A/N: In which Leo tries to remember who he is (and isn't) and Xerxes unleashes that ruthless side we all know and love. Holy shit, I think I made Break a dick, wow. Well, he'll redeem himself at some point. Hopefully he and Reim get along too. Reim's severity is amped up like 100 notches too.

Sorry this took so long! I've actually been very productive for the past month because I've been participating in the MakoHaru festival on tumblr, so I've been pumping out fics like I was a factory, pfff. So if you like Free! and the MakoHaru pairing, look forward to seeing me post all those fics here!

Anyway, please enjoy this chapter -bows-

7th Hour: Nine Circles Too Far

Sablier was almost the same as he remembered. Although his last memories was of it being swallowed by the growing flames he himself had started, it looked as though (save for the grey and blackness of everything) the island remained nearly the same.

By now the ashes had settled, and a whole plume of them clouded up when the circle spat them out. Leo, Doug, Sharon, and Xerxes remained wholly unaffected by the ride. Ada and Fang wobbled a bit but were better off than Reim, who had fallen onto his knees to catch his breath, swallowing ash instead and coughing harshly.

"Welcome to Sablier, friends," Xerxes announced. He had already begun prancing forward, swinging aroud his cane. "Don't pay too much attention to the scenery now. Ah," he turned, fixing Reim an unsympathetic gaze, "and don't worry, the nausea will go away momentarily."

Even as his coughing subsided and Leo and Ada helped him up, Reim managed to give Xerxes a cold stare.

Arthur was gently led along by Sharon, who seemed to be trying quite hard to not look at him. Leo couldn't exactly blame her and instead moved his focus to deciphering the piles of burnt rubble for any indication of where in the island they might have been. The fire seemed to have permanently left a stench of flames behind, overpowering even the decay and ocean spray that used to perfume the air. Just as Leo suspected though, he needn't have looked around so. Even through the fire, the Ferris wheel stood tall in coal-black over them, and a knot twisted in Leo's stomach from the memories of seeing it lit up, riding up high with Oz right beside him.

Xerxes stopped moving, halting their party. He hummed thoughtfully, took another resolute step forward and then made an affirmative sound. "Right-o then. My lady, if you'd be so kind as to bring our friend around."

Sharon tugged Arthur along to where Xerxes stood. "Is this where it was then?"

"It doesn't have to be precise. The old portal is damaged after all," he told her, taking Arthur's arm. "Now then, let's get this done with. On your knees, if you would." Without waiting for a response, he moved his hand to Arthur's shoulder, urging the revenant down.

Beside him, Leo heard Reim murmur, "My lady, you might want to look away from this."

"Nonsense," Ada replied in a very quiet voice. "If I cannot handle this much, then I will be useless at our destination."

Leo couldn't help but have Ada's uncertainty echo inside him. It twisted his insides even further, even though he shouldn't find the inevitable killing of Arthur to be wrong. He's just a sacrifice, he told himself. With a jolt, he realized that's what set Arthur apart from his other killings. Slaughtering Cannibal Marionettes, and even Jack and Lacie, had been necessity. Arthur hadn't done anything wrong. Lily would mourn for him. The poor guy had a shitty enough life as it was. Now he's got to die?

Leo glanced at Xerxes' now unsheathed sword. "This blade is imbued with a powerful spell, so that when I make to cut you, you will be cut," Xerxes said.

"It might hurt a bit!" exclaimed Emily, perched on Xerxes' shoulder as usual.

"And when he is, then what? Glen told me revenants don't bleed," Leo said.

"Well, of course they don't. But it's not his blood we want, is it, Mister Leo?" Xerxes arched a brow at Leo's stalling. He inclined his head towards the raven. "Are there any problems here?"

Leo looked straight at Arthur. "I'm just wondering if this is okay," he said quietly.

"What?"

Fang came up beside him. "I confess I felt the same way, but as it is, this was the only way that we could find, wasn't it?"

"But killing him? Why is that necessary? We kept him for days, I talked to him, and you know how Lily is with him now. She's attached to him," he pointed out, watching the surprise cross Arthur's face.

Xerxes sighed, looking like it was a challenge to be so patient. "Listen here, Mister Leo, you've killed for far less before. Just plaster some random CM's face on him if it makes your conscience feel better. Or look away." He held up a hand as Leo opened his mouth to object, his eye narrowed and filled with crimson poison. "Or is it that you know of some alternative means for us to make our descent?"

Xerxes was speaking so impatiently, like he was dealing with a child. Leo didn't need that; he was perfectly aware of the situation. He knew Arthur's magick was the only thing powerful enough on Earth to tear open a path to Hell. Without him, there was no start for their mission. But Xerxes' words irritated him. Being argued with did that to Leo, but more so with the implications behind the silver-haired man's suggestions.

"I'm not a killer without discrimination!" he said, taking a daring step forward.

Arthur, his neck still threatened with the bite of Xerxes' sword, shook his head. "It's alright, you know. I told you before, I don't mind dying. I was never useful. At least in this way, I will have done something with my life, even if it's by dying. Our concepts of death are different, after all."

"But we can agree it's not living, right?" Leo insisted.

"Mister Leo, stop this nonsense before I begin to think it wasn't a prudent idea to bring you along," Xerxes said, angered shadows crossing his features.

"What if we could do it without killing him?" Leo's mind went on auto-pilot, his thoughts barely forming before his lips took over the rest. "It's just the magick inside him, right? We don't need to kill him for it, we don't even need all of it! Just enough to keep a gate open for us all to go through and then that's it! Even just cracking an egg a bit gets the yolk out, doesn't it?"

Xerxes seemed to consider, or at least that's what Leo was hoping his silence meant. The others weren't interjecting, not even moving. Arthur's expression had changed, and was no longer hanging his head. When he wasn't being immediately denied, Leo went over to him. At the same time he reached the revenant, Xerxes had withdrawn his blade, his expression unreadable.

"Hey, Arthur," Leo said with a relieved smile.

"You don't know what a revenant is like. It might not work," Arthur pointed out, face solemn, but his eyes were wide.

"You said the egg thing first. It might just work. Come on, we'll just have to cut a little, but it's miles better than dying."

Arthur smiled a bit, obviously unsure how he should take Leo's actions. Leo thought about where it was that would be good to cut Arthur, uncertain as to how deep the wound should be. Xerxes, now behind Leo, took it upon himself to decide that. The air sliced open as faster than Leo could register Xerxes' blade cut Arthur from right shoulder to his left ribs. The restraints binding Arthur seemed to have broken, and he flailed before falling on the ground. Leo watched with wide eyes, turning to Xerxes just as the silveret sheathed his sword.

"I told you, we've no time to spare. Look there, it's already working."

It was definitely not blood seeping out from Arthur's wound. The substance was more wispy, black smoke with a mind of its own, curling up as if being drawn to the ash-cloud sky. It was shadow, and Leo backed away from it was the tendrils spurted out faster and fatter, taking shape, following itself in a wide circle before them.

"That's death magick," Fang said in awe.

"What's it doing?" Leo asked.

"Forging the gate. When the circle is complete, we have to be ready." Xerxes looked back at the others as he said it, and on cue, everyone huddled closer together. "We don't know how long it'll stay open. On my mark, we all go in."

As the magick, black and visible, completed its forging, Leo looked down at Arthur. Although he was twitching and his face was crumpled, it looked like more in concentration than pain. Could they feel pain? Leo hadn't even heard him cry out. While Xerxes' cut could certainly kill anyone human, it was but a minor inconvenience to Arthur. Leo was very glad they had decided not to kill him.

"Arthur-"

Light spilled over everyone's faces, orange and threatening. The tendrils of black were lit literally aflame in a perfect infernal circle. Arthur screamed, his body arching but otherwise unmoving, as if he were pinned there. Leo only watched in horror, the fire going down and seeping into Arthur's wound even as his flesh remained visibly unharmed.

"Now, now!" cried Xerxes, grabbing Sharon and jumping inside. The circle had been empty, showing only the scenery in front of them, but the surface within rippled, accepting the pair as they disappeared from sight. Leo heard a shout behind him to hurry before being shoved into the portal, the back of his eyes still dancing with the fire's light.

He fell onto something flat and rough, not having a chance to gather his bearings when Xerxes pulled him out of the way. Ada and Reim appeared, and then Fang and Doug. The circle of flame was mirrored on their side of the gate as well, but soon after Fang and Doug, the flames dissipated, leaving the same black smoke as before, until that too, vanished.

Sharon helped him to his feet, and Leo took the opportunity to look around. He didn't get the sense that they were under immediate threat. As a matter of fact, he couldn't see anything, demon or otherwise, around. There wasn't any fire or brimstone like the poets harped about. The sky, however, was a disconcerting shade of red, wisps of black and dark grey polluting it. The ground was hard, like it was made of stone. The oddest thing was that they landed in what looked pretty much like an alleyway.

"Everyone here and accounted for? Got all ten fingers and toes?"

Emily's stubby legs twitched. "I wasn't made with toes!"

"Got all your stuffing then, Emily?" Xerxes said with a small laugh.

"This isn't the place to joke around," Reim said, pushing up his glasses. "More to the point, why are you continuing to act as if we're going to go along with everything you say and do?"

Leo stopped looking around to watch Xerxes. The silver-haired man smiled good-naturedly. "Goodness, how rude of me! Is that right? I did get you here after all, so I suppose I'll pass the baton to the person next best equipped to lead our procession. Pray tell, most useful leader, where is it we'll be going?"

"Where, where?" crowed Emily.

Reim scowled at the man and doll both. Ada calmed him down.

"Perhaps we should indeed all consider where we are proceeding," Fang said peacefully.

"I agree. However, there's no telling how obvious our destination will make itself, though we'll hope for the best."

"Well, first thing is first," Leo said. "None of us have been here before. I'm sure it goes without saying we'll need to be as careful as possible."

"Leo's right," Fang said with an approving nod. "At the moment, it looks as though we're not in trouble. Let's keep ourselves that way and go undetected. Everyone, come here. I had a concealing spell at the ready, just in case we ever had a moment for preemptive measures."

The feud between Xerxes and Reim had ended - for the moment. After Fang cast his concealment spell on the group, they moved on. Xerxes and Leo were ahead of Ada and Reim, protecting them from the front. Even if they weren't visible, demons were everywhere, and there was no telling if Fang's spell would work well against them. In their current environment, there were many places to hide.

Metallic and granite edifices covered the land. They took on rather crooked forms that would seem architecturally impossible, but there they stood, unshakable and piercing with their sharp corners. They weren't arranged in any particular way as streets were back home, sometimes cutting each other with their proximity but other times far apart. They seemed to go on for quite awhile, and despite the fact each building looked different from each other, none stood out as anything significant.

"What a time to not have a map," Leo thought out loud. "Do you think maybe I could fly up with Jabberwocky and see what happens?"

Xerxes hummed in consideration. "I can't sense any demons nearby, so you could be safe enough to do it."

Taking it as all the confirmation he needed, Leo summoned his scythe. He swung his leg over Jabberwocky's stem, kicking off lightly to fly up a few meters. The higher up he went, the more a weird combination of blood, smoke and something else unpleasant filled his nose. As the metallic, jagged teeth of Hell spread their numbers out to him, Leo kept his eyes open for anything that stood out, including movement. If he was getting caught anywhere, he'd rather not be in the air where he could be knocked down.

In the distance to the west, was a large building of shimmering black that looked like it was crumbled down in certain places. Leo could've sworn he saw figures dash in and out from there, quite possibly on wings if their gliding through the air held any indication. Leo hovered a bit lower, heart rate increasing slightly. Over to the northeast poked out another building, tall and stout, with spires tearing through the black clouds in their great height. Silver talon-like objects surrounded it like a gate of upturned knives.

The others gathered curiously around him as he landed. "Well, was there anything?" Sharon asked.

"Over there, I saw some demons gathering at this huge black building. It's best to avoid there." Leo turned and pointed to the northeast. "But over there, I saw something that I'm pretty sure is a castle. I didn't see any demons there, but..."

"If there's a castle, then there's no doubt a certain hellish monarch sitting on a throne," Xerxes said, tapping a finger on his cane thoughtfully. After a pause, he hummed. "If we're going to get anywhere, we need to start at that castle."

A shocked shudder ran through their company. Sharon, eyes wide, said, "Break, didn't you just say that the King of Hell might be there?"

"I agree, is it really wise to go straight to the boss himself?" Fang asked nervously. They hadn't gone up against even one demon yet. They didn't know if Fang's concealing seal would work on them, much less if it could fool the King of demons.

Leo had to admit, he wasn't far behind in rethinking his abilities. Assuming he didn't buckle at the sight of the demons, what did the King of Hell look like? Leo hadn't given him much thought at all, but now that he thought of it, he remembered Glen mentioning him only briefly. He had been the one to construct the clock that brought Jack Vessalius back to life - the Clock of the Abyss. For thirteen years, Lacie had taken care of it, waiting for the day for Jack's soul to return to his body. But the clock, although succeeding in Jack's revival, was still a hellish creation, and in the end the clock had corrupted Jack's soul. How Lacie had gotten the clock was a mystery to Leo, but the more he thought about it, the more he wondered if it was more than simple coincidence she had come by it.

"Listen here," Xerxes said, trying to draw everyone's attention, "whether or not our objectives vary, it's extremely likely that whatever we seek will be in that castle. Nothing extraordinary will be out here with the common demons and these buildings. It's best to make our way there and infiltrate the castle." Before any objections could be make, a loud screeching sound like a monstrous bird tore the air. The party froze and Xerxes frowned deeply, beckoning them. "Quickly, we must move. We've been standing idly too long."

Did Fang's spell not work after all? Leo thought, heart hammering in his chest as they wove through the buildings once more. He acted as navigator with Xerxes close beside him, leading the others into shadows and obscure places when they could. The screeching sound was getting closer, the noise ripping into Leo's insides with sheer dread.

"Is something after us?" Ada called, and Leo looked back to see her looking behind them, scanning the skies for the source of that horrible shriek.

"Sh-shit," Leo cursed under his breath. Had he gotten them spotted?

Xerxes grabbed his arm, forcing them both and the rest of their companions to a sharp turn to the left. Leo narrowly missed the razor edge of the building. "Not yet. If we keep squeezing in here, we have a chance, since it appears to be aerial. Everyone, on your gua-"

"Break!" shrieked Sharon.

Leo's blood ran cold at the sight of a large, reptilian creature in front of them, thick scales gleaming a tainted white. A long, black forked tongue slithered out from between its great jaws, as if to beckon them closer. Leo heard Ada shriek, followed by the clapping down of someone's hand on her mouth. It didn't matter either way, because Fang's spell didn't seem to have worked...

Just as weapons were being drawn, the reptilian creature continued flicking its tongue in the air, almost blindly. The coarse cawing that had been following them drew nearer, and Break put his arm out in signal for no one to move. Realization dawned on Leo just as a birdlike creature perched on one of the twisted edges sticking out from the building beside them.

"Celia, you said you saw a human, but I don't see anything!" the reptile hissed, advancing to the bird demon. His voice, like all demons, took on that eerie combination of voices both whispering and sibilant.

The great bird's form morphed, shrinking and shifting before them, feathers falling and retracting until a young woman with long, messy silver hair jumped down next to the reptile. "I didn't say I saw one. I sniffed something odd in the air, and followed it out here." She pushed on the reptile's snout in impatience. "Maybe your sense of smell is going, Shion. You should've brought your babysitter here."

"Victoria's not my damn babysitter!" The reptile also transformed into a more humanely guise so that a boy looking a year or two younger than Leo stood there in pure black attire. Like Celia, his hair was silver. "How would humans get into Hell anyway? That old man has been filling your head with too many stories. Flesh-and-blood humans don't make their way down here out of the blue."

Celia was circling the narrow area, and Leo felt himself press against Doug, all of them closely watching the demons' movements and not daring to even breathe. Leo shot Fang a lot of admiration - it seemed the concealing spell worked after all. He searched around for possible exits, but if Xerxes' tense frown was anything to go by, it seemed they were trapped.

"Shion, please be quiet," Celia said, taking on a motherlike tone, "you're making me lose my focus."

Shion snapped sharp teeth at her and walked around, leaving her to her sniffing. "Geez, if this is a waste of time, I'm just going to go back to the coliseum-"

"Aha~! Here we go!" Leo snapped his attention away from Shion just to see Sharon being yanked aside from the group by her skirt. Celia's eyes were glowing in glee. "I can see you now! My, you're so pretty." Celia threaded her fingers into Sharon's hair when Xerxes sliced his blade into her forearm. When he had drawn his sword was beyond Leo, but Celia had cried out with her arm bleeding, and everyone was moving at once, weapons out.

Doug and Fang had taken it upon themselves to take Shion off-guard, and Xerxes had dragged Sharon back to his side, giving Celia a withering look. Leo shielded himself with Jabberwocky, getting closer to Ada and Reim. "Stay behind me!" he said, keeping eyes on the two demons quarreling with the others.

"I told you, didn't I, Shion?" Celia said, smiling cordially, looking for all like she had discovered the most pleasant surprise.

Shion wasn't echoing her friendly sentiments, transforming back into his demon form the moment Fang and Doug had come after him. His tail whipped out to them, forcing them back against the building. "How disgusting!" Shion said, fangs bared at the two. "They wield scythes!"

Celia's eyes fell onto Leo - or more specifically, Jabberwocky in his hand. Her brows arched in amusement, her hand falling away from clutching at her wound. "So they do. That scythe, boy, where did you get it?" she asked, tilting her head. When Leo didn't answer, she took a long experimental sniff. Her eyes glittered. "You've all got such...interesting scents about you. Not human, but not demon. Or is it demon? Tell me what you are. I'm very curious."

Xerxes shot his blade out, acting as a barrier from her stepping any closer. "I'm afraid you're going to have to stop there, Miss," he said. Despite his words, his tone hadn't taken to the same lightness it usually did, obviously still perturbed about the danger Sharon had been in earlier. Leo saw his hand grip her tighter.

"They stole them, Celia! I don't care what they smell like! They stole these scythes!" Shion screeched. His tail thrashed against Fang and Doug, smashing them into the building. Ada gasped, and Leo watched in horror. "Stupid! Filthy! Humans!" His tail arched back, and Leo willed himself to move, but knew he couldn't leave Reim or Ada. Doug lunged, taking the opportunity to lash out at Shion with his scythe.

A shadow swept in, swooping up to stop Doug's scythe. When the shadow settled, a woman, more mature-looking than Celia, was standing in front of Shion, gripping Doug's scythe with a bare, now bloody, hand. Even after her frenzied arrival and new injury, she didn't seem the least bit rattled.

A mechanical sort of smile tugged at her lips as she made to snatch the scythe away. Doug seemed to come back to his senses, pulling his scythe out of her hand and shielding the badly injured Fang.

Celia sighed. "Shion, you're a liar," she said, sounding weary. "I thought you didn't have a babysitter."

"Apparently, I have to constantly look after the both of you," said the woman, shaking her bloody hand. Her long, wavy curls bounced as she gave Celia a sharp look. "Why haven't they been taken to the King yet?"

"We just got here, Victoria, calm down." Celia waved her off, sounding a bit bored. She turned to Sharon and Xerxes again, flicking her wrist. Leo's eyes widened as their bodies seized up, their expressions turning into shock.

"Break, I can't move my body!" Sharon exclaimed.

A frustrated look crossed Xerxes' countenance. "Demon spells. I can't even get my strings out." In the sudden struggle, Emily had fallen to Xerxes' feet, where she wasn't budging an inch. The silver-haired man's body twitched and thrashed, but his tense efforts were for naught, and his arms remained pinned to his sides, his thighs pressed together. Literally stuck in the same state, Sharon watched his actions hopelessly.

Celia held her arm out, shimmering white light extending over her palm. Before her scythe could be fully formed, she tossed the light up where it shaped into something far larger. Its size spread above them in between the buildings until a giant raven with mattered feathers perched on one of the edges. It flapped its wings impatiently, unable to reached them with its size but still trying to swipe at them with its long talons.

"Jabberwocky!" Leo cried, tossing his scythe out. In a burst of purple mist, Jabberwocky emerged out a black bird as well. Although significantly smaller, Jabberwocky tore into the other scythe's foot, cawing. Celia's scythe let out a shriek similar to its owner's, tossing Jabberwocky off.

"Celia, take them to the castle," Victoria instructed. Her own scythe was already out and constricted around the girth of Fang and Doug's bodies. "Remember, I'm entrusting you with this." A gale of violet wind swirled around them, disappearing along with Victoria and her two captives.

Leo panicked. He was the only one with a weapon now. Every piece of his common sense knew that he wasn't going to win, and any attempt to proceed further would merely make him a fool. Letting out a deep, shaky breath, Leo met Sharon and Xerxes' eyes, then Celia's and Shion's, and waved his hand. Jabberwocky, still battling Celia's scythe, was dismissed in a slow-coming plume of mist. Even the scythe clawing at them stopped shrieking and moving, the group's doom falling heavily over them and thickening the air.

"That's more like it," said Celia. Another wave of her hand, and Sharon and Xerxes flew up to the scythe's open talons, caged. Celia cast the binding spell on Leo, Ada, and Reim before giving them the same treatment, the three of them squeezed together in the scythe's other foot. By that time, Celia was back in her demon form, shrieking instructions to her scythe and ascending to the skies. With mighty flaps of its wings, the raven-like creature followed suit, loose black feathers falling.

Smaller and further away the dangerous edifices went as they rose higher into the red sky. The wind from the movements blew Leo's cut hair in his face. He was laying on his side, pressed chest-to-chest with Ada. She stared at him, breaths uneasy. No screaming, no crying from her - just the large green orbs of her eyes gazing at him helplessly, searching him for solutions. But Leo was just as hopeless as she, couldn't she see? That's why he had dismissed Jabberwocky in the first place. During missions maybe he could come up with plans, try to be a leader. But not here and certainly not now.

What would happen if they were killed? Leo couldn't find a reason as to why they hadn't been slaughtered on sight. That fact alone ran again in his mind, trying to reassure him as the dark castle drew nearer, almost seeming to await them ominously.

Celia shrieked, gliding down towards the jagged jaws of what looked like the castle's gate. The demons Leo had seen in the distance before were no longer distracted with the other large building. A few here and there changed their course mid-air, possibly curious about Celia's calling.

"Mister Leo," Ada said. Her voice was just barely above a whisper. "Mister Leo, it'll be okay. We're being taken to the castle, just like we wanted."

Leo nodded, trying to give his best reassuring smile, but it was shaky, along with their uncomfortable ride. It took him a few seconds more to realize that Ada wasn't saying it out loud to quell their panic, but because she knew it was true and that, maybe, this was something they could use to their advantage. As the silver spikes passed below them, Leo chanced to give Ada another look. Blond hair whipping around her, she returned the smile he gave her before, except hers was unwavering and sure.

He had gotten Ada all wrong. She was a lot smarter and brave than Leo had given her credit for. For a brief moment, Leo doubted that she had ever been scared at all.

Ending A/N: I really am terribly sorry this took so long. One of my New Year's resolutions was to finish this, but I really wonder about it at this rate -shot- At the very least, everyone is in Hell now, so whoop. I thought about continuing it one to a certain part, but then a realized a crap load of dialogue would need to happen, as well as a lot of character relationship building so I'll just save it for next chapter, yes (which basically means next chapter will probably be long and very eventful). I've been reading/writing so many dramas and fluff lately that I need to get back into this genre stat :/

Shion and Victoria come from Mochijun's other work, Crimson Shell. Hopefully everyone remembers Celia more-or-less. She lived 100 years ago and was the Contractor of Humpty Dumpty. Other than that, not much is known about her, so I'm going to have some fun with her character here, just like I am in Crimson Tide.

By the way, if you don't follow me on tumblr, I humbly invite you over! Recently, I posted a mix based on the playlist I put at the end of Clockwork Circus on there. The link is also on my profile now if you wish to give it a listen! (I am, of course, considering doing the same for Tinker Toybox once it's finished. If it ever gets finished -shot-)

I know it's been a long time, but still, if you read and liked, dropping a review would be most appreciated! -bows-