Please do note this is more than likely not the path being taken by the manga. I doing a lot of guess work as well as changing a few things around. The notes left by Yoshida were extremely vague.
Trinity Blood: Book 3: Vehemens Veritas
Chapter 1: Battle to Return, Part 1: Temptation
Abel had to act and he had to do so fast. Stretching out his wings, he was caught by the wind. The force of nature sent him into a wild spin, causing him to crush into the Iron Maiden II's helium balloon. Abel's wing crumpled and he shrieked in pain. Tumbling down the balloon, Abel was forced to move his wings in closer to his body. The last thing wanted was to destroy the ship; Kate would have his head for that. Within seconds he was sent into a dive, shooting past the windows as only a black blur, invisible to those within thanks to the darkness of the night. Something fell from his pocket. A flash of color told him what it was – the butterfly Seth had given him. Not thinking, Abel rolled in the air, pinning his wings to his back and reaching for the small object. His heart skipped a beat before his hand closed tightly around it.
The ground was rushing towards Abel at an alarming rate. Quickly he spread his wings once more. This time he was careful the wind. With a powerful down stroke of his wings Abel slowed, but it wasn't enough. Pain shot through him as he stuck the cobbled street. Gasping, he rolled, wings vanishing and hair falling around his face and shoulders. Whack, Abel slammed into wall, his head smashing into its surface. Daze and fighting against a wave of fatigue Abel stared up at the sky. The Iron Maiden II was cutting through the night heading away from Londinium in pursuit of – Abel followed the airship's path, the world blurring before coming back into focus. He could just make out the streaks of red lightening marking Cain's progress through the sky as he too fell. Slowly Abel lifted his hand, reaching out. He had to return to the battle. Cain needed-he needed to be destroyed.
"Hey, there's someone over here!" a shout tore through the night. Abel was vaguely aware of a human kneeling over him. "It's a priest, one of the Vatican's agents I think!"
"Where did he come from?" someone else shouted, moving to join the other. "The only fighting near here was those two who were in the sky and neither of them looked like priests."
"We need to get him inside and contact one of the priests," another had joined them, a woman by the sounds of the person's voice.
"Are you insane? We should be trying to get out of the city, not helping some random priest!" someone else shouted.
"The fighting has died down since that ship was destroyed," stated the first. "Let's get him instead and see if we can find someone from the Vatican."
Abel blinked, trying to keep his eyes open. Gaze sliding from the blurred faces swimming over him he looked at his closed hand. Even now he could fell the butterfly in his hand. Seth. Abel's eyes rolled and he was pitched into the darkness.
xxx
Cain spread his five remaining wings, snarling in pain. The white feathers were stained with blood and he could see more still flowing from the wound. The bleeding would stop soon but right then he was more focused on not crashing than the wound in and of itself. A gust of wind sent Cain rushing forward. Trees splintered, shattering as if they were bone as he crushed through them. A growl escaped his lips as he managed to to get his feet under him. Digging his boots into the ground, Cain skidded several feet before coming to a complete stop. He stumbled, his wings flaring out behind him in order to steady him.
Turning his head, Cain calmly inspected his injured limb. "Ah, 02, your temper seems to have gotten the better of you," he laughed, but there was a bitterness in his laugh. He could hear several people moving towards him as well as an airship overhead. Despite the fact his hearing was nowhere near as good as 02's he could still hear better than the Methuselah.
"Stop there, you are surrounded!" the loud voice made Cain sigh before he grinned, laughing.
"If you were any louder, I would have bee able to hear you coming towards me from a mile off," Cain laughed, turning his red eyes on the heavily armored man as he stepped from the forest's depths. Already Cain could hear several others moving around him. This man clutched a large staff which looked as if the end could inflect a lot of damage once they started to rotate. He wore a red tabard over his armor and had long blue hair. Stranger still the man was actually taller than Cain was.
Cain heard two swords being unsheathed and glanced over his shoulder to see two priests standing behind him. One looked like an Albion nobleman with brown hair which looked as if it had been neatly done before the battle. Beside him a man with long, wavy blond hair stood dripping wet. His eyes were locked on Cain with hatred filling them. Slowly Cain turned his attention to another priest who had a ring moving around his finger and was grinning wolfishly at Cain.
"Affirmative," the priest Cain had to go through to get to 02 stepped forward his guns pointed at Cain's heart. "Target in sight," the young terran's face remained impassive his brown eyes glowing red as he targeted Cain.
"Go ahead, shoot me," Cain laughed, his eyes skimming over the faces his brother's allies, "you saw how affective massive heart damage was on 02. Do you really think it will harm me as well?" he grinned at them. "Though, your Duchess really did have to pick the most annoying time to fuse 02 to one hundred percent." Cain shook his head, "No, no, this won't do this won't do at all." His eyes moved over the priests and brother once more. "You know I would be worrying less about me and more about 02. My brother does have a rather nasty temper," Cain grinned at the humans, "besides I grow weary of this."
"What the hell are you muttering about?" growled the priest with hair like a lions mane.
"Oh, oh, you see my brother tends to go on rampages when he's upset or angry and he was really angry in that little fight of ours," Cain flicked his wrist, grinning happily at them. "I was only saying you might want to find 02 before he decides to slaughter everyone in Londinium."
"Negative, there is only a five percent chance of Crusnik losing control," the young priest stated.
"Enough talk," the blue haired man shouted, "prepare to feel God's wrath, heretic!" With a powerful leap, the man lifted his staff thing and aimed for Cain's head. Was this terran serious? Or just mentally ill? Lifting on hand, Cain stopped the terran mid-leap with his powers. Smiling at him, Cain tilted his head to one side. The bones of his wing finally began to grow. He felt it snap into place followed by muscle and finally the feathers.
"What the hell?" Cain heard the terran with long brown hair say.
Still holding the blue haired man, Cain allowed his wings to wither and vanish. His hair fell around his face as he continued to smile at them. "Now, now, be a nice group of terrans and scurry home," Cain's smile turned wide. "I dislike dealing with your kind unless absolutely necessary and I need to find 02." Flicking his wrist, Cain heard a grunt of pain followed a cracking of a tree as the blue haired man was sent flying. At once the two with swords lunged for Cain. Well this sucked. Vanishing from their sight, Cain leapt up into the trees. "It was nice meeting all of 02's little friends, but I really must find Isaak." Grinning, he made a "v" over his eye before racing off into the night. What a waste of time and energy. He didn't exactly have all the time in the world to amuse terrans.
xxx
"This isn't how you want it, is it?" a voice asked. Abel's head felt as if it had been bashed open by The Ark falling on top of him. Slowly, groggily Abel opened his eyes a slit, blinked and opened them further. He was in a pitch black room, staring up at nothing. "Over here," slowly Abel turned his head to the left. He was staring into a large sheet of glass. On the other side of the glass he laid as well as if it were a mirror but it wasn't him at the same moment. It was the crusnik activated to forty percent.
"What the—?" Abel leapt to his feet and scrambled away from the glass only to find a wall behind him. This couldn't be… the crusnik had never appeared to him, never! What was going on here? This just couldn't be!
"Shocked?" the crusnik stood as well. Abel felt as if he was staring into a bad dream or had fallen into one. "We have a deal for you," the crusnik said, "and we know it is what you have longed for since 01's return."
"I don't want to hear anything you have to offer," Abel replied evenly. Lilith's words echoed in his mind.
"01, we want him destroyed as much as you do," the crusnik purred, grinning at Abel. "Only together can your dream be realized. Together we will be strong enough to take down 01 and make your dream of peace a reality."
Shaking his head, Abel clapped his hands over his ears, "I'm not listening! I won't listen." This wasn't real, this couldn't be real.
"Without our help you can not have peace and 01 will continue. Is that what you want, Nightlord, is it?" No it wasn't what Abel wanted, but he couldn't agree to this. He could never allow the crusnik to be in full control, not again, never again. "Control? No, no, you misunderstand us, we don't want control," Abel blinked, staring at the crusnik in confusion and shock. "We want to complete the fusion," the crusnik smiled, baring his sharp teeth at Abel. It was a wicked, unsettling grin. "We want to become one, fully and completely. That is all we are asking in return for destroying 01 and making peace with the other two races," slowly Abel lowered his hands. His heart was hammering. He wasn't sure if he really believed what he was hearing or not. Peace? The crusnik wanted peace? Was it true, could it be possible?
"Peace," Abel whispered the word.
"Yes, we want peace as well," the crusnik touched the glass with one talon. Abel was between shock and numb acceptance in this sudden change of the crusnik. Wings appeared on the crusnik's back, but Abel hardly noticed the crusnik change from forty percent to eighty percent activation.
Suspicion sunk in. "How do I know you're telling the truth?" Abel demanded. He could remember all too well how much the crusnik enjoyed killing. "You loved killing all those humans after Sara's death. Why would you care if peace came, why would you want it?" Abel stepped forward, glaring at the crusnik. "You wouldn't care, all you want is to watch Earth burn!"
At this the crusnik laughed darkly, "But you wanted it as much as we did," Abel stopped dead, staring at the crusnik. "We only gave you what you wanted, you wanted the terrans to pay for taking Sara from you, so we made them pay, every signal last one of them," the crusnik's eyes narrowed, "we only want what you want." Was it true? After her death Abel had wanted to kill those who had taken Sara from him, but was it true?
Abel's mind turned over those long ago event and froze. The children, all those who were young the lives he had taken. "You're lying," Abel growled at them, "I never wanted to kill children. Millions of those people have nothing to do with Sara's death, they were innocent!" Then Abel remembered all the humans done to him and to Aran. "You're wrong," Abel whispered, trying more to convince himself than the crusnik.
"Ah, your foster son," the crusnik knelt down as Abel trembled with rage and anguish. "We could have stopped it, we could have protected his family, then he wouldn't have died. Together we could have," slowly Abel looked at the crusnik. "They had no right to kill your family just because they were related to your son or had fallen in love with him. He didn't need to die. The terrans were the ones who took him for you, him and the rest of his family. He would want this, you know. If he knew it would bring peace, Aran would want you to do this."
"You're wrong," Abel whispered, he collapsed to his knees. "You're wrong. You're wrong, you're wrong, you're wrong." He clapped his hands over his ears, shaking his head. Abel didn't want to think on Aran, he didn't want to listen to the crusnik. All he wanted was to go back home. He wanted to return to Rome, he wanted to leave this nightmare! Abel closed his eyes, he wanted out.
(Author's Note: Okay in the notes left by Yoshida it says both Dietrich and Isaak make it through the battle even though in the anime it looks as if they are both killed.
Another note, this is a slower book than the last two, which is why it has so many chapters. It's not going to be as action packed as Divergent Path and The Winter Rose were. It has a lot more to do with the mental state of the characters, their emotions, and dreams. I'm not saying there is no action whatsoever because there is still a lot, it's just not coming on as quickly as the other two books.
A request: if you read this story, please, please leave a review or a comment even if you don't have an account of . Comments and reviews help me get motivated to write when I am not in the mood do so.
I really appreciate all the comments I have been getting. Even if I don't respond to them do know I read them and will reread them over and over. Reading reviews and comments make my day.)
