Orichalcum: Chapter 2- Sand Tomb

What is this? A contract with the darkest of them all? Why would a mere human make such a life-threatening pact? What could be gained from this?

Hoshiko, now the contractor of the Demon God Sennen, walked across a barren wasteland with the hellion king, now bonded to the body of her deceased love. She glanced at the monster over and over again, trying to remember the body before it became so tainted with evil. She tried to find the good soul that existed previously in that body, but she couldn’t, not with Sennen inside. All she could see around him was a painful aura. Reluctant to speak with such a high and mighty figure, Hoshiko swallowed hard and spoke.

"Where exactly are we going?" she quietly said.

"I don’t know." he replied, growling a bit, "Do you have any clues to lead us to any of the Saints?"

"Not really." she said. She felt so uncomfortable talking to Sennen. His burning red eyes gave her chills and seeing his mighty claws forced her to keep a distance. She was afraid of Sennen, despite the fact that he couldn’t hurt her.

"Listen up." Sennen said, stopping. "Tell me what has changed in this world since I’ve been...away."

"I...I’m not sure. I have not seen the First Creation." she said, kicking the sand along the ground. Sennen scoffed a bit at her as they walked.

"If you’re gonna be my contractor, you better shape up." he said. "There’s no telling what-" He was interrupted by a loud rumbling from the ground. The tremor was enormous, causing the two to stumble.

"What is this?" Hoshiko said, falling to the sandy ground. Sennen stumbled but kept his stand. He noticed sand begin to blow in the wind surrounding the earthquake and narrowed his eyes. The tremor erupted into a mighty fissure, splitting the desert wasteland and opening a chasm. From the chasm, a gigantic beast rose. It was a long-bodied creature, similar to a worm. It had sharp jaws piercing from its head, a grotesque formation, and its body was covered with brightly glowing insignia. Sennen’s eyes widened, for he knew the monster’s identity. He began to grin and drew his claws from his hands. Hoshiko viewed the colossus from the ground, frozen with fear. The giant sand creature’s head dashed between the two, but stopped on sight with Hoshiko. It retracted its head back a small bit before unleashing a lunge toward her. Sennen immediately dashed in front of her and raised his claw. His claw made contact with the monster’s jaws, as Hoshiko slowly returned to her feet. "What...what is that?" she said, frozen in fright.

"It seems that the Holy Ones have gotten eye of my return." he said, caught in a fierce stalemate with the leviathan. "It’s a guardian creature created by the Holy Ones."

During the war against Sennen, all steps were taken to stop him. Earth became populated by different creatures created by holy workings. The students of the Seven Great Saints began to construct mystical beings to defend Earth from Sennen. Millions upon millions of these creatures were sent to Earth to protect the living. Across the universe these creatures lived. Each land was filled with these beings. In the land of the deserts, for example, the creature Gaaraga, a giant sand worm, was sent to protect. However, Sennen was able to defeat all of the creatures easily, even without using the powers of Sin. United, though, the Mystical Beings can prove formidable to all.

Sennen raised his unbound claw and slashed at the creature, sending it reeling across the desert. He rushed toward its flying body and tore at the monster’s underside. The bare chest was ripped at by Sennen’s powerful claws. Its blood poured out of the wound, shimmering like an elixir, the elixir of the Holy Ones. Hoshiko could see the monster’s pain; her eyes were wide with astonishment toward Sennen’s brutal ranma. Sennen’s claws became tinted with the crimson fluid. Grinning, he unleashed the finishing rend toward the victim’s heart. The claws struck hard and the heart came flying out of the flesh by Sennen’s ferocious hand. The monster fell hard to the sandy earth as Sennen crushed the heart in his hand. Covered with blood, he turned to the frightened Hoshiko.

"Quite an annoyance those things are." he said, shaking the blood off of his hand. Hoshiko slowly looked to him, still in an incredible amount of shock.

"That...it...why did you kill it?" she said.

"Why?" he replied. "You and I have a deal. I can’t let anything break this pact...which means..." He placed his still-bloody claws upon her clean face. His demonic eyes gazed into Hoshiko’s shining ones. "I can’t let anything happen to you."

"What?" she replied, stepping back from his touch.

"Listen, you. You apparently don’t know the rules of this little contract we share. If the contractor dies, so does the contracted. So I can’t let anything happen to you." He turned around and began to step forward. "If you wish to have this deal fulfilled, you best stop putting your life in danger, because I can’t afford to lose mine." He began to increase his pace to a walk. Hoshiko, though disturbed by his words, followed him. She shook her robe sleeve, attempting to get the blood off of the stitching. Sennen glanced over, but quickly continued to look forward. Hoshiko eventually got the small pools of blood off, but the stain remained. Sighing, she looked toward Sennen.

"You’ve...seen those creatures before?" she timidly spoke.

"Yes." he replied. "They were created to kill me, but as you can see," He took a quick look toward the decaying corpse of the beast, "they aren’t particularly difficult to deal with."

"Will we see more?"

"Probably, so don’t stand idly and get in my way." he replied in an angry tone. Hoshiko cringed a bit at Sennen’s tone, but relaxed a bit afterward. Sennen took a deep breath. "Well, this desert can’t last forever." The sun continued its unbound ferocity and beamed down harsh heat upon them. The sand blew about the wasteland, creating a cloud in front of them. A tinging shadow pulsated its image through the sand. Sennen narrowed his eyes and increased his focus. The sand cloud was thick, but he could see the shadow through it. The shadow began to appear more clearly, revealing a village hidden in the sand. Hoshiko shielded her eyes from the blowing sand and followed Sennen through the whirlwind the best she could. Eventually she too could see the village. The houses were made of smooth adobe and a long desert path moved through them. People moved across the road, dashing from house to house in an effort to complete their daily regiments.

"A village." Hoshiko said.

"Yes." Sennen said, drawing his claws. "Time to get some answers."

"You can’t kill all of these people!" Hoshiko said.

"Watch me." he replied. He dashed into the village, but was immediately stopped by the same burning pain that he suffered before. He was brought to the ground quickly, stunned and bound by the pain. He looked behind him toward Hoshiko, who now had the shining Crystal in her hands. Its bright light was so agonizing to Sennen, but Hoshiko stood with a serious expression on her face. "Damn you...witch..."

"I’m not going to let you kill all of these villagers, Sennen." she said, staring into his red eyes with her shining silver ones. Sennen could not fight back against her, for she was his contractor. His fists were clenched and his fangs begin to gnash, but he had no choice but to obey.

"Dammit...I won’t kill the villagers." he said. The Crystal’s light began to dim to nothing and Hoshiko felt the Crystal reenter her body. It passed through a portal into her being, until nothing was in her arms. Her robed arms crossed in front of her chest as Sennen regained his stand.

"Listen." Hoshiko said. "If the villagers see the Demon God Sennen, we’ll have a problem on our hands. We can’t let anyone see you, so stay hidden. I’ll gather some information of the Saints."

"Fine." Sennen said.

"And I will know if you’re killing anyone, so don’t try it." Hoshiko sternly added.

"Whatever." Sennen replied. Hoshiko nodded and turned toward the village road, as Sennen hid in the shadows of the tall, adobe houses. "Dammit, what a drag. ‘No killing the villagers’ she says." Sennen mocked Hoshiko as she left. "But...what she don’t know, or hear, can’t hurt her."