WARNING: READ THE AUTHOR'S NOTE FIRST.
AN: BEFORE hating me, I would first want you to read UNTIL THE END. (and maybe review on how hateful I am for doing such a thing.) And it isn't my fault! Blame Kotori for saying "If the worse case happens -I'll kill Shido." in Volume 4: Epilogue. Also, I'm trying out the theory 'Shido is the first spirit' that I had 90% doubts in. ...Enjoy.
The sound of red alert swarmed the Fraxinus. For the last three hours, Deus Ex Machina industries had relentlessly fired missiles and lasers at them. Because of that, everything was in red. Even the city that was inhabited by multiple spirits. Minus one.
"Yatogami Tohka...Vital signs:..." Bad marriage's voice was full of regret and grief. "...gone..."
The crew of Fraxinus had unpaintable faces. Agony, anguish, bereavement, despair. There was so much of it in one room. The stillness of these emotions seemed to make the time stop for grieving. Their hands were clenching and their eyes prayed down to the floor. Even their tough Commander can't help but bite down her lollipop in one swoop.
"...How about Shido?!" Kotori shouted at them to take control of the situation. It can't be helped. She must be strong. For as long as she wears those black ribbons.
"That's..." A jet lag was on them. The news on their screens saying 'NO VITAL SIGNS' made them so.
"Don't let him get near her body!" She took off the lollipop stick in her mouth. "If Shido sees her-"
"Shido's coordinates found! He's...!" A night color haired beauty which was suppose to have voilet eyes laid down there, in her own blood. Along with a boy of at least sixteen years of age wearing a blue polo. "Right in front of Tohka-chan's body!"
"WHAT?!" She slammed her desk with every power she can muster. This is what she's in fear for. The 'worst case scenario'.
xxxXXXxxx
Down. Dead. Breathless. He didn't doubt his eyes now. He had no reason to. In front of him was...a beautiful black haired corpse. His amber brown eyes just gazed at its magnificence.
"Haaaahhh" Cold tears ran down his cheeks as he bent his knees as though he was begging reality to stop the harsh joke. He didn't mean for it to fall down. It's just...he doesn't get the situation. He doesn't know what to feel. Should he hate the world? Curse it? Destroy it? Kill the ones responsible?
"Darling..."
"Shido-san..." [Shido-kun...]
"Shido..."
"Attention. Shido..."
"..."
Four spirits and one AST officer supported him from behind. No one tried to go near him. They knew nothing could comfort him this time 'cause they, themselves, knew just how much reality could be a bitch.
"AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!" He screamed to the heavens. The world trembled. His sorrow and anguish. The world received it with something called a Spacequake. The one that was starting it was a human boy for a change.
"Darling! Stop!" Miku embraced his back, hoping it could be enough to quell his stressed heart.
[Not good...] Yoshinon pointed out something. Around Shido was a denser air and darker aura.
'He's building up a larger Spirit Mana?!' Origami read the statistics she currently had.
"We have to stop him!" Kaguya prepared a stance.
"Agreement. We only have to knock him down." Yuzuru added.
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH" Shido wasn't showing signs of stopping nor taking notice of the girls around him.
A harsh surge of power dragged out from him. It made the ground crack-up and the winds rage.
""""Kyyaaaaa!"""" The girls weren't a match to the gust of wind. Miku, who was clinging ever so tightly to Shido was made to surrender. All of them, including the Territory-equipped woman, were thrown to the walls and posts on the street.
They were down. And maybe out. In just a blink of an eye, five people were sent flying.
Speaking of flying, a meteor like object was crashing down near his direction. None the less, Shido was still in trance as he cried in front of the girl he named Tohka. Mindless, he mourned. Emotionally, he grieved. And unwittingly, he was destroying Tengu city.
"Shido..." A delicate female murmur spoke out of the burning entity. An elegant scorching demoness with a white kimono was landing. The red-hot axe she had at hand was laid low. It was the wild guy's little sister. Itsuka Kotori.
He was still crying with Tohka in his arms. "Why...why did they have to..." He was ranting how irrational it was to kill an innocent girl on a stroll to the market. What was their reason? Why kill? Why her?
'It's because she's a spirit, isn't that obvious.' Another mutter with the same voice as his thoughts delivered the right answer to him.
"Even so..." The stream of tears wouldn't stop. "...she didn't do anything...she was just a girl...she didn't have the powers of a spirit..."
Kotori slightly heard his little grunts and became worried. "Shido?"
'She was a threat. Just by existing.' The voice went harsher like it was trying to push Shido to his limits.
"SHE WAS HARMLESS!" His roar created fissures around him. The buildings were crumbling and glasses were breaking. His head was directed at DEM's airship as though he wanted to shout it right at their ears.
In the minute, he laid down the Princess to the ground. Second, he stood up. Lastly, he held in his hand the 'Throne of Annihilation - Sandalphon'. It lit up, not with its usual 'light', but rather with its dark violet surge.
She saw it. How his brother shouted. How he cried. How he mourned. How he was destroying the city. "Please stop, Onii-chan! At this rate I'll have to..."
"From now on, if the worst case happens - I will kill Shidou." That's what she ensured to the directors of Ratatoskr after he had manifested an angel for the first time.
"ONII-CHAN!"
Nothing was getting to him. Not even her cute little sister's scream. He kept slashing and slashing with the DEM airship as target. But while he was doing so, the city was taking the toll of every shot.
"Kuh-" She hesitantly pointed the axe for Shido's body. She can feel her heart aching as she continued. "Camael!"
It was Kotori's turn to slash. But it didn't mean the man wouldn't counter. The dark sword and the burning axe clashed. It was a chance for her to 'persuade' the broken Shido. "Onii-chan, please...snap out of it...!" She was already shedding tears. She was just a middle-schooler with humongous responsibilities. She can't help it.
"K-Ko-" There was a little response. "-Kotori...?" Shido's throat sounded rasp like he just woke up from a bad dream. Without his approval, he pushed back Camael like it was all the work of his reflex. "?!"
'Don't tell me you forgot 'this'.' His thoughts retorted with the image of Tohka's lifeless body in a pool of blood. "...who are you...?" It sounded like he was talking to his conscience. 'I am you.' HE sliced vertically onto Efreet. "Kotori!"
She stepped aside as he warned her. It missed with a hit to a building. "Onii-chan! Sto-"
"It's not me!" Shido shouted in confusion. He doesn't get it but it's what he said. "Something...something's inside me!" He hacked Sandalphon yet again.
'Is he saying he's being controlled?' Kotori cleanly dodged it as her tears weren't found.
'Shouldn't you be in rage?'
"Shut up."
'For not having the power to help her?'
"I said shut up!"
His body froze to nearly zero movement. Body Vs the Mind. Looks like nobody was winning or losing. "KOTORI!" He thought of a final resort. "Kill me! Now's the only chance!" He knew for some reason that he can't stop 'himself'. Even if he gathered all of his willpower into his body.
Kotori's eyes widen as the word 'kill' and 'me' were pronounced. "W-what are you saying?!" Even for a joke, he must have his limits.
The sword tilted by five degrees towards Kotori. A hint of losing a precious time. "Please, Kotori! This is Onii-chan's final request." His whole body was aching as he smiled.
She gazed at his warm eyes that she was overly familiar with. It was too warm despite the fact that she's a flame spirit herself. "B-but..."
His whole body moved an inch closer. He was near his limits in stopping himself. "Please!"
Kotori was biting her lip. She can't do it. She just can't albeit her words in 'killing' her only brother right in front of Ratatoskr's board. Her contradicting thoughts made her sob to frustration. She had power so why can't she stop this? The grip she had for Camael tightened.
"KOTORI!"
"Uuuuuuwaaaaahhhh!"
xxxXXXxxx
"ONII-CHAN!" On the sofa she laid. Eyes were streaming with liquid known as tears.
"Kotori?" Shido was beside him. Looks like they were watching a drama show until a certain someone fell asleep. "Hey, are you cry-"
Before he could say 'crying', she hugged him, real tight that he was about to die. She was sobbing silently in Shido's arms with her nightmare in fresh replay in her head.
The boy didn't get it and went on with the explanation of 'the drama must've been too much'."There there." A comforting pat made her wild sobbing turn to minimal.
Tohka just exited the kitchen with a kinako bread in her mouth. "Muu? Is Kotori crying?" She was healthy and alive.
"It's not crying...!" She sniffed. "It's sweating from the eyes..!" Then she wiped it away. She was relieved. The scene were Tohka was murdered and the part were she had to 'kill your brother or else' was a tormenting nightmare. If she even thought of it long enough I'd be a sure tear-jerking moment for her.
Shido went to a stoic laugh. "Now that you're awake, what dinner should would you like?"
It seems the tears weren't stopping as she wiped it one after another. "Hamburger..."
"Roger that." He stood-up from the sofa. A firm hand on his polo shirt, though, was preventing him to walk. It was a gesture of a child not wanting to get separated from her parents. He looked at Kotori who was still crying. He can't pull off the feeling of wanting to pity her. So instead, it was another pat to her scarlet hair. "I won't go anywhere, okay?"
"...promise...?" Her rare weak voice while in Commander mode was heard.
"Mmm. Promise." He held out a pinky swear to her.
"What are you doing, Shido?" Tohka was staring at their weird posted hands.
"This?" Shido raised up his and Kotori's hand by centimeter. "It's called pinky swear. You promise something to a person and if they break that promise..." He hesitated to tell Tohka the rather 'brutal' punishment. "Well...you cut off his/her pinky finger."
"What?! So Kotori will cut Shido's finger?!"
"Huh? No. That's only if you break the promise." He broke a sweat. 'Wait. Why me?'
The little sister saw this serene play happening in front of her. Some part of her was still hard on not believing this sweet reality. Tohka was alive and eating and Shido wasn't telling her to kill him. If she was made to choose, though, would she kill him?
