[Shin Megami Tensei IV] Cut Away the Past

[lassarina]

Characters: Isabeau/Yuriko
Rating: Explicit
Contains: Explicit sex, spoilers, canon divergence
Wordcount: 2154
Notes: Written for cypher in femslashafterdark 2019
Betas: N/A
Summary: When the other prentices leave to fight the Black Samurai, Isabeau makes a different choice, and leaves to join the Ring of Gaea.

"I shall pray for your safety." Isabeau turns away from the brightness in Jonathan's eyes, and the stoic stillness of Flynn's face, and walks briskly back toward the residence halls, bowing her head to hide her own expression. No one hails her on her way, and she slips silently into one of the small prayer rooms. The stone floor is cold beneath her knees, a familiar discomfort. Yet when she tries to pray, to seek the Lord's guidance as she always has, her mind's eye is drawn unerringly to a single image, and it is not His stern face. The face she sees is sharp as a knife, white skin framed by stark black hair. She has twice seen this face, on two different women, and though she knows she should pray to Gabriel the Messenger, it is Yuriko to whom her mind turns, Yuriko whose eyes burned with such fierce passion.

Yuriko said they needed wisdom, that she would reincarnate as often as needed to bring them what they must know. Isabeau rises slowly and walks to the plaza where the Terminal awaits. It's simple enough to have it transport her to the Ring of Gaea headquarters in Tokyo, and no one forbids her entry. She makes her way to the room where she knows Yuriko awaits. Indeed, the woman with many names is there, dressed in slick black, and she does not look at all surprised to see Isabeau.

"Your boys have already gone," Yuriko says.

"They aren't mine," Isabeau says, perhaps too fast.

"Will you join them?" That intense green gaze meets hers, and Isabeau senses there is more to the question than the surface. There is a challenge here, one she is not sure how to meet--but she knows she must meet it alone. She cannot wait for someone else to choose.

"No," she says, and swallows hard. "You spoke of wisdom. I--I was wrong to dismiss you so quickly before. I ask that you forgive my lapse, and share your knowledge with me." Instinct and training tell her to bow her head, but the same sense that whispered of challenge tells her not to, that it would disappoint Yuriko, so she fights to keep her chin up, her gaze steady.

Yuriko's lips curve into a sharp smile, sharp like her face, like her fingernails, like her incisive words. She leans back on her couch, reclined like the statue of the goddess--the statue of her--that graces the Ring of Gaea's temple above. "What knowledge would you have?"

She swallows hard. "You said that the people turned into demons because of repressed desires. Was that true?"

"What need have I to lie?" Yuriko shifts, and the black jacket she wears, cut in a deep V over her breasts, slides to reveal skin that Isabeau is sure she should not want to see. Yet seeing it gives her a little thrill, like the heroine of her manga when she is close to her partner. Isabeau's eyes linger, and Yuriko's smile deepens, like she knows exactly what Isabeau is thinking.

Isabeau isn't even sure what she's thinking. "The monastery would say that you lie because you are a demon." There is no conviction behind the words. She can't find it in her. Her eyes return again to the curve beneath Yuriko's fitted jacket. Where the man--the angel--she rescued at Sister Gabby's behest only made her feel awkward and embarrassed, she thinks she would like to see more of Yuriko, to touch that smooth skin. Is this what the other prentices felt when the Black Samurai unleashed those Charm demons upon them? It feels nothing like what happened to her in Tayama's farm, but she is drawn to Yuriko.

"And has the Monastery always told you the truth?" Yuriko asks her.

That answer, at least, is simple. "No."

"They expect you to believe them because they are men. Men in power." Yuriko leans forward. Isabeau fixes her eyes on that sharp, flawless face. "I heard you, during your entrance exam. You said that a man must have dreamed up our test."

Isabeau's face heats. "I am sorry I have offended you," she whispers.

Yuriko laughs. "I have no need for those who cannot think for themselves. But you--you know what you want."

"I let Flynn decide," Isabeau chokes out.

"You did not accompany him here," Yuriko says.

"No." Isabeau clenches her fists. "He was wrong to come to fight you."

Yuriko shrugs, and says nothing.

She came here with so many questions, but the more she stands here, the less important they seem. "I want to join you," she says, and then presses a hand to her mouth, shocked at her own words. Yet the ring of truth is in them. She was raised to service in the Monastery; being a Samurai is all she ever dreamed, but the dream is ashes in her mouth when the Monastery would destroy men like Fujiwara and Skins for desiring a better life. This is not what her strength is for. But Yuriko--where the Monastery forbids curiosity, Yuriko demands it. She has ever asked them only to make their own choices with the information before them. Isabeau lifts her chin and says it again. "I want to join you."

Yuriko reaches out and grasps her chin, the sharp points of her fingernails pressing into Isabeau's skin. It sends a thrill racing down Isabeau's spine, and an unfamiliar warmth. "You have already completed our entrance exam," she says. "If that were all you desired, you would not come before me."

Isabeau spoke to some of the Ring of Gaea members before, when Jonathan and Walter were arguing with Flynn about what they should do. She knows the Ring worships Yuriko, that they revel in her power and their own strength. She heard things that made her ears burn, and made her....want. "I want to serve you," she says, and it is easier than she thought.

Yuriko's teeth are sharp and pointed when she stands and smiles. "Then come, and worship."

There's only one step between them; Isabeau thinks it is the hardest step she has ever taken.

"You must acknowledge me," Yuriko says.

Thinking of her as the Black Samurai, as Yuriko, made it easier to come here, but this isn't about easy, is it? Isabeau takes a deep breath, and cuts away the rules of Mikado. "Lilith," she whispers, the demon name an odd warmth on her tongue.

Lilith smiles.

Isabeau's manga have taught her that kisses are soft things, delicate as a butterfly wing. Lilith's kiss is nothing like that, and Isabeau feels her own inexperience sharply when she feels Lilith's tongue against her lips, followed by the sharp edge of teeth. She doesn't expect that to make the hot-cold shivers run down her spine. She doesn't know what she expects.

Lilith knows exactly what she expects, and she is direct about it. She presses sharp teeth to Isabeau's lips, her jaw, the pulse beating frantically in her throat, and Isabeau is dizzy with sensation, like the first time she tried sake at K's tavern. She kisses back, clumsy, the edges of her teeth dull in comparison and her lips uncertain, but Lilith seems to enjoy it. Her fingernails prick against Isabeau's skin as she strips away blouse and breast band, and Isabeau struggles against the instinct to cover herself.

Such thoughts fly from her head when Lilith touches her breasts and makes her skin thrill with gooseflesh, her nipples draw tight and aching, as though she is cold--but cold is the last thing from her mind. She can't help the small, choked sound she makes when Lilith's teeth tug on her nipple, a pressure that echoes between her legs and makes her want--what?

She tugs at Lilith's jacket, fumbling the buttons open--Lilith's tongue on her skin makes her hands shake, makes it hard to handle a task she's done for herself thousands of times--and there is nothing beneath the jacket but skin. She draws in a sharp breath, surprised, and Lilith looks up from her breasts, her eyes intent.

"M-may I?" She stutters on the question.

Lilith's smile is like a blade. "You'll need to be more specific." Her hand curves over Isabeau's breast, fingernails drawing thin sharp lines that don't quite hurt, tracing the swell and weight until she catches Isabeau's nipple between her nails, and the prickle of not-quite-pain shudders through her, makes her want to press her hips closer.

"I want to touch you," she says. Her face burns hot as fire.

"Yes," Lilith says, soft and rough like a cat's purr, but she sets her mouth to Isabeau's breast and tugs with her lips and teeth, strokes with her tongue, and Isabeau's legs almost buckle. Lilith's arm holds her up as her own hands slide over pale skin, cool and oddly slick, and curl around Lilith's breasts, a soft weight in her hands. There is a moment when it feels like Lilith's body shifts under her hands--she is sure that the nipples now pressing into her palms weren't there a moment ago, just warm rounded weight, smooth as marble--but Lilith's mouth distracts her, and the pleased noise the goddess makes sends more shivers through her.

She feels sharp nails and then cool air against her skin as Lilith strips her of her remaining clothes, and draws her down onto the couch. She kisses Isabeau into the softness of the cushions, sharp-nailed hands pressing her thighs wide. Isabeau thinks dimly that she ought to protest, that this is why the monastery tells her she must not be alone with boys--but Lilith isn't a boy, she's never felt this way about a boy, and anyway she doesn't want to turn away; she wants to know.

Still, she tenses when she feels those nails glide up the insides of her thighs, where the skin is soft and fragile, and press between her legs. Lilith has stopped kissing her now, instead choosing to watch her, and Isabeau wants to squirm under that intense gaze. She is pinned beneath Lilith's hands and gaze, spread open for her, and she knows this is another kind of challenge. If she looks away, she loses.

She thinks briefly, wildly, of the sharp edges of Lilith's teeth and nails on the delicate parts of her that now lie revealed, and what should frighten her instead makes heat and a shuddering tightness run through her. She shivers.

Lilith uses one finger to part her flesh, a long, slow stroke that circles and finds something so intense that Isabeau thinks she might have screamed; she knows her body moved without her permission, seeking more of it. And Lilith gives her more, pressure and the flicker of sharp nails and an unbearable coiling tension. Isabeau finds herself digging her fingers into the couch just for something to anchor her as it builds and builds.

The tension snaps and something almost too intense to be called pleasure washes over her, through her, leaves her shaking and weak and throbbing.

"Your monastery won't give you this," Lilith says.

"Not my monastery," Isabeau says on a shuddering gasp. "Not anymore."

That sharp-edged smile, and then Lilith bends her head and presses her lips against flesh still throbbing and too sensitive. Isabeau struggles against the rising tide of sensation--it feels good, better than good, but it's too much. Lilith's hands press her down, hold her open, and she gives no quarter. The sharp edges of her teeth are the barest touch, and this, this must be why the monastery warns them away from demons, this unrelenting heat and need and intensity. She writhes beneath that touch, but there is no escape, only a rising pleasure that hardly peaks before it starts again, battering her with sensations she can't endure but doesn't want to lose.

It is a long time later when Isabeau's screams have dwindled to faint, mewling gasps, and Lilith lifts her head. Isabeau feels wrung out, her entire body weak and drained and yet she has never felt so alive, not even after a close battle. Lilith flexes her fingers against Isabeau's thigh and she can't help flinching away, a faint sound of protest rising in her throat. She can take no more of this.

"Please," she whispers.

Lilith curls a hand around the back of her neck and pulls her upright, then turns so that it is Lilith who lies on the couch, thighs spread--when did she remove her pants?--dark hair curling between them, and a musky scent. "I think you know what to do, by now," Lilith says,

Every muscle in her body is trembling, but Isabeau knows what is expected of her. She licks her lips, and Lilith smiles.

She does not have the sharp edges, but Lilith does not seem to mind.