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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
- 32
- 33
- 34
Struggle

They hear the cry as soon as they step through the slit of light that admits them to the space where they believe they will find Sebastian.

"Mortals!"

They hear it, but do not understand it, for it is not uttered in a human language. In any case, they hardly notice the shouts, so astounded are they by what they see. Not one of them has ever witnessed such a sight in his or her life, and the magnitude of what Sebastian is up against hits them full in the face.

They are in a vast, featureless sphere, as if they have been shut into an impossibly large, round white box whose smooth inner surfaces emanate light. Filling this space, all around them above their heads, are hundreds – no, thousands – of warlike creatures not of their world, sporting wings, fangs, clawed hands that are weapons in themselves, delicate hands grasping strange swords and staffs, beautiful faces, terrifying faces, magical auras, fairy glamour, flesh like light, flesh like mist, flesh like sapphire, eyes and hair of impossible colours. Countless others lie broken on the ground, bones crushed, wings torn.

Alone in the centre of it all, hovering in mid-air by some power which Ciel has never known him to possess, is Sebastian's dark-clad figure, upright but very still, and covered in blood.

"Sebastian!" Ciel cries. He attempts to rush forward, to get closer to his demon, but Agni holds him back.

The devil seems to realise only now, after everyone else has seen for themselves, that humans are here, his master among them. He turns his head and sees Ciel, and for the first time since he entered this space, a look of fear rises into his garnet eyes.

"Sebastian! Stop this now!" Ciel calls out frantically. "This is not your war. This was never your war! It's my battle. Step away and let me face what I must!"

He struggles against Agni's hold, but the man will not let him go – not into the midst of all these terrifying creatures above and before them.

"Is that the child?" asks the fairy king from high above their heads. "Is that the boy who is the only offspring of the previous head of Phantomhive?"

He speaks, however, in the ancient tongue of the immortals. None of the humans understand such speech, while the immortals present either do not know the answer, or do not wish to reply. The king repeats his question, this time in English, directing it to the earl: "Are you the Phantomhive child?"

"I am Ciel Phantomhive!" the earl answers boldly. "Whatever cursed magic bound the fate of my family to that of your people, and to the balance of the world, the burden has fallen to me, not Sebastian. He has nothing to do with this. Leave him be, and deal with me instead!"

"Bold words, young mortal," an angel speaks. "But your demon has taken your burden upon himself. You cannot change that. Even if he had not, we would never have had to deal with you in this fashion, for you are merely human. When you were chained to the balance of the world and to so many of the immortals here, all was well for us. As a human, you had no authority to rule the balance; you were its victim, waiting to be beaten down each time you grew too strong. But a great devil shielding you while your power grows – or worse, chained to the scale in your stead – has full capacity to manipulate the equilibrium of all our worlds. That is a catastrophe of vast proportions that may damn us all. Nothing you do can alter our need to destroy him, if we are not to leave ourselves and everyone else at his mercy for as long as he exists."

"But he isn't doing this for power!" Ciel answers furiously. "He's doing it to save me! Let him be! I take full responsibility for his actions!"

"Go home, Young Master," Sebastian speaks tiredly from where he hovers, far beyond Ciel's reach. "I never wanted you to see this." Blood drips off his fingertips, off his shoes. Ciel desperately hopes the blood belongs to someone else, but in his heart, he knows it is mostly Sebastian's.

A devil at the far end of the sphere laughs loudly, surprising everyone. "I never heard such naive ideas," he mocks. "Doing it to save you? Who would believe that? Look at you – pathetic little morsel, hardly enough to fill a single one among those of us who care to devour your kind. What demon would sacrifice himself for you? Can't you tell he is doing this solely for power?"

"You don't know him at all!" Ciel yells.

"The ability of humans to delude themselves is infinite," the devil remarks. "I've known him for thousands of years, foolish child. But a mortal's self-deception only makes the job of a demon so much easier, does it not?"

The devil swoops towards Ciel. Agni pulls the earl behind him, and Baldroy sticks the muzzle of a gun into the demon's face.

"Back off, unless you want a bad headache," Baldroy snarls. "If you are what I think you are, I might not be able to kill you, but I can promise you I'll make you sore as hell."

"When I called on your Sebastian the night before last," sneers the devil. "I should have slipped into the manor before he erected that damned shield and toyed with all of you a little, for my amusement. Especially you, little mortal."

The demon reaches a hand out towards Ciel, whom Agni has pushed behind him, and Baldroy pulls the trigger. The devil staggers back in pain – but only by one step, before he roars and spits the bullet back out towards the chef, aiming for the space between his eyes. A swift blur of black is all Baldroy sees in the split second that he thinks he is a dead man, before it sinks in that Sebastian has dived, caught the bullet between his thumb and finger, and interposed himself between his fellow-demon and his humans.

The butler calmly pockets the bullet and says evenly to the demon: "Azazel, you know better than to believe that I would have let you anywhere near my humans the night before last, or that I will permit you to touch them now. You of all beings ought to remember that you have no authority to harm mortals who are innocent of our doings, or innocent of evil."

Other demons seem to agree with their adversary, for they murmur amongst themselves before one of them speaks: "Azazel, he speaks true. We do not have the authority to harm that human male you almost killed. Watch your moves."

Azazel flicks his splendid black wings, shaking off the criticism. He knows all about humans, and the laws by which his kind may interact with them. In fact, he takes great pride in the antiquity of his knowledge, for he it was who first taught the people of the earth all manner of arts and skills. But that was a very long time ago, when he was an angel of heaven, and he has since grown bitter and full of hate. He studies Ciel, then leans toward the group of humans again, saying to his fellow devils: "We may not have the authority to kill that man, but the little earl is not off limits, is he, as he once sold his soul to one of us?"

The fiend extends his right wing. A feather almost brushes Ciel's cheek, but Sebastian kicks the wing away before swivelling on his supporting leg and sending Azazel flying backwards with a second blow of his foot directly to his belly.

The demon butler turns back to face his humans, and drops to one knee. At once, Ciel wriggles free of Agni's protective grasp and throws his arms around his bleeding, battered devil. Sebastian's arms twine about Ciel's back as the boy buries his face in the raven hair, not caring that it is slick with blood.

"Mister Sebastian! Look out!" Agni shouts the warning as Azazel wings in towards Sebastian's back, claws extended.

Too fast for ordinary eyes to see – only Agni observes what happens – Sebastian holds Ciel tightly, springs into the air just far enough to evade Azazel, and comes straight back down again to stamp him into the ground before kicking him away towards his horde of devils, cautioning them: "Advise your leader better, or he and all of you will pay the price according to the rules of heaven and hell for devils who destroy innocent humans of their own free will."

He soars into the air, to the lonely point at the very centre of the sphere of armies around them, his arms wrapped as tightly around Ciel as Ciel's are around him.

"I didn't know you could fly," Ciel whispers into his devil's neck.

"I can't fly while I am in a contract – even a shred of a contract such as ours has become," Sebastian replies softly, nuzzling the boy's hair. "But such powers as I have acquired, and the way I have made this space to be, allow me to hover."

"Fool," the earl breathes.

"Guilty as charged, my lord."

Ciel finds he cannot get another word out of his mouth while choking back the great sob that is forming a lump in his throat, born of both relief and despair. He has not forgotten his threat to beat the sense back into Sebastian's head, but he lacks the heart to do that now, when Sebastian is so badly injured, their situation so dire, and he does not know if they can get past these creatures...

Their moment of private peace is short-lived, as the leaders of several of the races gathered think the matter has dragged on long enough, and order their warriors to resume their assault on Sebastian.

"Enough of this, demon," a rogue angel calls out. "Put the child down, and let us finish this war."

Sebastian returns to the ground and tries to set Ciel on his feet, but the boy clings to him, refusing to let go. Losing patience, a rogue angel, then a soul reaper, then an elf, and a nymph hurtle in their turn towards the devil to continue the fight that had been interrupted by the arrival of the humans.

Apart from the devil-army, none of the other species represented in this war has any direct quarrel with or claim on Ciel. Thus, the four who now fly at Sebastian aim at the devil only, and take care to avoid the child. However, it quickly becomes evident to them that the devil's only priority is to shield the boy, for he takes blow after blow on his back while cradling the earl to his chest, a protective hand over his head, the other wrapped tightly around his body. He takes to the air again to give himself more room for manoeuvre, but continues shielding the boy at his own expense. Ciel struggles, yells and pleads with Sebastian to defend himself, but his demon-lover is deaf to his frantic commands.

Below them, all their human friends are crying. Lizzie, Soma and Finny especially are in floods of tears. Despite Lizzie's dawning realisation that Ciel and Sebastian are intimate in a way beyond what she had ever imagined, she is too tender-hearted not to feel the pain of the cruel blows Sebastian is sustaining to keep his master safe from so much as an accidental wound.

They gain unexpected relief when the leaders of those battering Sebastian suddenly recall their warriors. It has become evident to them that the devil at the centre of this battle may have been telling the truth after all when he claimed purely to want to save the boy from the damnation of an ambitious yet petty spell which is rapidly spiralling out of control.

"My friend," Azazel laughs, pushing his troops aside to return to the fore. "Don't you think you've carried this act too far? You have always had a remarkable ability to lose yourself in the roles you played, but this is taking it beyond anything you ever have. End the drama. Return to your senses, devour the child, and listen to me. Our prince sent me here with specific instructions concerning you. Our armies were to join with the other armies in destroying you if you proved a genuine threat to all our worlds. But he also instructed me to observe you while we fought, to see if you might not be an ally to him instead of a threat to us all."

Sebastian, breathing hard and shedding great streams of blood, continues to hold Ciel in a tight embrace as he hovers at the centre of the circle. No one can tell if he is listening to Azazel.

"Do you hear me?" Azazel continues. "You know that the cosmic forces of balance you are chained to cannot touch God or heaven, neither can they touch Lucifer or those first angels cast out with him. Your power may wreck the rest of hell, but Lucifer and his prime devils are beyond it, just as all of heaven is beyond it. You may well become a greater power than Lucifer himself, but he will still have his untouchable, original kingdom of hell while you tinker with the dregs of the other hells you have shattered. Instead of weakening both of you by damaging much property that could be your centre of command and hinterland, would it not make greater sense to allow Lucifer to extend his protection of untouchability to you and the power you have seized? Then you will have all the authority and resources you desire in an intact hell under him, while he gives you free rein to terrorise every other world besides heaven, in his name and yours."

"Bastards!" Grelle Sutcliff screams dramatically from the opposite corner of the sphere. "You're supposed to be standing with the rest of us for once, instead of striking your own ignoble bargains!"

William T. Spears holds up a hand to silence Grelle, and says much more calmly than his scarlet responsibility: "If you demons are planning to employ Sebastian Michaelis for your own ends by offering him the sanctuary of Lucifer's untouchable hell, then the rest of the immortal races will be obliged to wage war on the infernal worlds. Is that what you want?"

"What do I care about upsetting the rest of the immortal races when all I need to do is to please my prince, the greatest devil that ever there was and ever will be – and in time to come, his second-in-command, who will surely become the second-greatest demon ever to exist?" he asks, sweeping into a playful bow to Sebastian. "Come, my old friend – it is an easy choice. Be destroyed by us all here, or take our prince's offer and reign supreme over the rest of these miserable races gathered before us for endless ages."

"Scoundrels!" Grelle shrieks. "I always knew not a single one of you could be trusted!"

"Shut up," comes a penetrating snarl from Sebastian himself, causing the entire sphere to fall silent as everyone waits to see what his answer to Azazel will be.

"Well, my friend?" Azazel presses.

"I told you not to call me that," the butler growls. "You are no friend of mine. My friends are there below you, standing boldly on the ground of a place no other humans would have dared enter. And my only allegiance is here, in my arms. Tell Lucifer to stuff his offer up his underused arse."

"Is that all the answer you have for your prince?" Azazel snarls.

"That is all."

"Traitor," the other demon intones menacingly. At a wave of his arm, the army of devils pours toward Sebastian. Sebastian swoops through the air towards Agni, who knows what he must do. The Brahmin takes Ciel and pulls him out of Sebastian's arms even as the boy struggles to hold on to his devil.

With Ciel out of harm's way for the time being, Sebastian soars into the air again and grapples with his demon brethren-turned-foes, smiling coldly at them while coolly dispatching as many as he can, clawing, punching and kicking with devastating accuracy.

"Seize the child," Azazel rumbles an order to the devils at the rear of the pack. "He's fair game, unlike the others."

"My lord, stay between me and Agni!" Baldroy shouts, once he sees the terrifying squad of dark-winged devils homing in on the boy like arrows. The chef and Agni keep their backs to each other, Ciel between them, while Lizzie and Soma are shepherded to either side of the earl, Mey-Rin and Finny protecting them.

In seconds, the little group of humans is smothered by a canopy of wildly beating wings of black, grey, brown and dark gold. The devils are not allowed to harm the other people, but they can try to pull them away from the boy in their midst. Agni fares best, with his remarkable skills, but even he is hard-pressed to fend off so many demons. Finny punches and hurls bodies away from him, but they keep coming back. Baldroy and Mey-Rin dare not fire their weapons in such a scrum, lest they shoot one of their own.

"Young Master!" Sebastian cries out from above them.

"Pay attention to your own fight, old friend," Azazel rebukes him, a moment before he strikes Sebastian hard for the first time, gouging out a chunk of flesh, and kicking him viciously till he drops like a stone through the air.

Below, a powerful arm reaches into the pile of people and closes over Ciel's arm.

"Let go of him!" Lizzie screams, groping frantically on the ground for something metal-like she had felt her foot scrape against earlier. Here it is, a sword – possibly a fairy sword – dropped by someone else long before the humans had stepped into this space. She squirms free of the tangle of human limbs around her to be certain she will not hurt any of her friends, then underneath that terrible, beating lid of wings over their heads, she lunges forward and thrusts the blade into the shoulder of the demon trying to snatch Ciel from them.

She is not her mother's daughter for nothing.

"Let go now!" she cries, withdrawing the blade and driving it once again through the devil's body.

"My lady!" Mey-Rin shrieks, shielding the girl's head as she slams the butt of her rifle against the devil's face before pulling Elizabeth back and shoving her behind her skirts. But other hands are reaching in, other clawed fingers closing around Ciel's arms and legs, despite every effort by Finny, Baldroy, Agni and even Soma to beat them away.

Sebastian, flung to the ground by Azazel, crawls towards his pack of humans, leaving a trail of blood behind him. His attempt to reach Ciel's side is brutally interrupted by a terrible weight landing on his back, all but shattering his bones, as Azazel jumps onto him from a height to pin him to the spot.

"I'm afraid it ends here, my friend," the winged demon chuckles. He raises his right arm, and drives it down in a lightning-swift stroke towards the back of Sebastian's neck. But it never connects with the butler's prone body, for a streak of black and dark gold bolts in between them out of nowhere, flings Azazel off, and stands defensively over Sebastian.

Carsten.

The new arrival surveys his surroundings, gazing dispassionately at the sea of astonished faces all around him – even the devils assailing Ciel have stopped what they are doing. He calmly pulls Sebastian to his feet.

"Are you quite certain you're not courting me?" Sebastian manages a spot of sardonic humour despite the state he is in. "You turn up wherever I am."

"Keep dreaming," Carsten snaps.

"Didn't you say you would be as far away from me as you could get once this storm broke?"

"Shut your mouth," the other growls.

"Where might you have come from?" Azazel demands of Carsten. "I know your face, but you're a nobody, and if I am not mistaken, you were weak enough to be trapped by a human for half a century."

"You knew, and you never thought to assist me?" Carsten asks coldly.

"Why should we devils assist one of our kind who is too inept and powerless to escape a mortal? Such demons as you deserve to be weeded out."

"I remember now why I spent so much time away from hell," Carsten hisses.

"Come to help your friend, have you?" Azazel says mockingly. "How touching."

"We devils have no friends among our kind," he fires back. "I am here because he and his mortals behaved honourably to me when they could have damned me. I am here because the Phantomhive child sacrificed himself to avoid enslaving him and, ultimately, me. I am here because I respect Sebastian Michaelis' courage to defend his human boy, and I wish I had had such courage centuries ago, instead of devouring the woman I cared for."

"I see," Azazel hums. "Well, then, we'll finish both of you together. And I shall devour the child."

Once more, the demon armies pour towards Sebastian, but Carsten, fresh to the fight, beats them back ferociously. While the two devils are thus occupied, Azazel strides towards the human pack, shoves his own demons aside, and reaches in for Ciel. Agni and Finny rain blows on the intruder, and Mey-Rin and Baldroy fire deep into his gut, but those defences stall him for no more than seconds, for even Finny's most powerful punches make so little impact on him that it is as if he were carved from a great boulder of granite.

"Young Master!" Sebastian roars as Azazel's claws close over Ciel's shoulder, digging into the tender flesh, drawing blood.

Carsten swears as Sebastian tears out from under his arm and lunges at Azazel, only to have the other devil thrust the claws of his free hand through his chest, impaling him on his wrist.

"Sebastian!" Ciel screams, losing his last reserve of composure. The boy claws at Azazel and pummels his arm as his friends continue to attack the demon; Mey-Rin and Lizzie are clinging to the earl's ankles, trying to pull him back, but it is hopeless… all hopeless… but what is that?

A burst of silver light blinds the humans and even the immortals for a second. Suddenly, there between Azazel and Ciel is John Jarvis, clutching the glass-encased silver disc Sebastian gave him. The disc glows brightly, illuminating Jarvis' middle-aged features. The vicar looks much more surprised than anyone else here – he has finally activated the spell Sebastian imbued the silver disc with, once it became clear that Ciel was in dreadful danger, but he had no idea how effective it would be.

He is stunned by his surroundings, by the fanged face of the black-winged devil he is nose-to-chest with, and by the fact that he has been magically transported here – he was alone in his humble house only a second ago, until the disc began to rattle, and he spoke the words to the disc that the butler taught him. But he quickly absorbs what is happening. The devil in front of him has his claws sunk into both Ciel Phantomhive and Sebastian Michaelis, and Jarvis knows at once what his role is.

He draws himself up, glares sternly at the devil towering over him, and says firmly: "You have no authority to take those whom God has spared. I, John Jarvis, vicar of the Church of the Trinity, declare that you have no right to do this, and that you do wrong to be here at all. Remove your hands this instant from my friends, whose lives God has kept."

Azazel stares. He cannot believe that this – this nondescript mortal – has simply dropped in out of nowhere to interrupt his mission. Yet, he cannot ignore the fact that this man radiates goodness and Godliness, and most assuredly is not among the humans he dares to harm in any way. But he is a proud devil, and refuses to back down. "And if I do not?" he scowls.

"If you do not do as the man of God says, we shall have something to say about it," William T. Spears declares dourly, but resolutely, from where he hovers. "We've watched you demons squabble amongst yourselves long enough, and have concluded that for once, it would be right and just for us to take the side of Sebastian Michaelis and his gold-haired ally."

"That's right!" Grelle shrieks, hopping from foot to foot. "I understand now that Sebas-chan only wants to save his worthless boy, and we're not going to let you devils stop him! Oh, would that he would want as badly to save me from eternal loneliness!"

As Grelle lifts his arm to his forehead and swoons against Ronald Knox, various individuals from the other immortal races give him strange looks, but the fairy king ignores the fainting figure in red and adds his voice to that of the Shinigami. "I agree with the soul reapers – the devil Sebastian has been found not to be hungry for power, but only to save the mortal child from the deteriorating spell. My people will fight you and your armies, Azazel, if you do not release the boy and his demon now."

"So will we," the nymphs and elves chime.

"Even we shall oppose you," one rogue angel promises. "We may all once have been angels of heaven, but my group here only abandoned heaven of our own will, while you and yours were condemned and thrown out. You have no friends here, not among them, and not among us."

"Let them go now," Jarvis says quietly.

Reluctantly, Azazel drops Ciel into Agni's arms. Then he pulls his hand out of Sebastian's chest. The butler collapses into a bloodied heap on the ground.

"Call off your armies, Azazel," Spears warns the devil.

The demon waves his arm, and his troops move away from the humans, Sebastian and Carsten.

"We're leaving," Azazel announces curtly.

"Stop," Sebastian calls out, a little breathlessly, from where he lies.

Carsten takes the butler's arm and hauls him upright. Sebastian speaks quietly to the gold-haired devil, who lets his wings out, and flies his comrade up to where the bulk of the demon army waits to file out of this space through the opening Ciel made earlier. Sebastian points to one devil after the other, five in all, and Carsten bears him to each of them in turn, to let him take their chains.

That done, Carsten flies Sebastian back to the ground, and Ciel rushes over to him, biting his tears back as he puts his arms carefully around the torn, bleeding figure who looks as if he can barely stand, but insists on remaining on his feet as he embraces the boy.

The devils file out of the opening as, one by one, the remaining representatives of the other races who once allowed themselves to be linked to the scale voluntarily come forward to let Sebastian unlock them from Ciel, until Ciel is completely unchained from the forces of balance.

"Is it over?" Ciel asks, his voice muffled by the bloodied tatters of clothing over Sebastian's chest, willing himself not to cry. He cannot cry in front of all these strange creatures, in front of his staff and friends, in front of Lizzie and Jarvis, Carsten and the soul reapers.

"Not really, Young Master," Sebastian replies with a gentle smile that nearly breaks Ciel's heart.

"What do you mean? It's over, isn't it?"

"Your battle is over, child," the fairy king tells Ciel from his place high up in the sphere, amongst his people. "But your demon's battle continues. We cannot leave him chained to the forces of balance while the spell deteriorates. Once the spell is completely corrupted, it will destroy him. And he has accumulated so much power that his destruction would mean the wrecking of the balance of all our worlds, if he were to remain chained to it."

"He is very likely to be destroyed whether he remains bound to the scale or not, whether we do anything or not," William T. Spears explains. "We can let him be ripped apart by the spell while he remains chained to the scale, in which case he will take several worlds along with him; or we can let him be ripped apart alone in this sealed-off space that he himself created, unchained from the scale, unable to damage anything else. The very process of removing the chains is likely to kill him within minutes, although with the strength he has accumulated, it is hard to say for certain."

"Is there no other alternative?" Ciel roars furiously, turning his head from Sebastian's chest but keeping his arms around him. "Does everything have to end with Sebastian's destruction?"

"I fear so, Lord Phantomhive," a rogue angel says.

"There is nothing else we can do," Spears tells him. "We have explored all possibilities in the research we have done since your devil began to seize power from various parties. Your power had been growing for some time, and we worked to keep you in check without realising the spell was prompting us to do so. Matters escalated when that mortal scandal entangled the eldest son of the heir to the English throne, and the queen considered increasing your rank and power, tipping the scales your way. The underworld rose against you, but your devil intercepted them all, taking their power for himself. Meanwhile, I began to research the history of why the forces of balance involved Phantomhive at all. In all I have learnt, there is no alternative but for the one the spell has chained to the scale to be destroyed – if not by the spell's deterioration, then by being forcibly severed from the scale in the way that the rules of the original spell permitted. The only benefit to the severing is that destruction will be swift and probably relatively painless, that portion of the spell involving the chained one will be instantly terminated, and no one else will be destroyed with him. Minor portions of the spell affecting Phantomhive will remain, but those aspects can be easily managed by humans."

"Immortals cannot use others' magic – only humans can," the fairy king remarks. "So how do you, a soul reaper, intend to use the blend of immortal magic employed in the original spell to sever the chains?"

Spears replies: "I will not be using the magic itself, but rather, the knowledge we reapers have obtained of its workings to imbue our death scythes with power designed precisely to permanently cut such chains of fate."

"But if immortals can't use others' magic, how did Mister Sebastian use Ambrose's magic to put up the shield around the manor, and to create this sealed space?" Agni asks curiously.

"Didn't Ambrose mention that he was a descendant of Emrys of Carmarthen, also known as Merlin Ambrosius, Merlin of the court of King Arthur?" Carsten speaks. "He wasn't merely spouting madness. He was his descendant, and Merlin was said to have been a devil's son. Percival Ambrose was thus most likely descended from demons. Despite his hatred of devils, and his magic being painful for us to use, Sebastian and I could employ it because he had some demon blood, whether or not he accepted it."

"I won't let you hurt Sebastian," Ciel growls at Spears, holding his butler tighter.

But Sebastian strokes his hair gently and tells him: "What must be done must be done. I cannot drag entire worlds with me to their end. The chains must be cut."

"You can survive it, can't you? You're a powerful enough demon... am I right?" Ciel asks, looking up at him fearfully.

Sebastian slips the boy's eye patch off – there is no point in hiding his eye any further. He wants to look into that beautiful blue gaze which he may never see again after this day.

"I do not know, Young Master," he admits.

"Then I will stay here with you until you do," Ciel tells him. "I will be by your side, giving you what strength I can. If you are destroyed, then I shall end alongside you – I won't let you die alone."

"No," Sebastian whispers. "You must return to your world, and live, and try to forget me. I had hoped you would not look for me..."

"No – you hoped I would. You hoped I would know the truth, that's why you left the letter with Tanaka instead of burning it. If you hadn't wanted me to know the truth, ever, you would have burnt the letter..."

Sebastian smiles. "I confess that I did not want you to always think badly of me. But I had hoped you would not find out until later."

"The spell is growing more unstable as we speak," Spears warns. "I must cut the chains. Everyone else, leave this sphere before the force of his destruction takes you out as well."

The other immortals gather their fallen – the dead and wounded – and file through the opening Ciel made. It was Sebastian who formed the sphere, and Ciel who cut into it, both using Ambrose's magic; only wielders of that magic can create an opening, but the two central figures are in no physical or emotional condition to cut open another doorway now.

"I can make another doorway," Carsten says, striding to the side of the sphere and invoking Ambrose's magic, which he knows too well, to open another slit, speeding up the departure of the immortals.

Ciel and Sebastian are alone on the ground with Spears now, and Ciel does his best to support Sebastian as the devil stoically remains standing, wishing to face what seems certain to be his end with the greatest dignity.

Ciel turns his head to look at his friends, and says to them: "Go back to the manor. I'll stay here with Sebastian."

"Inadvisable," Spears mutters matter-of-factly. "You won't survive if you're within this sphere while he destructs."

"Ciel, please," Lizzie cries. "I don't want you to die!"

"Lady Elizabeth," Sebastian says softly, kindly, reaching out to her.

She runs to him, takes his blood-covered hand, and sobs: "Sebastian – I will never forget all you have done to save Ciel."

"Lady Elizabeth, you have every right to hate me – you must know by now that your cousin and I are to each other what your society says we ought never to be."

"I – I know – I could see – I can see that," she hiccups. "But I don't care. I love Ciel. I always will, but if he – if he loves someone else, I still love him enough to let him... even if it hurts..."

"My lady," Sebastian says. "I may never emerge from this sphere. If I do, it may be many years later. May I commit my young master to you, to your care, which will be in so many ways much more than I could ever give him?"

"What are you talking about?" Ciel demands angrily. "I'm staying here with you!"

Lizzie is crying so hard now that she can barely speak, but she chokes out: "I will take the best care of him."

"But if I should ever make it out of here one day?" the butler asks the girl.

"Th-then I – I'll fight you for him – when you're better!" she cries.

"Both of you, shut up!" Ciel yells. "No one will be fighting any more, Lizzie will be safe at home, and I'll be here with you!"

"We have to do this now," Spears says briskly.

"Lizzie, go!" Ciel tells his cousin. "Mey-Rin, please take her – everyone – please go."

Agni and Baldroy herd the humans out of the sphere, leaving Carsten watching by the opening he created, while Sebastian and Ciel stand before Spears, who prepares to wield his scythe.

"We'll stay here together," Ciel whispers to Sebastian, burying his face in his chest. "I can give form to this space like I did the last one. I'll make plants grow, and water run in this world, and fruit for me to eat. We'll be fine. You'll survive the severing, and we'll be just fine..."

"Once I sever the chains," Spears tells Sebastian, "you will most probably have a few minutes before the damage hits. The moment I have done my job, I will step out, and use soul-reaper powers to seal the openings, then seal this sphere with an added layer of magic. I will check on you after several years to see if you have stabilised, or if you are long dead. If you survive and stabilise enough after some years to no longer be in danger of exploding and wiping out life in the mortal realm, I will release you. If you are dead, I will send to hell to let them determine what should be done with your remains – if anything remains."

"You'll be fine," Ciel repeats, fiercely.

"As will you. Be strong," Sebastian replies, bending down to kiss the boy.

Ciel hungrily devours that kiss, tasting his devil's lips, tongue, blood...

The Shinigami's scythe shoots out, expands in size, scoops up the ninety-nine chains invisible to Ciel between its blades, and with one snip, severs them.

"I estimate that you have two minutes," says Spears, propping up his eyeglasses with two fingers. He turns on his heel and strides out of the sphere through the opening Carsten stands beside.

Sebastian settles on the ground, folding his legs beneath him, as Ciel settles into his lap, wraps his arms around him, and presses his lips to the devil's repeatedly. "You will live – and you will be stronger than ever – and we'll be perfectly well here together," he whispers between kisses.

"I have lived my life well in the past year I spent with you," Sebastian says, smiling gently, looking into those enormous sapphire eyes, in which the hint of tears glistens. He kisses Ciel deeply, after which he holds the boy's head to his shoulder, and looks over his soft, dark hair at Carsten, to whom he gives a barely discernible nod.

Ciel nuzzles the bruised, blood-covered, pale flesh exposed through a tear in the butler's clothing.

"Live long, and live well, and be happy, my darling," Sebastian breathes, giving one more nod to Carsten.

In an instant, Ciel is snatched up by Carsten as Sebastian allows him to be torn from his arms.

"Sebastian?" Ciel gasps, confused at first, before he realises that his demon has authorised his fellow-devil to take him to safety, away from this place, so that he can be left alone to live or die as fate would have it.

"Sebastian!" Ciel screams, stretching his arms out towards his butler as Carsten races towards the exits that Spears is already starting to seal. "No! Put me down! Sebastian! Sebastian!"

The tears he has been holding back – not just for today, but for years – are pouring down his face now, and Sebastian scents those tears which fall to the ground of this barren world, scents his despair and terror for him, and commits his cries to memory as Carsten leaps out of the closing door with him safe in his arms.

As the openings disappear, shutting the light of his existence away from him, perhaps forever, Sebastian finally lies down. He stares up at the cold, white, domed ceiling of this nowhere-world he has been sealed into, and waits alone to discover if death will take him, at long last, after all this time.
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Devilish Impulses