Fire Emblem 6.5
(Disclaimer: I do not own any of the mentioned characters, nor do I own any part of the Fire Emblem franchise. They and all other surrounding elements are all trademarks, excluding Aura.)
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Chapter1- Broken Petals
"A love no love could compare to." These are the words to use for the depth of these assassins. Jaffar and Nino...husband and wife..lovers and parents..the couple divided. The day where all they had crumbled right before their eyes. The day where blood was almost cried by a heartbroken mother. Their tragedy. Their story. His alliance. And where does the robed assailant fit in this puzzle of deceit and sorrow? These questions..so many questions..shall now be answered.
Another arrow flew through the homes of the couple, breaking a purchased antique: a grey clay pot. The assailants were skilled. Not the brigands dispatched in the waring times. Not even the generals of the united countries. These were none other than the assassins of the Black Fang, the group in which the two lovers rebelled. Jaffar released a sigh of relief, seeing as the misfired arrow was not oiled, unable to cause more danger. Hurriedly looking at his wife and children, he whispers to them: "Get underneath the table. It seems to be out of the range of the archers." A frightened Nino hoarsely responds to her husband. "Who..who are these people?"
"These are archers, and skilled ones at that. I believe these men not to be Morphs. No. They're far more skilled than that. These are Sacaens. Nino, it is not safe for us here. Take the children and escape through the back. I'll distract them." As these words were uttered, three arrows pierced through the straw and mud walls. Before either had the chance to speak, a fourth arrow was lodged into Jaffar's right bicep. With this, Nino let out a piercing scream and laid the babies quietly on the ground, rushing to his aid. "Jaffar! Jaffar! Don't move. I can help you. You're wounds-" "Are nothing", the man responded, obviously in pain. "It was luck that had them hit me. Go! Quickly!" His tearful love did as he asked, picking up her children and not looking back as she ran. Unbeknownst to the two. The assailants of the group surrounded the front of the house, with reinforcements in tow. The men's horses wore the same basic clothing of the Nomadic Troopers. The reigns and decorations were dyed to a transparent orange and blue, and the mustangs the men possessed had a beautiful coat of yellow.
The men however, were not as graceful as their steeds. Each wore the black and purple coats symbolizing the remnants and hopeful revival of the Fang. The apparent leader and his horse broke into the home, his neck-long orange hair flowing and his yellow eyes out for blood. He merely uttered the words: "Hitokiri..(Japanese. Translated to Human/Person Slayer.)..hitokiri. Where have you gone hitokiri?" His eyes lit up when he finally scanned Jaffar behind a loose and rotted support beam. He readied his deer skin bow and wooden arrow to aim for Jaffar's head. Little did he know..he was dealing with Death's own angel.
Meanwhile, in a nearby thicket in the forest outside their doors, Nino and her children hide from the onslaught of warriors. Every passing minute seemed like an hour, and a large lump developed in her throat. Her heart was pulsing, and she found it very hard to swallow. Her children, Lugh and Ray were unusually calm during the ordeal, and fell asleep in the midst of the slew of arrows. Her shaky hands stopped as she felt warm breathing around her neck.
Her face went blank until she felt a familiar warm hand and voice caress her. "I'm right here to guide you. You don't have to be afraid now." She almost sobbed from knowing that Jaffar was fine. In the house, the fallen leader went without reinforcements, foolishly spending valuable time in the long run for reinforcements to arrive. His stomach brutally sawed open and a pulsating heart on the floor near his cracked ribs, seemingly every ounce of intestines and blood spewed from the corpse of this unfortunate man. The shocked expression on his lifeless face showed that he had truly met with the Angel of Death.
Outside of the front door, his horse laid still whinnying on the ground, an arrow impaled in its stomach. Meanwhile in the forest, the couple thought of a plan to escape the oncoming nomads. "Nino..don't cry from what I'm about to tell you," Jaffar, without emotion said, "What do you...could you mean, Jaffar?" a smile appearing on Nino's face. "The two of us could never keep secrets from the other. So what are you saying?" "Nino..I love you and our children more than anything in this world. I couldn't bear to leave you." A worried expression now appeared on her face. "What are you saying? You can't-" She was cut off abruptly:
"Enough! Do you know what happens to people like me. It's not the family they want to kill..it's me. I have to leave you..to protect you." Obviously, nothing but tears and sputtering came from Nino's mouth at the mentioning of her husband's words. "Ja-Jaf..Jaffar..no..come with us! You-" Again, she was interrupted. Yet to her shock, her husband looked away, a single tear dropping from his eye. His following speech would break her heart forever. "You don't have to say anything. You talked of how much we would teach our children..how much time we had. That will never happen. These children..it's their father's fault..his fault that they will never see him. You'll be incomplete without me..and I without you. You don't know how much I'll miss you. And how much I'll miss them.
Their first words..their first smiles...their joys..their sadness. Good fathers see these things..they encourage them. They tell their children to live their lives..but I'm doing this to save theirs. When these children talk of where daddy has gone and what he was like..don't tell them of how he was once this cold-blooded killer you see now." Jaffar paused to break down for these things he's said..he prays for forgiveness for the man he's killed and cries for every moment he'll never have with his children. His love does the same, in shock of his emotional display. When he regains his composure..he finishes with: "But tell them..of the love we shared..and how much I would love them..if I had another chance..." With this he embraces her for the last time in a hard and passionate kiss, knowing that would most likely be the last of the kind. He dashes into the forest, hoping that with these new words and feelings, his wife..his love..his broken petal would live on. The once so blooming flower of love..withered in such a short time. The rotting petals...they are what remain.
Yet she was speechless.
She fixed her head onto the view of the ground, caressing her children as she held them in her arms..and she cried. She cried for the pain she felt..the pain her children would feel..and the pain of losing the love you worked so hard to build. She just wanted to die. And this nearly came true. Men in rows of three, at least sixty of them were positioned in back of Nino on horseback. They spread out and fixed their arrows on her and the babies and asked in synchrony: "Where is the man, Jaffar? The murderer who killed our leader?" Nino raised herself furiously to the aid of Jaffar's reputation. "You t-talk no such words of him! He is a great man!" The men remained silent, and merely raised their bows in preparation to fire. Nino fearfully placed her babies behind her, beginning to cast a Thunder spell. She had a feeling she was to die. And this is how she would want to remember herself. Yet at that instant, the earth seemed to stand still. The skies became red and the clouds rolled across them in a charcoal black and no breathing could be heard. In a few seconds, red lightning struck one man.
As the rest fired their arrows at a dumbfounded Nino, she let out a mute scream. In a whirlwind that broke the sound barriers, the arrows snapped before her, inches from her dazed face. In another few seconds, every reinforcement in the Black Fang squad lay dead with not a scratch on them. As suddenly as it came, the red horizon rolled away. In front of the three survivors was none other than the man from the Dragon's Gate. He told her right before she fainted..: "Thank you.." Nino awoke the next day so far from her home, she thought she was in a different country. And that she was. She and Jaffar settled near the outskirts of Bern and she awoke, unknown to her, on the border of Lycia and Bern. An oversized church and a fortress her head rested on were the first things she saw in the morning light. The church was labeled the Elimine orphanage. On each side of her, she heard a sleeping Lugh and Ray. Yet just as she was about to pick them up to cradle, she saw a locket on her lap. It was her mother's blood-stained locket she gave to Jaffar as a keepsake. Just holding it reminded her of him, and she cried again.
And in one of Bern's forests, Jaffar rested breathless on and oak tree, bloodied by the numerous thorns of the forest..Rest was surely needed for someone in his case. He thought not a man was visible for 100 miles, when as suddenly as before, the robed child came. His sword pointed outward. The odd sword glowed and emitted a green aura. Since his back was facing Jaffar, he turned his neck and eerily looked at him with a psychotic look, asking:
"You're the Angel of Death..Jaffar? Can we be friends?"
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End of Phase 1
(Chapter 2 should be up by this Friday. Hope you enjoy. By the way, for even the slightly squeamish, it's a guarantee the next installment will be 13+. R&R? )