25 chapter 23,5 - Serenity's Past

Long ago, there was a village located within a mountainous region within the continent of Russia. What was the name? Unknown, or perhaps it would be better to say that nobody even remembers it existed anymore. One could say that the fate that befell that village was so swift and silent that nobody noticed it, not even batting an eyelash.

Within that small village located in Russia, there once lived a loving couple. The man had been a simple farmer, though he didn't make much money thanks to the Russian mountains being covered in snow most of the season, resulting in great difficulty to grow crops. Yet, the man had been content with his life, his family has owned that farm for generations. It was their pride and joy, making him proud of what he had even if it wasn't much. Always enjoy the little things, that was what he lived by. It kept him from wanting too much or too little. He just wanted things to go smoothly with his life... and then he met the woman.

Love, at first sight, hadn't been something either of them had believed in, yet it happened. it struck them both like they were targeted by the arrows of the Greek god Cupid. Never letting go.

They passed day by day together, and despite the village being poor and there not having enough food for them all to have their fill, they still shared what they could. The couple lived a truly blessed life…except for one teeny tiny detail:

The woman and man did not have a child.

Of course, they had tried to have a child, when a man and woman live together under the same roof for a time that would be bound to happen at some point. However, something terrible had happened to the woman in the past, something that she hadn't known before her relationship with the man had begun. Diseases that make one infertile demonstrate the interconnected relationships of different systems within the body. Pregnancy was ALWAYS an enormously stressful event for a woman's body. Anything that compromises a woman's health can potentially harm her baby. One could say that the process was as fragile as glass, one falsification and the entire thing shatters apart. In some cases, infertility shows there is a condition occurring within a woman's body that will prevent a successful pregnancy.

In this case, the woman couldn't have a child due to both a childhood disorder as well as a powerful trauma on her mind as a result from an accident she had when she was a teenager. That was what the doctor said anyway.

No matter how much they tried the woman never got the baby she so desired. They tried countless times, and all those failures weighed heavily on their minds, like an ever-increasing weight on their shoulders. It... raised more than a few arguments between the two, damaging their relationship in some areas only to reinforce them in others.

Though, the woman could still find solace in the fact that her husband loved her with his very soul, as he was someone whom a lot of women desired, so he had no shortage of partner choices. If one couldn't have a child with him, there would be others who could. However, the man refused to leave her, he wouldn't dare do that to her. He loved her, and he wanted to grow old with her, to father her children and eventually meet the grim reaper with her at his side.

Sadly, one of those didn't seem possible for them...

A fact that hammered itself into their minds more brutally than either of them would let on.

Many nights had been spent with little more than tears of sadness and sorrow, sorrow bringing up thoughts of how God never lets them have that little miracle to them. When that failed they tried to pray to every single deity they could think of, no matter what the deity was said to be like or if they are even related to fertility.

They didn't want anything like money, power or fame.

None of those of which most humans desired down to their very core.

No, what they wanted... was much simpler, yet to them oh so much more precious.

They just wanted a child. A small bundle of happiness to call their own.

That was how it was for years, and when they were about to give up a miracle happened. The woman got pregnant.

It was a sudden development, taking their sorrowful world by storm. They could only thank whoever did this on their knees shredding tears of the purest joy.

The couple became so happy that they celebrated as if their biggest wish had been fulfilled, leading to the woman giving her husband one of the most passion filled nights that he had ever gotten from her since their tries for a child began. Nothing could have contained the joy that both future parents felt at the thought of a little pair of feet running down the halls of their small house in the morning.

Nothing at all.

Nine months later a small baby girl was born. She had violet hair like her mother, brown eyes like her father and such a cute and serene face while sleeping that the couple decided to call her that, Serenity.

Yet... neither of them would question how it had come to be possible that they were able to have a child so suddenly. And if this was really a blessing from God, or a curse from the devil.

6 years later

It was a good day for Serenity. It was a celebration night, Christmas. She spent the day playing with the other children in the village while the parents cooked the meals for the night.

After playing the whole day she went with her parents to the church before it was time to eat. She felt extra-special as she convinced the priest to let her help in distributing the wine for the Eucharist.

She even managed to take a small taste of the wine with her pinky, she thought it was delicious.

After the cult ended all members of the village went to eat the prepared fest that the grownups made. The food, the drinks and the laughter that permeated the place were like a dream come true for the village as a whole. That was the best day in Serenity's life.

"Aaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhh" Serenity screamed when waking up. She had been having nightmares for a few weeks now. She could never truly remember then, but it was always terrifying for her. It made the day she had even more special for her, as it was just so happy when compared to the scary dreams she had been having.

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After calming down the girl noticed that her parents did not come this time around. Normally they would have come already, but this time they were not here.

Getting worried she decided to go see them. After getting out of the covers she realized that the temperature is very low (it was close to the end of autumn in Russia so being cold was a given). She was afraid that her parents may have caught a cold or some other disease, so she quickly went to see if they were fine.

When she entered their room she saw that both of them had twisted faces as if in pain. She got desperate and decided to do the best she could to try and save them. She cleaned the sweat off their foreheads, gave them water, prepared the best soup she could (it probably was too salty but she did it the best she could, even if she got some minor burns because she worked with fire). But no matter what she tried nothing seemed to work.

She was so desperate that she decided to try what her mother always did for her, give a kiss on the forehead while praying to god for them to get better.

After a few minutes, she saw that her parents started getting even worse. She could even see her dear mother with a small fillet of blood coming out of her mouth and her dad shaking uncontrollably.

Panic rose in her young mind. She could not understand why this was happening, not one bit, and in her desperation, the young girl sped out the house she grew up in (not even putting any clothes on, such was the panic in her mind) to get to the doctor of the village.

On the corner of her mind she noticed that there was no sound on the whole village, but on her desperation, she ignored this in favor to get to the doctor as fast as possible. When she got to the doctor's house she started knocking.

She screamed and knocked the door as much as she could, screaming to the top of her lungs that she needed help, but no matter how much she called there was no sound inside. The girl could only think that she needed to get inside and, remembering some of the lessons her daddy taught her when she was younger, she unlocked the door using a small pin that she had on her hair.

She herself did not remember how she learned to do that, and honestly, it did not matter for her at that time.

When she found him she saw that he was in the same state that her parents were this morning. Only, his condition looked much worse with those strange pustules growing over his face, neck, and body. Some of his body parts looked like they would fall off at any moment, and his form overall looked absolutely horrendous, like he was a rotting corpse that was decomposing rapidly before her vert eyes. Fear crept on her mind as she knew that the doctor looked even worse than her parents did. Without thinking she went ahead and nudged his shoulder… didn't really do anything good for him, in fact, it just seemed to make him all the worse.

Seeing this she imagined that it must be a serious disease and that her father must have gotten worst. So, she did the only logical thing in this situation (in her opinion). She went for the drug cabinet that was on the doctor's room and took all medicine as for her medicine made people better so if she gave all those medicines to her parents they will get better in no time!

After getting as many medicine bottles as she could she ran back to her house.

"Dad, Mom. Do not worry. This medicine will make you all better. I know it will." She spoke under her breath while panting heavily, vapor released from her mouth while she went about running to her parents' room. A small hope was fighting the despair she faced before. As long as she gave this medicine to her parents they will get better, this was the mantra that she was reciting over and over on her head.

That hope was all she had at the time.

When she got on the room she saw her father with a mute scream on his face with a purplish glow on his skin, her mother had blackish purple blood flowing out of every orifice in a disfigured image of the make-up she usually had.

The vision was so terrifying that Serenity, a girl of no more than 6-year-old, simply could not move. She stood there as if she could not comprehend the scene in front of her. All medicine fell to the ground. All those glass bottles were shattered on the ground. Serenity, ignoring this, decided to walk to her parents, not seeming to notice the glass shards that entered her foot.

"Daddy, Mommy please wake up." She started nudging them. A neutral tone of voice, as if she was dead. "Please wake up.

Why don't you wake up?

Please wake up.

Please.

I will do anything.

I will clean my room.

I will do the dishes.

I will listen to whatever you say.

I will be a good girl.

So please, please wake up."

Tears built themselves like fungus in her eyes, growing all the more seeing how bad her parents looked. Even as she tried to stop herself by rubbing her eyes, she just couldn't stop the tears. Desperation filled her mind, heart, and soul as she tried to think of something, and in her despair, she clung to the only possible solution to her. They were just taking a nap. Yes, it was a nap.

Soon they will wake up. They will hug her and say everything is fine. They will make a delicious soup and it will all be fine. It will happen. She knew it will.

And so she kept calling up to them. Asking for them to wake up. Promising everything that she could think off. She just wanted for them to wake up.

She did not want to be alone.

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They never woke up again.

Two days later

Serenity stayed by her parent's side during two whole days, lifeless like a corpse. She wanted to stay there forever, ignoring everything else, but her stomach won the battle eventually, and she left the room to look for some food.

While leaving the room she looked at the outside world and all she could see was that everything for her was greyer. As if the colors had started to vanish, never to be seen again.

She decided to ignore that in prowl of looking for some food so that she could have something to fill her stomach. All she could find were some old pieces of bread, they were hard, and some biscuits. She did not know how to cock o she ate what she could and went back to her parent's side, to wait for when they wake up.

An idea hit her, and she raced throughout the village, looking for any signs of life. She went into other people's houses, part of her hoping to be scolded by the occupants due to being too loud. That would at least show her she wasn't alone anymore, and give her someone to grieve over her family's deaths with. Unfortunately for her, reality had been in a cruel, cruel mood today for she came to a startling discovery after the 10th attempt: everyone was dead, she was alone, and that was the sole truth.

Everyone was dead... save for her.

When she came back she got a new look at her family and the reality hit her, there was no one there anymore as she was the only one left had no tears to cry with at this point, so she did the only thing her childish mind could suggest to the distraught girl. She ran. Ran from the village from her life and everyone else. The only thought on her head at that point in time was to get away from there, not noticing that everywhere her tears fell the plants died.

She decided to leave it all behind. She could no more live on there as she could not bear to see her house anymore, the place that once was so full of life being reduced to a place full of nothing.

And so she left her home, a place that was full of light that was sniffed away unknowingly to the world at large. All the life that once permeated that village, replaced by the cold indifference of death.

3 months later

It has been three months now. Serenity was hidden away in a small alley of a city in Russia. Her clothes were no more than rags as she could not buy any new ones due to not having the money. Her hair was kept short as it got on the way when she was on the forest scavenging for food. She was malnourished and dirty as she could not take a bath or all the fishes on the river would die. She tried once and seeing all the death it caused made her refuse to even want to try something like it again.

And to make matters worse there were the nightmares that never ended and the fact that she was being hunted.

The ones that were trying to find her were strange. They had white skin, pointed ears, a black thin tail and bat-like wings on their backs.

They had been hunting her for two months now, since the time she took a bath on the river and many people died. Taking notice of this strange happening those strange decided to investigate and when they realized the reason the decision was set for them. To hunt her down.

She tried to run away when she realized that she was being hunted. She ran and ran they kept following her, she tried her best but was captured in the end.

The leader like men (he was wearing the most extravagant clothes in there after all) had held her chin and started to say that she would make a good addition to his peerage. The bright side is that before the leader could do anything to her with his strange chess piece (a pawn) he started convulsing. Taking advantage of the time that everyone was distracted looking out for the leader she managed to escape. The bad side was that since that day she had been on the run as those bat-like people keep coming after her.

The only light she had left right now was this dog that she has found, or better yet found her. He was an ugly one, his hair was disheveled and with a mix of brown, yellow white and black. He always had some flies flying on top of him and his breath smelled like rotten fish. He was the best and only companion she had ever had since her family died.

They worked together to look for food in the dumpster and whenever she was in trouble he would come to rescue her. It was like he was her hero.

He was the only good thing she had at this point in time.

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She was looking at the street of this city. She saw children her age laughing and smiling without a single worry in the world while she was here eating garbage and worried for her life.

It has been like this for so long (in her head at least, as it has been just a few months in reality) that she thought she did not felt anything seeing this scene anymore.

THUD

A small girl slipped on the floor.

BWAAAHHHHHH

She started crying and make a ruckus. It serves you right, Serenity thought as she did not like the girl. Long crimson red hair, blue eyes, using the latest fashion of clothes, a warm coat over her shoulders and her parents beside her. She had everything that Serenity does not have.

Serenity smile was short-lived as the girl's mother approached the child and lifted her in a hug showering her with kisses saying.

"Don't cry Rias, my precious darling. Everything is fine. We will always be here for you and it will all be okay. Anytime you fall we will be here, I mean look we are here now." The girl slowly stopped crying. "That is my brave girl. Remember, mom and dad, we love you."

After that, the family kept walking. Serenity looked at the ground and soon enough started sobbing. Tears fell from her face as she remembered her family. The happy meals that she would never have again, the love she did not get any more.

Her dog companion seeing her distress approached her. It tried to nudge her slightly and she simply hugged him. She needed some warmth or she would not see a reason to live anymore.

The problem was that after her tears fell on her only companion he started trembling as blood came out of his mouth. Serenity looked terrified when she saw her companion dying. His warmth lost forever to her.

Her cries were left unattended… or it would be like this if it wasn't for some clapping behind her.

She turned around with dead-fish eyes and saw one of those bat people there. He had an evil smile on his face as he approached her.

"Magnificent. To think even touching you would be enough to die. You would have made a great addition if not for killing my nephew." then he grabbed her by her hair (he was wearing gloves as he noticed that she needed skin contact to kill) and yanked her to outside the city. He wanted to go back to the underworld to execute her in the most appropriate way possible. Maybe taking some samples of her blood and everything to use as a weapon against those hateful Fake-Satan's that stole the name of his glorious family, the Beelzebub's.

The girl did not react anymore. She did not care if she lived or died at this point, she was cursed. Her existence was a mistake, death given form, a curse.

While taking the child away the devil failed to notice that he was being observed by someone.

When the devil got on the forest and was about to teleport he felt a presence behind him. The attack was too fast, not even a shadow being seen where the attack passed. To survive the devil ended up releasing the girl's hair and jumped back to avoid the strike.

The person that appeared was a middle-aged man with black hair and a normal face. The kind that would disappear in a crowd for how much normal he was. But the sword on his hand was another matter entirely. It was a golden colored sword shaped like a long Kris with the bade having an empty space in the form of a diamond.

"Do not interfere with devil's business, exorcist." The devil said the last word as if it was an insult.

"Sorry, but no. This is church territory, and you are not only invading but is trying to kidnap a child. As a soldier of God, I cannot allow such a thing." The man said lunging at the devil.

The sword was no more than a shadow in the eyes of the girl. Too fast to accompany.

The man crossed the distance between him and the devil in a blink of an eye. Using the time when the devil was trying to make a barrier the man simple cut the devil's neck.

It was very simple and efficient. In close to no time at all the man ended the battle, if it could even be called that.

The man them took a pencil and paper and started writing a report right then and there.

"A devil from a branch of the Beelzebub clan. Identifiable by appearance as Xylphonidos Beelzebub, old crimes included kidnapping and torture of Cristian's. Execution allowed by the pope years ago. Killed with a cut in the jugular with Excalibur Rapidly."

After finishing writing his report the man turned to the girl and decided to introduce himself.

"Hey, little girl. My name is Ewald Cristaldi, what is your name?"

The girl looked at him with her dead-fish eyes and did not answer him. She probably could not even come to care enough about anything anymore to care about such a thing as her name.

What was not expected, however is what happened next…

"KYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH" The girl suddenly started screaming desperately as a sudden pain invaded her mind and body.

Ewald took a step back. He might be a good man but he was not stupid. He was looking at the girl for some time now and he saw when, after she touched a dog while crying he died almost instantly. He did not know if it was the skin contact that killed the animal or if it was her tears, but he preferred to not take that risk.

Helping her is something he would do, but dying pointlessly is not on his 'to do list'.

The girl kept screaming and screaming as the pain invaded every little piece of her being. She had passed out of pain long ago as her mind could not bear the amount of pain and memories being implanted on it.

After some time, she stopped screaming and a difference could be seen on her body. Her hair got shiny and with a beautiful purple hue, her eyes turned from brown to a bluish purple and her skin gained a gray tone.

Ewald decided to take her with him to the church. There would be a better place than in the woods. He used some seals he had on his jacket to lift the girl and carry her unconscious body with him.

She would be treated better on the church than in anywhere else. He was confident on that. The church was a good place, a place where good people could help this girl have a normal life.

He was wrong.

3 months later

Serenity was looking out of her window on the little room she was allocated in. She saw children her age training with serious faces but they all had that spirit of youth on them, working to make a better world and all that. They would later go play and they had their rooms and warm meals ready, sometimes even ice-cream.

She was different. Her room was a simple room with just a hard bed and a small chair beside it. No books, no tv, no contact with the external world. The food given to her was only the rests that the other children did not eat, all cold and soggy. If there was not enough food for her she could request for more, but no one cared about her requests there.

Since the day she woke up in the church, she has been in this room. After her body stabilized they made a full check up on her. The results were more than simply interesting for the scientists of the church, they were revolutionary. For her, the only interesting thing was that her physical appearance changed, but she did not know the meaning or cared about it either.

They strapped her to her bed every few days to take 'samples' of her blood, tissues, and anything of importance they may think of. Apparently, they were trying to make a medicine capable of healing all poisons by using her body. If it wasn't for healing magic they applied after every session she would have died on day one during those collection days, and she had to experience them every two days.

She did not care anymore. About anything really.

She did not care about pain, about her life or death.

And so she spent her time simple being, she was no more than a biological machine at that point. Her only relieve, if it could even be called that, was her dreams.

But she never got nice dreams. She always dreamed of a different her. She was an assassin on those dreams. Every night she saw herself seducing men after men to them has them die when they kiss her. It was always the same.

But last night the dream was different. She dreamed of a man, his name was Seiji Jinga. At first he also died after kissing her, but strangely enough, after some time, he came back!

The feeling of knowing that she could touch him with no fear of him dying, just like that, was simply amazing. The happiness that her dream-self had was no greater than her real-self did have when she saw that possibility.

Would it be possible for there to exist someone out there that she could touch with no fear? If so she wanted to be with this person. No matter what, she just wanted to be with someone, anyone. Even if he was abusive, ugly, stinky, evil, a saint, a devil, a monster or an angel, it just didn't matter to Serenity.

She just wanted to feel warm again, to have more colors than this dull gray that permeated everything, bringing life back to her existence. To have someone that would not die like her dog did, like the doctor did, like her parents did, like everyone else did.

KNOCK KNOCK

A man entered her room the very same day. He had a languid body-type and used expensive robes. He had a light blue hair done in a ponytail and carried himself as if he was the most important person in the world, which in his opinion is the truth.

"Hello, Serenity. My name is Maxwell. I am coming here with a proposition to you." He said with a smile on his face.

She looked at him warily. In her dreams, she saw some men like him. They were not good people and all they do is for self-interest.

"I am here to offer you training in a special division of the church. We would like to give you a better home than this." He said with a voice that would be convincing if she hadn't seen a man use the same tone multiple times in her dreams.

She did not move a muscle that could indicate that she would agree to his proposition. For all she knew, he might be trying to kill her or something along those lines.

"It seems that you are not such an innocent girl after all. Well, I have a different proposition them. Serve me and I will give you a way to stop your body from killing everything you touch."

That stirred her. But-

"That is impossible." She answered in her small voice.

"Nothing is impossible to the grace of our Lord. This" he took out a small bottle from his robes "is the result of our experiments on you up till now. It allows plants to survive your touch. It will not be long before we are capable of creating medicine that will allow animals to survive as well."

Hearing this her eyes started shinning with desire.

"BUT, the cost is quite high for the project continuation and the top brass is not willing to pay for more. That is the reason for my proposition. If you work for me and is capable enough I will ensure the project continuation. So, what do you say Serenity, do you want a chance for a normal life?"

Her eyes were an inferno of desire at this point. Her biggest desire is a normal life, no not a normal life, just to live again. To feel the warmth long lost to her. But she needed to confirm it first.

"I want proof that the medicine work."

"Sure. I expected as much." Then he turned around and got outside, after a minute he came back and brought back a rose. Maxwell them proceeded to use a bit of the antidote on the rose and them he gave the rose to give it to Serenity.

She carefully, as if afraid of hurting the plant took it on her fingers. She waited a few minutes and nothing happened.

Tears of joy came out of her eyes as she kneeled on the floor before Maxwell swearing fealty in exchange for they making said the medicine. Maxwell smiled and then took her away from that room. What Serenity failed to see was that the rose died after an hour, it was dry, old and a sickly purple.

The medicine never worked, it just made the effect take some additional time to take effect. The project was abandoned by the church as they just could not make any progress. The Iscariots took Serenity that day, not for her work or for the desire to continue the project made to save lives; no, saving a pagan girl that was not a Catholic Cristian was never something they would care to do. Why would the 'true' soldiers of God care about doing a good action to an infidel of the true church? What they were trying to make a weapon, one to kill all other factions and supernatural beings.

There could only be one true God. And only one group could ever be his messengers, the Iscariots alone. Serenity was simply a useful tool to reach said objectives.

10 years later

Serenity was now a full-fledged assassin. She could move with amazing flexibility and carried numerous weapons in her person at all times. She could completely hide in any shadow, teeport using them for shor distances, and fully control all her body movements. However, despite developing so much her only driving force was her desire for warmth, for human contact that was denied to her for some reason she could never understand.

And it was finally time, she was promised just one more mission, just this last one and her desire would come true. She came to Okinawa with Skin Bolic, a man that controlled lightning thanks to his sacred gear Vajrapani Armor, Lugh, a woman that was crazy for treasures and that was hard to read, some junior exorcists from Iscariots, a few fallen angels that worked under Kokabiel (a man that was on an alliance with the Iscariots to start a new war) and father Million, a direct subordinate of Maxwell.

The mission was to kill the fake goddess descendent Miku Izayoi to stop her in her attempt to hypnotize the masses.

She honestly did not care about who the target was or what she had to do, all she cared about was making sure she got the medicine. That she could be someone instead of something. That the warmth so long lost could come back.

It was the only desire she had left, all that mattered.

The wish to be normal, to be a human.