Song playlist: Buy the Stars by Mariana and the Diamonds

Chapter 13

Conviction

/kənˈvɪkʃ(ə)n/

1. the act of convincing [appearing worthy of belief; plausible]

2. a fixed or firmly held opinion, belief etc

This time he was dreaming of being perched on a cliff face, like a bird teetering on a delicate string. The stone itself held sheen of silver creating a soft glow. But even with its gentle light nothing could be seen below the cliff except for a pitch black darkness.

Like always, Yuu was pressed against his side.

"Woah!" Yuu yelped as he came to his bearings and looked down. He hastily scooted back a little and crossed his legs. "That's a scary height man. Can't even see if there's a bottom."

"It doesn't scare me," Mika mused, legs dangling callously at the edge. "Jumping down doesn't seem that bad an idea."

"Why the fuck would you jump?" Yuu asked in bewilderment. "Is this one of those 'if someone told you to jump would you do it' things?"

"Of course I wouldn't jump if someone told me to," Mika seemed almost offended at the notion. "I'm not stupid. But if it was for you…I would jump without hesitation."

Yuu's face heated and he looked away. "Idiot. As if I'd ever ask you to jump and kill yourself. Well, kill yourself more as a ghost. Can ghosts even die twice? I haven't got a clue in hell how this ghosty business goes."

"Eloquent as ever Yuu," Mika snorted and Yuu punched him in the arm.

"Shut it."

Mika punched Yuu's arm back softly and they shared a smile. Above them a shooting star trailed across the night sky.

"Hey Yuu?"

"Mmm?"

"Are you really living with the Imperial Army?"

"Yeah, they found me after I got out of the bloodsuckers' city and took me in. I'm living with one of their guys now."

"Are you…happy with him?"

"What?" Yuu asked, a bit flustered. "No! I mean, yeah, I don't know. He's a jerk and stupid but he's not always bad, I guess.

"Yuu," Mika pressed, leaning closer. "You have to leave that army. Run away, get as far away as possible and don't look back."

"What?" Yuu repeated again blankly. "What the hell, why?!"

"Humans are greedy, Yuu. They'll deceive and hurt you. This Imperial Army, they're not the good guys. They experiment on people! They'll manipulate you and experiment on you and you have to get away before it's too late."

Yuu inhaled sharply and his eyebrows furrowed. He was quiet for a minute before asking, "Are you sure? How do you know?"

"I just do Yuu. Don't you trust me?"

"I trust you Mika." Yuu exhaled and looked up at the stars. "But I don't care. They can use me all they want. If it means I can fight vampires and get revenge for you, I'll do anything. I would jump off this cliff too for you, you know."

Mika opened his mouth but Yuu held a finger to Mika's lips and smiled at him. "Don't be such a hypocrite now Mika. I can look after myself. Don't you trust me?"

And Mika sighed roughly because really, how could he explain how Yuu's Eye made him a prime target for humans without bringing up the end of the world disaster?

"Besides, where would I go if I left the army? Everything is a wasteland out there full of monsters. It's a different world out there to what we dreamed of, Mika."

"That's true," Mika had to reluctantly agree. "You'll tell me if they try anything, right?"

"Sure, if you want."

Please tell me, Mika pleaded silently. I want you to be happy and safe from all the filthy humans who want to use you.

Another shooting star fell down, before fizzling out into silver star dust and floating down into their moonlit hair.

Mika's mind still felt fuzzy like leftover static. He blinked awake to a familiar set of velvet red curtains and four golden bedposts above him.

Krul Tepes was sitting next to his pillow in a chair, a stack of paperwork on the bedside table. She did not look amused.

"Well?" she asked after the silence had dragged on enough far beyond the point of uncomfortable. Comfortable was a million miles away and on hiatus. "What do you have to say for yourself?"

Mika sat up slowly like a prey cornered by a predator and brushed his unruly hair out of his face. He didn't have anything to apologise for when he did nothing wrong, is what he wanted to say. What he said instead was, "I apologise profusely for my behaviour, Your Majesty."

"Such lies," Krul hissed. Her unreadable facial expression was quite terrifying. "You don't feel even a minuscule of regret, you ungrateful wretch. Here I am, draping you in the lap of luxury and protection and this is how you repay me?"

"I didn't ask for this!" Mika shouted back before he could stop himself. He covered his hand with his mouth and looked away quickly. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to say that-"

"No," Krul said chillingly. "Carry on. I want to hear your explanation for all the trouble you've caused."

"No, I just spoke out of turn-"

"Speak."

Mika drew in a breath and clenched the thick quilt. "I…I'm not like your species. I was bought up as human and I'm still half human. And I don't know how it is with vampires, but if you keep me locked inside like this I'll go crazy. You're not protecting me- you're going to break me."

"So what would you suggest?" Krul looked like she was paying attention to what Mika was saying seriously. That was a good sign.

"Let me out. Let me join your army. Give me the means to defend myself from your enemies and from those who would try to steal me away from you."

"Nonsense," Krul shot down immediately. "Let you join my army? Ridiculous. Do you realise the danger you would be putting yourself into, child?"

"Do you realise how dangerous I am to myself if you keep me here?"

"No," Krul said deliberately. "I don't think I do. This is merely a childish temper tantrum. With time you will learn to accept your place."

"I see," Mika ducked his head. "So you don't understand."

"The one who doesn't understand is you. You will behave yourself, or else."

"I'll just have to make you understand then," Mika said with an unnatural calmness. "If you give me my freedom and enlist me in your army, I'll behave myself. No more escape attempts while I'm under your service. But if you don't accept this offer, I will never stop trying. And on top of that, I'll do this to myself every day- until the day you can no longer bring me back."

And then Mika slit his own throat with his elongated fingernails.

Gurgling on his own spurting blood, Mika last thought was that Krul's horrified face looked vindictively amusing.

As Mika slumped boneslessly, Krul reached out to hold him but her hand retreated quickly before it could touch his skin. Hot white sparks were jumping off his body as his flesh began to shimmer a silvery white sheen, exactly the same as the last time he had been injured severely.

It was no less incredible to watch the torn apart flesh knot itself back together, muscle joining itself in a seamless weave. The skin of his right hand gaped wide as the Eye of Michael rose to the surface, first as a pool of fresh blood which then solidified into its ruby like surface.

But unlike last time, runic symbols in an ancient unknown language began to form in a circle inside the Eye. They began as faint outlines that then glowed brighter and brighter until Krul was forced to cover her eyes.

When the light died down she jumped backwards out of her chair, not caring as it fell haphazardly on the door.

The boy named Mikaela Hyakuya was sitting upright on the blood soaked bed. There was a scary stillness to his poised posture, which radiated a grace far greater than any noble or monarch Krul had ever seen.

This was the aura of a being beyond all power.

"Michael," Krul whispered with a tremble.

Mika- no, Michael- lifted his head. His previously curly hair was alive with lightning, crackling and constantly shifting in its jagged snaps. The left side of his hair had fallen down to cover his face, leaving only his right burning red eye visible.

It was fixed dispassionately on Krul, as if she were less than an ant to him that was scurrying over his feet.

"You are due a discussion with me, proclaimed queen."

Mika was back in the floating dream of galaxies and space with the being of pure whiteness in front of him. Just like before the mysterious being picked a star out of the sky and held it to Mika's mouth. But the star was pulling itself away from Mika and fizzing unhappily.

The being gave a low sshhh that immediately calmed the star down. It bought it towards Mika again and this time when it touched Mika's lips, the star began to dim rapidly into a murky silver grey before it slid down Mika's throat.

It senses what you have turned into and resists.

"A vampire," Mika worked out dazedly.

A half-vampire. Thus the damage can be healed but not completely. Not yet.

The being was guiding Mika's fingers along his neck, along the knotted rope like flesh that ran along his throat. Its touch was electrifying yet soothing. Then it pulled Mika's hands down, against his own reluctance, to make Mika feel the shining scars that marked his arms.

Mika pulled his hands away and the being let him. He felt the natural instinct that if the being didn't want him to, he wouldn't have been able to move a single inch. It should have been scary the amount of power the being had.

"Don't. Please."

Actions have consequences. This is a lesson for you to learn.

But his scars were his weakness that Mika never wanted something as radiant and majestic as the being before him to ever see, let alone know about. He wanted to cover them up and hide.

Mika felt the being hold his hands again and instead of an impression of electricity, the fingers touching his were hardening into flesh. Looking back up, Mika saw a tall man looking back at him.

Every part of him was a single shade of white. Long white hair that was impeccably straight, save for the bolts of lightning that ran down periodically from his scalp to the very ends. White robes that flowed down from his chiseled shoulders to the floor like a waterfall. Even his skin was white in the truest sense as if it had been carved elegantly from a piece of ivory or marble.

The man let Mika stare at him with no embarrassment or impatience. His facial expression was so smooth that there was no doubt he could not be human.

When he saw Mika was done, the man said in a voice that made Mika tingle, "I believe you've deduced who I am."

"You're…you're Michael," Mika whispered. "I didn't know you could look like a human."

"I have found my beholders favour this form of mine," Michael inclined his head.

"What did you mean you can't heal the damage yet?" Mika asked hesitantly. This was Michael, the deity of unimaginable might who could probably smite Mika without even lifting a finger.

"I would not harm my beholder," Michael corrected, the electric tingle rising in his voice and making goose bumps shiver across Mika's skin. There was a pause. "My apologies. This form can be hard to contain my power sufficiently. One of the terms of our sacrifice was to limit our power when our beholders are in their infancy. Thus the power you can access from me will increase gradually with age."

Michael watched Mika rub his arms before adding mildly, "But I believe you do not feel ready yet regardless to heal these scars."

Mika dropped his arms and didn't know what to say.

"Time can be the best healer of all wounds, physical…or emotional," Michael carried on with a sharpness of insight that Mika wished he didn't have to face. "Let me ask you now- you knew the truth behind your dreams with Yuichirou, did you not?"

"…Yes," Mika confessed. "I knew. From the very first dream, I'd begun to suspect Yuu wasn't just a figment of my imagination."

"Why did you not tell him?"

"Because…I don't want to say. Don't make me say it."

"This is not for my benefit Mikaela," came the not unkind reply. "I already know the truths in your heart better than you do."

"Then why are you asking me?"

"Because you must admit them to yourself if you wish to progress. Denial will only hold you back."

Mika shuddered and said very quietly, "Because I didn't want him to know. Because then he'd find out how I've been living as a collared pet. Because I became the very creature he hates the most and I couldn't- couldn't bear knowing Yuu hates me."

Michael wrapped his lean arms around Mika, wiping away the tears that had begun to run down his face. He placed a kiss on Mika's forehead with a jolting warmth and murmured, "Thank you, for baring your soul to me. You will find when you awaken the vampire queen amendable to agreement to your offer."

"You talked to her," Mika realised. "What did you say to make her change her mind?"

"She is not stubborn to the point of illogic. Even she would prefer you in her army rather than suicidal. She would also prefer you awake rather than in a magic induced coma from me for the rest of your life."

"You threatened her with putting me in a coma?"

"If you continue your destructive behaviour to yourself, certainly," Michael confirmed nonchalantly, as if he threatened to put people into life long comas every day. Deities really were on a whole other level to human thinking. It was frightening and yet here he was in Michael's embrace.

"I would never harm my beholder," Michael repeated again firmly. He let Mika go and the stars around them began to spin in circles faster and faster. "One last heart truth before you awaken. Why do you wish to join the queen's army? What is your conviction?"

Mika found this truth much easier to say aloud.

"Because I'm going to become an elite fighter, join the frontlines and find Yuu."

Mika looked back with a fierce spark in his eyes, a new flame to his previously dulled eyes.

"And then I will definitely save him."

Author's notes: You know, you can just ignore my description of Michael and think "super super hot guy, but like a greek god level of hot" ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

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