A Tale of One Deviant (Book One)

Chapter 134: Heavenly Hell to Hellish Heaven

Things moved too fast for me to register. There was a pounding beyond the wall, footsteps on the ground before they became rapid knocks on the door, but the door that had been left open closed itself sharply. Arion's displeased look became a glare, and the voice beyond the door became frantic.

     "Kay-"

     "It's time for you to leave."

     His face was so close to mine that it felt almost literally impossible to look anywhere else.

     "Eh?" I leaned to the side. The noises were back. "But isn't that Takuya? My soul guardians...they went missing-"

     "They're fine." His voice was not the deep one I knew, but a shallower one. Thin and weak. But he seemed determined to keep holding my gaze and distract me from the pounding on the door and the constant jangling of the handle. It was such a familiar noise that I could picture the handle doing it just from hearing it. "You will see them now."

     "But Mas-"

     "Behave. Do not cause me more trouble than this."

     "Okay..." My eyes fell. I didn't know what I'd done, but I already felt bad. Being so close to him seemed to amplify to me what he felt, although it was only when he snapped at me that I usually could feel anything from him at all. His mood was very bad, and the aura he was putting out made both the lady and me flinch and seem queasy. "B-But...if that's my soul guardian, then why-?"

     That glare was really grating. I took in a breath that wasn't the smoothest, leaning back from him.

     "Kaya-chan!"

     It was his voice. I was sure of it. But if that wasn't my soul guardian, then why was I hearing it there? Then? How? Was it because I was in a place so Japanese-looking while wearing the form I wore? Was my mental state being influenced by it?

     I didn't get to think much of it before Arion leaned back from me, turning away. He was visibly angry, although his expression didn't change much. Maybe it was the way those emaciated fists curled back into the recesses of his wide sleeves, or the way I felt a bit angry myself inside, due to our connection as familiar and master that I was being reminded of when that dull spike went through me. I grabbed for my chest of the body I wore, which suddenly filled in the clothes that had been sagging off of me before.

     "Leave."

     "Ah-ha..."

     My voice broke in the middle of its breathless shriek. My chest hurt a lot. Beyond a lot. That dull spike was sharpening itself and I wasn't sure how to make it stop.

     I collapsed back on the futon, spilling off of it and onto the tatami mat below. That ringing sound I could always count on in intense silence, appeared. It was a bit loud though, to the point that my head was rocking back and forth and my fingers were feeling around on the futon for anything at all that was strong enough to block my ears and make it stop.

     My body stilled. It felt a bit strange. It was like...that same feeling again, of the cold that he always emanated when close to me. He was so frigid I could've shivered and so biting that I was sure I'd lost some of my fingers forever. I was dragged down, pulled from the surface without enough time to catch my breath, to take some air with me. The light faded from above, not a single trace remaining or a strand of it to reach out to the depths. To my eyes it was just like I was rapidly falling from the top of a tall tower, leaving only a pinpoint behind of all that "was" to embrace all that "wasn't."