Somewhere in the vast cosmos stood a supreme fortress. A castle beyond the wildest fantasies of mankind, glorious to behold. This was His domain, and nestled deep within the safety of His castle walls was a certain young woman. One of his Valkyries, yet unproven in battle. She rested in her private chambers, of which all enlisted soldiers of His Grace were permitted within the building.
A simple room, not unlike a dormitory for a boarding school, but it was far much spacious and luxurious than her accommodations before she had become a soldier. A simple bed pushed up against the wall was where she currently lay. Atop the bed, a lightly dyed pink blanket cloaked the furnishing and was topped with many pillow-like objects, most in the shape of animals.
She held up a much less well made stuffed doll above her head. The stitching was rough, amateurish even, but she would likely call this her most prized possession. It was a humanoid doll of a girl with long silvered hair. Two buttons made up the doll’s eyes, giving it a rather ugly yet cute vibe.
“Saravial… just you wait there, I’ll come get you soon~” Mihr smiled, her expression innocent and catlike. She hugged the makeshift doll to her bosom and closed her eyes, laying completely still on her bed. “It must be so hard for you, finally realizing you’re not perfect. Unable to come home because you’re so ashamed to face me… but that’s alright, I’ll still love you, Saravial! In fact, I might love you even more this way~”
She had a plan, but first, she had to find a way to earth. In order to remain undetected, she determined that the best way would be to wait for another soldier of light to head through a portal, and slip in behind him.
For that reason, she got dressed in inconspicuous clothing and snuck her way to the armory to find her target. After only a few minutes of waiting, a mid level angel began to arm himself for combat. She followed in his wake, and when it became obvious he had not paid her any attention as he summoned the gateway between worlds, she hopped right on through it.
“Now then, I just need to find someone suitable for my purposes…” she thought aloud, a somewhat annoying habit of hers she wasn’t able to break since childhood. As she wondered what her next move should be, a group of young men walked by her. The injuries of a previous fight still apparent on them, they appeared to be a group of street punks who had run out of luck.
“Damn that bitch… next time I see her, I’ll fuckin kill her!” one of the teenagers grumbled, the other boys nodding in agreement with their leader. “She seems unbeatable, but she’s only human. Next time for sure… we’ll break that bitch Takeru’s fuckin face!”
Her ears perked up, the name which had escaped the delinquent’s lips was one she was well aware of. The name of her enemy, her adversary. Hatsu Takeru. Putting two and two together, she realized in an instant that these three men had lost in a fight to the Shard of Ahriman she sought out.
Silently, Mhir began to follow behind the three human thugs.
-
One day ago
“My liege, are you alright?!” the hurried voice of Raza broke through the haze over my thoughts, snapping me back to reality. The young woman came running down the hill, Akira’s group of warriors of darkness following behind her. Gliding alongside Raza at the front of the group was the angelic form of Saravial, who gracefully landed at my side.
“She appears to be alive, though her wounds are quite severe.” kneeling down next to my prone form, the angel inspected my injured body. I brushed her away and sat up, ignoring the screaming pain all throughout my body.
“I’m fine, I’m fine… just taking a little nap to heal up.” I responded, then slowly stood up. “See, I’m already starting to feel better. Man, this body sure is convenient, only a few minutes after nearly dying and I’m good as new again.”
Just then, Akira returned, having briefly disappeared to get medical supplies. He smirked, placing the convenience store bag onto a nearby bench. “Looks like my patient is all better already, and here I was really looking forward to taking off your clothes so I could bandage you properly.”
“Pervert.” I replied, laughing. I took a step towards him, my foot landing lightly on the grass below. A shock ran through my body, and I nearly passed out. The crowd that had gathered clearly took notice, but the look of concern on their faces only made me want to hide my current weakness even more. “I told you, I’m fine!”
“At least let me support you, my liege! Lean on my shoulder if you struggle to walk, or perhaps I could carry you in my arms!” Raza Ran up to me and seemed as if she was actually going to carry me like some sort of princess, but I was able to push her away.
‘T-That’s totally unnecessary, Raza! I can walk just fine on my ow-” And then my legs gave out under me. The world turned into a rushed blur as I crashed against the ground, unable to brace my fall.
“You’re not fine at all!” Raza exclaimed, rushing to my aid. She slowly lifted me off the grass. My body felt like lead, I could barely move my extremities.
“You’re being too rough with her, Daeva! Allow me to carry her.” Sara’s sharp voice cut in, but my vision was too disoriented to see her. It seemed like she was arguing with Raza over how to best move me somewhere safer. As I listened to the two of them squabble, I realized they were more similar in personality than they would like to admit.
Somehow they got me back home in one piece, and all without killing each other as well! The blood drained from my mother’s face as we crossed the apartment threshold, Raza half carrying me to the sofa, where I promptly collapsed onto my face.
“You!” My mother’s eyes locked onto Akira’s figure as he entered our home. Her glare burning a hole through him, even the fearless god of destruction wavered. “When you left town I was so relieved, you were always dragging my little girl into dangerous waters… you’re back for less than a week and look what’s happened to her!”
“It’s not as bad as it- ouch… looks.” I forced myself to sit up with the little energy I had regained. Panting, sweating, I’m sure she didn’t believe a word I was saying. “Aniki saved me, this is my fault.”
“If there is any single party at fault, it is mine alone, Takeru’s mother.” Saraviel suddenly fell to one knee and bowed her head to my mother like a knight from the medieval period. “Your daughter bravely intervened in a conflict I brought upon myself in order to protect me, and I beg your forgiveness.”
“I… I’m not sure we’ve met before, are you one of Takeru’s school friends?” she asked the white haired girl, who silently nodded.
“I transferred only recently, but it is true that we are indeed classmates at the present moment.” Sara remained knelt before my mother, the only thing revealing she wasn’t a lifelike statue being that she was capable of speech. An awkward silence fell between the various parties in our small apartment.
“Well, Takeru has always had a weak point for helping cute girls in trouble, so I think I understand.” my mother nodded her head, folding her arms across her chest. “You’re forgiven, so long as you continue to be my daughter’s friend!”
“That was always my intention, mother.” Sara responded, then stood up straight with a sudden, precise movement. “Father shall be expecting me soon, I must return to my home… farewell.”
The silver haired angel absconded from the apartment, leaving no parting words with Akira or Raza. It seems she had yet to accept that she was now on our side, the Light having turned its back on her. Soon, Raza returned to her own apartment and my mother went to bed, leaving just Akira and I in the living room.
“Aniki… I want more power. The way I am right now, I can’t protect anyone!” I slammed my fist against the plush pillow to my side, a soft thump the only resulting noise. “Teach me how to awaken the full power of Ahriman!”
The young adult stood up, turned away from me, and crossed his arms. He stood in silence for a moment, tapping his foot as he became absorbed in thought. “This isn’t going to be as easy as when I taught you a few punches, kiddo.”
“I don’t care what it takes, train me!” I answered, forcing my shaking legs to stand up. I was a bit unsteady, but the pain was already subsiding.
“It’s settled then, be ready for hell tomorrow!”
I woke up in pain, all of my muscles were sore from the buildup of lactic acid, but I shook it off and got dressed in my school tracksuit. I checked my phone, seeing Akira had sent a text on where to meet up with him. I headed out into the hallway before my mother woke up, and found Raza standing there, waiting for me.
“I’m coming with you.” she stated, and I nodded and walked past her. “You’re going to train with him, right?”
“Fine with me.”
I wasn’t sure what to expect from Akira’s training, but when I arrived at the address he sent me, we were at a public gym. Akira was there in a pair of cargo pants and a white tank top shirt that showed off his impressive physique.
The grueling training began. First, Akira instructed us to run on the gym's treadmills for over an hour. After what he called the warmup, we moved to the strength training room. After bench pressing over twice my own weight, he increased it even further. Then, a series of pushups, squats, and sit-ups.
“This is just an ordinary workout regimen!” I suddenly snapped after the hundredth push up in a row.
“Tsk Tsk, shortsighted as always… in order to embody the strength of Ahriman, your body has to be up to the task! A weak body will break apart if used as the vessel for the God of Destruction, so you must push your physical strength beyond that of a mere human!” He answered my complaint, and put the two of us back to exercising. “Now, 100 more!”
After a week of this same training pattern after school or in the morning on the weekend, Akira’s training changed.
“Strength is meaningless if you’re too slow to touch your opponent! Now, we will improve your reflexes and reaction speeds!” Akira explained as we stood in front of a baseball training machine he had acquired somehow. He set it to the lowest speed setting and looked at me with a serious expression. “Dodge!”
“Huh?” I said confused, right before a baseball struck me in the gut. “A-Aniki, what the fuck?”
But he didn’t turn off the machine, and another baseball hit me as I was doubled over. So I compiled, dodging the balls as he increased the speed faster and faster. Once I could safely dodge them all at max speed, he instructed me to begin trying to catch them instead, which proved quite a bit harder.
Phase three of the training began three days after the baseball test. Akira, Raza, and I were standing in a meat packing plant, slabs of beef hanging off large metal hooks in a refrigerated room.
“Your punch is legendary among high school delinquents around here, they say you can defeat any opponent with a single blow.” Akira began to explain, taking up a boxing stance, he then threw a punch against one of the slabs of beef. The carcass exploded, flesh and bone split apart with a single strike. “Now you do it!”
I nodded and threw my fist out towards the nearest slab of beef. The crunch of the cow carcass’s bones shattering echoed through the room, but it didn’t split the slab completely in half, it remained a single piece.
“Training #3, in a life or death battle every punch must aim for their life, you might not get a second hit in! Destroy the beef in a single blow, Takeru!” Akira thrust his fist into the air, and I excitedly nodded.
Punch after punch after punch after punch, my mind numbed to the training. I lost track of how many times my hand slammed against the slabs of beef. But no matter how many times I did it, the beef wouldn’t break. I felt a rage building up in me, and I threw a punch backed by my frustrations. My fist collided with the beef harder than before, a shockwave of power emanating from the impact point, and with a deafening crack, the beef split apart, half of the meat landing on the concrete floor.
“You’ve gotten so much stronger in such a short time, you really are a natural, Takeru.” Akira commended me as we sat on a park bench. He handed both myself and Raza a bottle of ramune each, and then sat down next to us. He gave me a regular flavored soda, while Raza was handed a melon one. “I had to work more than twice as hard to get to this point.”
I pushed the marble seal of the ramune bottle down and began to drink it, letting out a sigh of relief now that the long training had ended. “So now you’ll teach me how to transform like you, right?”
“Oh, I have no idea how to transform, it’s just an instinctive thing I was able to do one day, how am I meant to teach that?” He replied, then took a sip from his own soda bottle before leaning back against the park bench.
“Then… What have we been doing for the last three weeks?!”
Raza sighed, put down her melon flavored ramune, and stood up from the bench. She walked in front of me, an unreadable expression on her face. She pushed a stray hair out of her face, her normally brown eyes beginning to glow a vibrant lavender as her sclera turned black. “My liege, I shall carve the knowledge of rebirth into your body.”
The Daeva leaned in and pressed her lips against mine without warning. Before I could even react to her sudden kiss, a shock ran through my entire body, paralyzing me. A warm, familiar power flowed into me as Raza’s demonic lifeforce mingled with my own, and suddenly my thoughts were overwhelmed with memories, Raza’s own memories of transformation. I felt exactly what it was like to awaken the hidden power of my ancient soul, and it was like I always knew how to do it.
She pulled away from the kiss, then turned away from me. “There, you should have the requisite experience to achieve a transformation on your own now… Goodnight.”
