Disclaim: Refer to chapter 1.
Cognitive Process
Chapter 6: I Dream of Demons and various other lovable creatures
*Later that night* (1st POV)
Walking down the hall I'm currently in, I stop at the door near the end of it. I look around, hoping to see something familiar, but there is nothing. I study the door for a few moments, it's a bit bigger then most and, instead of the usual rice paper, it was made of something dark. It makes me think of a nightmare, because very once in a while a dark purplish image would flit across the screen door. The images were similar to something, the only familiar thing in this whole place.
Just as I'm about to become lost in the dark screen, a muffled scream pulls me to my senses. Drawing my blade, I reach out my hand to slide open the odd door, but I pause for just a moment, not wanting to touch the eerie material. In the pause, I hear a grunt, and that breaks my hesitation.
Throwing the door aside, I rush into the room... only to stare in shock at what I see. I slowly back out of the room, and slide the door quietly shut, hoping they didn't see me.
Turning to face the hall, I run in the direction from which I originally came; desperately hoping that there would be an exit. There had to be an exit, for there is no other way for me to have entered this place.
Sprinting away until I am no longer able, I sink to the floor. 'What... why... /how/ could they do this to me? Without... without! There's nothing to hold me back! I need the restraints, without them... Why did they do this to me?'
"WHY?!" Pulling my knees to my chest, I wrap my arms around them and bury my face in them. Huge sobs wreck my body as I sit on the floor. After a few minutes my tears slow. I have this urge to stand and begin walking to somewhere, and I decide to follow it.
I wander aimlessly, as far as I know, down the same hall I've been in the entire time. After an eternity of a few minutes, a new door comes into view. It is not exactly there, for it is quite blurry and half faded out. This door, too, has images fluttering across it. Oddly, I begin to feel better.
Unlike the other door, something pulls me to open this one. On the other side is a scene of two similarly clad girls, one carrying a sword, beneath a tree on a sunny day. "Become a great swordswoman, Motoko." As they hug, I can't help but to smile.
I wonder if she knows yet, for I cannot remember. I continue to stand in the door, watching their happiness when I notice a darkening.
'MU-WHO-HA-HA-HA-HA' echoes strangely through the air. I push my blade up slightly so it is at the ready, and prepare myself to defend this precious place.
Between one blink and the next, the entire scene changes in front of me. A girl is running towards a man who is carrying a woman, behind the younger girl is the elder girl from before. When the man notices the girl running towards him, he turns around and runs towards her, transforming into an ugly, giant turtle. The girl turns the other way and runs away.
I watch as the elder literally transports in front of the other girl and attacks the beast with the Shinmei school's finishing move. She then turns around to the younger girl, who is looking upon the elder with adoration, and with eyes glazed with demon, she is saying it is time for the younger girl's punishment for running from such a trifle.
After watching the scene, I realize that she knows, even with all action for or against, she knows. A tear rolls down my face as an ache blooms in my chest, an ache I know resonates with one of the girls before me.
I turn from the room and enter the hallway, to once again wander it aimlessly. I walk only a few short steps before another door appears before me. This one stands out sharply in contrast to the other doors. A fading light shines from this door, with no images.
I can guess just what is behind this door, and having no desire to open it, I turn away to wander once more. My course of action is hindered when the hall shrinks to encompass only me and the door.
Excepting my fate, I turn to slide open the door. I step into the darkness, and as the door shuts behind me, the room lights up. All around me fly scenes of the two girls as they age and then become women. I wonder what I am supposed to see or learn in this room.
Not minding this room, and seeing no danger, I walk further into it looking for something. After a few minutes of aimlessly searching, the images slowly come to a halt, all for one that is still flickering.
Walking to it, I understand why it flickers. In this image there is a weathered old cage. Inside of this cage there appears to be a sorrowful old pigeon. I look upon it with pity. Judging by the age of the cage and the bird, that pigeon has never been free.
Striding purposefully to the cage, I open the latch, and free the poor pigeon. I watch in amazement as the pigeon took flight. Astonished, I watch as the old bird flies like a kamikaze pilot, having no regard for its safety. I smirk, "That old bird still has life in it yet. But why is it here? Why would anyone trap a pigeon in such a way?"
Shrugging, I continue to look around, but there is nothing else. I return to the door and exit back into the hall that has reformed. I begin to walk randomly once again, but stop and glare as something steps in front of me.
'That is the most hideous thing I've ever seen. Almost too hideous to describe.' I can't help but stare at the red creature. Black lines flow down its face, rope like creatures fell from its head, its body cloaked by a swirling shroud, and its decaying hands rested upon a wicked sword that looks a lot like a scimitar.
Breaking from my daze, I prepare to draw my own weapon, but find I am unable to move. Finally, I realize that I am bound, unable to move because of the creature's 'hair' which holds me in place. I struggle to escape the creature's grasp, but only gasp when I feel the monster's locks bite into my body, securing its hold upon my person.
I watch horrified as the thing's lips part in a hideous grin, revealing gruesomely gaping pink teeth. "Aoyama-han, mine you are finally," it paused and then bowed sarcastically. "Forgive for not introducing self properly. Zenfaran am I, and enjoy I shall destroying the last of the Aoyamas, the bane of the demon world!"
In abject horror, I gape at this oddly familiar Zenfaran. 'My sister, how could it have possibly gotten my sister?" Knowing it is stupid, but unable to resist, "I am not the last Aoyama!"
I flinch as it leers up at me, "Oh, but are you? The other, her dreams so filled with sweet, sweet fear and terror!" Its lids finally open to reveal completely milky eyes, save for the black irises, steeped in madness. "The voice coarse of her sound as screamed she out the name of some man. Such loveliness before I have heard never. Tender, such a lullaby." Zenfaran's grin pulled back into a complete smile, as he whispers, "Bothers you, doesn't it? Wasn't your name on her lips?"
I just glare but his smile remains. "Such luck, have I, to be able to both of you have in one night. Knew who the disciples of feared Shinmeiryuu would defeated so easily be. Barely even had I to try."
My head falls forward as its words sink in. 'My sister, gone? Do I seek vengeance? Or do I submit? What is the point of living without her? Even when we are apart, knowing that she is well is what lightens my day... that and knowing she is far away from me as I don't do something foolish.'
"What to do, what to do? So many people you knew? Just how expected am I to choose? Really, no way is there I can lose!" Zenfaran grins maliciously at me, and I am so drawn into it, I don't notice the changes that occurred around me.
Its teeth were abruptly covered, and I was released from my thrall. I gasp when I notice that I'm no longer in the hall, and that the demon is no longer in front of me. Instead Uwaki stands in the demon's place, a kind smile playing across his features.
"You were always such a good person, even to the point of your own sadness. It's so easy to see why she left you, as it were, by yourself, in a world not quite your own."
Uwaki's pitying grin was enough to make me want to vomit. The jerk, like he has any idea what he's talking about, all he ever did was become an effect barrier between the two of us, keeping us even from our sisterly relations.
"Bastard, what would you know? You don't even have a proper job, sitting around pretending to teach, to write. Then you commit adultery to fornicate with Yamiko! What gives you any right to have any say of the things that happen between my sister and me?"
I watch Uwaki smile, a smile exactly like Zenfaran's earlier one, and am once again pulled into a thrall. This time, I am not so taken in, I notice as the world changes about me, taking me to a place that's dark and gloomy.
"No fear have, the beginning is this only, place of dark is needed for so many wonderful images I for you have to properly project!" I watch as he turns and sweeps his right hand casually from left to right. Immediately the entire gloom is lit by frozen scenes.
I gasp as I see what some of them contain. Not all of them are of me, some displaying my sister. One or two begin to flicker, motion taking over the still images. They move together and create one scene.
In this scene, my sister and I are running together through a field of what looks like wheat. I'm trying to think of where we could be to have wheat around us, but get drawn back to the picture when I see a change in it. Uwaki is now in the scene, standing near my sister, probably about to do something contemptable.
I glower at the images of him picking her up and spinning her; glower as her laughter rings out; glower as I just stand by and watch. I watch in silence, and in pain as I realize that this is what it must have felt like, to just stand and watch. I've never really been one to do it, but now I knew.
The scene flickers, then fades out. I look around for Zenfaran, but before I can see in the darkness, a new scene appears. We're together, my sister and I, we're sharing gentle kisses. I watch the scene happily, the emptiness in my heart lessening at what could be, but I'm worried about what comes next.
Of course, I was right to worry, for as my eyes focus on this scene, another flickers briefly over it, before it becomes one with what I am currently watching. An oddly familiar man enters the room, and she looks at me with all the questions in the world. My image self just smiles sadly, and I realize that she's leaving me. My heart sinks, and the pain in my chest is unbelievable.
I find it impossible to move my eyes from the scenes flashing in front of me, no longer pausing in between shifts, just one morphing into the next. As I watch them, the pain in my chest changes slowly from pain to agony to an overly cruel torture.
What passes for my chest cavity now holds within it a startlingly familiar feeling. Slowly it spreads, my body quaking as it makes its way throughout my body. There's no stopping the depraved laugh that begins to come from my mouth.
Looking up, a positively devilish smirk looms upon my lips. I know what's to happen, but the fool brought this upon himself. I draw my sword easily, despite the bonds that vainly try to hold me in place. I taste the air, and smell if too, before a grin replaces my smirk.
I flash behind Zenfaran, slashing him with my blade before I flash away. I repeat this process many times, remaining cruelly silent, never making a noise as he wails out into the darkness. I pause in my anger, and watch the demon laying on the ground panting. Even as I watch him, I can feel his body repairing itself.
Suddenly, I feel a shift, both in myself and in the demon. A dark, inky aura begins to sip out of Zenfaran, it's color still managing to contrast with the gloom around it. In the aura an infinite seeming amount of mouths appear, each one grinning hideously, each grin just like the one that was able to pull me into a trance previously. Each little, or big, mouth branching out onto it's own limb, appearing like an enormous squid.
He isn't the only one to change, I feel it in myself, and I can see it. My aura, a violently dark violet, is flowly from me, my demon eyes appearing it in. From each set of eyes, the most fearsome creature appears, the mighty turtle.
"Waited long have I, finally for the one I could some fun have with." He's grin is entirely insane, and he is obviously prepared to fight. "Your flesh, shall I taste. First, I duel one worthy of duelling."
I shake my head at him sadly. What a fool, I could almost pity him, especially because I'm in no mood to play. I feel it around me, just like I always have when this form comes into play. This time, I think I understand how to bring forth my devoted servant, and waste no time in doing it.
I watch in satisfaction as a giant turtle appears in front of me, formed of my aura. As the demon continues to rant and rave, I wave my hand, and the turtle simply drops it's jaw, and encloses Zenfaran in it, destroying the nuisance post-haste.
As I begin to pull my aura back in, I hear a deep chuckling. Before I can figure where it is coming from, it stops. Whispering around the room like some forgotten secret are the words, "You're more demon then human, you, your sister, your entire family. Each time I have this battle, it's so quickly that I get consumed, so easy to play their emotions, so easy to make them believe." The chuckling resumed briefly, but then the words continued, "And now, for falling so easily, you are trapped here forever, doomed to relive each moment over, desperately trying to solve where you went wrong."
The laughing reached a new high pitch saying, "Don't forget to let that pigeon fly if you want to finally be free," before it began to fade, it's words slowly sink in. I look around me, and realize the images had flickered out, leaving only the darkness, leaving only me. "I am forever yours," Came a final remark, and I realize just why Zenfaran was oddly familiar. I scream, and can't stop myself, screaming until all the air is lost from my lungs, and pushed from my body, and the darkness becomes all that much more dark.
And then, I'm jolted, still screaming.
. . . . . .
End Chapter 6
I should mention the last bit, with the aura, was kind of inspired by Hellsing. *grins* Arucard is so awesome. Although, nothing from Hellsing really makes an appearance, it was just inspired.
AN: Can anyone guess who Zenfaran is? (I don't think I really gave much clue, but still.)
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