Kira

~

It was hard to place what was going on around me. I had no idea when the world had gone dark, but all too suddenly I was aware of the vast emptiness spreading out on all sides of my being.

My curiosity is quickly replaced by fear at the feeling of being thrust forward rapidly, my numb senses awakening at the feeling of cold liquid embracing my skin and pushing into my lungs. I thrash wildly, fear pulsing through my veins as I cough and claw my way toward what I can only assume is the surface. Swimming was one of the few activities I hadn't bothered much with so I was pretty much at a disadvantage here.

I'd barely begun when the water around me turned warm, a heady feeling of calm sweeping through me as a figure approached me from above. I did my best to squint through the tirade of bubbles spilling from my panicked lips.

Flowy lavender fabric comes into view, billowing all around me while gentle hands reach out to cup my face, tilting it further up to be graced by a kind smile and strangely familiar turquoise eyes.

The stranger was saying something to me but my thoughts were far away, fear of drowning forgotten as I struggled to remember where I'd seen their face before. And just as the realization hit, the world starts to spin furiously, before I can scream in horror, the back of my body connects with the solid form of a wooden surface.

I sputter up saliva and seawater as my craving for air came back in full force. Excited eyes are still staring at me with their owner talking at rapid-fire speed with enthusiasm I'd never known her for.

Not like I'd known her for that long exactly.

"I didn't think it'd actually work, but I'm glad you're here Kira," Hikari's grin split her face in almost half. It was so blinding I had to look away, staring past her to the pink-tinted skies of wherever we were.

A dream? A memory? Something else entirely?

I ruled out the memory theory quickly, from what I'd experienced, the memories only came in the form of instinctual movements. Similar to the tiny voice at the back of one's mind urging them to just go with the flow.

I'd never experienced something this visual. Not to mention, she'd addressed me by my name. If this was a memory, I wouldn't be able to exist in it.

I reached out, my thumb making contact with the corner of her lip where the last time we'd met, had blood spilling forth as she'd taken her last breaths.

I should hate this girl, I should despise her for placing a burden I had no idea of onto my shoulders. For ruining the peaceful world I'd lived in even if it was only an illusion.

Even then, I couldn't stop the blossom of elation in my chest as when she turned pink and watched me in confusion. I don't know what the hell had happened but she was okay and in front of me. With a burst of energy, I pushed myself up and wrapped my arms around her neck, squeezing even tighter when I felt her arms wrap around me too.

"What the hell?!" I screamed into her shoulder as I buried my face into the fabric of her silky robes.

"I'd love to say we should wait for you to calm down so we can explain but I don't think we have that much time."

We?

Almost immediately, a new voice joins in, deep and rich in timber with a hint of displeasure that demanded attention, "This is beautiful and all but we really don't have all day."

"Rui, live a little and quit being a killjoy, I'm having a moment here," Hikari pulls away to glare at the boy seated not too far from where we are on some sort of dock.

The boy, Rui apparently, is seated on a cushion beneath a grandly built pavilion. Wind-chimes of colorful crystals hung down its roof, their melodies flowing with the gentle breeze and its jade stone pillars glistening in the soft pink light of wherever we are.

Across from Rui was another girl, a brazen smile of interest on her face as she watches Hikari pull me toward them. Her spiky red hair, rough and untamed, fell into her eyes, clashing with the deep purple variants of the robes they all seemed to wear. Each style was unique in its design and represented it's wearer with an eerie accuracy.

Beyond the dock and pavilions, I can see a small house and beyond that, a towering mountain with mist clinging to its tops and much smaller pavilions floating either above the waters or in the skies.

"What is this place?" I ask in awe as Hikari and I finally reach the other two.

"The Tethered Pavilions," the unnamed girl answers, "The place where all Keepers of the Seal come after their death."

"Turns out using demon magic attracts a punishment of delayed reincarnation," Rui rolls his eyes in seeming disgust, hands stringing together some colorful beads I'd just noticed before him.

"But since we risked ourselves for the good of the land, we get a nice cozy place to hang out while we wait, a branch of the Spirit plane just for only us," Hikari beams as she falls onto one of the cushions. She points to the guy, "I introduce to you, Yamada Rui, the third Keeper," then to the red-haired girl, "And she's Agawa Shiko, the second."

She chuckles before pointing to herself, eyes meeting mine, "I guess Lucifer and Mammon have said more than enough about me already but I'm Gushiken Hikari, the fourth."

My mind speeds through all the discussions I've had with the demons- Wait a minute?! I try to reach out but neither Lucifer nor Mammon answer my call. The distress on my face must have been evident because Shiko speaks up.

"Not looking too good there sprout," she hums.

Sprout? I push it aside, "I can't reach the Demons."

"Don't worry about that, like I said this sub-plane is only for the spirit of Seal Keepers, and since your body and the Seal aren't here they can't be as well," Hikari explains.

"Hold up! So it's my spirit or soul or whatever that's here right now?"

They all nod.

I crash to the ground, head in my hands, "Are you trying to say I'm dead?!" I screeched unable to keep the panic out of my voice.

Shiko bursts out in raucous laughter and the other two look just as amused but Rui was holding his composure much better.

"Calm down, little girl, we merely summoned you here," He answers.

"Would've gone much easier if that hag inside had helped us instead of moping around as usual," Shiko growls out derisively, shaking her fist at the house in the distance.

"I've told you to stop speaking ill of Kazue-san," Rui tosses back without missing a beat, his bead-making coming to an abrupt stop since we'd started conversing.

"Kazue?" The name rings a bell at the back of my mind, quickly coming to me in the form of one of Lucifer's brief history lessons. The first Keeper.

"Yeah, she's locked herself in her room long before either of us got here," Hikari informed running a tired hand through her short dark locks.

"Imagine dying and waking up to this lonely ass existence," Shiko, slams a hand down on the table, eyes dead set on me, "If it wasn't for the note she left on the door, none of us would probably know what's up."

"Nearly five hundred hundred years now, it's utterly ridiculous," Rui waves dismissively, "But it's up to her what she chooses to do with her time here."

"Staying locked up and feeling oh-so sorry without apologizing must be the best afterlife ever then. Maybe you should try it Rui-chi, I'd do better without having to see you and your lame ass hobbies a few more centuries!"

I kneel awkwardly as I watch, the subtle understanding that they all might not like each other very much had dawned on me, that or the novelty of spending several decades together had worn off. The first guess wouldn't be a stretch though, if they'd all become Keepers the way I did, they'd surely hold some resentment toward the one who did it to them.

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I swipe a quick glance at Hikari who had risen slightly to pull apart the other two had managed to grab each other's collars in the span of seconds. I stared, though they all didn't look that much older than me, our discussions so far had driven home the fact I was much younger than I thought.

Alongside the fact this Keeper business was far older than I'd ever hoped to comprehend. I deduced it was nearly five hundred years since Shiko arrived here. Before her, Kazue had also spent some time as the Keeper, but these time gaps were too ridiculously large to be a human feat.

"Does being a Keeper have some sort of expiration date or something?" I ask, halting their squabbling briefly and drawing their attention to myself.

"Nah, you're immortal until you get killed," Shiko replied, settling back on her cushion, picking up one of Rui's beads and flicking it toward his forehead, "It's hard to get killed with crazy healing and regeneration, but it's possible."

"Kazue-san got poisoned while traveling through the demon territory of the Spirit plane," Rui explains, "As for me, a demon that could cause a special plague was running around, I managed to stop her but I got infected with the flesh-eating parasite during the fight. It was a gamble if my regeneration would push through but I couldn't take that risk. Not when news of a new powerful sorcerer had started to go around," he gestures to Hikari, "I held on for a decade or two while searching for a successor, Pure of Heart brats were getting harder to find due to humans pulling further away from magic in general."

"You already know how I died," Hikari chuckles nervously, "Slow regeneration while bleeding out is a sure way to go."

"A pathetic sure way," Shiko cackles.

"She's insufferable because she claims she had the coolest death," the dark-haired girl muttered, "Some cursed arrow struck her chest while she was sealing away some giant army, and wouldn't stop going closer to her heart."

"They weren't just 'giants', they were Gashadokuro, nasty pieces of work from the depths of hell itself," the older snarls.

I sit up, nearly throwing myself across the table, "What did you say you fought?!"

"Gashadokuro," she repeats much slower this time.

A smile breaks across my face, that word, apparently a creature of some sort, was what Yamagata had told me to tell Kuro about. Shiko had fought them and possibly knew how to deal with whatever Nightmare was planning to cook up.

"How do we stop them, Agawa-san?" I ask quickly.

"Why would you need to stop them, I already banished them to some unnamed sub-plane."

"Nightmare plans on bringing them back I think. They're important to his plan in some way and we have to stop him."

The table falls into an eerie silence that has me sweating a little. Had I said something wrong? Was there no way to stop them now?

Shiko lets out a loud, angry curse, slamming a balled-up fist down as she glares daggers into the table's surface.

Hikari breaks the silence by speaking up at last, "That's going to be a problem..."

"Why?!" I exclaim pulling away as she reaches a hand to hold mine.

"Sealing the Gashadokuro, as Agawa's told us many times, took a lot of magic energy, that's why she hadn't been able to sense the arrow-"

"And why I wasn't able to complete the sealing process," Shiko cut Rui off, before anyone can react she swipes her hand in anger, sending Rui's bead set and the tea cups on the table to the floor, "The chump's probably figured it out and he wants to call them back!"

Rui is at her side almost immediately stilling her hand, but his expression isn't anger or annoyance at his work destroyed. It's sympathy, like he could understand her emotions, "Calm down, Agawa."

Hikari turns to me, grabbing my shoulder by taking advantage of my distraction, "The reason we called you here is to tell you that you can't use that kind of power."

My pride kicks in immediately, "I can, I just have to train. I've summoned Lucifer and Mammon and awakened another demon and it's barely been five months!"

"No! You can't use anymore!" Her grip on me tightens almost painfully, her eyes are wild with worry as they stare into mine, "Using anymore will be the end of you!"

"You've probably never wondered this and the Demons probably didn't think it was worth it to say anything," Shiko adds, "They're asses that way, no matter the cost, they still end up using us, no matter the risk or what kind of hold we think we have on them."

Rui stands and moves toward me, voice calm and somber, he asks, "Have you heard of the term Pure of Heart, Vermillion-kun?"

I force the bile threatening to crawl up my throat back, "Yeah, I'm not Pure of Heart, I've been told."

"Exactly, you don't have immunity against the influence of the Demons' desires. Without that gift, at best you'll become a Demon yourself, whether you stay sane or go rabid tearing humanity apart is uncertain," He continued.

"The reason your powers keep escalating at a surprising rate is also because of your lack of this gift. In regular demon exchanges, the demons don't live within the host, only a piece of power is given," Hikari picks up, "Giving a Demon control over your body can go two ways, bad or very bad. If they have nothing to gain, they can simply kill you and they'll still live. Lucifer and the others have something to gain for us so they can't do that."

"We know you've let them possess you and that's fine, but going past where you are now Kira, it'll be dangerous," Shiko, much calmer and sterner now is watching me sharply.

"So you're telling me to do nothing?! To give up?!" I stare at the three of them in disbelief, hoping that I was getting the wrong message, "You can't possibly mean that!"

"You can't give up," Hikari says simply, "You just have to find some other way."

"And fortunately for you, there might be," Shiko claps, joined hands pointing at me, "There are a number of ways to seal the Gashadokuro, not many but they exist. I searched and settled for the spell and vase method but there's another effective way."

"Thank goodness!" I nearly fall to the floor from relief, all wasn't lost. Not yet. But once Nightmare's plan was stopped, he'd be our next target.

"It's a special oracle stone. I sent them to a sub-plane so to bring them back, they'd have to be summoned. This stone just has to be placed on the center of the spell circle being used and the effect will stop all beings from the plane connected to it from existing on the destination plane."

"What's the name?" I pushed

She looks me dead in the face, "I've forgotten."

My panic returns in full force.

"I'm sorry, I wish I could remember but at the time, I'd poured more effort into the Spell and Vase method because it would keep them away for good...if I'd done it properly."

"It couldn't be helped," I say, hoping I sounded more comforting than I felt, I wasn't mad at her in the least, being too hurt to keep going wasn't something someone could walk off. Shiko had done what she could, it was my turn now, "When I get back, I'll tell Kuro. I'm sure he'll find out what it is in no time."

"I wish I was able to form a team," Hikari whines, elbows on the table as she pouts.

"You practically had a sidekick," Rui shoots, he'd picked up his beads and assumed his sitting position across from Shiko.

"Wasn't technically my sidekick."

"Sure," the other two groaned with rolling eyes.

I wanted to hear more but I'd actually begun to worry about the boys since mentioning Kuro. I had no idea when I'd passed out to get here. Last I could remember, we'd left the open streets and that was all. A blank existed between then and now, and I couldn't keep my thoughts from straying to the worst possible scenarios.

"I should probably be leaving now if you've told me all I need to know," I announce to the table of Keepers. My predecessors who'd so boldly taken up this position years ago. With how they acted, it was almost hard to notice, but I could see the invisible scars. The wariness within their eyes. They deserved this solace, even if it was some kind of mystic punishment. A place just to exist and be.

Something almost impossible in the world I'd come from.

"You should," Hikari sighs sadly, rising from her seat and pulling me up into a tight hug, "I'm so sorry, you know?" Her whisper caresses my ear, pleading my forgiveness, "If I could, I'd give you back everything my actions took from you, but there was no other way and I'd sadly do it again."

She pulls away to fix me with a solemn gaze, the gaze I'd seen when she died.

The other two have stood up as well, Rui making his way to my side once more, "The universe works in ridiculous ways, Vermillion-kun. No one with anything to lose has ever been a Keeper. We all accepted this because it was the only way for our lives to have meaning."

I don't return the sentiment but I don't say anything. Finding meaning in my life has never been something I bothered with. I enjoying living with my family, shopping and sports, as long as I can continue to do those things, nothing else really mattered. This protecting Tokyo thing was just a close for things to remain the same.

"We lived for the Seal and whatever the Demons have been battling since it came to be," Shiko joins us and soon the three are leading me back to the dock.

"You guys don't know what they want?" I'm a bit surprised admittedly. These guys had spent several decades with the Demons before they passed.

"Not entirely, not the exact details, but they want the human plane to remain as it is. Not necessarily peaceful, but free from major Demonic influence, and I can work with that," Rui responds.

I could get behind that as well. I'd seen what Nightmare's groupies were capable of, Jade's story remained fresh in my memory as well, not to mention types like Akio who could run around with Dark magic at their fingertips.

I came to a stop at the edge of the wooden platform, turning to the past three Keepers to say my goodbye.

"I don't know if we'll be able to call you back anytime soon, but know we'll always be watching over you," Hikari takes both my hands in a gentle squeeze, a bright smile splitting her face once more as tears began to spill out.

"Not all the time though, but we'll be cheering you and your boys on," Shiko corrects.

"Stay focused, and stay in control all the time. It's the best way to win most battles," Rui encourages.

I nod at all their words, a twinge of emotion tugging at the sensitive parts of my being. Especially when I glance past the three to the house.

Kazue hadn't once looked out to acknowledge my presence. I'd wondered about her when she'd been mentioned to me the first time. What kind of girl would leave behind so much to pursue a life of danger and uncertainty? All to defend the world and ensure peace on her own. How had her influence pushed these three to carry these burdens themselves? And would I have persevered alone if Troy and Kuro hadn't encountered me that fateful night?

My thoughts are cut off by the feeling of being forcefully pushed back. I stumble and fall back towards the clear blue waters of the Tethered Pavilions. My surprised gaze catching the assuring smiles sent my way by the only three people who could simultaneously get me and not at the same not.

Movement from Hikari's lips reaches me and I hear the words, "Until next time!"

I smile as I finally hit the water, this time, going calm within its grasp and letting it take me home.

I wasn't going to come back on my own anytime soon, and that was a promise.