POV Sephiroth
Sephiroth stretched herself. Sitting on her bed, she leisurely thought about her past week. It had turned out much better than she had dared to imagine. Instead of having to babysit a child, she had gotten someone interesting and full of mysteries. After she had been assigned the mission she had thought of it as a chore and was very distraught about it. But contrary to her expectation, everything had changed for the better.
For one, Aron was full of hidden secrets, which piqued her inborn curiosity. And even more importantly, he didn’t posses the inborn hatred towards her kind. It also helped that he was friendly and didn’t look bad.
Sephiroth had early realized that Aron was more mature than a normal sixteen years old youth. The more she spent time with him, the more it came to light how different he was. That didn’t mean that he was blatantly showing it, but Sephiroth was a professional at picking up tiny clues.
It became clear quickly, that the real Aron was much more mature than he pretended to be. In addition, he was very goal-driven and what made her happy the most; very polite and friendly. Sometimes it even felt like he didn’t perceive a difference between himself, his family, the servants, guards and her.
Taking all this into consideration, she had put her previous plans on hold. First she would try to build something for herself here. Aron was young and inexperienced. She would slowly steer him into the direction she wanted.
Even so, there was one question mark at the start of their Servant-Master relationship. He didn’t have a valid reason for picking her if he wasn’t interested in her body. Reviewing his past behavior, how target oriented he was, there had to be a different reason. The one thing she could think of was that he had somehow sensed something of her real nature.
Had he found out that she was a demon? No, If that had been the case he would have immediately tried to apprehend her. In addition, he wouldn’t be so nice. Maybe he was planning to use that knowledge for a long-term goal? That wasn’t right either. She would have sensed it if he had been hiding his fear or hate towards her.
That left only the theory of him having sensed some small signs of her not being normal. She knew how much he loved his younger sister. If he wasn’t sure about her trustworthiness, he would never allow her near Lea. Yes, that fit better!
Sephiroth lay back down on her bed. Deeply in thoughts, she stared at the wooden ceiling above her. Now that she had come to the conclusion a lot of plans appeared in her mind of how to act in this situation. First she had to find out if he really had these reservations towards her.
At that moment she remembered his happiness about having the part of the afternoon for his studies while she was sleeping. When they had discussed it together, she had thought he was simply happy to have a respite from her sadistic training regime, but looking at it from another direction it was more likely that he was planning to use the time to investigate her.
She went a second time through everything and got even more certain that her thoughts were pointing into the right direction. Facing the possibility of his suspicion, she wanted to act immediately but held herself back. She had to stay calm. He was still happy with her at the moment. It meant that he hadn’t found significant clues yet.
Sephiroth relaxed her tense body and smiled mischievously. She didn’t see a reason why she couldn’t use this knowledge to put some stones into his way. It would be so much fun. She could already imagine it, meticulously thwarting all his attempts at finding out her actual identity whilst manipulating him into countless embarrassing and amusing situations. Slowly breaking his mental resistance towards her, bit by bit. At some point in the future she would let him find out more about herself, but only when she deemed him ready.
She would have thoroughly twisted him around her little finger by then. Grinning, she gracefully stood up. It was time to find her master. Her head full of mischievous plans, Sephiroth made her way toward the backyard where Aron normally enjoyed the afternoon.
She didn’t need long to arrive at her destination. She had been right, Aron was indeed there. Sephiroth could see the straight back of Mors, standing not far behind an armchair that was positioned in the most suitable location in the backyard.
It looked like Aron had fallen asleep. Sephiroth walked towards Mors with light steps.
“Hi, Mors, did everything go well?” she inquired in a quiet voice.
“Yes, Sephiroth, no problems, the young master had been studying the entire afternoon. He has only fallen asleep five minutes ago.”
Sephiroth nodded with a happy face.
“Great, he is always training or learning, a little sleep will do him good. I will take over from now. You can leave now, Mors.”
“As you wish.”
With that, Mors made his way towards the entrance of the mansion. Sephiroth checked the surroundings. They were alone. Her previous serious appearance quickly changed into a mischievous “fox face” as she made her way towards Aron. How could she miss such a splendid opportunity for mischief?
She tiptoed behind his chair. Already laughing in her mind, she slowly stretched her arms.
Sephiroth was in the motion of tickling his left ear when she suddenly felt something evil brush against her senses.
What the-?!
The pranks forgotten, she swiftly moved around the chair and touched Aron’s forehead.
It was very cold. His whole face was as white as a sheet. Something wasn’t right!
She immediately sunk her consciousness into his body. As someone with a high-ranking demon bloodline she knew a lot about the soul and how to manipulate it. Even though her bloodline hadn’t awoken, she could still use certain knowledge and do certain things.
Having realized the severity of the situation, she immediately moved her own soul through the connection-point between her hand and his face into his own soul world.
The soul-world of a soul was, as the name already suggested, like a world of its own. It existed in the soul itself. One could say it was the solution of the soul on how to structure the core of a person.
Every memory, emotion and feeling was kept safe in it. Normally people couldn’t simply enter someone’s else soul-world. But Sephiroth was special, her race allowed her to enter a foreign soul world as long as they had direct contact and the other soul didn’t reject her.
With that she arrived in Aron’s world.
It was black, she couldn’t even see her hand. Complete darkness. Then suddenly, a lightning-bolt exploded next to her, brightened up the surroundings.
She was floating in the air, surrounded by dense black clouds that were churning and tossing.
With a loud soul-charring bang the thunder followed, freezing her for a second. The lightning didn’t end, plunging the surroundings in a surreal light. Deep sounds could be heard. It felt like the firmament was breaking. A sudden thought popped up in Sephiroth’s mind. The soul-world was at war! It was fighting against something, but what? What the heck was going on?!
She had to find his soul core as fast as possible. Not wanting to lose anymore time, she stretched her perception into the surroundings. There! She had found his core. As it was an amalgamation of everything one was and thought to be, it had normally the appearance of one's human body.
As she had found his location she moved towards him as quickly as possible. A little more, there, she could-
Next to her two clouds crashed, breaking open in the process. The deafening noise broke her concentration.It happened so suddenly that she couldn’t react in time. Before she could try to sidestep she got sucked into the now open amalgam of clouds.
Sephiroth was still regaining control when the gravity changed. Not prepared, she crashed hard into the stone ground below her.
Her soul hurt. Disoriented, she tried to stand up. At that moment a bolt of black lightning came down close to her. Instead of a normal lightning bolt that had the appearance of a thin zigzag line, the dark lightning condensed into a two feet thick warped speer of destruction. It obliterated the immediate area around its collision point in an instant. The impact generated a blast wave and threw Sephiroth to the side.
Smashing a second time into the ground, she felt even more miserable.
Her headache had grown to another level, and she even felt dizzy now. That only increased her will to stand up. What was going on?!
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“Enemy incoming! Prepare for combat!”
Finally upright, Sephiroth checked her surroundings. She stood in a corridor without a ceiling. It was dug into the ground, but not deep enough for the entire body to hide from sight. The head and part of the shoulders still stuck out from it, letting one watch the surrounding mountains and forests. She could see more of these corridors built into the ground. The need to determine her safety let her concentrate on the immediate area first.
People wearing strange clothes leaned against the side walls of the corridor. They carried weapons of an unknown type.
What was going on? Sephiroth was flabbergasted. At that moment one man noticed her and moved towards her direction.
“Hey, soldier, what are you doing! The Darkons are attacking, take your position!”
What, who was attacking? Before she could give him a reply or even ask what was going on, he grabbed her by the shoulder and pushed her towards the other side. Sephiroth was instantly slack jawed. Right in front of her an undefined mass of dark evil beings clad in black armor and shadows were in the process of crashing against them like a tidal wave.
“Fire!”
All the surrounding soldiers pulled the trigger of their weapons. Small explosions went off everywhere. The loud noice desoriented and scared Sephiroth.
The soldiers couldn’t stop the tide. The bullets tore into it but that was not enough. With an inhuman cry the wave of enemys balled together and pushed through the defensive fire!
“Duck! Artillery fire incoming!”
What, why should she duck? The enemy would kill them all! Before she could react, the soldier that had pushed her towards the wall appeared beside her and tackled her to the ground.
“Down you idiot! The artillery will fire directly in front of our position! Pray that they aim well!”
Sephiroth was even more confused now. What was an Art-.
Everything exploded above her. It was so loud and enormous. She had never felt something like it. The world around her was breaking.
“Shit, that was close! Some of them have survived! Prepare for melee combat!”
Sephiroth was still standing up when the enemy arrived. With a screech, something threw itself at her. Completely wrapped in black plate armor with dark shadows draped around its body, it looked horrendous.
At the last second, Sephiroth rolled to the side. Missing the downswing of a dangerous looking black sword. Having won herself some space she took stoke of the situation. Chaos was everywhere.
Her sixth sens suddenly screamed at her; Move! She had missed a second Darkon comming from the side. The enemys sword already well on its way to her heart. She wouldn’t make it.
At that moment her previous saviour appeared behind her and discharged a barrel like weapon into the attacking Monster, ripping half of its chest open.
“Don’t sleep, you greenhorn! They will kill you if you don’t pay attention to your surroundings!”
Sephiroth nodded thankfully. At last she had some room to breathe now and think. Not long later she realized what was going on. Aron’s soul had sucked her into one of his memories!
Glancing at her surroundings, the situation perplexed her completely. How could this be part of his memories? Nothing made sense. No! At the moment she had other problems. She had to save his core! She would have enough time to unwind this mess and get to the ground of all this in the future. First she had to save him.
Now aware of where she was, she simply willed herself out of his memory. She was a foreign entity that didn’t belong here, the memory wanted to push her out by itself. She exerted her own will, forcing open a path. Suddenly the sky above her ripped apart and a mystical force threw her out of the memory. Sephiroth was back, flying between the black clouds in the middle of a thunderstorm.
Not waiting any longer, she proceeded into the direction she could feel Aron’s soul core from. There! She had found it. Wait! What foul magic was this! Why did his core look like the soldier that had saved her in his memory!?
His soul core should be similar to his body as they grew together! How was it possible to have such a difference between one's body and soul?!
Sephiroth had never seen something like this. Yet, she didn’t have much time to think. If this thing had already invaded his core, she had not much time left! She would leave this mystery for another time.
She touched his core and entered it.
The world changed again, like it had when she had fallen into one of his memories. At the beginning she thought she had done something wrong and had arrived outside of Aron’s body instead of his soul core. The surroundings looked identical to Brightcloud manor.
Only after observing every detail did she understand that this was indeed Aron’s core. It shouldn’t have looked like this, but she didn’t have the time to wonder. She immediately sprinted towards the mansion.
Entering the Living Room, she froze. There, she had found him! He was talking with his sister. Wait! Whatever that was, it wasn’t his sister and didn’t belong here! She could feel its evilness from here.
No! It was slowly goading him into accepting its proposition. Whatever it wanted, it would be a disaster for Aron!
What piece of trash dared to be so brazen as to try to stretch its fingers towards her property! Sephiroth was livid. He was hers! She would rip anything apart that came between her and Aron! The possessiveness of her demon side emerged completely. Deep down in her body, her allegedly dead bloodline gave a single pulse, before transforming back into its innate state.
POV Aron Brightcloud
Only a bit more and everything would be fine. I was taking my little sister's hand when suddenly something incredible hot wrapped itself from behind around my body. A slim reddish hand grabbed my arm and pulled it back.
I felt like I was being plunged into fire. I heard a beautiful yet devilish voice from behind.
“Who dares to touch what is mine! Fuck off!”
The hot sensation from my back and her voice told me it was a woman, a very well-hung one at that. I couldn’t see who it was. The heat that came from my back only added to my confusion. It penetrated deeply into my soul, burning away all my negative thoughts. Only now did I realize how emotionally affected I had been.
I realized with a sudden fright how close I had been to giving up everything.
I looked back towards my sister. But her appearance had changed dramatically. Every resemblance that this impersonator once had with my sister was gone. Its body had elongated,now standing at a height of over six feet. A skeletal hand ripped the remainder of my sister's mask off its face, leaving me looking at a horrendous nightmare.
“Who-, What are you?!”
It didn’t answer, instead it opened its mouth wide and threw itself at me. I was completely frozen stiff at the sight.
“Didn’t I say to fuck off?!
My “guardian angel’s” red hand appeared again. This time it swiftly gripped at the air in front of me. A cage of yellow green flames suddenly surrounded the incoming horror.
The reddish hand closed. The cage mirrored the action and shrunk around the nightmare in front of us. It tried to fight against it but was helpless.
The nightmare let out a loud shriek before it got compressed into nothingness.
As the horrendous entity got destroyed, I suddenly felt an immense weight lifting from my soul. It was only an insignificant part of the real monster that still lived in me, but it was enough to give me some respite. Now that it was injured it was unable to cloak itself from me. I could see the overall situation of our two warring souls.
I understood, my soul could content mostly with the entity for the moment. I had to simply take care of these aberrations that spawned in irregular intervals.
Now that I knew for what to look out for, I wouldn’t be tricked again!
The woman had her arms still wrapped around me, clinging with her entire body to my back.
My inner problems taken care of, I wanted to turn my head to find out more about my rescuer. But her left arm, that had been laying on my chest, suddenly slid up and stopped me from turning any further.
“No, my precious. It is not yet time to find out who I am. Relax, everything is fine now.”
I suddenly felt wet lips against the back of my neck. “Farewell cutie, don’t fear, we will meet again.”
The warmth that had embraced me faded, leaving me standing alone in the room.
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