Bring Me to Life
Prologue:
"Why did you have to do that?"
"I didn't mean to... I know he could take care of himself... I guess I just wanted to sa-..." She was stopped as she nearly choked on her own blood rising up in her throat and spilling over her breast bindings.
"Try not to move, Suzaku-san. You didn't have to run in front of an idiot like Bontenmaru."
Bontenmaru nodded, "Yea, you didn't have to..."
"Whatever," Suzaku said, shrugging as best she could, despite the poisoned arrow in her shoulder, "I am a child of... of the forest... I won't really die. You'll see me again. I won't go down so easily. Kyo-dono wouldn't let me."
"You gonna shut up and die yet?" The red-eyed samurai known as Kyo asked.
Suzaku smirked, "Only if you let me touch Tenro one last time, Kyo-dono."
Sighing, Kyo held out his left hand, his sword Tenro in his grip. Holding Suzaku up, Bontenmaru helped her to reach out her right hand. Just as her fingertips were about to touch Muramasa's masterpieces, Bontenmaru felt her body shudder as a rattled breath passed her lips and her arm fell limp in Bontenmaru's hand mere centimeters from the sword she had asked to touch.
The sound of sandaled feet reached their ears as the last of them arrived, "Am I too late?"
"Hai," Akira said, getting up from his place on the ground as he sensed Suzaku's life slip away completely, "her dying wish was not even fulfilled."
The green-eyed, flame-wielding man's face did not change, but even Akira — the blind member of the Four Emperors — could tell that he was upset.
"Akira, freeze her." Came Bontenmaru's voice as he laid the woman's arms across her chest.
"Pardon?"
"I said freeze her, Akira. Gotta preserve her body for when she comes back." He said, scribbling a quick note before putting it in the woman's hands.
"But should she come back, would she not live only to die again by suffocation or cold?" Akira asked, giving Bontenmaru his equivalent of a knowing look.
"No," came Hotaru's voice, sounding as though he were trying to convince himself more than the others, "she will come back as the phoenix does. Since she did not die in flames, she will come back in a brilliant display of fire. That is why she was called Suzaku and I was not."
"How did she get the name Suzaku?" Akira asked, holding his chin in his hand in a thoughtful pose.
"What's it matter? She's dead. Freeze her and be done with it." Came Kyo's bored voice. He sat on a flat rock, his sword between his knees.
Shrugging, Akira froze the young woman's body in a rectangular block of ice, "We can't leave her out in the open."
"There's a cave over there." Bontenmaru pointed out.
Hotaru nodded, "That'll work."
Akira also nodded his agreement, so Bontenmaru hefted the block and put it standing up at the far back. Hoping she was right about being able to come back, Bontenmaru swore that she winked at him before he left, her blue eyes staring at his back as he left.
"Her eyes used to be as red as Kyo's," he mused to himself, "but one day they became blue... and that was some time after she visited Muramasa. Hm, wonder what he said to make her soul change? 'Cause her eyes musta changed at the same time since the eyes are the windows to the soul."
Walking back towards the entrance, Bontenmaru felt awkward the more time he spent in the cave, wanting nothing more than to escape the newly-made tomb. Upon exiting, Hotaru raised an eyebrow at him.
"Something wrong?"
"What's it to you? She was a good messenger," Bontenmaru said, trying to put her death off as something trivial, "but that's all she was. No need to make it into a big deal."
The wielders of fire and ice nodded, now all three of them turned to the one man they held above them, the slayer of a thousand men, the crimson-eyed samurai Demon Eyes Kyo.
"Whaddya say we do now?" Bontenmaru asked, not that he cared. The three of them would follow Kyo anywhere.
He stood, taking Tenro into his left hand and turning to head in a direction that he'd deemed worthy enough to follow, "Keep moving."
As they left the clearing, avoiding the corpses of those that had fallen by their blades, Akira wondered what would become of this place now that Suzaku had been buried here. She had acted as the messenger of the Four Emperors — well, just the three of them, really — going between them and Kyo. No one ever suspected her of being their messenger, for she had a way of blending in so well that no one really ever noticed she was there. Kyo had hated her for it.
But, then again, Kyo hated everyone.
Except for Suzaku. Neither of the three of them could figure out what it was, but there was something about Suzaku that even Kyo couldn't hate. She could relate to each of them and got along with them easily... not that they'd ever admit that aloud. The fact of the matter was that even Kyo could get along with Suzaku, for he had entrusted her with being his 'cover up' whenever he didn't feel like fighting some of the weaker assassins that came after him from the Mibu Clan.
That was another thing she and Kyo had in common: their hatred for the Mibu Clan. If it was anything Suzaku despised more than having to borrow clothes from Okuni, it was the Mibu Clan. She'd never told them why — and they hadn't asked — but it was a deep-seated thought in her mind that she was supposed to hate the Mibu, and that suited Kyo just fine. The only thing he insisted on was that she leave Mibu Kyoshiro to him, something to which she reluctantly agreed.
Pulling himself from his thoughts, Akira noted that Bontenmaru and Hotaru weren't arguing, which happened to be their favorite past time, each one trying to goad the other into a fight; however they didn't seem to have it in them today. Of course, he didn't have it in him to pull them apart, so he supposed that was a good thing. He turned to where Kyo walked ahead of them, wondering just what was going through the samurai's mind right now. How much did Suzaku's death affect him? Sure he would claim he couldn't care less, but Suzaku had put her life on the line by dressing as Kyo at times when he wanted nothing to do with the weaker assassins.
Sighing, Akira set his attention on the road ahead, his unseeing eyes focused on Kyo's back, just as they had been even back when he could see. For some reason, he could still sense Suzaku walking along with them, and the feeling unnerved him. There was no way she could come back to life so quickly, not after just dying, so what exactly was going on?
Then he remembered. Suzaku's soul was restless because she hadn't gotten to touch Tenro one last time. She had always loved Tenro, and Tenro had returned her feelings because it shone so brilliantly whenever Kyo allowed for her to touch it.
But Tenro would never shine that brightly ever again, for Suzaku was dead, and Tenro's glamour had gone to the grave with her.
