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Devilish Impulses	By : Arianawray Category: > Black Butler (Kuroshitsuji ???) Views: 13948 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 2
Disclaimer: I do not own Kuroshitsuji or any of its characters, and I do not make any money from these writings.

Chapter List
- 1-Unwanted
- 2-Whim
- 3-Trust
- 4-Taste
- 5-Scheme
- 6-Command
- 7-Competition
- 8-Advice
- 9-Enlightenment
- 10-Sustenance
- 11-Caught
- 12-Breath
- 13-Arms
- 14-Inflammation
- 15-Imagination
- 16-Intent
- 17-Compromise
- 18-Sacrifice
- 19-Despair
- 20-Compassion
- 21-Interest
- 22-Equality
- 23-Mentor
- 24-History
- 25-Disorder
- 26-Reputation
- 27-Gifts
- 28-Admission
- 29-Watching
- 30-Bonds
- 31-Revelations
- 32-Confrontation
- 33-Struggle
- 34-Separation
- 35-Duty
- 36-Change
- 37-Together
- 38-Love
- 39-Epilogue: Heaven
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Whim

Sebastian leaves Ciel's bedroom, chased by wisps of the boy's displeasure nipping at his heels like dogged little imps. As he traverses the maze-like passageways of the mansion, he considers that all this is the direct consequence of what he did on the night when everything and nothing changed.

He sees the scene as clearly as if it were before him now.

The setting is as it ought to be, as they have both intended it to be. In the stillness at the heart of the demon-made island, the boy waits silently to be destroyed. He thinks he is as good as dead regardless of the devil preparing to feast on him, but he does not know that he is as alive as he ever was. The near-mortal wounds he sustained in the final battle with the enemy have been healed by powers beyond his comprehension.

The massive cypresses looming over the crumbling courtyard are apt witnesses to the act to come, so closely associated are they with sadness and death. Sebastian, temporarily one-armed, removes his remaining glove with his teeth and caresses the child's face with his bare hand, smoothly slipping the eye-patch off him. The scrap of silk floats to the ground under the stone bench on which the earl sits.

The child is brave, asking for not an ounce of mercy or gentleness. But Sebastian believes he knows better. He knows from centuries of experience how the boldest of them shudder at the last, always. Standing in front of the bench, he bends down and leans in very close to the boy, anticipating even from this most resolute of creatures just a little resistance, hesitation, and perhaps, at the final moment, terror.

Nothing but the widening of those beautiful eyes, followed by their closing steadily, as if in quiet determination to sleep.

Nothing but that.

As good as nothing at all.

He waits a second longer – one fatal second in which an irresistible impulse of amusement steals into his devilish soul and takes over.

"What? Not putting up a fight?" he murmurs next to Ciel's left ear.

The boy starts, for that was the moment he had expected his life to end and his soul to be seized. "I said you could have me," he replies, both annoyed by the taunt and thrown off balance by the unforeseen pause. "It was a promise. I am not about to break my promise."

"Even so – no terror? No resistance?" Sebastian's voice holds a hint of mirth. "I am a little disappointed, Young Master. I do love the frantic throes of prey whose struggles against me are so futile."

"This is what we have both been waiting for, so get on with it," Ciel snaps. "Whether I struggle or not is beside the point. Do what our contract states you may once I have achieved my objectives. I have achieved them, and you are to proceed with the final part of our bargain."

A thrill surges through Sebastian as he hovers, fangs poised an inch from the face of the boy who has closed his eyes again and bared his throat. He loves devouring his prey, especially such delicious little morsels as the one before him now. But then... he has devoured so many before. Perhaps it is time for something new. His instincts warn him of danger – the danger of not fulfilling his contract, the danger of disobeying an order from one to whom he is still bound, the danger of opening a new door to a world he has never navigated before. Despite those instincts sounding their alarm bells, Sebastian perversely pushes on, breaches the barrier, breaks new ground, even as he feels the bone, flesh and skin of his severed arm extending from the wound, forcing their way back into existence.

It is such a simple word. One single, brief and fatal word filled with all the demonic sincerity in the netherworld: "No."

There it goes. Just like that. The covenant, the agreement, the dark world they have built. Crumbling, crumbling, crumbled.

"No?" Ciel echoes in disbelief, his eyelids snapping open. "What did you...?"

The mark of the covenant is gone from his right eye, gone from the back of the devil's freshly regrown left hand.

"D-did you just break the covenant?" Ciel gasps.

"I did."

"Why?" the child's cry is not a cry of triumph, but of anger. "You promised! I have nothing further to live for. Take me now!"

Again, the plain word: "No."

"What is wrong with you?" Ciel demands.

"Nothing is wrong with me," the demon replies. "But I begin to wonder, little earl, if something might not be wrong with you – granted, many things have always been wrong with you, but this is quite absurd. Not one protest, not one plea, not one scream? How unsettling. You are clearly off. For the record, I do not enjoy being afflicted by bouts of food poisoning."

"Damn you," Ciel growls. "I've made myself ready, so proceed! This is an order!"

"The contract is breached. You have no power to order me to do anything. If you are so determined to die, there are numerous ways to achieve that without my help. This game no longer amuses me."

He straightens up to tower over Ciel, and gazes down at the furious boy for several moments before he turns to walk away, saying: "I shall do you the favour of taking you back to the mainland."

"You can take yourself back to hell or wherever you came from," Ciel mutters.

"Ah. Of course you are free to refuse my offer," he smiles in a manner intended to display his fangs, something which the butler Sebastian would never do to his master, but which the unleashed devil has no qualms about. "You may choose to starve here, or perhaps wait for the arrival of another unholy creature to do with you as it pleases."

No answer comes from the child. As the demon continues to stride away from the courtyard, he hears footsteps on the flagstones behind him, so he keeps walking. But he realises at once that the footsteps are growing fainter instead of louder, moving away from him. Very well, if the child wants to lose himself in this dark island, so be it. He has offered him transport back to London, and has had that offer declined.

As he reaches the beach, however, curiosity prompts him to wonder: What is that young fellow thinking?

The devil finally stops and turns around.

The boy, he sees, has made his way to one of the numerous cliff edges that carve up and outline this unholy isle. Without once turning his head to cast so much as a backward glance at the one who came so close to devouring him – the demon finds that the most insulting part of it – the child calmly leans forward and drops himself over the precipice.

The brat!

Wounded pride, or thoughtless instinct, or foolish impulsiveness – whatever the force may be – propels the dark being into flight, for when the boy's fall begins, it is unexpectedly unacceptable to him.

In half a second, he covers the distance between the beach and the edge of the cliff, and in another half-second, spans the gap between the cliff edge and the plummeting child. He snatches the young earl from certain destruction and bears him back onto the solid stone of the island's surface.

"What a ridiculous creature you are," he remarks, looking down at the little figure in his arms.

Ciel is breathless from tumbling through the air, and the shock of being caught inches from the rocks in the water below. But he finds his tongue soon enough, for he says coldly: "You told me I could die without your help."

"Since when have you done everything that I tell you to do?" he returns.

"What do you want from me?" The young one is angry now, starting to physically resist being clasped to the ancient being's chest.

His former butler sets him down on his feet, and explores his own impulses with growing interest before saying: "Curiously enough, I believe it would please me to see you live, at least for now."

"What?"

"Why groom a prize-winning show horse to be the very best it can, only to slaughter it for meat in its prime?" comes the rhetorical remark.

"What does it matter to one such as you if it is a show horse, as long as you want to devour it? Which I thought you did."

"You have not been an easy steed to groom, obstinate little earl. My efforts to ensure that you conducted yourself as would befit my service, your dignity and rank; that you properly learnt the finer skills one of your birth ought to learn; and that you were perfectly fed and turned out appear now to have made you rather more amusing to me, but alas, have not improved your flavour."

"I am not here to amuse you," Ciel growls, his small hands balling into tight fists.

"That isn't for you to say at present," responds the other as he gazes at him with mischief in his eyes, which do not look at all like Sebastian's eyes. "I have had souls enough, but it has been a long time since I derived such entertainment from a potential meal." He speaks in a manner both wry and haughty – the kind of speech Sebastian would never make.

"I said I was not here to–"

"Yes, you think you are not here to entertain me. But as our former connection has been severed, you could be anything now. If you do not enjoy the thought of being my toy, little one, let us make a new agreement," proposes the devil.

"I've had enough of you and your slippery agreements," Ciel declares.

"Have you, now? What can you possibly do without a contract with me?"

"Don't be ridiculous. If you don't want to take me, I don't need you any more."

"You won't need me if you die. But I have just now decided that I will not permit you to end your own life. Therefore, you are to live. If you live, you will need me. And I will be by your side only if we have a contract."

"Your contracts are worth less than the dirt under my shoes," Ciel hisses. "I don't want you."

"Then you shall be on your own, with no assistance from me, save that at any time your existence is endangered, I shall prevent your demise, then withdraw like a shadow. With your impossible responsibilities and the demands of your social rank, I promise you that such a life would be a fate worse than... well, than death. Unfortunately."

"That does not trouble me in the least."

"Perhaps it does not trouble you. But will the Phantomhive name fare so well when the incumbent earl cannot carry out his work policing the underworld? If you carry on weakly, with no backing, your good name will turn to dirt as one failure succeeds the next. How will your fiancée live when you have lost your power? Her mother, your aunt, was born a Phantomhive. She knows full well what her family is capable of. She has grudgingly admired your ability to uphold the family reputation despite your youth. Will she be so pleased with you when she realises what a helpless child you are? If she should still commit her daughter to your care, what will the poor girl be marrying into, if she becomes your wife when you have grown hopelessly inefficient, toothless, unprotected?"

"How dare you, Sebastian?" Ciel demands. "How dare you make such despicable threats?"

"I was hardly threatening you; I merely stated the facts. But if you prefer to think I was making threats, then at least know that I am no longer 'Sebastian' now that the contract is broken. Don't you realise whom you have been speaking with for the past five minutes? This is who and what I am, little one," his interlocutor reminds him with the kind of cold smile he reserves for adversaries. How quickly the child forgets what he is. "This is what I am like uncollared, untamed, uncontracted. I am a devil, after all, and there are many things I dare to do and say when I am not bound to a master. Do you even understand that I am offering you what I have not offered another human soul in all my centuries of existence? I am asking to give you my services instead of waiting for you to beg for them, in a contract that will be advantageous to you and challenging to me, one that will not require you to meet an end at my hands – unless you genuinely desire that when we reach the end of the new covenant."

"It ought to end now!" Ciel protests. "There's nothing – nothing at all for me..."

His words taper off as he struggles with his physical and emotional fatigue, his anger, his confusion. After all, he is but a child.

The devil sees that to push him hard now would only send the boy defiantly over the edge – both the literal edge of hundreds of more attempts to end his life, and the figurative edge of his temper. So he gathers together the fragments of what used to be Sebastian, and presents them carefully before his former master again. He goes down on one knee before him, straightens his ribbon-tie which has gone askew, and says with Sebastian's smile: "That is why I do not want to devour you. You are suspiciously eager to die, and I find myself oddly uninterested in humouring you at this point. Perhaps you would like to make an agreement with me that you will carry on until you truly wish to live, and then I shall kill you and consume your soul?"

That rouses the child's logical mind and irks him enough to stir his contempt. "What a stupid idea," Ciel states coldly. "If I will indeed exist until I am happy to live, why in all the hells would I want you to consume me then?"

The one who was once Sebastian continues to present his butler's fangless smile. "That is why we should not make such a foolish contract. I can be all that I was to you again, bound to obey your orders, bound to you. In return, be all that I have seen you to be these three years. Become all that you ought to be, all that I can groom you into, without compromise. If, at the end of five years you are certain that you no longer wish to be associated with me, say the word and I shall disappear from your life forever. If you decide that you want to die, then die by whatever means appeal to you – I shall not stop you, even if you demand that I devour you – although I suspect that eating you even then will make me rather ill."

"Do you think me a fool?" Ciel asks. "No one serves another without reward – you once said so."

"I have many ways of deriving satisfaction from the things I do. Consuming souls is but one of them."

He remains on one knee. Ciel's face is on a level with his. The boy regards him angrily. For one who has lived only thirteen years, five must feel like a very long time. But soon, the resentment in his deep-blue gaze cools, and gradually steels with a new determination.

He asks: "How do I know that you will keep your word when the time comes, when you so easily broke our previous contract at its very end?"

"The previous contract was one in which I always had more power than you, little earl, despite the power that I allowed you to control every move I made. This new agreement I am proposing will not be half as easily broken by me, because I am the one who seeks it."

The child considers his proposal for some time. At last, he speaks with a mixture of disgust, exasperation and resignation in his aristocratic voice: "Very well. You will be my faithful hound again, for five more years."

"We shall need blood to seal this covenant."

Ciel stoically holds his arm out, but the devil shakes his head. "Not this time – this time I am the one who wishes to be bound to you. My blood is what we need."

A cut in the wrist from a dagger-sharp claw and a spilling of demon blood precede a careful spelling out of the detailed terms of the agreement between the pair. The new contract is alive. The symbols have returned to the child's eye and the devil's hand. The covenant is dead; long live the covenant.

"Are you Sebastian again?" questions the boy, suspiciously.

The familiar answer comes, in the familiar voice: "Yes, my lord."

A devil has no pity.

A devil shows no mercy.

A devil does not love.

But he may know whims and fancies, moods and curiosity, lust and desire. And sometimes, an entire world can be changed on a whim.

=================

Note on terminology: In this fic, Sebastian is a devil as defined by Judeo-Christian tradition, and as the people of Victorian England would understand a devil to be. Within those Judeo-Christian and Victorian traditions, the terms "devil" and "demon" are interchangeable when they are used to refer to minor devils. Satan, considered the chief of all devils, is usually the only one referred to as "The Devil", with a capital "D". Every other devil/demon gets a small "d".

But as this fanfic is after all based on a Japanese manga/anime, I do not want to neglect those traditions either. Fortunately, the Judeo-Christian and Japanese terminologies are not too much at odds with each other here. In the manga, Sebastian refers to himself as an "akuma", which translates to "evil spirit" or "devil". He never, as far as I can tell, calls himself a "youkai", which is most often translated into English as "demon", although it is arguably not as accurate a translation as Japanese speakers would like it to be.

So by and large, I will be describing Sebastian as a devil in this story. But in a nod to how the largely Protestant folk of Victorian-era England would think of "devil" and "demon" as two words for the same creatures, I will also refer to him as a demon, or a fiend, or whatever other synonyms are understandable. I simply wish to clarify that in no way does any reference to him as a "demon" in this story relate to the Japanese meaning of "youkai".
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Devilish Impulses