Chutes and Ladders [Abbadon/Shadow][FINISHED]

[Hakaisha Abbadon]

[This takes place after the events of "Running Around With Scissors" and during the events of "Kiss My Eyes and Lay Me To Sleep"]

Abbadon sat on the edge of the Tokyo Tower, observing the city filled with the lights and sounds of mortals. The wind blew his hair back and ruffled the fringes on his black tuxedo shirt he bought from a store. He chuckled at the fact that he actually "bought" something from the mortal realm. He was slowly starting to believe that he was becoming apart of this realm.

But honestly, he was starting to believe that it wasnt that much of a problem. And that was the thought that scared him. He had to know who he was. All he knew was that he was from Hell, but even then he started to doubt if that was true. If Oracle had the power to turn him human, then he could just as well had the ability to change his memories around. But what perplexed him that moment was the man he met not even three hours ago; his supposed assassin, Shadow Akuma.

Meeting him was the strangest sensation ever. He never met the man, yet he felt and reacted as if he knew him. And he sent off that same feeling, if not stronger. Since Abbadon had been around Tomo, his train of thinking was somewhat off, taking the feelings Shadow showed toward him as a hint of an attraction, but after becoming more in tune with his own emotions he was still trying to get used to, he could tell that it wasnt anything physical or sexual. It was more of a bond that came out of nowhere; a need that both of them seemed to ooze off of each other.

Abbadon thought of this even as he pulled out the semi-blank card he gave him inside the flowershop. He looked at it closely and sighed. That same needy desire came up again, making Abbadon overwhelmed with the emotions of acceptance and heartache, as if he desperately missed the man he just met. Then out of nowhere, three words escaped his lips he thought he'd never say in the same sentence.

"I need you..."

Suddenly, it was midnight. And just like Shadow said, the number to the Devil Saint's headquarters appeared on the card. Somewhat overtaken by the sudden intrusion on the card, he smirked as he saw the number and checked his watch.

"The little twat was right," he said in excitement. He grabbed his cell phone, which had a completely full signal since he was on top of the Tokyo Tower. He dialed the number and pressed send, putting the phone on speaker instantly. It only rang once when someone picked up the phone.

"Abbadon Hakaisha?" a female answered the phone.

Abbadon was once again thrown off. The receptionist not only answered the phone in one ring, but knew who he was. He almost hesitated to answer the secretary, but did it anyway.

"Yes," he said. "Yes, this is he. How do you know my name?"
The lady chuckled. "Mister Akuma has been expecting you," she said. "You can almost say that he had a need for your call."
Abbadon chuckled. He had no idea that there was the possibility this Shadow person felt the same way.

"Well, Mr. Hakaisha," she started, "are you ready?"

Abbadon went back to the phone call. "Ready for what?" she asked.

The woman chuckled again. "The journey," she started. "Whether you are or not, you'll be directly teleported inside his office in three seconds and counting. And thank you for calling the Devil Saint Headquarters office. Have a nice morning."

As soon as she hung up the phone, Abbadon could see a glowing white light start to take over his body. By the time he was blinded also, he felt a tug on his shirt. After that tug, the light disappeared instantly, and he saw that he was inside an office with a gray marble on the walls. Then he noticed a man standing by a fireplace with his hands behind his back. Abbadon stood up and looked at him questionably.

"S-Shadow?"

[Akuma Shadow]

"That looked like it hurt," Shadow said with a smile, "It would have hurt worst if I didn't tug you at the right moment. You wouldn't want to be part of the windows....trust me on that."

Though Shadow wasn't big on people outside the company use the portal system, he let this one in. For some reason in the pit of his soul, he trusted this man name Abbadon Hakaisha. In truth as well, he would have also let his sister, Sara, go get him but she was out. Again.

"Welcome to the Devil Saints ," Shadow lent out his right hand to help him up, "Come now, there are somethings we need to talk about."

[Hakaisha Abbadon]

Abbadon rubbed the area of his chest that he felt being pulled during his "journey." His other hand, like always, rested on the handle of his Sword of Darkness after he accepted Shadow's hand. He hissed while he rubbed his chest, feeling a slight burning sensation with the touch.

"Hell of a ride, though," he said sarcastically. "You should do that all the time and charge admission. You'll piss a lot of people off, but you'll make a fuckin' fortune."

Then, after he let go of Shadow's hand, he instantly went somewhere else in his head. Another beam of flashing light overtook him, and just like before, he couldn't see anything. It was a different light from before; it had nothing to do with the "journey" he took. Instead, he only heard voices. And one of the voices he heard, was himself.

"I need you," Abbadon said. "I need you now more than ever."
"You have to let him go," a familiar voice said. "Your father is dead. He's not coming back."
"You don't know that," Abbadon replied. "There's someone out there who can reverse all of this... Once I overthrow Tsubasa, I can bring him back!"
"I'm not going to just sit back here and watch you throw your life away for a simple theory," the voice said. "I accepted my father's death, and now you have to accept yours; there's no other way."
There was a pause before the voice decided to start talking again.
"Besides," it continued. "There are other people who care about you just as equally as he probably did."
"Oh yeah?" Abbadon asked. "Who?"
There was another pause. Then the voice answered the question before the blinding light disappeared.
"Me."

Abbadon's handle on Shadow's hand was instantly released once he was able to see again. He couldn't explain the situation that just happened; It was more of an outer body type of thing. But from the looks of it, his experience only lasted about a second in real life while it felt that it took about ten minutes. For a while, he looked at Shadow somewhat confused, but shook it off in case he felt inclined to ask if he was okay. Keeping what just happened to himself, he placed his trademark serious look on his face and looked at the Devil Saint.

"What do we need to talk about?"

[Akuma Shadow]

Shadow took a deep breath to collect his thoughts. A lot of things had happened after he left this man to go back home. One of things was a dream in his point of view.

He saw a beautiful women lying on what looked like a stone tablet.There were candles lit around the body, which led him to believe it was a summoning. It was night time. He remebered how cold it was around the area. There was also a man clad in black clothing standing over the woman. As the man in black turn to look at Shadow, he woke up, in a cold sweat no less.

The other thing that had him worried was that he kept hearing one name going around his head, at first in whispers but then calling him, for hours up in till Abbadon showed up.

That name was Yuki.

Shadow returned to the present, looking at the man in just as serious of a look as Abbadon.

"I've been hearing voices," Shadow started as he walked over to the door that led to the hallway, "Of a name. Does the name Yuki ring a bell to you?" he turned the knob and opened the door going though the door way.

[Hakaisha Abbadon]

Abbadon nearly fell over after hearing Shadow ask that question. And the fact that he just had somewhat of an outer body experience talking about her left him questioning himself. Yuki was the only person he remembered after his transformation into a human via Oracle. It was his first memory, actually. He could see her face, smiling at him. When he awoke, he was in the middle of a desert, with the Sword of Darkness residing in the palm of his right hand.

When he heard of her death, he was devastated. One of the reason was that it was Oracle who alerted him just to spite him. That was the day that he became the cold-hearted unemotional person he was thought to be in his past life; cutting off any kind of moral comfort until his pupil DarkCloud came along. After he disappeared, this guy Shadow pops in his life a few months later.

It was no doubt that Shadow and Abbadon's experience were connected. The fact that a stranger that Abbadon only knew for about two days kept hearing the name of a woman that Abbadon was somewhat romantically involved with seemed too close for comfort for him. But, despite his speculations, he wanted to trust Shadow. It was almost like it was programmed into his mind.

"We were lovers," he said, trailing off a bit. "Back when I was... something else."

Abbadon looked at Shadow seriously, ready to pour out his heart to the person with him.

"I wasn't always a mortal," he began. "I was once a very powerful demiangel." He paused. "At least I think I was." He looked at Shadow. "Oracle turned me into a human and trapped me inside the mortal realm. I don't know when, and I don't know why; all I know is that he wants me dead. What you need to know about Oracle, is that he has the ability to use the power of void to rearrange and manipulate the matter in the body and the mind. So I don't even know if I came from Heaven or Hell. All I know are the little bits of my memories that Oracle missed. And one of those memories is Yuki.

"And it seems that one of my memories are trying to overtake whatever hold Oracle still has on my mind. Just when you helped me up, I had an outer-body experience. I heard myself having a conversation with another man. I was talking about Yuki's death, overthrowing someone named Tsubasa and attempting to bring her back to life somehow. I didn't see anyone; I only heard voices."

Then he looked at Shadow.

"And the other voice sounded like yours."

[Akuma Shadow]

Shadow paused. This was way too odd, very odd. If there was one thing Shadow did not like doing was thinking too hard on anything very odd, that was his sister's thing and her being gone was not helping much.

What the hell is going on here... he thought as he turned to look at the man behind him.

"But I don't get it," Shadow spoke "We only met each other a few days ago...and yet I heard a name of a person you were romantically involved with..." That's when it hit him. literally. Shadow fell to the floor and only two figures remained.



"Hello there, Abbadon" the one on the left said in deep but calm manner, "We need to talk about him," He said as he pointed at the knocked out Shadow, "and you..."

[Hakaisha Abbadon]

"What the fuck?!" he said in a surprisingly calm tone of voice. After seeing Shadow fall out and the random appearance of these two individuals made Abbadon more confused than ever. But oddly enough, the first thing he reacted to was Shadow falling unconscious. He heard his own heart rate triple, and not because he faced a sudden situation.

It was his reaction to seeing Shadow hurt.

What the hell is wrong with me?! he thought to himself. I'm not like this. What's going on?!

Abbadon looked at Shadow, unconscious on the floor. His breathing hardened a bit. A somewhat worried pout formed on his face as he started to feel his bottom lip quiver. He looked at the two individuals in front of him as the reflexed grip on his sword handle tightened. With a pull of his hand, he quickly released his Sword of Darkness to distract from what tears escaped his eyes. He twirled it around twice, ignoring the sudden glow from the blade.

"Who the hell are you?" he asked the two. "And what did you do to Shadow?!"

[Akuma Shadow]

The one in the white coat stepped forward, stepping over the unconscious Shadow carefully.

"Put the blade away." he said as he stop just inches away from the man, "The only person you are going to hurt is Shadow. Besides, we met already at the flower shop, though you didn't really see me..." he trailed off and looked at the one with the black coat.

"We know you," the one in the black coat said as, he too, walked over to the frighten man though he stepped on Shadow's hand, "We are not here to hurt you and Shadow is okay, we just...well I did, knocked him out. Like Lover Boy said, you hurt us, Shadow will take all the pain. We won't feel a thing."

The one with the brown hair placed his index finger lightly on the blade and looking at the one holding it, he smiled.

"Please do, you don't want to do this. We don't have a lot of time to talk about this and whatever you hear will be between us three, not Shadow. I need you to listen."

[Hakaisha Abbadon]

Abbadon was somewhat skeptical, yet he heeded the warning of the one with the brown hair. He placed his sword back in his sheath somewhat hesitantly. After he noticed that he was crying, he embarrassingly wiped away the loose tears that ran down his cheeks. He looked at the two men standing in front of Shadow and nodded his head, cooperating with the strangers. He looked at the unconscious Shadow again and started to sigh heavily, as if he was still nervous about his life.

I need you...

He then looked at the two yet again. "Okay," he said. "Okay; I'm listening..."

[Akuma Shadow]

The one in the black coat made a sigh of relief as he sat down in the chair near him."I really thought that we were going to have some problems..." he said as he reached for an apple on the end table that sat in the middle of the floor.

You are not the only one... the one with brown hair thought as he moved his hair back. He looked at the man, tears still on his face. He only smiled from this as he too sat down in a chair near him.

"My name is Lust and my hungry friend over there is Rage." the one with the brown hair said in calm tone of voice. Rage only waved his hand with a smile on his face right before he bit into the apple.

"We are Shadow's Persona's and the reason he has no memory of you from the past. We see and hear everything that he does but...." he paused to think, "Well we both need your help on something, something that you can not speak with anyone else; Not even Shadow."

"Yeah," Rage said with his mouth full of apple "You two were best friends, very close" he swallowed the apple and giving a sigh continued, "You disappeared one day and Shadow snapped on that same day, killed a slew of people including the ones that killed his father. We had to take away the memories or he would tried---"

Lust raised his hand quickly and Rage stop just as fast.

"Sorry." he said.

Lust placed his hand down, "We need you to keep an eye on him and the only way to do that is to join the Devil Saints and take the 6th seat. The reason is simple, we are trying to find that lost part of his memories of you. We made a mistake and erased that part of his life. If you do this, we could give you part of your memory as well, but it is only a little memory of Shadow and I have no power over what it is. Who ever did this to you, you need to find them...Do you accept?"

[Hakaisha Abbadon]

Abbadon's mouth stood somewhat ajar as he stared at Shadow. They were best friends? Although it would explain the reason why he felt the way he did toward him and why they were both having different situations happen to each of them about each other, it was still rather odd. Just a day ago, he found out that he was hired by Oracle to kill him, and now his "persona's" are telling him that they used to be very close best friends.

But, that aside, they were offering him a seat in the Devil Saints. For some reason, they felt that there was enough trust between the two of them that Abbadon could be the right pick to watch after him. Hell; if what they said was true about their relationship, he would watch over him without being offered a seat of power.

But Abbadon wasn't a fool; just because he supposedly cared for Shadow didn't mean that he wouldn't accept a seat of power to do what he would do out of instinct. He looked at the one with the black coat murdering the apple and the one with brown hair, who's smile was starting to creep him out.

"I accept," he said with a nod of his head. "But I already know who did this to me. His name is Oracle; the same one that Shadow went to to fix whatever problem he was going through. Oracle turned me mortal for whatever purpose it was. Now I know that he must have messed around with my memories as well, because I had no idea that I was friends with him in my past life."

He then detatched his sword from his belt and showed it to the two persona's.

"But I think my sword is the reason why I'm slowly starting to remember him," he told the two. "This is called the Sword of Darkness. When I woke up here in the mortal realm, this sword was in my possession. I had this sword for who knows how long; I don't tend to keep track of the years here. But what I have discovered about this sword, is that it has the ability to either mend or tear the soul and mind of whoever it attacks. My only guess, is that it's a product of the Shijin."

[Akuma Shadow]

Lust looked at the blade carefully, noticing the markings on it.

"I never really like the Shijin for some reason" he stepped back after looking at and paused for a second to think.

"I guess your sword is oozing out it's powers in a positive way. Whoever left it for you was either fucking up your life or helping you return to it."

"Lust," Rage said quickly, "He's coming to, we got to get out of here!"
"Damn it..." Lust sighed as he backed away, I guess we got to leave and after such a informative conversion. Anyway, it seems you don't need my help after all, your weapon will do it for me. In till next time, do as we told and remember what happen here and don't tell anyone. You may also want to get some new clothes while you are at it, you're going to need it!"

And with that, Rage and Lust shimmered away. Shadow groaned as he got up from the ground, looking around the room only to see the man he was speaking to seconds ago standing there with his blade out.

"What...just happen?" He asked.

[Hakaisha Abbadon]

Abbadon was stunned in both confusion and surprise. First, Shadow falls unconscious. Then, two beings claiming to be his "persona's" appear out of nowhere, informing him that Shadow and he used to be best friends back in his first life. Then they tell him to watch over him by taking the sixth seat of the Devil Saints before they fizzled away and Shadow came to. All Abbadon could do was stand there with his sword in his hand thinking the same three words over again with a hiatus between them:

What... the fuck?!

Either way, Abbadon put away his sword after taking hold of the reigns of the here and now. He stared at the person who is supposed to be his best friend standing in front of him, just as confused as he was. He attached his sword back to his belt when the words of the one with the creepy-ass smile reminisced in his mind:

It seems you don't need my help after all; your weapon will do it for me.

God, he thought to himself. This has to be the gayest shit ever.

Abbadon stared at Shadow as serious as he could while he was walking toward him slowly. When he came within touching contact of Shadow, Abbadon did something that he never did to another man before.

He hugged him.

Abbadon's right hand was on Shadow's back while his left rested on the back of his head. Abbadon rolled his eyes, trying to pretend that he really wasn't doing this. But afterward, he noticed that the handle of his sword started to glow.

If touching Shadow's hand while touching my sword gave me back ten seconds of my memory, he thought to himself, then a hug better give me a whole lot fucking more!

Still embraced with the hug, Abbadon took his hand off Shadow's head and placed it on the handle of his sword. And just like before, he had another outer body experience; this time seeing both himself and Shadow this time. Shadow was laughing at Abbadon, while he had somewhat of an annoyed frown on his face.

"I fucking hate you for this, bro!" he yelled at Shadow. But Shadow just continued to laugh hysterically.
"This is clearly going down in my book of 'Shit I'm Never Doing In Front of You Again,' man!" Abbadon saw himself say. "You are so gay for this shit!"

Then the vision went away. As soon as he could see his present whereabouts, he immediately released Shadow from his hold, backing up to about where he was when Shadow awoke from his seemingly induced coma.

"S-sorry about that," he said, waving his hand back and forth. "I know that was somewhat unexpected."

[Akuma Shadow]

Shadow felt Abbadon hugged him, which was very odd.

What the...hell? he thought as he was tightly held by him. When he let go, the devil Saint just looked at the man before him.

"Why did you hug me?" he asked "You know what I don't want to know..." He got up, brushed himself off of dust and cough.

A knocked came at the door. "Mister Shadow, sir?" it was the same woman from the phone, "Miss Toma called, she is waiting for her security. What should I say?"

"Shit." Shadow let out, "I forgot we don't have a sixth seat any more..."

[Hakaisha Abbadon]

Abbadon instantly tried to play off the hug, knowing that the memory it supplied him wasn't exactly what he was hoping for.

"Hey, I said I was sorry you little twat," he once again called him unintentionally. "Anyway, you were talking about dreams when you went boom on the floor."

Abbadon looked at his sword with a growl-like frown.

You piece-of-shit blade, he thought to himself. You lead me on, you Shijin-crafted bastard. I'd destroy you if I didn't need you to get shit back to normal.

Then Abbadon heard the same woman who was responsible for his teleportation here knock on the door. When he heard the conversation, he was oddly enough able to hear everything that was going on.

"Miss Toma called," she informed. "She is waiting on her security. What should I say?"
"Shit," Shadow let out, "I forgot we don't have a sixth seat anymore..."

Abbadon's eyes widened. The kid with the creepy smile was right. There was an opening for the sixth seat of the Devil Saints. And when lust promised to restore Shadow's memories of him, all Abbadon had to do was accept that seat and keep an eye on him. This was his chance to get in what he'd been hearing from Tomo since he was trapped in this infernal realm.

But, he didn't just want to yell out "I'll take it." He had to do it in style. Who knows? Maybe the way he would do it would help Shadow remember him a little more. And there was only one way to do it, too.

Abbadon walked to Shadow's right and leaned his arm on his shoulder.

"Of course you do, buddy!" he said in his usual rambunctious eagerness. "I'm right here!" He pointed at himself with his thumb attached to the arm on Shadow's shoulder. He looked at the woman.

"You tell Miss Toma that I'll send thirty of my best men out to her location as soon as possible, beautiful," he flirted.

He could see the blush develop on her cheeks while adding fuel to the fire by giving a flirtatious look.

"It should have been me to pull you inside headquarters," she said while cutting him a look.

Abbadon raised an eyebrow. "Maybe next time," he said seductively.

She smiled something rather interesting. "I'll get right on it, Mr. Hakaisha," she said before leaving the room.

And as soon as the door closed, Abbadon raised his hands in the air with a smile on his face, backing away from Shadow.

"...And boom goes the fucking dynamite!" he yelled.

[Akuma Shadow]

Shadow slapped his forehead and shook his head. He sighed before he said, "You do know that there is no one in your department at this time, right?"

Shadow walked over to his desk as he continued to shake his head in disbelief, wondering why this man just up and took the job but he was glad that someone was able to.

Not much was known about Miss Toma, only thing really worth noting was that she was, in lack of a better term, a bitch. But she was bitch with plenty of money. She called the Devil Saints weeks ago, wanting someone from here to protect her, hearing stories from her Father of a group of people that protect him in the past.

She said that she need to protect the item at all cost. She didn't mention the item but only that she needed help. Shadow had to tell her that the Security team was no longer in effect, a lot.

But this could prove useful, the young man thought as he reached for his sword and placing it behind his back.

"If you are going to do this," He said as he turned around, "I better come with you to do this. Besides, it beats doing paperwork..."

[Hakaisha Abbadon]

Abbadon grinned at the way he handled the situation. He completely owned it. But when Shadow told him that there was no one in the department at all, that was when Abbadon's smile went away.

"Are you fucking serious?" he asked. "Did you just say that I made an ass out of myself?"

He noticed that Shadow did not respond. Instead, he grabbed his sword and placed it behind his back.

"If you are going to do this," Shadow said as he turned around, "I better come with you. Besides, it beats doing paperwork."

Abbadon watched the seriousness in Shadow's eyes. It was a seriousness that matched his own at times. And from what it seemed, Shadow was the only other person that Abbadon knew that could match it. It almost made him chuckle; to think that there was someone else that had even one percent of the problems that he was going through. He sighed, knowing that he only acted that way to close people off; so that he wouldn't have to allow his feelings to show. Until Shadow's persona's gave him a reason to allow him to let someone in, he thought only DarkCloud would have been the only one to have access to his feelings. He was drawn to Shadow. And best friend or not, he wasn't going to leave until he could figure out why.

Well, he thought to himself, until those two kids fix up his brain, I might as well try to give him some memories now.

Abbadon smiled, giving Shadow a thumbs up. "That's what I'm talking about, bro!" he yelled. "It's time to go forth, and kick some ass!"

Abbadon put his arm around Shadow's shoulder and pointed. "But seriously," he said. "You need to lighten up, dude. When I get my office, the first law I'm passing is to get you a stripper pole installed in here!"

He looked at him with a grin.

"Hey," he said. "What your girlfriend don't know won't hurt you, right?"

[Akuma Shadow]

"Yeah," Shadow laughed as he felt Abbadon's arm around him, but trust me, she will know. She has a knack for things in that nature..." Shadow shook his head as he moved to the door "Though I won't mind the pole!" he called out "Now come on, we need to get you a key for your room!"

Shadow walked out into the hallway where all the other employees were walking about--Some back to their own rooms and other to work. The place worked non-stop and this, being one of their normal days, was no different.

"If you are going to work here,"Shadow said as he turned around and walked backwards, "Your going to need a key to get back here, communicate and get back."

[Hakaisha Abbadon]

Abbadon raised both his eyebrows in a form of sarcastic amazement as he placed his hands in his pockets. "One key does all that?" he asked in a mixture of sarcasm and sincerity. Then he chuckled. "Well, if it will keep me from experiencing another one of your 'tugs of death,' then I guess I'll be making plenty of use for it."

He looked at the floor as he followed Shadow out of his perrifial vision. He needed to know Shadow on a personal level if he was going to have any chance of kindling any form of relationship that they could have had. If Lust and Rage were in the process of fixing up his brain, then they were doing a very slow job at it.

"The girl in the school girl uniform that took Tomo and I to the flowershop," he stated. "That's your sister, right?"

[Akuma Shadow]

Shadow made a slight nod, "Yeah, she's my sister and trust me you don't want to get with her." He stopped at a pure white door that had a red rose on it.



"She swings for the other team," Shadow then reached into is pockets, taking at least two minutes to produce a key out the pocket, if you know what I mean..." he laughed as he held up the key.

The rose glow as Shadow held it.

Password, a female voice called out

Shadow cleared his throat as he said

"My word is the past,
My action is the future.
I see the Saint,
I hear the Devil.
I hold the lust,
I use the Rage.
I am the Sorrow..."

There was a pause then the sound of 5 locks unlocking one by one, each with it's distinctive noise to it.

Password accepted, the voice said again, Welcome Akuma Shadow, The Rose. Shadow walked into the room full of bright light that held a room of endless keys floating in place



He looked around like a kid looking for his favorite candy in a candy store. Raising his index finger in the air and saying "ah, ha!" he grabbed what he was looking for; a box with three Cherry blossom design necklaces in it



"Abbadon," Shadow shouted out, "Get your butt in here and pick one of these!"