Strays: A Romantic Fantasy Adventure

It was that scream.

The shredding of flesh.

Happening again.

Sakura clung onto Ivy, trying to contain the girl as her flattened ears rang to the pitch of piercing shrieks and her arms became victims to the girl’s nails while she hysterically tried to claw her way out of the fox’s embrace. It was always difficult judging just how much pressure to use on such a delicate body. The woman tended to underestimate what was needed, not wanting to unintentionally snap a bone due to her lack of awareness of her own strength. It was always better to take the abuse than risk injuring the girl. She could handle the pain.

But it wasn’t like Sakura could feel much of anything as she was completely consumed with the sight of the boy who had been impaled above her. She had told Ivy that she would be there if there was any trouble.

She had broken her word.

And now all the woman could do was desperately try to keep the girl out of harm’s way.

Unlike how she had done with the boy.

Sakura turned towards Ren, her eyes wide in horror and pleading for him to fix that which couldn’t be repaired. “Do something!” she yelled. “Why are you standing there? Help him!”

“Yeah, yeah, okay. Just relax. Give me a minute.” Ren groaned and cringed at the inconvenience, slightly irritated as he unsheathed his sword and leisurely meandered his way towards the pest, swinging the blade back and forth without a care in the world. “Just stay here. I’ll be back soon.”

The angel took his time, ignoring the chorus of screaming and cursing, observing the boy above him carefully. He stopped and watched as Zero cut the impaling branch with one of his katanas before sheathing both of them. Slowly, the boy pulled the scythe from his body, blood spilling like the rain around them. Zero stared at it before bringing it down on the pest’s neck, beheading it, and turning the body back to dirt that fell like lead onto the pile from which it came.

Zero landed on the dirt mound as if it had only been a short leap from one spot to another. Crouching down, he clutched at his head, fingers digging through his hair to rip at his scalp as the sounds of gasping and bones cracking emitted from his crumpled body.

“Hey there buddy,” Ren cooed sweetly, walking up to the devil, his sword slung over his shoulder casually. “How ya doing? Feeling alright? That was quite the boo boo you got there.”

A growl and wheezing came from the boy as growing claws were dug further into his skin, blood coloring his white tresses red.

The man sighed. “Guess not.” Ren vanished, instantly reappearing behind the boy, slashing the flat of his sword at the back of his head. But it didn’t connect with his skull, rather with one of Zero’s katanas. The man pushed back, landing at the bottom of the pile as the boy stood and turned around to look down on him. “Oh! That’s cute.” The angel smirked. “They’ve grown. That means you’re going to be a bigger pain in my ass now.”

The whites of Zero’s eyes had gone black, the crimson pupils burning intensely and out of control. Two palm sized onyx horns had split from his skull and he grit his sharp fangs at the angel, a deep hiss slipping from them. The holes through the front and back of his white shirt were stained with scarlet, but no wound could be seen beyond the tears. Every remnant of the quiet, soft spoken boy was gone, replaced by a true devil that had gone completely mad.

Ren moved first, appearing before the devil, attempting to knock him in the head once more. Zero had unsheathed his second katana and blocked the blow, stepping back and twisting from each additional attack, alternating blades against the large sword.

The angel measured his strikes carefully, trying to determine the boy’s new strength and how much force he would need to bring him back. Zero had gotten faster, and his defense was consistently smooth and solid compared to the last time. Ren was intrigued and tempted to fall back in order to test the boy’s offense. However, now didn’t seem like the best time to do that, what with there being two distraught women who, undoubtedly, were in total shock and turmoil. It probably was best for him to get a move on and wrap things up as quickly as possible.

He swiped the large sword sideways, the devil blocking with one katana while slashing at the angel with the other, the point almost grazing his shirt. An exhilarated grin lite up Ren’s face with the near hit.

It could wait. A little longer wouldn’t hurt.

Ivy’s body had gone limp in Sakura’s arms as the woman watched the lightning quick attacks, her horror joined by confusion and disbelief. “What the fuck is going on?” she whispered, unable to use her full voice.

Violet eyes slid open, blinking at the ground, unsure of where it came from. She had just been standing with Sakura and Ren watching Zero…

Zero.

Ivy tilted her head up, a blur of white and black before her. Her lungs constricted, making it harder to breathe as she began to understand what was happening and everything in her yelled out at once.

Zero.

Don’t hurt him.

Please.

Zero.

Stop.

“Zero!” Ivy screamed and burst free from Sakura’s weakened grip, arms and legs flailing along the slick ground before she found her way to her feet, adrenaline and an unbearable agony carrying her forward.

“Ivy!” The demon dove for the girl but only connected with the soaking wet grass. “Stop!”

At the sound of her voice, Zero halted, his katanas trapping Ren’s sword above his head.

“Zero,” Ren spoke gently, swallowing the panic that had knotted in his throat. He was out of time. He shouldn’t have screwed around for so long. “Look at me.” If he could just keep his attention, get one more swing in...

The devil’s neck cracked and wrenched unnaturally, twisting towards the girl calling out to him.

“Look at me!” A delirious demand from the man before his sword hit the ground and he stumbled forward, the boy no longer there.

Ivy suddenly crashed into a solid form, her body barely ricocheting away before being pulled back into familiar heat by two large hands, the tips of claws digging slightly into the small of her back. Her head snapped up and her eyes bulged at the ones that gazed down at her.

It was Zero.

But it wasn’t.

She tried to speak but couldn’t even move her lips to form the words. She was trapped in the fire and darkness that tore into her and there was no escaping it.

The devil leaned over, nestling his face into the girl’s neck and hair, pointed fangs scraping against the soft, tender skin of her throat. “Mine.” He breathed deep.

And they were gone.

A despairing wail erupted from the woman, a deep, primal, mournful cry as she scurried and floundered frantically to where Ivy had just been. Her body spun and twisted wildly, trying to catch the girl’s scent. At the first hint, she turned but was caught in Ren’s clutches before she could follow it.

“Stop!” he yelled. “Just stop for a minute!”

“Ivy!” Sakura called hysterically as if she’d come back at her name. Her vision began to darken as she became more distraught and powerless. Her body taking on a mind of its own. “Ivy!”

The angel pushed his weight down on her, forcing her to bend forward. “Calm down!” he snapped. “You need to think. We’re going to get her. Just breathe. Breathe.” Then he started to whisper in her ear, a slow and calm chanting that slipped from his tongue and made its way through the chaos of her mind, quieting the noise.

The blackness began to fade, the soggy grass and sound and touch of rain becoming more clear as he gently coaxed her back. Her knees buckled under her, only Ren’s arms keeping her from collapsing to the ground. “What the fuck just happened?” the fox whimpered. “Where did she go? What was that?”

“Get it together. We don’t have time for this.” Ren forced her to stand, grabbing her shoulders, and pressed his forehead against hers. “You need to find her scent before the rain washes it away. Now.”

She nodded and he stepped back. Closing her eyes, the demon breathed in fully, mentally separating the different smells around her. She found Ivy’s, a thread that would take her in the opposite direction she had initially tried to go. “This way!”

“There ya go.” Ren removed his bracelet, putting it on Sakura’s wrist as ebony wings burst free. He grabbed the woman against his chest and they took to the air, gliding close to the ground in the direction she pointed.

“What’s going on, Ren?” Her voice quivering as they scanned the land ahead. None of this made sense. How could anyone move around the way Zero just did after being impaled by such a large object? After losing so much blood?

He should be dead.

The man hesitated, unsure of what to say and how to say it. “Zero doesn’t die.” He chose the blunt truth.

The demon looked back at him, not sure she heard him correctly. There was no way she did. “What do you mean he doesn’t die?”

“I mean he doesn’t die.”

A sense of dread began to well in the demon’s gut as her mind raced, unable to grasp a solid thought. “What do you mean he doesn’t die?!” she repeated louder, in total disbelief.

“I don’t know how to explain this in simpler terms!” Ren barked, finding it difficult to explain the impossible while searching for it as well. “He doesn’t die. Things that kill everyone else don’t kill him. He grows. He ages. But he doesn’t die. You can pop his head clean off and it just goes back like nothing ever happened. But then he turns into… that. He becomes a devil. A real one.”

Sakura stared at the ground swiftly passing below. Panic immobilized every muscle. It was the same when The Guard came for Ren. When she found Raz. When she watched her parent’s bodies burn. When she realized everyone had abandoned her and left her to die alone.

But it was different.

This wasn’t her suffering.

It was Ivy’s.

And she couldn’t run from it.

She wanted to fight, the only other thing she knew how to do when backed up against a wall. She tried to push herself, scream, beg, anything. But her body only responded by shaking.

Ren tightened his grip on the woman. “It’s okay.” He tried to comfort her, knowing it wasn’t enough. “We’re going to find her. Zero won’t hurt her. I swear to you, he won’t.”

All Sakura wanted was to lash out, to make someone else suffer the same way she was, but she couldn’t. She knew how the angel was. She couldn’t act surprised that his bleeding heart took on Zero. The same way it had taken on her. How it still did.

She couldn’t blame Ren.

It was her fault.

She had been the one to leave Ivy to the devil.