Final Fantasy - All Series Fan Fiction / Fan Fiction ❯ Akirame Norwen ❯ Chapter 51 ( Chapter 51 )

[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]

Chapter 51: The one between Chapters 50, and 52! Riku sighed as the beautiful girl, whose name was at the tip of his tongue but a blank in his mind, shifted in his arms and continued dreaming. He wasn't exactly certain how to take what had just happened in the past two hours, nor was he certain it was a normal thing for him. But he'd certainly enjoyed it. It'd gone along the lines of the girl berating him for dying and leaving her all alone, which had left bruises on his chest, then in a rather angry, yet passionate way she'd poured out all her heart to him, while he'd held her and tried to comfort her. After a while he'd kissed her, because it felt like the thing to do at the moment and... well... the next thing he remembered clearly was when she was taking her top off, and from there all the bits sort of melted into each other in a confusing way. There had been a lot more kissing, an amazing rush of pleasure and burning need, and an indefinite amount of warm, soft flesh had passed under his hands. He'd enjoyed it, no doubt about that. But there was something that was bothering him deeply. He simply could not, for the life of him, remember her name, or come to think of it, anything at all about her. Oh well, he was certain that Sora... Sora? The name was in his mind, clearer than most other thoughts. Sora was his best friend since childhood. It'd been him, Sora, Kairi and... someone else, he was sure, who all lived together on an island somewhere.... he was sort of the leader of them, as he was the oldest. Frustration welled up inside his chest. How could he possibly forget the name of the girl whose very presence made him feel so weak inside, completely helpless and vulnerable? Something was wrong there, he could sense it, but beyond that his mind began to itch in a feverish way. That and the fact that all these thoughts were running around aimlessly in his mind, waving their hands and screaming in general chaos and panic. Yes, he'd talk to Sora. The girl opened her glittering ice-blue eyes and looked up at him, and his heart stopped. "H-hi." He managed to force out, then remembered to breathe again. She chuckled and shook her head as she pulled strands of hair away from his face, then rolled over and leaned her head against his chest. "Giddy, huh?" She spoke at last."Well, that among other things.""Like?""A little confused about what just happened, but otherwise I feel amazingly good."The girl's eyebrows knitted themselves together a bit. "And....is that all?"Riku felt there was an answer that was expected of him. He quickly drew on the first thought that came to mind. "I'm madly in love with you."Bingo! She blushed and kissed his cheek, then hugged him tightly. "I think we should get dressed and talk to the rest of the gang." "What, now?""Well how long do you plan on making everyone wait to see you again? They did miss you too, you know." "Wait, you mean they're all going to want to--""Don't you dare say it!" she raised a threatening fist, and he whimpered and retreated under the covers, curling up into a ball. "I'm sorry." He wiggled closer to her and puts his arms testingly around her waist. She sighed and patted the bulge under the blankets that was presumably his head, and a ^_^ floated in a stylized speech bubble above a rather different spot, and she yelped as he happily pounced onto her. "They can wait forever for all I care!""Oh Hyne, what happened, Serena? Is he gonna be okay?""Where's Riku and Akirame, did something go wrong?"Serena hadn't remembered Erik's body being quite this heavy before, and she grunted as she gently hoisted him onto a table in the cafeteria. "They're fine, but they need rest for now. There was an ambush in the room.""An ambush? By who?!""Demons of Emotion, the children of Sin. Despair and Anger, I'd think from the way they attacked us.""Say what?""I'll explain later. Irvine and Sora, I need you to go to the room that Erik's staying in and block out all the windows so there's no sunlight in there." "What, why?" "Just do it!" The two boys nodded and hastily ran out into the corridor, and at last Serena sat down beside the table and let out a deep sigh. Jerdania peered at Erik's pale skin and shivered at the way the shadows didn't fall into their natural places around him, but instead seemed to move around, deepening into an inky black. "What did those...demons do to him?"Serena shook her head. "One of them bit him.""But I don't see any puncture wounds...""Not the kind that you'd expect to see. They aren't exactly physical creatures, they're more like... shadows that have been given life. They feed on your strongest negative emotions, then use it to attack your very being, your soul.""So...in other words...""His soul is actually being redefined.""What? You mean that when he comes to, he won't be Erik anymore?""Nono, you see living things like...you and me, for example, are made up of 3 seperate parts which all work together. There's the body, the spirit and the soul. The soul is what defines what shape the body should be, and gives you life. In fact, it is your life, what makes your heart keep beating. The spirit is what makes you yourself. It's your personality, all your memories. The body is the physical layer that contains everything.""So if his soul is being redefined, then the sort of...life he has will change?""Hopefully it'll only change to a certain point. Sin only has fourteen children, and each one reproduces by turning other living things into copies of itself. The demon didn't have hold of him for long, so with any hope, he'll only be like a hybrid."Kairi frowned and silky lock of hair away from Erik's face. "No offense, but he's starting to look like a vampire, or at least more like a goth." "You're right, that's so weird," Jerdania agreed, leaning over Erik on the other side. "Look at his hair, it used to be all curly and frizzy, now it's really beautiful, and I think it's longer too!""I know! And his eyelashes are way dark, and so are the lids. Oh wow, feel his skin!""That is so weird! When he wakes up, do you think he'll let us give him a wardrobe makeover?""What makes you think he'll want different clothes?""Oh really, can you imagine him looking like Dracula's Sexy Older Son, wearing that bright orange shirt and baggy khakis of his?""Ew, you're right. Do you really think he's sexy?""Are you two done ogling him yet?" Serena asked, clearly annoyed. "Sorry."Soon Irvine and Sora returned, little bits of tape stuck in their hair. "We did it, we blocked all the windows." Sora managed to wheeze out. "So what's gonna happen to him?""With any luck, nothing too severe. Just as a precaution we want to keep him out of sunlight as much as possible.""Really? Why?""The worst scenario for now is that if he's exposed to light any stronger than a candle flame, he might go blind, if not die.""Hyne!""Come on, help me move him back into his room, and we'll wait for him to wake up." Amazingly enough, Erik's body still had its same dimensions, and he looked incredibly solid in a sort of strange, shifty way, but by now his body was incredibly light, and it only took Kairi and Irvine to easily get him down the hallway and into the now dark room. As soon as they stepped into the dark, they lost sight of him. They knew they were still holding him, but they couldn't see him, even though they could still make out the shapes of each other. "Go ahead and put him onto the bed.""But we're still holding him, and we can't even see him! How do we know we won't accidently drop him onto the floor?""If you do, you'll hear a loud thud.""Oh, right." "Well, that's him on the bed then, now what?""You will all leave very calmly, and let me and Erik be.""Gotcha, we'll go back to the cafeteria and mill around.""Good idea."Serena quietly walked over to the bathroom and flicked on the light, then closed the door to block all all the light but for a thin strip that encircled the doorframe. It wouldn't be much longer before he woke up; she could feel the shadows around her become more aware, more active. She had known from the very beginning that his heart was a delicate balance of darkness and light, all people's hearts were. But his was...different, somehow. Sometimes there are those to whom the rules don't entirely apply. For Erik, the shadows that wrapped themselves so tightly around his heart wasn't necessarily evil, it was just the element that made up most of his existence. Or maybe she just believed that because she didn't want to realize the truth, which was that Erik was in fact evil, deeply obsessed with death, blood and fire. Could she really believe that he'd struck his father with a shard of glass out of self-defense? Serena had, from childhood, been a strongly moral person by choice. She was a creature of the light, an angel in her ways. And yet, she'd torn off her own wings and plunged into the dark, murky depths to save a murderer, because she'd fallen in love with him. She was human now, she felt it with every breath her lungs ached for. She was mortal, and susceptible to all the things in the world which taint the soul. She'd already felt anger, pain, jealousy... lust. If she gave into them, she'd be useless to Erik and his companions. Her only real self-defense was her ability to reach within, refine the light of her own spirit, and use it to vanquish those who would spread evil. And yet she wanted to give in so badly... to give the flesh what it screamed out for. She trembled and tightly closed her eyes, wrapping her arms tightly around herself. She'd gone into hell so she could save him when he was dying, to give him a second chance. And now she was human. Was her act really so selfless, or was it merely selfish? Was Erik her equal, or was he still just the charge of his gaurdian angel? Would she ever trust him enough to let him take care of her when she needed it? Then again, maybe it would work, the love that she felt so strongly for him. So long as she did what was right, and trusted in Hyne's will for her... Erik's heart beat strongly, steadily, within his chest. Even his heartbeat wasn't the same anymore. It had a far more elegant, velvet sound to it, like a heart that was beating at an easy, learned pace, unlike the heartbeat of a human, which beats out of the fear of stopping. His lungs filled themselves with air, just the amount needed for the blood that kept his flesh alive. He was far stronger, far better than he'd ever been before, and the power that he know weilded screamed, thrashed and roared about in his mind, and yet at the same time was perfectly still, taking up its throne in his hindbrain, watching and gently guiding him with the keen interest of a cat. He could kill so easily now, his conscience having been given an off switch. The shadows all around him were part of him now, under his control. He soaked them in, relishing the taste, then flexed them and spread them out like a pair of great wings. They searched every corner, becoming extensions of his eyes and feet, showing him everything, even though his eyes were closed. And yet there was a barrier in here, a bright, burning cold ring at the left wing of this space. He inwardly hissed at it in contempt, then turned back. There was another living being in here with him, he could actually hear the uneasy heartbeat and trembling breath. It was afraid of him, and yet it was trying not to be, like a rabbit in a pen of wolves. It was so strangely sensual, the way he felt as he let the shadows gently wrap around the being's soul, and he lightly tugged, drawing it closer to him. With only a little hesitence it lay beside him on the cool blankets. He held the person in his arms the same way a child holds a teddy bear. What am I? Am I human anymore? Or is my humanity gone now, and all that's left is the shadow, a ghost acting like it's still alive? Can I go back, or did I really die? No, a shadow doesn't feel these things, it only acts. I'm just trapped now, inside the shell... Regaining control of his body wasn't like it was before. He had the feeling that it should feel like being dunked into ice water, the sharpness of reality biting him painfully. But instead it was just slipping into a soft, cotton thickness, warmth bleeding into his skin. He was human, and then again, he wasn't. He was just simply as human as he wanted to be. However, despite all of his awesome power-ups, there was no changing the fact that if someone were to come in and shine a flashlight on his face, he'd probably explode. In flames. Meanwhile, allow a moment for the camera man to hastily jog all the way clear back up the hallway, up a flight of stairs, trip a few times, get back up and then, wheezing and holding his chest as if he were expecting a heartattack, makes it back to the room where Akirame and Riku are currently lodged. Yes, those two are still at it, sad enough. And the authoress had just handed the keys to unlock the door to the camera man to send him in to the rather interesting scene, but alas, her nose began to bleed! (And no joke either, it really did.) Was it a sign from the Gods of Fiction, a warning unto the writer, or was it simply a sign that the recent inclusion of a dog into her household was not going well with her allergies? Either way, there was an awful lot of blood, and after pinching her nose and tilting her head back for a full five minutes, she wasn't in the mood any longer. Besides, by then Riku was already half-way dressed, pulling his shirt on while Akirame showered. However, on the beautiful finer points of bribery, the authoress finally decided that in order to keep her readers happy, she would in fact post a HENTAI scene seperately from the rest of her story. Keep your eyes peeled, it'll be around eventually.