Chapter XXX: Konjiki no Yami

Things have started to unravel themselves once Mea heard about Tristan. Whoever the hell this guy is, he probably meant a lot to her. He's the whole reason why she started looking for the other Elementals in the first place.

Etched deep within the recesses of her mind are the days that she was trained to be a [1]Tearju Assassin. After moving up the ranks and becoming a [2]ninth rank assassin, she received her first assassination assignment at the age of 12 as the youngest of all in the rank. But before she could begin her mission, a tragedy struck her village.

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It was raining back then. It's like a tempest was looming around the village of [1]Sainan. The remarkable architecture of the buildings made it look like one of the ancient cities of Ryuu-kishi, the faction's name pronounced in Draconian. A new assassin just got promoted and her rank has finally allowed her the use of[2]Hidden Blades despite her age. She's been practicing them since she was young but she was never able to use any weapon in battle, though her talents are quite impressive to begin with. 

A drop of rain hits the window and slides down the surface of the glass, and young Mea traces it as it flows with her eyes.

"Raya-chan, dame." Her older sister calls out to her in a soft voice, telling Mea not to space out. This girl had a warm smile on her face and long golden hair that's tied back. Not much of an onee-chan figure to me but she looks like she cares about her younger foster sister.

"Nande, Yami-onee-chan?", she asks her.

"O, wasureteta." She clears her throat. "Stop doing that", she says with a flimsy Draconian accent. Both of them are trying to practice this other language.

"Why?"

"Because...eto..."

"Because you'll get used to concentrating on other things", said a man who appeared through the door with a flawless accent as he locks the door behind him.

"Shisho", they greet in unison.

The two of them stand straight and bow with their right arm on their breast.

"Have you prepared for your assignment, ojou-chan?"

"Hai." She responds with respect.

"Good."

Somebody suddenly bangs loudly on the wooden door locked with a steel stake to keep people from interfering with the bestowal ceremony. The continuous sound of someone striking against the door infuriates their [2]Mentor,[3]Sparda.

"Doushita?", he calmly asks.

The person that was knocking suddenly comes flying through the door and breaks his back once he hits the wall. He looks like one of the [1]Tearju Assassins.

"Daijobu!" Mea immediately runs to his side.

The young girl examines him and sees a searing mark on his neck.

"Nani sore?"

The guy lifts his head up, revealing that his left eye was ripped off its socket, scaring the innocence out of the child.

"Ni-Nigero...."

His last breath was filled with those cryptic words, telling her to run away.

"Abunai!"

Yami dives at her and they both roll over the floor to avoid a bolt of black lightning that came straight through what remains of the door. It came from a shadowy figure wearing a shrine maiden's dress who was laughing as if what she's done was pleasurable to her.

"Who are you", Sparda demands.

"Ara-ara. Kimi wa Sparda-san?" She smirks at him, as she is amused with his reaction.

Sparda draws out the katana from his sheathe and points it at her.

"I am. But shouldn't you introduce yourself first? You're in my house."

"Shitsureida na." She pouts at him then speaks in a language you can understand, finally. "Be thankful that I even came here to purge your village myself."

He draws closer to her and places the cutting edge toward her neck.

"Who are you and what are you doing here?" He grips tightly on the hilt. "[4]I won't tell a third time."

"Zannen desu wa..."

Tired of playing with her next victim, she summons a bolt of lightning from her body that engulfs the Mentor, causing him to scream in total agony. His eyes lose color until the burst of electrons kill him. She whispers onto the Mentor's ear as he coughs one last time.

"Watashi ha oni desu wa, [5]Himejima Akeno." She pushes the old man down and faces the girls. "Hajimemashite." 

"Shisho!" Mea screams in horror. The fear in her eyes was evident to her perpetrator.

The terrifying scene strikes fear at the hearts of both sisters, but Yami finds her courage somehow. 

"Raya-chan..." She looks at Mea as tears started running from her younger sister's eyes. "..run." [1]Yami takes two hidden blades from the pouch on her back and gives it to Mea.

Clad in ancient [1]Tearju armor, [1]Yami unleashes her own hidden blade from her right hand and dashes toward the Demon. She perfectly stabs her in the neck, making sure to penetrate the aorta.

"Isoge!" She orders Mea to hurry up.

The young girl hurriedly bursts through the glass and falls on the muddy ground caused by the monsoon. A raging storm seemed to be covering the outside as her sight is dimmed by the shadow of the clouds. 

Despite the hard rain, she could hear screams practically all around her. People were begging to be spared, but they were silenced as soon as they spoke.

"Ima ha, nanda?", she asks herself with tears in her eyes, but she shakes her head instead and follows the instruction given to her. 

She gets back on her feet and arms herself with the hidden blades given to her. The piercing touch of each drop of rain felt cold on her skin because what she wore was a sleeveless black cloak that was supposed to be covered with pauldrons, but since the ceremony was interrupted, she walked barefoot and moved into danger without any armor. 

Mea pulls up her hood so as not to get her head wet at least, and heads for home to see if her parents are alright. The [2]Assassin's Den was on top of a hill and her house was at the bottom of that hill next to the lake. On her way, Lux followed her without her noticing.

She opens the door and walks through the hallway while she calls for her parents.

"Otosan! Okasan!" 

She climbs up the stairs to her parent's bedroom, but as she walks through the long hall of the second floor leading to where her Aristocrat parents might be, she notices these strange claw marks on the walls, chilling her to the bone as she thinks of what might have happened to her parents. Quickly, Mea sprints through the pathway that seemed to extend until forever, but she stops on her tracks when she hears her mother talking from the second last door on the left.

"My daughter is a normal human. Both of them."

"What if I just kill them both? Would you be alright with that?", threatens what seemed to be the voice of another Demon.

"You will not accomplish anything", her father rebukes.

A sense of relief came to her when she was able to hear her parents, so she sneaks toward the frame of the open door to see what exactly was going on. She peaks from the door and sees five Stygians and Geno who was busy with interrogation. Her parents are both tied down on their knees, but they still held a straight face that didn't look like it was going to break.

"Where are they?"

"You're tone does not scare me, Demon. Damnation is all that is left for you and your kind."

"Is that so?"

Since Mea's father refuses to cooperate, he changes tactics by snapping his finger at one of the Stygians. The vile creature approaches his wife and points the jagged edge of a rusted pipe to the back of her neck from behind her. Neither of them seemed to show any sign of fear as both of them were looking down to the ground. 

But the Demon makes him face his wife by turning his neck, and the sight of his wife about to be executed made a drop of sweat slide from his brow.

"Look at your wife, Mister Megumi..."

A voice choked by pain reverberated in the room...

An ounce of blood splashes onto his face. He couldn't bare to watch so he tries to look away, but he can't. He struggles in his binds, but Geno was holding onto him, making him savor the scene.

"Don't look so troubled", he whispers. "That's right, watch. Look at all that blood. You could have avoided this if you had been more open to questions. Now that you understand what we are capable of, I want you to burn this moment in your memories."

"Eve..." He says his wife's name, giving the sense that he's already broken.

It's too horrible even for me to describe, and it made Mea fall on her back. She couldn't believe what just happened, but it did. Why did such an unspeakable fate befall her?

"Usodaro..."  

Foot steps can be heard coming from behind her. Her heart skipped a beat when she found out how close it was. She felt cold despite the fact that she's awfully sweating.

"Maigo no ka, ojou-chan?"

Her eyes widen. She's heard that voice earlier, during the murder of her Mentor. Frightfully, she turns her head and shrieks at the sight of Himejima Akeno. Her beloved step sister was dragged by the hair at the clutches of the succubus. The same burns she saw earlier on the assassin were also carved at the surface of her sister's skin. 

Though overcome with so much pain, her father still refused to speak up. That is, until Himejima threw them into the room. 

Mister Megumi's eyes widen. The two Stygians subdue his two daughters with their blades hanging an inch from their necks. Yami soon regains consciousness and realizes the state she's in. She remembers running through the succubus clean on her throat, but for some reason she could not deliver the killing blow. Now she, Mea, and her father are in a position where they are at the mercy of a madman's intuition. What made her flinch, however, was seeing her mother face down and lifeless before her very eyes.

"O-Okasan...?"

"Onee-chan..." She hears her sister's voice cracking anxiously. "Watashitachi ha shinu no?"

"Shinpaishinaide..." The succubus instills fear into them. "We'll take good care of you, depending on your father."

"Let's get down to business", Geno approaches the girls. "Which one of you is an Elemental?"

Yami makes a glare at him that catches Geno's attention. He gets close to her and lifts up her chin.

"Is it you?"

"Koroshite... teme..."

"What did she say?"

"She says she wants to die", Akeno translates.

He grabs her by the neck and lifts her up, slowly dulling her breath.

Feeling defeated, Mea looks down and sobs, but her father was enraged with what Geno was doing.

"Let go of my daughter!"

He breaks the ropes, and summons a sword out of thin air. He unsheathes the blade from its hilt as he eagerly tries to stop them, but before he could make a move, Himejima zaps the blade off his hand, takes the sword for herself, and slashes his upper torso. She was about to finish him off when he falls, but Mea suddenly caused an uproar.

"Yamero! Omaetachi ga sagashiteiru hito ha watashi da!"

In a desperate attempt to stop anymore blood shed, she pulls up her hood and admits that she is, in fact, an Elemental. The two Demons seemed to be satisfied with her testifying, so Geno lets go of her sister. Yami coughs as she recovers from being strangled.

She was somewhat relieved by doing this, but also disappointed in herself in a way due to her lack of resolve. Her family gave her one rule, and that is to never tell anyone of what she is capable of, but she had to save them. If breaking a rule means to save someone you care about, it's justifiable, right?

"Arigato..." The succubus thanks her for her cooperation. "Soreto... tanjobiomedeto."

Happy Birthday, Mea.

Today was her birthday, back when the couple first saw her. But it seems the world has ways on making things very cruel for people.

Her father's sword ran through her sister's chest. Himejima Akeno has slain her precious sister. The little smirk on the Demon's face shows how pleasurable it is for her to see others suffer. She takes out the blade, and the lifeless body of her sister came crashing down the floor awash with blood.

"Him too." Geno orders Akeno to finish off her father.

"Y-Yamete! Yamete kudasai!"

She screams with half a lung, but accomplishing nothing.

The succubus brings the sword toward Mister Tengoku, immobile from the searing pain. She points the sword down to him and penetrates his heart.

"Now you know how it feels to be tormented and to be without your God."

Right now, she has lost everything. What now? She all but submitted herself to them. Is there anything she can do? For years she has been trained to protect the innocent, but she couldn't even protect herself, let alone her family.

In the face of dismay, something was tugging from her left leg. Her golden cat was trying to tell her to do something as if it felt exactly how she felt.

Seirei tsukai no chikara...

It occurs to her that she has the power to destroy these Demons. Her father used to tell her what she really was and what she was meant to do, but she was still too young to use her powers... until today.

"You're next", says Geno.

"Koroshitearu..."

She proclaims their death as torrents of dark energy started welling from her Elemental Matrix. 

The blades were out, her hair went black, and her eyes burned with hatred.

And so begun her path of destruction...

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Mea wakes up. She finds herself about to stab Solis with the blade on her right. The Slayer held up his arms trying to keep her from getting to him. Coming back to her senses, she immediately retracts the blade.

"You were talking in your sleep", Solis explains.

"I-I'm sorry... I was... having a nightmare."

She pulls back to her seat.

"Are you going to be fine?", Solis asks her worriedly.

"Yeah, I'll be fine." A fake smile forms on her face, something Solis has never actually thought he would see back then.

"What you just said in your sleep..."

"What about it?"

"You were saying the same things back at Xenovia." He elaborates, "That doesn't sound fine to me."

She pets his head.

"Don't worry about me, kid."

"Please don't treat me like this", he stops her from caressing his head, surprising the assassin. "I care about you more than anything, so please don't try to keep me from helping you out. I'm not that stupid, at least not as much as before."

"I guess you can be serious now, huh... "

"On rare occasions, yes."

She laughs lightly and thinks to herself:

Kansha shite imasu, Kami-sama.

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1. Sainan is a city and the main setting of To-Love-Ru

2. Mentor is the highest rank while 9th Rank is the mastery of balance in climbing from Assassin's Creed.

3. Father of Dante from Devil May Cry.

4. Quoted by Virgil from Devil May Cry 3.

5. Himejima Akeno is from the Anime/Manga Highschool DxD(R-18)

Author's Note

Let me be the first to say that google translate helped me out on this one apart from my prior knowledge.

Reviews

[❀Subaru_Nyaa!
..]

Not Do shita, Doushita どうした?
Also, not Nigeru, Nigero 逃げろ
It's "Zannen' 残念

For this line"Watashi ha oni" it is an incomplete thing. A full one would be "Watashi ha oni dayo" or "Watashi ha oni desu wa" or "Watashi ha oni yo"

Another line: "Ima ha nanda?" = "Ima no ha nandattanda? 今のは何だったんだ?"

Another: "Maigo ha?" = "Maigo kai?" or "Maigo no ka, ojouchan or san"
Watashitachi ha shinun desu ka? or Watashitachi ha shinuno deshouka? or Watashitachi ha shinu no?

Watashi ha seirei tsukai = it would be better to say: omaetachi ga sagashiteiru hito ha watashi da. (I am the one you guys are looking for)

Sarani.....tanjoubiomedetou= Soreto....tanjoubiomedetou

[Oran]

Fixed it. Thanks for the help.