Author: Cyhirae
Notes: Been awhile since I wrote anything for anything related to the Mana/Seiken Densetsu series..So here we go, a little oneshot for Seiken Densetsu III, from Duran's PoV. Spoilers for the near-ending of events in Angela and Duran's SLs where Koren is involved.
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Victory
I had hunted him from the moment he humiliated me in Forcena. It wasn't for king and country...it wasn't for some greater goal of taking down the Dragon Empire as my true battle was. It had been strictly personal, just for my own pride and revenge.
Maybe that's why it felt so hollow.
I'm looking at him now...defeated by us. Was that why it felt so shallow? I couldn't have done it alone- but that was how he'd fought us and we'd still only just made it. Maybe that's why it felt worthless...
Or perhaps it's the way he's lying there...looking at us. There's something there...that hadn't been before. I came to destroy the Red Wizard and put my personal shame behind me before I moved on to defeat the Dragon Emperor once and for all. A private goal before the real one.
Instead...I'm looking at someone who suddenly seems far weaker, more vulnerable than that arrogant murderer in Forcena. Angela is kneeling by him, weapon left behind...Even if she's a caster, she shouldn't be so careless! It could be a trick...
I hope it's a trick...
But the red wizard makes no move to attack us again. As I step near, sword drawn to protect Angela...he's only talking...crying, of all things. And the story he's telling is a familiar one...though it had had a different person as the one who had simply wanted to be a wizard, as any Altenian should be.
"It was just...a little piece...but without it...I'm not even...what little I had been..."
Pathetic. That's what I want to think. I hunted him down, hated him with a passion like no other, and this was how he was going to end? Crying, like a child. I want to treat him as he treated me, mock him for his weakness...instead all I can feel is pity...and perhaps a hint of fear for what could have been.
That could have just as easily been Angela lying there...caught in the same trap. I had to wonder now...just how close she had come...
"I don't deserve to continue this life..."
Those words and the action that follows them, the starting of a spell glowing around him snaps me out of my reverie of the violet haired girl kneeling by him. I grab her away, sword raised to strike- a shadow spell?! Damn it, we shouldn't have let our guard down!
But it isn't us the spell finds. When the dusky shadows have converged and finished their work...there's barely anything left where he had lain...some shreds of once-red cloak...a shattered bangle strewn about...streaks of red to signify where he had been before the spell...
Then a sound to break the silence: Angela's sobbing. She kneels down, picking up the fragments of bangle and scrap of cloth...both so frail and ill-used now they're crumbling in her hands...
"Why...why did he..." Her words raise not even the slightest echo in this place, nearly lost in the quiet tinging of tiny crumbs of metal finding the floor...
It's done. I've won- we've won. The Red Wizard is dead and gone, leaving only the Dragon Emperor to be defeated. The last of his servants is gone. But...
"Somehow...this doesn't feel...like a victory..."
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