[|||| =LEVEL 14= ||||]
"Three, two, one," I counted down. Then I sent the pulse of electricity down into Akame's chest. The girl's eyes jolted open and she opened her mouth, only to close it a moment after. I gave her a moment as her throat opened up and she took in a few deep gasps of air. After a little time recovering she looked up and saw me.
Her posture changed to defensive and hostile and she tried to move away from me. Her knee hit the edge of the medical table and I saw it clatter ominously.
"Hey, wait, sto-" Akame yelped as the table fell over on top of her and she landed on the floor. The thin paper I'd put on the table fell over her and her hospital gown.
"W-wha… " Her face looked pained and I realized that her throat must be incredibly dry. I had been using an IV to keep her alive while in my magical medical coma. Doing anything besides soft consonant sounds would be hard.
"Here." I conjured a glass of water and handed it to her. She eyed it distrustfully for a moment before taking it, probably assuming that I'd have poisoned her already if I was going to, seeing as she'd been asleep. I pulled a chair over while she drank, the glass filling itself up whenever she drained it.
"Food," she rasped. I nodded and looked around my lab. I had a few bags of tortilla chips in the corner. I pushed my swivel chair over and tossed the bag to her and pulled another bag and some salsa from the kitchen with motion affinity. I just opened the door and the snacks assembled in front of her while she tore into my food ravenously.
"You shouldn't be that hungry. The IV had enough nutrients and you were hardly using many calories," I thought out loud.
"Empty stomach," she slipped out before continuing her assault on chips.
"Oh," I summoned some leftover mashed potatoes in a tupperware from the fridge and heated them up before tossing them to her with a spoon. She left them alone for now but eyed them hungrily. I didn't think they'd last long but I leaned back and gave her a minute while I read a book.
"Gravy?" she asked after a minute of eating a bit noisily.
"Not on those. I put some herbs and spices like pepper and- " She was already digging in when I looked up. I went quiet and returned to reading. When the spoon had been scraping against the sides of the tupperware for the past few minutes I heard her sigh sadly.
"Why am I here?" she asked coldly after a breather.
"Your connection to murasame is interesting and it greatly resembles the magic a close friend of mine was infected with. When you used that trump card, cutting yourself with your sword, you changed to something other than human and your soul warped strangely. But people with that particular magical element in them die. I once ran tests of magic on human subjects. I don't typically do so anymore since what I study doesn't really coincide with normal humans but anyways, a man I injected that magical affinity into died horribly. His veins turned black, his soul writhed and coursed as his inner affinities clashed chaotically, and I euthanized him before he died a terrible death. People with a lower dosage had wracking pains and conflict in their affinities that never quite healed without a lot of my intervention. You got a larger dose from your soul and came out smelling like roses."
Akame was silent for a moment. "Murasame chose me," she said simply.
"No it didn't," I corrected her. "Incrusio chose the big guy, Bulat. The ice demon chose Esdeath, or she chose it and forced it to submit. Murasame has no will. It doesn't have a soul. To be self-determining you need a soul. Sure, affinity collections like the kind in murasame can have a determination for one purpose or another but it needs to have that assigned to it, which is what makes an enchantment, albeit a weak one without mana or aura, which you teigu-wielders supply to your weapons. So what I want to know is why that sword was waiting for you, or to be specific, people like you since you're somehow capable of wielding a mass of affinity that should by all rights kill you in a few grisly, painful seconds."
"It chose me," she said stubbornly.
"No it didn't."
"Yes it did."
"It has no will."
"So?"
"So it can't make decisions."
"No. It chose me. It made that decision. So you're wrong," she said it plainly. Her blunt refusal pissed me off a little bit.
"How do you know that it chose you?" I changed tactics.
"I feel it. Murasame doesn't like other people. It kills them."
"Then why does it like you? It doesn't think."
"I kill people. It likes that." I paused.
"That doesn't make sense," I said plainly. "It, and I can't stress this enough, CANNOT like or hate or choose. There is an element of you, a tangible thing, that appeals to it and changes you to not die or come into conflict when you use it. It's programmed to 'like' you and it's reaction to any other person is to inject corruption affinity into them and leave them to die, their souls torn apart under the malicious affinity."
Akame thought for a moment and then shrugged uncaringly. "That doesn't matter to me. Murasame works for me. I don't care for the specifics." Her eyes sharpened dangerously. "Where is Night Raid?"
"They're fine," I said carelessly, reviewing my mental chart of tests to perform with Akame and Murasame. "Even the scissors lady. They're all alive and fighting your good fight. Don't tell Esdeath, though. She thinks she killed or captured them all but I released them not long after. I don't like the Empire but I like Esdeath. When I freed them from their jail I sort of backstabbed the Empire while I stole away their best general. If you tell her she would probably go hunt them down again and cause a mess."
"I understand. I want proof, though."
"Fine." I focused on the void and searched for the familiar signatures of aura. I opened four portals, one leading to the brown haired kid and the sniper making out on a cushioned chair, another leading to Bulat practicing with a spear, a third showing Najenda polishing her revolver and reading a book beside the scissors lady, who was knitting. The last one showed the green-haired boy taking a nap.
Akame looked at all of them stoically. "How long have I been asleep?" she asked softly.
"A month." She nodded.
"I see." She dashed across the room, her hospital gown flaring up behind her. I watched passively as she snatched her sword up from the table against the wall and tried to run into one of the portals. She slammed against a barrier of hardlight the protected the portals and stumbled backwards, drawing her sword drunkenly.
"No, you can't go back. Not now, at least," I said a little sadly. She gripped her sword hard and glared at me.
"Why?"
"Because they're fine. It's been a month of them getting over your death, which is what I told them when I broke them out. The Empire is falling, crumbling away. I checked last week. The army is winning and eating away at territory. The cause is stronger than ever. Riots are beginning in some occupied cities and revolution is strong. You're not needed and going there would only cause pain. I don't think you should go back at all, honestly. Besides, I need you here for my experiments. You tried to kill my girlfriend, too. Call yourself a prisoner of war, a sacrifice so that Esdeath was knocked off the playing board. Isn't that a fair price? Your life for the pillar of the Empire's military? You owe me and I'm collecting."
"I'm not selling myself to you," she said venomously.
"Sure. I just need you to let me study your teigu. Nothing else. Depending on how cooperative you are it could take three months or three decades. One way or another I'm going to learn. You're going to be treated well and I'll give you some gifts at the end of this. You're not a prisoner, hence the lack of drugs, mind magic, or steel bars. You don't even need to stay here. Travel this world if you want or any other. I don't care. You just can't go back to yours."
"… This world?"
"Oh, that. Right. Well since we've gotten the other stuff done with I might as well fill you in on my situation."
[|||| =-= ||||]
Leaving Akame a shell-shocked mess of revelations I showed her outside my lab and invited her to pick a guest room or to sleep outside or do whatever she wanted. I gave her a watch and the usual times everybody gathered and just sort of left her, though I warned her to not try to do something ridiculous like try (unsuccessfully) to kill me in my sleep. I called it silly and went to bed, where my girlfriends were already half asleep. It was almost the middle of the night, after all.
We woke up as usual, me and Ophis, who never really slept, getting up first. She clung to me for five minutes before I nudged her away and she latched onto Kuroka. I nudged Esdeath away from my left shoulder, where she was nuzzling my arm, and gently pried Kuroka away from my right, which she was hugging. I escaped to get a shower and dress myself, which I did quickly and slipped out of the room to begin breakfast. I saw Esdeath's eyes crack open just as I left.
She would take her icy cold shower next and come straight down. Whether she bothered with decent clothes before noon was a tossup normally but with Akame over it was a certainty. Kuroka, who was twelve weeks into her pregnancy, would linger for awhile longer and then roll out of bed. She wouldn't take a shower until after breakfast.
I didn't waste time and got to preparing a breakfast as usual. I felt like french toast, so I got out some egg, milk, cinnamon, and sugar. I tended to always add something else for flavoring so I tried void salts, which I had a bunch of from Skyrim. They tasted like a soft brown sugar combined with the sort of explosive texture of pop rocks and went all fizzy when chemically broken down. I hoped that it would make the toast fluffier but mostly I just wanted to see what would happen. While that was cooking I took out some fruit and lemonade and tossed it in a blender. I felt like having a smoothie.
As I finished all of that I turned around to see Ophis sitting at the table silently staring at me. I set the pitcher of smoothie down and summoned a glass from a cabinet. I poured it for her and used void to wipe the affinity from it. She smiled slightly and drank daintily. I returned to cooking.
After finishing and beginning to dish up plates I glanced behind me at two aura signatures and saw both Akame and Esdeath entering at the same time. Akame was in a hoodie, probably taken from my coat rack, and tights. Esdeath was in a blouse and sweatpants. When Akame first walked in and saw her she froze and stared. Esdeath glanced at her and unconcernedly sat down.
"Did you sleep well?" she asked me.
"Very," I said distractedly.
"Good. Do we have anything to do today?"
"I want to see if you have an animagus form. Well, not like in Harry's world but more like my form as a panther. You have a demon in you so I want to see if you can bring out physical aspects of it."
"That sounds wonderful!" she said enthusiastically.
"I've also considered getting a different form myself. Being a panther is nice and all, but I'd kind of like getting something more powerful. A dragon sounds nice but a bit cliche. I feel like I can be more creative."
"Dragons are awesome," Ophis, the infinite dragon god, pouted.
"I like variety."
"So perhaps not a demon, then?" Esdeath considered as she glared at my plates of toast like some sort of predator sizing up its prey.
"I'm not sure about an angel. I don't think I'm very holy. I'm leaning towards an eldritch abomination, but I don't want to scare anybody." Akame looked like we were speaking in some alien language, looking between us with a strange expression.
"You're at a difficult decision," my girlfriend considered. "Could you just acquire multiple and use them as needed?"
"I'd like one that I can associate with me if at all possible." We were all silent in thought as I passed out plates of french toast to everybody. Nobody wasted any time to start digging in.
"… Giant panther?" Ophis suggested. Akame snorted into her french toast and blushed when everyone looked at her.
"I could do that, make it as menacing as possible," I agreed. "Something with acid, maybe, or a smoke breath."
"You could go with some unknown creature," Esdeath tried.
"Something not well known? I guess it may work. A serpent might be alright, but I like having legs." I ran a few possibilities through my head. Slowly my mind turned towards monster hunter, the games. Those weren't magical, were they? No, they had bio-energy, which was probably aura or affinities. "Maybe something like a kataigida?"
"A what?" Ophis asked around a mouthful of french toast. I gave her a stink eye for talking with her mouth full but let it pass.
"A kataigida. An ancient magical species from Remnant. Think of a bear with scales like a lizard and sharp teeth. I resurrected them with the help of my friend Polendina," I said, possibilities running through my head. "Something like a panther with scales would work well. Very well. I'll need to do some research."
"Mm, research?" I looked at the source of the new voice to see Kuroka walking in, looking sleepy. She sat down at the table and started nibbling on the toast, probably not feeling well as usual.
"I want to bring out the demon soul in Esdeath, subsume it into her, and see if she can physically manifest it. I also want a new alternate form."
"Finally. How long have you been planning on getting to work on her teigu?" she asked, taking her first bites.
"Too long," Esdeath muttered. Then she glanced at Akame. "Speaking of, will you be doing the same on her?"
"No, the murasame has no soul. It just has a bunch of corruption affinity. I want to study the physical effects of corruption affinity on her but I'm giving her a grace period. Nobody just wakes up and is ready to be a test subject."
"Then what are you doing for your days?" Esdeath asked, looking at Akame.
"I… exploring this strange forest," Akame said quietly, clearly not comfortable being the center of attention. I thought it was a bit brave of her to even speak up at a table filled with a god, a demon, and an archwizard, all capable of destroying cities. Oh, and there was Kuroka, but she wasn't nearly as scary as the rest of us. She would also probably put it on herself to acclimate Akame to living here. I was counting on it. Nobody else was friendly enough for it.
"The crystals?" Esdeath prodded. She nodded. "Yes, Abyss makes those. He gets bored."
"I want the forest to be interesting," I insisted. "Not a bunch of trees and dirt. I want magical ponds and crystals and mysterious artifacts incomprehensible to most!"
"So you litter the forest with weird crap," Kuroka said with a teasing grin.
"Precisely," I agreed, taking another bite.
"What's in the forest?" Akame asked.
"Oh, it's awesome!" Kuroka gushed, her morning sickness quickly disappearing under enthusiasm. "There's all the colorful crystals that explode if you hit them too hard but there's also a bunch of dungeons and some weird creatures! I saw a golem yesterday!"
"Golem?" I recalled a bunch of granite I had animated with my life affinity. "Oh, the living stone. Yeah, I guess that is a golem." I had always thought of golems as being magical AIs based on runes, like Penny.
"Yeah! And there was this cool black tower surrounded by an illusion and a mental barrier with a bunch of monsters inside and… The FUCKINGspiders!" She glared at me, looking suddenly furious. "I forgot about those FUCKING spiders, you utter son of a bitch!" I chuckled lowly. The cave of spiders worked perfectly.
"It's not funny!" she protested.
"It's totally funny."
"What spiders?" Esdeath asked.
"He built a cave with a treasure chest at the end of it! I just went through a bunch of bug statues that attacked me and I thought I had gotten to the end of the dungeon and I fell through the floor into this… colorful sea of spiders! There were so many and they got everywhere! I swallowed a spider! It was horrible and I cried a little!" Esdeath was snickering openly at her.
"It's not funny!" she repeated indignantly.
"It is."
"They weren't even dangerous. Also, I set up cameras in a lot of interesting areas. I'll check them for the video," I said mischievously.
"WHAT?!" Kuroka looked at me in wide-eyed betrayal
"I want to see," Ophis said.
"I'm going to go get it now. Would you get the dishes in the meantime?" I stood up.
"NO!" Kuroka cried. I teleported under my lab to a room with no door and opened up the camera feed to the spider dungeon, smirking all the while. I watched the video for myself once and chuckled at a plot gone perfectly. I made two copies just in case. I was going to hold that over her head for so long.
[|||| =-= ||||]
"So how are we going to do this?" Esdeath asked, alone with me in my lab.
"How are you with aura control?" I asked.
"I can manipulate it to flow through my body smoothly. I can concentrate it through a pencil without breaking it. I can't make it go through a braided rope properly. The twin spirals are difficult to flow aura through."
"What about a string?"
"Not a chance."
"Well how about sensing it?"
"I can sense across the house if I focus." I nodded. That was pretty good for an amateur and normal soul.
"Try sensing inwards. Try and find the demon soul. It should be fused into you but distinct." I sensed it myself and found a marbling through her soul. The light blue of her soul was marbled with a much denser blue to my senses. Esdeath sat down and closed her eyes and I wrote down a format for my notes so I could take them quickly.
"I think I found it. Is it the blue channels?" Esdeath seemed uncertain.
"That's it," I said. The room's temperature felt like it dropped a degree.
"It grows stronger when I use magic." Esdeath seemed fascinated by the demon soul. I had already taken enough notes on her demon soul and it's interactions with her own soul to write a small book with.
"Ignore that for now. Try to bring it outwards. It should be like turning inside out." Esdeath focused. The demon soul twinged while her own didn't. A minute later she was manipulating the soul independently of her own, though she moved her own a little from time to time.
"It feels… cold. I've never felt cold before." I was silent. She took the soul and pushed it to the edges of the skin of her left arm in the same way that an aura shield worked. But all it did was make a ghostly blue shield over her skin.
"Infuse it into your body. It's like enhancing yourself," I suggested. The glow faded, returned weaker, and returned once more just barely. There was a moment of nothing before Esdeath's left arm turned blue and more muscled. Her fingers turned longer, inhumanly so, and clawed. I waved my hand close to it and found the temperature drop the closer my hand came.
She opened her eyes and looked at the arm in surprise. "It worked?" she muttered.
"That's one arm. Try the other," I instructed. She closed her eyes and focused. The change seemed to come almost easily, taking about ten seconds. "Was that easier than before?"
"Yes," Esdeath said absently, inspecting her new arms. I offered her a bar of steel from my soul space and she tried cutting through it with a claw. She had to press hard but began to pierce through the solid metal. "It's sharp. My sword is sharper, though."
"How easy is it to channel magic through that arm?" The temperature of the room plummeted. I winced in discomfort and looked at the thermometer of my lab, one of my many tools. "So we're at negative forty seven degrees celsius." I channeled aura through my body and felt the cold fade away. I never appreciated that facet of aura. I sure did now.
"It came out so quickly," Esdeath awed. An extremely detailed ice sculpture formed in the palm of her hand. "That was effortless. I didn't even need to focus."
"Vastly increased access to the demon's affinity. How about you try for a full body transformation." Esdeath closed her eyes. "Wings," I interrupted. "You should take your clothes off just in case." Esdeath nodded and slipped off her sweats. When she tried to take her blouse off one long claw cut through the soft cloth without any resistance at all.
"I liked that one," I sighed. Esdeath frowned at the garment.
"I did too." She tossed it aside and closed her eyes. I watched in interest as she shifted. The transformation was fascinating. Her toes first merged together, losing the little toe and turning to the bluish color like the rest of her. There was also a noticeable arch to her feet. Her legs grew more muscled like her arms but also less thick and longer. I was a little confused to see her breasts shrink but I supposed that they were mostly fat anyways. The body seemed primed for strength and muscle. It was a little odd since most species in cold habitats had more fat than muscle for insulation. Perhaps affinity made insulation less important and strength more so.
The changes of her face were some of the most intense. Her cheekbones drew back, giving her face an inhumanly angled appearance, almost skeletal. The pronounced angles made her seem sharper and gave her a cruel definition. Even her ears turned pointed and elf-like while her teeth grew longer and more pointed like a predator's. Nothing was soft about her features. Just to really make sure people knew Esdeath wasn't human anymore two jagged slightly curved horns made of black ice grew out of her forehead. They weren't big, but large enough that I could fit one in a hand.
Surprisingly, her hair grew out even more, going below her lower back to the very top of her thighs, extremely long with how tall she had gotten. It paled from the light blue it once was, turning more to white tinged blue instead.
When she opened her eyes I noticed how her pupils were larger and the blue color of her eyes had darkened. They were still blue, but much darker and they would be black.
The change that concerned me the most was in her soul. By bringing it out to her body the marbling in her soul expanded and faded into her soul somewhat. It mixed with her a bit and I wondered if this was her teigu's version of Akame's trump card, the demon soul mixing with her soul like Akame's mixed with the corruption affinity.
She clenched her arm and the temperature shifted again, fluctuating low and coming back up as her hand unclenched. I was prepared for decreased control this time and my aura flared against the change, not showing but protecting me against the cold. "How do you feel?" I asked. Her eyes went to me and dilated. A low growl left her throat and she crouched down slightly. My own eyes narrowed.
"I don't suppose you're playing a prank on me?" A snarl left her and she approached me slowly, looking almost to circle me around my left. I noticed how ice collected on the walls around me. "Speak, demon. What do you want?" The demon growled again, seeming more pleased this time. I prepared myself to use my storm affinity to keep her back and subdue her while void countered her magic. I could analyse her then and see how to subdue the demon soul and fold its powers into Esdeath.
The demon stopped suddenly and stared at me silently. The only sound was a small cracking of ice growing. It snarled softly and ice collected in it's hand. I watched suspiciously as a vial of crystal clear ice formed. The demon brought it up and slipped one claw into it. A staggering amount of ice affinity focused and a drop of liquid affinity fell into the vial. What?
"Stop," I said. The demon hissed and looked at me again. I knelt down, still keeping an eye on the demon, and made a dagger from hard light. The demon growled aggressively but that faded as I drew complex runes in layered circles on the floor. "If you're doing what I think you're doing focus your power here. Set the vial down in the center first." The vial changed slightly to have a flat base and the demon snarled as it crouched down. It looked disturbing with such long limbs and the creepy face, like a splayed out spider.
The demon set the vial down and slipped the claw in again. Affinity focused through the circle and the demon made a sort of pleased crooning noise, liquid affinity dripping from it's claw quickly, a dozen fat drops per second instead of one tiny drop. It smiled and I noticed how its mouth was wider than any human's and its lips were thin. I glanced at a corner just to make sure my camera was recording this and not broken from the cold. It was safe in its circle of runes isolating its environment. Perfect.
The vial shifted forms to have a wider rounded base, an erlenmeyer flask, and more affinity was focused into the claw. A pleased growl, almost a purr, escaped the demon. I stepped back against the wall and felt comfortable enough to scribble down notes, observing the demon and its behavior. I was especially interested in its soul since the cameras couldn't record that. I drew an abstract sketch of it's soul and my perception of it, making sure to get every last detail.
It took almost ten minutes for the small flask to be filled with affinity. It was more liquid ice affinity and of a greater concentration than I had seen before. Curious about how much there was I observed it to get a basic profile of it. I made sure to focus on the amount of affinity more than usual.
Ice/demonic affinity - concentrated (Extreme)
Rarity: Mythical (High)
Quantity: 61,184,104
Ice affinity (99.3%) mixed with aura and ice-related affinities (.6%), and trace demonic affinity (.06%) collected and condensed by a demon of ice for her lover using a series of runes to concentrate energies, though it is tainted by demonic affinity and small traces of aura. The affinity in this single flask is potent enough to freeze over a subcontinent such as India or Europe.
No shit that's enough to freeze over a subcontinent! Maybe a decently sized country! My storm affinity is at about two million right now and I could make a hurricane large enough to cover the east coast of the US at five hundred thousand. Now? Fuck, I could take half of Asia in a hurricane. But this much ice affinity? I knew Esdeath was powerful but I could never observe the demon soul since it was always inside of hers and I had never really seen it. One of the weaknesses of observe was that it needed a physical presence or a visible energy signature to perform. The demon soul was augmenting its host and didn't have either.
But just how strong was the demon that it had… this?! What could Esdeath do with the demon's full power? Had she ever really pushed herself to use the demon's full power? Sure, the vial was what the demon could assemble in ten minutes of work so its affinity score was lower than over sixty million, but it was at least two million. I wished I had paid more attention to Poledina when he tested affinity scores versus affinity output. It would let me calculate the demon's true power rather than a ballpark estimate.
Hey wait, lover of the demon?
The demon chuckled, which sounded raspy, and held up the vial, stopping the flow of affinity. It held the liquid up and stood, it's long limbs more ominous now that I knew what I was dealing with. As a precaution I prepared my void affinity to connect me to the greater void. My connection to it was the only advantage I had. How had this escalated so fast?
And then it offered the vial to me. I blinked at the arm coming close to me holding the vial. What? What was happening?
"You… want me to absorb the affinity?" The demon growled. "That would activate the mate effect." The demon's raspy chuckle sounded again and it offered me the flask.
"P̸̧̹̜͔̥͚̦͐̽̀̓́̎͘̚͢a̷̡̰̮̮̠̳̮͎̖̓̔̉͊͆̂ĉ̶̡̫̘̪͗͑͑́̿̃͛͋ͅͅt̷͚̲̗̙̪͉͊́̅̎̏͛͡͠͠."
My ears and brain hurt to listen to that. "English?" The demon growled a negative. I ran over the memory of its words a few times. "A… pact?" An affirmative came from it. My eyes narrowed.
"You're Esdeath's demon." The demon nodded and growled grudgingly. I couldn't tell what it was saying through the growl. It might not have had a purpose. Either way the demon held the flask at me again and its eyes narrowed.
"Ả̵̡̨̧̛̟̻̥̣̠̩͕̉̈̒̀̚͝͡ĉ̸̢͙̟̻͇̖̈́̃̕͝c̜̺̩͔̤̉̑̈́́̀̀̾͟͝͠è͉̝̪̻̮̫̱́̆͒̕p̵̡̠͔̞̀̉͊͋̍͛̕͟͡͞ͅt̶̡̪̬͚̺̉̾̌́͒͜͝," It said.
Another spike of pain went through my head as I deciphered the infernal words. I debated once more between being nice to the demon and causing a cold apocalypse and screwing up my ice with damage from the demon.
I took the flask with a grimace, hoping that this was actually a good thing and wouldn't kill me. Remember, it's only like a million nukes in a bottle so don't drop it… I was just going to drink it.
The demon grinned grotesquely and laughed in an ominous tone. Then, before my eyes, it began to shrink. Its limbs retracted to be a bit shorter and more human and its face shifted to a human one, clearly Esdeath's, though everything else stayed the same. It closed its eyes and when it opened them again, after the transformation was over, its eyes were the paler blue of Esdeath's again. Her skin was blue, she had two horns, and she had normal limbs that didn't make her look like slenderman's sister, though they were still slightly longer than normal for her. It wasn't too noticeable.
She blinked once at me grimacing and winced. She stumbled to the table and leaned on it. Her fingers, still somewhat clawed, dug into the wood as she hissed and massaged her temple.
"Ow… my head," she groaned.
"Did you perceive any of that?" I asked, already knowing the answer.
"I was making the transformation happen… how do I…?" She looked over herself. "Oh, my. I like this." She twirled her fingers and a small flurry of ice and snow appeared in front of her.
"You got demonically possessed," I told her.
"What?" She turned to me and her gaze locked onto the flask in my hands. "I… what is that?"
"Your demon made it. I have to drink it for some sort of pact. Also, your demon friend is apparently happy to be… mated to me. I'm not entirely sure what this does."
"It's good," Esdeath said immediately. She blinked in surprise. "I think." She frowned and closed her eyes. "I can feel it," she growled. "It's awake."
"I figured," I said dryly. "I think it likes you. It must be the sadism."
"It likes you," she said grimly, opening her eyes. "The only reason it isn't trying to take over my body is that it thinks I'm using its power for more interesting purposes than taking over a cave and sleeping. "
"You know, for a demon, it's being incredibly generous."
"It considers you it's mate. It… She respects you for your power," Her lips twitched upwards. "Though she wants you to be more cruel. She thinks you'll be… something when you drink that flask."
"Oh dust below, are you actually befriending your demon tenant?" I put aside the idea of a transformation after drinking the affinity. I didn't want to think about that.
"I'm mastering aural communication, as you've taught me," she said sweetly. I despaired, sensing faint waves of aura coming off of Esdeath's soul. I could catch some of it, messages about cruelty and creatively horrible ways of using ice. I even caught a fragmented memory of a cave full of frozen creatures, their faces ones of horror and fear. I wasn't happy that Esdeath had made a friend.
"It wants me to drink this?" Esdeath nodded, a somewhat joyous and bloodthirsty expression on her face as she learned to converse with her new tenant. I didn't like how quickly she got along with the demon. I didn't trust the thing at all. I wanted to wipe its memories and personality with mind affinity and give Esdeath a consumption affinity so she could slowly digest it for its power since the thing was just that evil. But the demon would fight back any attempt I made and Esdeath's soul would be caught in the middle of our conflict, probably to be horribly maimed, killed, or crippled. Did she even realize that she was it's hostage? Or was I overthinking the demon's motives.
I resolved to strengthen my storm and void affinity just in case. I wanted my storm affinity to be my strongest to take advantage of my prime affinity perk, which quadrupled the strength of my strongest affinity, but I wanted my void affinity stronger too. I had a solution to this but I needed a moment of free time.
"The pact," Esdeath said, looking at the flask of affinity. "Fulfill it."
In a vain effort to stall for time and cross my fingers I disconnected from my followers, locking in the affinities they already had. This was going to hurt. I grimaced once more and took a deep breath as I raised the flask to my lips.
I felt the liquid touch my lips and I definitely had frostbite all around my mouth. It burned as it went down, even worse than liquid fire affinity, but I powered through the pain, draining the liquid. I experienced the odd sensation of my stomach acid freezing inside me. It wasn't deadly, not for my super-body with critical organs made from living metal, but it was far from pleasant.
The affinity began breaking down in me and my soul, making me cold in my soul, a deep chill settling in. My consumption affinity worked overtime to help assimilate the power. I gained plenty of new affinities and my ice affinity grew immensely. It was like a fire inside me. It hurt but it was a good pain, the strain of a workout, almost, just multiplied by a hundred.
As my ice affinity swelled I felt my storm affinity. I was attached to it. It had been with me for so long. I had done so much meditation on it but now it was about to be so… useless. I didn't like it.
And with what little sentience, that tiny bit of independence it had to act out in my favor, it didn't like that either. I tried to keep it as my prime affinity, unwilling to let all my work developing spells and making the perfect lightning bolt go to waste. It was my weapon, my Eclipse Rose, and a core part of my soul.
Luckily there was a way to compromise. Ice and storms weren't mutually exclusive, after all. The water facet of my storm shifted, an abundance of cold affinity merging with it, my unity affinity, insignificant as it may be, though it had mana fueling it, facilitating the change with my desire and mana. Ice merged with storm in a messy fashion, making something lopsided and unwieldy but holding immense power. The affinities clicked together to one prime affinity and I felt it perfectly.
*Ding!* Ice and storm affinities forcefully merged to form a blizzard affinity from .1% storm and 99.9% ice affinity! Total base strength of affinities is 4,214,897. WARNING! Affinity is extremely unstable! Acquire additional storm affinity or risk decomposition of affinity and damage to your soul! Affinity cannot be used safely!
By warping your signature affinity your title has upgraded:
The Blizzard
-Reduces mana costs of using your blizzard affinity by 25%
-Increases blizzard affinity by 100% (After skill modifiers)
-Increases mana capacity and regen by 50%
-Wind, lightning, electricity, plasma, water, cold, and ice affinities are barred from you. You may only access them by means of your blizzard affinity (in effect regardless of title)
- Storm of souls semblance altered! (in effect regardless of title)
Whatever the changes, I was in excruciating pain. My blizzard affinity was tearing itself apart and damaging my soul. My storm affinity was too weak and my ice affinity too strong. One was chaotic, the other orderly. One was solid, the other gaseous. One homogenous and the other so varied that it had multiple functions. That they were even meshed together in the first place was solely due to my own desires and my poor, strained, unity affinity, which was like a rubber band about to snap and let the two affinities loose, which wouldn't be bad but I wouldn't have my storm anymore. I would just have ice in my soul. I didn't want that, even if the only reason was out of pride. Luckily I had a plan.
I reached into the void and immediately found the dimension I was looking for. A plane composed of pure storm affinity. Things like matter, liquid, and solid didn't exist. It was all just storm affinity. There was nothing else.
I reached into that dimension and connected it to my soul. Raw storm affinity flowed into me. It hurt but it was a good kind of hurt. It was the sting of a needle giving a painkiller. I felt my blizzard affinity drink in the foreign power greedily, the storm stabilizing to something that could break down the ice. My soul swelled again, which had to be unhealthy at this rate. Then I had a brief epiphany. The subspace I had just recently gotten, the one connected to my storm affinity, was cracked open and I pulled that affinity into me too. I noticed that the pocket dimension was breaking down and vaguely thought I should study that but I couldn't bring myself to care, too distracted from the sweet, sweet peace in my soul.
I lost track of time in my affinities, too busy sculpting storm and ice together. My unity affinity fell from the newly formed blizzard and I felt a soul-deep soreness, like I had eaten too much. But as I shut off the flow of storm affinity I felt at peace, so much better than before.
… Where the hell had the demon affinity gone? That one thought brought alarm bells to me and I did a double take at my oh so peaceful soul, though I really just wanted to go do anything but focus on my aching soul. I found the demon affinity sitting innocently inert, not merging with other affinities, clashing with anything, or tearing me apart. I didn't trust it at all but I was a little preoccupied to deal with it. I could just wipe it from me with void if I had to. As it was, I just took a look at my blizzard affinity through the FATE system and gave up so I could rest.
Blizzard: 8,427,882 (+2100) (x128) (250%)= 2,697,594,240
Yet as soon as I opened my eyes I felt a burning in me… mate effect. Right. I looked around the room, which was absolutely trashed with broken glass and furniture everywhere. The wall had the all too familiar blackened scars of lightning damage and where there weren't scars from lightning there was ice and snow. And, hiding in the corner, was a small cocoon of ice. I walked over to it and flicked my wrist. It parted like a flower blooming to reveal Esdeath, still looking demonic, sitting down and looking faintly tired.
"Mate effect," I said shortly. She blinked at my bluntness and let loose a short, incredulous laugh.
"You just trashed your la-"
"I have backup notes," I interrupted her before I pulled her close and kissed her deeply. I didn't even notice the cold.
[Lemon]
I was nothing but thankful that Esdeath was naked. That she was a bit demonic looking was hardly an issue. My mind was in a haze and I wasn't biased. I didn't even remember that she had a demonic passenger probably watching us.
Her being naked allowed me to grope her breasts roughly. She bit off a moan before she growled and pulled away, her eyes narrowing at some perceived challenge. A knife appeared in her hands and she cut off my shirt and tore it off me without trouble. I ignored it. I was too busy kissing at her neck and nibbling every few seconds. The way she jerked was adorable but I could tell by her flushed face that it turned her on. I did notice when she threw my pants down and put her hands against my chest.
I lowered my hands to her ass and continued my groping, though I kept from coming near her entrance. I was far from in the mood for foreplay and moved to press her against the wall. She growled again - what was with all the growling with demons? - and I fell backwards suddenly as her foot pulled my legs out from under me. I was surprised that she was doing this now of all times as I was as far from in the mood for this as I could get. She dropped down to straddle me, looking in my eyes defiantly, and I grabbed her arms and spun around, pinning her to the floor. She snarled and tried to do the same but I ignored it. My blizzard affinity, bless it, moved the ice and her wrists sunk into the floor a little.
Her magic strained against mine but I was evidently far, far stronger than her now with my bonuses multiplying my affinities, not to mention how the storm affinity I had just absorbed meshed with my ice. I enjoyed the feeling and by the somewhat purple tint on Esdeath's cheeks and how her hips writhed I could tell that she did too.
I came closer to her and grabbed her face roughly. I was breathing heavily as I bit her ear hard enough to draw blood. She yelled in surprise and bucked under me. A dark laugh escaped me and I kneed away her legs from her privates. Seeing another way to resist me she drew her legs close to kick me away and I quickly moved a hand to knock aside her legs. I didn't waste time and pressed myself to her. I slammed through her entrance and she screamed because holy shit she was wet. Even her pussy seemed to resist me, muscles straining around my cock, feeling incredible around me. She was colder than usual, but comfortably so. Cold didn't seem to affect me anymore. I didn't notice much besides how fantastic she felt.
I thrusted away, mauling her breasts and my hands lowering to her ass every once and awhile. Her face looked up to me, eyes glittering with lust. I mashed my mouth to kiss her and there was as much biting as tongue-wrestling as I fucked her. Even still her arms were straining against the ice. She had escalated to using her aura, making her eyes glow blue, though they were almost rolling up now. They probably would have if she wasn't so focused on fighting me. It made her legs, which were pressing against my back, urging me to go deeper and deeper in her, pull on me even harder.
With a shudder and a gasp she came hard, every muscle in her body tensing again. With a few more thrusts, worsening her state, I came too, thrusting deep inside her. I groaned and made out with her less roughly as I filled her. There were a few moments of rest as we enjoyed out high, our souls mingling and mixing our senses together to a pleasurable unity of our mutual satisfaction, but it wasn't long after that my body and soul demanded more of her. My relaxed breaths quickened again and Esdeath caught on too, looking at me with renewed lust.
I admired the marks on her, red bites and flushed skin from my affections and slightly swollen lips from our kissing. I once more pawed at her ass and breasts, being more tender this time. I was ready again and Esdeath clearly was too, but I wanted her to sweat before I relieved her.
I smirked as I caressed her face and she snapped at my fingers, which I twitched away with even more satisfaction. Then her leg slammed into my side and I fell off of her a little. In my enjoyment of her helplessness she had somehow weakened the ice binding her and slipped her hands out without me noticing. I was less amused as she punched me in the stomach hard enough to wind me and got her feet under her. She grabbed me by my thighs and held me up against the wall. She redoubled her efforts for control as she kissed me again. I didn't fight her and instead went along with her efforts to see where she wanted to go.
She saw how I wasn't resisting and set me down, pressing herself against me. The ice didn't let her slip and she softened her kisses. I brushed against her entrance with a finger and she shuddered. Her hand fell onto my shaft and I sighed happily into her mouth. I teased her entrance and she trailed her hands over me, not working to get me off but making sure to keep me hard with brushes and touches.
I slipped one finger inside her and she mimicked my happy sigh so I slipped another in and she tightened around my digits. I slowly slid in and out of her while my thumb flicked against her clit at random to keep things interesting. My other hand pulled her close and slid to all the places I knew she liked, the small of her back, the sides of her stomach, and her upper arms. I spent a moment admiring her hair, which was still white with a soft blue hue. It was beautiful and almost shimmered in the light of the ice around us. She purred happily as I lovingly caressed her head, knowing how much I appreciated her.
It was when she pressed her waist against me and grinded against my fingers a little that I sped up my pace, being more energetic and less soft. She rewarded me with more direct touches, almost jerking me but not quite. It was aggravating.
She breathed heavily on me but before she came she pulled my fingers away from her and began kissing down my neck. I was interested in what she was doing. Was she going to bite more? As she lowered herself down I was getting the idea of what she wanted to do. It was only as her lips parted around my cock that I inwardly cheered and reached for her horns.
Only for her to smack her hands away as she lowered her head down my cock. She looked up at me, seeming somehow challenging even now. I wanted to grab her horns and fuck her face right there and then, but I knew that that wouldn't be winning. That would just be taking what I wanted, what she wanted me to do. She knew I wanted to use her horns as handholds before and now she was using that against me. I forced my hands away from her head and pressed myself against the wall as the succubus worked my cock, going centimeters at a time, trying to make me lose control again. I wouldn't be winning anything if I lost control, though, even with the mate effect, my natural lust, and her own lust telling me how good an idea it was to take control.
For three whole minutes, I counted, she slowly sucked, fondled, and licked my cock, focusing on pushing me to the edge and loving the power she had over me. She flitted her tongue over my tip, sucked at my balls, and drew her tongue enthusiastically over my shaft while she jerked my head. It was a true test of my self control to not grab her horns but I managed. Barely.
Finally she laughed seductively around my dick and grabbed my waist. A block of ice appeared under my and I sat down with relief, my legs shaking a little. My hands came up to her horns and she looked up at me invitingly. I took my time, wrapping my fingers around the black, jagged horns with relish at my reward. I didn't rush right into it, pulling her head down to deepthroat me slowly.
Then I wasn't so restrained. I pulled her down all the way and pushed her back up faster. She was breathing a bit heavily and I saw her hand playing with herself where I couldn't see. I knocked her legs apart and she hesitantly parted them so I could see her fingering herself as she sucked on me. I smiled and finally got to work.
Her head rapidly rose and fell as her tongue drew all over me. She sucked harder than ever, not holding back at all to get me to cum. I pulled on her horns recklessly, relaxing as she worked. I even closed my eyes before she growled angrily and I opened up to see her looking petulantly at me for attention. I stood up, making her rise up too, and began to finish myself off.
Esdeaht was fingering herself faster, her eyes looking up at me adoringly. I smiled at her before my smile turned to a bit of a smirk and I hooked my foot around her arm and pulled her out of herself as I finished myself off, coming into her mouth. She seemed betrayed and a bit angry, her adoring look turned to a resentful glare. She still licked me off, if rougher than necessary, and came off my cock with a soft pop. I grabbed her and switched places with her, putting her on the stool and pushing her legs apart to lick her. By the soft laugh she had I could tell that she forgave me.
[Lemon ends]
[|||| =-= ||||]
"Why does it smell like…" Akame trailed off as she entered my lab at exactly eight o'clock.
"It smells like air freshener and that's all it smells like," I said with finality. She nodded with an embarrassed blush, happy to go with the obvious lie.
My lab was still a little bit of a mess but most of my notes were safe. They were disorganized so I had to spend a half an hour cleaning the lab and reorganizing my notes. I went the extra mile and made a cabinet. The sides and back of it were all wood, but the front of it was runed ice in remembrance of why you should keep your notes under lock and key when doing dangerous experiments. This one could have gone disastrously wrong.
Luckily the worst thing to come out of it was that Esdeath had found a friend who enjoyed the same horrible hobbies as she did. Scary, but it could have been worse. I was still trying to decide what to do with the demonic affinity, though, and I was having a hard time doing anything without including ice or cold somehow.
Lightning strikes struck to flash freeze something rather than burn it, air had small ice crystals in it, or water was at freezing temperatures. Ice or coldness had to be involved somehow in all my storm-related spells or my magic was inefficient. It wasn't a big deal since with such a high affinity my magic was a hundred times more powerful than before but more powerful wasn't always better. I could destroy countries in a howling storm of ice but I couldn't make a gust of wind without some hail in it. However, there were some pretty interesting things I could do with so much affinity. Not to mention my semblance warping itself.
"So today we're going over the basics," I said conversationally. "I want to observe what happens to a creature when you cut it, though I'm pretty sure I already know, and I want to try injecting a little corruption into you."
"Mm," Akame agreed. "But I have a condition."
"Of course you do." I sighed.
"I want a job."
"Test subject isn't enough?"
"No."
"You can be my concubine, then," I decided. Akame blanched at the prospect. I snickered at her. "That was a joke." She nodded in relief, not looking very amused. "How about my lab assistant? I need somebody to take notes and run minor experiments in my absence."
"No thank you," she said politely. "I would prefer something physical."
"You DO want to be my concubine?" I joked. She looked at me flatly. "Fine, fine. I'm sure Elsyria will have something for you."
"Who?" Akame seemed interested.
"A friend of mine. She leads a religious group I associate with, though I'm not a member." I felt like my tongue was forked with how well I danced around my position in my religion. "She could always use someone trained in stealth. Your experience in infiltration could definitely help her and if not you could train some people in swordplay."
"I'd like to talk to her," she said.
"Sure. Experiments first, though." I waved my hand and a portal opened up in the air. A little green goblin, fresh from a generic classic fantasy world fell from the portal with a nasal shriek. It scrambled to its feet and Akame drew her blade. I gestured towards it and she cut it very shallowly on its forehead. It shrieked again while a black mark quickly spread over its face. It was a large sample of corruption affinity, though a thread of affinity led back to the blade. The black mark spread quickly before the goblin's screams cut off as its soul was torn apart by malignant corruption and it slumped to the ground. The marking disappeared as the thread of corruption affinity pulled back to the blade.
"So I was mostly correct. I didn't expect the blade to preserve it's affinity. I thought it injected it," I muttered, writing down notes.
"What was that?" Akame asked in disgust.
"A goblin. It's an irritating pest that you won't mind killing. Unless you'd prefer to slaughter fluffy bunnies or something."
"Goats?" she suggested.
"Sure." A portal opened up with a giant golden goat the size of a minivan falling out of it and bleating mightily. Akame yelped and slashed with her blade by reflex. The sample of corruption affinity was much larger this time. The goat let out a surprised, shrieking bleat before it fell down to its front legs and died too, though over five seconds passed before it succumbed to its poison. Akame glared at me.
"That took a lot more energy than before," I noted. "So larger souls need more affinity? Or is it larger bodies. Are the markings signs of internal physical injury or the presence of so much corruption around the initial wound? Maybe corruption making itself innate through pure concentration and expressing itself? Let's cut something with a purity affinity this time. It might counter the corruption."
"I don't think I like this," Akame said, looking tired.
"Those goats and goblins murder people," I told her. I pointed at the goat's teeth, which were sharp and layered like a shark's. "Look, it's carnivorous."
"Oh. Nevermind, it's a danger beast." She seemed utterly remorseless after realizing that.
"Sure. I'm going to dissect it this time right after you cut it. I want to know if the poison is physical. Again."
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