The ancient forest held its breath. The shadow creatures were gone, reduced to ash by a light too pure, too absolute to comprehend. Only the shimmering, impossibly beautiful figure of the Flugel remained, hovering before Riku, her golden eyes sparkling with an unsettling blend of ancient power and childlike curiosity. Levi stood guard, injured but resolute, his presence a testament to defiance even in the face of overwhelming disparity.
"Are you our ally," Riku's voice was steady, cutting through the tense silence, "or our enemy?"
The Flugel didn't answer immediately. She simply tilted her head, her luminous golden eyes, vast and ancient, seemed to pierce through his flesh, past the frantic beating of his heart, into the very core of his being. Her smile, unsettling in its perfect serenity, softened just slightly.
"Your eyes," she murmured, her voice like wind chimes, but now with a subtle, almost disappointed note. "Right now, they look at me with fear. With distrust. With… killing intent." She sighed, a soft, ethereal sound. "I don't… like that."
A cold dread washed over Riku. His carefully guarded control, the void-like stillness he cultivated in his gaze, had failed him. She could see it. See through him. The realization was terrifying.
"I asked a question," Riku insisted, pushing back the unease, clinging to the desperate need for clarity.
Again, the Flugel dismissed his query with a casual wave of her hand, the gesture rippling with unseen power. "The question isn't necessary at all," she chirped, the unsettling cheerfulness returning. "If I were your enemy, I wouldn't have bothered with small talk. I would have simply… cleansed this entire forest." A subtle, almost imperceptible intensification of her halo underscored the terrifying truth of her words. The eradication of the shadow creatures had been a mere demonstration, a fraction of her power.
She drifted closer still, the scent of starlight and something impossibly clean filling the air. Levi's grip tightened on his blade, his knuckles white.
"Besides," the Flugel continued, her golden gaze softening, focusing solely on Riku, "I don't want to become a bad person… in your eyes."
Riku blinked, completely thrown by the shift in her tone and the bizarre sentiment. "I… I don't understand."
A genuinely delighted smile spread across her face, a breathtaking, terrifying spectacle. "Of course you don't! How could you?" She leaned in, her face just inches from his, her golden eyes vast and deep as the cosmos, filled with an ancient intelligence and something that looked terrifyingly like genuine affection. "Riku Dola. I watched… No Game No Life Zero, on earth."
"I know what you went through," she whispered, her voice soft, reverent. "The pain. The loss. The way you carried the weight of the world on your shoulders." Her gaze swept over his face, a hint of playful disapproval entering it. "It's really a shame, though. The anime didn't mention how handsome you are."
Her slender hand, ethereal and shimmering, reached towards his lips. It wasn't a hostile gesture, but one of gentle, curious touch. Instinctively, Riku flinched back, his hand shooting up to ward her off. He couldn't process this. Couldn't accept this bizarre, intimate knowledge from a being of such terrifying power.
The Flugel's smile didn't waver. It widened, becoming predatory, possessive. "Amazing," she purred, a new, unsettlingly seductive note entering her voice. "That you think you can resist."
A sense of profound dread washed over Riku. Resistance? Against this?
"But baby," she continued, her voice dripping with sweet cruelty, "looks like someone has played a joke on you."
Before Riku could react, before the dread could solidify into action, her hands moved with impossible speed. They cupped his face, impossibly soft yet radiating a power that pinned him in place. He couldn't move. Couldn't flinch. Couldn't look away from those ancient, sparkling golden eyes.
Meanwhile, Levi, having swiftly and efficiently reassembled his ODM gear, was already launching himself from the trees, the sharp hiss of compressed gas a familiar, comforting sound in his ears. He'd seen the Flugel's unsettling shift, her focus laser-locked on Riku. Something about that look, that predatory delight combined with immense power, screamed danger in a way he understood on a primal level. Even with his gear fixed, he knew the odds were impossible, but he was Levi Ackerman. He didn't abandon his comrades.
He shot through the air, anchored to the ancient trees, heading straight for Riku and the hovering seraph. He was moving at maximum speed to save riku, a human missile launched on a desperate, probably suicidal, trajectory.
But then.
As he closed the distance, just meters away, he saw it. The Flugel's eyes, still locked on Riku, held no malice. No killing intent. No threat of physical harm. Her halo glowed with an almost… affectionate light. And Riku, while clearly frozen and wide-eyed, wasn't being torn apart or erased. He was simply… held.
Levi's trajectory faltered. His speed didn't decrease, but the desperate edge left him. He arced over them, landing silently on a thick branch nearby, his sharp grey eyes scanning the scene. No immediate danger. Just… something profoundly, bizarrely unsettling happening.
And then it began.
The Flugel's grip tightened on Riku's face, her thumb tracing the line of his jaw. Her golden eyes, dilated and sparkling with a disturbing intensity, lowered. Her perfect, ethereal lips, the color of dawn and starlight, met his.
It wasn't a gentle touch. It was a claim. A forceful, possessive press that stole the air from Riku's lungs. His mind screamed. He struggled against her hold, a desperate, futile attempt to break free, to turn away from this invasive, unexpected intimacy.
But her kiss only deepened. More vigorous. More demanding. Her soft, impossibly perfect lips parted slightly, a subtle pressure inviting, no, demanding, a response he couldn't give. Her tongue, silken and alien, darted out, tracing the seam of his lips, a silent, persistent request for entry.
Riku's struggles intensified. His hands, pinned by her grip on his face, clenched uselessly at his sides. He twisted his head, a desperate, animalistic attempt to escape, but her hold was absolute, unwavering. Her body pressed closer, ethereal but tangible, radiating an intoxicating warmth that felt utterly wrong.
He needed help. He needed Levi. His eyes, wide and panicked, darted to the branch where humanity's strongest soldier had landed.
Levi. Who, seeing no immediate physical threat, no rending flesh or dissipating form, had already lowered his blades. Who, with a quiet click, was now meticulously polishing one of them with a small cloth. His back was partially to Riku, his focus entirely on the gleaming steel, his movements practiced and serene. Oblivious. Or perhaps, deliberately ignoring.
Riku's gaze snapped back to the Flugel, the raw horror in his eyes meeting her closed lids, her face a mask of serene, intense focus. She was savoring this. Completely.
Her tongue, no longer tentative, pressed more firmly against his lips. Then, with a subtle shift of power, she forced his lips apart.
And she entered.
The violation was absolute. Her tongue, alien, quite unskilled, met his, exploring his mouth with a deliberate, languid possessiveness. It was invasive, unwanted, terrifying. Every instinct screamed at Riku to pull away, to fight, to lash out, but her grip on his face was unbreakable, her body a soft, warm, inescapable cage.
She groaned softly, a low, pleased sound that vibrated through Riku's skull, a sound of pure, unadulterated pleasure. She tasted him. Explored him. Delighted in him with a terrifying, consuming intensity that had nothing to do with love or affection, and everything to do with possession, with a strange, unsettling form of curiosity fulfilled.
Riku could only endure. Trapped, violated, completely at the mercy of a being who saw him not as a person to be respected or feared, but as a fascinating specimen, a character from her favorite story, a toy to be played with, savored, and claimed. Her lips moved against his, demanding, taking. Her tongue danced with his, exploring the contours of his mouth with a deliberate, almost scientific fascination mixed with a raw, primal hunger. She was consuming the experience, absorbing it, finding a terrifying pleasure in his helplessness, in the forced intimacy.
His eyes, wide and vacant, stared past her, seeing nothing but the blurred green of the forest canopy, the sliver of pale sky above. The clock in his mind was silent. The villagers, the mission, the System – all faded into a distant hum. There was only this. The inescapable press of her body, the taste of starlight and something ancient on her tongue, the terrifying reality of being utterly, completely claimed against his will by a being who saw him as a character, a prize, a beautiful plot point she had just decided to devour. And she was enjoying every second of it. Savouring. Exploring. Claiming. With a terrifying intensity that left him utterly, chillingly helpless. The taste of her, the feel of her, the sheer, overwhelming presence of her consuming him… it was a nightmare made real, a violation that transcended the physical, etching itself onto his very soul.