Vicissitudes
By SMYGO4EVA
He was laughing.
The warrior was laughing; the sadistic, booming and manic timbre that they had hoped to never hear.
A bloodthirsty smile painted his features.
He was smiling.
His crimson eyes glimmered with an even deeper, darker malice.
He was laughing, almost nonstop.
Their fears were justified.
In the ground of battle, bloodshed was upon them. In the dark world they had entered, it had become a desolate wasteland, nothing but barren fields and a perfect place for monsters and demons to roam, and the perfect place for the normally collected and composed warrior to finally break from what chains had held him.
Right at the centre of the battleground, near the inner sanctum of the ivory plains, one would find a light within darkness.
Yes, a light in the realm of the damned, but the light too was darkness.
He stood, the warrior named Kurogane, his eyes shining like pools of fresh blood in the darkness. Blood… like the blood that had been spilt by this warrior and his fellow travelers… blood, like the blood of the millions who had been slaughtered in mere hours… blood, like the color of his eyes, blood that was abysmal and could be seen from far away, from where the travelers stood, shocked, appalled, and frightened by his murderous display.
No human could have seen in the darkness of the place, but the blood flowed over his form like a river of wine.
The warrior was laughing.
The mage, Fai, watched in horror.
The real one, Syaoran, stood still, shocked to the core.
The white manjuu, Mokona, couldn't speak for once.
The princess, Sakura, was frightened, and for a good reason.
Darkness… pain… laughter in Hell…
The warrior still laughed.
The warrior's eyes, however powerful they were in shade, seemed not to be his own.
How could one so strong and stubborn possess eyes that were so dark, so lifeless?
How could a warrior who would rise to be a god such as he appeared be more evil than even the archdemons of Hell themselves?
But this place was Hell or as close to Hell as it was possible to be, and the warrior named Kurogane was not an archdemon.
No.
He was the human equivalent of the Devil himself.
Shock. Amazement. Disbelief.
Those were the emotions that Sakura felt at that moment in time.
She held onto both Syaoran and Fai, standing in between them, hopefully for ease and for support that this was just a nightmare, like a terrifying vision that repeated itself over and over in her head, a dream that was to never be fulfilled.
The nightmare had painted itself into reality's tapestry then.
She covered her ears, shutting her eyes, tightly, but she could still hear his booming and dark laughter; it was deafening, unbearable.
She couldn't take it.
Kurogane was strong, but he wasn't evil.
He was powerful, but he wasn't bent on destruction.
He was volatile, but he wasn't insane, edging to the brink of madness.
He wasn't the monster who was before them, laughing and relishing the defeat of the demons by being soaked in crimson, laughing like a madman.
He wasn't one who saw beauty in the bloodshed, crimson deaths so reminiscent of the blood spilled from the demons that were brought about their downfall.
No.
No he wasn't.
She refused to believe it.
He was good.
He was pure.
He was one who brought justice, not bloodshed.
She refused to believe that.
She refused.
Sakura opened her eyes, and in one swift move, she shook away Syaoran and Fai's gentle and firm grip on her, and she ran toward the warrior.
"Sakura-chan!"
"Sakura, what are you doing?"
"Princess, no!"
Sakura kept running, the blood from the demons painting her legs and feet as they carried her toward the laughing, bloodstained warrior.
She narrowed her eyes, and kept running.
Kurogane…
He kept laughing.
She skidded to a halt when she reached him, the laughter in high volume that she thought her ears were to burst.
If she was to save him from madness, the time was now.
It was now or never.
Clenching her fists, Sakura reached out, cupping the warrior's face with her hands, the blood painted upon him now on her skin, the laughter ceasing at that moment.
"Kurogane-san…"
With that, she leaned in, and pressed her lips softly against his rough mouth, kissing him in the hopes of calming him down from the brush in insanity within the darkness.
Kurogane's eyes widened, the red light inside them dimming, but his orbs the size of saucers.
The feel of Sakura's soft lips against his own was unexpected, and yet…it comforted him somehow.
Made him feel….
Feel…
He didn't know what he felt then…
Sakura then pulled herself away from Kurogane, and she crumbled onto his form, his arm catching her before she would fall. She was unconscious, drained and exhausted from the whole experience; it was best that she did not know that there was blood upon her mouth, a result from what she just did.
The warrior looked up, and saw Fai, Syaoran, and Mokona several feet away from him.
Fai was ashen, his pale complexion nearly as white as the ivory plains that were there before the crimson marked the plains.
Syaoran was completely taken aback, obviously shaking in what appeared to be relief, shock, and rage.
The creampuff's eyes were wide open, which was only when a feather was around or that something huge had just occurred.
There was no feather to be seen or spotted.
It was an unexpected gesture.
He was confused – more confused about anything, in fact, than he had ever been in his life.
Kurogane honestly didn't know what to make of the situation, he really didn't.
He remembered fighting the demons that were a part of the world they transported to right now, blood had spilled upon him countless times when each and every demon was sliced by his sword. He couldn't remember the rest, he was so relished in his victory, when the princess had come up to him and kissed him on the lips.
It came as a shock for two reasons – firstly because it was Sakura, who never so much as appeared to have feelings for Syaoran and looked to be very shy, and secondly because she had just kissed him.
In front of Fai, Syaoran, and the creampuff. Without any warning whatsoever.
They remembered.
The princess saw the warrior in the aftermath of a battle, a bloodthirsty smile upon his face, and she ran over to him.
Kissing him in the hopes of setting him free of his own insanity.
Sakura knew what she was doing, in the hopes of releasing him from the brink of dark madness that would have consumed him.
But to kiss him in order to do so?
Such a thing just wouldn't make any sense at all.