Seconds to Hell
One.
The flame grows.
She holds the key, trembling.
Everyone looks on, silent, waiting, expecting.
She turns from them, thumbing through the pages of the worn book.
The key - the key to freedom. But freedom, at what cost?
The door beckons to her, its promises luring her into its grasp.
It is too tantalising a prospect for her to deny.
She submits.
Two.
The flame crackles and feeds heartily.
She closes her eyes and breathes deeply, as if to take in the familiar wooden scent of the Academy's halls for the last time.
And it is.
The chained key slips into the keyhole smoothly, making a soft click as she turns it.
The sound of the click fades, renewed, with a persistent beat.
A bomb. It is a bomb.
She tries to run - she can't, she can't.
She has to save the others.
Save the others. It never was about her.
Just the others, the others, who might survive to see the world change.
She reaches for those in the area she dares think is the blast radius, and channels her Alice for the last time.
The world darkens and the beeping hastens.
She sees a faint light, engulfed in utter darkness, before her consciousness fades.
She is dead - no, almost, almost fading. She can see a tendril of hope, an orb of light, and she reaches, clinging on to it, for that is the last thing she can do. Try.
The bomb explodes true, blasting rubble and debris in all directions. None are harmed. Her predictions were right.
Growing flames lick at the surroundings, as smoke rises, fills, corrupts, the scented air. All semblance the upper floors of the building once had to a school is lost.
It is now a battlefield; and all will fight to the end.
The door is destroyed, the masterpiece of a Time-space Alice rendered to ash. All hope is lost.
For there is no escape.
And for once, he wishes, so dearly, that oxygen never did exist, nor did it allow for combustion - flame, to rage.
Three.
Up in smoke.
The girl chokes, tears, smoke and dust wrapping around her, a chaotic blanket of fear and desperation.
She is dead, a still corpse, the embodiment of love and loyalty.
Why?
Why did she have to do this to me? Why, mother, why?! Just when I had you back in my life- w-w-why...?!
She tries to breathe normally, but the smoke thinks otherwise. It snakes into her lungs, stinging and hurting, adding to the pain.
The pain that her mother, just back in her life, left it, as quietly as she entered.
§
People gather, crying, sobbing, begging, trying all means possible to revive her.
The boy was the one. His lips curved into a forced smile, choking out his words, holding out a necklace.
Funny isn't it, the things you give - they come back sooner or later.
The girl snatches it from him, desperate for anything - anything, really - to bring the one woman she knew by blood back.
The necklace is held over her chest.
It glows, a quiet yet strong light, so much like her.
Seconds tick by, bystanders anticipating a miracle; they dare not accept the reality of it all.
She stirs. It is truly a miracle.
And his gaze hovers, taking in her battered body once more. Once more, he promises himself, just one more look, before I lose her for the rest of eternity.
Her lashes flicker, eyes opening to so small a crack, it takes squinting to see the marvellous amber within.
Her attention snaps to the girl, turning - struggling to do so - to her, and whispers her final farewell.
The girl sobs even harder, tears drying, tears forming yet again, before she dry heaves, and finally quiets.
The smoke hangs in the air, and fades, slowly, but surely.
Four.
Tending to burns.
Her words ring in the girl's mind, a constant reminder of the mother she lost, that night.
She listens, carefully. And she never forgets.
M-Mikan-chan... Y-your father a-and I... we love... you... s-so v-very muc-...
§
He, however, is a different case.
He caresses her body gently, and leaves the Academy.
He carries her, light body against his, ignoring stares, glares, and hesitant glances.
They know his power, not his heart.
He steps forth, the evening sun a glowing, painful reminder of hope once lost, and passes through the gates, the second time in his life.
They are free.
Free, he muses, what truly is free?
He thinks he is, but he truly isn't.
And the weight of her death hangs over his shoulders, a morbid reminder of the woman he once loved.
Notes: 'Her' is Yuka, 'he' is Shiki, 'the girl' is Mikan, and of course, 'the boy' is Natsume. Oh, and if you've forgotten, 'the necklace' is the one Subaru gave Yuka, which she gave to Kaoru, who gave to Natsume, and has finally returned to her.