Weight's Worth in Blood (Rei no Kaado)

[Firebreath Fishslap]

There was a confused look on Atsuro's face as Seth started talking again. But before Seth could finish, there was a loud sound, like shattering glass, from what sounded like Abel's room. He was on his feet after Seth, if only because Seth had moved faster. He ran out after Seth and was in Abel's room about the same time Seth was. His eyes widened at the open drawer and broken window.

"What the hell!?" Atsuro continued looking around. "Did someone try to break in?"

Without waiting for an answer, he moved over to the open drawer first, and then took a step back as he saw the contents. Sitting there were quite plainly the Torque and Scale. He didn't dare touch them, instead choosing to stare at them from afar.

"Why does Abel have Millennium Items in his clothes dresser?!" Atsuro exclaimed. Something clicked and he turned toward Seth. "Wait, do you think this is what he wanted you to watch?"

[mugenginga]

Seth was looking around the room as soon even before he stopped in the middle of it. Open drawer, shattered window. His eyes widened when he saw something black stuck in the corner of the window. He was walking over and reaching for it when Atsuro shouted about the Millenium Items. He turned to him and managed to slice his finger open on a remaining shard of glass.

The blue haired man hissed and felt what he'd been grabbing for slipping out. This led to him quickly turning back around and lunging forward to grab it. He managed to, but he also managed to get a shard of glass in his gut. His eyes widened at the puncture and he just sort of hung there with his eyes wide. He'd caught the alarm clock, the plug in hanging between two fingers.

"A...Atsuro," Seth said, speaking slowly and deliberately. This sensation.. internal bleeding, "I need you to slowly help me up..."

No response to Atsuro's question. He was, after all, preoccupied.

[Firebreath Fishslap]

Atsuro blinked at Seth's question before turning around toward Seth and his eyes widening as he realized was Seth had just managed to do. "O-oh crap!"

He ran over to Seth and grabbed him by the shoulders before slowly, very slowly pulling Seth up off of the shard of glass he'd managed to get lodged in his gut. A bit of blood would spurt from the wound at that.

He held Seth steady once he pulled him up before glancing at the alarm clock still held in his hand. "...An alarm clock? You nearly killed yourself for--" He stopped himself at that. Right, couldn't die anymore. He shook that thought out of his head and shifted to something else. "You alright?"

[mugenginga]

Seth clenched his teeth as Abel pulled him up. His breathing was ragged and he was finding breaths short. Atsuro's guidance helped him get to a bed, but steady wasn't exactly happening. As soon as Atsuro let him go he grabbed his chest and bent over, his head hanging between his legs. The alarm clock fell to the floor. He coughed and a bit of blood trickled down the corner of his lip.

"I..." Seth stopped to cough again, "... don't know."

[Firebreath Fishslap]

And now Atsuro was panicking. Seth had said he didn't think he could die, but now he very clearly looked like he had internal bleeding, and that usually meant, y'know, dying. He still had his COMP with him, having grabbed it on the way out, but Atsuro didn't have any healing skills equipped, and even if he did, it wouldn't do him any good. He sucked at magic.

"...Crap, hang on, let me summon a demon to heal you," Atsuro said and pulled open his COMP. He pressed a few buttons, and Lakshmi appeared next to Atsuro.

"Oh my," Lakshmi said as she saw Seth's injuries. She went over toward him. "Prince, do I have permission to heal your wounds?"

[mugenginga]

Seth wasn't in much a condition to object to Atsuro's statement. He was sweating a bit. The pain wasn't indescribable, but he couldn't really move much. It wasn't to say the pain was pleasant, either. It hurt like hell. When Lakshmi approached him, his head was still between his legs. He clenched his teeth and gave a weak nod. What he was questioning now was why he wasn't passing out. If it was as bad as he thought, shouldn't he have lost consciousness?

[Firebreath Fishslap]

Lakshmi bent down and put her hands over Seth's head. A white light flowed from her hands into Seth, and Seth would feel the uncomfortable feeling of a wound sealing up as the result of a healing spell. Strangely enough to her was the fact that Seth was wasn't passed out. The injury seemed severe enough that even she would have fallen unconscious by now.

She pulled away and straightened up as the healing process finished up. "That should do it, Prince."

[mugenginga]

Seth thought he was going to be sick from the unpleasant sensation. It wasn't all that often he had to have an internal injury healed. His cheeks puffed out and he made an almost drowning strangled noise as he pretty much did throw up as the wound on the front of his stomach sealed. It still hurt like hell, but now it was more like severe indigestion. Seth grimaced and swallowed the bile before taking a few deep breaths and sitting up. He panted a little before nodding to Lakshmi.

"Thank you," Seth looked at the alarm clock on the floor, "I didn't know what it was. We'd have never known if it had fallen. However..." Seth leaned over and picked it up, glancing at the window and then Atsuro. He held out the clock, "I'm not forensic expert, but this implies the window as broken from the inside. If something got in here, why would it need to break a window to leave?"

He hadn't yet answered Atsuro's question about the Items. In truth, he hadn't even seen them. He'd been more focused on the broken window and subsequent injury. Seth shivered a bit and grabbed the edges of Cain's haori, holding it closed with his free hand.

[Firebreath Fishslap]

Now that the immediate danger had passed, Atsuro had noticed that too. There was almost no broken glass around the window itself, meaning that when the window had been broken, it had been from the inside. That made no sense at all, especially if someone had broken in to steal the items.

"I'm not really sure..." Atsuro admitted. "Hey, we should probably call management and tell them about this broken window. We can get them to fix it." It wasn't like they'd kick them out of the hotel for this after whatever Cain had talked them into with the deal on their rooms.

"What are we going to do about those Millennium Items in Abel's dresser?" Atsuro asked, turning back toward Seth again as he asked that. "We can't just leave them here if someone's trying to steal them." Atsuro still wasn't sure WHY someone was trying to steal them, but that didn't change that someone was.

[mugenginga]

Seth didn't give much of a response to Atsuro's suggestion they call someone to clean it up. It wasn't a bad idea, it just didn't feel like an immediate concern to him. When Atsuro brought up the Millenium Items, Seth glanced past him at the drawer. Abel had said two gold objects. He was sure there was a reason for his possession of them, but Seth had no intentions of asking Abel about it.

"I'll stay here. Abel said the two things I needed to watch were gold and I'd know them when I saw them. Atsuro, as I was saying earlier..." Seth took a breath in as if bracing himself, "I know it's unfair to ask too much, but try not to worry too much when you see Abel again. He's... he's grown horns."

[Firebreath Fishslap]

Atsuro nodded as Seth said he'd stay there. Yeah, it did seem rather likely those were what Abel wanted him to stay and watch. It was when Seth paused that Atsuro began to look confused again. And then his brain tried to trip as Seth finished up.

"Wait, what?! What do you mean he's 'grown horns'?" Atsuro asked.

[mugenginga]

"I mean he's grown horns," Seth lifted up his hands, still with dried human blood on them, and held them up and back from his head, "They extend to about here and are black. I think they must have happened as a result of the fight with Hitoshura. I can't think of any other reasons."

If Atsuro tried to object, Seth walked right over him with his words. He needed to get this all out. Atsuro could ask specifics once he was done. As a result, he was coming across as very stoic and a fair bit uncaring. Almost as if the facts didn't seem to bother him. It was only in his eyes that it was evident they did.

"He also has markings on his face and stomach, possibly elsewhere. I haven't had a chance to look at them too closely, but I think they're stylized Hebrew," Seth hesitated. He shook his head, "Ancient Hebrew. I could read them if I tried, but I don't think he'll let me get close enough."

[Firebreath Fishslap]

His eyes were still wide as Seth continued on. Abel had grown horns as a result of his fight, and his markings had spread further. Atsuro had never seen them, so he didn't know they were Ancient Hebrew, but he knew that Abel had markings on his stomach. But they'd only been on his stomach just a couple days ago.

And a couple days ago, Abel had broken his MP3 player, hadn't he? Cain had said it was increasing his power. Could that increase of power, plus the lack of the limiter holding Abel's power back could have caused this... Abel had been holding his head a lot lately. Like he had a headache...

"That's all just.... geez..." Atsuro said. "...I don't think the fight with Hitoshura caused this, I think it probably was the trigger for this, but it's probably been getting ready to happen for... a while. Cain did say it surprised him how long it had taken for Abel's markings to show up before."

[mugenginga]

"I never knew when to trust that man..." Seth said under his breath.

He didn't question the tense in his head until after he'd muttered. He knew Cain was telling the truth about being reborn, probably more clearly then Atsuro did. He didn't know about Abel, the specifics of the way his essence had spread could easily mean he didn't have clear cut lives to remember. He'd remembered his first, it was all Seth was sure about. But he'd met Cain far too many times to be coincidence, and given some of the evidence it seemed almost undeniable he'd met an Abel. Even with dozens of lives to work from, he never had been able to understand Cain. He didn't know. Present tense would have been better.

"His Majesty wanted me to tell you what happened and I don't want you to be panicked when you see him again," Seth looked at all the blood on this body and closes his eyes. He needed a bath, but he felt exhausted. He touched his right hand to his temple and massaged, "I think I need to go to bed. I'm lucky I didn't break when all my memories flooded back to me, but I am still worn beyond belief."

[Firebreath Fishslap]

Atsuro's eyes had drifted to the broken window again as Seth talked. He actually wasn't really listening to Seth as he explained why he'd told him about Abel's horns. Abel's horns were really minor compared to everything else that had happened, in Atsuro's opinion. It wasn't like Abel really needed a human body anymore...

What was bothering Atsuro was that damn window. It had been broken from inside the room. There were demons that could move through walls, and it was possible they had broken that window to lure them in here. It was possible whoever had broken the window was still in the room. It wasn't like anyone could have broken the window to get into the room anyways; they were four stories above the ground, and even flying demons couldn't coordinate themselves to fly through a hole like that. Their wings took up too much space; they'd get stuck.

He looked back toward Seth as he said he was going to bed. Atsuro nodded. "Alright. I'll stay here and watch the Items, then."