9 Mother

"WHAT IN SATAN'S NAME DID YOU DO TO THIS THING? " She cradled the remains of the book in her arms, delicately turning the page. " THE POOR THING'S BEEN RAVAGED!"

Dante stumbled to his feet, wincing as he unfolded his aching wings "It, uh, slipped, out of the window, there was really nothing I could have done to-" "SHUT UP!" Her sharp words made Dante flinch violently, his wings folding around his chest in defense. "I'm not buying your bullshit. "

"Good lord, calm down, you're gonna kill the guy…" It really was a shock seeing her like this. Where did the reserved, calm, not-screaming-in-your-face Xena go?

"And you!" She turned on Lucine, her sharp fangs gleaming in the light. "What were you doing? Why didn't you stop him?"

"Uh…well, what exactly did you expect me to do?" He lifted up his arm, still restrained by the cast. "Get up and force him to stop?"

"I'm not dumb enough to think that he just randomly threw the book out of the window. You must have provoked him somehow." She crossed her arms in the corner of the room, her tail stiff and raised. "But, naturally, you're too useless to do anything right"

She was annoyingly perceptive, Lucine thought with a scowl

He sat up straight. "I'm useless? I really don't think you'd have done anything differently in my position."

"What do you mean I wouldn't do anything different? I just wouldn't have provoked him, jackass."

"I'd much rather be a jackass than a sorry geek bitching on about a book."

Silence

He looked away, but even so, he could still feel the pressure of her gaze on his neck.

"Hey. Dipshit."

His head turned of its own accord, his eyes locking in place with her glistening black orbs. Her eyes were narrowed in disgust, as if she were looking at something detestable.

"You've been acting up lately. I've been giving you way too many chances, because I thought it was just an after-effect of getting embarrassed so badly by Gemu."

"But this is going a bit too far, don't you think?"

Her footsteps echoed across the room as she walked towards him. Dante made a feeble attempt to protect him, which was, unsurprisingly, useless. Xena shoved him out of the way, and stood over Lucine, looking down on him, daring him to speak out again.

Lucine gritted his teeth. Who did she think she was?

"You've even been taking out your embarrassment on Asrin. She was trying to help your ungrateful ass feel better after getting thrashed that bad, and this is how you repay her?"

He glowered at her in silence.

She stared back at him with darkening eyes. "Well? You got anything to say, you arrogant shitstain?"

He clenched his fist and looked away, his eyes shining brighter than before. "I-I didn't ask her to do anything."

"Is that how you're really going to be? Take some responsibility for once and grow up. Your childish act is sickening."

"Your badass act is just as disgusting!"

"Guys, calm down." Dante muttered, taken aback by the sight unfolding before his eyes.

She flicked her hair out of her eyes, looking positively murderous now. "Lucine, I swear to Satan himself, you're really pissing the ever-loving shit out of me."

The door creaked open and a small, red haired girl jumped through, holding a small shopping bag, looking excited to see Lucine again.

"Lucifer!" Raifu said, "I'm-"

"I DON'T CARE! I REALLY COULD NOT CARE LESS ABOUT YOU OR ASRIN OR ANY OF YOU OTHER DAMN ANIMALS. ALL I'VE EVER CARED ABOUT IS GETTING TO THAT DUMB MIRROR SO I CAN FINALLY GO HOME AND FORGET ANY OF THIS EVER HAPPENED. WHY THE HELL DO YOU BASTARDS HAVE TO MAKE IT SO HARD? CAN YOU JUST TAKE A HINT AND LEAVE ME ALONE? I DON'T NEED YOU OR ASRIN OR-"

Smack.

Lucine was breathing heavily, visibly dumbfounded.

Xena was looking at her hand with a conflicted expression on her face, one that Lucine couldn't exactly pinpoint.

"You…" Her breath rattled through her chest; she was just as out of breath as Lucine was. "You seriously…" She clenched her fist and retracted her arm. "Pull yourself together, dumbass…!" Was she talking to herself or to Lucine?

She stormed out of the room without another word, leaving the room in a stunned silence.

Lucine leant back in his bed, placing his hand on his throbbing cheek.

Ah. That's right. He knew what the expression on her face was. He closed his eyes and curled up under his sheets, cocooning himself in his wings.

She had been hurt.

"Hey, Lucif- Lucine? Are you okay? That looked like it hurt…" Raifu stepped forward nervously, before giving Dante an awkward smile. "Looks like this was a bad time to come in, huh?"

"Uh, yeah, don't worry about him, he'll be fine." Dante had turned red. Why was there such a cute girl here, AND WHY THE FUCK WAS SHE HERE FOR LUCINE.

"You filthy traitor, what sort of things have you been doing behind our backs…?" Dante muttered, eyes glistening as he glared at the groaning lump that was the great Lucine Fastus.

"I'm sorry, what was that?" Raifu gazed at him gently with her beautiful blank eyes, behind string-like strands of crimson hair, her thin tail swirling around her as if in some hypnotic dance.

"Nothing, nothing."

Dante thought about it for an entire second, before coming to his conclusion.

His entire life had been leading towards this moment, and he had to make sure he didn't waste this opportunity. He had to do this carefully, and not scare her off like everyone else.

Dante leant on the wall, running his hand through his hair, feigning confidence. "Anyways, why's a girl like you here?"

"Oh! I just came over to visit Lucine." She lifted up the bag she was carrying. "I thought some chocolate would make him feel better.

"Really? Wow…"

Dante was stunned. Lucine had cute girls bringing in sweets for him in hospital. Painful longing spiked his heart. How come he wasn't blessed to have cute girls feeding him in hospital? But then again, knowing Lucine, he probably just terrorized her into buying him sweets. The dumbass would do anything to feed his sugar addiction.

Raifu ruffled through her bag, pulling out a bar of chocolate. "Here it is!" She held it out to him, her tail wagging feverishly behind her. "Y-You can have it! I was feeling pretty tired today, so I bought a lot more than I meant to, and I thought you might like to have some too. And besides, you love chocolate, don't you, Dante?"

Dante's eyes lit up. "You mean it? I can have it?" He couldn't believe it. Was there no end to everything making him fall in love with her? He grasped the chocolate bar with grateful hands and held it up to the light, as if it were a sacred gift from a goddess.

But…

"Hang on. How'd you know my name was Dante?"

A silence fell over the room.

Raifu turned pale, her breathing so shallow and quiet that it seemed like she wasn't breathing at all. Her tail was stiff and rigid, and, somehow, her blank eyes seemed to fill up with terror.

"Woah, there's no need to get so nervous." Dante was confused. Why was she so scared? All he had done was ask her a question. "I'm just surprised you knew my name, I don't remember ever meeting you before?" He tilted his head. "Unless we have? But I'm sure I'd be able to remember someone as cute as you…"

He had hoped the flirt would have comforted her a bit, but she still stared back with terrified eyes.

Dante was started to feel worried now as well. Was he really that creepy?

"H-Hey, I didn't mean anything, it's not- It's no big deal. You,uh, probably just heard Xena shouting it earlier right? The other girl who just ran out, the one who slapped-"

'Yeah! T-That's who I heard it from, haha…"

He was seriously weirded out, and he could tell, by the lack of Lucine's groaning, Lucine was listening intently as well.

"A-anyway! Since you know my name now, what's your name?"

"Fantoche, I-I mean Fanten, Raifu Fanten!"

Um. Ok >_>

"W-well, I'll just leave these here, and come back later." She dumped the sweets on the table next to Xena's card. "Doesn't look like Lucifer's gonna get up anytime soon, s-so, I'll get going now…"

"…His name isn't Lucifer, it's Lucine."

But she was already out the door.

Lucine slowly rose from the bed, wrapped in his wings, throwing the covers off of himself.

They stared at each other for a second, collecting their thoughts.

"Man, am I really that bad at flirting?"

"I think that was something on her end..."

Raifu ran out of the room as fast as her legs would take her. Oh god, she messed up so bad. She could have handled that so much better, but she had let her nerves get to her... Her heart filled with terror. Mother wasn't going to be happy

She collapsed on the stairwell, drenched in sweat. She couldn't breathe. She wrapped her shaky arms around herself, trying desperately to calm down, but she couldn't. Mother was going to get angry again. How could she stay calm when she knew that? Her fear mounted, turning into shards of terror that stabbed at her chest again and again and again…

"It's alright. You're safe here." A gentle voice broke through the suffocating fear surrounding her, and she felt two soft hands on her shoulders. "This is the safest place in the world for you right now. I'm gonna keep you safe alright?"

Her voice was so soft, speaking the very words she wanted to hear.

"Just try to copy my breathing okay? You don't need to say anything. Just copy what I do and things will turn out alright…"

Steadily, the constricting feeling in her chest loosened, and was driven away for another night. Her breathing was still shaky, but it was under her control.

The figure came to her front and left a wet umbrella on one of the stairs. She came down on one knee, blowing her black hair out of her face.

"Are you okay now?" She smiled tenderly, wiping the tears from her eyes "A cute girl like you really shouldn't be crying in a place like this."

"A-Ah, yes, I'm better now, thank you…" It was so embarrassing to not only be seen like that by a complete stranger, but to have been helped by them as well. Although there was something soft about her, something that made her seem far less intense than any of the other demons, something almost human about her...But its not like she was human; Mother would have told her if there was another.

"That's good to hear!" The girl helped her up to her feet, patting off the dust on her clothes, as if they were close friends. She looked at her with sympathetic eyes. "Is there someone you're worried about in one of those rooms?"

"There is, but he'll be fine," Raifu sniffed, shuffling around nervously. "It's just a few broken bones…"

The girl's silver eyes glinted in the light. "Is that so…"

"I-I'm going to go home now, my mother will worry about me if I'm not home soon."

But before Raifu could walk off, the girl stopped her.

"Hey, wait! I don't even know your name yet!"

"M-My name?" Raifu recalled with painful clarity the events that I had taken place just minutes ago. "I'm Raifu F-Fanten."

"That's a really fancy name," She giggled. "You from a rich family or something?"

The girl held out her hand, smiling brightly.

"Asrin Corvo at your service!"

Raifu stood at the front of a small house, her hand trembling as she fought back waves of nausea. She didn't want to go inside. Mother wouldn't be happy with how she had acted today. She briefly considered hiding it from her, but dismissed the idea just as quickly. It would be useless. Mother always knew.

But she couldn't bring up the courage to open the door, she just couldn't! Her head swam as she recalled blurry memories of what Mother had done to her... of what Mother had shown her...

The wailing

The screeching

She didn't want to go back.

But she had to! She had to be a good daughter, a daughter that could be useful, a daughter that Mother would love.

She took a deep breath, scavenging for whatever shreds of strength she could find.

Before the door swung forward, shattering all of her new-found courage.

Two blank eyes shone through the darkness, as Mother's velvety voice wrapped around Raifu like a snake to its prey.

"Welcome home, Fantoche."