Arcana's Path Ch. 05

"It is not for you to decide!"

"This Council decided it for me when they chose not to respond to Hermann Goring!" Violet snapped, "I will not allow this war to consume this world any longer! Fuck you, and fuck you all! If I have to track down and kill every magical Nazi bastard myself, I will, and there is not a damned thing any of you can do about it!"

"You're young. You don't know what you do to your soul."

Violet laughed bitterly, "Oh, don't be stupid. What's the price of one soul, versus the fate of a world? You can kill me when I'm done, if that makes you happy."

Rin stared in confusion at the scene, before she was blinded again. This time she saw Violet straight away. She was lying in a hospital bed, crying, screaming in fear, and grasping at the air. Two witches were restraining her, as another walked away, holding a naked newborn, still covered in afterbirth.

The light hit her, feeling like a punch.

"You agreed to raise her." Violet seethed at her mother in the hallway.

Another flash.

Rin saw herself walking timidly into a cafe, hands balled like fists. She saw a waitress approach her, smoothly guiding her to a seat as she felt nervous about treating herself for the first time.

She saw Violet staring in shock from the kitchen, a wooden spoon falling from her hands.

The light was brighter, before dissolving into strange speckles.

Rin took a deep breath as she found herself back on her couch, with the witch sitting beside her, tears dripping silently from her chin. Violet was holding her own hands, clenched tightly to a bright white.

"What... Was that? And what was with the Nazis? And you have a kid?"

Violet took an uncertain breath, "I was a monster... They... They punished me, by taking my daughter. My firstborn. Only kid. I could see her, but I wasn't allowed to raise her. I didn't know her. Not even her name. Not for a long time. Until one day, she walked through my door."

Rin stared uncomfortably, "You think... I'm your daughter? You were being legit about the mother-wife thing?!"

Violet shrugged.

"Answer me!" Rin screamed.

The witch looked up at her with tears in her eyes, "I never tried to be your girlfriend. But what we have is not normal, nor was it ever going to be."

She held her chest, hyperventilating. "You... My mother wasn't... What?"

"Call her." Violet said angrily and stood up, handing her the phone somehow. "I'm going to go check on Chel. Who has done something else stupid with the worst timing, ever. When I get back... I do what you say, Rin. I always end up doing what you say. You're not the slave."

She stared tearfully at her phone long after the witch was gone.

She didn't know if she wanted an answer.

Rin fumbled with the touchscreen, before putting it to her ear, "Uh... Hi, Mum."

It'd only been seven years since they last spoke.

---

"Oh... Oh, fuck!" Arcana moaned, her eyes rolling back until she heard a wet and noisy plop. She shivered, covered in a cold sweat, "Oh it feels... As good as it did, going in."

The nurse looked up at her.

She shrugged smiling, before the next egg started to pull against the edges of her womb. Stretching her wide, in a way that nobody ever could. Turning what should have been screaming agony into an earth shattering orgasm.

"Mmm! Fuck!" She groaned, panting as it popped into her vagina, filling her out. "Oooh... Shit. Oh that's... Does it count... As cheating? Kitty's gonna be mad at me."

The nurse rolled their eyes and checked the manafeed.

"Actual opin... Opinion. Please." Arcana grunted before the egg slid out of her.

The nurse sighed, "You had sex with a demon. It might have messed with your head. Demons are also mindless. Your girlfriend is the only one who can judge, Miss Astria."

"K-kitty's munda-fuck!" Arcana's eyes bulged, "Holy fuck. There's another? How many?"

The nurse looked at an ultrasound screen, "Sixty or so more to go."

"Sixty!?" Arcana said in a panic, "Astraea bled. I'm going to be... Mmm!"

The woman nodded, "Quite. You'll need at least two weeks recovery time before you even consider having sex, again. The doctor will be more precise, once we get these things out of you."

"W-why does it have... Mmm... To feel so... Fuck! Good?" Arcana complained.

---

Rin ignored the buzzing of the phone she had thrown across the room.

It was one awful goddamn revelation too many.

She had no idea why Violet would remotely think that any of this would make her feel less confused. No part of this wasn't confusing and upsetting and nauseating.

She threw up into the bin again.

Her mother hadn't confirmed the story. In point of fact, she'd outright lied the moment that Rin brought up Violet by name. Which was when she'd thrown the phone.

Twenty two years of being around that woman had been more than enough time for Rin to pick up on the lies and manipulations. She knew exactly what she sounded like when she was straying from the truth, and into the realm of make believe.

That woman wasn't her mother.

She hadn't been much of a mother when she was there, but she wasn't her actual mother, either.

Somehow... The woman she had briefly imagined screwing... Was her actual mother.

Rin threw up caramel flavoured pieces of popcorn again.

"You're actually taking it better than I expected."

She glared up at the witch, "I want to pour this over your head."

"Still better than I expected." Violet said quietly and sat down on the floor, not daring to approach the couch. She lifted her hand, looking at the cracked screen of Rin's phone, "I take it the call went great."

"She lied to me. Said she'd never heard of a Violet Waterhouse. Except I only called you Vi." Rin said through gritted teeth, "She knew you. What in the goddamn fuck, Violet?"

"I wasn't sure, at first." The witch looked down, "I didn't... I found out the other day when the Council assholes dragged me in to add new charges. Reading their thoughts. Which was after I thought you never wanted to see me again."

Rin shook her head, "Is that why we ran around all morning? You were avoiding me?"

"Kinda." Violet shrugged, "It's also way more complicated than you think it is."

"More complicated than my mother looking the same age as me and probably still sort of wants to bang me, but knows that's fucking gross?!"

"Yes. Way, way, way, way more."

Rin rubbed her temples, "Oh for... Fine! Explain this goddamn shit before you give me a goddamn aneurysm."

Violet winced, "You didn't see a father fighting to keep you when I showed you the birth. It, normally, takes two to make a baby. You're not an exception to that."

"Mum was married. Oh shit. Of course he's just my stepfather, too. They were getting me away from you." Rin winced, "Also, how did you find me when I broke my leg if you didn't know anything?"

Violet shrugged, "Because that wasn't me at the hospital when you broke your leg. It was someone else's memory. Someone I was once close to, but not anymore."

"Sister? You have a twin?"

Violet shook her head glumly, "No. I do have a sister, just not a twin. That wasn't your aunt. That was your mother. Your other mother."

"Explain before I start throwing things."

The witch held up her hands, "I'm trying! Rin. I only know half the bloody story myself. Not like I expected you to be my kidnapped daughter that the Council swore to execute the moment you were born!"

"What...?"

Violet bit her lip and burst into tears. "They stole you from me. They stole you to destroy you. Kill you. They didn't think that Dawn would care. She barely cared about me beyond knocking me up. She's... Special, Rin. There's no one else like your other mother in the entire world, and there never will be. She saved you. But she never told me anything other than you being alive. Just that one memory."

"Why does Dawn look like you?"

The witch shook her head, "That wasn't Dawn. She's magical, so she could show me the memory, but she got it from... That was... My mother."

Rin sighed, "Two witches. Of course my life is messed up. Karma for all the -"

"Dawn's not a witch."

She shrugged in exasperation, "Some other fucky magical thing, then! Doesn't fix the fact I thought about fucking my own mum!"

"She did."

Rin tossed the unicorn hard and fast to zero effect. "Make. Sense."

"Dawn was married to her mother. Eos." Violet mumbled and shrugged, "It's... Normal, for them. I am trying, Rin. Really. But I don't think there's a chance in hell you'll believe me."

She ground her teeth, "Yay. So Grandma Eos is a first-class pervert. That doesn't make this better! Or make any more sense!"

"The word erotic comes from Eos. Her name. Your grandmother's name. So she is definitely a first-class pervert." Violet scratched nervously at the floor. "Eos invented the orgy, too. And all sex-derived magic is based on her fundamentals. Prayer-through-sex was her... To her."

Rin narrowed her eyes, "Are you saying I'm the granddaughter of some mythic bitch that was such a horny cunt her name meant sex because that's how she lived?"

"Lives. She's not dead."

She sighed heavily, "Eugh. I guess... It kind of makes sense. Chelsea said the more powerful you are, the slower you age. And Grandma Eos sounds like she would have been powerful."

Violet winced, "She's immortal, actually. Please don't make me say it out loud. It'll just sound stupid and unbelievable."

"I... The girl with a shit and pointless life... Am the granddaughter of a goddess?" Rin raised an eyebrow, "You're right. It sounds like bullshit."

Violet exploded, "Why?! Because the gods have always given a fuck about us, haven't they? They totally stepped in to help out when we were trying to nuke ourselves into oblivion! Or when we killed a million people overnight with machetes! Or when we had secret police kicking down doors!"

"Exactly. Gods would have..." She trailed off. The Greek gods wouldn't have cared. Not unless someone had offended them directly. "Oh. They don't care."

"Not a fuck." Violet shook her head, "I loved your mother, Rin. She got me pregnant, taught me a few tricks as if to fuckin' pay me like a prostitute, and then went back to screwing her own mother. Never gave me another thought. Just left me to pick up the pieces."

Rin had an epiphany. "You hate witches. All witches. That's why you never joined another coven. No one was ever there for you. Just hurting you."

Violet nodded.

She slid onto the floor in front of the couch, "And then along I come. You don't know me. You just feel like you need to. And then you find out you're dying so you try and save me from myself as a final act."

She nodded again.

Rin leaned her head back, "Wow. Fuck you, Dawn."

"Don't piss her off. She's a massive cocksucking dick. She won't care that you're her daughter, she'll just hurt you." Violet whispered.

She looked over at the defeated witch, "Want to curl up in bed and cry yourself to sleep beside me?"

Violet nodded her head, hands going around the unicorn and tucking it under her chin.

---

Kitty snorted and shook her head. She peeled her cheek away from the pillow painfully, leaving a trail of slime on both. She groaned and stretched, feeling a tightness in her back that she hadn't had for a while.

She sat up, and frowned, piecing together where she was. Friend's apartment... Arcana's apartment. Way too much magic crap to be anywhere else. And nobody else owned anything hardly this nice.

She had been asleep on the couch.

Had she done something...?

Kitty rubbed her eyes and shook her head, feeling weird. Last thing she could remember was some blue-haired freak spouting a bunch of nonsense that sounded almost religious. Near giant mushroom houses.

Knowing Arcana made it damn hard to shuffle reality and dreams in the mornings.

She blinked in surprise, raising her hands as a small animal bumped into her, before smiling and patting the small green dragon snuggling into her leg. A different shade to the last one she'd seen. "She got another one of you, huh? Ya cute. You going to grow up into sometin' I can fly, hard and fast?"

The dragon let out a growl that might have been a purr. Or it might have been swearing at her. Without the trainer with the magic ear around, she hadn't a clue.

Kitty wandered over to the bedroom and knocked on the door, "Uh, Arcana? Ya there? Ya still mad at me?"

After a moment of silence she risked opening it. The door swung slowly inwards with a creak and revealed a bed that was unmade, but was exactly the way the two of them had left it the other morning, before Japan. Arcana hadn't slept there last night.

She scratched at her head, and walked around the apartment. The only evidence that she could find of anything at all was that the lounge room was slightly tidier than they had left it.

And her own impression on the couch.

There was no magical girl to be found in the entire gigantic apartment. There was a library, and an office and they weren't even the same damned room. How exactly did Arcana afford this without her mother?

Kitty felt a swell of rage as she remembered what that bitch had done. Stealing Arcana and her time from her. Killing off her own daughter instead of letting her go her own way.

Even her own father wasn't that much of a dick.

She rolled her eyes and sat back down on the couch. Not much she could do with Arcana missing, and maybe she did feel like her dad was less of a prick now that she had met a worse parent.

Kitty pulled out her phone, and looked at the blank screen. Maybe it was better that it was flat, so she wouldn't say something to him that she would regret.

Like forgiving him.

She tossed it aside, unable to be bothered to find a charger for it.

"This is whack." She complained to the dragon, who climbed up and into her lap, curling up.

Kitty got a rush from being chosen by the creature, but it was instantly soured by the fact that she had no idea where her trainer was. She stroked the scaled creature on the head, finding an itchy spot just behind one of its horns that it seemed to like being scratched.

She glared blankly at the room.

Sitting still had never really been her thing, but the dragon sort of made that one hard to deal with. Couldn't exactly take off somewhere on her bike with the thing in her lap.

Where in the hell was Arcana?

Kitty jumped when her phone rang, and stared at it in surprise. She was sure the damn thing had been flat, or at least off. She picked it up, and saw that a private number was calling.

"Eh?"

The voice on the other side of the line was crisp and formal, "Am I speaking to... Kitty de Sheouvre? My name is unimportant, but I am a member of the Emergency Response Team. There was a demonic event last night, that you were involved in."

She frowned slowly, "Don't 'member that. But Arcana's not around."

"That is the reason that I'm calling you. To inform you about the events that you are unlikely to recall." The voice replied, "Do you have a moment?"

"My phone was flat, wasn't it?" She said suspiciously.

"We have charged it for you. The call won't be dropping out, if that is your concern."

Kitty rolled her eyes, "Whatever. Lay it."

"Shortly after you returned from Otherworld, a spike in demonic activity was detected in your approximate location. This was detected by the Emergency Response Team who reached out to Miss Astria." The voice explained to her, "Upon doing so, Miss Astria found a second managuise that was latched onto your soul. Do you recall the first incident?"

She cringed, remembering being covered in the black stuff. "Yeah. It sucked."

"Unfortunately, it appears that the managuise that was dragged out of you in that incident was not alone, and was never alone. This isn't a common event. Neither the emergency team nor Miss Astria would have been expecting to find a second." The voice defended themselves.

She rolled her eyes, "Barely know what a mana-whatever is. Apparently carryin' one for a while is weird. Guessin' two is weirder."

"Eh... Yes. It is extremely odd to be infected by more than one managuise and not immediately commit suicide." The voice was taken aback, "However, upon trapping this second managuise, Miss Astria asked us for assistance, as she did not believe it to be alone."

Kitty winced, unable to picture Arcana asking anyone for help. "That sounds bad."

"It was. It was very bad." The voice replied calmly, but hesitantly. "The team arrived almost immediately and were able to subdue the third managuise as it was attempting to couple with Miss Astria. However, in doing so, they awoke the rest that were lying dormant inside your soul, who then proceeded to attack the response team."

Kitty swallowed nervously, "Arcana was attacked, because of me? Shit. Ya better be about to tell me she's in one piece."

"It is important that you understand the scale of this event. There were not two or three managuise infecting you. You should be feeling different, lighter. The response team was forced to call for backup, and a specialist, after they were also attacked. The specialist pulled some three hundred demons from your soul."

She felt her cheek twitch, "Right. That sounds bad. If ya expectin' me to get it though, give up. I'm not magic. What's that shit ya call people like me? Mundane?"

"There has never been anyone who survived a triple-infection by a managuise." The voice said urgently, "You survived a hundred times that number, and not just for the space of a few moments, but for years. You may not have magical talent, but you are utterly unique. An unknown to our world. The news of your survival has... Gone viral. You need to expect paparazzi and reporters the moment you leave the apartment."

"Well, shit." Kitty cursed. "Now, ya be tellin' me what happened to Arcana. 'Cause ya avoidin' it."

"The response team was hospitalised from their injuries. Two of them are not expected to make it." The voice said sympathetically, "The specialist was also injured, but was discharged early this morning. They have requested that they escort you, to Miss Astria. So that they can explain what you can expect."

Kitty bit her lip, "Just fuckin' tell me."

"Miss Astria is currently in a critical condition. She is being held in a place somewhat similar to a hospital, but specialises in demonic related injuries. It is not a place that you can find without help. When you are ready, we will send the specialist to escort you to see her."

She felt herself grabbing the side of her head in stress, fingernails nearly tearing through her skin as the enormity hit her. "She dyin'? I mean, I know she already was... But because of me?"

"Her condition is critical. At this point in time, it could go either way. It would be better if the specialist was to speak to you about this." The voice replied.

Kitty took a deep breath, "Send 'em. I wanna see her. Now."

"Yes, miss. I've sent the details to the specialist. Now, remember what I said about the media. You will be assaulted by flashing spells and cameras. It is an assault on the senses. You need to stay calm and try and simply keep walking."

She ground her teeth together, thinking about it. "Take it ya don't want me ta hit nobody."

"That would... Worsen your situation. The media would rather enjoy making a big deal out of your violent history."

Kitty winced, "What do you know about my history?"

"Your criminal file was leaked to the press sometime this morning, I am afraid. Including private details from your mother's funeral that should have been sealed."

"Fuck."

"Indeed. You have a difficult morning ahead of you. The specialist will be able to put you in touch with a number of people that can help you form a safety net. Please, take advantage of them." The voice stated, "Ah. The specialist has arrived at your building. I am deeply sorry for all that has happened, Kitty."