I'm so incredibly sorry this is so late, you guys. I can't seem to find time to do much updating lately. School is so evil! Anywho, without further delay, here's Chapter Four!
Argentine let Risa stay on his shoulder until his shoulder grew numb and he was positive she was asleep. He gently disentangled her sleeping body from him and somehow managed to lift her up and carry her out of the library. Her head fell limply against his chest as she murmured something in her sleep. He carefully carried her up the stairs, knowing that light-travel might be a little too much for her, even sleeping, after her recent light endeavor. His arms began to grow tired by the time he finally reached the top of the stairs. He gently adjusted her position and continued, finally arriving at her door. He cautiously put her down on her bed and pulled the covers over her body. As he did, she murmured something else in the midst of her dream that made him stop dead in his tracks.
"Argentine..."
The way she groaned sleepily and rolled over affirmed that she was, indeed, asleep and dreaming, which is exactly what made Argentine stop and look at her with a lightly surprised expression on his face.
She was DREAMING about him? As he took a step closer to her, he leaned over curiously to see if she'd say anything to reveal the contents of her dream. He couldn't explain this sudden curiosity that had taken over him and it felt quite strange. It wasn't long before he was given some insight into her dream...and it clearly shocked him.
"Nn. Don't leave me."
Stiffly and awkwardly, he brushed a few strands of her hair back into their places and ran his hand along the side of her face. He withdrew his hand quickly, as if he was nearly shocked at his own actions. Even so, as he watched her sleep, his cold violet eyes relaxed and he slowly walked out of the room, making sure to close her door behind him.
He slowly and silently walked to the piano and sat down at the bench. He stared at the keys for a few moments before he sensed something. His eyes narrowed hostilely as he rose from the bench as something burst through one of his giant windows, shattering glass all across the floor and the piano with an exploding shatter. The figure spread his white wings and let out a light evil chuckle, "I knew it was only a matter of time before you let your guard down, you pathetic excuse for artwork."
Argentine answered with a dreadfully spiteful glare.
Risa's eyes fluttered open as her eyes grew accustomed to the bare white ceiling of her room in Argentine's castle. She slowly sat up and yawned, stretching her arms and looking around. Argentine must have moved her during the night.
That's when she knew something wasn't right. She took a glance at the window. There was absolutely no lumination, no sun or moon or anything at all, shining through. Outside was complete darkness...until a light shot past the window. Suddenly she jumped to her feet, too fast, considering she had to overcome her lightheadedness before she could see anything.
As she looked out the window, she still could barely see anything, as if her window was fogged. She jogged to her door and tried to open it. For the first time in her known history of being there, the door was locked. Frantically she jiggled the doorknob and pushed and pulled to no avail.
Finally she backed away and slumped onto her bed. Risa gave a heavy sigh and leaned over to grasp her head in her hands and run her fingers through her hair, exasperated. She stared at her lap, trying to decide what to do. It was probably no big deal, there was no way anyone would be able to find Argentine's castle anyway, so there was probably nothing to worry about.
But something struck her, giving her the undeniable knowledge that something wasn't right. Argentine never locked her door. He hardly ever even closed it tightly. Somehow he knew that she liked to fall asleep to his piano music.
The music!
Risa jolted from her seat and pressed her ear against the door. She could hear no music whatsoever. In fact, there was no sound at all from the other side. She then began to slam her body against the door, to no avail. Then she began to kick the door as hard as she could, again to no avail. With a dreadfully determined expression, she took a few paces backwards and sprinted forward, slamming her shoulder into the door. She fell backwards and rubbed her shoulder, "I should've known that would be harder than it looks."
With that, she backed up to the furthest corner of her room and rocketed forward, ramming her entire body against the door. With a disturbing crack, a bang, and a loud squeak, the door gave way.
Risa fell forward and stumbled a few steps to regain her balance. She let out a sharp gasp as she gazed over the room, covered in splintered glass that crunched under her feet. The huge center window was nearly completely gone.
Risa's thoughts spiraled out of control as countless possibilities flew through her brain. What happened? Where was Argentine? Was he alright?
Heedless of the broken glass under her socked feet, she ran over to the window. Her face wrenched in pain from the glass, but her head spun, her eyes searching for Argentine or any clue whatsoever outside the window. It wasn't long before her silent pleas were answered with a hideously evil laugh from outside.
"You honestly think you could become the Black Wings? You're beyond joking yourself, you useless piece of art. The Hikari should've crumpled you up and thrown you in the waste-can when they had the chance!"
Krad launched a frighteningly speedy ball of light towards the silhouette of his floating nemesis. Argentine narrowly dodged and countered with a swirling orb of glowing blue and violet energy towards the white-winged demon. Krad disappeared before the orb struck him and reappeared behind Argentine, whacking the latter in the back of the head. Argentine stumbled in the air, unable to catch himself before he plummeted towards the ground.
"Argentine!" Risa could not contain her scream. She stood there for a few moments, having no idea what to do. She forced herself to remember how to breathe so she could think. The only thing she could think about was how to find a way down there. She was never able to get out of the castle by herself and she had no idea how to do it. Suddenly, an idea popped into her head.
Taking no notice of the glass, she ran back into her room and picked up the Heaven's Plee from the night-table and clutched it tightly to her chest, her knuckles turning white and her nails clenching onto the little statue. She pleaded with all her heart until she felt tears welling up in her eyes. She ran towards the door to the stairwell and swung it open, fumbling as fast as she could down the stairs.
She was beginning to get dizzy as she finally came into view of the bottom of the stairs. When she reached the tile floor, she looked around for a way out. The hall was littered with doors. It was the hall that had that library in it somewhere. However, this time she wasn't looking for the library, she was looking for a way out. Risa ended up resorting to trying every single door in the hall to see which one led to the outside. Every door she opened either led nothing but darkness or wouldn't open in the first place.
She even decided to try the huge door at the far end of the hall that looked as if it may be the entrance/exit. When she reached the door, she grabbed one of the huge brass door handles and pulled as hard as she could. The thick door finally budged and opened. Risa couldn't see anything, so she opened it wider. Her heart skipped a beat when she looked inside. A dark hissing wind blew in her face. When she could open her eyes against the wind, she could feel herself going pale. Her breath hung in her throat.
There, inside the door, amidst the crawling tendrils of darkness and swirling light, was what looked like a huge image of some sort of part of skeleton made of metallic light. It looked like a skeleton, yet it didn't. There was something about it that was so mystical, frightening, and entrancing at the same time, she couldn't tear her eyes away but her legs and mind wanted to run away as fast as humanly possible. Finally she convinced her feet to move as she shut the door as fast as she could and glanced around for another potential exit.
Suddenly, as if by more than coincidence, she spotted a worn wooden door in the shadows under the balcony of the second story above. She rushed over to it and tugged on the handle until it creaked open. Without a second thought, she sprang through the door, somehow knowing that this was the door that led outside.
When her eyes finally adjusted, Risa found herself standing on the grass in the middle of the night. Within a minute she heard crashes and explosions coming from behind her. She turned around to see the flashes of light and fire of battle booming from the other side of the castle. Immediately she began to run to the other side when she collided with something that threw her backwards onto the grass. She rubbed her head and stared up, though there was nothing there. She stood and began walking, again colliding and falling back on the grass again.
She rose one more time and held her hand out. Suddenly she felt something jolt through her body, like an electric shock. Her hand touched something that felt like a glass wall. She wrinkled her eyebrows together, trying to decipher what kind of anomaly faced her. She couldn't see it, whatever it was, it was invisible. She could feel it, and it wouldn't let her pass. As she ran her hand along it, it seemed to curve around, like the shape of the castle, almost like a shell. Like a rock in the head, it hit her. A barrier or forcefield of some kind!
Risa folded her arms to try to figure out how to get past it. The more she thought, the more her mind muddled itself in knots. All of a sudden, something Argentine said rang through her mind.
"The magic doesn't come from being a Hikari artwork, it comes from inside you."
Maybe she could get past this barrier by setting her mind to helping Argentine and nothing else. That's how that magic statue thing helped her before, maybe this would work the same way. Risa closed her hands into fists and forced them into the barrier, making it bend to her will. Her muscles flexed and her heart began thumping faster and faster. She could feel sweat beginning to gather on her face and her neck. Finally she felt the barrier bend in a fluid movement, like water, that let her fall through.
When the little Harada regained herself and pulled herself off the wet humus, she made her shaking legs take her around the other side of the castle.
She was abruptly halted by an explosion of wind and light that forced her to shield her eyes. When Risa opened her eyes, she saw her friend and his nemesis floating about thirty feet above her, in the midst of battle. When the white-winged fiend saw her and cackled, Risa froze, a gasp escaping as her body tensed up.
"Well, looks like we have an observer of our battle, Argentine, and she's a cute one. Looks like the little hamster escaped its cage."
Argentine turned quickly to face her. His face told her everything. It scolded her for leaving the safety of the castle, it ordered her to return to her room, it explained that being here was dangerous, and it confessed that he was worried about her.
Argentine's expression made Risa stiffen but she would not leave after coming so far. As he was looking at her, though, Krad hurled another orb of light at Argentine while his back was turned. Argentine sensed the light before it hit could him and floated to one side to avoid the blast. It landed in the forest nearby, causing a somewhat large explosion.
As he was counter-firing, Argentine swerved his head back to Risa, a fierce expression on his face as he mouthed the word 'Hide!'. Risa nodded swiftly and obeyed, finally finding a thicket of large bushes to crawl inside of. She hid there, hoping she would remain unnoticed, as the two enemies battled it out, trying to wound and quite probably kill each other with sci-fi/fantasy-type orbs of light and darkness.
Risa watched in horror as Krad unleashed a flurry of deadly white feathers, nearly knocking Argentine out of the air. Risa flew from her hiding place and rushed towards Argentine when Krad unleashed a flurry of attacks, not towards Argentine, but straight for Risa.
Krad smirked a very evil grin. It worked for Dark, and now it would definitely work for Argentine. The best way to kill an enemy, is first to slay the ones he cares about. Man, this was too good. A surge of despicable mirthful joy flushed through Krad's veins.
Suddenly, as usual, another cry came out. This one though, was within Krad's body.
"Stop it, Krad! You said you wouldn't hurt her! Let her go! Stop this!"
Krad grasped his head, trying to keep control, "Master Satoshi!"
Risa had no time to scream as the attacks continued to fly towards her. She closed her eyes and shielded them with her arms, falling to the ground in some kind of effort of protection as she readied herself for extreme pain if not worse.
"RISA!!!!"
Her eyes and mind went white, then black. Her ears blocked out everything around her. After a few moments, she opened her eyes to see the attacks crashing into, not her, but Argentine. After he had screamed her name, he had dove out of the air and landed in front of her to shield her from the attacks. The light from the collision forced Risa to squint just long enough to see Argentine.
He gritted his teeth, his fists curling and all the muscles in his body vibrating and burning. The force of the blasts tattered the sleeves and cuffs and even cape of his clothing, the intensity of the hit forcing him to cry out in pain. Once it had ended, he stood there for a few moments, his fingers twitching and his clothes sizzling, before he collapsed to the ground, motionless.
When Risa opened her eyes and saw him fall to the ground, she herself cried out, her mind finally registering what he had done, "ARGENTINE!!"
Within moments she had rushed to his side, picking up his head and propping it on her lap. His eyes were closed in a peaceful, serene expression. As she rose to her feet, gently settling Argentine's head back in the grass, Risa's eyes then darted to Krad, who still seemed to be struggling with himself. As Risa looked back down at her unconscious friend, more of his words rang in her ears.
"Now, close your eyes and focus. Think about what you want to do and set your heart on it."
She stood up straight, cupped her hands around the 'bubble of air' and closed her eyes, taking a deep breath and sorting through her thoughts. Risa opened her eyes and responded to her thoughts aloud, "I want to kick this guy's behind!"
"Do not try to make your heart do something it does not want to. You must work with it for the light to shine."
Risa closed her eyes again and listened to her heartbeat. She thought about what her heart wanted and told herself out loud what she found, "My heart wants this guy to disappear and it wants to help Argentine!"
As her exclamation rose to a shout, a steady high-pitched hum began quietly and grew in volume until a tiny burst of light exploded from her hands, sending her flying backwards. She wrenched her eyes shut as she fell onto the grass. She heard the light crash into something and make a huge roar of explosion. Risa opened her eyes wide, completely unbelieving of what she had just done.
As the smoke cleared, she gazed at the place where Krad had been, finally finding it empty, with no sign of Krad and only the night-beasts making noise. She glanced around to make sure he was gone before she rushed back over to Argentine's side, leaning his head back up on her lap. Risa watched her comrade for a while, the last thing he said coming back to her mind.
He had screamed her name. Her NAME. He had jeopardized his own life to save hers. He had saved her life. Her LIFE.
She gently reached up and stroked his blonde hair, a slight smile curling on her face. She sat there for a few moments, watching him breathe. He looked so innocent, like a child. She often could liken him to a child, but more often a child that didn't understand much about the human culture, but still seemed quiet and arrogant and stubborn. Right now he looked more like the innocent child, the part of people that they want no one else to see.
Right now, she would have to find some way to get him out of the cold night, especially when he and his clothes were in such rough shape. Risa leaned down and placed a motherly kiss to his temple. Tonight, though, she would remember.
Tonight, Argentine, the great Hikari artwork supposedly destroyed, with most of his powers still untapped, had called her by name.
And that's a wrap for Chapter Four! Hopefully I can crank out the next chapter by next month! Tell me what you guys think of the end of this chapter! I myself, was pretty satisfied with it. Now the story is under way. I expect another five chapters, approximately, before this baby's finished. Till next time, everybody! Tootles!
Chapter Five Preview: As Argentine recovers, Risa is determined to find a definite way to help him and begins to research and work and practice double time. But will a sudden decision that Argentine makes shatter everything she's worked for?