PROLOGUE
"Kim."
His whisper is the only sound cutting through the heavy silence. The war ended. The colors returned, weapons dropped, evil defeated.
"Kim," he tries again. A bright smile stretched across his lips, ecstatic fingers cup her cheeks. She leans into his touch, leaving small kisses on his palm. He smiles at her like like a child on christmas day.
The war is over. The long fight was finally finished.
They lay for what seems like hours. Basking in the silence, the peace, the cool breeze enveloping over the once bloodied battlefield. Basking in each other's presence like two astroids gravitating around the earth.
She remembers the feeling of the flames engulfing her form, her dragon splitting the heavens and this man dividing the universe as they fought off the newly formed Hannibal. She remembers the horror running through her system when news came that the bean absorbed the Chi Creature and an older power, gaining control over dimensions that even the oldest of sages summoned couldnt even pronounce. She rememebers the Xiaolin Dragons clawing through flesh and ambivalence, watching as the skies seeped a new canvas.
The battle is over.
"Omi will be back soon," she can barely choke out the words. One hand holds his and the other presses against his chest. His eyes twinkle and she bites back a sob, he whispers and miraculously the melody never breaks, the whistling of dust and rocks become his metronome.
The sounds would soon haunt her for years to come. The visions laying seered into her subconscious like the flames that once embraced her being like a second skin. They had to give up that power to overcome a greater one.
Alliances were written and rewritten, kept and abused, manipulated and seduced into the depravity that she loathed to accept as her home. No, this was her home now. And those exchanged words, thoughtless threats, minute wills were to be gladly forgotten if it meant celebrating in the defeat of the worlds greatest enemy right here and right now in the safest of all places.
The world wouldnt remember who saved them. Theyd better immortalize ambiguous powers, fates who sent warriors down like a biblical retelling of the Last Crusade. She doesnt care if fate or a higher power did write their destinies to lay more or less into this prophecy. She can barely even stand to think beyond the man laying in her arms now.
She has no power over how that tale would pass on.
"Kim," he sings with a wide grin. His dirty hair matted with blood and sweat and grime. His thumb rubs circles against her alabaster skin, not caring about the scabs or scars or open cut that the finger runs over. There is something cathartic in knowing that even without the part of their chi that cemented their status as Dragons, Kimiko still remained a flame encased under her candle wax skin. He watches as she flits between kissing every inch of exposed skin and searching past the horizon for their small friend.
"Omi's coming. He's getting help. You'll be fine, youll see." The words become a mantra to his ears. He only reaches slightly to wipe away a stray tear, eyes never leaving the face of the Girl on Fire.
"Kim." Raimundo lets out an airy laugh, one that heaves his entire body and leaves a sigh that could release souls.
He doesnt care if he's bleeding out. If she'd hate him in the afterlife because he let himself take the last hit. He was their leader. He'd do in every universe and in a billion different ways for a billion different reasons.
Just so it wasnt her who was bleeding out in his arms.
"I love you."
The war is over but neither side wins.