Chapter 9: Hands

Voices echoed in the darkness.

Takabi looked all around, his eyes trying to brighten up the black void to no avail. Each voice was muffled, but he could make out who was around him. Raia, Nana, Shink, the Three Dragons, and Beowulf.

"Guys?" He yelled out, voice distant.

He knew he was in his own mind, in a place no other could reach. The coldness of the artificial air, the lack of light. Whatever this place was inside of him, it gave him chills.

Chills that ran right up his spine and locked around his throat. It was becoming increasingly harder to breathe. Fingers dug into his neck, yet when he reached to pry them off, he could feel nothing in his grip.

"Why do you suppress me?" The words sounded so close, yet so far. A burning sensation began in his lung, smoke slowly exiting his nose and a red mark glowing on the left side of his ribs. "I wish to help you. The Darkness is not evil. I protect you. Your inner self, is always the voice of reason."

"Inner.. Voice.." He struggled to say, his mind rushing back to the voice in his head that went silent months ago. At first, he figured a second personality had manifested due to his memory loss because around the time that his memories came back, the voice had ceased.

Clearly, it was just waiting for the right moment to speak again.

"As a Fallen, you know you hold the balance of light and dark, so why do you choose to fight against me?" Takabi thrust his elbow back sharply, body freezing in the instant his head turned.

"What… Did you do to me! I can't… Move…"

"You perceive through. You hear, you see and feel me, though none should be able to in the land of stillness. Your mind is my timeless cage, and I ache to be free of such a place." The voice moved closer, a breath brushing against the back of Takabi's ear. "Why must you repress me? We accomplish great things together."

Takabi shut his eyes tight, struggling against the invisible hands and stiffness of his body. He wasn't frozen. It was something else keeping him in place entirely.

"Whenever… You come up… I kill… And I have to live with that guilt."

"Nonsense. It is all self defense. Death comes to those who threaten us." The voice cackled a little, a hint of maliceness in its tone. "Dark is not always evil, as Light is not always good. We choose which is which, it is our right."

Violet tattoos began to rush up the left side of Takabi's body. Similar to the design of the other Gem in his body, the tattoos reached up over his left eye, his entire left half decorated with a twisting violet flame that reached around his neck, stopping halfway in a wing design on his collarbone.

The stiffness faded from his bones. Sharply, he spun and threw a kick into nothingness. There was no contact, and nobody met his vision.

Alone. Completely and utterly alone.

"None can live without dark, and you are no exception. Had it not been for us, that Dragon would have viewed you as an inferior creature. A waste of time, barely fit to wipe his ass. The boy from your lost childhood. He challenged us. Wanted to hurt us, and we showed him how much of a mistake that was."

Takabi screamed into the void, pain shaking and resonating in his body. His fingers reached in and dug into his burning left lung, attempting to stop whatever was harming him. Finding nothing, he gripped a rib bone, and tore it.

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His mind was shot then, and he snapped awake, sitting up with an excruciating pain in his left side. His eyes glanced around, vision blurred. For a moment, he thought he saw everyone frozen in place, as if time itself stopped. The idea was lost once his body began to violently convulse.

Nana looked at him with tearful eyes, holding him against the table as he thrashed, the tattoos on his body suddenly appearing for all in the room to see.

Porrelth watched with wide eyes, more surprised Takabi had a Gem than how he was reacting.

The boy slammed his elbow into the table, denting it in with no effort. Blood was pouring out inside his body, filling his lungs. He began to cough it up as his body tried to fix and reject whatever was happening to him. His perception of time was dulled. Moments he would see everyone quickly backing away, faster than any normal creature would. Then he would watch their frozen gazes and expressions.

"Beowulf, DO SOMETHING!" Nana screamed at him when they began to move.

The wolf scrambled around the infirmary, grabbing medical supplies to prepare for surgery. "I can't do anything if he's thrashing around like that!"

Syrreth stepped over, her hand reaching out over him and blasting Takabi full of pure light. "Darkness will cease!"

Takabi's eyes widened as if they were going to pop. His sporadic movement had stopped, and his body plopped on the table, the violet tattoos fading away. Steam rose from the pores on the left side of his body, signifying his healing process. The blood had faded, and his shattered rib had reformed, stronger than it had been before.

Beowulf placed the equipment in his hands on the metal table by the door, walking over to Takabi and touching his side. He looked at the clock above the door, counting the seconds to ten then exhaling.

"He stabilized. What was that just now?"

Syrreth smiled proudly. "A seal taught to Dragons of Light. I simply suppressed the darkness within. That aside," She looked at Takabi. "Being a Fallen Angel, Light and Dark are natural to him. However, I feel something is enhancing both sides of him, beyond what is normal for his kind. Light, as it stands, isn't meant to be harmful. It is to help." She looked at Garuga. "That's why he was able to use the White Gem he has inside him, right?"

The Shadow Dragon nodded. "Yes. At the time, darkness was never a," Garuga paused, coughing into his fist before resuming to speak, "Severe issue. He refused to use it, and that was fine. He grew strong without it. From what I can guess now if it wasn't obvious, I think suppressing the Darkness in him so long is causing it to develop its own consciousness. He's probably struggling internally, trying to keep it locked away so he doesn't lose himself like before."

Nana watched Takabi, her tears calming and she gripped his arm. "Takabi…"

The boy stirred, eyes fluttering open. His throat was parched, and there was a lurking ache in his side as he sat up. Hair hanging in his eyes, he placed a hand against his forehead and exhaled. "What… Happened…"

"SO YOU HAVE TWO," Porrelth's voice roared, startling everyone in the room. "Two Gems?! That is unheard of! Hell, it's barely possible for a person to have just one, yet somehow this little shit has two?!"

Shink took a deep breath, sitting in a chair and holding his cane out in front of him. "Porrelth, please. Indoor voice, and please watch your profanity."

"Who else knew he had two?!" Everyone in the room raised their hands except Takabi and Nana. Garuga spoke up softly, "I had suspicions. We all did at first."

"Well that's just fucking great! Why didn't you tell me, Garuga?!"

"Because we knew this is how you would react." He said coldly. "Are you okay, Takabi?"

"More or less," The boy said tiredly, swinging his feet off the table. Nana placed her hands on his back, and he looked at her, the two sharing a warm, but small smile. "I have zero clue what that was…" He touched his side. "Did I break anything?"

"No," Shink said. "I wish to have a word with Takabi alone. May I?"

The others began to file out. Raia left after Porrelth, looking back at him. "Glad you're okay, T." She muttered, moving out of the doorway. Nana and Garuga were the only two who remained. Shink looked displeased, but knew arguing against those two would bring no good results.

"I wanted this to be an A and B conversation but… I suppose having extra inputs wouldn't hurt." Shink stood, walking around until he was in front of Takabi, and sat in the wheeled chair there. "I want to explain what I know about this group we may challenge."

"Lemme say something before you begin, Shink," Takabi said suddenly. The man seemed a little surprised, but nodded for him to continue. "I fought Erodon. Killed him, that's no secret. Despite his goals, despite who he was and what he did, I struggled for the past few months with the realization that I killed again. Whether or not he deserved it, I don't care. I still took another life, and I'm living with more and more blood on my hands as the days pass." He tightened his grip against his knees. "Remember when you told me there was a Vampire that was here years ago? That was him, wasn't it?"

Shink bit his lip, but nodded. Nana seemed shocked, and Garuga was unphased.

"Yes. Erodon was a part of the Mystics. He defected after some time to pursue his own goals. I had no clue that one of those was searching for your mother and Gems."

"He wanted to meet, Mom?" Takabi asked. "How do you know that?!"

Shink paused, mulling over his thoughts. The silence and the ticking of the clock mingled into a few agonizing seconds, Takabi's mind pondering what Shink could possibly be thinking about. When he spoke, he seemingly answered and ignored Takabi's question at the same time.

"I can't say for sure," Shink finally replied. "Erodon had always had a fascination with your Mother's power. Erodon never had clear endgame ideas for what he set out to do. The boy just had such a strange obsession." He seemed like he was dodging the question of how he knew. "The group shared a similar interest in your mother, Takabi. She was different from other demons. She killed for sport, for fun, in her younger days. Not as a sacrifice to anyone, or for any other malicious reason but to bring joy to herself."

"Sounds like a generic devil to me."

"How many do you know that would purposely leave children untouched physically, but destroyed mentally? I dare-say, your mother is single handedly responsible for the amount of psychopaths in the world today." Shink coughed into his fist, then patted his knee. "Your mother was special. That's the best way to put it. If you couldn't tell, by the time she met your father, she calmed down enough to actually consider him as a mate. They were attracted to each other, to say the least and things worked out long before you were born. So much so she suppressed and sealed away her demonic urges."

Takabi thought back to the night of the neighborhood explosion, and the day he ripped his family apart. His father turned her in because of the Gems and the research she was going to use for her plans. So why did mention of their relationship stir something nasty in him? Shink just mentioning the two of them together spouted a strong urge of hate and unwantedness.

Where did that come from?

"The night your mother was taken away, and split from her physical body, people wanted to claim all her work and use it for their own deeds. Some humans had knowledge of us higher beings at the time, and thus tried to gain the advantage if there was ever a war or such. You dealt with some of them in your angry outburst against your father.

"At the same time," Shink continued, "There was one stroke of luck for the evil in the universe. Your mother."

"Wait, but you said Myra suppressed her evil urges." Nana chimed in. "How could she contribute to anything after being taken away?"

Shink reached into a drawer, pulled out a thick stack of papers and held them up for the three to see. "Girston wrote a report after those events."

Takabi's eyes widened at that. So Kairas's goal wasn't just made up nonsense.

Their father was alive in the world somewhere. Hiding, and Kairas wanted to track him down and slaughter him because he feels he's the source of all their problems.

The worst part was, Takabi was starting to agree subconsciously.

"In these reports, Girston mentions in detail what happened that night, and how he had to stow himself away. He abandoned his kids, two of which survived that night and one disappeared. You grew into the world with no memories, while Kairas held onto the past and used it to drive him forward. Both of you got that determination, that drive to do what you felt impossible, from your mother, the ONLY demon capable of choosing good over her evil nature. In normal humans, things like this happen often, changing one's heart, and it's normal to have slight relapses now and again."

He leaned forward. "What do you think would happen if a demon, who was stripped of their surface soul, went through something similar?"

Takabi touched his chin, thinking hard, then it clicked in his mind like a light switch. "Wait, you mean…"

"That's right. Erodon wanted to meet YOUR mother. Not the one running around with her face. YOUR mother was the one with the research. Erodon could care less for things like that, so that leaves people in his group that would want the research." He placed the papers down and held his fingers up, one on each hand. "Suppressing one's nature has been a conflicting concept. The results are unknown for every person. A demon, who develops a pure and positive soul over their pure evil and negative. The positive mind and soul is stripped, and leaving the body a husk. In your mother's case… " Shink trailed off.

"... A body for her old self.."

"Takabi. I believe your mother is very much alive, but it's her old, evil soul that's out in the world. If that much is true, then this battle may be very well over before it even begins.