Interlude: Reiser

Interlude: Reiser

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Wordcount: 2500

Commissioned by Arksoul

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An unfamiliar individual stood before me. 

Brown, straight hair cut to just above the shoulders. Pale skin lacking in scars surrounded a slim, sharp nose. One amber eye looked upon me, while the other lay hidden behind an eyepatch, alongside a scar that refused to fade. The tips of elfin ears poked out of straight hair.

My hand twitched at the sight of the stranger before me for she resembled a monster. One with a lean, mannish form, compared to her sisters, but a monster nonetheless. 

So, my hand searched for my sword, even though the figure I looked upon was myself.

Yet another day without progress from the weapon that the Empire desired.

However, there was much to be done, so I looked away towards the wardrobe in my room. 

The clothes offered were of his design. Drider-silk composed into a white, collared tunic which buttoned at the front. Trousers with plentiful between skin and fabric, allowing for both cooling winds and freedom of movements. Gloves and boots made of leather were also provided. Simple tugs of string enclosed both against the weather, while the latter also provided protections against the rigors of marching.

Even in mere garments, his mind provided gifts which would better the lives of many, which the Empire kept from the people. 

Which I kept from the people. 

I turned to my new armor, after I donned my clothing.

Plates of precious metals lay within a simple box. A vest that covered the entirety of my torso, but allowed my arms freedom, practically filled itself and conformed to my body. Protecting my limbs required me to bend or stretch to affix clasps, but without the plates of metal, I did so with ease without the aid of a squire. In mere moments, less if I had not pored over them for rust and indentations, I would have been ready for battle and well-protected in but a hundred heartbeats. 

How many soldiers of the Empire would’ve not fallen in battle, if such armor became widespread? If all could have protections against fangs and claws, instead of veterans and warriors with potential? 

The Empire denied the people of the protections I now wore. 

And in protecting the Empire, in fighting for Empire, so did I.

Light broke through the bars upon the window. Dawn arrived slowly and lethargically, casting a gold hue upon Ylstu’s burgeoning fields and sea of emerald trees, as I awaited the toll of bells that would awaken and echo through the town. I sat upon the bed I’d been given alongside the wardrobe and the mirror, and waited within my room for the iron door for my room to open, and for my day to begin. 

The chains which restrained my magic will become bracelets. 

A varnished club will be hung upon my hip.

And, another undeserved day for a failure shall begin.

…

Ur typically arrived shortly after the second bell tolled after dawn, then she would press into my hands a meal between a loaf of bread to consume for the day, as she led me through the town he’d made in a handful of seasons. 

I would look upon a town that outdid every new settlement made by the Empire, as I patrolled alongside Ur. 

The roads were wide, the structures tall, and there was no sight of any bereft of work. Industry governed the entirety of the populace, yet the mon-the Kindred were either calm and composed, or filled with joy as they worked, studied, or rested. Driders, Beasts, Wyverns, and Harpies congregated, worked with one another, and perused the wares of merchants that travelled from faraway lands with the coin that filled their pockets. 

Even those who merely cleaned did so with precision and care, as they minded gutters, bins of trash, and made off to incinerate it all far from the town’s borders. Vermin were nowhere to be found. Drunkards caroused within halls meters from their own rooms. The Amazons and other guards were not steely-eyed and firm, but individuals to be respected and adored, as they aided the populace in solving petty affairs. 

No enforcers who sought out those unwilling to work. 

No Inquisitors who questioned you for a missed sermon. 

No Lords and Ladies to supplicate to in their mere presence. 

Every day I walked through the dream promised to me by my teachers, my priests, and my family. The dream that they declared impossible, until all of the Kindred were gone, and for which hundreds of thousands came forth from other worlds to assist us in attaining. 

I thought myself ready for the task once again, after another knight spent fruitlessly searching for sleep, until the iron door opened. 

“Yo. I’m dealing with you today.” He stood in the doorway and dominated the light cast by the torches that lined the hall. His hands were hidden in the depths of his coat, while a ceremonial blade hung upon his hip. At his back, bound to him through power and might without question even with my weakened senses, was the Demon he’d called forth mere days ago. Her lips hid teeth more kin to steel than bone, her visage a parody of beauty, and her gaze upon him filled with adoration. “Huh, so you can actually control yourself. What a miracle.”

My body had tensed for battle at the sight of the Demon, but I stopped myself my forcing myself to stay seated. Wood crumbled in my grip, and the tearing of cloth had reached my ears for a secant second, but he was correct. 

Miraculously, I had stayed my hand, even against the vilest of foes of humanity.

However, I had to bite my tongue to stop the stream of indictments that threatened to leave my throat at the sight of the creature. 

“Staying quiet when you’re angry is a pretty low bar to clear, but for someone from the Empire… you’re doing a decent job.” Hikigaya Hachiman mused, as he entered the room he’d given me. Our positions were reversed mere months ago. While he’d been a cell bereft of furnishings, destined to be executed, I stood in his presence clean, clothed, and cared for. “I have your leash today, because Ur’s doing something more important. Here. Eat this.”

The words that left his lips ended with a clack of his teeth coming together.

I understood why, because those words have left his lips before, in a different time, and in a different place.

The mere memory they evoked felt as though a heated vice wrapped around my hurt and crushed it, leaving me breathless, and staring at a meal in an all-too-familiar hand. 

Until he gave a growl and pressed it into my hand.

“No. I’m not dealing with that shit. Eat and follow me.” Hachi—he turned away from me with gnashing teeth and hands grit into fists. More words. Hateful ones that I deserved, were about to leave his lips, but he forced them back. Though I deserved worse, he kept his promise. His and my history is nothing besides ash from which he sought to make something grow to his benefit. So, though my hand reached for him as it did for my blade, I pulled it back. “A’Bel has your things. Take them and meet me outside.”

His footsteps echoed through the structure, until I was alone with his Demon.

I hated the anger I felt at the Demon, as she bowed to me, left, and closed the door to allow me privacy.  

In this place, amongst the Kindred, my hatred is utterly unreciprocated by those who I once swore to slaughter.

Every step I took, every moment I spent with them, increased the weight of my sins.

…

While the lords of the Empire are scarcely seen by the populace, and are supplicated to when they appear with their guards, Hikigaya strode through his town nearly bereft of guards. Five Kunoichi protected him from the shadows, but only his Demon accompanied him, while I followed.

Some part of me hoped to see the side of the Kindred that was decried as licentious and craven. The same part of me wished to have some form of shelter from the truth that surrounded me. Selfishly, my desire was to have even the slightest kernel of truth to the lies I have been fed, perhaps simply to have in the depths of my heart that some good can be found within the Empire. 

Yet, even as admiration and affection flowed forth from the Kindred of the town towards my former teacher, there was no sign of seductive magics, corruptive influence, or airborne effects which would alter the mind. Many of the Kindred were scantily clad, openly leering, and deep in lust, but such things did not break his stride, as he conversed with the denizens of his town as he did those who we once fought beside.

He spoke to all who greeted him. Merchants, workers, and all could speak to him without paying tithes or waiting for audiences. Some offered him gifts, but he gestured them away with statements that they only need to pay their due, and nothing more. Each one who spoke to him saw he addressed each of them the same, regardless of their appearance and wealth, and that invigorated them no matter the outcome of their discussion. 

He did not lie to them. 

He refused many.

He left most without assurances.

Yet, in the end, he treated every single individual he met as they were individuals of worth. 

“Whereas your lords rule through fear alone, he commands both fear and respect.” I did not notice the Demon until she was beside me, beneath her breath, as Hikigaya confronted merchants. Bereft of protections as I was, she cast a magic upon me with ease, which muted the sounds of our surroundings. I would here her words alone. “The Empire is no longer what it once was, child. Once it was the land of true heroes, martyrs, and faith for which my sister and I were destined to wage war.”

Hidden depths of power surfaced. Lacking in power as I was with my shackles, to the point where even a mere Ghoul could kill me with ease, her outpouring of spirit showed me a vision of what the Empire once was. A faraway, mythical land made real, with legions of Knights led by Heroes, and backed by war machines and columns of steel-clad men-at-arms. Mages and Wizards called forth great spells, not solely to rain destruction, but to protect the armies under their command. 

These armies of myth and legend clashed against the Kindred. Steel met claw and fang. Witches and Sorceresses dueled against their counterparts in pitched battles which tore apart blue skies to reveal fields of stars during the day. Kindred Nobility strode into battle alongside their levies, meeting Heroes and their guards in battle, and in their wake, mortals died, valleys were carved into the earth, and mountains were shattered.

Until one day, a deluge of flesh came forth from the Empire, which swallowed the armies of the Kindred as they shielded the Empire’s true soldiers from harm. It surged through the Continent, and nearly extinguished the Kindred… until the first Demon Lord arose to turn them into ash. Then, by her decree, the Kindred would take from the Empire the flesh they had taken, and revitalized her nation through those stolen from other worlds. 

And so, the Age of Heroes ended, until the war of Flesh and Fang came to be.

A war of survival and need, utterly bereft of justice, and those who could truly change the world. 

“Mmmm, yes. That’s right. Humans in both the Empire and under the Demon Lord’s care are simply so… lacking now. When everything changed, no one could do what I asked of them anymore, until my dear contractor arrived.” A hum left A’Bel’s lips, as she shifted from beside to me to stand behind me. Her form encompassed me, as her hands pressed me against her form. I would be utterly at her mercy, if she decided to corrupt me into a Demon. “Now, now. Why so afraid? Did I not just say you do not interest me? That, other than my dear contractor, humanity has become… boring?”

She laughed and waved towards Hikigaya, as he gazed upon the both of us. Her chest weighted upon my head, and even though her words were harsh, her hold upon me was gentle. Her presence crept into my mind, gliding across my thoughts, but refraining from plunding inward and destroying my “self” to discern my thoughts. She didn’t need to. I was sure that she knew them already. 

“I do. I see it. Your yearning. Your need. Your desire. What you feel for him. How you hold yourself back.” The Demon’s words were like oil, as they crept through my body, but the frost they brought to my veins were colder than any winter I’d endured.  “And, of course, how three words would have you follow him forever, uncaring of whatever he does, if he whispered them to you in truth, instead of your dreams.” 

Her hands dug into my shoulders, making fabric creak with ease, as she whispered into my mind.

“If you wish for redemption, if you want to be absolved, then you are walking the wrong path. Misery and pain only punish. They do not redeem. Change, true change, is earned through action.” The words were not that of a Demon, but of something more primordial and powerful. A’Bel. The name was not one that I was familiar with, even though the Empire transcribed every name of every Demon ever to step upon Earth. “And, those actions must outweigh your sins not only in the eyes of the Kindred, and your own people, but in his.”

She pushed me forward, out of her shadow, and into the din of noise and life that was the town. 

Unharmed as I was, and without even the slightest hint of corruption, I found myself swaying in place as the Demon walked past me to her master’s side.

“No matter what harm you endure, you must become what the Empire has abandoned. A knight of vows long forgotten, of an Empire long dead, and of a people long lost.” With every step she took away from me, the Demon ceased to be the primordial, ancient creature that held my soul in her grasp with ease. She met Hikigaya’s glare with a girlish smile, before stopping, smiling, and turning towards me as curtain of ebony flowed and framed her entire form. Without magic, through the mere baring of her teeth and tensing of her body, my heart froze, a silent howl dominated my hearing, and everything besides her became void, as she stood between me and my former teacher. “Because, if you keep hurting him by being such a worthless insect, or hurt him as badly as you did before, I promise you that you’ll cease to be, okay?”

Once that promise was given, my control over my body and my senses returned to normal.

Yet, without a semblance of a doubt, death awaited me if I fell short of the Demon’s expectations.