Fragility

Summary: What is a victory, when it comes with such steep a price? Character Death.


It was over.

The enemy had finally been vanquished; the ultimate enemy he had set out to find and defeat, it had finally fallen to his blade. But what was the point? What was the point of it all, when the price that accompanied his victory turned it into nothing more than a complete, utter defeat?

Rufus sat alone in the rain, his shoulder bleeding, his prosthetic lost in the battle. But nothing mattered more to him than the lifeless figure who he cradled against his chest. Lightning blitzed in the skies above, revealing the fallen form of his younger brother, with matted silver hair stained in blood and a river of crimson running down between his eyes. A horrible, gaping wound rested at his midsection - the result of an attack he had taken in the hunter's stead - bleeding with red, blazing with blue.

And the fire was spreading.

"Don't you dare," he hissed, pulling the limp body closer to him. "Don't you dare! LASS!"

Thunder punctuated his words with an earsplitting boom, and his own flames roared up in a fury of purest azure. The assassin had been his closest companion, the only companion who truly understood him, who had always been by his side whether he needed him there or not. And yet now... now...! Why, at a time when the assassin needed him the most, was there nothing he could do!

As the fires burned in the rain, glazed cobalt eyes peeled open wearily. Inhaling weakly, the silver-haired assassin raised a shaky hand and touched the stump that was his older brother's left arm.

"!"

"…sorry…" he whispered. Fire ran down the length of his arm to the tips of his fingers, a blue clear as the sky dancing over his skin. Rufus followed the flames as they engulfed his left shoulder, mixing with his own, halting the blood in its tracks. There was a tingling at the end of the stump, the feeling he recognized to be his wound starting to heal. But that wasn't the only thing it was doing; only as he watched flesh and bone and sinew build outwards did he realize it was regenerating.

The arm he lost so long ago to Berkas was regenerating. But there was no way-

"…our promise…" He was drawn back by his sibling's voice, drawn back by the memory of the promise he swore so long ago.

"Don't worry. I won't disappear like he did."

Half-open eyelids fluttered shut as the assassin's head rested against his shoulder. "…I wasn't strong enough…" He released a low, shuddering breath; his very last. "…to keep it…"

The arm fell slack, splashing in the pooling rain, yet the fire did nothing but burn even higher, brighter. His stomach plunged like a sinking rock. The hunter shook his sibling once. Twice.

"Lass?" There was no reply. "Lass." He tried again. "LASS!"

But the silence would no longer be permeated by the other voice. The blue flame proceeded with its rite, consuming its master in the fires of the afterlife. His own flames fought against them following his will, attempting to revive his precious little brother, but it was in vain. The damage was done, and unlike the hunter's arm, the assassin's wound had been fatal.

"You liar..." the hunter rasped. Salty tears spilled over onto the deathly pale face as his newly regenerated arm pulled the disintegrating body into a crushing hug. "You promised you wouldn't disappear."

"I won't disappear like he did."

"YOU LIAR!"

And Rufus screamed into the storm, the rain drowning out his furious cries of betrayal and rage and sorrow just as the wind extinguished the final embers of his younger brother's existence.


A/N: I wanted to make a mini-comic out of this, but I don't trust my art skills. This was the only other way I could portray the scene and get it out of my mind. Otherwise, it'd be stuck there for ages and I'll forever be haunted by it.