Deathly chills ran along his prickly skin, the trembling sparks - that zapped along his struggling form - coerced the crackling fuzz that permeated the calmness of his mind into a painful ache. His scraped fingers dug into the wounded stone, as his body bled along the rough texture. Skull ablaze with attention deceiving rumbles, he still exacted the dreadful thoughts into one focus. 'Get... up!' he inwardly demanded, mashing his hands against the ruined cobble as his muscles screamed with exertion. Sarid understood his predicament perfectly, his momentary distraction got them out safely; but now the injury boring deep into his side seared with a dreadful vengeance. Despite this, he slammed his palm into the burn and wrenched himself up with an afflicted cry.

The crisp winds scratched at his string chest that only adorned a tight charcoal shirt; vest having been reduced to ashes as nature pulled coldly at his burning wounds. He levelled his eyes across the blinding horizon, the sight of a great looming shadow molded by the sun a small part in his far-seeing gaze. Sarid could barely figure the devilish expanded wings upon the orb of fire that settled along the sea, his chance at escape funneled right through his fingers.

"He's alone! We can take him alive," a far off voice resounded from the man's side. Heaving a dreadful sigh, the half-malak hobbled around upon his weakened heel, and glared at the surrounding noble uniforms. Steel of sliver and accented auric lined upon his sight, soon seeking to surround him as their repetitive clanking of metal alerted him of their intention. Sarid's lidded eyes bespoke exhausted irritation, and his charred gloves stretched and ripped along the tightening of fists.

Cautiously, the exorcists circled him with poised spear tips and gilded blades, their proud mark billowing with pride in the howl of the weakened Vortigen. Lightning coursed up and down his body, the aurous light flashing darkened hues among his ruffled strands and harsh expression. With a dry chuckle, the half-malak swiped the leaking of ivory that slipped past his locked lips; arteries pumping with comfortable but fiery blood that flared under the veil of his steaming skin. "...I'm... not failing now," he coughed out. His fingers flickered as the brilliant electricity coiled around them, until the familiar daggered weapon shape materialised in his palm; vanishing from its scattered position across the ridge. "Sandā!" he shouted out with the force of a storm and crashing of thunder. As he did so, the blade in his hand spun around his finger and crackled violently with lightning.

The tweeting of a thousand birds echoed out as the vitality of Rajin invigorated its valiant act of defiance, the imbued blade screaming as it sailed into the ground. Arcing golden waves that burst from the very soul clambered out of the stone like paralysing vines, splitting the formidable material with the grace of a prowling panther; leaping from side to side as its bolts lashed out and burrowed into the bodies of who opposed. An intense spike of discomfort snapping across their nervous systems, the Abbey's forces halted their advancement and siezed up with scream of pain.

Unwilling to give in, the man sharply inhaled as he sprinted feverishly, reeling a quick knife into the throat of a stunned foe that unfortunately barred his way. Crimson spurted out harshly as Sarid ripped his weapon forth and past the strangulated husk, and set his eyes upon the best target for survival. The straining fizzle of unease scraping his skin, the abnormal nothingness overcoming the pit of emotion burrowed deep within; the sheering winds wailing at the empty space he fell through as the half-breed leapt from the crumbling ridge. The abrupt weightlessness of unfeeling air dragged him down like tentacles towards the dredging depths of lapping cerulean. Closer, closer, closer. A natural abyss marred in enveloping blue, whisked by the dredges of brushed ink.

SPLASH!

~~~

"Arise, warrior."

He awoke. The gentle pattering of droplets overhead cast down his skin, and he lent up with a far-off gaze transcending the plain he found himself in. Steadily twisting clouds of puffed white sailed overhead, erupting to let loose their liquid armaments upon the endless azure. Yes, as far as the eye could see, was the peaceful and dainty sway of silky teal waters upon the gleaming horizon. While the rain still cried from above, it was weightless and aromatic; its presence soothing and mark temporary. High above, was the waiting visage of the milk white moon, its lunar presence all-consuming as its celestial weight bore down upon the irregularity that permeated his mind.

Sarid hummed a dry chuckle, his cerulean orbs reflecting the full snowy marble as he stared. A dripping softness held his hand as he pushed up from the abnormal floor, its pearly shine huing his image upon the ocean surface he stood upon. His steps were flowing, trailing above the very depths that were meant to swallow him. And so he couldn't help but wander, was this a dream? Even still, while the rays of moonlight were vibrant and piercing, they were similarly ghostly and heavenly. The breeze was soft, sweeping across his torn chest that ached no longer; stroking along his bristling strands like a mother's touch. Content, the man couldn't help but let the wave serenely wash over him. Unfortunately, his time of peace was brief; the rasping repetition of heel clicking over water approaching his steeled position.

The half-malak turned, his senses completely unable to detect the presence that appeared so suddenly. However, all his sharp sight could grasp was the flapping of flourishing pastel cloth before he was doused in darkness. Up in the flooded sky, the moon had vanished as if turned off like a bulb. Swiftly, Sarid's palm dashed to rip his blade from his pouch and take action. But it only felt empty encompassing air.

Click, click, click...

Her steps echoed around him like the ticking of a clock, almost arbitrary in their placement. But, as they continued to surround him like a hunting predator, Sarid was calm within. Eyes as cold as ice and sharpened for any sign of movement. They stopped. The rustle of the ocean sang to his ears, pleasant gales swooping along the void space. The half-malak's body was stone still, senses working deep within the atmosphere as he assessed his surroundings. Until, a flash of violet orbs, and...

"Who are you, Sarid Barloc?" Her voice rang out like a bell, causing the vast expanse to rumble as if struck by thunder. The air crackled and snapped; heat building along its crisp winds that siphoned the serenity.

The half-malak shook as his head writhed with a pumping mallet, smashing against his skull as he stumbled back in agony. Before, a warm feeling brushed across his back like a chilling sweep of fingernails, steadying his steps as the heat enclosed upon him like a folding flower. The sensation was abnormal, scratching across his back and ivory skin like gentle fingernails. Miraculously, the pounding discomfort that bombarded his skull dissipated gradually as he was enraptured by this overcoming - almost magical - feeling. Sarid's alertness faded, and from inside his chest spouted a blossoming cinder growing slowly in intensity.

"Or should I say, Sarid Hirawa?" the mature tone relayed in disconnected abundance; a pin drop in the silent seas.

His cerulean irises snapped open, and the subduing embrace vanished instantly. As it did so, waves raged, storm bellowing like an uncaged animal. And, the glistening, gorgeous depths yawned as it swallowed him whole.

Darkness again. The great force that washed over him passed no moisture, just a dazing change in scenery. And right now, he stared down a the very abyss that remained. No moon, no ocean, no figure. Only emptiness in a convulsing blight. "Half-malakhim... half-human..." the disembodied voice drawled throughout the welled up blackness. "Survivor... warrior... traitor..." It gravely announced at the very back of his cerebellum; shaking his soul. "...or saviour?" The tone suddenly simmered out into a gentle, almost caring tone, wracked with sympathy.

The weight of the quaking gorge placed immense pressure upon his composure, seemingly gnawing at the embers of his benevolence. "I am no traitor," he stated slowly to the watching darkness. "I just want everyone to live."

"By aiding the very being that will bring about their end?"

Sarid did not respond.

"If you claim to be this world's saviour, then do so," the voice mysteriously relayed, its very octave bouncing along the surface of his reality. In the gaping abyss, did the blighted veil shift with a sparkle of gold; tendrils of coiling miasma seeping across the visage of his manipulated mind. Until, the sickly remembrance emerged from the suffocating ocean as a vile crimson bloomed upon his face in the supposed night sky. That figure, amassed with the smothering cloak of blighted darkness as her shadowy mane trailed down the open back untamed. The distinct vermillion pulsation of a revealed horrid limb that hung at her side with egregious shaking. Those disgusting dark veins of daemonic energy trailing along her paled cheeks with expression-stealing intent; etched along like embroidered scars. Hollow gold boring through him, wisps of manic purpose pulling at their sunken pupils as if a great pit to pull him in.

The Lord of Calamity stared at him grimly, lifeless but threatening as she stood poised and frozen. A statue of brimming darkness.

A weight materialised upon his still palms, the crackling sting already announcing its presence as the handle was tightened among his fingers. Purposefully, the blade lay daggered in his hold as he stared down the monster without a single movement. Sarid knew exactly was before him. But, what reigned his hesitation to noose this neck was the feelings of a life past, clashing with one's of a new. Even as her hazel orbs looked on deathly faded, they were still her eyes. The blade, the figure, the clothes, the hair... the claw. All key elements of the Velvet Crowe who remained a perpetual mystery among his clouded emotion. The Lord of Calamity was who glared down at him, with a familiar aura of the cold but gradually warming daemon he had grown accustomed to.

Suddenly, the light scratching of an abnormally soothing sensation tingled up his neck as his body seized up. Even through the subconscious melding of emotion running inside, his cerulean irises snapped to the side to catch a glimpse of what or who had begun to affect him this way. All the acute vision could snatch, was the brisk movement of a pale hand trailing their nails along his frozen neck. No matter how Sarid strained his vision, he could not confront the perpetrator that continued to warmly caress his shoulders. A presence leaned close, the wry scent of lavender filling his nostrils as a euphonious voice seemed to whisper into his ears from the nothingness. "Prove where you stand," the mature voice softly demanded, the order harsh but with no malicious intent dripping from a slivery tongue, but still the half-malak grit his teeth and rose his kunai to bear.

In the berth of the gleaming blight, under a smiling gaze of the sadistic moon did Sarid approach the still figure; purpose muddled in a sea of anonymous fate while the edge drew close. He peered deep into the eyes of the horrid manifestation, and Velvet's eyes did not blink as he swung the knife right towards her neck.

"Velvet helped me." A voice permeated the haze of guilt-ridden confusion.

Clatter...

The daemonic remake stood unharmed in the void's silent whistle, the assumed weapon to deal the symbolic blow having been thrown to clatter across weightless black. A shaky sigh slipped out from the mouth of the half-breed, wallowing in the shame of failing under the watchful eye of the Empyrean's. Sarid's skin prickled, and cerulean orbs settled with a slump of his shoulders. "...I can't harm another who's broken," he admitted with a faint growl of irritation at his supposed weakness, staring deeply at the ivory skin under his clenched gloves.

Sarid could feel the dark shift once again, and the same light voice hummed a faint flowing laugh that bespoke a hint of relief under the scape's closing curtains. "Good," the feminine voice asserted with a sounding smile. "Failure is not fatal, and success is not final." The passing words vibrated across the air as if wrought from a mouth aflame, stoking the cinders that writhed in the depths of his heart. From under his feet did the once solid smog collapse, sending the half-malak falling incessantly into the never-ending depths. "If saving the world is what you seek; then save it," the voice resounded along the howling rush of winds sweeping his snowy strands.

"Laphi! Arthur!" A familiar sound echoed among the natural chaos, and Sarid's eyes shot open in immediate realisation. Flashes of a view flickered along the cone of his vision, the same crimson sight he so sorely detested across dilapidated ruins and swaying flora.

From all around, the same light mature voice kept its mind-bending speech across the endless pit. "Even when one path remains, do not be afraid of stepping off and finding your own way," it softly relayed; piercing the loud cacophony of disruption and directly registering inside his head.

"Velvet! Run!" Sarid could see it all reel by like film, the desperate cries of a sister's hopeless anguish and confusion and pain. The cold and unfeeling exorcist that so easily ripped away a life of growth and love, embers of betrayal trailing from his heart in the wake of the blade that pierced her brother's chest. Pungent, he could somehow smell the innocent vermillion that splashed upon the fresh green, and saw the horrified disbelief etch upon Velvet's features like permanent engraving. The searing flesh that bubbled and burned upon her wrists popped and hissed and she aggressively writhed against the ground; soon leaping up and sprinting after the unfortunate boy.

"Assuming that the monster was always a monster, is a short-sighted endeavour destined to leave humanity pale and unknowing."

Sarid's ivory skin began to grow hotter and hotter, ominous marks splitting its way across his once unblemished flesh like canyons of magma. The screaming winds spat and sparked along the displacement of flailing strands, carrying him further and further unto oblivion.

"Open your heart to it."

He could feel her shouting and shrieks ricochet across his eardrums, a repetitive drumming against his once fallible heart. The plummet sinking deeper into the very dregs of his lost self, embroidered with chains of responsibility. Sarid's form threatened to burst as he grit his teeth, the overwhelming wave of pumping heat coursing across his body like countless strikes of lightning. The light far above spoke to him once again, shining of a thousand suns overseeing his fall into the hands of truth.

"LAPHICET!!!"

It washed over him like serene realisation, breaking his bindings that bound him to the doubting of equal flesh.

"Awaken, one of Seraphim blood."

The swirling cinder erupted within his chest, blasting out a wave of volatile energy to pass over his surmountable skin as he yelled out in pain; the cracks of magma upon his body splitting violently while his cerulean orbs boiled wildly.

"I have been waiting."

Thud!