Kyuuketsuki Duo: The, Uh, Not So Wonder Years Part 1
Demons -- Part 1

'Couldn't strays congregate in clean, brightly lit places?' Duo grumbled to himself as he fastidiously picked his way through the slums of yet another city in search of his quarry, unseen by uncaring people. The sun was still up, but it brought no light to a place always shadowed by the seven sins.

His target had taken possession of a local in just one of the many decrepit buildings in the area, but he knew exactly where he was going. The exterior of the old abandoned apartment was indistinguishable from the rest, but the scent of the Shinma stray within was clear. He took a deep breath before entering the building, reminding himself to ignore the certain taste of depravity in the air, and stepped inside. The man and his attendant Shinma were upstairs, and up the stairs Duo went, absently noting that the steps were in a better condition than the rickety front room, well worn from constant use, but not creaking as he ascended, nor did the floorboards creak as he approached the room of his prey. He stared at the door for the moment, knowing the manner of creature within, and steeling himself for it. From the vibrations in the air, apparently he had arrived at an opportune time -- the stray had just finished feeding, and would be sluggish in its satiation.

He pushed the door open and walked in. There was little furniture in the room. A broken chair, a cracked mirror. A large bed was pushed up against one of the gaudily painted walls, and on that bed lay a man clothed only in smears of blood, his fat falling in lazy folds as he twisted amid the tangled bedclothes. Duo's initial impression was that this man was the victim, until he spotted the second body, which had blended in well among the crimson sheets, that of a young boy, similarly clothed in open wounds inflicted by the well-oiled blade that had been laid lovingly upon his breast after he had slowly and painfully bled to death under the careful ministrations of the other, whom Duo saw now was writhing in the aftermath of pleasure, not pain.

Duo snorted in disgust. The man had not even noticed his presence, so lost was he in his own sick little world, and the stray was only just now stirring to reaction. Quickly and efficiently, he opened a portal to the Dark, then stalked to the bed. The guardian seized the man by his chin, and forced him to look at him, making sure that the stray recognized who had come for him.

"Shinma Posai," he intoned coldly. "I return you to the Dark."

Duo scornfully thrust the semi-conscious man back to the bed and closed the portal after the Dark reclaimed its own. The entire affair was made all the more sordid for its lack of confrontation and violence, and he was only too happy to get out of there. Nor was he eager to be there when the human, beginning to stir from his stupor, returned to his un-Shinma-clouded senses and found himself bathed in blood beside a quickly cooling corpse. He turned to leave.

"Who's there? Another pretty one come to play?"

Duo froze at the sound of the slurred words coming from the bed. Instinctively, he searched for the stray he had just banished, wondering how it could have escaped, but he found nothing, nothing but a human who felt not at all out of place where he was.

A hand grabbed his wrist, and he snapped around to come face to face with the human. Pale amethyst eyes came in contact with hazy half-lidded ones, and the man did not flinch at the sight of such cold, inhuman eyes. He leered.

"Hmm, yes, it is a pretty one...."

Duo's eyes narrowed, and his jaw clenched in anger. He had told himself that human lives were made better when he carried out his duty. It helped him to relate to humans who served as the hapless victims of the vile Shinma menace. He liked to think that, needed to think that, to maintain that precious fiction that there was a good guy and a bad guy, that he was doing the right thing and that he wasn't only helping the Shinma when he returned their strays.

People like this man shattered that carefully constructed delusion.

People like this made him wonder why he clung to his humanity with such tenacity.

People like this only reminded him that Shinma had little direct power over humanity. They fed on pre-existing hungers, pre-existing fears and urges, although they could influence and suggest things to human minds. They possessed only hosts who were willing, one way or another, but it was easy to forget that, to deliberately forget that, although most of the time Duo was all too painfully aware of it. It was one of the reasons he seldom stayed to see the humans recover from their possession. He didn't want to be proved wrong.

::Duo?:: Heero's mindvoice rang with concern in Duo's head, but he ruthlessly shut it out, refusing to let Heero become a party to this, refusing to acknowledge the need for concern as anger burned through his mind and swallowed his reason and there was only emotional reaction.

"Come and play, pretty one," the man invited, patting the bed beside him, apparently oblivious to the remains of the young boy that already occupied the spot.

Duo tore himself from the man's grasp, leaving a bloody trail behind on his wrist. Driven by unmindful outrage, he swiftly crossed over to the boy's body and snatched up the man's own carefully tended knife while the man sat up and licked his lips in anticipation.

"So you like it rough, do you?" The man grinned lasciviously. Duo, his own face an expressionless mask, plunged the blade hilt-deep low into the man's belly.

"I... like it... that way... too," the man choked out, a lustful smile still hovering on his lips even as his life's blood ran out through the hole in his gut. Duo suddenly snarled as he twisted the blade in response, and pulled it straight up through the man's torso until it lodged itself in his sternum and could go no further. He watched dispassionately as the man died, unable to summon even a shred of pity for a man who had been aroused by his own death. Ignoring the man's final twitches, he turned back to the boy, trying his best to arrange him in some semblance of dignity and peace. A brief, improvised prayer for the youth's soul was murmured, assembled from half-remembered snatches from his time at the church orphanage.

The sound of clapping disturbed the moment.

"What a fascinating sight! A human Shinma, saying a prayer for a human soul, having just killed a human. What a delightful creature you are!"

The light tinkle of feminine laughter caused Duo to turn and face the newcomer.

"Who are you?" he demanded, irritated by the intrusion. She was otherworldly, but not Shinma, and had adopted a human form. Her long, platinum blond tresses fell straightly to her knees, matching the hemline of her robe, white with the embroidery of cream colored snowflakes.

"I am called Dorothy. A snow demon, by common accounts." She executed a mocking bow. It was decided then and there that Duo did not like snow demons.

"What do you want?"

She tilted her head curiously at him. "Do you consider yourself human, or Shinma?"

Duo squelched his irritation at the non sequitur. "Neither," he ground out.

"Ah, of course. You are the guardian. A product of both sides. Both natures. You are most appropriately named, did you know that?" She circled him, studying him as Duo refused to fidget under her scrutiny. When she had returned to her initial position before him, she continued.

"Did you know that you have demon's blood as well?"

He raised an eyebrow. His mouth to demand an explanation, but she cut him off.

"Tsk, tsk. So much blood here." She moved around him to the bed. "You drink blood. Why won't you drink from this?"

Duo stiffened. "I would not take blood spilled like this--"

"But blood is blood, is it not? Regardless of how it was spilt. Oh, I know. You must have those strange human morals. Do tell, was it your human side that told you to kill this man?"

"What do you want from me?" he demanded once more, avoiding the question.

"Humans are such filthy creatures, aren't they? One of the few species in the world that will deliberately kill each other without gain. You certainly seem to fit in with the rest of them. You killed that man just as he killed that boy."

"That was different --"

"It's always different, isn't it?" she asked dryly.

"You can't just group all of humanity into one little category," Duo protested, wondering at the same time just why he had allowed himself to get drawn into this discussion with this creature he didn't even know. Perhaps it was because this was a subject that was close to home. His humanity was being questioned, his duty and his motives, just as he himself had questioned them only minutes ago, having encountered one of those humans that had made him sadly insist on prior occasion that there were more than two sides to the issue.

"Do you think your position allows you to pass judgment on them?"

"No. I..." He floundered for a good excuse for what he had done, but came up lacking.

Dorothy smirked. "You truly are one of them. I had my doubts when I heard about the guardian who claimed humanity, but I see I was wrong. You have just as much skill at destroying precious things as the rest of them."

"The Shinma have had plenty of practice at destroying precious things," he pointed out flatly.

"Oh, but they do it to feed, it's a perfectly natural phenomenon. And they only take willing hosts, and give them what they want. But humans... All they do is take, take, take. You as well. You've just taken a life for no particular purpose. You managed to get everyone around you killed by selfishly rejecting your duty. Even your companion, Heero. He was punished because of you and your selfishness."

"He was punished because he failed to kill me. Surely you can't fault me for being alive." Heero had said so, after all, said on many occasions that his punishment was not Duo's fault. Duo was just starting to believe it, too, that against all expectation and all the evidence of humanity's faults and Duo's own insistence in their humanity, that Heero didn't blame him. Did he?

"You just use him. You've reduced the great hunter of the east to your own little pet, obedient to your will and wishes. You take what you need from him, and give him no more thought than you would --"

"I won't listen to this any more," he stated in icy tones, and he moved to leave.

"That's fine. I've already gotten what I wanted out of you." Her mocking laughter echoed in his ears as he slipped between the shadows back to the place he called home.

TBC...

I apologize for the abrupt chain of events in the first half, but it was an abrupt sort of thing.

 

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