Sakura and Shirou
As they continued their peaceful walk, they suddenly heard a loud yell, from what sounded like a combination of Sakura and her sister. Shocked and confused, the two of them looked in the direction of the sound, only to see a girl who looked like a white-haired version of Sakura, complete with a red ribbon tied to her hair. Now totally bemused, they stared at her for a few moments, wondering what was going on, until Sakura noticed a sudden surge of mana eminiating from the girl.
"Senpai, watch out!" she shouted. "She's going to attack us!"
"Vertraute Schatten einsetzen!" she shouted, generating a shadow familiar and sending it to stand in front of them protectively.
"Wiederholen!" she continued, generating another.
Shirou, meanwhile, summoned up his usual swords. Having learnt from past experience that they could come under attack at any time, both of them were wearing body armour underneath their clothes, which they used their magic to reinforce. However, they had not brought along much of their weaponry, so if they were going to fight, it would have to be with their magic.
However, despite summoning up his swords, Shirou had no real desire to fight, at least until he knew what was going on.
"I'm going to talk to her", he said to Sakura as he walked towards the girl.
Sakura, not wanting to leave him unprotected, sent one of her shadow giants in front of him, keeping him protected from attacks.
"Erschaffe Hornissenschwarm!" Sakura shouted, and a swarm of hornets began to form behind her as she too walked towards their unusual opponent. "Mehr! Mehr!"
Shirou, meanwhile, continued forward. But, as the girl began to chant, he began to feel really weird. His head began to throb, a weird feeling assailling him as he heard the unexpectedly-familiar chant.
Sakura
Sakura had no interest in talking to either of them, really. She fully acknowledged how stupid and foolish this assault was. She just didn't care about that right now.
She felt betrayed by the world, and she needed to vent out her feelings on something, someone. She felt like she was going to explode if she didn't do something.
And she'd rather vent it out on these two sickening lovebirds than her sister.
So, shadows wrapped themselves around her body tro provide some protection, reinforcing her skin to be as tough as iron. Her own hornets came back to protect her, but with a thought, she directed them towards the other her. The bugs buzzed loudly as they shit towards Sakura, mandibles outstretched, ready to tear into her.
Sakura frowned at this version of her lover, hatred boiling up inside of her. "How, why, how dare!" She yelled at him, choking down her own sorrow.
"Steel is my body, and fire is my blood." The image of a great noble phantasm began to materialize in front of Shirou's eyes, before it crystalized into an immediately recognizable form. The holy sword, gram, materialized in her hand, and she charged forwards with vengence in her eyes.
Shirou
Shirou reacted to the alternate Sakura's attack instinctively, parrying it with his own swords before jumping backwards and throwing the two swords in the girl's direction, his head still throbbing. Noticing the shadow beneath her feet and wary of what she might be able to do with it, he was careful to keep his distance.
"Sakura, stop!" he shouted. "You don't need to do this!"
Sakura
Sakura, meanwhile, watched the girl with anger and determination.
"Angriff!" she shouted, sending her swarm of hornets towards the girl, intending to have them use their tranquilising ability to send her to sleep.
Then, in co-ordination with Shirou's attack, Sakura made one of her own.
"Erstelle Schattenball!" she shouted, pointing in the girl's direction. "Und anderer!"
In response, a blob of shadow appeared just behind and to the side of the girl, out of her sight, followed by another on the opposite side.
"Aufspießen!"
With that, several spikes shot out from the two balls of shadow, intending to pierce the girl from behind just as Shirou's swords approached her from in front.
Sakura
Sakura felt the immesurable skills of the great hero sigurd channeling through her as she trivially deflected the two swords that had been thrown at her. She at once felt extrodinarily nostalgic, extreme longing, and a sickening feeling that sank into her gut at once. Tasting bile in her mouth, she burst forward towards Shirou, dodging the shadows behind her and closing the distance with what seemed like a single step. She smacked him in the shoulder with the flat of her blade, hard enough to dislocate it and to break bones.
"Why shouldn't I, Senpai?" She seemed to be spitting out the word as if it were a distasteful, bitter pill she was being forced to swallow. An impossibly fast kick came hurtling at his gut.
Sakura
Sakura felt the immesurable skills of the great hero sigurd channeling through her as she trivially deflected the two swords that had been thrown at her. She at once felt extrodinarily nostalgic, extreme longing, and a sickening feeling that sank into her gut at once. Tasting bile in her mouth, she burst forward towards Shirou, dodging the shadows behind her and closing the distance with what seemed like a single step. She smacked him in the shoulder with the flat of her blade, hard enough to dislocate it and to break bones.
"Why shouldn't I, Senpai?" She seemed to be spitting out the word as if it were a distasteful, bitter pill she was being forced to swallow. An impossibly fast kick came hurtling at his gut.
Sakura and Shirou
Having fully expected the girl to deflect his rather simple attack, Shirou immediately traced another pair of swords. However, whilst he had not planned on his attack succeeding, he was not remotely prepared for what happened next. As soon as she'd dodged the swords, the girl launched herself at him. Somehow, he knew what she would do before it happened but, even so, he was unable to react in time, and the sword slammed directly into his shoulder, causing him to let out a scream of pain. Before he could react to the first blow or even react to the fact that she had struck him with the flat of her blade, he felt her foot crash directly into his stomach, winding him and sending him flying backwards.
Sakura, meanwhile, was watching with horror as the girl moved far faster than she thought was possible and struck Shirou directly on the shoulder. Unable to see that the strike had not pierced the skin, she screamed desperately.
"Senpai, no!" she shouted, her voice full of anguish.
"Schattencluster erstellen!" she shouted, glaring angrily at the girl as multiple shadow balls appeared behind and to the side of her.
"Aufladen! Explodieren!" she continued, straining her magic to its limit as tears filled her eyes.
With that, the shadow balls all exploded like grenades, the wave of magical energy hopefully crashing into the girl along with shards of shadow.
"Erschaffe Hornissenschwärme! Angriff!" she continued, creating several more swarms of hornets and ordering them to attack the girl, her face contorted with rage, hatred and fear.
Shirou, meanwhile, began to attempt to desperately scramble to his feet, too winded by the kick to call out to his distressed wife.
Continued from here (http://darksidemoon.net/SMF_forum/index.php/topic,761.msg59311.html#msg59311)
Nanako
12:35
Having made it out of the district without much incident, Nanako took a break, nestling into a relatively quiet corner of a nearby coffee shop, having gotten her jacket back on in the meanwhile.
Soon growing bored, the squirrel girl pulled her phone out, tail flitting curiously behind her as she noticed a missed call and a voice message. It took her a couple tries to remember what she'd used for her passcode, but Nanako soon got through.
Oh hey, it's Sakura- she noted to herself with a smirk before it dropped off her face at the rest of Sakura's message.
Frowning for a moment at the strange predicament her friends had found themselves in, Nanako let out a quiet sigh before she dialed up the purplehead. The one that apparently hadn't kidnapped a handsome redhead.
Emiya
Emiya gritted his teeth as Rin clung to him.
It was wrong. Not that Rin was trying to seduce him; that had happened multiple times in his escapades across the multiverse in the Fifth Grail War, but Rin's body was wrong.
It didn't belong to her.
Parts of it belonged to another version of himself.
There was a brief flash of lust, but it was quickly suppressed when he reminded himself of that. This body was mainly Tsumiko's; the girl he was currently fostering and caring for. It would be like lusting after Ilya, Jack, Nursery, or even Little Jeanne Lily Alter. Tsumiko was a child under his care.
Yet he made no move to pry him off of him. She was already hurt. She was already unstable. He didn't want to push her any farther, but he didn't do anything other than help stabilize her.
It was cold here, but the cold had long since stopped bothering him. For once he actually felt comfortable as little puffs of steam escaped his lips and even seemed to rise from his body. He shrugged and said, "Reminds me of a place I used to run around in Russia actually. I can speak a few words conversationally, but I have the worse accent."
He had traveled a lot in his life, going to battlefield to battlefield. For a while Russia was a constant stomping ground for him. He could read it better than he could speak it (which was the opposite of him and Arabic).
Emiya
Emiya wished he could have pet the Sakura scarf around his neck at that moment. He did make sure that Rin didn't stumble as she pulled him in.
He answered, "English, which is kind of hilarious in hindsight because I realized just how wrong Fuji-nee was with most of her pronunciations. I read Russian better than I speak it. I speak Arabic better than I read it. I know some Mandarin too; enough to get me into trouble. At least when I was alive. As a Servant I know . . . it would take a while to actually count them out. I actually know ancient Gaelic, much to that Blue lancer's chagrin."
He chuckled at that, a slight smirk crossing his lips.
"I even know German."
Emiya
Emiya eyed the clear shot before him with much trepidation.
He looked at Rin and said, "Well you didn't specify. You just asked how many languages I spoke. I did separate the two though."
Sighing he grabbed the shot and downed it. It tasted like literal burning. Vodka on its own was mostly tasteless. Which meant it was good to make extracts and the like out of. Or in some cases like making sorbet to keep ice crystals from forming in the fruit mix.
As a drink by itself it just sort of burned going down his throat and he grimaced as he placed the now empty shot glass on the table.
Emiya
"You're acting like Goldy and that's beneath you. That's beneath the boy who's power you're using to do so," he said in a low voice.
He felt his senses muddling. His control was slipping. Anger and frustration were raising their ugly heads.
"Why don't you tell me how you feel instead of playing these fucking games, Rin?"
Emiya
He leaned closer and whispered so the bartender wouldn't hear, "And what's that bartender going to do when that bar stops existing?"
Emiya took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and said, "Try to explain it to me then."
Emiya
"No, it's not your body. It's Tsumiko's and you're sharing it," Emiya said with a shake of his head as he toyed with his empty glass.
He pointed to her and said, "No, your body is slimmer and with thighs that used to drive me crazy."
Lubei Sang
2:45 AM
Walking kept his mind centered, steadied. The rythmn helped him think, to unravel whatever task he had at hand. So they kept walking, through this overly busy, over-designed and (certainly) human city. Perhaps not entirely human, as the air smelled too dangerous for that. Lubei tried to place the architecture, but he only drew blanks, and it was all over the place anyway.
Pray the judge of the dead not test his child-watching skills, because he had nearly allowed Uria to be trampled by a vehicle that suddenly blared in their way. The demon gaped as he pulled Uria back by the scruff of her neck, glaring after the speeding thing larger than an ebon rhino. Who in their right mind let anyone drive that? It was good for this hike of theirs it was so late. The streets lacked people to be mindful of, though there was unnervingly little darkness due to the lanterns at every turn. Lubei just wanted to find the right windows still lit from the inside. An inn, or resting house. Perhaps eat something.
The chill of the night was sharper now, and this neighborhood's wind was unlike the temperate stillness of the white forest. It seemed like he was always drawn to the cold. Lubei was at home there. It could not harm him, and he was stronger, in his element. He could almost lie to himself that he felt safer.
He suddenly turned his head to Uria, remembering something. "Are you cold?" He asked.
Archer
"Well, I told you that I don't like drinking and there's a reason for that," Emiya said with a frown as he slumped forward.
He reached out and poked Rin's nose.
"And I'm going to get your body back. And Sakura's body back. Find away to do it so it doesn't harm Tsumiko."
Emiya
Emiya reached up and absently petted the Sakura-Scarf.
"I'm going to have to sacrifice something to get the both of you back and keep Tsumiko in the process. I mean, I wish I could cook a meal or fix something and have it done, but you both know it doesn't work like that," he said as he lowered his hand.
He shrugged and said, "I mean . . . the both of you will have to share me if it works, right?"
Emiya
"Now you're being difficult," Emiya grumbled as he stared at his fascinating empty glass.
He eyed his now silent drinking partner and said, "Come on, let's go somewhere that has sake or something. I can't deal with this potato water."
Emiya
Emiya caught Rin's slight weight as she slumped against him.
He had carried her many times as his tenure as her Servant, and this body wasn't Rin's.
It didn't smell like her. Didn't feel like her. It wasn't exactly Sakura's either. And there were parts of him there as well, which was disturbing enough to think about.
"Come on, let's get you home," he said as he stood up, only wobbling slightly as he held her in his arms.
Emiya
"Curse your potato water," Emiya muttered as he collected Rin and headed out the door.
He tilted his head to look at Sakura around his neck. "Is this going to hurt Tsumiko tomorrow?" he asked.
Uria
"She doesn't remember, huh?" Uria slipped into the establishment right after Lubei, not dimming in the slightest even within the enclosed environment. "Why did she forget? Things important to you don't really disappear, after all! They stick, and stain, and get all over you. You have to work hard to wash them out."
Rin Tohsaka
"No, it never does. The magic deals with it fast, it's why I have to drink so mush..." The fallen Tohsaka muttered from his side. The Sakura scarf just shrugged, as if scarves could shrug. "Basically." She quipped.
Rin Tohsaka
"No, it never does. The magic deals with it fast, it's why I have to drink so mush..." The fallen Tohsaka muttered from his side. The Sakura scarf just shrugged, as if scarves could shrug. "Basically." She quipped.
Emiya
Well, thank Martha for small blessings and all of that, he thought as he headed out of the bar.
He adjusted the girl in his arm so she wasn't drooping as the cool air helped regain his bearing. "Good then, if it didn't we were going to have a major talk," Emiya said.
He frowned and then asked, "Where the hell are we anyway?"
Emiya
Emiya sighed, his broad shoulders slumping. "Which district? I know we're not in the Slums, but I need some sort of idea so I can get us back home."
At the description of the woman who apparently operated this bar, he shook his head. "Of course she is. Ninety percent of the powerful people are childlike. It makes them more terrifying."
Uria
"Destiny?" They narrowed their eyes for a moment, and an echo of many other voices filled their voice. A faint but cruel laughter was the most subtle among them, but it all vanished as soon as Uria's gaze relaxed. "Everything... everything has to happen. But everything could have been anything else. It still can be. I don't think I like destiny."
They scattered the light and shadows in their hand. "Mh, I haven't felt like eating or drinking anything before. Do you have a recommendation?"
Emiya
But it's a little unnerving, Emiya thought as he looked at Sakura.
He didn't voice this though; the three of them had been through enough and he really didn't want to upset them more than he already had.
"That is probably a good idea, and then . . ." Emiya sighed as his broad shoulders slumped. "Then we should talk."
Lubei Sang
8:15 AM, Day 3, Nexus Time
Sentinels had told him to stop, and at least on one border someone had raised guns at him, but he refused to acquiesce. No effort had been made by the wounded demon king carrying a mutilated, barely breathing man to slip by unseen if it would divert his course. He was relying on memory addled by pain, and he couldn't risk any other distraction. The streets looked different enough under the pale, long rays of the morning, but where it promised a bright day under few, slothful clouds, Lubei felt little comfort. This was the only place he could turn to.
He left a struggling, ugly trail of kicked up snow up to the door of the establishment from which he had retreated that night with no intention of returning, and banged on the door merely once before shoving him and his burden inside. The demon yelled for the man who had attended the counter, that priest of stout and threatening voice, though the hours were not right for any customer to ask for anything.
Blood gurgled out of Lubei's mouth, and he wiped it away. The wailing of bone crunching back into place echoed up to his inner ears, alongside the burn of meat unswelling to its assigned shape, but in the frenzy to reach help, at least one rib had splintered and driven its jagged length into his lungs.
Impatiently, he leaned for support on a table, carefully hefting the prone Vanguard onto a bench.
Lubei
"You have miracles," he said, as if it were an obvious escape from a dark place. "Help him. If not you, then your leader. I will repay whatever debt this incurs."
The demon king would not bow his head to mortal worshippers of a true divinity, but his eyes made an unflinching promise.
Lubei
The bright yet oppressive sensation confirmed his suspicious. He didn't know the true seeming of this holy leader, but her divine power was unmistakable. And if Lubei was going to choke on it anyway, he'd do it at the feet of her throne and make her remember, not outside the doors like a mutt.
He slammed them open with his foot and shifted the unstirring Vanguard higher in his arms. "The Demon King of Black Ice requires an audience with the Seraph!" He yelled out into the massive structure, striding in without a hint of shame.
Lubei
The demon stopped in the front of the staves only as they pushed against his body. His eyes swept over the guards with the insight of experience, but before he was finished, his mouth was already moving.
"My purpose is not meant for me. This man," he said, raising the crippled Vanguard, "needs healing now. We fought in error, were made fools by a greater danger, and he paid the price. It would be even more foolish to let him die."
Lubei's severe face seemed carved from ice weathered by the ages like a grand monument.
Lubei
Lubei repressed a groan from the back of his throat. He was balancing on a knife's edge, but his blood wasn't the one spilling if he pressed down.
"Him first. Explaining will take time." The demon stared through her with no figment of holiness, but the hardened bearing of a sovereign nonetheless. There was no negotiating when it came to this point.
Lubei
His eyes traced the space where the wounded warrior and the nun vanished from, and his empty hands clenched into fists. They shook, but he let them down without another word, and his likeness returned to that of a statue of ice.
"Where should I start? There were four of us in that place choked in otherworldly essence, when it happened."
Lubei
Glances like that annoyed him. But preventing a calamity, in that they were of the same mind.
"When I found myself in this realm, I suspected that wretched forest instantly." Lubei crossed his arms, beggining his tale in aspiration of the same clear tone that his teacher in warfare of another life employed. "There I met the creature called Uria. I couldn't know whether she was faerie or a half-divine accident, but she seemed to understand the purpose of the area. And as she was unwiling to share or show until being humored, I decided to accompany her."
He paused and inhaled harshly. The prior visit to this territory was not necessary to mention. He forgoed mentioning it, or the retreat that followed his pitiful display.
"The ruins - slums - on the other side of the river, have you seen the sickness on display there? We wandered into that, and I neglected to watch her every move. She intended to help, and as a result, hundreds of dying and withering humans", he dragged out the word with a trace of hesitation, "were... changed."
Changed into unrecognizable spawn, into beings that Lubei could find no obvious fault in, but also no sense of belonging in nature, no sense of comfort. A kind of help that none of them had asked for, none of them had the chance to refuse.
Lubei
"She's the one who caused the forest to shake and to rise to the sky." And a child, he told himself. A child far too powerful and far too blasphemously self-centered, reigned by a perspective that painted over lesser needs.
"She said that the time was right for something to happen there, and we went back. That's when we met the warrior I carried... and another one, a summoner. But there was a tangle churning underneath the woods, supporting that unnerving atmosphere like a thousand eyes encircling every step you took inside. In the fight, she tore that thing free, and pulled it around her. Into her. I'm not sure."
Lubei
Lubei stared at her small, retreating shoulders for a moment before marching after. Never did he think in this life he would follow a servant of a zealous divinity deeper into the latter's territory to have a long talk over tea. He assumed there would be tea. But comforts aside, the Seraph sounded no more likely to approve of the rampant dangers of Uria and that evil forest than him, and if the lightning warrior could be saved... maybe this would be worth it.
The demon would still rather be in his meeting hall listening to bullheaded warmongers and ignoring them over a stupid novel until they finally got tired.
Lubei
It was impossible for his eyes to not dart around the room, and when he found his seating, he slumped with a sudden twitch. This was too comfortable for relaxation, and he didn't feel at ease with how she might as well have read his mind on the hospitality he expected. Respect didn't mean coddling him with soft ambience and welcoming sights.
His spectral companion cawed by his ear at that. "If you were treated like a scoundrel, you'd be complaining, but you receive politeness and you're whining?"
Lubei squashed a groan in the back of his throat and didn't grace the thought with even a dirty look at empty air. He looked down and stretched his palm, focusing on what lay deeper inside him than his retreating bruises. He let out a clipped breath when a small crystal formed, and squashed it between his fingers. His powers weren't suppressed.
That gave the demon king enough confidence to pick up the hot cup meant for him.
Lubei
The tea was distractingly warm, yet there was no enmity in the preparation. In fact, it was the first taste of peace he'd had since setting foot on this confusing land. But Lubei knew well enough what the most heinous of tyrannies opened their arms only with the genuine desire to be kind.
"The Lady Seraph, I presume?" He asked, raising an eyebrow. Before he continued, he weaved a hand through the invisible feathers over his shoulder. She knew. "I will give no excuses or lies, so I ask that you take my word for it. The privacy of a ruler's mind is a pride beyond one person only."
Lubei
So she said, but what kind of curse or might did she bear that mere sight could be so dangerous? The greatest gods and fiends could end the lives of mortals with a mere glare, but he was a demon king! Unless... he'd made a mistake in judgement. And not a favorable one.
"My kind," he repeated, measuring the words. It wasn't an insult, nor demeaning. But it fed questions he hadn't entertained until this very moment.
More despised the demonic than those who had cause to, and Sang suspected all in turn. It was a misattribution to protect himself and other demons. Those who didn't warrant extermination for living, as well as those who deserved pain for their sins. All of them were his responsibility, to lead by power even against the gods that extended their sympathy. No matter what else, the fiends and the heavens were like opposing magnets in the machinery of fate, and those that didn't repel were the exception.
That same magnetism pervaded this temple, but the one across from the demon didn't seem to acknowledge it. At the edge of his mind played a thin awareness of an unusual sense of friendliness calling out, but the implications at hand were more vital to reflect upon. Was this Seraph of a different breed entirely than the lords of heaven above Shenzhou?
"And if I ask for your counsel or aid for the sake of my kin, once the current problem is abated... will you hear me out?" He asked.
Lubei
He left the remaining tea to stagnate at the bottom of the cup. Was that pity? Did this divine being hear him out, extend her patience to him, because she had sympathy his audacity? His stomach quivered. Lubei felt as though his throat was clogged with feathers and sticky with blood. He squeezed his thigh until the fingers dug in painfully, nails stinging through the pants, bringing him back.
Even if it was pity, he couldn't afford to refuse it. But more importantly, he couldn't go on being so thorny towards every little may-be and pretend to be tolerant of the worst assumption. His chest rose and fell shallowly as he bade the lines of his face to relax.
"I knew nowhere else to turn to," he said. "The gratitude should be mine."
Ivanna
"Please, leave him at the door, I will deal with the rest myself."
Just as the junior Nun was about to rap her knuckle on the door, her Lady spoke up and preempted her. It filled her with a sense of awe at the all-knowing nature of Her. She always seemed to know what was going on, but there was a twinge of disappointment in the back of her mind. She'd wanted to get closer to Ivanna; to have a moment in order to bask in the warmth and glory of Her...
Without questioning her orders, she rested the dying man upon the wall and prepared to leave.
>>>>>
Ivanna opened the door and carried him inside herself, cradling the unconscious man with her lower right wing. "Poor thing." She muttered to herself, reaching down to run a finger down his ghastly injuries.
"Rejoice, human. For it is not your time yet." She let out a soft angelic cry and began to sing in Greek. Four seperate voices intoned atop one another, all at different pitches and tempos. It resonated through the room, growing louder and more intense with each passing second, but no less haunting and beautiful.
Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name.
"Πάτερ ἡμῶν ὁ ἐν τοῖς οὐρανοῖς..."
Vanguard erupted in clensing fires which focused on his wounds as she sang. The bleeding stopped, color returned to his skin, and limbs began to regrow from his stumps.
Lubei
"Why are you so cheerful?" Lubei said. Immediately, he wanted to change the words. It sounded so harsh he was taken aback, shaking his head. He turned his face to the seraph's visage, even though she seemed to avoid the sight of him in turn. "It does not harm me."
It didn't, but her light seemed to linger in her mind, a threatening, glorious thing that made the inside of his eyelids uncomfortable. He understood now why she was so cautious. For Vanguard too to be unbothered, the demon was assured that his mind as well as his body weren't in danger.
"Have you discussed the situation?" He asked, an open note inviting either warrior or divinity to answer.
Lubei
Lubei looked down at her, suppressing a wince. Fun? What was fun? Could you eat it? Would it make him pass out and wake up at home? Of course, he wasn't able to say all of that. Even if he dared to strain his face, he just... didn't have the energy to be injustifiably spiteful.
"If," he began, blinking slowly. "They'll serve something other than god-killing cocktails."
He gestured forward with his chin, allowing her to lead the way.
Lubei
Had she read his mind, or did she just feel the same comforting numbness that did not freeze and cool that did not prick or pierce, in the solemn breath of the icy wind? Easier to believe it was the latter. He was only so transparent with his displeasure, of which he often had much.
Lubei tried to not project that sensation as he accompanied the Seraph's stride. There was nothing unpleasant to cause it, but where her posture was easy and tried among her people, his silent poise was trained on reproach. Even the most regal iceberg was still an impassable natural obstacle to a mortal.
Icebergs did not feel exhaustion, alas.
"Perhaps," he said, tilting his head towards Ivanna. "I should eat. What do you recommend?"
Lubei
How should he respond to a smile so favorable? Lubei held his position for a second, then smoothed his sharp brows as best as he could and nodded with a soft hum at the man, grabbing for the seat. His long coat crumpled at the small of his back and then drooped down over the edge of the stool as he sat.
The demon king's neck turned to watch Ivanna. He could not imagine himself commanding people in the same way. He knew he had to, it was a calling he could not escape even here, but not these people.
He was still staring when they brought his drink and he wrapped his fingers methodically around the glass.
Lubei
Friend. The word was like a chain around his neck, but he wondered if it could be more than that. If his treacherous mind would allow it to be a comfort and not a binding, a strength and not a wedge driven into his resolve. Did Uria consider him a friend too? If so, then his precedent for friends here in the Nexus was a truly unfortunate one.
His grip clenched around the glass, but he returned the cheerful clink by raising it to his lips. "To a fortuitous cooperation." Lubei said, and chugged, allowing the ominous drink down his throat.
The burn hit him two seconds later, and the demon lord hissed, sucking in air through his teeth.
"Not bad."
Lubei
The demon king glowered vaguely in her direction. "I am not a lightweight. This mixture is just heavy."
If he didn't know any better, he would swear to North and South that it came from the brewing traditions of the ocidental wastes. But those were significantly more inhospitable than this region, which only left him with the possibility that the Seraph's people... inordinately enjoyed their drink.
Lubei could feel the raptor judging his wits under its stare. Fucking quit it!
"I have scarcely spoken to an agent of Heaven like this," he said. "That you are not from the the Heaven I know is secondary."
Lubei
He coughed into his drink, hefted forward in surprise. Struggling to retain a shred of dignity in his expression, he wiped the excess on his sleeve and turned his face fully to the Seraph.
Could Lubei take down even the first of his walls for someone who was meant to be a foe under the gaze of fate? She claimed they had no quarrel, but the demon king yet doubted that they could coexist within the influence of her faith. Still, this otherworldly woman was no enemy now, fit to be questioned in his mind - she was his host, and as of these slipping moments, an ally in addition to that. He had to begin somewhere. Perhaps it was too late a start to achieve his desire, but it was not bereft of meaning to try.
"My kind is not wont to worship... and I pray for only one god," he said. Sighing profusely, a weight seemed to shift on his shoulders. "But I believe I could live here. Even enjoy it."
Lubei
He let his head tilt to the side. The angle didn't make her appearance any more or less unusual, but it felt strangely fragile to Lubei's eyes.
"We sleep and eat as mortals, but the mightiest more out of want than need," he replied. Pushing stagnant air out of his lungs with the heaving of his chest, he tapped at his temple with a weary swing of the wrist. "There's no end to what troubles me. And what of you?"
Lubei
That wasn't what he was asking. Was his shortness of words to blame, or did she choose her answer on purpose? If it was true, then truly her ilk sat beneath the very heavens. But it didn't sit right. Even gods lived within the roads of karma, and immutability and omniscience were not freedom from it. Was that what crawled with familiarity in Lubei's stomach, listening to her?
The demon king raised a hand, slow and deliberate, and it hovered an inch from her head. Gnarled tension furrowed his brow, and he shut his eyes before patting her hair.
"Your purpose makes you bitter?" He asked.
Lubei
How strange. Was his host the kind who looked strong, but kept all weaknesses to herself? He could relate, but that didn't feel accurate. His younger sibling was an audacious, shameless girl, but she hid away her frailties behind a remonstrative glare. She did not enjoy being gazed upon or comforted in such a state, yet needed it. That was closer, but Ivanna did not snap at his touch in disregard of her dignity. No, there was... someone else. A cousin? A child. Sun-kissed skin red with unspilled tears. His daughter? Lubei didn't have children.A child whose blood lay on his hands. A thousand reasons burning in the fires of hell, none of which could answer for the lives on his back. A tomb of ice for a living soul.
He pulled his feathered touch away, curling his hand into a fist, and squinted at the seraph through the pain that creased his forehead. "Sinking." He finished in her stead.
"You feel... Afloat, adrift, oceans apart from land? Forced to wear down your feet and to tear your legs, told that forward is the only way to go, when you can't see where the end lies. Though you must make choices to proceed, and none will tell you whether they were right or wrong, and you know not whether you were entitled to make them. Entrusted with determining goodness when you are alone because you didn't know it in the first place, and only ever desired to execute it."
The stinging in his brain receded as he spoke, and he exhaled in relief. It turned to silent trepidation as his own words sank.
Lubei
It wasn't the same! There was naught to condemn in seeking relief after a duty that your heart wasn't into, to distance yourself from the means and in being apart from your actions. That was not the same as denying them. Ivanna's business with an annoying responsibility was her own. One could move for duty, but find no joy in the deeds. Lubei's protests were foolish. He might have questions, but he knew what conscience demanded. Some piece of him, deep inside, was fracturing, and he was almost ready to understand why.
The angel's grip on his thumb tugged him back to reality. His eyes rested on her with a mumbling growl. "Remorse binds me, and my pride rakes against it," he said, as the softness of familiar feathers rubbed against his neck. He wished it was easier. "Thank you."
Lubei
Deep in the halls of the Seraph of Little Russia, Lubei's nails drummed on an ornate desk as he attempted to glare understanding out of the pages spread out before him. Curled in frustration, his shoulders strained to keep him sitting straight, but discipline spoke just a little higher. It wasn't as if he was working in an office beneath another's judging awareness, or onlooking colleagues that would dare to scold him for sloppiness. This room had been given him as a guest and an ally, to use for an indefinite time, and he had to share it with no one.
Just as he refused to loosen his poise in private, however, he made no attempt to customize the surroundings. The same high walls with the same paintings, the floor with the same carpeting and furniture, the same grave carvings around the windows as had been provided to him were as visible as before the demon settled in for merely temporary rest. The only addition were books. An increasingly large stack of books made its home on his desk. Most of them related to the history of the Nexus. One was a collection of apparently local folklore. Another dealt with contemporary economic theory. Two of the thinnest were fiction of a sinfully brainless sort, and they were the most untouched.
He rubbed an uncomfortably warm palm on his temple. It seemed to Lubei that any amount of his laboring in this place only produced more issues to worry about. Nothing could be as simple as charity, or conquest and construction by any other name. Demon clan politics and heavy handed vengeance claims were almost preferrable. But most importantly, it didn't matter what he preferred, because he was no closer to knowing how to go back. Every answer he found in these pages only buried that goal further in the future.
But the worst was that he couldn't get that encounter out of his head. He couldn't get Mai away from his thoughts, nor the questions she made him ask, as omnipresent as the bird that haunted him. Lubei had searched for her, after, but their paths had not crossed again. What would he even do if he found her? It was plain they weren't compatible, or at the least they would only engage in mutual punishment through barbed words if they shared the same air. But Lubei still wanted to speak to her again. He couldn't bear the thought of how she planned to continue to live, though he had no rightful say in it.
"Perhaps Ivanna could..." His muffled words died under his tongue as he rose from the chair and slammed shut the book in his hands. It wasn't pride that kept him from asking the angel for help. This wasn't business. But just requesting to hear the thoughts of a friend on a personal complication should be no large burden.
He threw on his coat over his azure tunic and moved in search of the petite ruler.
Lubei
He seized mid-step, left to stare at Ivanna's early appearance. It was a good thing, not unlike ripping off a sticky bandage from a wound corroded by the unearthly that had finally begun to scab as it should, skipping the process of looking for her. Now, however, it was not his hesitation that attempted to kick his dialogue knees to the ground, but the unmistakeable unease that the angel was radiating.
"In truth, I was," he said, then cast the rest of the sentence to oblivion, breathing. "Yes. Of course. You look disturbed. Is what what you want to talk about?"
Lubei
Lubei mannerisms weren't flexible enough to bring across the entirety of his confusion. What did she have on her mind that she felt unsafe in the heart of her territory? Could anyone who was neither a guest nor blazingly loyal to her even enter these halls at will? He couldn't sense anything so strange or so unholy near.
"Where then?" He asked. The demon cast his eyes left and right over the otherwise vacant hall, then back to his door. Without thought, he extended an open hand to Ivanna in urgent invitation.
Lubei
His eyes widened, transparent in sheer discomfort. Lubei's shoulders tensed, as though he was about to jolt forward to shield her smaller figure from prying eyes or unseen threats, but his arm seized in doubt in the space between them.
"I am not well-acquainted with anywhere outside your influence entirely," he said. If the demon didn't seem to serious, he would appear almost embarassed about it, eyes creased and pointed away so they would not meet hers for this admission. But shaking his head, he slammed his door behind him and crouched to Ivanna's side. Before she knew it, and before Lubei had any explanation to offer in his own expression, he was picking her up in his arms and rising, stalking away with light steps.
"I'll manage something."
It didn't take him long to find the nearest window and click it open before jumping away into the frigid air. As quickly as they rose, he landed on the brick streets behind the palace, veiled from the gusts of the day and the prying days of the seraph's populace. Checking for anyone around them, he headed away from the main streets without ever setting Ivanna down, trotting with inhuman speed. If any of her personal guard saw them, he did not stop, confident that they would not stop Ivanna.
Just like that, the scenery rushed and slipped away before Ivanna truly had any idea what her fixated friend wanted. Less used streets gave way to well-worn but solid roads, those roads to dirt paths, and the dirt paths to a sea of pine and spruce. Bringing her to the dead of the forest closest to her domain, he lept behind an ancient outcropping, and before he set her down, clenched his fist.
A dome of ice closed itself behind the terrain, isolating them from the outside. Lubei let out a breath he had long been holding and allowed her to sit, staring expectantly.
Lubei
Lubei stared and waited, because whatever was ailing Ivanna was hers to tell, not his to forcibly extract. He had done his part and brought them to, he hoped, privacy. So why wasn't she saying anything? The silence between two stretching into discomfort, Lubei found the bench she had made in his eyesight, and sat. He could still feel her gaze on him, and it was distressingly warm even as he was surrounded by ice.
"You had something to say." He inclined his head towards the seraph, but evaded her own loaded stare. The demon lord didn't need to read the turbulence behind her face to feel it in her aborted words, in the void that her confident dialogue ought to fill. Lubei continued, "What do you expect from me if you won't, Ivanna? Tell me what you need, if it is within my abilities to... aid. I am here right now to hear it."
Lubei
In this life as a demon, the person beneath the name of Lubei Sang was quite familiar with loathing, though he would scarce admit it. Maybe it was condescending to presume that these circumstances, or his feelings, made him able to understand even a sliver of the angel's. But noise strained her voice, mockery and doubt tearing it apart, leaving the only conclusion that she could express for the feelings in her heart as a deeply unresolved, unsatisfying sermon.
"Ivanna," he said, haltingly. Lubei thought that through the clawing of impossible questions, he could also hear that familiar refrain. Do I even deserve to have an opinion? The plea to be told what is right without gradients nor shades, so you know what to follow. Pitiful and unbearable.
So instead, the demon asked, "Haven't you already achieved many things outside your task? What was your guide towards them, if not what is right?"
Lubei
He reeled back at the sudden outburst of radiance, startled by an instinctive fear. If not for the trajectory of his mind, if not for the fact that this seraph had previously beseeched that he call her friend, his reasoning might have agreed with the reaction of his demonic body, but Lubei Sang's mind was perfectly clear, and entirely capable of recognizing her pain.
What kept him in silence for a moment was awkwardness over something else. She couldn't know, but the last thing she said made him squeeze down a fierce cringe. That method sounded exactly like something that he, or rather, his former self, would have done. But if he kept feeling sorry, that would defeat the point here. "I am sorry," he said. The demon lord shook his head, and letting slip the tension from his legs, placed himself on eye level with her.
"I won't say I understand the essence of your loss, but I want you to hear well these words. Even if you had no compass from on high, you still have those who believe. I have met your devoted ones, and their efforts are no less valid for this. I have said I would be your ally for as long as this aid is returned, and I don't intend on making another mistake by taking this promise back. And if you are ignorant, then you have the ability to learn. You are not mortal, be you rogue, wanderer, exile, renegade, or whatever else you consider yourself. You have infinite time to walk towards virtue and to find your own merits."
Lubei Sang
He could not help but feel the change as a tremble in his blood, holding her arms with a resolved expression. "You speak of rebellion against the divine."
It was a natural extension of what Lubei had been asking Ivanna all this conversation, to recognize the good and ill of her place in the world in its own merits and make her decisions accordingly. But the demon was ordained by his dharma to be in conflict with heaven; the seraph was turning her back on that she had been born to. Their standings were not equal. But from where did dharma flow, and what decided their obligations when they were put upon the earth? Lubei had seen that which rose above and that which fell below, and in this life he lacked an answer. But at last here, his shade made its voice heard.
'It is righteous to turn against evil, but it is not yours the right to upturn the heavens. Remember that even gods are subject to judgement.' So it spoke, and the demon lord knew it to be true. But he would not turn away from Ivanna now.
"What will you do?" He asked.
Lubei
Lubei shook his head slowly. "No decision that is deeply and solely yours is unsuited to your person," he said, but a dark burden slipped into his tone. "This may lack persuasion, but I have trodden a like path before. To overturn the foundations of woe demands sacrifice, and guarantees nothing. Those who are not prepared to carry this karma will become no better than beasts, and lose all sight of their aspiration. To those who carry on will fall the demerit of drenching steel in their blood. These are the wages of rebellion."
The Ascendant Heretic Sunray had not been alone when he rose from the dirt to purge evil, and raised his blade to the celestial dome. He had companions who followed him in his grudge against the heavens, and whether by sharing his impurity, or aspiring too purely to the same deeds, lost themselves and became monsters of karma. Hollow of conscience or restraint, catastrophic in power, it fell to him to kill them. Lubei did not wish that on anyone else.
At least, the figure of Ivanna hiding herself from him stoked images not just of these times, but also of lighter things that taught him again what fondness was. He would keep this to himself, but she reminded him of his younger sister's tenderness. Perhaps that made giving this advice easier.
"If you are willing to fight for your freedom," he continued, "Then think carefully and calmly on what must be done. Consider the costs to others, and determine what you want to achieve, and who is your real enemy. Reflect patiently, think over your conclusions, and then come up with your plan."