Roxy's POV
My mind...it's never been so quiet.
Just a jiffy ago, all I heard was Cyrus's voice, the nature, and my beautiful crying blade from home. But now...I...it's haunting me.
I'm never used to this silence!
'Shush...' i flinched in my trance. What was this plane? A limbo? I...couldn't feel my body. But I could definitely see whatever was in front of me. The empty shells of Akira and Gena, sitting by the fire, on the log. The woods...however...seemed different.
'I know you can hear me~ No need to pretend not to, my beloved DEVIL'S DAUGHTER~' This time, a very, extremely familiar female voice greeted me. I gulped.
She...appeared.
"J-Jikun...?" IS THIS A CURSED DREAM!?
"I know you're not real, Jikun. You might hate me as your half sibling, but I know you wouldn't side with these...monsters." I said.
Jikun laughed. It's not Jikun. It's not Jikun! It's the shifter! I'm so confused!
"Did you forget me already, sister? You've gone to earth just once...and brought havoc to our existence?" My eyes widened.
"W-What do you mean?"
"Oh, Roxy..." She smirked like the beast she's always been.
"Everyone knows...
You went to that portal, knowing how dangerous it was. You...took the Seven Deadly Sins with you to that same place where they were BANISHED."
...What?
"Are you talking about the Gates of Heaven!? You know I stopped them from following me! IT WAS AN ACCIDENT!! THEY WEREN'T SUPPOSED TO BE THERE! NOT THE ANGELS! NOT THE CREATORS! NONE OF US!" I screamed, although, my lips never moved.
"Huh..." Jikun scoffed. It's the Shifter, I know. But boy was she so real...
I could feel my voice cracking, but the sting at the back of my throat? Couldn't feel it too.
"You know what you did, Roxy. You were captured. The Creators? They're different. These Entities...they captured you to bribe a deal out of Dad." My brows furrowed.
"What do you mean?"
A deal...? Don't tell me..
"Roxy...who do you think sacrificed Hell so you could escape the heavenly prison, live a life, and change the course of humanity? You think you did that all by yourself?"
My mind was...spinning.
I was caged in those bars for eons. EONS!
I thought those entities changed their minds and let me go...
So it was dad...
"As if I'd believe you." I snarled.
"Hmm. Funny how you'd believe everything from a Shifter surviving on dad's energy, but question truth from mine." My eyes widened.
"Jikun...you really gave your energy to this Shifter, too?"
Her brows jumped. Her shoulder shrugged.
"Had to tell you the truth dad wanted to hide so desperately."
My world shattered at that moment...
So I...I was the reason my home disappeared from existence? I was the doom that fell on Hell...?
"...wake...up..."
"It's a dream...Roxy..."
A male voice. Someone familiar. Again.
I wasn't going to fall for the same trick twice. I don't trust anything!
"...wake up, Roxy...!"
It was growing closer...and closer. And suddenly, something felt warm in my chest. Not my heartbeat. Spreading warm hellish blood in my veins. It was something else.
Like the heat from a thousand suns.
It was...
"ROXY! WAKE UP! FIGHT IT! STAY WITH ME!"
"I cam hear your blade, your fight but...I can't see you, Cyrus..."
"Roxy...trust me. I am real. You have to fight with me!" He screamed.
"I...I don't trust you. Why should I trust you?"
Well, the Shifter couldn't have answered. I knew it. The brief silence told me everything. That was until...
"Roxy...you should trust me because...I love you."
My future looked brighter as I heard him say.
A Shifter couldn't have said that, right?
They don't have emotions.
It was Cyrus himself.
CYRUS!!
Bringing myself back from the hypoxic world...it felt like I was tearing my mother's womb open to be born again. My claws held the air like flesh, and I broke through the hypnos!
"THAT'S IT!" I growled like a beast, "No more GAMES!"
My sword, my Griever was replaced with the Punisher.
Stronger. Hotter. Sharper than obsidian.
The Shifter's physical form was immaterial to me at that point. My frustration grew wings and flew through my cursed hellish blade like wrath.
"AAHHHH!!!" I kept slicing the earth, the air, the trees. Each particle into a thousand bloody pieces.
Because I didn't know where the Shifter was.
"THAT WAS NOT JIKUN'S SOUL TRAPPED IN YOU! SHE WOULD NEVER TRY TO KILL ME!" I gave it away.
"IMPOSSIBLE!" a shriek loud enough to deafening me echoed throughout the woods. But it was closeby. And that was it's second mistake.
The first one?
Trying to convince me my blood-born sister would tantalize me and let me die. Tch!
Using my powers, it was barely difficult to find the original body of the Shifter. Hidden inside the root of a banyan, one out of thousands, was it's soul.
I chopped the whole tree down, took it into the air with me, towards the sky.
Akira and Gena broke out of their trance, too. Their bodies no longer a shell. They turned, saw the shadow behind that brightened the fire in front of them.
"Is that...Roxy?" Akira questioned. Cyrus remained silent, watching my wrath unfold.
I was heaving. My chest has never rumbled with anger like this before. I had become the DEVIL.
Unforgiving.
Unnerving.
Unforgettable.
"Holy shit..." Gena cursed under her breath. Because the fire on the ground to keep them warm? It barely glowed as bright as the banyan tree I set on fire with just one touch. One touch, and I turned the whole tree into ash.
"Ack...ak..." I could hear the Shifter's struggling breath. I levitated it's incinerate body towards me.
It looked into my glowing red eyes—scanning it's ant sized body.
"Tch. Next time...know your victims better."
And I relieved it's suffering.
I pinched its body between my fingers. Barely any blood left, but I still felt something wet rubbing between my fingers.
I had realized quickly...that it was the Shifter's human host, remembering her life as a human. And her last tear? Soaked into the skin of the Devil's Daughter.
If anything...she was blessed.