System: Transcending Happiness (BoyxBoy)

Arc 4.4

First thing Kyuwa noticed as he groggily woke was that he was no longer on the forest floor where he had fallen in pain. Second thing he noticed, there was a comfy bed beneath his lax body. Thirdly, there was someone else in the room with him.

He opened his beautiful ruby eyes and his long lashes fanned his cheeks as he attempted to blink them clear. Kyuwa was laying on his stomach with his head turned to the right to allow the new appendages freedom from being crushed if he had been set on his back. 

"Finally awake?"

Kyuwa dipped his chin to look near the end of the bed he had been sleeping on. There stood a bulky man with the same appearance that he did except his hair was black with one streak of white through it. His eyes were red like Kyuwa's though and the wings on his back had two claws at the tips as opposed to Kyuwa's one clawed ones.

"Where am I?"

"You're inside my abode, within the Dark Forest. Do you remember what happened to you," the man asked as he grabbed a chair and sat closer to where Kyuwa's head was. 

Honestly, Kyuwa was shocked that there were others like him and that for the first time he was being treated like a human being even after he had just been turned into some sort of monster. 

"I stepped inside the Dark Forest and was in a lot of pain. What happened? Who are you? What the hell am I," Kyuwa fired off questions.

"To answer your questions, I will first start off with my name. You may call me Numen and I've brought you to the city within the Dark Forest."

"There's a city within the Dark Forest," he asked in shock. Don't blame Kyuwa for the shock; everyone believed that the Dark Forest was a curse and anyone who stepped inside never returned, or so they were told.

"Yes. This is a very special type of city. Only those of us born of Shadow Blood live here. It seems that you weren't aware and your body automatically begun to seek us out on its own as the change approached. You're lucky since you got here before the blood began devouring you," he said as he leaned forward to pour something into a cup and brought it towards Kyuwa. It looked like water, Kyuwa noted, as Nomen leaned forward to help Kyuwa quench his thirst. 

As it slid into his mouth, it felt as though Kyuwa had been starving for years and he greedily drank it all. 

"What was that," he breathed heavily as he licked his now moist lips. 

"That was Tril'gonneth. A necessary fluid that the Shadow Blood must ingest during the first year of transition. As I said before, you are truly lucky that you reached the outskirts of the Forest when you did. By how fast you transitioned, you would've died had you waited another 24 Hours to reach the Dark Forest."

Kyuwa tried to push himself up but ended up falling weakly forward onto the bed. 

"You shouldn't attempt to sit up without someone's help just yet. You've been transitioning for nearly a year," Nomen informed Kyuwa as he stood to help sit him in an upright manner. 

Kyuwa was shocked and his jaw slightly fell open before asking, "I've been asleep like this for over a year?!"

"This is not so shocking," Nomen gave him a slightly confused look, "Shadow Blood Born are of mixed heritage and during the transition their entire body make-up will begin a long arduous process of changing completely."

"What is a Shadow Blood," Kyuwa asked as he began having a headache. 

Nomen leaned back a bit and regarded the smaller figure sitting across from him. Kyuwa was a special type of Shadow Blood so it was difficult for Nomen to actually explain everything, as he was a Balgamin and Kyuwa was an Erthris. 

"I'll start with what the Shadow Blood are and explain the rest afterwards. If you have any questions for me after, feel free to ask," Nomen instructed before continuing with his speech, "A Shadow Blood is a Species originally bred to be soldiers and were first a type of experiment. Demons wanted to try creating a creature that had all of their strengths but none of their weaknesses. They succeeded but the Humans also wanted Shadow Blood 'soldiers' after they had first been introduced. 

We are half demon, half human but we are also more than just that. We are the ultimate weakness for Demons. Our blood can be used to kill them or strengthen them, depending on how our emotions influence it. Humans began training the Shadow Blood to become Demon Hunters and treated us no more than animals; so we hid within the Dark Forest. Since we live within this Forest, the Forest God gave us a blessing; or a curse, whichever way you look at it."

"A curse," Kyuwa asked, interrupting Nomen's speech. Nomen pushed his short hair back from his face as his wings outstretched and contracted back towards his body.

"Like I said, depending on how you look at it. He made it impossible for a Shadow Blood to transform outside of the Forest; making the Humans and Demons have to give up their precious 'soldiers' in order for them to transition. None of the Shadow Blood Born left the forest after their transition, so as to avoid being used as nothing more than an animal. Over the years, everyone forgot about us Shadow Blood and that is the true history of what we are. 

However, there are two types of Shadow Blood. Balgamin and Erthris are a subspecies of the Shadow Blood. I am a Balgamin and you are a rare Erthris."

"Erthris?"

"You can bare children with the womb inside of your body," he explained. 

Kyuwa's eyes opened wide as he held his hand to his flat stomach. He could have children in this life? If he found his Mates, would they want to have children with him? Children of their own flesh and blood?

His eyes sparkled as he smiled happily and Nomen smiled too at Kyuwa's emotions. Kyuwa remembered that he was in a strange place and retracted his hand and smile before looking back to Nomen with a confused look.

"Why'd you bring me here? You must've taken care of me this past year since I'm still healthy and free of filth."

Nomen blushed heavily before responding, "You remind me of my baby brother. He was a normal human so he possibly died a long time ago."

"Wait! How old are you," Kyuwa asked.

"I'm 249 years old this year. Human's life spans are usually only 100-120 years at the most. Demons live for about a thousand. We get our life span from the Demonic genes."

So Kyuwa would live for that long? He was merely sixteen years old now.. wait, a year had passed, so that meant he was probably seventeen now.

"Thank you for taking care of me as I healed," he sincerely said as he attempted to give a slight bow to Nomen. 

Nomen got up flusteredly and helped Kyuwa to lay back up while quickly denying his thanks. 

"It's obviously something I should do in any case. There's no way that a normal person would just leave someone to die in the middle of the forest," he said with great conviction.

"No. It's obvious that most people in this world would definitely not lend a hand to someone who looked close to death's door; nor would they slowly heal and take care of them for a year," Kyuwa commented with surety. 

"If you want to repay me, then just call me Big Brother. It has been really lonely living here by myself for this long."

Kyuwa was surprised that he hadn't found himself a wife or husband at his age but maybe since they lived so long he was still considered a child? 

Nomen heard Kyuwa's stomach growl and immediately got up to get him some food. It looked like, for the time being, it would be alright to stay with Nomen; at least until he became better acquainted with this new body.

A/N: Sigh. So tired. Hope you enjoyed.