Illusions

Chapter 1: Behind Enemy Lines

***

Smiling softly, she watched the boy race around the forest clearing, cheerfully chasing butterflies that dared come near. It had been so long since she had that opportunity, and her son was something she was so proud of, something she cherished more than anything.

The boy’s raven wings fluttered about behind him recklessly, leaving a trail of dark, fluffy feathers wherever he went. Thank goodness his thick black hair didn’t do the same, though it stood up on its own accord behind his head no matter how much she tried to brush it down for him. He was an unusual child to say the least, and in many ways, he didn’t look in the least bit like her; but he had her heart. He was kind, generous, forgiving, always seemed to be happy; and he was calm with a maturity well beyond his five years.

As she leaned back against the fading bark of an old oak tree, she couldn’t help but smile more as the boy got himself tangled up in a mass of limbs and wings and fell to the ground, giggling. It was not even a second later that he was on his feet again, bounding after the butterflies and birds that seemed to be so attracted to him.

He has his father’s energy and spirit, she thought to herself. Finally, since the sun was beginning to set, she decided it was nearly time to get showered up and ready for dinner. “Keiji, it’s time for your shower!” Her soft, smooth voice had an underlying calm and never-ending patience. At the sound of it, he skidded to a halt, and glanced back at his mother. As usual, she got the same shock as he did so; what should have been dark brown eyes were glowing a bright golden yellow – but she should have been used to it, since he’d been like that since birth.

Tilting his head to the side, he brushed the raven bangs from his face as he approached the woman. “Okay Okaasan. But can you play games with me after dinner?”

She smiled and scooped him up into her arms, nuzzling his shoulder playfully with her nose. “Of course, Keiji-chan. But first you have to clean up.” He nodded and clung to his mother’s flowing white robes, blowing aside a lock of her golden hair as it brushed against his nose. After pulling off her shoes, she placed him back down on his feet and ushered him into the small wooden house by the clearing that had now been eradicated of butterflies – for they feared they would be chased again.

Obediently, Keiji wiped his bare feet on the door mat, then raced inside to the bathroom to do his mother’s bidding. Again, a proud smile crossed her delicate lips; her boy was always so angelic…just the way he was supposed to be. In this place, prejudice, hatred and unkindness was not an option; for this was the place of freedom, happiness, forgiveness and prosperity. Though Keiji looked so different from his friends – the big black wings, the bright golden eyes, the claws on his fingers, and the ever so slight blue tone to his pale skin – he was accepted as yet another member of the loving crowd they existed in.

In many ways, he had the perfect aspects of both his parents; his mother’s kind, gentle heart, her compassion, her patience, her calm maturity; and he had his father’s spirit, his strength, his will to win, and most definitely his stubborn streak. The result was a kind little boy who strived to stay that kind little boy, no matter what. He was most definitely an angel.

Though at times, she had to admit, he was more like his father than she would have liked.

***

This place was hot, humid and dark. Everything was cast with a red light. But somehow, it wasn’t what she expected. She had been told of fire, fire, fire everywhere; solid fire, liquid fire, and choking, gaseous fire. But she found none. Instead, it was a dark, ruined city, with crime and hatred littering the streets everywhere she looked. The old buildings were bathed in the angry crimson glow of a dying sun, hanging low in the sky.  She was so out of place.

But she knew what she was looking for; she knew why she was here.

Further on, after travelling down the broken concrete path, she saw something more along the lines of what she knew to look for.. Below her was a pit; before it, two gates. Flowing in through the gates were great numbers of people, all lining up to gain entry. She knew they were the ‘evil’ types coming into this place. But she wasn’t frightened. Even though she was on the wrong side of ‘The Boundary’.

Further on, she came across the building she knew she was searching for. It was old, run down and it was still cast in the red light the beaten down sun cast though the heavy, dark clouds above them. The huge, hideous demons sitting on the sidewalk beside the building made crude jokes about her as she passed by, but she completely ignored them. She knew who she was here to see.

Deep within the building, she found the place. The door of the apartment set-up – the one with the right number. She honestly couldn’t remember how she’d gotten hold of the number, but it was the right apartment. Down the end of the hall, the red sun cast its eerie glow upon the shredded carpet; it stayed low in the sky every day of the year, never rising or setting. This was an unnatural place.

She pushed the door open, and stepped inside. There was nothing but darkness. Despite that, the heavy, sleepy heat from outside had lifted…the room inside was cool and dry; immensely comfortable after coming from out there. The door was pressed shut silently by her pale, delicate hand. Then she stood silent. After a few seconds, the sounds of soft snores met her ears; he was asleep.

Somehow, she managed to blunder through the dark without crashing into anything, until she found the iron post of the end of a bed. After finding that, she felt her way upward, until she found the head of the bed…and the one lying on top of it.

Slowly, her small hand reached out, and she found his cheek. Yes, it was him. The hair all over her body stood on end, and she bit her lower lip. Her hand began to trail over his nose, his lips, down his jaw line, and to his powerful, muscular chest. It was at that point that the rhythmic sound of breathing was broken, and she felt him sit up beneath her hand.

A much larger hand grabbed her wrist, firmly at first, but after a moment his grasp eased. “What are you doing here?” The deep, masculine voice wasn’t its normal smooth, strong self, since he was groggy from just waking up. Somehow, it seemed absolutely gorgeous to her ears, though his sudden awakening scared the life out of her, and filled her with nervousness she hadn’t felt previously.

“I had to see you…” She didn’t sound so sure of herself, or, at least, as sure of herself as she would have liked.

He lifted his hand, and shifted beneath the covers. “I thought we were enemies.” He said it in such a way that she couldn’t help feeling guilty. Yes, of course, she’d said many a time that they were opposites, opposition, and enemies. She, in her blind arrogance – so typical of her kind – had dismissed him completely in the past…and suddenly, after the two of them had lost their careers, she’d felt the loneliness. She knew she missed him.

And he couldn’t understand why someone like her would cross through into his territory; it was dangerous for her kind to be here. So why was she being so stupid? She’d always been so irritating while they were forced, sworn enemies, to work together; it had been the only, only time that such a situation had arisen. Her ultimate perfection; her looks, her body, her mind, her soul…everything about her was sickeningly perfect…just like the rest of her kind. And she knew it, so it seemed to him, and she displayed an incredible arrogance toward his kind in the past – so why change now? Despite all of this, he’d always found life to be a little boring when he couldn’t argue with her. Not only that, but the thing that annoyed him most about her, was the fact that she could be classed, in his opinion, a ‘First-Class Prude’.

She stammered as she tried to find the words. “I…I know, I…well…” She took a deep breath, and slowly let it out, letting her nerves settle. “I’m so sorry…I was foolish in the past – arrogant and stupid. I’ve come to realise that my arrogance was absolutely pointless…there was no need for it. I should have been more open-minded. I’m so sorry…”

That caught him by surprise. For a moment, he said nothing. Then he spoke again – that delightful, deep rumble of a voice filled the crisp air of the room once again. “So you came here in the middle of the night to tell me this?”

She shook her head, though he couldn’t see. She didn’t know what to say, though she knew she had to say something. “I…I…” She cut herself off with a soft sigh. For once, he wasn’t shouting her down for being ‘an obstinate, stuck-up bitch’…and she loved it. Every second in his presence was electrifying her more and more, to the point she could no longer take it. Her hands found the back of his neck, and once they had, she knelt on the bed, straddling his long, muscular legs, and kissed him deeply.

With the sudden intrusion of a foreign tongue into his mouth, he gasped; his entire body was struck with a shiver of intense cold. His skin prickled as if he had walked through a field of static electricity. When she didn’t move away, he could only moan, and allow her room to do more. This wasn’t the Mitsukai he knew a few years ago. Her fingers threaded through his thick black mass of hair, slowly pushing him down, against the pillow, pinning him to the bed. She shifted up and sat on his stomach, relentless in her embrace. Somehow, though, she had been so intensely gentle in her attack; her grace was very quickly overwhelming his senses, and in no time at all, he moaned again, and grasped her soft, warm hips in his large hands.

Finally she broke the kiss, and looked down at the solid blackness before her. She could hear his quickened breathing beneath her, feel his chest rising and falling at the same rhythm, feel his heartbeat racing as she placed a hand on his chest again.

“Mitsukai…” Her name, whispered so softly, so sensuously against the flesh of her neck, forced a whimper of delight from her throat. His hands were already roaming over her body; she could tell he was being careful, since he wasn’t pushing and pulling her about, and his grasp wasn’t nearly firm enough to hurt her. He knew all too well the gentle, kind, loving nature of her people.

She slid her body downward, making as much contact with his as she could, until she felt him below, between her clothed legs. Her sudden, unexpected embrace had quickly excited him. She sat up again, sitting across his thighs. He obviously didn’t want her to move, because his hands stayed in contact with her for as long as he could reach. Just as he might have thought she was going to leave him, one small, warm hand grasped him below, wrenching a long, deep, restrained moan from him, forcing him to arch his back in delight. Slowly, she began to stroke him, her free hand trailing further down to play with what she found. Deep in her mind, she was screaming with excitement already; he was so much better equipped than she had ever imagined – and of late, her mind had been thinking about him more and more, and in more and more detail.

As a slow, steady rhythm was established with her hand, one of his hands reached down, and found her ankle. When she felt his warm grasp, she extended her leg along his side, allowing him to quell his growing curiosity as to the new terrain previously offered to him. Immediately, his hand roamed up, gently stroking the soft skin he found. His hand moved down, inside her trouser leg, then up…the sensation brought a shiver up and down her spine. Of course the hand wouldn’t stay still, and very quickly, she found him stretching to try and reach further up her thigh.

For a moment she let go and stepped off the bed. Of course, he replied to such a manoeuvre with a loud groan of discontentment; but when he heard her clothes, one by one, hitting the floor, he stayed silent. A second after she’d disrobed, he felt her skin against his again; she was kneeling right above him. Without a second thought, one of his hands reached up to the small of her back to pull her down closer, the other reached out to cup a breast. She submitted to his wishes almost immediately, lowering herself within his comfortable reach.

The feeling of such soft, delicate, warm skin threw his mind into spinning circles. Without even thinking, he pulled her down with a little more strength, and captured a nipple between his lips. It took no time at all for his tongue to find it too, and with more affection than he’d have thought possible from someone like himself, he began to play with it, gently teasing her. The result was definitely something he enjoyed; a feminine moan of delight. Her hands found his hair again, and his reached out to hold her close; one on the small of her back, the other on a bared buttock. Against his hands, as she lowered herself again, he felt the distinctive brush of light feathers.

After allowing him a small moment to play, she pulled away again. She brought herself downward so she could kiss him, this time, deeper and much more passionately than before. She found where she wanted to go; and as she lowered, she felt herself stretching almost painfully; he moaned long, ragged and breathless into her mouth as she did so. Yes he was indeed well endowed; so well, that she doubted that he would fit properly. But she endured the pain, and forced herself down until she felt completely and utterly full, and she felt his hips beneath her. It was clear he was in great pleasure; his fast-paced, ragged breathing, along with constant, almost silent whimpers was a dead giveaway.

She allowed herself a moment to adjust to his size, then slowly, surely, drew herself back a little way, before lowering herself again. It felt absolutely mind-blowing, the feeling of him so deep inside her…and she could tell, once again, that he was enjoying it even more. Good; this would serve as the beginning of her apology for her past arrogance. It would also serve as a massive hint; she’d fallen in love with him, her exact opposite.

Her mind blissfully wandered as she continued to pleasure the both of them with her simple movement back and forth. His hands, oddly gentle and smooth, played and fondled as she worked, which only aided in throwing her mind further from reality. She dreamed of a perfect world, without this segregation of peoples; a world where angelic arrogance was not an issue; a world where peace was truly peace, and not a hypocritical excuse for superiority.

 Slowly but surely, the two of them became so worked up, so excited, that they couldn’t stand it any more. She let him grab her and roll her onto her back, and thankfully, she spread her huge feathered wings out of the way before he thrust her down against the bed. Oddly, again, he was being exceptionally gentle for a man with his reputation. Perhaps he’d gained ‘softness’ from his previous job; she knew she’d gained wisdom from it to say the least. She moaned softly into his ear as he began moving within her. He was stronger and swifter in his thrusts, but it was something she wanted. Her arms found his neck again, and held him tight. Further down, her legs locked around his waist, not letting him go, but at the same time, letting him continue his movements. With occasional whimpers, her teeth bit and chewed lightly at his earlobe – she could tell, somehow, that he loved it more than most people would.

It all ended at once; they’d somehow perfectly timed it so both reached their peak at once; while he growled deeply into the curve of her neck, holding her almost painfully tight, she screamed damn near the top of her lungs, her fingernails digging into his back.

The two of then lay together, tight in each other’s embrace, panting for breath. He was about to pull away and sit up, but she caught the back of his head with one hand, pulling him back down for a deep kiss. The other hand, as he relented, reached up to grasp one of the long, sharp horns that stuck out from either side of his head, holding him in place. He didn’t mind; he still kissed her, one of his clawed hands reaching up again to play with one of her warm breasts. The claws still didn’t scratch her; it seemed he was still being careful not to mar her flawless, pristine skin. After a moment, the hand around his neck drifted upward, and found the long, pointed tip of one of his ears. She knew he loved it when she did that; perhaps it was because his previous job – he had been created to ‘possess’ a human being on Earth – had grown on him; Kazuya had loved it as much as he did.

Eventually he pulled away, and playfully flicked at the jewel hanging from her forehead. “Why did you do that, Mitsukai?” His voice bore no conceit, he had no tone of accusation; he was merely curious.

She chuckled softly, gently grasping the top of his hand. “Because I love you, Akuma.”

There was a moment’s silence…then he leaned down and nuzzled his face into the curve of her neck again. “Alright then…I love you too.”

His hand closest to the side of the bed reached out and flicked a switch on the bedside table. The room was painfully illuminated with a bright light. It took a moment for the two of them to allow their eyes to adjust; after they’d done so, they both saw a sight they never thought they’d see again, since Kazuya’s death. Beneath him was one of the most breath-taking angels ever created. Spread out beneath them were two massive, white-feathered wings…with a few feathers still floating about in the air, and lying on the pillow. Her long, golden hair was indeed slightly ruffled from the previous act, and her cheeks were tinted red from the exertion, but her face was still as perfect, as innocent, and as loving as ever. His heart melted.

When she opened her eyes – since the light was no longer so blinding – she was startled, but only momentarily. Staring down at her in admiration were two intensely bright golden-hued eyes – not full of the ‘hatred’ she was used to, but more of a silent obsession. He looked so much like his previous host, the infamous Mishima, it wasn’t funny. He had the same nose, the same mysterious, enchanting eyes, the same wild black hair, the same full, sometimes sad-looking lips. Compared to the other hideous, overweight, hairy demons that inhabited this side of the dimension – Hell – he was absolutely overwhelming, absolutely gorgeous.

She playfully ran a finger down his nose, and he smiled. “Akuma…will you forgive me for being such an obstinate, stuck-up bitch?” After re-using his very own words, she smiled coyly.

Of course, he didn’t need to think about that. He smiled more, leaned down, and kissed her tenderly. It was short-lived however, and he didn’t give her time to react. “That answer your question?”

She giggled, and reached up to grab something – anything – as a handhold to pull him down. It ended up being the joint where one horned wing connected to his back, and she pulled him down, half on top of her, half beside her, and with her free hand, she killed the light. A moment later, she drew him close, and snuggled up against his chest. His masculine scent – along with the thrilling salty smell of his sweat – filled her nostrils, making her hold him even closer as she drifted off to sleep.

Having never been in this position before, he didn’t quite expect his instinct to be so sharp. One of his arms looped around her waist, the other behind her back, and he held her against his chest, letting the sweet sensation of her soft breathing against his chest lull him back to sleep.

What an interesting night it had been.

***

Once again she had remembered that night, six years ago, as she watched her son sleep peacefully. Yes, he would grow up to be a kind, gentle person like every other Angel there was in existence; but he would still possess his father’s fighting skill, defiance, and will to win. After all, it had been that will to win that had won him Kazuya, and left Mitsukai stranded with nothing to do but try and fight, tooth and claw, for her right to be his Guardian Angel. After all, that had been her job. Both she and Akuma had been created for the sole purpose of protecting and watching over Kazuya. In Hell, the other side of the dimension they lived in, the method of having someone ‘watched over’ was to have a demon, namely a smart, powerful one, placed inside the person’s soul. Akuma had been made a near perfect replica of the adult Mishima well before the boy’s birth, and had been trained for the sole purpose of staying with him for the rest of his life. Angel, too, had been made with similar features, only with different colouring, and had been assigned to guard him for the rest of his life. The result; one hell of a clash of occupations.

Somehow, though, it had all been resolved well when Kazuya had died. He was thrown into a volcano when he was only twenty-eight years old, instantly killing him and releasing Mitsukai and Akuma from him, and returned them to their respective places on either side of the border. Kazuya, though he’d committed many a sin, was apparently eligible to not only enter on Angel’s side of the Afterlife Dimension, but currently, ten years after his death, he was training to become an Angel himself. It had taken a while for him, apparently, to get to the point he was at currently; he was as stubborn and obstinate as a stuck pig, so they told her. But at least he was given a decent chance.

As she watched the young boy’s soft breathing, the small chest rising and falling, she decided that yes, it would be a good idea for him to visit his father for the first time. He must’ve thought she’d abandoned him after she learned she’d fallen pregnant; she hadn’t even told him! Yes, tomorrow, she and her son would venture across the border, and try and find the famed demon Akuma.