Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ My Shinigami, My Hamburger ❯ The Amendment Called Forever ( Chapter 3 )

Chapter 3

The Amendment Called Forever

Heero waited a second before politely growling, "Who the hell are you?" He wasn't in the habit of welcoming any more deities with troublesome wings, his eyes blatantly warned the ethereal blonde.

"Who the hell am I?" The winged woman mocked. Her aqua-blue were as sharp as blades in their near-glowing state, rimmed in makeup the color of blood. Even the beautiful white wings arching out of her shoulder blades stiffened into the stance of a bird of prey, waiting to strike such unsuspecting prey as the young man standing in front of the wheelbarrow.

"How dare you ask such questions of me! Insolent thing! Unchristian soul!" She snarled, even, before twitching her mouth slightly. "There!"

Heero paused suspiciously, narrowing his eyes at this insane woman. She had simply yelled at him and now bore the smug look of a winner. The purest white robes draped on her rustled slightly in a wind that didn't exist in side the storage shed, then suddenly burst out to all sides as if a massive gust began to whirl in the air. Heero was ready to brush past her, never mind how the hell she had gotten there or just why she had wings were they very well didn't belong, when that wind suddenly made itself felt to him. It punched him squarely in the chest and he fell painfully back into the wheelbarrow, bruising his back.

"Shit!" he hissed beneath his breath, grabbing the sides of the wheelbarrow and gingerly lifting himself up.

A second later, the winged woman was standing over him, glaring down at him. It was a vicious look that offset her angelic but disgruntled looks. "I know who the hell you are, Heero Yuy, and that's all that matters," she snapped curtly. He was yanked to his feet by his collar and the ethereal white hand of this strange woman. "Well, aside from the fact that you've just royally screwed yourself over, that is!"

Heero roughly grabbed her wrist and tried to dislodge it from the neck of his shirt. The first time he managed to move it, but apparently only because of his element of surprise. A second later the winged woman surged back with an impossible strength-he couldn't move her arm. It was as fixed as molded steel. He scowled deeply and tried to keep the fear bubbling in him from overpowering him. "I could have you sued for assault. I suggest you let me go now before anything has to be done about it."

Instead of being warned, the woman only smirked. "Oh, think you're so smart, First son of Yumi Yuy and Odin Lowe?"

Heero stopped, his eyes slighted in fear.

Easily, she ripped his arm from her wrist by the same odd wind and he cringed away from her. The smug look on her face grew as he cradled his hand against his chest. A painful tingling sensation, much like the one when a muscle falls asleep, shot up the length of his arm and he stepped back from her.

"What the hell did you do to me?" he asked calmly, though he was anything but deep in the back of his mind.

However, the winged woman paid no attention to his question. "You could sue me, Heero Yuy, but I assure you that I would win in the long run when I condemned you to Hell for what you've done with the Thirteenth Son. I am a god, whether you're mature enough to admit it to yourself and quit pissing in your pants. There is no way you could win a battle against me, so don't even think of threatening me!" Her voice split the air sharply, causing the walls of the shed to quiver and dust to fall from the ceiling.

She smirked quietly and closed her eyes as she went about dusting off her robes and settling them down until they hung static over her. Without even moving her wings, she levitated back in the air and settled on an invisible throne of sorts, sitting regally in it.

"Now, back to the business of your fuck-up," the obvious deity quipped sweetly, folding her hands in her lap.

"Wait one minute," Heero growled. He winced as he finally regained use of his arm and let it fall to his side, while the other raised in accusation. "Tell me who you are, or I'll threaten you all you like and make you miserable until you can finally 'cast me into the pits of Hell'."

She frowned. "Eww, picky, aren't we?" When his glare didn't relent, she let out her own displeased look. "Fine, if that's what you want." Her mouth twitched again.

Suddenly, Heero found himself completely surrounded by a spread of marshmallow fields, the shed disappearing in favor of a blue and cotton-candy pink sky dotted with winged cherubs. Shocked, he managed to stifle his gasp as gravity abandoned him and he was lifted from the ground, as it he knew it. He was floating helplessly. His disheveled brown hair with the vagary caramel highlights hung in the air and his white dress shirt was loose around his shoulders. A good foot separated the soles of his shoes from the soft, spongy ground. Just as suddenly as he'd been lifted from the ground, he was dropped.

His yell of surprise was cut short as he bounced. Yes, bounced, after he landed upon a rather soft and pliable red heart floating in the air as well. It'd scooted beneath him and rolled onto the flat side, allowing him more room. He scrambled as it began to tilt, clawing at the unearthly fabric and flopping down onto it as it finally quit moving. Panting, Heero glanced over his shoulder with half-lidded eyes.

A naked cherub with the face of a middle-aged man and generous stubble was drifting by, a crooked cigarette perched on his lip. "What?" he groused, scratching himself quite rudely.

Heero spooked and let out a yelp as he clamored clumsily to the other side of the heart. He could barely hear the deity amused laughter above the throbbing thunder in his own chest that was his heart.

"My, how your tune changes!"

Heero whipped his head around and glared at her, even though he was clinging to the heart pillow tightly. Trying his best to be intimidating only served to amuse her even more.

"What? Still clueless?" she giggled, pressing her palm against the side of her face. Her elbow seemingly rested on an invisible armrest and her long nails glittered in the golden light of this strange limbo. "If you know the answer, go ahead and answer, good student." She sniggered.

With a sour look, Heero clamored up into a sitting position. "Guess what?

"Who I am," the deity said. She leaned forward on her throne, and her wings ruffled complacently. The white feather that dislodged floated in the air only moments before a swarm of tiny pink popcorn-kernel creatures gobbled it off and sped off, giggling insanely. Heero paused, watching the strange animals whisk away, then looked back to the winged woman's face, smug beyond her bright red eyeshadow.

"Come on, Heero Yuy! It's not that hard," she teased. Her anger turned to natty ridicule when she had the upper hand, in this world, this natural land of hers. "I'm Aphrodite!"

First, he'd begun this day on a ridiculous game show competing for money and a way just to leave Japan for a few days and seemingly escape all that he erred behind, and by the end of the day, had found himself in far more ridiculous territory. A black-winged beauty and terror of a God of Death had fallen through the roof and begun sobbing like a child. He'd seen shadow fill the room from this Shinigami and engulf everything in it's path and then-then he'd felt the Shinigami himself, coaxing the sex out of him and then fleeing in tears when he'd been rejected. And now, the cherry on top. He'd met another deity and this one was smart and manipulative in all the wrong measures. Hopefully she wouldn't be throwing him down into a wheelbarrow full of straw disguised as cashmere and velvet as well.

"You're kidding," he deadpanned.

"Well, you can call me Iria. I've grown tired of such a long and antiquated name. Iria's much prettier, don't you think?"

Heero snorted. "Right."

"You don't believe me?" The tone was smug. "Just look around you."

The Japanese youth narrowed his dark blue eyes, knowing he'd been bettered. "Alright, if you are, then what do you want with me?"

Suddenly, the fluffy white landscape of rolling hills of sugary fluff and the pink and blue and violet sky melted back into the musty wooden rafters of the storage shed. The large heart supporting Heero popped cutely and he fell back into the straw in the wheelbarrow. He stood up, indignant to be dropped in there for-what? The fourth time?-and dusted himself off.

Iria appeared before him out of nothing, no surprise there, and ceremoniously unrolled the parchment she clenched in her hands. Closing her eyes, she simply handed it to him without another word. Heero snatched it away unhappily and began to read it.

Emblazoned across the top in a swirling gold cursive were the words: EMENDATIO CLUEO IN AETERNUM. Below, the expanse of blotchy gold and brown paper was strangely empty of any other text besides the title.

After awkwardly reading the words to himself, Heero scowled as he lowered the heavy, musty parchment reeking of centuries worth of library storage. It seemed almost to hum, though, with a strange, steady life in his hands, slowly numbing them. Distrustingly, he asked, "So? What is it?"

The white-robed deity of love smirked at him. "The Amendment Called Forever. Latin script is so beautiful, don't you think?"

Heero stared at her flatly. "And what does that mean, exactly?" The fingers wrapped around the heavy rolls of parchment at the top and bottom began to twitch as the steady humming increased.

Iria's gleaming aqua-blue eyes delighted suddenly, lighting up over a bright smile. It wasn't smug, just very pleased in an almost sinister way. While her robes floated mystically behind her as she moved, the Goddess of Love gently took up the heavy parchment and unrolled it again for him to behold, this time to reveal lines and lines of delicately written text. "Why, Heero Yuy, it's your marriage certificate, if I do believe correctly."

Heero blinked once. "What."

Her smile widened shamelessly and she began pointing to specific words in the text. "Written here." As she pointed to his name dashed out in delicate script, it glowed a silvery tone for an instant. "This legally bonds you, in Heaven, Purgatory and Hell's eyes alike, to the Thirteenth Son of Shinigami for all eternity or until death do you part. Well, the ''till death do you part' isn't really in there, but I am rather fond of what mortals say to each other. It's really romantic."

Heero silent gap soon snapped into an angry frown as he snatched the parchment angrily away from the deity and instantly began reading it. Iria, unruffled, simply purred as she smiled and folded her arms. A few moments later a low growl could be from the blue-eyed Japanese youth. "It's all in Latin, how am I supposed to read this?" he asked calmly, though he was slowly beginning to lose control of his sober state.

"If you don't believe me," Iria drawled, "Go ask Gakka-o. He's the one who signed it for me."

A level glare matched her amused expression blow for blow. "The Japanese God of Marriage," he said with high-skepticism in his brow.

The winged woman didn't respond verbally; she instead found much more satisfaction in simply reaching down in her ethereal, glowing state and taking up Heero's wrist in her hand. At first, he flinched away from the touch then finally seemed to settle when he realized that he really couldn't object to a goddess who'd proved her self as divine and let her do as she pleased. Heero realized dreadfully that if Iria was Aphrodite, she could make him fall in love with whomever she wanted-perhaps an engorged cow-and didn't object. She lifted up his hand and he could now see the red string tied tightly around his pinkie finger and extending off into the direction that the Shinigami had disappeared. [1]

Heero frowned. "That doesn't prove anything."

Iria's blue eyes flared dangerously, making her red eyeshadow seem like blood. "You fen-sucked codpiece! All you mortals always have to have it spelled out to you, don't you? You just don't get anything!" The Goddess of Love threw her arms out in exasperation. She spun and glared unhappily at the wall and the rusted rake and broken hose hung from metal pegs.

She frowned in a twitch and once again her witchery sprung forth. A custard-colored pair of tiny wings, cartoonist and unreal, appeared through the wall and hovered a few inches off the dirt floor. Heero shifted suspiciously to look over Iria's shoulder and watched as the wing imp folded and twisted suddenly, contorting into the vague shape of a winged babe. It was curled into the fetal position and the wings, still the color of the imp itself, turned black, like whipped cream baking in the oven. The infant unfolded and looked curiously over its shoulders, the same expression it had bore today. It's eyes were bright violet over a wide one-toothed smile. The Shinigami. The hologram flickered slightly as the infant God of Death wagged a black and stubby forked devil's tail.

"The Thirteenth Son of Shinigami, that same Shinigami that you spooked away," Iria said suddenly, startling Heero from a quiet reverie of the violet-eyed babe. Her tone lost its playful ridicule and strong edge, becoming toneless and textbook almost. It became warmed, though, when she continued to say that he was her son.

"Father Shinigami is an ageless creature as you know him, yes, the God of Death, the Angel of Death, all that. But what most mortals don't know is that Shinigami reaches an age where he's no longer fit to bring souls to the other side. This happens every few, oh, couple millennia or so, I forget the time sometimes-and he bears a son."

"Your son?"

Iria glanced momentarily over her shoulder at him, restraining a glowing smile. "Well, not technically, but yes, I raised him like my son. Shinigami aren't allowed to have human qualities, so they are created out of things. For Shini, we used the darkness of the Father's eyes and a feather from me, so I guess he technically is half of me." She looked again down at the hologram. It's face lit up and the Shinigami babe crawled happily but clumsily after a digital butterfly drifting through the frame. She sighed quietly. "Shini was always so beautiful. So different from everything around him."

Heero quietly watched the hologram, suddenly unable to tear his eye away from it. It was a silent, vibrant story in digital that unfolded before him, spinning the tale of the Shinigami's life. Beside his rather human appearance, a dark shadow moved beside him and half-startled the young Japanese man. He started back at the sight of the creature sitting beside the bouncing Shinigami, one that was black and sinister with its pure dark blue eyes without pupils. It's skin was glistening and black, almost as if it had scales. Even with the black wings identical to the Shinigami, it still resembled something from the black lagoon. It had hands, arms and a humanoid torso, but its lower half began to bunch together like a dragon and it curved down into clawed feet. Jet black hair draped down around its waist.

"That, Heero Yuy, is what a real Shinigami looks like, so be glad I set you up with the handsome one." Iria snorted. "Oh, I really could have screwed you over there."

The image of the soulless-looking thing sitting beside such a quaint, human-like baby sent tiny electric waves teasing down his spine. It was a true God of Death, and even the image of it seemed to invoke a fear for the unknown and a concern for the perservation of his life. Heero thought about it for a second then glanced back over to the genial face of the Shinigami, smiling unseeingly at him. He stepped up beside Iria to get a better view of what he was married to-No, he was not married to anyone without at least consent to turn down!

He shook it off and looked down. A black silk robe had just been dropped on the human-faced Shinigami as Iria smiled and laughed to herself.

The Japanese man looked solemn as he watched. "Why is he so different?"

"He was born that way," Iria said plainly. "No one knows why. I've had sons and daughters from my feathers with all sorts of gnarly demons, and none have ever turned out like he has." The Goddess of Love shrugged casually, folding her arms and her silken white robes rustled as they moved together. "I didn't have any problem with it, but everyone else did. Shini was the most harmless thing in Hell, but because of what he could become, they forbid him from it."

Heero's dark blue eyes bore into the side of her face. She had his full and indivisible interest, and that was very rare nowadays. He silently waited for her to continue as the Shinigami romped alone, dashing after the digital butterfly in his cumbersome, oversized robes.

"Shini isn't at all normal. He's almost as human looking as anyone you might see on the street. He had wings and a forked tail, but that was all that he had in common with his twelve brothers and sisters.

"There's the matter of his body, first of all. It's all human. Nothing remotely characteristic of Shinigami. He had two human legs instead of hindquarters. He couldn't climb in the fires of Hell a lot of the time because he had those soft, stubby feet instead of claws to grip into the Boiling Stones or even the Hot Coals, and he would come home sobbing and burnt and scraped all the time. In fact, his skin was continually burning until he was at least six decades old. Its white and soft-not a hint of scales.

"His eyes are beautiful, like a little girl's, and they have pupils. Delicate, too. They seared when he first saw Earth light and he was recuperating for the next ten years. Breakable bones, a lowered threshold of pain, and the most dangerous of all-emotions."

Iria frowned severely to herself. It was the displeased scowl of a woman who'd seen too much, watched too many suffer to ever completely lose it. A scorned mother who was constantly tending her son's wounds from ignorant thugs.

The hologram shifted again. Blood red flames licked the air while Shini giggled and raced through the fire, his dark robes reflecting the searing fires of sin. A second later, there were an assortment of demons and older Shinigami children on top of him, tormenting him. Shini's mouth opened in a scream, but eerily, nothing could be heard.

"Shinigami never seen emotions until Shini. Sure, the children could be called playful, but all they are really doing is sharpening their predatory skills that they need to wrangle the feisty spirits to their appointed place. Shini honestly wanted to play. He has the mind of a small human child; he cries, he's curious, he learns, he laughs, and he gets upset when you try to lay him down for a nap for a year or two." Iria's fair face was still marred with anger when she turned to Heero. "The only one who didn't was hurt him was Satan, and that was because he was a fallen angel and he and Shini became playmates."

"Satan," Heero repeated. There was no skepticism in his voice. He could believe that, as ridiculous it was to imagine the Monarch of Hell speeding around as a black-winged child tried to tag him.

"Yeah," the Goddess of Love nodded humorlessly. " Father Shinigami banned Shini from Hell shortly after he reached his millennium birthday. He said it was for his own good and well-being, but I know the real reason."

"...Well, what?" he asked, unexpectedly breathless.

Aqua blue eyes looked pointedly at him, narrowed. "Shini could take over the seat of Hell any day now. He has more power lurking in him than all the Hades and Satan and fallen angels combined, he just can't release it. He is trapped until it does so, in the mind and heart of a child. The day he hits his demonic pubescence and gains all his Deathly powers, he could overwhelm the throne and rule Hell quicker than it takes you to zip your fly walking out of the bathroom, Heero Yuy. And he would stay there for a long, long time.

"Hades is afraid of losing to him. There's no telling what he could rage on Heaven, either. It wouldn't be pretty."

Heero stood back a ways from the goddess half-floating before him, and glanced down once again at the hologram. It presented, in a malicious black glow, the image of the Shinigami diving his fingers through the forehead of a pallid Hades and knocking back the heavy stone throne before the entire image was engulfed in flame. The imp shortly appeared after that and the hologram disappeared. He considered it for a moment, before straightening out in the goddess's gaze and hardening his face. "And why would I happen to be married to him?"

Iria smiled. "Because Shini needs love, and as his mother, when I cannot provide, I will find someone who will. Besides, we can't very well have an Angel of Death just scampering around the Earth with an over-proportional libido, can we?"

A frustrated blush came to his face over the frown. "About that-"

"Oh, don't worry. He's just my little aphrodisiac." Iria waved it off with a smug smirk. "What would you expect, when his mother is Aphrodite herself?"

"I didn't ask for him," Heero retorted shortly. It was easy to see that the issue of being half-seduced had hit a sensitive nerve in him and with his anger renewed, he turned to leave. Iria's smile could be felt through the air as she simply let him walk. She didn't have the need to physically reach out and grab him.

"Oh, but you did."

Heero whirled his head around. "When?"

Iria sighed dramatically and widened her eyes at him in a gesture of 'Duh!'

"You summoned an Angel of Death, I gave him to you."

"Did I ever ask for his hand in marriage?" The Japanese boy growled.

"It doesn't work that way, Heero Yuy. Don't think you spun the wheel of Aphrodite and got lucky-I've been searching for a place for Shini for years before you were even in your father's sack." She noticed how defensive those pooling blue depths got at the casual slang at his father's expense. "I've been watching you for some time now, and I know for a fact that if you were to just loosen whatever metal object's shoved up your ass, you'd be perfect for my son!"

He glared impassively, his blue eyes liquid disagreement. "Bullshit."

She held up the Amendment Called Forever and a few lines, emblazoned in scarlet, glowed brightly as she poked at them suggestively.

"When you went back to Shini, you legally accepted the proposal and you were then bound to him by all circles of Heaven and Hell! You even brought him to meet the parents, in a sense, and then Shini believed that it was his wedding night and you shattered his heart by throwing him out. It doesn't matter whether your head over heels for him or not-I don't even care if you're the straightest Republican of them all. The Thirteenth Son is your husband, Mr. Heero Yuy. How else do you explain that little red string on your finger?" She leered and once again snatched up his wrist so the smooth crimson string glinted in the light. "Is it from your pen pal?"

Heero's wrist was jerked violently from the deity's ethereal grip. Pure fire was driven in his eyes, and he scowled mercilessly at her.

Now Iria could see where he got the authority complex.

"Well," she cooed calmly, "none of that matters now, anyway."

Heero, rubbing his wrist suspiciously, stopped glaring for a second, surprised by his words. As he looked up to her, the wing imp buzzed up to her shoulder and buried in her hair like a puppy returning to a warm bed. She grinned.

"You've got a husband to find, darling, and I'd recommend doing it soon. When the sun goes down, Shini gets scared, and you wouldn't like that. You saw what he did the last time he got spooked." Her wicked grin was complete upon the daze crossing the Japanese man's face. "See you later, son-in-law." With that, she shoved Heero forcefully and he flew threw the walls of the storage shed-his unwitting newlywed suite-like a ripple on a pond and disappeared on the other side. Iria smiled to herself complacently, until the imp hiding beneath her long lengths of blonde hair buzzed and handed her a tiny pink object, roughly the size of the fabled Queen Mab.

"Oh, I almost forgot!" Iria called out, taking up the valentine pink cellphone. "Give me a ring when you find him!"

The Goddess of Love wound up and tossed it through the wall as well, and the entire front of the storage shed rippled like the reflection on water. She smiled and giggled madly before disappearing in a sugary pop!

[1] It's a well-known part of Japanese Myth. Gakka-o joins husbands and wives together by red strings, or in this case, between god and husband.