Pleiades Saints

Chapter Ten: My Only Chance

Chapter Ten: My Only Chance

Kanato and I kept our hands joined as we sat in Samael's palm. He carried us down a dimly lit labyrinth of corridors and passageways deep within the ship's core, up near its very peak.

Ramiel followed close behind, with Emilia and Kamiya perched atop his shoulder. The whole time, my stomach was twisted up in knots. I sucked in shallow breaths through my mouth, and every one of them prodded my gag reflex into wanting to vomit. I couldn't stop shaking. I was a bundle of nerves, and I made no attempt to hide it.

I ran the scenario through my mind again and again, wondering if this was really a good idea. But I had no choice. I was far past the point of no return. The walk through the maze felt like an eternity. Samael at last came to a stop in front of a pair of gigantic steel doors painted sky-blue, decorated with the insignia of a heart. Samael tapped a series of Aramaic symbols into a holographic keypad that appeared at his touch. He cleared his throat. "Welcome to the Core."

The doors slid open with a loud grinding, revealing a gargantuan chamber that was difficult to describe at first sight. At first glance, it resembled a disjointed, jumbled mess of huge iron rafters, perches, hoops, and wires dangled above an enormous pit. As Samael brought us closer, I could peer over the edge and see the bottom, where a heart-shaped crystal sat suspended in midair, with nothing that I could see holding it in place. It looked like a heart precisely cut from a massive diamond. It was tinted a light sky-blue, and it emanated a potent heat as well as a strange hum that almost sounded like a heartbeat. "What...is that?" I mumbled.

"This is the heart of the mothership," Ramiel explained. "It was once a gem mined from a distant planet in the depths of space by the Angels themselves. We call it Kleinod. It gives off an incredible amount of energy, a supply of cosmic power that never runs out. But I wouldn't be concerned about that if I were you." 

I could no longer distract myself from the inevitable. I gulped down a heavy lump in my throat and awaited what was to come.

Samael raised his voice. "Master Tabris...the Seraphim has arrived."

An impossibly huge voice echoed from further inside the Core. "Is that so?" It echoed and reverberated in my chest. Nephilim's voices were naturally very loud by virtue of their size, but this...it was almost deafening.

I bit my lip until a warm crimson pearl leaked out and ran down my chin. "I can't run away...I can't run away..."

The warm glow of the Core's crystal heart was darkened by a colossal shadow. A human-esque silhouette came into view. It moved swiftly, its every movement creating a noise like howling wind.

A pair of white-feathered angelic wings spread into sight, soon followed by the rest of the creature's body.

At the sight of him, I froze. The claws of primal terror bound their grip around me. Spiky blue hair. Inhumanly pallid skin like ceramic...or a corpse. Flowing, elegant robes of silver and black, akin to those of royalty. A cold, emotionless face like stone, and to finish it all, a pair of crimson eyes that burned like the fires of Hell. All these features belonged to the biggest Nephilim I had ever laid eyes on. He had to be at least ten feet taller than the average Nephilim, if not even more. Just taking in the sheer scale of his size made my eyes hurt. This...this was the Tabris I had been told so much about?

"Please forgive us, Master Tabris," Samael said. "It cost us much, but the Seraphim is now in our possession at last."

Tabris spoke in that booming voice. "I see. The Lilin and the traitor are here as well. We will deal with them later. Stand up, Seraphim. State your name."