review and whatever, I'm too wiped from this much writing to say even that. Auf Wedersien!

4.09 PM USA Central Time