Cross Effects > Areas
The Great Southern Sea
Kotomine_Rin:
Mael
His hand grasped Aruna's warmly. For a moment, it felt kind. It felt right, to connect with someone. But the truth was that Aruna had rejected him from the start, just as he rejected her.
"No. I'm afraid I have never seen more clearly, the one who has gone mad is you."
Now that they were so close, she could tell he was wounded. Slashes and stabs were littered on his gut and liver. He wiped a tear off her face. At that moment, she could see his face. A pallid, beautiful thing - neither demonic nor angelic. Aruna wanted to uphold a balance between two impossible ideals. In a way, that was beautiful.
"The word believe is a curse that crushes people. What you believed was your own selfish ideal, nothing more. You forced that on me, and now you're thinking that I betrayed you, right? But it was you. This light was your wish all along. Foolishness. Allowing it to fester this long was my sin."
He threw it away. Her feelings, her wish, and her body - further away. Away from him, at the very edge of the vehicle. A clang bounced next to her, the familiar sound of metal against metal. A dagger had been tossed her way.
"Commit suicide. It was for my sake that you took that thing, no? Then dying shouldn't be a big deal."
yinsukin:
Aruna
Commit suicide.
Aruna rubbed her face with one hand and caught the dagger with the other. Blood streamed from her lips, mixing with the stream of tears. She hadn't registered the blow before, so commited to her other strike that she didn't register the attack until it was far past dealing damage. The shock from the strike evolved into a stinging pain. On her dainty fingertips resided some bloodstained tears. "No... I just those words... you know what they mean to me so you saying them has an unheavenly cruelness to them..."
The chains that formed the cage began to slink back into the portal above them, the cage itself slowly being unraveled. Now holding the small dagger with two hands, she could feel the sharpness of the blade against her neck just from staring at it. Every slash from a human, demon or angel flashed through her mind. She could make a confession within her own mind related to the pain of living, but the pain of the blade crossing her neck and throwing her into the unknown of death its.... not something she was quite ready for.
Aruna sat on her legs, taking a classical seiza position regardless. "I.... You can't betray me because... I never let myself trust you to begin with... the angels. I could never trust them truly. I just... wanted to honor your life after your death.... I thought... maybe if I carried your burden and took away the burdens of others. Maybe I could prevent another tragedy like yours..."
Speaking was hard. Aruna's voice kept trailing off. Her soft eyes could not bare to look into his. The demon held the hilt of his knife in one hand, and the shining blade of light in the other. For a moment, she held the knife to her throat and stared up at Mael. "Why... do you want me to die?"
Kotomine_Rin:
Mael
"I don't."
It was a simple answer. Maybe, a cruel answer. But it was certainly true. As he slowly stepped forward, the anger and spite he held back in his throat escaped his words, one by one. "I don't hate you, Aruna. But you took that thing into yourself, that detestable light that took everything from me. That light that empowers Him and His accursed balance!" His teeth grit, his eyes narrowed with every sliver of hesitation utterly cleaved away from them. He had suffered defeat after defeat, even as his body was breaking down, he still had a war to finish.
Until then, the cries and curses wouldn't quiet down.
"Do you have any idea what it's like? Being trapped in your own head, forced to watch as your body cuts down your friends and comrades, licking the feet of your enemy and disgracing everything you held dear? And for what? My body and soul were used and chained and stripped of every freedom imaginable. Now, I have no home to come back to, no family to hold dear - only a blade and an enemy to point it at! If I could make the one responsible feel even one-thousandth of that pain and humiliation..."
A pilfered sword stretched out, his wing screaming for release as he pointed it to the side.
"It wouldn't do anything. I don't wish your death, but all grace holders must die. It's the only way to ensure He can't turn someone else into a monster like me."
The darkness unfolded, revealing the man fully. Crimson lines meshed with blue, like that vehicle, as if he were some kind of machine that belonged neither to the dark nor the light. Surrounded by the storm, he had only one thing left to say.
"What is your choice. Will you fight, or will you perish like a dog?"
yinsukin:
Aruna
The waves had finally calmed, the roaring tides. The chain that caged them together was completely gone now, nothing keeping them from separating anymore. Aruna stayed in her position, sitting on her knees, knife still to her throat. The tears continued to fall.
"I've spent hundreds of years going back and forth between trusting humans, being burned by the denizens of the light. The angel's want me dead, just being alive is a sin to them. I am something that should be cleansed from the world. To the humans a monster to overcome. I'm not the oldest demon, but i've been doing this for long enough that i'm sick of it! I'm sick of the hatred, sick of the fighting."
Aruna's voice broke.
"I just... I thought maybe we could be better than that. I thought we could have a relationship that wasn't built on that hatred. Asmeal... I don't want to fight you."
The truth was, he was too strong. She might be able to beat him if she went all out, pushed herself beyond her limits and was willing to kill him. However, that moment before, she couldn't do it. There was no way that she could kill Asmeal. Doing so would mean the death of that hope. There was the option of subduing him without killing him but he was far too powerful. Maybe she could..
"The graces," she said, finally looking into his eyes. "I can take the graces from people. The balance, it doesn't have to be god's. We can find a new balance."
Kotomine_Rin:
Mael
Mael's rage calmed, and for a moment... he smiled. Was this pride?
"You've grown arrogant. But wishes without strength are worthless." He advanced, sword in hand, his will blackened along with the rage that sought to end Aruna's adventure. His face darkened, and he acknowledged a single fact.
She was stronger. Far stronger.
"Show me what you've got."
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