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The Persona slipped into his mind like wax, oozing through the mental barriers he had let lax for this very purpose. Wretched, demented laughter rang in his head, the tone rich with dark malevolence. He winced as his connection to certain Arcanas dimmed until he could no longer call upon their manifestations. But that was to be expected. One did not give in to the Dark and expect the Light to forgive. And this one was undeniably dark. Its very presence was a physical pain in his mind, a searing agony that tore at his conscience. Lesser men would have given in to the pain. They would have surrendered to their suffering and laid their souls bare for this being and they would have been utterly corrupted.
He endured it. Just as he had done when he first fused it in the Velvet Room and beheld it in all its demonic splendor. Just as he had done when he summoned far more darker beings than it.
"Are you alright, Arisato-san?" Rias must have noticed the sudden change in him, for her eyes shone with concern.
He turned to regard her, and he was struck by just how beautiful she was. The paleness of her skin. The large, soft eyes. The flaming red hair, just like Mitsuru's, but without the severeness. The gentle swell of her breasts, swaying hypnotically with every movement. Her elegant neck, so delicate and light that he could reach out and snap it like a-
He clamped down on those thoughts immediately.
This was why he didn't like having demons in his head. They made him think about things he didn't want to think.
"It should work now," he said, not quite managing to hide the grimace that had started forming on his lips.
Rias did not notice. Her eyes were wide as she stared at him. That was the other thing about demons. They were not exactly subtle when it came to radiating off their power.
"How?"
The tone in her voice made it sound like a request, and requests could easily be ignored.
He inclined his head in her direction.
"I would like to become a Bishop."
Kiba suddenly looked very guilty.
"Ah… About that…"
"So you finally gave in," the voice that entered his ears as he opened the door to his apartment was the last voice he wanted to hear.
He frowned, and set aside his things, avoiding the feminine figure that sat cross-armed at his repaired table.
"Look at me when I'm talking to you!"
He preferred not to, and went about his business. The day had been long, and he was eager for rest. There was supposed to be leftovers he had saved from last night in the fridge. They would have to do.
"Don't just ignore me!"
And yet that was exactly what he did. The leftovers were swiftly retrieved and placed into the waiting microwave. The entire time he waited for his food to heat up, he felt her stare burning holes into his shoulders.
In the end, facing her was inevitable. She was sitting at his only table, after all, and as much as he didn't wish to be interrogated, eating on the floor was a far less dignified option.
A quick search through the kitchen drawers produced the necessary eating utensils and all too soon he found himself walking towards the desk and the belligerent occupant it held.
He frowned when he saw the empty beer cans littered across the wooden surface, most of them recently opened. He had to move a few to make room for his dinner. As though if punctuating the scene, his tablemate let out a loud hiccup. The timing couldn't have been more perfect. A raised eyebrow caused her to glare back in defiance.
In retrospect, he should have seen this coming.
Humans, when they lost their purpose, tended to drown out their sorrows in alcohol. Raynare was not human. She would never be human, but when Metatron deprived her of her wings, she had been reduced to a state of flux. Not an angel for she had no wings, and yet not a human either for she was not born as one. The end result was someone who had the same tendencies for drink when depressed like a human yet possessing an uncanny tolerance to mild poisons such as alcohol like all angels did.
That didn't seem to matter though, as she managed to get herself roaring drunk through sheer volume alone.
It had not been this way at the start. When he first allowed the de-winged Fallen sanctuary in his apartment, she had kept to herself. She took his room for her own and stayed in it for the most part. He did not mind. The couch suited him fine, and the space between them kept things from becoming awkward. There were times though that he caught her looking at him, studying him from afar as if not sure what to think of him.
That had lasted for a few days. Then the gravity of the situation had fully struck her, and judging from the way she rapidly deteriorated in both mind and spirit, the impact must have ranged somewhere between asteroid and meteor in scale.
To be honest, he was not sure where she got all the alcohol. She never left his apartment much, and even if she did, she could not possibly have that much money to drink herself in a stupor each night. Yet every night he came home he would find her either blinking blearily at her surroundings or out cold. He suspected it was Dohnaseek. It would not surprise him one bit if the male Fallen was sneaking boxes of the stuff to his former leader. Out of all her previous compatriots, he was the one that was most sympathetic to her plight.
That was not to say he wasn't. Sympathetic, that is. Even though she had harmed him, it was strangely off-putting to witness a Fallen Angel try to drink herself to death. He did not particularly enjoy watching her make a fool out of herself as she stumbled about his home, nor did he enjoy the sobs he sometimes heard coming from his room when she thought he had gone to sleep.
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