~Chapter II~

Claude and Cassandra could have killed her, and I was well aware of that. However, I no longer had any interest in Batora. Her soul had been spoiled, and she would have become Claude's feast instead of mine if I had not turned her into a demon. It was up to her if she wished to survive. I, at this point, had nothing to do with her.

From what I later learned, Cassandra was dangerously close to Batora's unconscious body when the latter suddenly awakened. Her formerly-green eyes were now scarlet red, but they went from red to demonic pink in an instant. I heard her terrifying screech even when I was in my own dimension. She had sprung up to her feet and slashed her long black nails down Cassandra's front, catching her face and chest and making her bleed. Cassandra hissed and dropped the sword in response to Batora's swift attack.

"You vile creature," she spat. "Assist me, Claude! Remember what you're helping me do!"

Claude did not protest. By helping Cassandra reduce the population of demons, he would be free to devour any souls he pleased. That was an offer no demon would refuse; this was during a time when so many demons existed, meaning that there was much competition.

As Claude made an attempt to attack Batora from behind, the young girl turned and kicked him in the side of the head. Nothing she was doing was a conscious action; she was merely being swayed by her rush of sudden demonic instincts. But unfortunately she was still new to her power and did not know how to enter her true form.

For a good few minutes Batora had been defending herself rather well for a newly-awakened demon, especially considering the fact that she was once somebody so weak, but as she began to regain control of herself she also weakened and grew tired. That gave Cassandra and Claude the advantage.

Claude delivered a blow to Batora's back, causing her to fall to the ground. He stepped back to allow Cassandra all the space she may need as the angel prepared to kill the young demon, but Claude picked up on a sound which grew louder and louder.

"The mob is coming," he announced, still in his soft but vacant voice.

"Then let's do this quickly," Cassandra responded as she raised Laevateinn. "Once we destroy this one, you may choose a soul to feast upon. Then we will search for Sebastian."

Claude nodded his head, but unfortunately white wings were not enough for Cassandra to convince the mob with. When they saw her, alongside the golden-eyed demon, they immediately assumed they were both monsters. They, for once, came to Batora's aid, since previously she had been seen as innocent due to having no contract seal on her body. In fact, Sir Thomas rushed forward and immediately tried to strike Cassandra with a sword of his own, feeling betrayed that the woman had fooled him.

"Begone, you demons!" he yelled at the pair. "Leave this girl be!"

"No!" Cassandra snapped. "You mortal fools, can you not see? The girl is a demon!"

"She is innocent," Sir Thomas growled. "Did we not already prove this, you fiend?!"

"I am no liar, Sir Thomas!" Cassandra shot back at him.

"Leave her!" Sir Thomas roared. The villagers began hurling sticks and stones at the pair.

"We should let them deal with her," Claude said to Cassandra calmly, albeit with slight irritation. "I've seen demons die at mortal hands in the past. Once they see her for who she is now, they will kill her."

"This is not over," Cassandra hissed.

"No," Claude agreed, "but it will be over for her very soon."

At that point, I believe the duo fled. Sir Thomas wrapped Batora with a blanket and carried her back to the village, returning her to her home and providing her with some more clothes and some food. It was almost nice to think that I had finally given her the life she wanted, since this was the first time the villagers had accepted her as one of their own, but I knew it was not to last. Not only that, but I couldn't be happy knowing that my meal was permanently spoiled. Still, at this point Batora was not my concern, but she would reappear in my life very soon.

Batora was the one who told me what happened next. A few days went by as normal, only she was being treated kindly by the other villagers, but on one fateful day one small flash in her eyes led to her ultimate change.

As she was purchasing goods, her eyes went from green to demonic pink, and only for a very brief moment. However, it wasn't quick enough to go unnoticed. The shop owner panicked and called her out for being "a witch after all", and other villagers soon followed on like sheep.

"No, I'm not a witch!" Batora cried out, stepping back away from the villagers who approached her. But it was becoming much harder for her to hide herself. Her green eyes permanently switched to red, her new natural eye colour. Her nails had always been black, but only now did the villagers associate this trait with the supernatural. Knowing that she had no way of reasoning with the rest of the village, Batora sprinted as fast as she could to flee. She darted through the village, but before she left she remembered one more thing: Umbra.

Batora could not leave Umbra behind. She loved that cat, and she knew that he would be harmed by the villagers if they found him, so she ran into her small home and called for him until he made his presence known.

"Umbra!" she gasped, grabbing him and holding him close to her chest. "Come, Umbra, we must leave!" Batora was back on her feet, but when turning to the exit she found that it was too late for her by that point. There stood the mob, and Sir Thomas was at the front.

"We shouldn't have been fooled by you," he spat. "We should have believed in Cassandra's words."

"No, please!" Batora begged. "I'm not a witch, I-I really don't know what's going on!"

"Drag her to the pyre!" Sir Thomas hollered. "And kill her familiar so that it does not deliver any messages to the demons of Hell!"

Sir Thomas disappeared into the crowd, presumably to go and prepare the pyre himself, while other villagers grabbed Batora and shook her violenty, some even beating her with large sticks or perhaps even poking her with their pitchforks. In the confusion she dropped Umbra, and then she heard the screech only a dying cat would produce. With her red eyes now wide, Batora found herself looking at Umbra, who now lay twitching on the ground as one villager twisted his pitchfork and ripped it out of his body. Umbra's own eyes were wide and his mouth hung open, and Batora watched in despair as his eyes half-closed and glazed over, with blood now surrounding his body. There he was, the cat she had tried to save, dead before her very eyes.

Batora hadn't even realised just how much she was being beaten until she was no longer looking in Umbra's direction. Instead, she was being repeatedly struck to the face with sticks, stones and shoes. She wasn't even crying at this point. She wasn't screaming. She wasn't doing anything. Only when she was dragged out of her hut did she finally react. Glancing over her shoulder, she could see the pyre which Sir Thomas stood beside, torch in hand. It suddenly dawned on her that this pyre was for her, and these villagers intended to burn her there.

That was when her mind returned to reality and she started to thrash and scream, shrieking out words which even she couldn't understand. Nobody knew what she was saying, all they knew was that she was begging to be spared. But the more she screamed, the more violent the villagers became. Her young body was beaten, bloody and bruised; as she was thrown before Sir Thomas she even had her hair sliced and pulled at, causing her scalp to bleed and her hair to go from wavy and long to short and disastrous. She did not look like a demon at all, instead looking like a weak little girl.

Sir Thomas grabbed her and dragged her to be tied to the wooden mast, and it was at this point Batora became too frightened to react. All she did was listen to the yells of the villagers. Even Sir Thomas' speech was difficult for her to understand. The ringing in her ears did not help, for she had been beaten so much that she was practically deaf. She was well aware that Sir Thomas was saying something about witches and demons, but she had no idea when he was concluding his speech. Her vision was blurry, but she was able to see the flame of Sir Thomas' torch coming closer. She wriggled in the ropes when realising that he was lowering the flame , and suddenly the pyre went up in flames at her feet. The angry yells of the villagers became cheers and chants as Batora wailed like a dying banshee. She could feel the flesh around her legs melting in the heat. This was it, she thought. This would be her end.

Thoughts ran through her mind. She recalled suddenly being overwhelmed with hatred and anger. These people had always done wrong to her, but now they had gone too far, it seemed. They were actually trying to kill her. They had killed her feline companion. She had been abandoned by the man she thought was her brother.

Without even realising it, Batora's wails became demonic howls of fury. The surrounding villagers grew worried, and Sir Thomas instructed them to get back. He knew that something wasn't right. And, suddenly, the pyre combusted. A fiery explosion occurred, unlike one many in this village had ever seen before, and black feathered wings spread through the flames dramatically. Glowing pink eyes could be seen, and as the flames died down, there stood a demon. A demon covered mostly with black fur, with sharp fangs and cat-like ears along with a long tail. Claws protruded from her fingers, which she uses to fight away the surrounding debris. Her terrifying gaze locked onto the villagers; each and every one of them was going to die.

"A demon!" Sir Thomas cried, pointing his finger at Batora. "The girl is a demon!"

Batora's hateful scowl had suddenly become a horrific grin as she chuckled lowly to herself. Her cat-like tail swished from side to side as she straightened her back, standing with the confidence she never had in her human life.

"A demon I am," she agreed calmly. "Well, a demon now, at least. I was perfectly human before now, but it's not like any of you would care about the wrongs you did to me."

She stepped closer, her eyes locked onto the terrified Sir Thomas. "Born from the flames," she said as she licked her black lips and then her fangs. "What a scene it must have been for you to witness, Sir Thomas! A demon does indeed deserve to be born in such a powerful force."

"Stay back, you vile beast!" Sir Thomas commanded, fear evident in his voice.

"You have no power to make me follow your orders," Batora grinned, stopping just before him. Her smile faded and again she was frowning with hate burning behind her eyes. She made sure she looked at every last person. Man. Woman. Child.

Everyone in this village would die at her hands.

"Vile?" she repeated Sir Thomas' words. "You have the nerve to call me vile when you always accused me of being an enemy?"

"Look at you!" Sir Thomas hissed. "Our suspicions were not wrong!"

"Now what?" Batora cut in, glancing down at him. "What comes after exposing a real monster? Do you expect an award from God?" She allowed herself to chuckle again. "Foolish peasant. After all of those executions, you never once dealt with a true witch. Now you are at my mercy."

"Go ahead and kill me," Sir Thomas snarled. "You will be punished." Batora, again, cackled with amusement.

"Again, you are such a fool!" she mocked. "Nobody will punish me. Look at all of the power I now have. I don't even have a soul to be judged." The female demon paced slowly away from Sir Thomas, giving him the impression that she was sparing him just to defy his commands. He watched as she approached a rose bush, plucking out a red rose while not even reacting to the thorns sticking into her hands. She exaggerated her actions as she sniffed the flower, taking in its scent before exhaling loudly. "Roses are such wonderful flowers," she commented. "They appear like any other delicate flower, but when you decide to rip it out of its comfort one and threaten its life, its thorns sting you and make you bleed." Her eyes glowed and widened in a way which made her face look more terrifying than it already was. "Unfortunately, you have fallen into the rose bush itself, and you have dragged everybody in this village with you."

Sir Thomas had no time to react when the whole village went up in flames. Nothing could stop it. It just happened in a literal blink of an eye. The villagers attempted to flee, but the flames had trapped them and engulfed them within seconds, so they were merely left rolling around on the floor or running in search of water. Batora stood and watched in amusement, dropping the rose to the ground. The fire did not do any damage to it at all, and after a few more moments of standing with a smirk on her face, Batora wandered through the flames and left the village to burn to the ground, not sparing a single villager. Sir Thomas' soul was the only one not to be properly released, however, as Batora had decided to feast upon that one as it attempted to leave his body. Batora didn't even know if it was a conscious decision or not; she just recalled absorbing something from Sir Thomas which felt hateful and fearful.

As she left the village, Batora's true form faded into something more human. However, she was not like you, my lord. She did not keep her original mortal appearance. Instead, she decided to longer appear as a young Asian girl. Her face would forever remind her of her past weakness, and she did not want to remember her mortal self. Instead, she chose to become what she always wished she was when she was human: she became an English girl. Her skin was fair, as if it had never been touched by sunlight, but her raven hair made for quite the pleasing contrast. She no longer kept her green eyes, instead wearing her scarlet ones proudly. She wore clothes you'd expect a wealthy medieval man to wear, yet they did not make her appear extremely masculine. As for her facial structure, it seemed that she had tried hard to mimic my own. She was using my face as a reference, but of course she still looked much more like a young girl instead of a mature man.

This was the new Batora. In all honesty, it was almost as if the old Batora had been killed. I can assure you, human Batora and demon Batora would never get along. It's truly bizarre, really, how some humans become so different when converted.

But it's not over yet, my lord. Batora left the mortal realm to find me in the demonic dimension, and that is where her true story begins. Her story of how she rose to power as a human-born demon, to how she brought about her own end. Hopefully you will not be as foolish, young master; I advise that you don't look to Batora as a role model, but instead merely as an example of what humans can become when converted. I'm sure you will see her fatal flaws without me having to point them out to you.

~End of Chapter~