~ Chapter 19: The kiss of the Soul Mate ~

[Syliar’s point of view]

That was it, there was nothing else I could do to change my fate. No matter where I looked, left, right, down, or up, the result would be the same, my suffering and separation from my one true love. I could not bear the thought of it, but there was no other way.

The archangel would wait patiently for me to make up my mind, no matter how long it would take. Being in an area of near stopped time granted him the possibility to do so without worrying about returning to the heavens.

And just like that, two months went by for us, and I still debated over the two choices. The advantages and disadvantages were almost the same for me. On one side, I had to wait for him to choose naturally no matter the number of lives it would take him, and on the other hand, I had to wait for him to decide to meet me. For both choices, there was a chance of meeting him very soon and another of meeting him after millions of years.

What I worried about was not the time itself, but my ability to actually wait for him. After having lived through such a long existence without him by my side, we were finally together, however, fate wished to pull us apart once more, and I did not believe I wanted to let it do as it pleased.

Was that a tragedy or a punishment? I could not decide, it was all up to me how I perceived it.

“Come on, your majesty! It can’t be that bloody hard!” commented Severus.

Because of how long I waited to make up my mind, the blasted demon managed to heal himself and recover from the ordeals I put him through two months ago. I wanted to break all the bones in his body again, but I could not do it, at least not as long as a certain fluffy archangel kept flapping his wings of light around us.

“Severus, be a dear and go die.” I growled.

“Not yet, this is quite entertaining!” he said with a smirk.

He knew that for now he was safe, but once I got my hands on him, I was going to make him suffer.

Looking away from the demon, I saw my beloved Michael frozen in time and waiting for my final decision. An invisible hand clenched its bony fingers around my heart, nearly stopping the flow of my blood. The sensation was both painful and annoying at the same time. It was a premonition of my future without him by my side, a fear of what was to come.

It was so hard to choose that I began to wonder whether or not it would be better for me to simply stay like this forever, with Michael frozen in time by my side, but I knew enough about how the Universe worked to understand that such a thing was nothing more than wishful thinking. Metatron was there to make sure such a thing did not happen to me because then, I would be trapped in an eternity without truly feeling the love of my Soul Mate.

I had to choose...

A few more days passed in that near stopped time state as I strengthened my resolve. No change from the angel or anything else around us, but Severus kept looking towards Michael and then back at me. He had been awfully quiet these past few days.

“I will come to a decision soon.” I announced.

“As you wish.” said Metatron.

He did not seem to mind my request.

“Maybe you need a little help?” asked Severus all of a sudden.

“What do you mean, you...” I growled as I turned my head to look at him, but he was gone.

A chill ran down my spine as I turned my head towards Michael. The demon was right there, behind him. Wielding his sword made from crystallized demonic energy, he was ready to make the decision for me. Killing Michael would send his soul towards the chain of reincarnation, but that wasn’t what worried me, it was the act of murder and the suffering he would go through which did.

“NO!” I screamed, but I was too late.

Severus forced time to flow normally again.

“Syliar...” said Michael softly.

I heard him and then I heard the demon.

“She can’t hear you. Now die.” he said calmly as he stabbed my beloved right through the heart.

The shield I placed there over two months ago was shattered with ease by the Demon Lord’s power. Although it could survive an explosion from a rocket launcher and maybe even a nuke with a bit of tweaking, it was never meant to survive a direct blow from a sword made from crystallized demonic energy.

“NO!” I shouted as I forced the demon into a stopped time state.

I flew at him and grabbed him by his throat. The blade slid right out of Michael as I sent the demon crashing into a nearby building. I did not stop there. I launched an energy attack right at him and like a wild savage beast, I began to attack the demon. No matter how hard he tried, he could not stop my attacks. I broke his bones and pulverized his muscles. I ripped his flesh and bathed in his blood, but since he was a demon, he was much harder to kill than a human. Nonetheless, I still did not want to kill him this easily. He had to suffer a fate worse than death!

“I-I did it for you...” he lied.

I growled and then pressed my hand on his chest, breaking all of his remaining ribs. He screamed in pain, but I cared not to listen.

“Severus, you are a demon of lust, aren’t you?” I asked.

A few drops of blood fell on his body, but I did not realize those were actually my tears. The pain of losing my beloved was too great even for me.

The demon didn’t answer.

“As your Demon Queen, I curse you, Demon Lord Severus Traghart the Second with the Seal of Impotency!” I shouted as I began to write the seal on his chest.

“What? NO! Please no!” he begged as he tried to set himself free from my grasp, but I would not let him.

“May you live through at least four different lives in which you will be the most attractive man around, able to attract any woman you desire, and have the libido of a Lust Demon, but not even once in those cursed lives will you be able to satisfy yourself or your partner in any way or manner, not even through outside interference!” I shouted as my demonic energy flowed into the seal, making it impossible for Severus to break it with his level of power.

“No! You cannot do this to me! I did it for you, my Queen! NO!” he shouted and struggled.

“Unfortunately, I can’t erase you from existence, and I can’t make this an unbreakable curse, so as God’s laws declare, only your Soul Mate will be able to unlock the Seal of Impotency, but only after you went through four different lives!” I said as I activated the seal.

The symbols written in the angelion language glowed in a bright-red light for a few moments before vanishing. A black circle like a small birthmark appeared then on top of his Sacral Chakra, but I made sure for the curse to change location depending on the species he would be reborn as. Whatever chakra governed his sexual desires in the next life, the black circle would be there to do the bidding of the Seal of Impotency.

“No...” he said as he looked in horror at the circle.

I smirked and then flapped my wings once, pulling myself away from him. There was no point in letting him alive at that moment, so I concentrated a deadly attack on him and let it loose. The demonic energy was focused in a bright-red beam of light, which simply disintegrated his body on contact.

Thinking about it, I could have done that from the start and excused myself of all the trouble I went through. Why didn’t I?

“Syliar.” said Metatron as he flew next to me.

Looking up at him, I wondered if I could shoot an attack at him as well, but I let the thought perish. The only being who could heal my Soul Mate was him. If it was Metatron there was still a chance for Michael to be saved.

“I know what you are thinking Syliar, but will you mind listening to me for a bit first?” he asked.

Looking back at where once stood Severus and then back at the archangel, I found his approach to be a bit weird, but I still listened, nonetheless.

“What is it?”

“Do you know that you went against God’s laws by deliberately destroying all of those worlds?” he asked me and then with a wave of his hand allowed me to have a glimpse at their moment of torment. Then, the archangel continued “The sudden death of so many innocents caused a lot of confusion, pain, and suffering among the souls who were neither ready nor willing to go through something like that.”

When I heard him, I simply froze. Back then, I did not care about the consequences of my actions, but now, with Michael’s life on the line, I began to see where this conversation was heading.

“Is this my punishment?” I asked with a trembling voice.

He nodded.

“What? Why?” I was surprised, he of all beings had no reason to be punished because of my deeds.

“What Severus did to Michael was not wrong, and he spoke the truth about doing all those things for you. He is a demon, therefore he acted like one by torturing your Soul Mate to force him to reach a decision regarding his choice between light and darkness as well as begin to understand the duality of good and evil, maybe even transcend it.” he explained, but I could not believe it even though it made sense.

“No, that can’t be true...” I spoke like a fool who did not know that angels never lied.

“While this method is flawed and may not yield the proper result, it is his demonic version of helping. With you around, Michael is unable to touch, learn, and fully understand the concept of good and evil. You would keep him safe from everything at the expense of other souls because you cannot bear to see him hurt. With this sort of relationship, you would only make matters worse for him.” he explained.

I took a step back, horrified by the truth he spoke. Indeed, that was exactly what happened ever since the two of us met. Believing I was helping him, I eliminated all sources of evil and pain in his life even if those souls did not deserve yet to die. I denied him the knowledge and growth his soul desired.

Still, it was quite funny how only through the words of an archangel, I managed to see the wrong in my own deeds. Ironic how I was a Demon Queen tasked by God with teaching young souls through acts of evil these exact same things. The role of a demon in God’s Universe was nothing more and nothing less than the teacher and wielder of all that was evil just like angels were for good. As such, we had the ability to immediately sense and spot the negative emotions, dark thoughts, and evil energy within a mortal’s soul, just like the angels were able to spot positive emotions, light thoughts, and good energy.

Yet, here I was, a Demon Queen, a ruler over a Kingdom formed of countless parallel Universes, a master of darkness who was unable to see the error and evil in their own mislead actions.

“It can’t be true...” I said trying to find a glimpse of a hidden truth which said I was right, and he was wrong.

“Syliar Heartbreaker, you are the Demon Queen of the Demon Kingdom 78 and a Type 7 demoness. Least I say that despite your anger on Severus and the deeds he committed, you were unable to unleash a power greater than a Type B. In case you forgot what this means, I will remind you that all angelions who are a Type B can barely cause the destruction of a mountain, where the Type A is classified as a Planet Destroyer Type Entity. A Type 1 can erase from existence with a single attack an entire solar system. A Type 2 almost half of this galaxy. Every type is significantly stronger than the previous one and significantly weaker than the next one. Severus is only a Type 2, yet if I did not restrain his abilities with my presence, you wouldn’t have ever been able to defeat him as you are now.” he explained calmly the classification by power among angelions as well as how he interfered in my battle.

I shook my head, trying to deny his words, but it felt futile. I knew he was right. I had a hard time with a mere Type 2 when I was actually a Type 7. Such a thing was disgraceful! Normally, I could easily erase an entire galaxy from existence and even a Type 6 angelion was far weaker when compared with me. Fighting against a Type 2 and nearly losing was a joke.

“Look at your body, Syliar. The demonic energy which forms most of your body right now can barely keep it together. Considering how strong and skilled you are at molding demonic energy, such a thing should not be happening.” he told me.

Once more, the archangel was right. Even I was fully aware of this dreadful fact, but I decided to ignore it, believing it was simply because of my lack of focus or tiredness. However, when I thought about those things, I realized something else. As a demon, I was never supposed to go through such things. The process of demonizing a mortal body made it immune to such things, yet I went through with them like they were natural. Not to mention the fact that I was dependent on the survival of my host and its very anatomy, a ridiculous idea for an entity like me, who, in theory, could create and live within millions of host bodies at the same time.

“This is how God is warning me isn’t it?” I asked as I looked down at my hands.

Pieces of my demonic body broke off and disintegrated only to be reformed once more. I could barely hold this one host body together, let alone millions…

“Yes. Besides, did you not notice that instead of entering an a-temporal area, we are now in a near stopped time area? You, a Demon Queen Type 7, is stuck to the flow of time in this Universe.” he told me.

Looking back at what happened during those past few hours before the arrival of Metatron, I realized that I made too many mistakes. Casting incomplete spells, forgetting to enter in an a-temporal state to check the future and see how my actions affected this world, letting myself get damaged by the army when I could easily stop time, finish each of them off and then get back to a normal time flow. As for Michael, I did not bother even once to see if his timeline presented him with a better future with or without my presence there.

“So... it’s my fault he’s going to die?” I asked with tears in my eyes.

“In a way, but how he will die still depends on you. The kiss of the Soul Mate will free him of his mortal shell, however, your lesson remains the same. Do you know which one it is?” he asked me.

“Respect the free will of your Soul Mate. Respect and accept the path of the one you love because through your love, he gains the strength to push forward towards what he desires to learn from his life.” I replied.

It was a lesson I saw countless souls learn after I tortured them with the events of their pathetic and miserable lives in which they did the exact opposite, just like I did with Michael.

“So, either I let him die or offer him the kiss of the Soul Mate.” I spoke with a low voice.

“Indeed.” he told me.

Getting up from the ground, I looked at Michael and approached him at a slow pace.

“Metatron, can you tell me what my actions caused to change in this Universe?” I asked as I knelt next to my love.

The archangel nodded and then replied “Since you lost your ability to gaze beyond time, you are unable to see the consequences of your own actions. First of all, through the death of so many and by causing so much damage in the mortal world, you quite literally stopped a lot of souls from reincarnating in this Universe. Michael’s parents, for example, were due to have a daughter this year. Since you killed them, the soul has been forced to go to another Universe. All of this havoc will eventually prompt Japan to take certain actions which will result in a lot of suffering. All of these are still containable though, and in a few decades, they can be repaired.”

“I kind of feel happy to hear that...” I said.

“Of course, you are still a demon. Accepting and spreading evil to those who desire it is your purpose.” he told me.

“I still find it funny that as a demon, I am able to love and care for only my one true Soul Mate...” I said as I pulled Michael in my embrace.

Time was starting to resume normal flow.

“That’s because God loves everyone and everything He ever created. When the Demon Angel Wars ended, He did not wish to deny demons the ability to feel love, especially since He knew it could change even the most terrible darkness into light. Through their own free will, the demons chose their role as teachers and harbingers of darkness, but when they desired to switch to light, love was their key to success. The only way for demons to feel love was through the existence of Soul Mates. He once told me that this type of love was His best creation yet because it simply allowed all souls to transcend the duality of good and evil, to become better. Although not quite different from other types of love, this one held the trigger needed for such a thing.” he explained calmly.

“I think I understand what you mean... It’s a wonderful feeling, and I’m glad God created it...” I said with tears in my eyes.

As a demoness, those were some rather strange words I spoke.

“So, have you come to a decision?” asked Metatron.

“Yes.” I replied.

We were back to a normal time flow, and I could feel Michael’s life quickly slipping away from my grasp. There was no more time for hesitation.

“Michael... I love you...” I said before I offered him one last kiss.

That time, however, the kiss was one give directly through my soul. I let my energies touch his and allowed love to flow freely between us. That was the true kiss of a Soul Mate.