Author's Note: Ever since I finished watching episode seventeen, I couldn't help but feel that, while Erstin's death was well done, I really wished she had survived. I wondered what effects would she have on Arika and Nina as the end approached. In my musings, I eventually ended up with something that evolved into this story. This story dedicated to all of the Erstin fans who wish she could have been something more.
Golden Second Chances
Chapter One: Sun's Requiem
"Miss Erstin!"
Smith enunciated each syllable of her name with disgusting relish, reveling in his control.
"Now is the time to prove your loyalty! To prove your faith to your high, mighty and omnipotent God!"
The sound of his voice hung in the air, sealing her doom. She clutched a hand to her chest, her bottom lip trembling. Her heart felt like it was pulling itself in twain. In the past, even through all her uncertainty, she had always felt as though she was only doing what was right. It was what she must do to make people happy. How could it not be a kindness to give the miracles of Garderobe's technology back to everyone?
But everything was going wrong... it was all happening too fast. Arika wouldn't have a chance to understand. All she had ever heard about Swartz's goals and motives was Garderobe's propaganda; Erstin could only guess what effect this kind of revelation had on her. She painfully raised her eyes, forcing herself to look at Arika. Her pink-clad friend stood frozen in a half turn, her expression full of incomprehension. The tears spilled from Erstin's eyes, but she didn't bother trying to stop them. "I'm sorry, Arika-chan." she apologized miserably, the wet droplets tumbling down her flushed cheeks. Her clenched hand came unfurled, revealing a glowing Slave crystal, pulsating a malicious purple aura.
"No... You're kidding me, right?" Arika denied. "Ers-chan!"
"It's no use." Smith haughtily interjected in that abrasive voice of his. "She's the daughter from our loyal Ho family. She's been receiving training since birth."
'Training since birth.' The phrase rang in her ears. It wasn't like that... Smith made it sound like she had been brainwashed. The blond sank to her knees, crumbling under the crushing pressure of Smith's gaze. She wanted to deny, to tell him he was wrong, to tell him that she did this because she wanted to... in order to help the world. Most of all, she needed Arika to understand, wanting so badly that it hurt. But the words wouldn't come, and she couldn't delay any longer. "Under the contract of darkness, to fulfill my oath, ancient light, knowing and wise God, grant me a loyal servant." As she breathed the final sound of her incantation, a spray of glorious , golden light erupted from the ground under her fingertips, spreading into a huge glowing sigil around her. A monstrous being of molten yellow metal and cold steel erupted from the ground, coming to rest obediently behind her.
"Ers-chan!" Arika's pupils had contracted to a fraction of their normal size, her face echoing shock and betrayal to a degree beyond expression.
She knew how it looked. Yukariko-sensei had often told them terrible stories about what Swartz and the Slaves had done countless times in the past, to Windbloom and other countries. Arika had a simple way of looking at things, and she had always looked at Swartz as the enemy, and nothing else. Erstin tried to steel herself for a fight with Arika, but the thought made her feel sick. Even still, she wouldn't be allowed to release her Slave until Smith had what he wanted. "Please, give Mashiro-sama to me!" she requested desperately. "That way..."
"You know I can't!" Arika rejected with panic entering her voice, dodging a stray attack from the overeager Slave. "Ers-chan, why are you doing this?"
"It was decided a long time ago." Erstin answered with a defeated tone. The Slave was calling to her, trying to draw off her life force to power its assault against Arika, but she refused, leaving its attacks impotent as she tried to explain. "My father, my mother, my grandfather, my grandmother, all of them have always..." she trailed off, her voice strained to the breaking point. She had to make Arika understand. "Didn't you say so yourself? If people had this technology, everyone will be happy." She clenched her eyes tight, feeling the warm tears spilling down her face. "There won't be anymore... wars..." Those were the words of the dark men in cloaks who had taught her. It had all sounded so wonderful when she had first heard it, but now, even to her own ears, it sounded hollow and impossible. She wiped at the tears. She had been trained for this her whole life. She had been a bad Otome, and an even worse daughter before that. At this final, her most critical moment, she could not let herself falter. Her eyes opened violently, her voice bursting with newfound determination. "That's why..."
Her Slave fed off her surge of emotions, swinging again with renewed force. Arika easily sidestepped the attack, and retaliated several times. Each blow echoed through the bond into Erstin, her own body shuddering under the brutal impacts, and she cried out from the pain.
"Ers-chan!" Arika landed behind her, her voice confused and concerned at the same time.
"A Slave and its Lord is the same as an Otome and her Master. If the Slave is attacked, the Lord will also get hurt." Smith explained with sadistic helpfulness.
"It can't be..." Arika repeated denials only increased as she grasped the full horror of the situation.
"Mashiro-chan..." A youthful voice called out playfully from above them. Erstin straightened, shielding her eyes against the sun as she searched for the new entrant. After a second, she spotted him on the roof of a building behind them. His diminutive stature and distinctive black and red garb marked him unmistakably: Grand Duke Nagi. "All you have to do is come over to my side and no one will need to fight." Nagi observed mockingly, thinly veiled malice coating his childlike voice. He continued to taunt to Mashiro, but Erstin barely even realized he was talking, much less processed the words. Her eyes were drawn to the figure standing next to Nagi. There stood the mulberry haired girl who consumed her thoughts and haunted her dreams.
Nina's eyes were wide with shock, and her expression was a vice around Erstin's heart. "Ers... you..."
She felt her world crumbling around her. Whatever Erstin's misgivings were about Arika finding out, it was many times worse that Nina had discovered her secret. Her heart pounded in her chest painfully. She tried to keep her gaze locked with Nina's, to let her eyes carry the apology that she wasn't able to voice, but Nina's horrified stare pierced her to the core. Erstin felt bile rise in her throat, and she narrowed her eyes to sorrowful slits and cast her eyes downwards in shame.
The droning whisper of the shrouded figures from her youth sounded in her head unbidden. This is the price that you pay. You knew the day would come when you would give your life for the cause, and yet you let yourself grow close to the enemy anyway. It was a voice of reason, but reason wasn't what she wanted to hear right now. She clamped her hands on her ears futilely. Your sacrifice is necessary. You've known this for as long as you have lived, and you have been prepared. Your death will fuel the birth of a greater world. Would you be so selfish as to deny that destiny? She shook her head in anguish, uselessly trying to banish the whispered justification. If that was true, why had all of her determination vanished? Why did this feel so wrong?
When she looked back up, Arika was waving her arms, yelling to her purple haired Master. "You can't, Mashiro-chan! Even though I don't understand all this complicated stuff, what he's doing is wrong!" Mashiro nodded with a bitterly determined face, much to Nagi's chagrin.
"Well then..." The archduke smiled wickedly. "I guess there's no helping it." He called out his accomplices name in a singsong voice. "Smith!"
John Smith, the personification of the authority of Swartz and God Himself, barked an order at her. "Do it, Erstin!"
The command ripped through her mind like a jagged bolt of lightning, and instincts honed by years of secret training activated. Her eyes flared wide, and as her mental barriers opened, the Slave fed off all of her despair and frustration, honing the negative energy into a slamming impact against Arika. Her roommate screamed and soared through the air, skidding across the school's yard and tearing up a large tract of lawn as she landed.
"I'm sorry, Arika-chan." An apology was a weak recompense for an assault on a supposed friend, but it was the best Erstin could manage. The Slave's thoughts were intermingled with her own, the horrifying anguish of its existence feeding her own terror, amplifying them both until she could barely keep her own sanity. The construct of gold and steel projected its thoughts into her mind more forcefully, filling her consciousness with an infectious red cloud of hate. She rapidly felt herself losing herself.
"Erstin!" Smith reprimanded pitilessly. "That sort of attack wouldn't destroy an Otome."
"I'm sorry." She felt the wind behind her, sending her Coral Robe aflutter. "I'm so... sorry!" She knew, to the depths of her being, that she didn't want this to happen. But just as strongly, she knew she was powerless to stop it, just like she always had been. She felt all her strength siphoning off, empowering the Slave. It reared up, preparing a final blow against the prostrate Arika.
"Arika!" Sergey yelled, dashing towards her.
"Father!" Nina gasped, watching the inevitable collision.
Sergey blocked the impact with his body, rolling with the movement of the attack, miraculously suffering only a ripped shirt and what would probably turn into a hefty bruise on his midsection. The Slave, its attack foiled, tried to turn and make another attempt, but Erstin regained control of their bond and forced it to stand its ground, desperately hoping against hope that she wouldn't have to do this.
A collective silence reigned. All eyes were drawn to an embroidered swatch of cloth, gently drifting to the ground. Arika was the first to speak, her voice touched by a confused tremor. "You..." Her voice wobbled with uncertainty. "You were my sponsor?"
Erstin's mind reeled as she realized the implications. She had silently watched her two roommates grapple with their own emotions about Sergey in a twisted love triangle that Erstin ironically understood better than any of those actually involved. She had selfishly supported Arika's crush, quietly giving her encouragement, letting herself dream that Nina would give up on Sergey if he fell in love with Rena's daughter. But Erstin also understood the depths of Nina's obsession with her foster father. Even in her darkest fantasies, she would have wanted Major Wong to turn Nina down with a gentle smile... not like this.
"Father... don't tell me that you..." Nina trailed off, the sentence unfinished. Her betrayed horror begged for an answer from Major Wong. His only response was to grit his teeth and cast his gaze aside, must to Nina's further dismay. Erstin's heart ached in sympathy, watched their interaction with increasing dread.
Sergey tore his gaze away from the ground, turning to his sovereign lord. "Please... stop this, Highness. This girl here..." He indicated Arika. "... is the true Princess of Windbloom!"
"Eh? Didn't you say you didn't find her?" Nagi drawled sarcastically, his voice distinctly lacking surprise. "Could it be that... you betrayed me?"
Sergey's face fell, his final card played and failed. "That's..."
"So... that's why you protected that girl." Nagi confirmed, smirking while he glanced at Nina expectantly.
Erstin hadn't been paying attention to what was being said. Instead, she had been watching Nina's reaction, taking what were surely the the last moments of her life to contemplate. She had always enjoyed watching Nina from afar. They were in the same classes, took the same trips, ate the same meals, and even slept in the same room. But Nina never truly looked at her, not even once; Nina had eyes only for Sergey. Even though that knowledge hurt, Erstin found it more comforting than painful. Knowing it was hopeless, she could leave dreams as dreams, and enjoy watching Nina from afar without worrying about anything complicated. As her doubts grew, it was Nina who unknowingly gave her the strength to carry on. But now, that strength had turned into a visage that was terrifying to behold. Nina's face was a mask of pure rage, so angry that when Nagi began to bond her as his Otome, Nina could only nodded a curt acceptance while grinding her teeth in fury. And as Erstin watched the perfect obsidian gems glisten as the contract was officially completed and sealed their fate, she realized that she had cried all of the tears she could cry.
Nina glowed with green power, an ethereal silhouette merging with her form, materializing her Meister Robe. She hopped down off the roof, lapsing in her ire long enough to turn tearful eyes on Sergey. "You're really unfair... Father. You told me to come here for the sake of become Archduke Nagi's Otome, and yet..." But there was nothing more to be said. Her eyes turned to the hand sewn gift Arika had made for her sponsor, still resting behind Sergey's leg where it fell. It was a cruel reminder, and her eyes bored into Arika. "If you weren't... if you never existed..." Her final veiner of calm shattered as she readied her sai, charging headlong at Arika with a primal yell.
Her own misery and doom not withstanding, Erstin was now watching her two best friends try to murder each other, all for the sake of a man who could never love either of them back. Something inside Erstin snapped, burying her weakness and fear. She was going to die today, but when faced with the dread of the past few days and the misery of the moment, death didn't seem quite so scary anymore. If there were some causes worth dying for, her friends were the best cause she could think of.
She sent a piercing command through the bond to the Slave, dominating it into unwilling motion. It screamed protest in her mind, the very sound of its voice driving her to the brink of her sanity. She persevered, driving it forward with her thoughts, sending it between the impending blows. She drew in a deep breath, yelling in a voice torn from the depths of her heart. "Nina-chan!"
Though the moment of impact was imminent, Nina's eyes betrayed a flicker of movement through her jealous bloodrage. She could see Erstin waving her arms, begging her not to go through with the attack. Nina turned back, noticing through her narrowed vision the Slave screaming through the air to intercept her attack. Nina's feet stumbled, reigning in her attack at the final second. Her sai landing glancing blows against the arm and head of the Slave.
Though the damage wasn't instantly fatal, the Meister weapons did significant damage to the Slave's frame. The cleaving strikes had sent shattered fragments in arcing sprays away from the weapon's swing, Erstin noted, observing the damage in the small window she had before...
Wham. Agony struck her like a wall, sending lightning pain across her face and down one side of her body. Her strength was sapped, and she collapsed into the grass like a puppet with cut strings. She screamed a hoarse scream before it was cut off into a choked whimper as her throat constricted painfully. Arika called her name in panicked concern, sprinting across the narrow field to come to her side. Erstin's Slave, still functional, took a weak swing at the pink-clad girl before collapsing into a shuddering, barely functional heap.
Erstin tried to speak at the terror stricken face that loomed over her fallen body, but all she could manage was short, wheezing gasps as she struggled to fill her lungs. She tried to smile for Arika, but the pain was too great, and she could barely manage a grimace. 'It's alright, Arika-chan.' she wanted to say, to comfort the tears that ran down Arika's cheeks like rivers. 'You're safe now, and Nina didn't do something I know she would regret for the rest of her life. I've always known my life would end like this... and now I can die happily, knowing I protected you and Nina. So please... don't be sad.'
But she couldn't voice the words, and Arika's face darkened, her brow furrowing and her teeth clenching in fury. Erstin tried to grab ahold of her, to keep her close and prevent the two from their inevitable clash. But even her body had failed her, and Arika rose with a slow determination; a horrifying, deadly resolve overwhelming all other emotions. Nina spared Erstin a confused, sorrowful glance, but when faced with an enraged Arika, took to the sky.
The girls spun in graceful pirouettes, summoning the Elements that would be their annihilation. When they clashed, a catastrophic ball of white light radiated outwards, consuming the grounds. And as the light reached her, Erstin finally found her voice.
She screamed as her world burned.
But she remained alive to feel the pain.
Author's Note:
What, you were expecting fluff?
Watching that scene over and over again as I contemplated what Erstin was thinking through each moment was almost hard. You'd think after watching her go all green sparkley for the fiftieth time, it wouldn't be sad anymore, but it was almost worse. I've already got the next chapter planned, and its a lot happier. However, I'm entering into finals at college, and the chapter has a lot of complicated dialog for me to get exactly right, so no promises on an update schedule. Just ask anyone who is still waiting for the next chapter of Shades of Gray, I write at a snails pace.
Speaking of which, I have not abandoned Shades of Gray, I'm just in a hiatus from it. I have a daunting amount of material planned for it, but I'm having a lot of trouble getting the wording correct. Expect three or four more full length chapters to finish up the first novella (depending on how I break them up), plus two interlude chapters that cover secondary characters and resolve some plot threads that don't fit into the primary story, and plus I have planned the first three chapters from a second novella that takes place after a four year gap. Dare I say... look forward to it? It's coming... just... slowly.
Thanks to all the kind (and not so kind) emails telling me I'm a butt for not updating faster. Believe it or not, I get my best writing done when I get an email that inspires me to forsake all my other responsibilities in life and sit down to slam out a chapter. So don't be afraid to comment or email, even if its just a few words.
And as always, thanks for reading.
