No.
It wasn't supposed to go that way, Kanon thought. The Barsburg military had suddenly been attacked by the Raggs kingdom's army. Raggs had less soldiers but no one there was lacking in skills. They were much better fighters and many from the Barsburg side had already fallen. Even few generals and some high-ranked officers were in a trouble on the battlefield. The battlefield itself was a snowy and bloody chaos where only the most skillful ones could even hope of staying alive. The ones with less skill couldn't stay alive for more than five minutes.
Kanon's uniform was already covered in the blood of her enemies whom she had killed. She had a long sword in her right hand while she used magic with her left hand. She buried her enemies under the snow and pierced their bodies multiple times with her sword. Hyuuga was fighting three Raggs soldiers at once near Kanon while some Barsburg soldiers were getting themselves killed by the warriors from the Raggs kingdom.
Raggs is going to fall if the fight continues like this, Kanon thought. Their soldiers may be more skilled than ours but we have Hyuuga and my older brother here. Hyuuga would easily be able to win against the royal bodyguards of the Raggs king. The only one who makes me worried is our airhead Yukikaze who probably doesn't have the slightest idea who's the enemy and who's not.
With that Kanon ran to Yukikaze's side and continued fighting with her previous tactic. She also defended her friend when he was forgetting what to do. Their movements matched perfectly and after few minutes they had gotten rid of at least dozen of enemies.
"Is it going well, Kanon?" Yukikaze asked.
"It looks like we're winning this fight!" Kanon yelled.
"Good!" Yukikaze shouted while dodging an enemy's sword. Kanon instantly buried the man under the snow and pierced the man's heart with her sword. Yukikaze whistled silently while Kanon stood up.
"We really may win this one", Yukikaze said with amused face. "We may even win against Raggs."
"Say that when we actually win, Yuki", Kanon mumbled with a deep blush visible on her face. She turned away and ran to the place where her brother was still fighting against some Raggs' soldiers. She easily surprised them and buried them under the snow and killed them immediately.
"How is it going, Kanon?" Ayanami asked when Kanon was finished.
"It's going well", Kanon replied. "It is going almost too well. It feels like there would be a trap somewhere."
As soon as Kanon said that there was a huge explosion which killed almost half of the people on the battlefield. There were suddenly much more Raggs' soldiers than before. The battlefield was a chaos once again. This time Raggs was winning and the Barsburg soldiers had really a hard time staying alive. Every single soldier from Raggs tried to attack Kanon and Ayanami hoping to kill them. They weren't harmed but something was deadly wrong around them.
Suddenly everything was moving slower. A soldier had gotten himself inside Kanon's shield and tried to attack Ayanami. Kanon tried to stop the man but he managed to wound someone. At first everyone thought that Ayanami had been the one whom the man had wounded but when the smoke cleared they saw that Yukikaze had shielded Ayanami while getting a deathly wound. As the enemy realized his mistake he removed his sword from Yukikaze's chest and tried to stab Ayanami again. Unfortunately he couldn't do anything before Kanon and Ayanami stabbed him in his heart and killed the man instantly.
Ayanami caught Yukikaze when he fell down. Kanon desperately tried to perform some kind of first aid as Ayanami tried to call for someone with healing zaiphon. The snow was slowly turning to red because of the bleeding from Yukikaze's wound. After some time had passed like that, Yukikaze started coughing up some blood.
"I don't think that this can help me anymore", Yukikaze whispered while breathing slowly.
"Don't say that!" Kanon yelled as she tried to heal Yukikaze's wound. "You're not going to die, right?"
"That wound is too bad, Kanon", Hyuuga mumbled. "I highly doubt that anything can be done anymore."
"I'm sorry", Yukikaze whispered as his breathing slowly faded away. "I never regretted becoming a part of the Black Hawks or becoming Ayanami-sama's begleiter. This was the best team I could have hoped for." He turned to Kanon and continued: "If you remember what you said some time ago when we happened to be left alone, I wrote a note that should answer your question. I left it in the pocket of your overcoat."
Yukikaze's breathing became slower and slower. He tried to smile at his friends even though he was in pain. Kanon was holding his hand and trying to heal his wounds even though she knew that it didn't help at all. The only thing she could do was to ease his pain. Even Yukikaze's eyeglasses were stained in his blood. He tried to say something but his blood prevented him from talking. He was slowly chocking on his own blood without realizing it himself. Suddenly his smile faded away and his hand fell onto the ground. He had died before the Raggs war had been settled.
"Take Kanon back to the ship", Ayanami said to Hyuuga. Hyuuga lifted Kanon on his shoulder and walked away. Kanon tried to protest with hitting and kicking Hyuuga but he didn't care at all. He just walked and carried Kanon to the huge warship that had been waiting near the battlefield. He took Kanon to a cleaning cupboard that was full of different brooms and buckets. He tossed Kanon's overcoat at her and locked the door with the only key.
"OPEN THE DOOR!" Kanon yelled as she understood that she couldn't get out. "WHY CAN'T I FIGHT THEM TOO?"
"You have too many personal feelings there", Hyuuga said with a low voice. "And Aya-tan doesn't want you to get in danger because of your personal revenge. Besides, you already killed the guy who killed Yuki."
"Why aren't you fighting?" Kanon asked suddenly. She had fallen on her knees and she was crying silently. "Shouldn't you be fighting out there instead of talking to me here?"
"Aya-tan probably thought that I'd try to get some kind of personal revenge too", Hyuuga said cheerfully. "He was my cousin after all."
"I'm sorry", Kanon mumbled with low voice. She thought that Hyuuga didn't hear her.
"Why?" Hyuuga asked. "It's not your fault that he died. You actually tried to protect him, right?"
"I don't know anymore", Kanon whispered. "I probably tried to but I just can't remember anything anymore."
"Do you remember the time when he came to Black Hawks for the first time?" Hyuuga asked. "I revealed his every little secret and he became mad at me."
"He called you idiot", Kanon said with a bitter laugh.
"It took a while for him to trust me after that", Hyuuga laughed. "But I was the first one whom he told that he had a crush on you."
"What?" Kanon asked. "He couldn't have. He probably had a crush on some nice officer lady."
Dammit! Hyuuga thought. He hadn't told her yet? I'm the worst idiot on the world! The worst! The worst! The worst!
"I think that you should read the note that he wrote", Hyuuga said aloud. "It might explain something."
Kanon took a piece of paper from the pocket of her overcoat. She just looked at it blankly for some time and then she opened it. It read:
Dear Kanon,
If you are reading this, I am probably dead then. I wrote this in case I will not be able to answer to you. With this I mean the time when you confessed your feelings to me and I ran away. I was too confused back then. I thought that it was some kind of joke when you told me about your feelings. (I really thought so because it would have been so much like the "jokes" that Hyuuga used to do at me.) But when I thought about it a little bit by myself, I realized that I really liked you too. I'm really sorry if I haven't told you this before you read this and I've died. I don't want to die but the fate may have some other plans. I just hope that you understand what I'm trying to tell you:
I love you.
I am sorry if I die before I have a chance to tell you this. If I'm dead please tell everyone that I had very good time with them.
Yukikaze (My name is too long, isn't it?)
When Kanon had read the paper she realized that it was wet. She also realized that her face was wet because of a huge amount of tears streaming down from her eyes. She quickly put the paper back in the pocket of her overcoat and tried to calm herself down. She couldn't suppress her feelings and soon enough she realized that she was crying on the floor with no second thought. She used her overcoat as a pillow that muffled her sobs. After some time she started hitting the steel door in front of her.
"Why am I so useless and stupid?" she asked. "Why can't I do anything when I should be able to?"
"You already did something", Hyuuga said. "You made him happy."
"But I couldn't save him!" Kanon yelled.
"I think that you did that too", Hyuuga mumbled.
"How do you think I saved him?" Kanon sniffled. "He's dead already."
"He was happy", Hyuuga said and smiled at a faraway memory. "He told me that he couldn't have been happier when you confessed your feelings to him."
Kanon couldn't take it anymore so she broke down. She kneeled down on the floor and sobbed on her overcoat. Hyuuga shifted uncomfortably behind the door. He knew that he couldn't do anything to help Kanon feel better but he felt that he should say something. Kanon's sobbing and sniffling was just too much to hear. He couldn't understand that behind the door was the same girl who was usually full of energy. He couldn't understand that the same girl who was crying now used to be the nicest person in the Black Hawks.
"Do you need something, Kanon?" Hyuuga asked.
"C-can you leave me alone for s-some time?" Kanon sobbed. "I don't want people seeing or even hearing me when I'm like this."
"Fine", Hyuuga said. "You can just call me if you need something."
Kanon listened the sound of Hyuuga's boots going away. When she finally was sure that she was alone she released some of her magic. Her magic formed into a beautiful song. The song had no words. It had only a beautiful and sad melody which flowed like the wind. There were some pictures of Kanon's memories flowing alongside with the melody. She started from the time when she was very little and still with the circus group that had been full of nice people who were actually wars. Then the pictures moved on to the time when she had lived together with Ayanami and their adaptive father before he died. Slowly Hyuuga and Katsuragi started appearing into the pictures. Finally there was the first picture of Yukikaze. After some pictures Kanon realized that Yukikaze was the only person in those pictures. She smiled at the weird pictures of herself and Yukikaze.
"I hope that you were happy", Kanon whispered as she slowly fell asleep on her overcoat.
A/N: I'm not sure if I'm going to make an epilogue so if you want to tell me if I should or should not make an epilogue, please review. (And of course you can review without any opinion for my epilogue-or-not -problem!)
The name 丹陽 is the name of Yukikaze (the warship) after it was given to the Chinese military. So there's no actual meaning behind it, I just didn't know how to name the story.
