"It's great to see you again, Uria," Hamon announced at Kiria's house. They were all hanging out in celebration of the piece that clued in the final character who'd been missing to them for so long.
"Hello, Hamon," Uria greeted warmly. All three stood together, smiling and talking, while their hosts sat together and talked, too. Shizira looked happy, and so did Kiria; they all did - happy, relaxed, care-free.
"What have you been up to?" Raviel asked.
"Being stuck in Egypt with 'Malice'. That's what she wants to call herself, anyway. What have you guys been up to?"
"Axel and I got stuck in the Shadow Realm," Hamon added nonchalantly, making Uria gasp in surprise.
"How'd that happen?!"
"Now that's a long story, but-"
"Kiria and I did it on accident," Raviel finished, cutting off the golden counterpart of the trio.
"How does one accidentally send someone to the Shadow Realm? Wait... I did that once or twice; okay, fine, forget I asked."
"How did you accidentally send someone to the Shadow Realm?" Hamon huffed in disbelief, eyes wide with surprise. For once, he wasn't being sarcastic.
"I never said it was an accident," Uria winked, giving a toothy smile. Raviel and Hamon exchanged somewhat nervous glances.
"Do you feel like you're missing something?" Hamon inquired after a brief pause.
"Sort of," Raviel admitted. His mind casually shifted to the thought of the fourth missing spirit from the ensemble, and he almost chuckled at his forgetfulness. "Oh, I remember. We forgot to introduce you to Izira! I'll warn you, Uria, she can come on a little... threatening."
"So do I to most people I meet," Uria replied sweetly. "Then again, they threaten me first."
Raviel and Hamon shared a look Uria couldn't read.
"Hey, Izira," called Raviel. "Come out, we want to introduce you to Uria!"
A shadow crept slowly up from the corner of the room, shaking metaphorical dust from its haunches. Its eyes flashed malevolent red and then a dark obsidian before glinting with gold. Izira stood tall, proud, translucent, with an irritable scowl on her face. She looked worse than usual; haggard, with narrowed eyes full of anger. Three-thousand years of anger that composed her very being, to be precise.
"Come over," Raviel continued. "We think you might like her!"
Izira sneered, turning away and letting her black hair hide her shoulders like a cloak. Only a single, near-invisible eye peered out from her corner, watching them.
"Don't be like that," Raviel insisted, sharing a sheepish look with Uria. "We know you normally do not like to socialize, but you and Uria both like killing, right?"
"There is nothing I like about that thing," Izira hissed, turning her head stubbornly away. "But do go on; continue socializing. My opinion doesn't matter. Nothing about me does."
"Uria is not a thing; she's a spirit, like us," Hamon retorted, stepping close to the red dragonesque lady. "What's with the attitude?"
"Perhaps you should have thought harder about asking me that before you left me to be dragged behind you all like a godforsaken dog."
"Nobody forced you to be dragged," Raviel pointed out, sensing an ominous feeling. He didn't like the dark shadows cast around her face; the threatening glint that had invaded her eyes.
"The point is that you all forgot me," Izira snarled, keeping her back to them.
"I don't see the big point in it," Uria spoke. "Why cause all this drama over it?"
Raviel felt it before he saw it; a wave of energy that suddenly made the room near impossible to breathe in, if one breathed, and made it impossible for him not to tremble. Izira whirled around, looming suddenly bigger than she looked.
"It matters when you've spent three-thousand years being ignored, you piece of trash! Three-thousand years of oblivion! You know nothing about me, you snot-nosed fat brat! Think you're so much better than me, do you?! I have nothing in common with you! I am the better one, the more powerful one, the one who deserves to actually be remembered! But guess what; I don't remember jack shit about myself, yet you do! I have to play footsy with the goddamn world to find out who I was! You think you know scary? You think you're scary? Trust me, bitch, when I'm through with you, you'll want nightmares to be your comfort dreams!"
The air whipped harshly around them, swirling aggressively about them. She stood condescendingly tall, prominent, her features snarled into a mask of hatred that made the others cringe back in shock. Raviel was scared, genuinely scared. He'd faced Izira without fear in the alley, when she'd been cunning and terrifying. But that didn't even hold a candle to this. He could feel her anger, her wrath, unending bloodlust and years of torture and agony burning like brilliant fire.
Uria burst into tears, Hamon standing comfortingly beside her. His red eyes narrowed angrily at Izira.
"Uncalled for!" he snorted. "Uria's much better than you!"
The room became suffocatingly hot. Izira practically filled the room, the corner she occupied stuffed with dark, clambering shadows. Her eyes were a dark, luminous red now; she grinned almost maniacally as she looked at her hands. Her translucent skin began to take on an ash-gray tinge on her arms and legs, like she'd dipped them in a pile of soot. The gray began to darken to a black on the edges as she looked back up at them. Her pupils were miniscule, almost gone. Her hair whipped in a hot wind frenzy around her head, the blue seeming to glow with dark light. Her crescent of a smile made Raviel's non-existant stomach do backflips.
"Is she really?" Izira spoke, her tone booming and yet sounding as normal as ever. Judging by the traumitized looks on everyone's faces, they hadn't been the only ones to hear that. "Let me tell you all something great; something really, really great about being an entity of odium. When you're as old as I am, when you're as batshit insane as I am, eh hehe, you just - you just tend to overflow with hatred at the worst times. Ya know? No, you don't know, I'm so stupid; how could I forget? You know nothing."
"Jesus oh god get them off!" Shizira was crying, trying to take the earrings away but yanking her hands back as soon as the skin brushed them. Her ears were starting to burn red. "They're super freaking hot! Why are they so hot? They've never done this!"
"Do you smell something?" Izira quipped as the scent of something horrid filled the air. She let out a maniacal giggle, flaunting a creepy iridescent smile with sharpened canines looking fit to kill. "Smells like burnt flesh to me~ Ah, memories. What was I saying? Oh, right, the greatness of being me. Yes, unfortunate, really, but when you're a damned soul burning up with animosity and you just have absolutely no-where to put it!... Things tend to get a little out of control, ehehe. And wouldn't you believe it, Urass, ding-ding! You've won the prize~ I want to kill you."
Uria screamed hysterically, Hamon looked shell-shocked. Raviel probably looked shell-shocked himself. His host was crying, Shizira was crying, Asuiri was breathing in utter terror, Axel was holding her sister protectively, even Malice was crying - this wasn't Izira. This wasn't the nervous, lonely, aggressive spirit wanting to figure out who she was.
This was on a completely new level.
Izira looked completely different compared to before. Her arms, all the way up to the middle of her upper arms, were ashen gray, with half her forearms down to the hand soot black. Her legs were the same. Her skin was paled, ghastly, with haunting dark red eyes flashing gold and black in a dizzying array. The dress' edges were burnt, looking ragged, and her smile - her smile terrified him.
In a bolt of a second, she vanished, a shadow that blurred across the ground at inhumane speed. She loomed up behind Uria, wrapping unfeeling fingers around the spirit's neck. Her grip squeezed, her giddy grin growing only larger. Izira felt something, now; a burning sensation, like all her nerves had she owned any were on fire. She was ablaze in hatred that could only be quenched by fulfilling its desire.
Shizira was curled up in a ball, eyes narrowed against the burning wind. Uria struggled in Izira's grip, and Malice struggled too; they shared a body together, and Malice was suffering as her spirit suffered. The Egyptian's face was turning blue under the eyes.
"Revertere in qua venisti, spiritus, Revertere ad sigillum! Go back through the door you came, spirit, return to your seal!"
The very earth seemed to rock beneath them as Izira's eyes widened, and then she vanished into a whirlwind of angrily clanging bells and gongs and a wind that nearly knocked the table off its feet. The earrings instantly began swinging with furious intensity, and Shizira quickly gripped them and threw them off at the table. Her hands were red, as if she'd stuck them in boiling water. The earrings rattled across the table top, steaming and putting the odor of smoking wood into the air.
"Shit!" Kiria squeaked, getting up and trying to find something fire-proof in the kitchen. The room was utterly silent, save for the panting of Shizira and the sobbing of Malice and Asuiri alike.
She returned moments later carrying a bowl full of icy water. Into this bowl the earrings were flung, where they let whoosh a cloud of steam into Kiria's face. Shizira was curled tightly to herself, trying to console the feeling of despair in her heart.
"Is anyone hurt? Kiria, Asuiri, Shizira?" Axel questioned.
"You tell me," a red-eyed Kiria sighed. "Shizira's hands look like they've nearly been burnt off - Not to mention the ears - and Asuiri looks practically horrified for life. At least he wasn't hurt, but Shizira, are you okay? Yo-"
"Don't touch her!" Hamon snarled, clutching a stunned Uria close. Raviel turned on him, equally as angry and equally as startled.
"It isn't her fault! Izira and Shizira are two completely different entities! Two different people... and I don't know why she reacted that way."
Shizira gave a sniff, rubbing at her face. "W-Well, now that we have all three rocks, I can try to piece them together and read them, right? Here, let's just take them and push them together, see what we can figure out."
Kiria, Axel, and Malice (who was being told everything via the three spirits) all placed their rocks on the table. Shizira took center-stage on the couch, and reached out, gripping one of the rocks.
The earrings thumped into the side of the bowl. Everyone jumped and cringed back in horror reflexively, including Shizira's hand. The earrings didn't move.
She tried again, resting her palm upon Uria's stone. Another thump. Shizira gently pushed the rock along the table, watching as the bowl rattled with the earrings inside it. She connected the edges to Hamon's piece, the lines clicking together smoothly. The earrings thumped harder, tilting the bowl onto its edge.
Shizira gripped the third rock with everyone's watchful eyes on her fingers. They gently nudged Raviel's rock toward Hamon's, sliding it into place with a gentle grinding sensation. The earrings frantically tilted the bowl this way and that, swinging erratically and crashing into its sides with a horde of noise.
The rocks fit together, forming a third of a tablet with lines of writing and part of a picture. The earrings went eerily still.
A groaning noise filled the air, like someone was wrenching a piece of steel apart like a strand of bubblegum. It reached a terrible pitch, making everyone's ears ache. Shizira's fingers rested on the stone tablet as she felt a jarring, sucking sensation push her out of the way.
A snap in Shi's brain like a rubberband. Raviel-Kiria, Axel, Hamon, Uria, and everyone else watched as Shizira's hair tips faded to a light blue. Her eyes blinked, fading from orange to gold. Her body went deadlock as sweat soaked her clothes and her face tinged pink. The same ashy effect dusted her arms to a minor extent before fading away slowly.
'Atiea... Desis... Oh, Ra, forgive me for failing you both in this way. Are you resting now? Will I - no, I'll never see you again. Not-'
Raviel found it unnerving how Izira's golden eyes focused on him. Her expression was dazed, almost loopy. He could hear Hamon snarl, taking over Axel's body and throwing himself as Izira. The ravenette didn't even see it coming until he crashed into her, gripping her throat furiously.
"Why are you back?!" he practically roared, leaning into her face.
"It burns... the memories do...," Izira murmured, eyelids fluttering over unfocused eyes. The pupils dilated awkwardly, focusing on the enraged face above her. "... Desis?"
"Wh- Answer me!"
"I... huh? What? I can't breathe!" Izira pushed Axel off her, rubbing her sore throat and then her temples. "You look exactly like them, but older... wait, where the hell are my earrings? Why am I in her body if I'm not wearing the earrings?!"
"Very funny," Hamon sneered, standing in front of her. "Acting so friendly towards us when you just tried to kill Uria!"
Izira sent him a withering look. "You I can be friendly towards. Uria, however, can go suck a dick for all I care." She reached into the bowl of water, shook her earrings dry, and clipped them back on.
"Why us? You tried to kill Kiria a month ago!"
Izira stared him full in the face, brow hunched in annoyance. "That was before I remembered, you cockwaffle. Before I remembered you both."
"What are you talking about?"
"Atiea and Desis. Two of the children from Egypt so long ago. You look just like them." Without further explanation, she retreated back in the earrings. It was deadly quiet.