"Huff… Huu…Hup..!"
The Physician grasped their knees with one hand whilst the other was placed to cover their mouth.
Their arm and chest hugged the kit tightly.
What was not held tightly, was the bile threatening to spill beyond the petite skeleton the Physician had.
Sharp teeth bit into the lips and cheeks to prevent a slipping of concentration.
Despite that, the Physicians complexion worsened with an evident corrosion beginning to sprawl from the gloved hands and shoes that shook tremendously.
Sharp nails began a chain reaction of scales mixed with a vine like roots spilling from every pore of imaginable pink skin.
The strangely autumn-like hair tore off the restraint of time and rapidly increased in length. Expanding beyond the follicles initial pores with abandon to sensation of pain solely to convert this demon.
Bone stretched beneath the skin tore it wide open. A visible largening of irregular lumps crackled on the back, the bones losing shape and withering into a dull oxidized tumor sprouting. As more poured out, the coat ripped.
The crown of the Physician folded outward in pointed clumps that erupted as gracefully as the long tail that writhed through the pants and frenzied about.
A literal crown of oxidized bone formed between the roots, pushing the hair now turned mess of mass borne from a single mind to show the majesty.
Beneath the crown, two horns entirely composed of the bony folds jutted in a forward manner.
Creaking into place, the marrows snapped into place.
Imitations of wings in pairs littered the Physicians back. Continually growing.
And growing.
And growing.
The "hair" and "wings" began a fusion as if the "hair", a will of its own, spread like tendrils on the "wing" like branches. Enveloping them and dangling with more growth.
The Physician still struggled to keep the acidic reflux from exiting. The heightened slits in the eyes foretelled the great awakening fit for the demon.
There it must be accepted.
'Refusal is tantamount to forsaking what you are. What generous life you have been given from the ancestors that stood with the one at the center.'
'Accept.'
'Accept it.'
'Accept our destiny.'
'Accept our fate.'
'Accept–'
A cold metal touched the "bone" and "hair".
Startled, the Physician froze. Completely forgetting about the impurities the body wished to get rid of to complete the awakening.
It softly enveloped the Physician's head. Gently moving as slowly as it could.
The Physician could feel a slight hesitation in each tiny movement.
Eventually, the metal banged against the ground, and the greatest hesitation came from there.
The metal stopped moving briefly.
A widening desire bloomed in the physician's heart.
If, just if, a bit more.
As if given an answer, the metal moved.
Pushed forward into an embrace, the Physician with their free arm, flailed in panic before it died.
The metal was careful to not cause anything unnecessary to the Physician and their growth.
The metal hand touched on their back, and the other hand retained the same gesture.
The ruptured band of the goggles was swiftly removed. The hand—when the Physician shifted their head just slightly—adjusted accordingly.
The sound of their heart drowned the noises crashing from everywhere.
Intertwined, with only them.
Surely, like her, it was their hearts connected. Two pulses rhythmically speaking.
The pink skin around the face reddened with a burning sensation.
But it was so, so very sweet.
A vast well of warmth surges throughout the body.
The growth halts.
The cold metal the Physician feels is no longer mere metal, but the flesh underneath.
Chests expanding and resonating as one.
Time slips from the Physician's mind. Only the warmth and scent remain ever present.
Judging it to be enough, the metal retracts from the Physician.
Unceremoniously ending the comforting ticklishness and soothing her mind.
Within their dazed sloppy face with a smile the Physician's intelligence returned.
The skull that stared at them awoke the time that passed made with extreme clarity. The Physician's eyes also drifted to the free arm that refused to let go of the armor.
Immediately, the Physician let go with blinding speed.
"I-I'm sorry for my conduct!!!! Please forgive me!!!!!!!!!" a thorough embarrassment flooded the Physician's face as they bowed as quickly as they could.
The Demon Emperor unbothered by her misgivings drilled their ghastly eyes into the Physician.
Further releasing fearful thoughts into the Physician.
Who cursed themselves for existing.
"Are you fine?"
The Physician flinched.
"N–..."
The Demon Emperor moved closer.
"I-I'm fine sir!! I'm just…"
The Physician looked at the ground while fiddling with her talon like fingers.
Even with the time they've walked upon the same path, doubts exist.
The Physician that exists in name for no one.
Unlike the Retainer with a clear conviction, the demons that give their loyalty and lives, what has she been able to do? To give?
An expertise no one needs outside a tool.
The growth reactivates.
Is that not what a Physician is?
Already giving services that are helpful.
Unnecessary elements are not needed.
It must be accepted.
A practice and tool.
'Accept that.'
'Accept what we are.'
'Accept the simplicity of our life.'
'Accept and return to the source.'
They speak with certainty.
It can't be avoided.
It's meant to be.
Just like how a Physician is merely a practitioner you never get close to.
Thank them and forget.
The sands erase the names, and are never bothered to be searched for.
Only the title and service remain.
The Physician.
Does not want to listen to that.
It keeps replaying in a circle.
A deep understanding of acceptance.
But if.
But if it was just wrong.
Wrong that it becomes an end not fit for the life seeked, and does not benefit the customer…
Well it's only–
The goggles pried from the crown are held in the armored hand of The Demon Emperor.
Slowly, the Physician takes them.
Once taken, the armored hand retracts.
There is no need for these goggles. The Physician only requires the glasses in the coat's breast pocket and the kit.
"Take care of yourself."
The Physician faced the ghostly eyes of the skull.
"I need you."
The Demon Emperor stood up.
"Stay by my side."
The Physician looked at The Demon Emperor.
The scaled hands rubbed against the goggles' thick glass.
The Demon Emperor's attention was grabbed by the Retainers fight with a blind traitor.
But the Physician kept their gaze on The Demon Emperor.
A fiercer rush bloomed than before.
The growth halted again.
A thirsting and filling feeling both below and above, the Physician reveled in it.
"Thank you sir…"
In a face unbecoming, the Physician placed the goggles with both hands on their chest.
With it set, there was no need to worry.
There was no Physician.
Only a demon and their Emperor.
— — — —
The blind man, believer of the light of good, thrusted the tip forward.
The demon, quick to dodge, let out a touch of breath and retaliated with a throw of knives with hooked points. The blade thin at its hilt.
The believer had simply turned his body wholly to the side, the knives hitting nothing and landing in shapened sand.
With pinpoint precision, the believer with a slowed swing downwards, sending the needles that came after the knives right at the believers feet uselessly into the sand.
The demon scowled.
The head of the believer ever since the gash on the chest opened had always located the demon without fail.
The demon readied their stance again, the soles of the footwear dug into the sand.
Displacing the force that bound everything to the ground, the demon leapt high into the confines of the trees.
The believer still had their head merely moving.
With a glance, the demon smirked.
Cutting through the bark, the tree began to level before the force of the ground was lowered to nothing. Letting it float above.
With another leap, the demon kept cutting down the trees that reached the sky.
"Hm."
The believer quizzically tilted their head with a lighthearted smile.
With all nearby halves of trees cut, they sat in a slightly odd angle.
The demon then stepped on each one and ran to each tip of the top and with the use of their own weight, angled it to below.
With a hop that led to the next half, a kick was delivered to the end facing the sky. In a single moment, all the felled upper halves drifted slowly to the point.
With a final backwards somersault, the demon landed on the last tree in feeble drifting. Jumping away from it, the demon imagined a conical shape using the force that was at it's original, no even stronger than that.
Lowering everything else however, took a toll with both images layered.
Ignoring the creases forming on their brow, they activated the type once again.
"Oh."
The believer sucked into the focal point above, flailed weirdly before stopping.
A whistle above strove to plant itself deep into the believers skull.
"This is…"
The believer locked their head towards the demon.
—Thump!
Before another object passed the believers head, digging deeply into the ground.
"I see I've been played rather hard this time."
The believer aimlessly twisted their body in the focal point. Avoiding as many they could perceive.
Slicing those they could not avoid into two. Splinters of the wood fell everywhere before being regurgitated into the cone and then pushed to the focal point.
"Hup–!"
As if waiting their turn was boring, multiple trees pummeled the focal point.
Continuously the believer cut and cut again.
Another wave thrusted the sand high above, into being sucked in.
The gravity was let go to become the planet's crushing density of force.
"Hoo…"
The believer with their arm holding a manufactured blade beginning to crack, absurdly dragged themself out of the mashed wood with only the force of the arm.
A disorienting feeling washed over them.
Embedded chunks of wood stuck in the clothes, yet the believer came out fine.
"A strange feeling. They never said what the clothes would–"
The believer struck the dagger behind them.
"Pardon my lack of justice, but might I suggest–"
The demon let go of the dagger and it fell. With it, the believers blade stuck limply into the sand. As if it were embedded in rock.
Off balance, the believer sighed.
"The concentration that binds life here."
The demon narrowed their eyes.
"So?" they sneered.
"I can't help but feel an injustice for workers that do everything, and those that do nothing."
'Dawdlers behind fretted, movers ahead died.'
Ignoring the believers words, the demon procured another dagger and rushed the even slower to return to the stance of before believer.
"Short of breath. The air is too thin even for you, no?"
"Shut up!"
The believer with slow movements, skillfully, avoided a puncture of the throat.
Moving his arm, he even managed to check usage of anything other than the dagger.
Increasingly, the demon grew frustrated.
"Stay still and die!"
"Perhaps a refinement of accuracy is needed for an already immobile. A session of training with a doll would surely help."
"Die!! Just DIE!!!!!"
The believer leaned back as the dagger drew a thin line on the bandages.
"Hm."
With each new attack, the believer tilted his head whilst speaking nonsense to the demon.
Before the thrust to the gut, the believer had already moved in accordance to the intention sprawled in the demon's body.
When he fully turned and leaned to the right, the dagger was striking already into an imaginary bowel.
The pressure of gravity was immediately making anything in the radius the demon imagined unable to even stay normal.
The boots of the believer dragged with each step.
Air was practically nonexistent.
Still the believer spoke again and again.
"Surely such use of force is rather much for such an easy target no?"
The demon growled and threw again more knives for the believer to dodge.
Stomping forward and accelerating with a burst of controlled wind on par with a storm, the demon appeared far too quick for the believer to remain unscathed.
"Eugh–!"
The dagger fiercely dug into the shoulder, breaking the bone around the initial point. Not stopping, it went across the collarbone, finally, it exited with a tear close to the heart.
The demon landed on the crushed sand while the believer's face planted in the sand.
The weight of the planet smushes the believers body to become one with the sand.
"Ptoo–! A finely coarse taste." the believer muttered. "One I'd rather not have the pleasure to have again."
Against the crushing force, the believer begins to stand up, with a gash that the clothing has, but the skin of the believer does not.
"How?"
"I understand not."
The demon ground their teeth.
"However, it would do no good to be beaten like a rag in front of an audience."
The demon felt a piercing pain at the chest.
"It is supposed to… entertain. However it may entitle."
The believer fully stood up.
"Y-You…!!!"
The newly emerged stalactite made of blood ejected out to the other side. Creating holes and crippling the structure holding the lower half and upper half together.
"Urp–!"
The boiling inside became apparent. The flow in which it shouldn't did, rushing towards the demon's head and concentrating.
Veins stretched to their limits began to burst.
A sensationless control of limbs and body emerged.
Solidified blood punctured and liquified at the drop of the hat.
Pooling and shot out, it dyed the sand with a new mix of colour.
It would then find a new way to return back inside by forcefully making a new hole when it hardened at contact.
The demon kneeled and gasped with nothing exiting nor entering as the airway was sealed.
Blood pumped the heart to extremity, straining it to the point of near bursting.
Nerves in the eyes with too much slowly dyed the eye to the insides of iron red.
The heat obstructs any thought.
The crunching of sand buried under the destruction imminent, came closer.
"I suppose I 'win'?"
The believer raised the sword.
But stopped.
Chuckling, the blind man couldn't help but scoff at his own words.
"I seem to have forgotten my manners."
The metal creaked.
Ghastly eyes watched the blind man, a verdict burning inside.
"I, Azen of the Wandering Presence, humbly face the Emperor of the continent."
The blind man smiled.
"It was entertaining, no?"
The Emperor who ruled The Demons, stared at him.
Then as if there was nothing else to see, they turned their attention towards the Retainer.
"H-Hey… D-Did you see anything?" Dezra asked.
Marlain gulped.
In what seemed like a standoff, the moment he closed his eyes and opened them, the senior was now a lump of flesh in sand.
Unrecognizable.
The Veriturana pranced with agitated fear.
"S-So what do we do now?"
"We gotta get out of here!" the Veriturana barked out.
"D-Don't shout!"
Yet The Demon Emperor did not so much glance at them.
The Demon Emperor laid the Retainer gently on the ground.
"I… I'm sorry… my lord… I-I failed…" red tears began to pour out.
"...Pasche."
"I failed to… eliminate that filthy sun believer…."
"Pasche."
The hazy bloodshot eyes drifted to The Demon Emperor.
When those circles of sublime green flame met, her shallow breath stopped.
"It's okay to fail."
The Demon Emperor took her hand.
"When you can't figure it out, ask me. You mustn't allow it to consume you and end up like this."
The metal gauntlet tightened.
"If you get hurt again… Please."
"Y-Yes! Yes my lord!!"
The Physician slinked next to The Demon Emperor.
"Um… sir, she needs to be treated."
The Demon Emperor nodded and let go of the Retainer's hand, placing it softly on her belly.
Murderous eyes flung towards the Physician. A frown was given in return.
As The Demon Emperor looked up and saw the remaining four demons, and a new influx of believers coming, The Demon Emperor moved away. Letting two pairs of eyes coldly staring at each other.
Eye insults flying without a word.
Opening the kit, the Physician reined in the rampant thoughts and skimmed across the many assortment of tools.
Picking the viable and most necessary for the situation, and got to work.
""For the light of the good and the day!""
""For The Progenitor!""
The era of ancients who walked among the creator are no more.
Only legacy, and future remain.
With God by your side, they ask you to slaughter these blasphemous heretics.
With memory by your side, it asks you to kill these betrayers of the creator.
The faithful collide with a grey death.