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“Alrighty, then! Here’s the contract!” the pink-haired fiend took the paper scroll which appeared out of thin air unto their hand. The demon puffed out a smoke from their mouth to snuff out the remaining purple flame, then began to unwrapped the red string coiled to it and revealing its content. The contract was made from what seemed to be papyrus and the words were jet black with an obscure traces of burn marks; as if it was written in molten flame that had been cooled. “Care to take a look? Want to make sure everything is as prescribed?”
The priestess simply put on an empty stare as the paper that would seal her fate was dangling in front of her. Perhaps she was hesitant, and who could blame her? Creating a pact with a demon is an act of salvation forfeit, an utmost heinous crime in any religious believes, and just imagine what would happen if people knew the daughter of the Asahina family, the renowned Maiden of Gentle Nights, had surrendered her being to a wicked being of the underworld? That would be the scandal of the century.
And yet Mafuyu did not care. She had intended to give up her façade a long time ago; performing an endless play of a picture-perfect saint, descendant of the Goddess, for the amusement of those blind strays who only clung onto her as a justification for their faith. The fateful deal with this fiend was simply the final stroke of it. She never held a high regard for her Medinae belief, might as well plunge any little faith she had. She snatched the contract out of the fiend’s hand, eyes still lifeless, and began reading it aloud.
“To whomever it may concern, and to whatever that may happen,
I hereby declare this contract as a deed of honor with its content as following:
That the subject by the name of Amia, demon of contracts and dissonance, shall be at my full command, to perform whatever deed that I desire, or to answer whatever questions I may require, or all that are in-between; to obey and serve without fail until the duration of the agreement expire.
And in return, I, Mafuyu Asahina of Carmine Hall, surrender my fate to their authority so that whatever awaits in the end, be it sickness or health, happiness or suffering, I shall accept it without complains and acknowledge it as exactly as I deserved.
Should anyone of the subjects attempt to forfeit this contract, the other subject is free to punish or torment them however as they please.
Regards, Mafuyu Asahina.”
“With that out of the way, there’s only one thing left to do.” the demon took her left hand by the wrist and began rubbing it. They began to gently pierce the skin, twisting and turning their index until blood could be visible. Then, the fiend took a white quill from her pocket and began to insert it into the flooded wound until the tip was fully soaked in blood. The priestess could only stand there and writhe in pain while the demon smiled, almost delighted, before finally pulling out the quill. “Now all you need to do is to sign it right… Here!”
The vulnerable priestess grabbed the quill and aimed it exactly at where she should sign. However, the quill hadn’t touched the surface for a good while. It was simply floating there, trembling. What’s going on? She was more than ready to abandon her life of deception, yet why is she stopping? Could it be her conscience was warning her to turn back, or was it simply the fear of the unknown that caused her to weary? Sensing this, Amia attempted to provoke her.
“Of course, you can always turn back if you don’t want to.” said Amia while slightly tilting her head, “Do you want to back down now? I honestly can’t tell with those dead eyes of yours.”
Dead eyes… Yes, of course. Those eyes that were filled with apathy and indifference. Eyes with neither empathy nor malice. Eyes that were hidden behind a painted smile and was forced to subject to the numbness of conscience and free will. After so long, the priestess had finally got a chance to perform a deed out of her own volition and that she would not be constrained by the pressure of her faith. Taking a deep breath, the priestess began to write down her signature: Mafuyu Asahina, written in bright scarlet. The deed was done.
Shortly after, the same purple flames emerged from where she had signed. It engulfed the deed thoroughly until all that’s left were ashes. The cunning fiend chuckled before walking behind the maiden. They walked five steps forward and another three more. They turned around and called upon their new mistress, to which Mafuyu obliged and turned towards. The sight of a demon standing under the holy symbol of the Goddess was revolting to say the least.
“Now then, Asahina, or should I call you Mafuyu?” the demon spoke, bowing as a gesture of courtesy, “Ask what thy will.”
The young Mafuyu contemplated. Now that her contract had been honored, she was free to ask whatever she pleases. She pondered for a while. During her lifetime in the church, she had been conditioned to blindly listen to the scriptures and the cries of others, thus never had a change to question or think for her own. Should she ask about knowledge, riches, or power? No, she was too indifferent to be consumed by materialistic needs. Divine needs, on the other hand…
“What I’ve learned from my time in the clergy is that religion is essentially nothing more than a belief of mutual exchange. Those who adhere to their faith shall be rewarded, while those who deviate from it are punished.” the priestess began to vent, pouring her own thoughts for once, “For them, correctness equates to their justification, and that their faiths are merely to justify what they believe as “correct”. Hence, result in the birth of many religious variants.”
The priestess then walked towards her acquaintance and pointed at them, “So I ask of you, O being from the underworld, to where shall our spirits go when our bodies expire, and at the end of it all, whose justification shall be dubbed as truly correct?”
“My, my! You’re using such sophisticated words, yet the weight of your sentence is that of a silly sod’s imagination.” Amia taunted her, putting down her hand before them, “Heaven and hell? Believes and correctness? I find these things rather amusing. But, I guess it can’t be helped. You humans need something to give value to your lives, right?”
But only her dead eyes remained.
“No response, huh?” the demon sighed, “Well, if you really want to know the truth, I am more than delighted to comply.”
The demon snapped their finger and, in an instant, transported the two subjects to a vast space of black. Then right below them, a flickering violet light can be seen. It flickered faster and its form became visible. It was a mechanism, shaped like a sphere and comprised of hundred thousand of gears mashed together. From that device, countless veins stretched out to the sea of darkness; illuminating the realm below.
“The basic concept of heaven and hell are but a byproduct of the human mind; created as a mean of warrant against whatever the unjust scale of this world has to offer.” Amia explained as she looked down upon the hypnotic movement of the gears, “In reality, there is only one absolution: that every living being, human or otherwise, be it a saint or a sinner, a Medinist, Dogmatik, faithless, or even demons; they all depart towards the same terminus, the [null].”
“And what is this, [null], that you speak of?” as the priestess asked, a bright ray of light radiated from above. Mafuyu shielded her eyes and could see a silhouette of what appeared to be a sanctuary.
“It is an endpoint created by the divines, who now reside in the paradise above called the Pantheon. They believe that anything that were not born out of divinity could not compile along with said divinity; they’re faulty codes on an otherwise perfect system.” The demon continued to explain, now having their eyes fixed on the realm above, “The command prompt they created dictates that those without divine birthright shall be placed in the afterlife below, forever isolated within the confinement of their own image; far away from the regal garden of perfection.”
From between them, a rift opens and carried them to them familiar, dark walls of the church. Mafuyu was starstruck by this revelation and yet, she could not help but to also feel despair. She turned around and faced the glass pane visage of the Goddess Lumia, Goddess of Moon and Gentle Nights. She kneeled before it; nailing her body on the red velvet carpet.
“I do not wish to trust the words of a fiend so easily.” The priestess conflictedly claimed, “However… If there is a sliver of truth in your statement, then the foundation we call faith is nothing short of a folly; that no matter what we do or what achievements we accomplish, none of them bear any meaning. Why then must I ponder on who’s faith is absolute when the result would be the same: that all humans will be damned to the same place, far away from divinity’s embrace. What then shall my so-called “birthright” be?”
“Why view it as damnation, though?” Amia retorted, a trivial attempt at consolation, “Like I stated before, there is neither an eternal paradise or punishment. The [null] is scripted to reflect on each and every individual. When it received an ‘input’ in a form of a stray soul, it would translate said input and manifest an output in the form of the subjects very own ‘afterlife dominion’. So, if that person just so happens to be an oh-so ‘holier than thou’ entity, then maybe there’s a slight chance for their [null] to be not so different from the heaven they’ve been preaching.”
They’re explanation didn’t sound convincing at all. Input and output? Translate? Manifest? These are but fiendish gibberish in the priestess eyes. However, Mafuyu desired to acquire more knowledge. Perhaps out of curiosity or just a way of coping from the possibly despairing truth.
“Of course, demons are exception because we were born in the [null], so we kinda just instantly deemed and ‘dead’ and immediately got the “custom-made prison” of our own”
“Then if may ask, what do you see within your own [null]?”
The demon went silent. This is the first time Mafuyu saw them with a blank expression since they’ve first met each other. Amia was lost in her thoughts; finding the right words to describe her prison. Shortly after, they turned towards her and smiled before giving their answer.
“An endless maze of mirror, without an entrance or an exit. Wherever I go, I would end up more and more lost. Every time I bump into a mirror, it explodes into pieces; wounding me until there’s no more skin visible. I may bleed, I may wine, but the scars remain. Only when I stand still for what feels like 8 hours shall my wounds recover and my skin return. Then, I continue my endeavor, searching for an exit that never existed.”
“If this maze of yours is truly endless, how is it that you’re able to stand here, conversing with me?” Mafuyu enquired further.
“A tricky question indeed! For you see, since we demons have been marked as dead since the beginning, we are stripped from the right to obtain life. To compensate the unfair difficulties, we are given powers to roam the earth, but not the authority to leave our [null]s. So conceptual wise, I am physically here with you, but reality wise, my existence is still bound by the mirror maze of mine.”
But only her dead eyes remained.
“Look, I’m just as confused as you are. I don’t make the rules, buddy!”
“Then let me ask for your opinion: how do you envision my [null] shall take the form of?”
“Who knows? It’s up to the system to determine what suits you best.” Amia shrugged, before starting to snicker, “But if I’m being honest, it certainly won’t be all rainbows and sunshine since you’ve basically forfeited your fate into my hands due to our contract.”
“And I shall remain by what I stand.” the priestess finally stood up.
“I loathe these binding strings of religious pressure, and I curse the cries for salvation that are burdened onto me. The only reason I remained undaunted for so long is the thought of my fruit of labor that I shall harvest and the birthright that has been propagated to me since I was a helpless infant. Now with this revelation of yours, it only makes my initial resolution stronger; that I shall bury my already miniscule faith to the deepest pit and reduce my masquerade of devotion to null, and when the day of my death finally arrives, I shall welcome any outcome the goddess desires. Whether I shall be punished to burn and melt in the center of inferno, or to be placed in the ocean to forever drown and resurface just to drown again, or forced to stand with one foot on the mountain’s peak while rondeaus of lighting strike over and over, then it shall be done. I care not for my being, as long as the strings are no longer on me.”
“Good golly! I’ve never seen someone so eager to experience hell! You really are the best!” the demon was overjoyed, clapping and laughing hysterically. They had found a being truly worth breaking. The laugh goes on for a while before Amia composed herself, though still chuckling once a while, “If your resentment is truly resolute, then take my hand and shall be your guide in this mournful dance known as life.”
“I shall take that to heart. However, I regret to inform you that even though I have torn my connection to my faith, I am still legally bound by Carmen Hall’s judication.” the priestess walked along the red carpet and towards the church’s entrance door. “Hence, if you wish to remain, as per stated in our contract, a few regulations are in order.”
“And what might those be, if I may inquire?” asked Amia. The priestess turned the golden handle of the red pine door and opened it. A gust of the cold, night air slipped through.
“Firstly, you must always be within my sight or to remain in one place so should I desire. Secondly, you must always remain invisible to the eyes of others, except for mine. And lastly…” Mafuyu paused before turning her gaze towards them, “Should you ever need to reveal yourself, always do so under a guise of your own.”
“Then it shall be done!” Amia snapped her finger. Trails of purple dust engulfed them, transforming their attire into a black friar robe with its lower half only reaching their knees, along with a deep purple chasuble that stretched down until their elbow. Additionally, the half-halo on top of them began to disintegrate. Amia twirled once, inspecting her newly donned attire, before looking back at the priestess.
“Allow me to reintroduce myself.” the pink-haired fiend gave her a bow, “My name shall be Mizuki Akiyama, a friar from another kingdom and your humble servant.”