The Nine Circles (4/?) [fanfiction]

Nov 20, 2011 18:42

Title: The Nine Circles
Author: marinoa
Rated: T
Characters/Pairings: Germany, France, England, Romano, Japan, Russia and America. Some pairings.
Summary: Seven nations, seven deadly sins, and fellows waiting to be saved - that's already catastrophic enough, but adding to the bunch the nine circles, it's... Yes, it's hell.


AN: Okay, before you all kill me, I apologise this took so long! Really, I'm sorry. But unfortunately, I can't promise you amazingly quick updates with this fic. Eventually I will update, always till the very end, but it may take some time. Well, maybe not as much as with this chapter! Anyway, now that that's settled, on we go...

The Nine Circles

Chapter four:

Going Down

Getting into the castle hadn't been complicated in the slightest - all that the nations had to do was enter one of the seven gates, which weren't even locked. But finding Minos in the huge castle, that was another thing.

And not only because the empty halls of the castle were filled with nothing more but echoes of the nations' steps, but they were filled with human voices, too. Distant, but oh so real voices. They kept driving Arthur mad, and it didn't really improve his mood that the other nations seemed to notice nothing unusual.

“Look at them - walking like being above this place.”

Arthur shifted uncomfortably, chills running up his spine. The worst thing about the situation was that even though the nations couldn't see anyone, someone certainly saw them.

“Don't worry - they shall soon fall back on our level.”

“Or lower.”

“What's eating you?” A hand made brief contact with Arthur's shoulders, and he stirred slightly.

Francis - of course it had been him - lifted his eyebrow at that, but said nothing. Oh, Arthur thought bitterly. So now they were back to acting civil again. Well, that would hardly last; ever since they had entered hell, Francis had been a bloody thorn in Arthur's flesh. Even more that usually, that was.

“What, you don't hear it?” he answered to Francis' question with his own, even though he already knew what the answer would be. He tried to keep his voice low, but naturally the Frenchman chose to ignore this attempt although the Englishman knew he had noted it.

“Hear what?” Francis asked innocently in a normal voice and Arthur inwardly congratulated himself.

“Yeah, what?” Alfred interfered and slowed down his pace to match the Englishman's; Arthur and Francis had instinctively slowed down on starting talking - another stupid deep-rooted habit they seemed to have.

“Arthur seems to be hearing something,” Francis helpfully explained.

“Oh?”

“Hearing something?” Now Ludwig caught Francis words, too, and Arthur resisted the urge to cover his face with his hands. So much for not attracting undesired attention.

“Nothing much,” he reluctantly said, shrugging. “Voices.”

“Voices?”

“Oui, Arthur tends to hear voices inside his head,” Francis chimed in again and looked at Arthur in mock understanding. “So that was what made you so jumpy.”

Alfred gave a long, understanding 'oh' with a laughter and shook his head while Ludwig coughed politely in a way that clearly announced him to believe Arthur was a lunatic, but too polite to say so, and took his place with Alfred at the front of their group again. The Englishman heard Ivan commenting something about Alfred's imaginary alien friend when the American laughed, but didn't really pay attention to it; he didn't have any extra energy to care about Alfred's and Ivan's arguing (even though the two of them could easily start another world war with no winners this time).

Arthur didn't even have the power to glare at Francis properly, so he merely threw a tired glance at him and carried on with the attempt to ignore the hollow voices. Really, why did he even bother with the Frenchman? Francis looked like he wanted to say something, but didn't get a word out and Arthur didn't ask.

“Are we soon there?” Alfred then complained and turned around to gawk at Romano, who was dragging his feet behind Francis and Arthur. “We've been exploring this freaky castle for ages now! You said it'd be easy to find that Minos guy!”

“I never said it'd be easy!” Romano spat and hugged himself tightly. “It's not like I've been here before...”

“Oh, really?” Alfred mocked with a roll of his eyes, stopping. “And here I thought that foul mouth of yours would have brought you here more than once already.”

“Alfred,” Arthur warned on seeing Romano's face darken. Seriously, how was it possible that the American brat had turned out obnoxious like that although Arthur had raised him?

The mentioned American crossed his arms and grinned at Arthur, only it didn't reach his eyes. “What, so you can insult Francis but suddenly it's wrong when somebody else does so to someone?” he asked, not moving an inch, so other nations stopped too.

“Everybody, please calm down,” Ludwig said wearily with his hands held palms open in what he hoped to be a soothing way.

“Don't you interfere in this, bastard!” Romano snapped at the German, accusing eyes shooting daggers at him. “You are not one to talk!”

Ludwig moved his hands to massage his temples. “Listen, we have to complete this mission, so would you all please focus?”

“Focus? Doing what?” Alfred rolled his eyes. “We are just lost because that shut-up-you-idiots-I-know-everything does not have a clue where we should go!”

“If you know any better feel free to point the direction!” Romano yelled, face reddening with both embarrassment and anger.

“It's not me who's familiar with hell!”

“Oh, even though you are normally living in one?” Ivan just couldn't help chiming in.

“Oh, right, we should just ask Ivan,” Alfred shot back sarcastically. “He would know everything about hell too - from personal experience. He does belong here naturally, after all.”

“Alfred, shut the bloody hell up and-”

“Calm down, mes amis!”

“You stay out of this, don't make this any worse, frog face.”

“Well aren't you bitchy again. Now what if for once you stopped and reasoned before you said anything?”

“Everybody, please...”

“Don't bother, Kiku. This is a lost case.”

Francis heard Ludwig's words and sighed, turning his back to Arthur and others. “You know what, you are right,” he commented flatly.

“Yeah, you guys are hopeless,” Alfred snorted. “I can do this better alone. You just sit and relax here or something while I go and save the world.”

“I disagree,” all Ivan, Arthur and Francis said in union, then awkwardly glanced at one another. Well wasn't it awkward when they for once agreed on something, the Englishman thought to himself.

“But this won't work like this,” Ivan admitted, not angrily, not bitterly; he was just stating the facts. “We are not really made for teamwork. Or at least,” he glanced at the American, “for teamwork with certain people.”

This made Arthur give a humourless laughter. Maybe it was indeed right, maybe nothing worked out like they wanted, because that was the way it was - they were not meant to be united, even for one greater goal. At least not with certain people, like Ivan had said.

“We have been working out just fine in world meetings, so why not...” Perhaps for the first time in his whole existing Ludwig's voice faded away without finishing his sentence. The German knew well enough even without the looks others gave him that the nations' meetings were a mere circus and nothing more.

“Maybe we are just made to act alone,” Kiku said quietly. “That was my policy until I was forced to open up.” But Alfred naturally missed the look the Japanese sent his way.

“Then how about we split up and do this separately?” he instead suggested.

“Hm,” Ludwig said, starting to think that maybe that was the least worst option. Fighting they would not make any progress anyway.

“That'd be stupid,” Romano snorted and earned six pairs of curious yet surprised eyes upon himself. “Try to think rationally, you idiots!” he added when others still looked puzzled. “We are in hell, for fuck's sake, it's not like we could just all walk out of here each by themselves!”

“Are you implying we could do it together then?”

“At least we'd have better chances!”

“Oh dear,” Francis said with a small smile. “Romano of all people is suggesting teamwork. Well, I do agree with him.”

“That's because both you and Romano would just run and hide if you were left alone,” Alfred laughed, but Francis was highly unamused.

“Oh, come on!” the Italian exclaimed, exasperated. “This ranting will take us nowhere.”

How funny, Arthur thought, feeling somehow detached and distant from the others, traditionally the weakest of us speaks sense.

There was silence after Romano's words; nations considering choices they had. Of course, no one really wanted to be stuck with others, but in the end, trying to get out of the hell alone had a lonely sound to it, and though no one would ever admit it, deep inside each and one of the chosen seven felt secretly unsure whether they had the strength to make through it alone.

Ludwig spoke first, reluctantly. “...I agree with Romano. We have to do this together.”

“Very well,” Ivan said. “Let's do this together. Even though I'm not wild about the idea.”

“Agreed,” Kiku only said.

“Fine,” Alfred snorted. “Even though I don't want to.”

All eyes turned expectantly at Arthur, as if it had been him who had brought up the idea of working separately and was now rejecting teamwork. Never being second when it came to glares, the Englishman raised an eyebrow at the looks. “Well, is there anything else you want to say or why are we still standing here?”

Francis actually gave a chuckle and took a step further in the hall, others instantly joining him.

“I wonder why they keep wandering around instead of just going to Minos.”

Arthur stilled for a brief moment but instantly continued as if he had heard nothing. After all, he didn't want to show those... voices that he heard them. (And just maybe he didn't want other nations to notice anything, either.)

“Maybe they don't know where to find him.”

A haughty snort. “Every soul knows without anyone telling them that he never leaves the great hall. But these seven have just passed the entrance there without even noticing.”

“Well... on the other hand, they are not exactly souls...”

“Wait,” Arthur said, hesitantly first but then repeated himself louder. “Wait!”

“What now, Artie?” Alfred asked, now cheerfully again. “What is it now, invisible unicorns?”

The Englishman chose to ignore both the annoying nickname and the insult about unicorns and shrugged. “It's just... I think we should go that way.” He pointed to direction they had just come from; if they kept their eyes open, perhaps they'd spot the entrance to the 'great hall' that the voices had mentioned.

Kiku and Ludwig sighed as if by same command. Ivan shrugged. “We just came from there,” he commented.

“Yes, but we might have missed something. Maybe a door in the wall or something.”

“Look at that one... Don't you think he can hear us?”

Arthur's palms started sweating - cold, clammy sweat.

“Possible, unlikely but possible. There has been few people who could.”

Romano actually nodded slightly, but it looked like he only did so because he was fed up with arguing. Francis instead raised his eyebrows and bored his eyes into the Englishman, who got an uncomfortable feeling of his enemy knowing him too well. “I-I think I heard some noise from there,” he added uneasily to justify his suggestion.

“Well,” Ludwig said, “we might as well do as you say. Unless,” he cast a look at the rest of the nations, “someone has a better idea of where we should go.”

Nobody had, not even Alfred, although he kept snickering at his own jokes about Arthur and his 'imaginary' friends, and so the seven 'sins' turned around and proceeded more slowly, inspecting the walls as they did due to Arthur's implication about a possible door. They did find it eventually, a barely notable door with a small golden handle; they had missed it the first time passing it, because the marble door didn't really stand out of the wall of same kind of marble. After arguing for a moment whether or not Arthur should have mentioned the door earlier because he had clearly known about it, and rejecting Alfred's idea of cool heroic burst through the door, Ludwig finally pushed the heavy marble thing open - to a huge, empty hall.

Empty, save for a single gigantic, golden throne in the other end of the hall. And save for the huge human-like figure sitting on that throne.

Romano paled instantly on seeing the figure and clang onto Francis of pure instinct. And for once, Francis didn't use the situation to his advantage or even say anything lewd - apparently it didn't take more than a mere Minos to make the frog behave decently, Arthur briefly thought as the figure - supposedly Minos - raised his look to observe the group that offended his splendid silence.

“Minos,” Romano whispered barely audibly, confirming Arthur's suspicion, and clutched at Francis uniform with white knuckles. Even the Englishman felt smaller and smaller with every passing second of Minos' impressive presence.

“Err,” was all Ludwig managed to utter - Minos' eyes were empty, like two white marbles. Meeting that gaze was rather a heart-freezing experience.

The king from ancient times was indeed enormous; his naked body was like one of those Greek statues, except that it was much bigger, his eyes were white and there was an iron crown on his head. Though his most attention-waking feature was his long, snake-like tail, just like Romano had mentioned. The tail curved idly over Minos' leg on the floor, and his blank stare was surely colder than ten of that General Winters Ivan had once been telling about.

Suddenly a powerful voice filled the whole room. “The seven deadly sins,” Minos said, and Arthur got an uncomfortable feeling that the giant was merely amused by the nations. What the hell, were all the spooks of the hellish afterlife that witty?

“Erm,” Ludwig made another failed attempt to communicate with the ruler of inferno, and Minos laughed - horrible, hollow laughter.

“Welcome to hell,” he said and slowly wrapped his long tail once around his leg. “Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch'intrate.”

Romano let out a pathetic whimper, and Arthur wondered if he should ask what the odd words meant; he recalled Dante saying something with similar sound when he sent them to hell. The words, however, died on the Englishman's tongue as something started to happen.

At the same rhythm as Minos slid his tail around his leg, the hall started filling with people. And not like they just walked through the door, but they were incarnated right from the air - human beings clad in white, surrounding the seven nations. And be Ivan sometimes slightly creepy, or Alfred self-proclaimed hero, but the sight - being suddenly surrounded by ghost-like people - got even those two feel humble and vulnerable.

“What the fuck,” Arthur muttered quietly. Had those souls been there all the time? If so, perhaps they were the causes of those voices the Englishman had been hearing.

“You are not normal souls,” one of those stoic human-spirits, a man with strong features and a bald spot on his head, said. Arthur could swear he had seen that face in numerous pictures and statues, but - it was impossible. “What are you?”

“They are no ordinary souls,” Minos agreed. “But don't you recognise any of them?”

There was a moment of stillness, during which the man observed the nations and then covered his face with his hand. “Oh, shame! My Rome was ruined, and now his heir has been sentenced here.”

It didn't take Arthur long to catch on after hearing these words.

“Roma was never yours,” Romano snarled from behind Arthur. “You always belonged to Rome!”

“Ludwig,” Arthur whispered quietly to the man beside him. “That one- by any chance- he isn't-?”

“Caesar,” the German replied barely audibly; Arthur could see he was overwhelmed by deep respect. Right, Ludwig had always been a great fan of Rome.

“This is madness...” Francis mumbled, shaking his head.

“Anyway,” Minos continued, turning back to the seven chosen ones. “This is not where you shall stay. Your way goes down.”

“What are we to do?” Kiku asked, and his voice echoed in the hall surprisingly loud.

“To do?” The ruler of hell laughed. “You have to follow your path, nothing more. And your path leads you deeper.”

“Yes... But Dante said-” Ludwig said, regaining his steady voice, but Minos cut him off.

“Dante... yes. Your trial is to survive through all the circles of hell and get out of here.” The hollow eyes bored into the German. “Though no one has ever got out of here before.”

“That's because this is the first time we're here,” Alfred announced loudly and very typically of him, making Arthur roll his eyes out of sheer habit. “So we only have to get down?”

“Indeed,” Minos said, his pale lips twitching slightly upwards. “Though it's not quite that simple. On each level, you have to go through a trial to sink to the next level. Do not worry - the habitants of hell are always eager to... help newcomers. They will tell you how to proceed.”

“No problem then!” Alfred laughed. “Hero on the mission! How do we get to the level two?”

Arthur could swear Minos was taken aback by the American's attitude, but the moment was gone and the giant stood up, straightening to his whole impressive length. “Very well,” he said. “I'll send you to the second circle. Try not to die.”

“We cannot die,” Ivan explained calmly. “We are nations.”

“Oh, don't rely on that here,” Minos uttered. “You may heal faster than normal humans, but here in hell you just as capable of dying as they are.”

The thought of dying had never really crossed Arthur's mind - it was something absurd, something that didn't happen. But now that there was a chance of death, even for him, he felt a grope of fear in his heart. “What,” he asked, “happens if we die?”

“You will be forever captured in the circle you die in, not as a nation anymore, but as one of ordinary mortals. Forever.”

Oh, joy.

“Have a pleasant journey,” Minos said and raised his long tail. Once, twice it wrapped around his tree-like leg, and just like when Dante had sent them to hell, everything went blank. There was a feeling of falling, and then - stillness again.

Which was quickly merely a fading memory; as soon as Arthur opened his eyes something grasped him and threw against another body that let out a muffled yelp. “What the-” the Englishman started, but was cut off by someone now bumping into him in turn. It took the nations quite a while to realise what was happening, and another one to organise themselves again.

It looked like they had made it to the second circle; the landscape was rocky, and the whole world was coloured with dark shades of grey, brown and sickening orange. This time they were not the only people in sight, but there were numerous human souls wandering all around them - some of which looked more sickly and infirm than others.

But what really indicated the fact that the nations had arrived in the second circle was also the cause of why poor souls around looked worn-out and exhausted - tremendously strong storm wind was tearing about everything that wasn't chained to rocks. It had been the wind that had thrown Arthur and the others upon appearing in the lower lever of hell, and it didn't look like it was ceasing anytime soon. Arthur had to seriously struggle to manage to even stand on his knees in the strong wind.

“What the fuck!” he yelled just to say something, the wind catching his words despite his raised voice.

“I totally agree with Iggy,” Alfred whined, attempting to keep his eyeglasses safely on his nose. “That Limbo thingy was nothing like this!”

Romano barked a cheerless laughter. “Did you expect hell to be all sunny and nice? This is where the real punishment starts!”

“Which sin signified the second circle?” Kiku asked. He had difficulties to be heard, because he hardly ever raised his voice, but the wind swallowed all the words that had not been shouted.

“Lust,” Romano shouted, and all the eyes turned on Francis, who was half-kneeling on the ground.

“So this round is on you,” Alfred, ever the idiot, laughed. “Or for you.”

Francis said nothing, merely gritted his teeth, but Ludwig spoke instead. “Be it as it is, we have to move on,” he roared. “Minos said the habitants of hell would tell us how to proceed.”

“He also said we have to go through trials to reach the next level,” Ivan added, not looking particularly enthusiastic about it.

“What, you scared?” Alfred mockingly laughed at him. “Don't worry, I'll accomplish any task we are to do.”

The glare the Russian shot the American's way was darkest since the fall of the Soviet Union; it looked like Alfred had finally succeeded in crossing the line with his continuous boasting and purposeful aggravation. Slowly, Ivan straightened his tall body in spite of the wind, managing to stay straight. “I doubt it very much, Alfred,” he said dangerously kindly. “As far as I can see, you can't even stand up for your own words.” He chuckled lightly.

The reaction was immediate. Gritting his teeth, Alfred instantly tried hopping on his feet from his sitting position, and he did make it to a standing position - which, however, didn't reach the same stability as Ivan's.

“Ivan is right,” Ludwig said, partly to prevent any further conflicts between the two biggest nations. “We can't just sit here and wait for a miracle.”

As it always did, speaking, even though it had to be done by constant shouting, turned out to be easier than actually standing up and moving forward. Fighting against the strong wind was much heavier for a body than it first might have appeared. With struggle, eventually, all the nations managed to stand up, but walking caused great difficulties; it seemed that whichever direction the nations turned, the wind seemed to blow always right against them. Besides, as the nations soon found out, maintaining the concentration was crucial; as soon as the focus on proceeding was lost, the wind swept the unlucky one off his feet and several steps backwards. Ivan, Ludwig and Alfred seemed to be doing fairly well, in view of the circumstances, but Arthur, Francis, Kiku and Romano were having an especially hard time.

Francis in particular appeared to be extraordinarily affected by the wind. Each step he made was forced out of him like he was walking on nails and barefoot, and despite himself, Arthur couldn't help but feel vague pity looking at him - even though Francis probably had more difficulties because it was his circle so to speak and he deserved all of it. Not to say walking was easy for Arthur, either; it was extremely draining trying to move his feet when such tremendous wind was against him. It was almost as if he was trying to move through a wall, except that walls didn't usually push back.

In such conditions it was rather understandable why the souls in the circle of Lust looked so drained. In fact, Arthur thought, it was a miracle that they were still on their feet after God knew how long time in the hellish wind. Or maybe they just could collapse on the ground and rest.

The miserable group of seven nations tried speaking to several doomed souls, but all they got for answers were turned away faces and short negative grunts. Contrary to Minos' words up in Limbo, the habitants of the second circle were all but helpful... Which Arthur really couldn't blame them for.

“This is hopeless, dammit!” Romano finally yelled, his knees giving in beneath him. The poor Italian, perhaps the weakest of them all, collapsed to the rocky ground and, not even bothering to hide his tears, clutched to it in order to prevent the wind sending him backwards. “We will never get out of here!”

Ludwig sighed - the light breath, of course, couldn't be heard, but it could be read from his lips - and rubbed his temples, his previously sleeked hair now a mess almost equal to Arthur's. “Let's- let's have a break,” he offered effortlessly.

Secretly glad it wasn't him who first broke down, the Englishman plopped down on the ground, too, attempting to pretend he hadn't done so because he was at the edge of his endurance. “Bloody hell,” he muttered tiredly, giving a gloomy smile at his own words but it was as brief as a blink of the wings of a butterfly.

Suddenly he felt a hand on his shoulder and started, looking up to see Francis leaning on him. Their eyes met, and for the first time since the word meeting that now felt like it had been a millennium ago, there was no anger or bitterness in their gazes. Francis sat down beside the Englishman and offered a faint smile.

“Still as witty as ever,” he said, not bothering to shout, but sitting close to him, Arthur heard him anyway. “Some things never change.”

Arthur returned the smile, however worn it may have been. Suddenly he realised how much heavier it was to fight the wind when carrying constant bitterness in his heart - if only things between Francis and him were clear, to one side or another, perhaps it would be easier to endure whatever hell tossed their way. However, it was meaningless to replay those 'if only' scenes in his mind, and so Arthur acquiesced to that moment of wordless understanding they just had reached.

Kiku sat down beside Romano, awkwardly putting his hand on his shoulder and looked up at Ludwig, who, too lowered himself to a sitting position. Only Alfred and Ivan remained standing, visibly trapped in an informal battle of who would admit his defeat and sit first. Shaking his head at the, Kiku spoke to Ludwig. “We have to find something to eat.”

“We can survive long time without food,” the German responded. “Don't worry.”

Kiku's eyes flickered to the Italian, who was now hugging his knees, face buried in his arms. “I know... But it would be psychologically important.”

“That's true...” Ludwig admitted, gazing somewhere into distance. “But I wonder how we- Wait, look!”

Kiku did as was told and saw what the German had seen. He frowned. “Is that a woman..? Why isn't she affected by the wind?”

The word exchange had captured both Francis' and Arthur's, and Ivan's and Alfred's attention. They all looked where Ludwig had gestured, and true - a woman was approaching them from a distance, walking smoothly and easily, as if the wind didn't even exist.

“Who is that,” Alfred stated more than asked, ans then turned to Romano, who hadn't even looked up. “Hey, Romano, who's that?”

“I don't know and I don't fucking care,” the Italian grumbled barely audibly from the depths of his arms.

“Man, you were supposed to know everything about this place! Besides, you didn't even look!”

“That's your own fault for being swollen-headed idiots,” Romano now lifted his face to yell. “And didn't I say I don't give a fuck?”

Ludwig hoisted himself up with some difficulty and placed a hand on the American's shoulder. “Let him be,” he said lowly. “We don't want another hell to break loose.”

“She's beautiful,” Ivan commented without much feeling in his words, ignoring others.

At this - Arthur was just slightly annoyed to see - Francis looked at the woman more closely with that same expression that he used to scrutinise people when estimating them. Though, truth be told, Arthur did look at her, too. But it was a different thing when someone looked at somebody that when Francis looked at somebody.

As she came closer, Arthur noted her exalted composition that showed in the manner she walked - unhurried, sure steps - and held her head high. Her skin had a colour of warm copper and her shiny black hair framed the graceful face. Her long, white dress embraced her body, showing every curve and movement in most elegant manner. As soon as she was close enough to see her facial features, Arthur marked her small smile and dark eyes. Even Romano, though sulkily, couldn't take his eyes off her.

She stopped before the group, eyeing each and one of the nations and making them uneasily conscious about their worn appearance.

“The seven sins, I presume,” she pronounced with a small smile, her voice smooth like dark velvet.

“We- yes,” Ludwig said with a stutter. “Excuse me for-” He coughed embarrassedly. “We would like to get to the third circle of hell, and...”

“I wonder if it's appropriate to ask a lady like yourself for help,” Francis interrupted, his cursed seducing instinct kicking in. “My name is Francis Bonnefoy, and who do I have the pleasure of meeting? Surely you cannot be Aphrodite herself?”

The woman's lips twitched just slightly at the mention of the name, but otherwise her smile remained the same. “No,” she answered, “My name is Cleopatra, and I am a mere humble human.”

Had it been someone else rambling such nonsense to the woman, Arthur might have been stunned to meet the famous Queen in person. Cleopatra, however, was not the only one who had got aggravated. Arthur's content mood that he had enjoyed just mere minutes ago was now again completely gone. Apparently you could always trust for Francis to, to- Well, true, it wasn't that they had ever talked or agreed on seeing each other exclusively, but still- Seriously, Francis was in hell, for fuck's sake, looking all drained and miserable, and then, puff, he was merrily hitting on bloody Cleopatra herself! That's how easy it apparently was to go from barely dragging his feet to swiftly jumping up like it was a piece of cake.

“Be that as it may, however,” she said, voice flowing from her sweet mouth, “I am indeed here to help you.”

“Really?” Alfred, ever the naïve idiot, got excited. He turned to Cleopatra, apparently forgetting Ivan and their stupid little game. “How cool is that!”

Others were slightly more prudent than him. Ludwig eyed the woman before them warily, not enchanted by her beauty but not quite completely immune to her charms, either. “Why?” he asked.

She shrugged - a graceful movement of her shoulders. “How could I not? You have a chance of surviving - how could I let you get lost in this place?”

And yet there must be a reason to why you are in hell, Arthur thought sourly.

“Great! So what's the trial?” Alfred inquired, grinning like a hero he thought he was.

“The trial...” Cleopatra said slowly, pronouncing each word alluringly as if reading a spell. A bloody show-off.

“Yeah, Minos said there would be one in every circle.”

“Of course, of course.” Oh, that voice, purposely slow and alluring. Arthur gritted his teeth, observing Francis from the corner of his eye. “But the trial with me is simple and easy... pleasant, even.”

“So..?” Ludwig coaxed her.

Her perfect lips stretched into a smile.“Who among you is Lust?”

Oh, she knew, Arthur swore she knew, it was apparent from the way her eyes laid on Francis.

“He is!” Alfred pointed at the Frenchman bloody helpfully, eager to move on from the plaguing wind circle. “So what's the trial? Does he have to do something?”

“Yes... After he's completed his ...trial, I'll give you a key and show the entrance through which you'll get to the third circle.”

“And to get the key he has to..?” Ivan asked, starting to show signs of impatience.

Arthur wondered if the ancient queen's eyes bored into him for just a second before flickering to Francis, or was it merely his imagination.

“To get the key,” Cleopatra said sweetly, “he has to accompany me in my bed.”

X

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