Chapter 1
Chapter 1
Vajie had been created the same way as her fellow exorcists. She had been made with the same template, the same purpose, the same strengths. Yet, she could not have been any more different from them.
She slashes an animated training dummy with her spear, heat of the spear cutting effortlessly trough the wooden chest. With her non dominant hand, she balls up her fist and hits its throat with her fist hard enough to smash its throat, body and head sliding across the training hall. The sting in her fingers and burn in her shoulders tells her she has gone too far, but she cant find it in herself to care. She shifts her spear in her dominant hand, and throws it at the torso, smashing it further.
Vajie is the only one in the training hall, the rest of the beginner exorcists in her class are celebrating their graduation. Everyone except for Vajie. She has failed, for the sixth time. She is better than all of them in the terms of skill, she regularly spars with field exorcists in the hand to hand classes. But the moment it matters the most, the moment she turns a weapon towards a real person, she freezes. Every time.
Without even thinking, smashes her fist inn to the nearest training dummy, letting out a frustrated scream. She will probably regret doing that later, in the comfort of her own room, where she will have to painstakingly pull every single one out of her fingers with her tweezers. It is not the first time it has happened, and will probably not be the last. It would have been easier to just go to the infirmary, but she will not. She deserves to suffer. Because she failed again.
Most exorcists only spend two or three years to finish schooling. While they all may have been made with the same knowledge, knowing how to apply it is a different matter. Some more talented individuals even finish it in one year. Laurent, one of the exorcists made in the same batch as her, is one of these individuals. Yet Vajie cant even finish after six years. Cant do her damn purpose.
She is shaking, she cant feel her hand. There is probably golden blood everywhere, the poor janitors will have to clean such a mess again because of her. Cant stop fucking up, huh Vajie?
She kicks a training-dummy hard enough to unhinge it off its support, and sighs. Defeated, Vajie walks across the room to a janitors closet to grab a broom. She might as well clean up a bit.
——————
Laurent, now nicknamed Lute, was at the top of the world. She was flying trough the ranks, taking names, kicking ass, (eating ass in some cases), and is for the first time, given her own squad to train. Not to lead, totrain. Something only the older exorcists are given the honour to do. She has lead plenty of squads before, but they had been trained by someone else. This batch are fresh out of the exorcist academy, and enjoying their first spoils of their career.
Despite her excitement, she cant help but notice her leader and friend, Adam, frown as he looks over the new batch. Making sure only Adam can hear her, she leans towards him and asks “Whats wrong?”
Adam harrumphed like an old man, a rare moment where he acts like his age, and answers in a similar volume, “Do you remember who Vajie is?”
Lute thinks about it for a moment, she has met alot of people, and then she remembers. “Yes, she was made the same time as me. I used to compete with her in the academy, I was convinced she would graduate the same time as me” Honestly Lute has not thought about her at all ever sense, but she remembers how disappointed she was when Vajie had not graduated the same time as her.
“She still has not graduated”
Lute rips her eyes off the partying crowd, looking up at Adam in surprise. “What? There is no way, she was almost as good as me at the time-”
“I have talked to Sera about it”, Adam interrupts, “I think we are dealing with at a quirked angel”.
Lute frowns. She remembers Vajie’s devastating punches, disciplined and sharp katas, her dedication and effort in their shared hand to hand classes. Beads of sweat would fall down the defined valleys of her muscles, it felt as if time itself would slow down just for Laurent to admire Vajie’s form while punching-
Lute could feel Adam’s smug knowing look, and she refrained from punching him in the stomach. She didn’t refrain from elbowing him in though. Lute ignored Adam’s wheezed laughter as she focused at the problem at hand. Why had she failed again? The graduation exam is not that hard, you are only expected to do a test and a physical exam.
“You probably dont remember because you were distracted by your baby crush” Adam drawled with a smug smile, sidestepping another elbow. “But she has failed the same part of the exam every single time, the physical part. Each time she reaches the weapon part of the partnered sparring session, she stops moving. It’s as if she has a mental block she can not get over.”
“Its not standard, but has she been given other weapons to train with?” Despite the exorcists being made the same, they were not any less individuals. Some thrive with different skills and weapons, and completely flop with the standard issue ones. Lute figures it is why some exorcists take longer in the academy.
“Yes, same result” Adam didn’t need to elaborate, he knew that Lute caught his drift.
Peculiar. Lute has never personally met a quirked angel before, they are fairly rare. It is not often an angel can not do their purpose after all. She has heard about those popping around in other heavenly branches, but never among the exorcists. Figures it was about time it would happen in this branch too.
“So what is going to happen with her?”
“Well, she is going inn the relocation program of course. And as leader of this angelic army, its my responsibility to make sure she adapts well enough in the program or whatever. Which means its your problem too” Adam says while scratching his chin. To anyone else, he may have looked nonchalant about the entire situation. But Lute knows him well enough at this point. Something about the situation is weighting down on his mind. But she will not pry, she knows he will tell her at some point. He has never been the best at articulating himself, so its better to just let him mull over it for a day or two.
Lute grabs a champagne flute from a table, and downs half of it in one go. “No point in thinking about that now,” she slurrs her words a little, grabbing Adam by his shirt and shoves the other half in his face. “Grab yourself a drink sir, and lets party!”
Adam huffs, and drinks the rest of it.
——————
That night, Vajie is dreaming again. Its not always the same dream, but the premise is the same. She is sitting in front of a dusty flat screen tv, thick lines obscuring 10% of the screen to the left. She does not remember why its like that, but she knows it had been a little broken for a while. She doesn’t have money to replace it, not that she really wants to. She does not usually watch tv. Her boyfriend does though.
It is a rare moment where she finally has some time for herself, by herself. There is this indie show that she has been meaning to watch, Hotell whatever, that one of her coworkers has been raving about. She picks at the sticker at her computer, while the video loads.
Its usually during this part where the dreams diverge. The series she watches is not always the same. Sometimes it has several episodes, other times it just has one. She does not pay too close attention to it, but she gets the main plot points. Charlie and girlfriend tries to redeem friends in hell, sometimes they fail sometimes they dont. No matter how much she wished to remember and know more, in the dream she always seems disinterested.
This time however, there is no girlfriend. She is distantly aware that the girlfriend is supposed to be there, but this time there is not. Charlie tries to redeem a pink spider, fails, and closes the hotel. Charlie tires to reason with someone, but fails. The show ends with Charlies death- but she has already lost interest in the show. What a lame end, is this what her coworker is raving about? Waste of time. It is dark outside, so she closes her computer and goes to bed.
The dream always ends the same, she is woken up a shift on her side of her bed. Her boyfriend usually does not bother with her when she is already asleep, so she pretends to still be sleeping. But he does not back up. All of the sudden, he grabs her by her neck, and the last thing she sees is the tip of the knife speeding towards her face. It is as if she is dying all over again.
It is at this point Vajie actually wakes up. Her face stings, but its not actually bleeding. She knows it is not. But she still rushes to her bathroom, almost tripping on the floor as she tries to wash her face. She rubs and rubs and rubs, and keeps rubbing until there is just her face left. There is no red blood, no reddish brown skin slashed to smithereens. Its just Vajie, it has always just been Vajie.
Its in these moments where Vajie clings to any possible positives to distract herself from the end. She comforts herself with the fact that she will have a great girlfriend some day. She does not know how she ends up in hell, but she knows she will one day. And she will get a great and loving relationship. But this time, there was no girlfriend, and Charlie dies again. There is always a girlfriend.
Vajie curls up on the bathroom floor, and presses the palms of her hands against her eyes. There has always been a girlfriend. Her wings re-materialise on her back, cocooning her shivering body.