If Nothing Saves Us From Death, May Love Save Us From Life [Marceline Anicetus's Secondary Training]

The soft tinkle of a bell could be heard in the depths of the castle, jingling in the distance as it called for someone to inform them the ringer was in need of assistance. It rang and rang, yet not a soul in the large fortress answered its beck and call; they merely let it jingle and chime for as long as it would. Marceline could hear the soft call of her father, the unmistakable ring of the bell his only signal for assistance, in which he didn't need. She let out a sigh of sorrow, imagining what it could be that he wanted from someone in the castle or even herself, thoughts that were instantly consumed in fear. However, she remained vigilant on her throne, staring across the room as if the last thing she wanted to do was get up and tend to him for something he didn't truly need. He was neither old nor in any need of medical assistance, he just used the bell because he felt like using it and it made him seem more like royalty. Not that he wasn't far from royalty either, as being her father, that signified to anyone that he was the king of the castle.

"Aren't you going to get that, Mistress?" one of her servants in the room called to her, "Master seems to want something and you know it's for none of us but you." Her gaze flicked toward the cat girl, a frown appearing on her lips as she heard her servant's words, afraid that they were true. She gave a small nod of acknowledgement toward them, then slowly stood to her feet and began walking to the throne room's door. The tinkling of the bell continued in a more persistent manner, urgent almost. . . perhaps even a tad bit pissed off at how long it was taking to be answered. It wouldn't make much of a difference but to make her father more mad than he already happened to be at the time. Procrastinating any longer on the ordeal would only make the situation worse, and so, she would exit the room with caution. Marceline did not like it when her father was angry and did not want to see him anymore angry than he already was.

The train of her gown swept over the black stone floor, dragging across the neatly cleaned ground as it traveled slowly through the hallway. Silence crept into the ears of its wearer, filling her with a sense of dread as she made her way down through the hallway to her destination. A soft howling could be heard through the silence, breaking it to mimic the moans of a tired man or a restless spirit roaming the castle. This sound did not deter or teeter the step of the woman, as if it was something she heard on a daily basis and was not afraid of it any longer. Black lips peeled up into a smile, revealing unnaturally white teeth of varying size and sharpness, canine tips poking harshly into her bottom lip. She smiled at the distraught moan of the lost spirit, like knowing the spirit was anxious and scared was entertaining to the woman. "Oh, my lovely, little ghoul, don't be afraid; before long, your spirit will be at rest and your job will be done," her silken voice spoke to the moaning.

Turning the corner, Marceline came across who the moaning belonged to, and the smile changed to a slight pout and sorrowful look. Her hand reached forward, the slender fingers curling under the translucent chin of the apparition, touching the ghoul as if it was a living being. "Why does my lovely servant wail? What ails you so that you cal out to me, your mistress, for the longing help that you need?" She clicked her tongue and pulled her appendages away, taking with her flecks of the apparition's energy, ever-so gently causing the spirit to succumb to permanent death. "Hush now, my dearest, your job is done; may you now rest in eternal sleep, undisturbed by the ways of the living, and may Death never call you for service." The blackened lips of the woman parted and a white light of wispy nature pulled in toward her mouth, being sucked in until none of the light was left. A darker grayed tongue in comparison to her paled gray skin licked over the black lipstick that coated her lips, as if satisfied by the taste of the soul. Clasping her hands together at her waist in a prayer-like form, Marceline continued on to her destination as if she had a purpose to be going where was was going.

Her pace quickened and before long, she had grabbed each side of her gown in a manner of a run, rushing down the hallway as if someone urged her to. Raven hair fluttered out behind her, the tail of her gown swirling and twirling, just barely skimming over the black stone floor. "Marceline, you're wearing my patience thin!" a booming voice echoed through the hallways, much louder than the wailing of the ghost had been. Fear glared through her eyes, widening the black abysses until the fiery orbs could fully be seen as bright lights in the never-ending darkness. "When I ask for you to come to my chambers, I expect for you to arrive in a timely manner and not keep me waiting on your dillydallying." She swallowed a lump in her throat, but she knew that not answering him would be cause for more punishment than was necessarily wanted. The haunting tune of a bell rung through the air again, causing Marceline to push herself so that she was breathing heavily in an attempt to get to him faster.

"Yes, Daddy! I'm so sorry to keep you waiting, Daddy; please, will you forgive your dearest daughter for this one moment?" she called in return to him. Turning a corner, her paled hand snagged a doorknob and swung it open, sending her body through and slamming the door shut behind her. She slid down to her knees and pressed her chest to the floor in a bow at the side of her father's desk, expecting him to go belligerent on her. "Daddy, please, you must understand, it is my castle now, I have to take care of it first and foremost," she begged the forgiveness of Death. The cloaked figure had its back turned toward her, only its torso visible where the desk blocked out the rest of its body from view.

"What did I tell you before, Marceline?" he inquired in a condescending tone, so that she was able to figure out what she had done wrong.

"I'm sorry, Master, I did not mean for you to wait for so long of my arrival; I will make sure that it doesn't happen again," she responded to him.

"Stand up, you imbecile, I'm not here to speak to the floor; you know better than to lay on the floor anyway. Didn't your mother teach you any better?"

Marceline swallowed a lump down her throat for the second time that day and quickly pulled herself up to her feet, so that she stood nearly eye level to the grand figure of her father. "Mother wasn't there to teach me anything, remember? The birth of your daughter had caused her to get very ill and I was not allowed to see her." The back of a hand met her right cheek, sending a stinging pain coursing through her body and tears of black to well up in her shocked eyes.

"That's right. It was your fault that your mother died! You were the one who mercilessly slaughtered the one woman that I absolutely loved."

A stuttered sound escaped her quivering lips as she held a hand to the raw area of her earthen flesh, her eyes now downcast to the floor. "It wasn't my fault, Daddy! I didn't mean to kill her! I loved Mommy just as much as you! I miss her just as much as you. . ."

Another backhand to the face dropped Marceline to her knees, grasping the burning part of her cheek as she let out a wail of pain and guilt. "Shut up! Stop your screaming! It isn't going to bring her back to life! You killed her and now, you. . . you have to live with that guilt!" He brought a foot into her stomach, slamming hard into the core of her body, so that she was thrown back and winded from the force. Marceline tumbled backward into the wall, curled into herself to keep as much of the pain at bay as she was able to keep away. She let out a groan and reached an arm forward, grasping at the world around her to see if she could get ahold of something to lift herself up.

"Is that why you. . . c-called me down here? So you could beat the shit out of me over my dead mother and blame me for her death? You're so hung up on her, an event that has happened over twenty thousand years ago. . . Daddy, why are you still punishing me over this? Haven't I done enough to be forgiven?"

"Stop calling me that; stop assuming that I want to be a father to something as abhorrent as you are. . . you took everything from me. I wanted nothing more than happiness because I take and take and take; I finally get something I deserved for years and now, it was taken from me. Is that what I deserve or being myself, who I am? To have things taken from me because it's my job to take from people?" A fist rammed into her shoulder and pushed her into the desk; she merely gritted her teeth against the pain and waited for him to finish beating her up. He swung another fist at her face, the ring of his marriage cracking against her nose and breaking open a large gash across the bridge and splattering black blood. She raised a hand and lightly touched the appendage, wincing from the stinging pain of the gash and sharply pulling her hand away. Marceline kept her distance from him and stared quietly at the burly man, black blood running down her nose and across her cheeks to her chin.

"Master, please, you must understand that it wasn't my fault for the death of your loved one; her death was an accident, and can't you see her spirit?" She let out a scream as her hair was grabbed by a large chunk and she was forcibly pulled down to her knees in front of her father. He still held tightly onto her hair, staring down at her before spitting at her face, his saliva smacking against her left cheek. Marcy wrinkled her nose in disgust despite the pain, turning her gaze away from him so she didn't have to look at him. However, he yanked roughly on her hair until she was forced to look him in the eye, not an angry look on her face or a disgusted one, but love and sorrow. He caressed her cheek for a moment, lovingly looking her in the eye as he did so, smiling softly and looking slightly deranged.

"You look so much like your mother," he pointed out, her imagine wavering before his eyes at his touch into a pale blonde, "I hate it."

The man tossed her aside with such strength compared to her own that she slid across the flooring and into a heavy, book-filled bookcase. She coughed and pushed herself up to a slanted sitting position, her blonde hair shrouding her face from view, but black blood dripping to the floor. "Master, please," she managed out, never once looking at the man as she spoke to him, hoping that he would eventually stop the abuse. Yet, she did not move from her place next to the bookcase, but rather, she stayed where she was and warily lifted her head to look at him. By now, a decent amount of blood had spilled from her nose, a puddle on the floor had formed and streaks of it a mess all over her once-unscarred face. Her father only looked at her with a look of disgust, much like how she had formerly looked at him, but since changed her visage of him.

"I hate that you look so much like her; why did you have to take her life and then turn around and grow to look so much like her?"

Death crept toward her slowly, watching her with such sudden care that it brought hope into Marceline's eyes and she scooted a little closer to him. He knelt down and smiled at her, caressing her cheek and brushing her hair out of her face, "who did this to you, baby girl? Who hurt you like that?" She wrapped her arms around his neck and hugged him, nuzzling her face into his chest in a loving manner, despite all of what he had done to her.

"No one, Daddy, no one hurt me," she responded to him, her voice slightly muffled due to her face being pressed into his clothing. Slowly, he patted her hair, humming softly and murmuring inaudible words into her ear as if none of what happened before had occurred at all. Marceline curled up close to him enough that he managed to pick her up into his arms bridal style and simply held her there in his lap. "Daddy?" she inquired, lifting her face from his chest to look him in the eye, the look of a young, loving daughter there.

"Yes, baby girl?" he responded to her, his blackened gaze staring back down into her blue-hued eyes from her transformation.

"I love you," she stated, nuzzling her face back into his shoulders and smiling into the fabric of the tattered cloak.

"I love you, too," he murmured the answer, hugging her close, resting his chin on the top of her head for a brief moment.

She gazed up at him momentarily, then back to the floor she had collapsed on, looking t the drops of black that were easily found over the surface. Something felt different; she wasn't certain what felt different, but something to her definitely felt off that she just couldn't explain or give an answer to. Her father was acting strange, but she couldn't pinpoint what was different about him, just that he was more violent than usual, even delirious if she had to guess. Marceline felt him squeeze her shoulders and say something to her, but she didn't pay attention well enough to discern what the immaterial man had said to her. He gripped her chin in his hand and forced her face to look at him, instantly gaining her attention as if his words had suddenly become important to her. "Are you paying attention to what I'm saying, Marceline?" he asked in a hard tone of voice in order to keep her attention, as well as get her in trouble. Marcy gazed at him dully, despite moments ago having shared her love with him, finding herself unable to truthfully answer what he was asking of her.

"Don't bring him into the equation, please; he deserves a normal life compare to the one I have or the one I could ever give him," she stated. Death blinked at her words, confusion clearly showing in his eyes as he listened to what she had to say; the confusion quickly shadowed over by anger. She felt his hands remove themselves from her body, letting her weak and injured form fall to the ground with a heavy thump, her eyes staring up at the ceiling. The shadowed form of her father stood over her, the power and will he exerted a sensation that was strpnger than she was able to handle. A scream tore from her throat, a light pulled up and out of her body as one of the thousands of souls inside of her was removed, leaving her weakened. Another scream ripped from her throat, sending bone-chilling shivers down even the strongest of men's spine from the mere sound of it. Marceline rolled over to her side and curled into a ball, trying to protect herself from the pain she was feeling: an emotion she hadn't felt in millennia.

Bloody tears poured down her cheeks, creating streaks of black down her face and puddling together on the floor below where she laid. "Who is he?" her father demanded, glaring down at her from where he towered precariously over her form, the intimidation of his aura settling in. Her eyes opened to peer up at him, keeping her mouth shut in order to keep any important information from slipping out and being used against her. His hand reached out toward her in a claw-like form, pulling out a colorless form from within the woman's body, causing pain to course through her. "Tell me who he is or I will tear every soul out of your body until your nothing but a husk. Do you understand me?" the man demanded once more. A booted foot came down upon her side, cracking the bones that were beneath it and sending out cries of pain from her throat. "If you don't want to tell me, that's fine; I have other ways of extracting the information from that pretty, little head of yours."

Marceline weakly pulled herself up to a seated position, only to be met by the powerful hand of her father tearing another soul out of her. Her eyes rolled into the back of her head, her body falling backward against the floor with a heavy thud that would have easily killed a human. She blinked seconds later and gasped for air, crawling back to a seated position and glaring up at her father with both fear and immense anger. "I will never tell you who he is! You can rip every soul agonzingly out of my body and I will still never tell you who he is. . . Rot in the grave like mother!" Her words caused his anger to flare up, leaving her cowering to the floor and hoping that no pain would become of her in that time. No matter what she told him, she was always mildly terrified of what he would do to her, knowing that he was capable of completely ending her existence. "You don't scare me!" she cried out in the crippled position she was in, the very definition of being a bluffer about what she was saying.

His curled hand reached out to her, peeling out another soul as if it was just an item hidden in a box, and leaving Marceline breathless in the end. Her father's frustration at her words was enough to cause him to go belligerent, tearing out every soul from her body that he knew would be in her. Each soul removed caused her to grow weaker, but she would fight against him, still refusing to give him the information that he wanted. It was only when he was reaching the end of her souls that he paused and stared at the one that was grasped inside of his hand. He smirked at it, then looked down at the weakened form of his daughter, then swallowed the soul as if it was the most delicious thing in the world. Death licked his lips terrifyingly in front of Marceline, then crept slowly around her, as if he was sizing her up and contemplating on what to do. "I told you that I would get the needed information out of you, not matter how you forced me to do it," he retorted to her still form.

"Leave him alone, Daddy; I love him," she murmured from her place below him, her eyes trying to follow him through blurry vision. "He didn't do anything, there is no need for you to go after him. Please, just leave him alone and let him live the life he deserves."

The silence in the air told her otherwise, but she still hoped that he would listen to her words and leave Kite alone, kill her instead. "I can't have something corrupting the mind of my servant and to assure it doesn't continue, I must kill him or otherwise get rid of him," he stated. Glancing down at her, Death ripped out the last soul that was keeping her alive, leaving her body as an empty husk of what it used to be. He bent down and picked her up, slinging her clumsily and carelessly over his shoulder before exiting his room and setting out on his journey. Death wasn't searching to kill him; no, Death had something else in his mind for the man, something Death was certain he would not be able to turn down. If it was true just how important this boy was to his daughter, then it was likewise that she was just as important to him. Not claiming him for his own army of dead, but putting him under servitude by means of some uncanny reasoning was something he was known for.

No one inquired what was going on as the king passed them in the hallway; they merely watched as he walked with daughter in tow. Their eyes were widened, their mouths slightly agape, but none said a single word to the man in fear of what he would do. There was a reasoning behind his motives that no one knew, and none dared question what he was doing with his daughter slung over his shoulder. His gaze raked over each and every one of the servants that had gathered in the hallway after hearing the commotion in his chambers. However, it was just a passing glance meant to keep them in order as he made his way through the castle and into the lands of Sin. A hushed whisper rose over the servants once the king had exited the castle in its entirety, wondering what he was planning to do. Yet, with no knowledge behind the stillness of their mistress, the servants merely went back to work in hope of everything returning to normal.



Standing before the large gates of the building, Death stared up at the potent structure, looking it over to size it up. Seconds later, his body and the body of Marceline immaterialized, becoming flecks of invisible Nether in the air. These flecks squeezed in through the slit of the doors that were jammed together in order to keep them closed, then made their way inside. The build was as busy as ever, but as long as Death kept up the invisibility, neither would be spotted by the members of the guild. Happiness. It disgusted him, but he had no other reason to stop and ruin their day, especially since it would be out of his way. Ignoring their laughter and jolliness, Death shifted his direction and headed down a hallway that was dimly lit compared to the rest of the building. Cliche, but it was the strong sense of demonic power that flowed down this hallway that called to the natural law.

Light bloomed out from beneath a door and Death paused at it, materializing before it and grabbing onto the handle. He didn't have to turn the handle in order for a decay to settle into the rafters of the door and break it down into atoms. Yet, he stood there, merely holding the handle as it crumbled into dust, quickly followed by the door as it turned to ash next. Once the opening of the doorway was not blockaded any longer, the man heaved Marceline off his shoulder and threw her to the ground. The heavy thud of her stilled, soulless body resounded into the air, her form rolling across the ground until it came to a halt. Blonde hair rested in a flayed fashion around her shoulders and head, blackened lips partially opened, and lifeless blue eyes staring up at the ceiling with a dead stare. Laughter came from the darkened doorway, the cloaked figure of Death standing in its way as he gazed toward the other man in the room.

"I brought a present, Kite," Death's raspy, gruff voice entered the room in a dark manner, his form gliding in with it.

4,079/9,000

MADE BY VEL OF GS + ADOX 2.0

A dark chuckle left the lips of the pale man standing before Kite Wilhelm, barebone, white teeth peeking through grayed lips. He shifted forward in his stance, entering the room without the Guild Master having formally welcomed him into his quarters. The light that broke through his body, passing through, just as any light would through a glass pane, did not harm the man. What was meant to faze him was something that had been easily passed off as if it was just an ant beneath his boot. His grayed and lifeless eyes glanced down at Marceline on the floor, the smile shifting into a frown as he noticed his daughter there. Kite was the last thing on his mind for a moment as he reached down and grabbed a fistfull of her blonde hair and yanked her up. One hand snaked its way down her waist, holding her up, while the other hand pinched her chin between his forefinger and thumb.

“Isn’t my little Fritzi the most beautiful thing you’ve ever seen? Her eyes are like tiny stars glittering in the night sky,” he cooed over her. “I don’t know why she taints her image with that black hair and red eyes when she’s so much more beautiful in this state, don’t you think? Little, little Fritzi, who mars herself with the name of Marceline, such a pity that you know my dear, little girl by that name.” Death’s rant ended sharply and he shoved her forward again, letting her body topple to the ground in front of Kite’s eyes. “She disobeyed me, you know; she didn’t come quickly enough when I called for her to come to my chambers and speak with me. So, I had to punish her, you realize. I had to punish her for the thing that she didn’t do correctly. . . and that was. . . she didn’t die.” His attention was brought abruptly back to Marceline’s love, grazing his eyes over the man briefly before turning away from him.

“I ripped every single one out as slowly as I possibly could, so she could understand the pain I went through when she took her mother away from me. And now, you’re in the same state that I’m in, aren’t you? I mean, you must have loved her just as much as she loved you, no?” A softer chuckle echoed in the room for a moment and Death paused in his steps, his back turned from the leading magus of Sabertooth. “Unless. . . unless you didn’t love my little Fritzi; oh, what if she finds out that you never loved her as much as she loves you? Hm. . . I guess. . . I’d have to do something about that, wouldn’t I? I wouldn’t want my little Fritzi to be hurt by the truth.” He breathed in deeply and turned around just as he harshly let the air escape his nostrils, striding toward Kite in a matter of seconds. “I’ll assume that you want her back; however, in order to get her back, I have a small proposal for you that I’m sure you can’t pass up.”

A sly grin crossed the man’s lips again, and out of thin air, Death pulled free a teeny lacrima no bigger than a knuckle of a finger. It glittered and shimmered softly in the lighting, a creamy white, almost verging on a sickly gray from the touch of Death. “You want to rid yourself of that White Dragon Slayer magic, do you not? I’m certain I heard somewhere that you were looking to. So, my offer to you is the exchange of this lacrima, which will promptly remove that magic from you permanently in exchange for half of your soul into Fritzi. Think of it as. . . an intertwining of two souls into one being; after all, isn’t that all you humans think about when it comes to love? To have and to hold each other forever through sickness and health, until Death is the one to part you both? Oh. . . But what’s this? I’m Death! Yet, here I am, holding the key to letting you have my daughter back rather than tossing her in the ground with her mother.”

He would hold onto the lacrima precariously, watching Kite with bantiful eyes, motioning with one hand toward Marceline on the floor. If Kite were to attempt to grab the lacrima first at any point in time, Death would quickly snatch it away from his grasp before beckoning again toward Marcy. “Time is running out, my boy, before the gates of Hades close eternally on the souls of the damned in their Hellish new life. I’m certain that isn’t something you would want for your dear, little Marcy, now would you, Kite. . . for her to be condemned to Hell? After all, she has sinned in her life more than you realize, enough that she has a permanent bounty over her head for what she’s done.” That all-knowing grin was still plastered valiantly to his face, waiting for Kite to take the action that he would decide upon. Once doing so, only the actions of Kite next would allow for the phantom to hand over the lacrima peacefully before Marceline awoke.

“Upon her awakening, I’ll assure that every soul she had locked inside of her is returned to her body so she may fully function,” he retorted. “But until then, it is expected that she will remain lifeless on the floor until the next time that Hades’ gate opens for the damned. Which, mind you, could be a very long time considering there are not many in this world or as bad of sinners as she. . .” Marceline, she was just a husk of her former self, lying there on the ground, where she had been thrown by her own father. The father who she loved dearly just as any daughter would to their parent, who only wanted nothing more than the attention the parent neglected to give. Under what circumstance did Marceline deserve all of this? It wouldn’t be known except by the very being who killed her. Her death? Was all in his plan to bring about the destruction that was soon to come, the destruction that would leave the realm of Death.

5,134/9,000

MADE BY VEL OF GS + ADOX 2.0

A wretched smile sprawled across the skeletal being’s face, more teeth peeking through rotted flesh than what had been seen before. Fiery specks of light similar to Marceline’s own eyes glanced down at the small shard that was grasped between two knobby-boned, skinny fingers. The smile plastered on his face as though it was simply drawn on him to make him appear to be happy to those who encountered him. He twirled it in his fingers, watching as the light in the room caught it and caused it to reflect the light back in a myriad of beams and color. Death softly hummed as he waited for Kite to answer him or to take the shard of Nether just waiting for him to grab when he was ready. With a life or death situation going on, the grin seemingly only spread wider over his face until he had a maniacal look staring back at the living magus. “Tick tock. . .” the undead man murmured out, rolling the lacrima shard between his fingers and glancing back at Kite.

“Ah, ah, ah! You better tone down that aura of yours,” Death warned him, snatching away the lacrima with narrowed eyes at the man. “Fighting back is futile; it’s your best option to simply give up now and take what is given to you. After all, it’s only a matter of time before it’s too late.” When the White Dragon Slayer aura died down, he would extend his arm out again, letting the lacrima sit still in the center of his weakened palm. He quietly watched as Kite mulled over the options given to him, watching as Marcy’s life clock ticked down with each passing second. Wasting precious time, it seemed; made him wonder if Kite was truly thinking or if he was merely trying to push his buttons. However, the being didn’t say anything toward him, he simply let him think and speak what he thought about the offer at hand. Kite’s only answer was that he didn’t know what love was or whether Marcy spoke true of her own words toward her father.

He wrinkled his nose in disgust as he spit out Marcy’s name and spoke, “Marcy, as you call her, is not capable of lying to me. It’s in her blood and mind, it’s how I created her to be. If she’s lying to me, why that’s an awfully strange thing to lie about, don’t you think? I mean, who would lie to someone else about loving another? I can certainly see it in her eyes whenever she looks at and defies me. Disgusting really. I need workers who can do as they’re asked and not question my word, but she’s grown a personality, and a vibrant one at that. She’s grown too much as a living being and I can’t change that, so I decided that you could keep her as your own for a price.” Death pushed the lacrima toward Kite after finishing speaking, quirking an eyebrow in hope that the magus would take it up. However, with no indication that the man was planning to go through with what was provided to him, Death merely stood there and continued waiting.

Death only gritted his teeth in retaliation when Kite stated that he loved Marcy more than he, himself, could possibly love her. “She is my daughter! What more can I do to show that I love her and hold her nearest and dearest to my heart?!” he inquired rhetorically. The frustration was clear on his face, as if Kite had struck a blow below the belt, angered that he would say such a thing about him. However, as a being with a heart that simply stopped beating, it was hard for him to recognize the love a person was meant to have. All that was left was a jumbled mess of “perhaps if this was done, then this would occur” and such forth to happen in the relationship between her and himself. His grumbling and anger would quickly stop, coming to look back at Kite when he officially claimed he wanted Marceline back from the dead. That smirk from before returned to his face and Death crept closer to Kite, wiggling the lacrima in his face, then turning toward the doorway.

“You say that now, dear boy, but as you grow stronger in power, you’ll come to the realization that you’re slowly being consumed by it,” he retorted. “Dragon Slayer magic is no magic to mess around with, it’s great power, but it has devastating and everlasting effects on your world around you and you. Choose carefully what you want to do. . . keep your Dragon Slayer magic and watch as the world around you is destroyed by your hands or return to yourself and retrieve Marcy as if nothing’s changed? Would you want that? Having her watch you agonizingly as you turned from who she once knew to some estranged scaly beast with wings?” The grin never left his sly features, wiggling the lacrima in Kite’s face again as a means of tempting him to grab the shard. “I can’t imagine the look of fear on her face or the pain that she’d feel nothing that the person she loved is no more, but a wanton beast. A demon is something she could get used to; a demon is what she is, it’d be no different to her than if you were a magicless human for her.”

Eventually, he took the lacrima from his hand and Death laughed maniacally as Kite forced the shard into the cavity of his chest. He watched as the young man was forced to his knees, crumpled in pain, agony coursing through him as death took its hold. With the lacrima no longer in his hand, a wispy orb of light appeared in his palm instead, a soft, almost inaudible sounding echoing from it. Death turned away from Kite, as the consumption of the dragon magic to death magic took him over, and faced Marceline’s fallen body. Slowly, the skeletal creature bent down to his knees and brought up his hand with the orb of light before slamming it down onto her chest. With one orb entering her body, hundreds ,even thousands of other souls began to pour from his body and into hers. When the final soul left his body and entered hers, a stillness came to the air, hush over what little white noise was in the room.

Marceline still remained unmoving on the floor, which only made Death scoff before he stood back to his feet and walked over to Kite. With the Sabertooth magus immobilized and preoccupied by the source within his mind, Death knelt down and forced his hand into the chest of the man. It easily passed through as if going through a portal, and when he pulled it out, a wispy, fiery-looking light came with it, trapped at the tips of his fingers. “By air and earth, by water and fire, so be you bound as I desire,” he mumbled, standing to his feet and walking his way back over to Marcy. Again, the deathly magus would kneel down at his daughter’s side, and with that soul of Kite’s, he’d press his hand to her chest. The orange flame slowly embedded itself into the body of the still woman, igniting a small light beneath the paled skin. Death quickly disappeared and reappeared in the doorway, leaning against the frame with his eyes steadily watching his daughter.

The light illuminated inside of her for moment, then slowly began to fade as it was consumed by the flesh until nothing was left. Soon, the vibrancy in her skin paled immensely as well, leaving only a gray hue crawling over her skin until it ate what little life was left. Her blonde hair that lay sprawled out around her was drained of its color as black flowed over it and absorbed the light within. Ink marked over her body where pure flesh lay, leaving runes and various hieroglyphs over her in patches similar to tattoos. Then her chest moved, carefully upward as she drew in her breath, giving life to her body once more and awakening from the slumber she had been placed in. Marceline’s eyes fluttered open, the blue in her irises bleeding out to a deep red, a symbolism for the life’s blood she takes of innocents. She sat up and looked around at her new surroundings, curious to know where she was and why she had been brought here.

“Kite!” she called out, noticing his knelt form and fearing he was hurt, but as she crawled toward him, the black aura of his new magic flared itself. The intense heat of the flames and death mixed within caused Marceline to stop in her tracks and pull back slightly to avoid it. She watched as he returned to his feet and stared back at something in the doorway, speaking to it as if it was some kind of threat. A pain in her chest caused her to keel over and let out a cry of agony, black and bloody tears falling from her eyes as she griped at her chest. Her head turn in the direction of the doorway, staring at the black mass of her father’s form as he stood wantonly against the frame. Sucking in a breath through her teeth, Marceline pushed herself to her feet, still gripping her chest, gritting her teeth, and turning toward him. “You! What did you do?!” she inquired, keeling over slightly again as the pain radiated over her body, almost forcing her to her knees.

A blackened mist drew itself forward from beneath her feet, raising up and around her like an aura, as tendrils of black reached out toward Death. “Something clearly went wrong here,” he stated calmly, stepping away from the frame to enter the room and stalk toward Marceline. “I gave your dearest love, here, a lacrima to get rid of that hideous magic of his so he could get you back in return, you know, as a little parting gift from your dearest daddy. . . But something went awry and I’m not quite sure what it was, but since it didn’t go as I planned, then I’m afraid I’ll have to kill him. Isn’t that a pity, little Fritzi? I have to get rid of the one playtoy that you liked, but you’re getting too old for him now, best you find something else to play with.” His arm outstretched and quickly reformed into scythe’s blade, swinging in the direction of Kite in order to lop off his head. The clank of metal colliding with metal resounded in the air, however, and Marceline stood bowed with her weaponized arm blocking Death’s.

“Get out,” she ordered, hissing the words through her teeth as she shoved the blade of her father’s arm upward and away from Kite. “You have terrorized me for far too long and now, you’ve stepped over the line taking those souls from me. So you stay away from him!” A wave of air would wash over them as if something had burst and expanded outward, eating away at the oxygen in the air. The rotted flesh on Death’s face would slowly turn a bluish hue, and his arms would pull back so his hands cupped around his neck. “I don’t want you here anymore, you’ve done what you needed to do and now you’re just a waste of space in this world. Be gone! You are no longer needed, for I have what it takes to do what you did. You’re merely here to ruin my life!” The wave of air burst outward again, consuming the particles of oxygen until none of it was left within the room they were in.

Death stumbled backward slightly, astonished by the amount of power Marceline was displaying when he believed her to still be so weak. However, he dropped his hands back to his sides and only grinned as the blue tint to his skin slowly disappeared into nothingness. “Please, Fritzi, you don’t have the ability to kill me quite yet,” he stated, raising out his arms in an opened wide formation, “try me.”

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Kite’s voice emitted into Marceline’s ears and she glanced back at him, giving him a bright smile and a giggle as she shoved her father’s arm away. “I needed the help this time,” she responded to him, “I’m afraid if he hadn’t brought me here in order to get to you, I wouldn’t have been able to come back. My body is dependent on souls, after all, and with not a single soul in my body, I could do nothing but lay there, paralyzed, and hope for the best. Unfortunately, in that time, I was able to hear everything he told you and lied to you about, and I do very much apologize for that. He is not who he seems to be. . . Father was a valiant man when my mother was alive, but after I had been born and she died in childbirth with my twin and me, he changed. Aksel was the name he went by. . . he was a proud king of my homeland and was the best general of the kingdom’s army there was. . .” She paused in her speech to block another attack from her father and fling a ball of Nether in his direction, pushing him back.

With him pushed away from them for a moment, she turned back to Kite, the smile back on her face as a slender hand gripped at her chest. “I will forever treasure what you’ve given me; it is something that I will protect until the very end of time,” Marceline stated appreciatively. “It is like a flame has ignited inside of me and is keeping me warm. . . much different to the collection of souls I have gathered over time. Out of all of them, it is the half of yourself that burns brightly compared to the rest. . . without it, I do not know what would’ve happened.” Perhaps her father would never have given the souls back if Kite had not relinquished a part of himself; she would not be here at all. The chain of events could have been entirely different had he refused the offer her father had given him and in a way, she felt deceptive toward Kite. She felt as if she had cheated him of something, that she had stolen she had stolen a part of him that had not and would ever not belong to her.

The speech, again, would quickly end as Death reached outward to grab a hold of her neck and drag her back beside him. “Fritzi, my love, please, listen to your daddy,” he called out to her in a strangely loving manner, “I had only wanted what was best for you.” Whirling on her toes the woman faced her father again, a snarl on her lips as she raised a hand and cast forth a flurry of Nether. “Do not speak to me as if you love me; if you loved me, you would never have taken those souls from my body as a means of punishment. So, this is my punishment to you. You will be forced to recount every horrible memory you have ever suffered, over and over again. You will see what you had and what you lost and relive those feelings as if they had been first experienced until you learn exactly what your own damnation is.” Her fingers snapped together, as though they were crushing something into the palm of her hand, and instantaneously, Death would collapse to his knees.

Marcy felt Kite’s hand weave into her own and she looked down at his hand, staring at it for a brief moment before she squeezed it lightly. Death would be back on his feet at this point, frustrated to the brim that he was being overwhelmed by his own daughter and her lover. His teeth gritted against each other, visible in the rotted skin that grotesquely hung off the sides of his face and along his chin. She heard Kite speak up, proclaiming that she wasn’t alone and that she would never be alone, and for a moment, she had thought she felt her heart beat with love. The swelling flames of Death swirled beside her in the palm of Kite’s hand, the heat of it nonexistent, but to her, it burned intensely. Where Kite’s hand blocked her father’s attack, her hand shifted around and slowly, the air within the room began to dissipate second by second. Aksel, again, dropped to his knees, struggling to breathe in spite of having never really needed to breath from the start.

However, the oxygen would quickly return to the room, leaving Death on the floor, gasping for breath before struggling to his feet. Despite how much was being done to him, he could easily return to his feet as if the two of them were hardly dealing damage to him. It caused Marceline to grit her teeth against each other, her hands cupping into a clawed form as she forced of blast of Nether at her father. Yet, he easily dodged what she had thrown at him and retaliated with his own blast of Nether, watching as it merely passed through her. “Did Daddy forget the gift he gave his daughter?” she inquired, “I have the same magic as you, throwing it at me will do nothing.” Kite broke through their little conversation, stating that even the effects thrown at him from Death wouldn’t work on him as well. It made her smirk, flipping her hair over her shoulder in a way that presented her as a rather snotty children with an uptight attitude.

“Daddy prepared his daughter for this cruel world, not realizing what he was doing despite how much he hated her guts,” she explained. Second by second, the Nether that had spilled into the air from their magic was slowly being gathered by the woman as she spoke. It swirled around and gathered into a large mass and she drew it in toward her mouth, letting out a breath of air. This simple movement caused the Nether that was gathered near her to billow out into a plume similar to that of a Demon Slayer’s howl. Together, the Netherflames of Kite’s own newly produced magic would combine together at a pinpointed section with the blast from Marceline. His flames would appear to be creating a sound similar to a shrill scream as they rushed toward the opponent standing before them. The two combined magics struck the skeletal being’s body and threw him to the ground, creating a large breakage in the bones his body was made of.

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With her father on the ground, Marceline simply stood where she was, staring down at him with a look of disgrace and disgust on her face. She had loved him with all of her heart, but was disillusioned by his words and actions toward her; whether the feeling had been true or not, she would never know. Standing before him, the woman let Kite activate his black and blue auras, continuing to look down upon her father's figure. "I don't know whether to say I love you or not or if that feeling had even been true toward you in the first place," she spoke up. "For all I know, you simply led me into believing such disillusioned emotions, and for that, there is no thanks to be given. What I wish for you now is nothing more than the mercy of which even the Devil cannot give you and of which I hope He never gives you. You are despicable man, Aksel. . . a father who was not worthy of any children and most certainly was never worthy of me."

The look in her eyes held nothing more than pure hatred toward the man that had forced his will upon her mother. A mother she had never been able to see from the day of birth to the day of her early death at just twelve years. "How I feel toward you now cannot be expressed in words very easily, just know that I despise you with all of my being. I do not believe my mother had ever loved you from the beginning, no matter how much you tell me that she had and you her. It is clear to me that you do not know what true love is or what even love in general should be to you, just that it's another emotion of a human. You aren't even human from the start, lacked the emotions of one, but I. . . no matter how I look at myself or how I was made, will always be human. No matter how much I kill or all the evils I do in the world, they are for the good of the people and held with an emotion you will never feel."

A frown appeared on her lips, the burst of energy from Kite's magic filling the air to the brim and whipping it around the room. "I have loved humans ever since I was a little girl and I will continue to love them no matter my actions toward them. What I do for and to them is completely and utterly out of love; I will never force them to feel the pain that you have made me feel. And for that, I hope that where you are sent to, whoever takes your ungodly sinful soul, will torment you for the rest of eternity. You deserve nothing more than to feel the pain of every single soul you've slaughtered mercilessly and what they had to endure." Marceline took a step back from where she had been standing, allowing Kite access to whatever he wanted to do to the man. From there, she darkly watched as Kite slammed his fist into her father's chest and another fist that would send him flying toward her.

When he was sent her way, Marceline's hand snatched him by the back of his neck and she would dip him down similar to dancing. Her head lowered toward his throat and a gleam of white, sharp teeth could be glimpsed before they sunk into his throat. Black blood boiled out of the wounds from her father's throat and around her lips, and her eyes cast over a shade of black. Pulling upward, the woman ripped the man's throat out from where it was and let his limp body collapse to the ground. She spit the chunk of flesh away from her and glared forward, letting the black blood drip from her mouth, down her chin. Closing her eyes, the woman breathed in deeply and let it out, reopening her eyes to reveal silver pupils and red irises. An invigorated feeling overwhelmed her, as though she had absorbed a thousand souls within her body all at once. A soft giggle emitted from her lips and she drew her tongue over her mouth, licking up the blood that coated the sides. "That was delicious. . ."

At long last, she was Death.

9,003/9,000

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