Johanne Green is a 15-year-old girl who lives in Golden City, the capital of West Land, the place where everyone has a guardian angel to protect them and guide them towards purification.
Johanne's mother is the mayoress of Golden City, Linda Black...
During the long break between her lectures, Johanne accessed the library of the Demonology Institute. The hall was large but quiet, full of bookshelves with dusty old books that carried a vile demonic aura about them. Johanne presented her Golden ID card to the keeper and inquired:
"Where can I find a book that tells about the force of Perfection?"
The old bookkeeper lady glanced up at her from behind her glasses, giving her a startled look:
"Why do you require such a book full of malice, my dear child?"
"Eh? What do you mean?"
The bookkeeper sighed and muttered:
"Fourth shelf, fourth row, book four. But do remember, child - perfection never leads to happiness..."
Johanne blinked, but then shrugged, thanked the lady for the instructions and walked up to the shelves. She quickly located the book she needed. Surprisingly for her, amongst these darkened demonic books, it was the only one with a white cover, and a pale blue sign of a full moon on the top of it.
"Wow..."
She walked to one of the tables and took a seat. She unfolded the book on the first page and ran through the lines:
"The force of Perfection: History of Tsukishiro."
She grew surprised - what a strange title... So, this Tsukishiro demon the Corsaires earlier talked about truly existed! She went on reading:
"For millennia, we believed only three forces ran this world, but now, we came to the conclusion that there is a fourth force which drives the other three and thus, all of us, yet remains unreachable and non-existent - the force of Perfection. Truly, we humans, as well as all other beings, tend to strive hard in our lives, become better and better, undergo different incarnations, all for the same purpose - to ultimately reach perfection. Perfection... What is perfection, and can one who attains it find peace? Is eternal peace truly peaceful?
"It is not. This world is moving, vivid, lively. The three forces exist for that purpose - to keep it vivid for eternity. Vivacity means eternal strife to become better. Perfection is a limit one should strive to reach, but can never reach, and should not reach by any means, for whenever one reaches it, they become still, and stillness equals death more than Destruction does - Destruction means new beginning, as it transforms into Creation in an instant, while eternal death... it is the true hell that resides in the realm of the Black Energy, beyond the borders of the palaces of inferno where light and darkness always clash.
"We, demonologists, have discovered the truth that has long been hidden from the eyes of the mankind - that there is not only the fourth primordial force but also the fourth guardian representing this force. Except for the celestial archangel Michael, the infernal archangel Samael, and the nine-tailed golden fox Huli Yuehong, there is a fourth entity who represents the power of Perfection - the vile demon, Tsukishiro of Eternal Silence, for eternal silence is where he resides, and what perfection ultimately leads to. He has often been depicted as a white demon - white but pale like the full moon, for it represents the menacing perfection that he brings."
As Johanne read these lines, a picture of the same white demon the book talked about unfolded before her - most likely a painting the authors had done to depict the demon better. That manly figure of white hair and yellow eyes, dressed in pale white clothes and a long fur shawl emerging from his chest, holding a sharp sword and stepping before the full moon, brought her great horror, for some unknown reason. Her heart began to bang hard as if worried from ominous danger approaching her, coming from that exact man on the picture, even though she could well realise that it was only a picture and could mean no harm.
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As if a mirage or an illusion, she heard a deep, calm, demonic voice whisper in her ears right from her inner mind:
"Follow me, Joan... I shall lead you towards the happiness you so greatly desire... I shall make you a perfect human you deserve to be..."
She felt drawn to the picture, as if she had been enchanted by those sparkling yellow eyes of the demon. She bent closer towards the image of the young man, and beheld a terrible fire in her mind, as if a painful remembrance (which was truly odd because she had never seen so much fire up close in her life, as if she had been burning herself). She heard cries and shouts of crowded people, and then, a demonic, triumphant, villainous laugh rang through her ears...
She closed her eyes and screamed, shutting the book. She fell back, nearly losing her senses. However, she was caught by someone, by two strong arms... She groaned and glanced back, to widen her eyes in a stupor - it was Balthazar.
"Ah!" She got off him. "I... I'm sorry."
"Please, keep quiet in there!" The bookkeeper's reproachful shout sounded.
"I am sorry, madam!" Johanne cried back to her and glanced at the black-haired guy again, who stood before her in a casual manner, although bore a somewhat surprised look - apparently, he was astonished at her weird behaviour. Once she realised this, she flushed up and cast her eyes down, twisting her fingers. "Um, I am sorry... Balthazar."
"Are you alright?" The boy raised an eyebrow. He glimpsed over at the book she had just been reading, and widened his eyes. "You've been reading that?"
"Huh?" Johanne blinked, but once she caught the direction of his gaze, understood the meaning of his words. "Oh, yeah... I suddenly felt unwell, though."
"No wonder." Balthazar sneered. "That picture you probably saw in there is not a painting. It is genuinely taken... to be more precise, it is created by the demon himself, once he possessed a demonologist painter of old ages. He was obsessed with making a 'perfect drawing of perfection', hence that came out. Legends say that it still holds a glimpse of the demon's powers, though." He grinned, apparently in the mood of scaring the girl and teasing her (which he indeed succeeded in, for Johanne began trembling). "They say the painting gives vile remembrances of their past incarnations to people with strong spirituality, as that kind of people are closer to so-called 'perfection'."
Johanne shuddered in dread - so, what she had just seen some minutes ago and had just heard through her mind, was not a mere illusion, but the remembrance of her past selves?!
Then...what was that voice full of malice?!
Just as this thought ran through her mind, she recalled the old bookkeeper's earlier words:
"Why do you require such a book full of malice, my dear child?"
