Balabalalde screamed terrible defiance and began to... change. Enormous black leather batwings sprouted out of his back while his arms and legs thickened into stumpy clawed monstrosities. First he slaughtered nearly everyone. And then he did nasty unspeakable things to Yuri, and then killed her too. The End. But of course, that's not what *really* happened. =============================== Balabalalde looked across the blasted landscape that was the home realm of the Wargmere-Agherukk. He looked at the slip of paper that had arrived with him, and then at the imposing edifice that was his clan's true home. He was not looking forward to explaining to his parents why he got suspended from school. ****************************** Dark Heart High Netherworld Educational Institution for The Universal Propagation of Evil Created by Mads ****************************** Part Thirty-Nine: Absolutions By HIH, Empress Sarah I of Constainia, etc, etc ad infinitum ad nauseam ****************************** The soul-twisting imposition on the surrounding landscape rumbled slightly. Moments later, a shrieking *something* flew out of one of the upper windows, bounced twice on the rainspout, a third time on the spikes of the porch roof and landed on the barren ground with a dull splut. No, Bala was definitely not looking forward to this. He strode on towards the front portal, avoiding the various pitfalls with practiced ease. A bit of flight here, a double backflip there. Child's play, really. He could remember daring his siblings to races around the yard, pity about the ones that were too slow to survive. Bala stopped short. Since when did he even think such words as 'pity'? Shaking his head puzzledly, he continued his trek to the portal. No, not the door. The door was only there for show. Well, that and trapping lesser beings in an eternity of torment. Stepping gingerly through the portal, Bala froze, looking hurriedly around himself. The coast *seemed* clear... He turned to tiptoe toward the balustrade when he heard a clicking noise. Grimacing, he turned around to see his erstwhile father descending upon him with much apron-flapping. Oh dear. SHE was visiting again. "Uh, hi Dad, Bubala." "Young man, WHAT have you DONE?!" Bala winced at the shrill noise. He never could figure out *how* Bubala could force his father's vocal cords to hit those notes. "Oy vey, oy vey. And WHERE are your ofuda? You're going to be the death of me yet. SUCH a note we just received from Amakusa. Such NONSENSE! What drivel! Why EVER did I allow your father to send you to that school? I KNEW we should have kept you here for training. You got me all verklempt over here. What would your mother say if she were here to see this? I've failed, FAILED I tell you. I tell my son that every day. Where did I go wrong? My own grandson, oy gevult." Bala inwardly rolled his eyes, careful to show no outward reaction. He was good at that. He let his thoughts turn inward to the events of the past few days. What was it that he was becoming? The ghost of his grandmother that routinely possessed his father somehow deemed it something he didn't need to know yet. The old bag just wouldn't *quit*. "Are you even LISTENING to me? Oh, why do I even BOTHER!" It was like this most of the time since Bubala had died. She'd run herself ragged while alive controlling her son and now that she was dead, she managed to possess him directly and make her grandson's life miserable. "Oy vey, you are SO grounded, young man. My own grandson, suspended! At least you had the DECENCY to finish your opponent! It's going to take at *LEAST* two days to get the proper spells together to get you rebound properly. And WHERE are we going to find properly soaked strips of preserved batwing on SUCH short notice?! You KNOW that they have to be soaked for three days in mildly boiling sea urchin urine until lightly soggy!" Balabalalde continued to stand impassively under the verbal barrage. If he could just wait long enough, maybe Bubala would run out of energy and be forced to leave his father. She just *had* to be due for a recharge period at some point. Bubala'd never risk expending too much energy at once, oh no, she'd never risk dissipating herself that way. No, she didn't want to let one instant of their lives go without her 'obviously necessary' control. Good thing that she could only manifest every few days or so. His thoughts turned back to the mystery at hand. What was he? What was he going to be? Did he have any control over it? "Young man, I've got to leave you and your father alone for the present. I simply SHUDDER to think what kind of mischief you two will get into in my absence! MEN! *hrumph* Remember, you are NOT to stir from these grounds until you are properly rebound! Understand me?!" *blink* "Hai." Bala caught his father as he suddenly dropped toward the floor like a discarded doll. Bubala's 'visits' always took a lot out of him. After a moment, the nominal head of the Wargmere-Agherukk shook his head blearily. "She's... gone...isn't she?" "Hai, Father." "Ugggh. I need an aspirin." "Hai, Father." Bala helped his father into a comfortable chair and then dutifully went to the kitchen for the aspirin and a bottle of Grimm's Extra Dry BloodAle. Normally he enjoyed being unfettered, but this time... This time he wasn't so sure if he wouldn't rather be back in his wrappings. He kept remembering the look on Yuri's face as he was transported away by Amakusa's spell. She had been... upset. Something wrenched deep inside him. *HE* had made her upset. Why had she been upset? She was *HIS*. ... ..... Where had that thought come from? This was starting to really disturb him. What was it that Leilei said a while back? Something about apologizing making people feel better. Maybe if he found Yuri and apologized for whatever it was that he'd done that made her upset, she wouldn't be upset anymore. The more he thought about it, the better it sounded. After delivering his father's drink and aspirin, Bala crept upstairs to the attic. Bala looked around carefully before slipping through the tiny window. So far Bubala hadn't found out that this one place had a hole in the wards, and he certainly didn't want her finding out. Of course, that meant that he had to ensure that his father never found out either. Now, where would Yuri be? He didn't want to see anyone else if he could help it. Perhaps he'd look near her house first. With a vague shimmer, he slipped through the dimensional barrier and disappeared. ********************** Yuri sat on a swing in the park, thinking miserably about the events of the last few days. She'd *killed* someone. Dead. Deader than dead. Doornail-type dead. And then Bala had changed somehow. That...that wasn't her Balabalalde at the sports meet. It just couldn't be, that Bala had been so... Yuri shuddered. He had killed someone too. Granted it was someone that had been a... a very not nice person, but... Yuri dropped her head down a bit further. She didn't want this. She didn't know what she wanted. He was so very puzzling. Sometimes he was almost kind and the next moment he'd do something simply *awful* like kicking a kitten to see how far it would go, or killing Sakazashi. Yuri dug at the ground under the swing with her toe. She blushed as she remembered what had happened just a few weeks ago in this very park. ********************** Balabalade skulked around Yuri's house for a few minutes, peering up at her window. Oddly enough, she didn't seem to be home. He tried to remember where she might be at. Perhaps at the school? He started up the road toward Dark Heart High, half keeping an eye out for Yuri and half still confused. Wait, what was that? He turned his head to look towards the flash of silver that had caught his eye. A silver cat winked at him, dangling from a slim hand as it raked through sun-gilded brown hair. *********** Leaning her head against the swing chain, Yuri closed her eyes and sighed, ignoring the slight rustling noise behind her. A breeze blew through the park, another sign of the onset of colder weather, and Yuri shivered. All of a sudden, something warm wrapped around her, and Yuri's eyes flew open. "... B-B-Bala?!" And indeed, the unbound boy was kneeling in front of her, his concerned now-black eyes looking into hers and his school jacket draped around her shoulders. Yuri blinked nervously, conflicting thoughts rushing through her head faster than she could keep track of them. Bala had done so many bad things, but at the same time he could be so nice...she knew that the intelligent thing to do would be to just walk away. After all, who knew what he would do, especially after the *odd* proceedings at the sports meet? But that thought emerged only in a slight twitch as she drew back uncertainly. A pale hand reached out and touched a lock of her hair lightly, almost fearfully. "Don't," Bala whispered, and then gulped. "Please?" Yuri bit her lip as she looked at him. "I...Bala, I don't understand." It sounded stupid and she knew it, but it was the only thing she could think of. As for Bala, he was completely and utterly out of his element. He had never been good at any sort of social event, and other than Leilei had never really had any real interaction with girls. That is, before Yuri. "I'm....sorry." There, that was right, wasn't it? He wasn't very good or practiced at apologizing, but surely one couldn't go wrong with that....right? Yuri just looked at him, tears of confusion welling in her eyes. With a jerk, she jumped to her feet, the swing flying back behind her. "You're *sorry*?! That's all you have to say? You just *killed* Sakazashi, and that was a bad bad *mean* thing to do! How...how could y-you?" He blinked, taken aback by her sudden explosion. "It was a duel, Yuri. That's how duels here at Dark Heart work. You know that," he added, thinking back to the Blood Duel with Amakusa, with a part of his mind wondering at the sudden clench of remembered fear his heart felt at the thought. Ignoring the part of her that was noting that those were the most words Bala had ever said to her at one stretch, Yuri shook her head. "I--still! You...you just *killed* him!" Now or never, Bala thought, and in a voice barely louder than the breeze that fluttered past, he answered her. "...He threatened you..." Her lips parted, and her heart foolishly melted. She took a few deep breaths, calming herself down. After all, they were friends, right? And everyone knew how protective Bala was of his friends. She was being a twit to think that he could have possibly meant it in *that* way.... Yuri looked at the ground and sighed. "Thank you, I guess..." A gulp, as she looked up at him. "But please, Bala...please, please....don't kill anyone any more." Now it was his turn to look aside. Give up the thrill of the kill? He didn't even know if he could...a slight movement from her brought his eyes questing back. She was kneeling beseechingly before him, though not meeting his inquisitive glance. "Please, Bala....for me?" His mouth went dry. He tried to speak a few times, but discounting the fact that he had no idea what to say, his throat didn't seem to be working correctly. "...I've been grounded." Wait, that wasn't what he wanted to say. Not that he knew what he wanted to say, but that probably wasn't it. Yuri looked up at him, puzzled and a bit hurt at his lack of an answer. "Oh." Bala cast about for words frantically, but still found himself at a loss. "I....have to go now, or Father will know I'm gone." He reached out and touched the back of her hand softly, just with his fingertips, and almost anyone would be astonished to know that the hands that could rip people apart without effort could be so light and tender. Then, without another word, he turned and walked away behind her. "Bala..." His name barely escaped her lips, a whisper on the wind, but the tall figure stilled. "I'll...I'll try, Yuri," he replied, his voice equally soft. Then he walked off again, leaving her to watch his retreating figure. ================ Author's Notes: ================ Yay! I'm an official ImproAuthor now! Wai! *AAUGH!* I hate writer's block. Sorry this is so short. Thanks *SO* much to Sharyna for all her *major* plot help, advice and nearly all of the last scene with Bala and Yuri. Thanks also to The Apprentice for more ideas, to Jesseman for the Yiddish, and thanks lots and lots to Lawrence Chu for my extension. I wanted to clarify that Bala doesn't have to turn into the villian of the week, and that his bandages need to be replaced on order for the story balance to be maintained. PS: to clarify the title, I did mean it literally, and not necessarily just by the Webster's definition. ================================================= The small piece of metal was bent, ungainly, and covered in inky black. If it had ever had an original shape, that was lost to history, for it seemed far too misshapen ever to have had a recognizable form. Amy stooped to examine it, and reached out--not to touch it, for instinctively she knew that that would not be a good idea, but to prod at it cautiously with a stick. She gasped as a wave of pure, unmitigated evil flooded her mind and tossed the stick away, shuddering. She hadn't felt such a surge of evil since...well, since Bala, she thought, her eyes narrowing at the thought of him. Amy jumped to her feet and glared down at the warped object, sure somehow that it represented her nemesis, though no longer rival, then squinted suspiciously. A bright silver dot, which she could have sworn hadn't been there before, had appeared on the...thing, and now it seemed for some reason to have more of a form, though she couldn't discern that yet. A bright spot on dark metal? No, Amy realized, a white spot in a black heart.... Yuri. It had to have something to do with her. Amy growled deep in her throat. Although she wasn't obsessed with Yuri any more, there was still no way she was going to let that Bala hurt her....ever. Amy peeked out from behind her bush. She'd been following Yuri again all day. She had just *known* that he was going to show up again. And it just wouldn't do at all to have that Bala creature near her Yuri unsupervised. She watched suspiciously as the scene unfolded, staring in shock as first Balabalalde, then Yuri knelt imploringly to the other. What was going on here? That boy was a heartless killer! A beast! She conveniently ignored the fact that she herself had recently killed one of her peers. Gazing closer at each of the figures in the park, she froze as her deeper vision passed over Balabalalde. What was that underlying thread in his soul? It was so different from his usual aura. Somehow, *warmer* than the chill restraint that characterized his bound form and softer than the uncontrolled rage that she had seen yesterday. Amy shook her head in confusion. She'd have to think about this more later.