Stained Glass Windows
By: Ruriko L. Minamino

Disclaimer:
I do not own Naruto at all. Kishimoto-sama does, unfortunately. Though, I would love to own Gaara to keep and to love! Neji too, if only to stare at and admire! (And the Uchiha brothers, too, if only to compare perfection with perfection… and I want my own dobe, as well.)

Warnings:
Er… mentions of sexual acts? I know not what to warn you of. This IS the last chapter!

Author’s Note:
1. I’m finally BACK in the Philippines! I got back last Sunday, but with jet-lag and the start of the new semester – the second one of my junior year – I had no time for anything beyond readjusting to school and the different time zone. But now I’m safely ensconced in apartment again, so I can type to my heart’s desire once more!
2. I do apologize for the late update. I meant to post on November 2, but I was in Paris and, well, let’s just say I have a VERY soft spot for all things French. So much so that my days and nights were full of activities and midnight computer sessions were unfortunately NOT on that list. But… it seems like this is a good thing for you guys, as I’ve managed to make this prologue so much nicer and longer than it was originally supposed to be. I hope you enjoy it.
3. I know you’ll be aching to clear some things up when you finish reading this last installment, so I’ve created a sort of study guide or FAQ at the end of the chapter. Hopefully, that will help.
4. Ah, the news on the other fics, yes? Well, I’m going into (as some of you groan and smack your heads about) Uchihacest seclusion again for next week, but after that, (approximately) come November 28, White Noise will be updated. Now, fans of that insane world of arts and business and sex – you can breathe a bit easier.
5. IMPORTANT NOTICE: To my dear readers, especially those who read the update on Halloween night (or any day before today), I’m apologizing and giving you some good news in one go. I’ve revamped Chapter 8. It is now 33 pages long on MS Word (Ariel size 12) and boast of a rewritten ending for our dear priest. What changed? Well, why don’t you all have a look and see for yourselves, ne? I’ve posted the revamp up alongside this new chapter.

To the rest, well, I hope you enjoy this last installment! Let me know what you think later, ne? As always, I love hearing from all of you.

09. Imago Daemonis
(The Epilogue)

“Gaara, stop being a fool and get away from there now!”

Kankurou’s voice, having risen to a roar above the piercing wails and shrieks of pain, called out the warning urgently. Gaara understood what his sibling was saying and he, more importantly, understood why he was so concerned, but the younger demon did not budge from where he was. On a low rock he sat, resting his face on the palm of his right hand, balancing his elbow on his thigh. His tail was draped lazily beside him, his wings and horns retracted as he looked on with rapt attention at the sight before him.

“Not yet. I still want to watch this.” The red-haired sand demon spoke in a relaxed voice. In contrast, jade eyes burned with excitement.

“You will pay the price, brother, if you don’t move from there soon.” It was Temari’s voice now that echoed over the distance. Just another voice that Gaara heard but did not acknowledge.

The screams reached new heights of pain. A small piece of rock flew through the air and just barely missed Gaara’s face by an inch – and yet he did not move. A little tongue darted out to lick quickly at that pouty bottom lip.

“..Guhh…raah,” a straining, hoarse voice gasped out.

Emerald eyes brightened even more at the acknowledgement. The redheaded demon shifted where he sat, stretching out on the rock. He took in the sight of that stretching and contracting pale flesh, no wounds appearing for all the banging and scratching and pounding the whole frame did against the hard ground. The fine sheen of sweat covered every inch of exposed flesh. Long, muscled legs were bent at odd angles, alternately kicking away from and sweeping across the ground. A firm derrière, a rounded square in shape, cushioned the lower regions of the body as the writhing continued. Back up the torso, broad shoulders heaved, wracked with labored breathing as clawed hands embedded themselves into the ground, ripping out large chunks and hurling them around in an effort to divert the pain. The beautiful column of a pale throat was stretched up and back, exposing and emphasizing a rapidly bobbing Adam’s apple. Gorgeously thick locks of dark chocolate hair had long turned black with perspiration, making for a sickly limp display as they swung about in the air. Just beneath them, at the sides of a porcelain oval of a face, two point-tipped ears peeked out from under dark side bangs. Razor-sharp canines were blatantly made visible by rapidly-paling but still marvelously well-shaped lips parted widely in a perpetual silent scream. By now, all ability to produce loud shrieks and cries had disappeared in the body’s exhaustion. But still there was the pain, the pain reflected in those rapidly-moving pale diamond eyes. There had been tears of water and blood spilling from them a long time ago, but there was nothing left to cry with now.

This creature locked in a perfect picture of agony and torment had once been a human priest called by the name Hyuuga Neji.

“Beautiful,” Gaara murmured, drinking in the sight. He had chosen his play toy well. In retrospect, once he’d finally brought the former priest into Hell with him, he realized that the chase was what had made the mortal so much more desirable. He was physically beautiful even in the throes of his pain, but it had always been his sharply intelligent mind and stubborn will – rather pride – that had kept the sand demon captivated. He recalled his priest’s determined vow on his last day on the human plane.

‘You have proven to be troublesome, my Neji,’ the demon smirked to himself, eyes sparkling as Neji arched his back up and thrashed about at the air, trying to claw at an invisible aggressor. ‘But never a thorn in my side.’

He sniffed at the air, taking in the delicious scent coming off the agonizing creature’s body. It relaxed him even further; he lost his inclinations to move from where he sat. He was tired, anyway. Just before the fascinating event taking place before him, he had been rather preoccupied in the arms of his toy. It was amazing how now the handsome tortured creature he had brought from the human plane was able to exhaust him so thoroughly. The brief thought that their last carnal joining had triggered the sight he now witnessed shot a bolt of pleasure through his body. It should have been a warning that he should run away; instead, he drifted into reminiscence.

“Why do you always have to disobey me, my priest?” Gaara purred, running teasing fingers along the bleeding gash on the his toy’s chest, watching in delight as the pale-eyed human bit down on his bottom lip to suppress a gasp of pain. Covetous green orbs looked the beaten and bloodied form up and down smugly. “I only want to make sure you stay healthy.” As emphasis for his point, he flicked at Neji’s rock-hard length, running a clawed thumb along the thin coil of hardened sand wrapped around the base, keeping him from finding release. “Now you had to go and hit me. Your punishment has to be doubled.”

A growl was the response he received in return. Spit shot out of his toy’s mouth and landed right in the center of his forehead. “I told you I was not hungry and you tried to force that disgusting mass down my throat!” the captive mortal argued. “Either you take away this ring and finish what you started or I will –”

“What? Fuck me?” the delighted demon purred, running his long, snake-like tongue over the wound on the human’s throat. “We both know you like being in control, but you’ve been very nasty lately. Perhaps I should chain you up and take you again myself.” The furious expression that suggestion elicited was absolutely delicious. Gaara chuckled and whispered against the human’s ear. “Glaring at me won’t get you anywhere, my priest. And when I feed you something, you will eat it. I won’t allow you to kill yourself by starvation.”

“Don’t give me a title you’ve already stripped from me,” came the hissed response. The demon Gaara had been sitting astride his punished toy but moments ago; now he found himself being pinned to the ground by the injured but angry mortal. “You have no right.” Bruised and slightly bleeding lips descended just millimeters above the demon’s own. “But don’t worry. I have no intention of dying. Not until I have found a way to make your damned soul learn of the torment you’ve inflicted upon me.” He pressed their lips together and they both lost themselves in the familiar violent intercourse.

Back then, Gaara had found it amusing that Neji vowed to make his – a demon’s – life a living hell. For all his vows and swears, it seemed that the longer the demon’s plaything spent in the Inferno, he simply became more violent and aggressive. Certainly more sexually inclined, as well.

A short bark of laughter passed through Gaara’s lips. ‘More sexually inclined’ was more of an understatement. The demon felt rather smug, thinking that he had fully reawakened the dormant lothario that his mortal toy had been in the past. He should have started heeding the warning bells at that point.

“Gaara, come over here now before I have to haul you over myself!” Kankurou’s voice boomed out again. This time, the redhead glanced back to see both his siblings standing a good distance away. Even at that distance, they looked tense and ready to bolt at the slightest sign of danger.

“Patience,” Gaara called just loud enough for his voice to carry in the air. “There’s still time.” Again, he looked back. “You were the one who said it wasn’t certain what would happen to him yet.”

A moment later, a hand landed on his shoulder. Temari had decided to approach. “Most humans would have died or succumbed to the darkness here long ago. It’s taken your priest too long – and he shows all the right signs. You’re too close; if we’re right, you’ll be the first thing he sees and smells when he wakes.”

A smug and faintly proud smirk crossed Gaara’s face. He recalled when it became apparent that Hell had finally begun to taint the mortal man. “That just proves he’ll be strong, doesn’t it? Not exactly what he’ll be.”

“…Hah…ah!” Neji tried to stop himself from gasping and groaning as he lay writhing on the bed of sand. His arms and legs were bound tight in coils of the demon’s silt chains. Pale pearl eyes alternately widened and narrowed as the spasms of pleasure and the determination not to show the extent of his enjoyment battled on his face.

“Don’t hold back,” came the laughing purr. Gaara gazed down at his struggling lover, drinking in the sight of his waning resistance. He squeezed the muscles of his anus around the pulsing length inside him, forcing the brunet mortal to bite down hard on his bottom lip to keep from yelling out. “You want this; show me how much!” He slammed down hard down over the former priest’s groin, further impaling himself on his length. Slowly, slowly, then faster and faster, the demon moved, feeling more than seeing how hard his toy was fighting not to give in to his ministrations.

Clawed fingers briefly pinched at his erect nipples and raked deeply into the skin of his stomach. Blood gushed forth as he dug in deeper. This finally created the desired reaction. The mortal man let out a yell of pain mixed with pleasure, arching up off the ground as far as the chains of sand would allow him. His body spasmed and thrashed, the violent struggling making the claws dig in even deeper, dragging them left and right and widening the wounds. At the same time, as the demon rode him rougher and rougher, his body neared overload.

When the white-hot lights flashed before his eyes, so too did the warm blood gush out from the gruesome gash running from just under his ribs on the right side of his torso to just above his left hip.

Spent and in burning agony, the mortal was released from his chains, allowed to simply lie on the ground in silence.

“My poor priest,” Gaara purred, hoisting himself up and off the now-flaccid organ. He shook his head and licked off the combined whiteness of his and his toy’s release from his left hand. “Tired already? I leave you alone for a day and this is what I return to? You, so easily exhausted?” He ran his saliva-covered hand through the mortal’s hair. He drank in the chiseled features of his toy, the dark bite-mark on his shoulder the only wound on his body that would never heal. “We’ll have to do something about that.”

As he ran clawed hands down the ex-priest’s torso, he tilted his head in puzzlement. Looking down, where there was supposed to have been a freely-bleeding gash, there was only a slowly disappearing scar. Gaara knew he’d had nothing to do with that. From the wan and dazed expression on Neji’s face, it was obvious the priest didn’t even realize what had happened either.

“Well, well, well,” the redhead demon chuckled. “This is an interesting development.”

That had been the day that his anticipation and excitement had doubled. Quick healing was always the first sign of the changing.

“Gaara, it was understandable when you started going to the mortal plane to avoid further incidents here,” Temari’s stern voice was still trying to completely penetrate her demonic sibling’s reverie. The she-demon grabbed Gaara by the shoulder with a hiss. “But what you did and what you’ve done now – you are just trapping yourself more effectively than any demon that has been interested in you could ever manage.”

Just as the winds begun to howl and swirl around her with her irritation, a more acute, dry-voiced cry pierced the air. Two pairs of eyes turned their full attention to the writhing figure on the ground. Neji was no longer trying to claw at the air. Instead, he was curling in on himself, digging clawed hands into his shoulders and calves as he wrapped his arms around them in an effort to lessen the pain. Most of his head could not be seen, but when he turned slightly, the watching pair caught sight of the bright blood streaming down from the sides of his mouth. His fangs were peaking out from his mouth, digging deep into the skin of his bottom lip. His entire figure was wracked with shudders and shivers of suppressed pain, eyes shut tight in an attempt to block out the terrible sensations.

It struck Gaara how much he was turned on by the sight. Agony was a common sight in Hell, and so was tortured pain. But still, there was something about this one mortal he had tricked and seduced down into the realm of demons and sinners that bewitched him so completely. No matter how much Neji fought or cursed him, disobeyed or opposed him, he could not get enough. The powerful sensations of being the predator rather than the prey this time, it thrilled him. And indeed he could not have found a more worthy prey.

“So sullen again, my Neji?” he purred, slipping in through the low cave entrance. There was precious little fire light streaming in through the small opening, but even the thin slivers of light were enough to illuminate the pale form curled up by the far wall of the cave. The sight brought a wicked smile to Gaara’s lips. The deeper into the cave he moved, the sweeter the scent that filtered into his nostrils. It seemed that every time he came close to his toy, his scent seemed to get more and more enticing. It was a wonder that, even with his human senses, the former priest did not notice the subtle ways his body was changing. ‘No matter. Soon it won’t be so subtle.’

“Leave me alone,” came the quiet voice of the mortal, echoing in the otherwise silent cave. There was something there in his voice that wasn’t normally there. The coldness was there, as it always was when he spoke to his demon captor and was not being coerced into intimacy. The undercurrents of disgust and repulsion and rage were there too – all quite normal. But at the same time, there was now the slight tinge of panic, of a confusion that certainly hadn’t been there before. And, delightful to the demon, Neji was trying to hide it. “I haven’t done anything to make you come here now.”

Delightful and delicious. “Oh, but you do forget: this is my domain, and you are only here because I placed you here – to keep you safe from the other demons here. You would make such a tasty morsel for them, my priest. Such a tasty little meal.” The sand-wielding demon padded closer. “Won’t you thank me for keeping you safe from them?” He reached down and allowed his hand to slide down the smooth-muscled expanse of the mortal’s back.

“I told you to leave me alone!” At the touch, the brunet human’s muscles tensed and he jerked stiffly away from the demon. He moved further back into the cave, pressing himself against the hard wall and careful – too careful – to keep his face and torso away from his captor’s scrutinizing gaze. His head was bowed down as far as it would go. “For one day, can’t you leave me alone?”

All the more Gaara came closer. Despite the stiffening shoulders, he laid his hand on his toy’s back, tail wrapping around the tense form. He hungrily gazed upon the beautiful expanse of pale skin, not once clothed since being borne away to the realm. He knew how it humiliated the mortal to be so vulnerable, but that was part of what made him such deliciously enjoyable company.

“I should, shouldn’t I?” the demon purred, nipping lightly along the line of his toy’s spine. He smelled so good – too good. Another warning he wasn’t heeding. “You haven’t tried to run from me lately. You haven’t tried to harm or trick me again. But you still aren’t eating anything I bring you, my disobedient priest.” Though he knew now what was happening to his toy, it was still puzzling that he did not become hungry. There was no way for him to get nourishment on his own, trapped in the cave as he always was. And yet he never seemed to want sustenance of any sort anymore, not since he’d been there a human half-year. “That’s enough reason for me to come see you here,” Gaara hissed teasingly, grabbing the human by the shoulders and forcibly turning him around.

“No! Don’t!” came the cry of protest, horror in the former clergyman’s voice. But it was too late; he and the demon were now face to face.

For a moment, all was silent and still. Slowly, a smugly appreciative smirk quirked up the corner of Gaara’s lips. Ears once round were now pointed at the tips, poking out from behind thick dark side bangs. On Neji’s furious face, in his mouth, bared in all their ivory whiteness as he snarled, were two sharp canine fangs. Gaara slowly grasped the hand pushing against his chest. He raised it to eye level and his smirk widened into a wicked smile. He beheld claws on Neji’s hand, claws as sharp as his own.

“Well, well, well. What have we been hiding here?”

Gaara had been preparing himself for the inevitable loss of his toy since the time the former mortal’s wounds had started to speedily heal on their own. He’d been slightly piqued at the thought, but he’d recognized it as something he could not prevent. He’d had his fun and he’d always have the memory of his victory over that man’s will and soul. Seeing him as a creature such as himself would serve as the eternal reminder of what he had accomplished. As his toy’s injuries healed faster and faster, it became more apparent that the time was soon coming for greater changes. That day he had seen Neji in the cave, pointed ears, fangs, and claws impossible to miss, he’d known the hourglass that counted down to the final change was more than half drained of sand.

But just what would his toy become? A demon such as himself, yes. More than averagely powerful, as well, yes. But exactly what type of demon would he be? Just because it had been a demon of the sands that had tempted Neji the man into Hell did not mean that he would become a sand demon too. It was his nature that would dictate what he would become.

Again, there was the matter about his not wanting to eat anything. A flicker of worry passed through the demon’s chest. Certainly he hadn’t brought down a potential threat to the order of things in Hell. The powerful ones, the true fallen angels, they would have converged on him and torn his toy away had that been the case. But there was still that nagging feeling in the back of his head that he was missing something. The warning bells were still ringing.

Neji’s scent wafted into his nostrils and he let out a contented purr. It didn’t matter what he was forgetting. He’d think about it later, after his toy had fully changed. Perhaps he wouldn’t have to give him up after all.

“Gaara!” a voice that was not Temari’s or Kankurou’s called out. Its familiarity alone prompted the redhead to turn from both his reverie and the tortured form of his toy.

On an outcropping near where Kankurou nervously hovered was a humanoid demon with bright blond hair, nine furry pelts wrapped around his body in a sort of orange cloak. He didn’t dare bound closer, but his very stance screamed alarm. The redhead tilted his head to the side and smirked lightly in greeting. It had been a while since he’d seen his skittish companion – almost more than two full human decades.

“Naruto,” Gaara greeted. “Where are your two incubi?”

At this, the fur-clothed demon looked around quickly, then, in one leap, crouched by Gaara’s side. “They’re not mine; I don’t want them!” Up close now, the annoyance, exhaustion, and worry in normally mischievous sapphire eyes was obvious. The warning markings on his cheeks had turned red with aggravation. “I don’t know why they’re not chasing me today, but I came here to warn you.”

The sand demon’s expression shifted into the semblance of a raised eyebrow. “Hn?”

“He smells like them!” was the cryptic but significant response. The demon called Naruto, normally altogether too perky for his kind, looked edgy now, the markings on his cheeks flashing brighter crimson each moment. “I smelled him before I could see him. I know how they smell and I know he smells like them!” The blond demon’s eyes were grim, their expression turning to disbelief and morbid curiosity as they alighted on the curled-up changeling on the ground not far away.

Gaara’s face took on an expression of grim pensiveness. He could hear the sincerity in the impish demon’s voice – he knew what this boded – but he could not make himself move away. Neji was his. He would still be his even after he changed. There was no question about it. Granted he could no longer treat the brunet as a toy, but he would enjoy seducing him all over again. For once there was someone he wanted of his own free will; it wasn’t something another demon was trying to force onto him, like before.

On the ground, the changeling groaned loudly. The skin on his body began to crawl – or rather, things beneath the layers began to stir. The change was quickening.

“Enough!” Gaara growled, pushing Neji away and hurling him against a rock.

As the changing mortal tried to push himself away from the solid surface, bright crimson blood spewed out from his mouth. His body shook all over and his skin was black and blue with bruises, but still his fangs were bared in an angry growl.

“I will not stop!” Neji hissed defiantly, staggering away from the wall and straightening as he walked back towards the redheaded demon. “Not until you tell me what is happening. I want the truth – now.”

It was amazing, Gaara mused, how his toy was quickly becoming more and more intriguing. The change that had started a little more than a human year before was now quickening. With the appearance of the fangs and claws, with the change coming over his ears and facial features, his ability to heal himself had grown exponentially. Even more interesting was the rise in his threshold for pain. As Gaara watched, his toy’s stride became surer. The bruises had completely faded from his skin. He was perfectly healed; there was no evidence of his injury save for the drying blood on his chest, arms, and chin.

Also quite interesting and amusing was how suddenly the man was no longer self-conscious about his nakedness. It seemed that he had even completely forgotten about what he had once dubbed one of his greatest humiliations.

“What truth is there to speak of, my Neji?” Gaara responded, standing calmly as the enraged changeling grasped him by the neck. Here was where the game got the slightest bit more dangerous. Neji could one day become strong enough to overpower him – and in a fit of unbridled rage destroy him. “You can see for yourself what’s happening to you.”

“Am I to be a monster like you now?” the growled question came. Pale eyes flashed like burnished white gold in the light and Neji’s hand tightened around Gaara’s throat. “Is it not enough that you ruined me as a man, then humiliated and used me here? Must I now lose the last shreds of myself like this?”

A bark of choked laughter escaped the sand demon’s lips. His tail rose up and wound around the hand grasping tightly at his throat. “What happened to your vows to make me regret bringing you here? You’re only succeeding in amusing me more and more every day.” Something utterly delicious wafted off the former mortal priest and the demon slid a clawed hand down his hip, pulling him closer. “And the way you’re acting now only serves to arouse me.”

That particular conversation made the warning bells ring louder in Gaara’s mind. Suddenly, his siblings’ and Naruto’s warnings were not so easy to dismiss.

Their couplings had become a blur in his mind. How often had he fallen asleep beside his toy and felt more exhausted when he woke than when he had gone to sleep? How much more violent had those trysts become – and out of those times, how much more painful had it been for Gaara himself than for the mortal he had once upon a time seduced down into Hell?

“Gaara, hey, I can’t stay here too long anymore,” Naruto was saying. The pointed ears at the sides of his head morphed into tall fox ears, twitching with nervousness. He sniffed at the air. “Even they can tell what’s about to happen.” He laid a clawed hand on the redhead’s shoulder. “I’ve been avoiding those incubi for a long time now. I don’t want those bastards finding me here!”

“Oi, Naruto,” Kankurou’s voice crackled. At some point, Temari had rejoined him and the pair had moved even farther away from where Gaara and Naruto stood – and where Neji lay convulsing on the ground. “You should get out of there now too. Don’t want another one like those two brothers stalking you.”

“Hey!” the blond demon scowled. “Quit reminding me about them! And it’s Gaara who’s going to be in trouble if we don’t get him out of here.”

Throughout the conversation, the redhead in question had not really been paying attention. His eyes were again riveted on the pain-wracked form on the ground not too far away. Emerald eyes glimmered, entranced as they watched the final transformation. “It’s almost done.”

A shrill scream pierced the air, more gut-wrenching than all the other previous ones. As the four demons looked on, Neji arched onto his knees just in time for a sickening, squelching sound to announce the ripping of his skin and the simultaneous emergence of a long, ebony whip of a tail from his rear end and a pair of golden-brown inwardly S-curving horns from his skull. The change did not stop there. His skin paled even further to the color of snow, just very slightly hinting at its former fleshy tone. His pale eyes shot open and his mouth opened wide in a choked scream to the Hellish skies. He arched back and onto his feet, levitating off the ground even as his body continued to shake. There was another pained ripping sound and two long ivory spikes shot out from between the changeling’s shoulders. Slowly, trailing behind them, leathery violet-black wings appeared, unfolding and stretching to their full length as soon as they had completely emerged. They arched up and flapped forward, swirling gusts of strong winds around the open space. In one move, they had wrapped themselves completely around Neji, forming a tight cocoon. This would bring the final change.

Gaara’s could smell his former toy, and the sensations coursing through his body were rooting him to the spot. It was delicious, enticing, beckoning, and tempting. At the same time, that same scent caused him to feel like he was paralyzed, unable to breathe. Something a human would recognize as fear and dread, known to demons and devils as wary anxiousness, filled him. The final clues were clicking into place. But he could not move from where he stood. His sands swirled restlessly around him, but made no move to act on his need for some form of protection. There was an odd prickling sensation in his left shoulder. He wanted to scratch at it, but found that he could not even raise his hand.

“Gaara!” Naruto’s voice, now just by his ear, yelled. Clawed hands grabbed at his arms and tried to pull him away. “Damn Heaven! Move already!” And then the clawed hold was gone. Gaara barely noticed as Naruto was pulled away by Kankurou’s puppeteering spider-like appendages. “He’s really an –“

What Naruto was going to say next was lost in the swirling winds as the cocoon in front of Gaara burst open. The wings spread out wide once more before settling to fold themselves neatly close to an ivory-white back. Along long arms, all the way until just below the wrist, hard ridges formed, bursting out of the skin in the form of upward-curving spikes. No sooner had they appeared, rising a full four inches from the marble surface, than they retracted, the skin closing up around them as if they had not been there in the first place. Every feature and facet of that once-human body and form had been chiseled slightly, perfecting where there was the slightest hint of an imperfection, smoothing out where there were even the smallest scars or bumps. Even as the redhead watched, shadowy matter swirled around and over the newly-created demon’s body, clothing him in dark fabric. First came form-fitting dark pants that came to rest around narrow hips, the bottom halves tucked into ebony boots that clung to his calves and fit securely around his ankles and the front of his feet. A black shirt of translucent material clothed his torso, large, billowy sleeves ending in tight cuffs around his wrists that extended to partway up his forearm. The shirt front was wide, exposing much of a broad white chest as well as firm, faintly ridged abdominals. It went down lower, but a deep violet sash wrapped around his waist, concealing the bottom part, the long tail ends of the purple cloth resting lightly against his right hip. His head was thrown back head facing the skies, mahogany dark hair swirling faintly with the stirrings of energy that had not yet fully settled in his body. Around his neck was a collar as wide as half a thumb, the color of dark mercury and obsidian. It covered a good part of the dark bite mark on his neck.

Gaara’s attention was now focused on that mark. He could not wrench his gaze away, but his hand tremblingly managed to rise to his shoulder, where the itching sensation had been moments ago. The claws of his fingers made contact with small ridges on his skin that had not been there before. He touched the strange bumps with the pads of his fingers and quickly traced out what appeared to be a bite mark, halfway between his neck and the edge of his shoulder.

‘When?’ he thought, stunned. He searched his memory for when this could possibly have taken place. An incident from just after he had taken the then-mortal-priest from the human plane flashed through his mind.

He had ‘Father’ Neji pinned against a rock, watching him struggling in vain to escape his iron-hard grasp. It was always so amusing to see the mortal trying to push him away. Gaara was satisfied knowing it would be some time before his new toy would realize that there was no way he could escape, no turning back from what he had brought upon himself – albeit, with a little help from the demon.

“You will never best me in a physical match, my helpless priest,” Gaara cooed mockingly, raising his free hand to card it through the mortal’s long locks. “No matter how you try, you won’t be making good on your promise to make me suffer.” He loosened his grasp on the tall human’s neck, allowing him to sink down slightly and gasp for breath.

“You…fiend!” the mortal man gasped out, glaring hard at his captor. “By the Lord, you will regret this one day!”

Gaara just laughed. “You haven’t accepted it yet, my Neji,” he purred, leaning in close to trail his lips down the human’s jaw line. “Your God has abandoned you. You’re mine now.” He licked upwards towards the shell of his human toy’s ear. He had long known just how easily he could make the former priest bend to his whims if he played with that sensitive part of him. He blew air into the newly-moistened bit of skin, sucking lightly on the lobe. “All mine.”

“Never!” In a Herculean effort to keep possession of his senses, Neji ripped his head away from the demon’s teasing touch and bit down with all his might on the creature’s shoulder.

Gaara was stunned that he had overlooked that episode. That wound had healed almost immediately. It had broken the surface of his skin and the priest’s teeth had gotten in deep before the demon had wrenched away. There had been no mark or indication that anything had happened, save for the sharp gash on the side of Neji’s face, courtesy of Gaara’s claws. But then, those too had disappeared sometime later, when the sand wielder had decided he preferred his toy’s face unblemished. It was an accident that Gaara had later overlooked. This was something that neither Temari nor Kankurou had even imagined. It was something much worse.

He’d allowed himself to be marked.

As the feeling of disaster came crashing around him, he noticed that the unmoving form of the newly-created demon had stopped shaking, and now the thrown-back head slowly tilted forward.

There was not much change on the Neji’s face, but that didn’t matter. Gaara already knew what he was. If he had – as he’d been repeatedly warned – paid proper attention, he would have realized sooner what trouble he was in.

Lack of appetite, even for the raw meats that most demons craved.

His increasing lack of resistance to sexual advances, coupled with his propensity to instigate the intimacy himself.

That increasingly delicious and enticing scent.

And now, the final, blatantly obvious signs: the spikes on his arms and the S-curved horns.

“…Faunus,” Gaara whispered. A demon of seduction and lust, that was what Neji had become. He who had once been a creature of enforced piety that the redhead had actively seduced was now a dangerous being of pure temptations of the flesh, a demon that would need to feed off the sexual energy of others in order to live. This was the sort of demon Naruto ran from, the sort Gaara had long successfully avoided. And now, in his folly, the redhead sand demon had created one. “…Incubus…”

As if the words were a trigger, on cue Neji’s eyes opened, fully aware. The brilliant diamonds sparkled and swirled to lustful mercury. Pale rose lips parted in a fanged smile, a red tongue snaking out momentarily to wet the surface. In sinfully liquid graceful steps, the created demon came within two meters of the smaller fiend. A voice that reached right down into Gaara’s chest and sent pleasant coils of heat through his gut nearly was the sand demon’s undoing.

“Gaara,” Neji called softly, dangerously softly. The very sound was enough to make the redhead want to fly forward into the new incubus’s arms.

‘No!’ his mind screeched in protest. He stiffened where he stood, vaguely aware that his siblings and Naruto had left him. No demon wanted to be within range of an incubus, especially a newly-born one. But Gaara was stronger than most. He would break from the hold of Neji’s voice and gaze; he needed to. If only he could breathe right; if only he did not feel numb – paralyzed where he stood.

The bite mark on his shoulder throbbed slightly. He found himself taking step after step forward.

Before he could steel himself to resist and turn away, he found himself flush against the incubus’s chest, inhaling that irresistible but impossible-to-place scent. Claws slowly slid up to touch the side of his face then raking back down to tilt up his chin. The sensation Gaara had never wanted to feel, the tail of another demon wrapping around his waist – it was happening there and then. The smooth leathery skin of Neji’s tail coiled languidly around his hips and tightened as it rose higher to his abdomen.

“Gaara,” Neji purred. The sand wielder all but shivered at the sound.

At the same time, he slammed down hard on his senses and glared up at the smiling incubus. “Let go. Our games are over and I want nothing to do with you now.” It was a meager attempt, but he felt better for having spoken at all. It was enough to rouse his body somehow to resist the urge to melt against the lustful demon’s chest. He was marked – just as he had marked Neji long before. Their fates were sealed; they were trapped with each other.

A throaty laugh escaped Neji’s lips. “Everything feels so much better now. The pain is gone and I feel more in control of myself than I have felt in a long time.” He leaned down to brush his lips against the Kanji symbol on Gaara’s left temple. “You were right… so right about me… I couldn’t have stayed a priest. This... energy coursing through me – it’s much more powerful than any prayer...”

It was as if the sand demon’s words had never even been heard. Emerald eyes flashed angrily, desperately trying to throw off the desire that sought to drown him and doom him. The incubus’s voice was hypnotic, never mind the trouble its words signaled. “I will not let you feed off me.” Gaara pushed against Neji’s chest and turned his head away from the feathery touch. “Release me now.”

The hold around his waist tightened. Dark chuckles rumbled in Neji’s chest and sent shivers of want down Gaara’s spine. He had to get away. He had to escape.

“I can’t do that, my Gaara,” the incubus purred. At the possessive words, emerald eyes widened and narrowed in surprise and helpless rage. “I swore before that I would make you miserable, that I would be the bane of your very existence.” He gripped the smaller demon by the hair and tilted his head up further. The pain sent white-hot waves of desire flooding Gaara’s body. “I don’t want that anymore.”

Gone completely was the human priest grasping almost desperately for a belief he had never fully had, valiantly trying to push down the natural-born pride and ambition inside him. In his place stood an unafraid, proud, unashamedly dangerous and beautiful creature that would have its way no matter what any other being said or did.

One last faint struggle and one half-hearted plea was all Gaara had left. He could not even call up his sands to shield him. “…Don’t…”

“But Gaara, my Gaara,” Neji whispered, brushing his lips directly over the sand demon’s, “I’m so hungry… I want you so badly…” A wickedly anticipatory smile graced the lust demon’s lips. “Don’t worry. I will never make you miserable… Not when I would rather have you screaming with pleasure instead!”

The tables had turned. Predator had become prey.

Back on the human plane, where a nervous old clergyman was beginning his first-ever sermon in the Chapel of Faith’s Light. He was the first priest to take over there since the last one, young Father Hyuuga Neji, a member of the church’s patron family, had died in a terrible fire at the adjoining rectory. That had been nearly a decade ago, but only now was there to be a service in Faith’s Light again. The newly-chosen priest was not of the family and he would not live on the church grounds. The rectory had never been rebuilt, for its unfortunate late resident’s remains had never been found. All this, Hyuuga Hinata and Hanabi had ordered. The family had grieved publicly long enough – though the sisters would mourn their dear departed cousin for the rest of their lives.

The bells tolled, signaling the start of the worship service.

“…in nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti…”

High above his head, the stained glass windows in the shape of a dove rising to heaven shattered into a million tiny pieces. The glimmering pieces showered down upon the shocked parishioners and cut at the middle finger of the priest’s hand. As they fell, the tiny shards went from the white and yellow and blue of the dove to bright and bloody crimson – the colors of lust and passion and rage.

The Mass came to a stop before it had even truly begun.

“…Amen.”

So this is where it ends. It’s been a long and bumpy year, but Neji is now safely tucked away in Hell and Gaara is now paying the price for his folly. But I think they’ll enjoy themselves, don’t you?

Study Guide:
1. What the hell is with the incubus info and where did it come from? Why is Neji an incubus now?
Firstly, the information and traits I have written in this last chapter are my mini-research with a sprinkling of writer’s embellishment. Now, as mentioned in the chapter, the incubus is a lust demon, usually coming to women in their sleep and having sex with them. They can take on the form of the man of the victim’s dreams, a satyr, or – strangely – if seducing a witch, a rank GOAT. You might have heard of the incubus’ female counterpart, the succubus. Same principle, but the succubus goes at sleeping men. Now, it’s debatable if incubi and succubae (the plural forms) are the same creature and can switch gender or if they are male and female of the same demonic species or order. On the physical description of the incubus in this story, well, I took that from an MMORPG, Ragnarok. There is really no description that I could find about how incubi truly look. On the sensations that Gaara felt: the fear, the paralysis, the hardness of breathing – those are the main descriptions I found when researching on the effects of having incubi around. Another interesting thing about incubi that I didn’t include anymore in the story is that they have impossibly COLD dicks.
On WHY I made Neji into one, please refer back to the conversation of Temari, Kankurou, and Shikamaru in the last chapter. The two greatest traits Neji has displayed in the story – the ones Gaara was coaxing to the forefront – were his pride and lust. I think you can guess which won over the other.
2. I get the feeling the religious tone has vanished. What happened?
I never intended this to be an attack on any religion or church. I am guessing that by the slightly low number of (vocal and opinionate) readers, the issues on religion and what is supposed to be holy, especially in the first few chapters, are a tad squeamish. I confess I do not know very much about the Catholic faith or any other faith so I had to do some research. In the end, I decided that steering the plot away from overly dangerous waters would be best. This is FFNet, not AFFNet. I know some readers are a little younger than the rating of this story should allow, so I compromised. I won’t do an all-out aggressive version of this for AFFNet, for reasons I will rant about some other time.
3. You left some things – more than a few things – hanging or unexplained! Why?
Every story is bound to frustrate one or more of its readers. On the things I left hanging on purpose, I have my explanations.
Lee long disappeared from view. That’s simply because, realistically, that’s how life goes. He was Neji’s friend, but he had a life of his own and was not around during the final stages of the priest’s (re)corruption. Why there was no mention of him in the ending? Think a bit. He already had his ending near the beginning of the story. To write what happened to him after Neji’s ‘death’ – at least in my personal opinion – would have added unnecessary clutter.
On Hinata and Hanabi, I think I’ve ended things sufficiently well for them. They saw that something was happening to their cousin, but since Neji never did confide in them, they could do nothing. Also, they were not there when the final damnation occurred. They would have found out only afterwards, when the fire department and the manor were called and informed of the disaster. Their mourning period had to be skipped over since – this is about Neji and Gaara, not the Hyuuga sisters.
Gaara and the bite mark. That seems kind of rushed, but realize how fast things really go in real life. He wouldn’t have had all the time to contemplate exactly the way I wrote his contemplations. To us, we have to analyze and dissect his thoughts. To him, they just race on by. Most stories operate with the information being slowly revealed or explained. This story ended before the bite could be fully explained. I simply want you readers to realize, fantasize, and speculate about the implications yourselves.
4. The demons chasing Naruto… Are they who I think they are?
That depends on what you’re thinking, dear!

Okay, I hope that clears things up a bit. If not, I’m always PM-able!

Thank you so much, everyone, for sticking with this story. I know it’s bothered some of you at some points, but I hope you all found it a worthwhile read in the end. Again, I’d love it of you could tell me what you thought. The review button has been revamped, thanks to the site administration. Do make use of the lovely new button and tell me your thoughts.

Until the next tale, until the next update!

R.L.M.