The next two days were busy enough for Albaer, homework and material he missed out on had to be done, tests and quizzes taken. Life. Just normal life.

But one thing definitely differed.

Albaer would sleep, and one or the other would take over his body and emerge into the living area with her counterpart, and the fight would begin.

“Hit harder!” Raziel said as her sister struck Albaer’s body with an open palm to the chest.

“I can’t!” She said, “I can’t bring myself to hit him too hard, and even if I could, we don’t know what the human body can take!” Lialah pointed out while hovering in front of her sister. Her arms out at a guard position while the demoness relied on the surprisingly firm flesh of Albaer to serve as her armor while she possessed him.

“Just do it, you can heal him and he won’t remember a thing, he won’t even be awake for it.” Raziel pointed out and went on the offensive, the soft human hands could not tear through even the soft skin of an angel, but it could dig in hard, and with hard calluses, she could strike like a hammer. The angel gave no real ground however, and showed no pain, blow for blow, strike for strike, they hit and blocked and hit again.

Raziel’s fist connected into Lialah’s gut, and the angel finally nearly fell, only to snap back up with a vicious uppercut which struck the demoness via Albaer’s chin and sent her staggering back.

Apart again, they shifted stances, Lialah taking a side stance with one foot back with a hand up and back, while the other was low and stretched out above the outstretched leg.

Raziel took a cross with both feet at her side, ready to charge, and used the powerful muscles of the host body to rush in, they came to grips, Lialah used Raziel’s charge against her, flinging her, only for Raziel to hit the carpet, roll, turn around, and come back.

A feature of the place they grew up was that each child was taught the arts and culture that birthed them, including their martial arts. Whereas demons attacked with strength and ferocity, going for piercing, painful, heavy blows augmented by their tearing talons and vicious biting teeth, angels did not. Angels fought like flowing water, redirecting strikes and controlling the flow of the fight, always in motion, always keeping their opponent off balance.

Contesting at one another while in possession of a human body had its stumbling blocks.

Raziel jumped back out of the way, and then promptly landed on her ass. “Damn it! No wings! I swear…” She said and rose to her feet rubbing her bottom where she’d landed with a thud.

Albaer’s face expressed her sheepishness while Lialah waited for her to get back up.

“It happens, his body isn’t half bad. Humans are tougher than I thought they’d be.” Lialah admitted while she looked over his bruised up, shirtless, sweaty torso.

“No kidding, when I beat a few of those folks into a pulp, well, there are lots of races who wouldn’t have survived, but they were still moving when I left.” Raziel gave the reluctant praise to the boys, “And those were just children really, I have to assume that the adults are tougher.” She put a hand on the sweaty torso and ran his fingers over it. “I probably shouldn’t get too touchy with his body, but if I were to guess humans are at least as potentially strong as orcs, maybe moreso.”

They dropped their hands in a mutually agreed upon breather, “And their weapons… Did you know they built a weapon that can destroy entire cities? Albaer was right, it’s way too dangerous out there if we don’t know what we’re going into.” Raziel said, and eager to rest, Lialah took a seat at the table.

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“Since we can’t sacrifice Kami… obviously. Do you think they found another sacrifice for the seal, or do you think another Hero War got started after we left?” Lialah asked, she didn’t really look at Albaer’s face then, the red eyed sympathy would have been too painful, especially on a face so emotive as his.

Raziel approached, Albaer’s sweaty hand stroked her cheek, “Don’t think about it. There’s no point, we can’t go home to do anything about it, and even if we could, it took two years just to find Kami, for all the good that did us. For all we know, we might end up in the same situation all over again, in this world or some other one.”

Lialah pressed her hand against the back of Albaer’s and held his firm against her cheek. “I know, I know, but look at us. I have nightmares about more orphans like us being made in the struggle to create sacrificial heroes. So many lives, so little peace… All for what?”

“Tomorrow, as many tomorrows as we can make.” Raziel said while she looked down at her sweet tempered sister. “That’s all we can do, this place must be similarly poorly off, they probably fight all these wars as weapons tests in case a seal of their own gets broken. But then… with weapons like these, who knows? Maybe they’re the ones sealed ‘out’ of somewhere else.” Raziel gave a grim laugh that was only half joking.

“So… what do we do about Lisa?” Lialah asked, eager to change the subject.

“You want my honest opinion?” Raziel replied, “We kill her.”

Lialah regretted the subject shift and stared open mouthed up at Albaer’s grim face.

“She knows something is wrong, if you leave the decision up to me, wait until nightfall, I’ll snatch her up, fly her up as high as possible, and drop her to her death in the middle of the night a long, long way from here. I don’t trust anyone who would betray Albaer, or any old friend, just for some popularity on the spur of the moment. And I remind you, our lives are on the line. Humans are dangerous. Say we tell her the truth, she promises not to tell, then what? We let her walk out and she blabs. The next thing we know we’re test subjects until we die.” Raziel crossed Albaer’s arms and shook her head.

“I will absolutely not allow that to happen to us. I say we get rid of this bitch.”

“But she was genuinely sorry.” Lialah replied, aghast at the merciless demoness.

“She also genuinely betrayed Albaer so some nasty bitch would like her. He’s done with her anyway, so it’s not like he cares. Maybe down the line she’d feel bad about selling us out, but what good is that to us if we’re poked, prodded, cut up, and gods of home alone know what else before then? No thanks.” Raziel replied.

“I felt her sorrow, she’ll grow from this! She’s just a girl, a young girl who made a mistake! I don’t believe she’ll do it again! And we can just wipe her memory later if we doubt her. It won’t take that long to learn invisibility, morph, or illusion magic, the first few ‘Squares’ are fairly easy. We won’t have to trust her for long!” Lialah took Albaer’s hand and looked up into the bright red eyes of the one to possess their benefactor.

“Albaer wouldn’t approve, you know that, he says he’s done, but someone kind enough to take in mythic creatures of unknown origins because we have nowhere to go… he wouldn’t want us to act like that. Maybe he’s angry at her now, but-” Lialah clutched the warm human hand, and she saw the bright red eyes relent.

“Fine, I won’t do anything without talking to Albaer first, but at the first sign of her turning on us if we choose to trust her, we’ll find out how high up in the air I have to drop a human from to finish them.” Raziel said with exasperation and a heavy sigh of frustration. “And you say I always get my way…”

“Maybe not always, but too often.” Lialah said and stood up again, “Another round, I’ll take his body this time?”

“Fine.” Raziel said, “But be careful of straddling the waist, apparently wrestling with you made him hard again, and this isn’t how either of you probably planned to lose your virginity.” The demoness threw back Albaer’s head and laughed while laying the body down to exit it and allow her sister to take her turn.

Lialah was still blushing even when it was Albaer’s cheeks instead of hers.