7: Fury of Flames


They took him away from her. They took her preys. One by one, they deprived her of her revenge. Something tugged at her.

Kuroh. Kuroh. Kuroh.

"So we finally got her," one member confirms - this busty blondie who had asked her if she was a Strain. "Izumi can get a promotion for this."

The lights drowned – then capsized into the light of day. Artificial light became natural, the Kamikaze. Suddenly, it was the Blue City, the azure sky towering over her.

Neko. Her illusions.

Sai clenches fist.

Two bodies fall to the ground, and the third and fourth ones come in. They come in top speed. Their sabers are drawn. But Sai knew better what to do. She was the daughter of the BlackFist of the Colorless. She was the Quick Silver of the Colorless Clan. She drew her tonfas softly.

"Come at me, then!"

In a few strikes, she was fighting.

"Shiro, don't watch!"

Yet Shiro didn't. He watched her change. Her body became different. Instead of the boyishly awkward girl earlier, he saw her transform. She was light on her feet and fast. Her hands and fingers – they were long and speedy. Where Kuroh was graceful and fast, Sai was almost even better, she was strong and fast. Where Kuroh was refined, she was raw and energetic.

Her tonfas slashed with accuracy and deadliness. No wonder she had been called the Quick Silver. Her tonfas were murder weapons. Her feet were fast. Her fingers were dexterous. She was Mercury itself – silver, fast and strong. She was faster than Kuroh.

The two bodies slept, knocked out.

"Whoa. You never told me you could fight-"

"Hush now."

Suddenly, he smelled her: jasmine-smelling perfume and a mixture of steel and blood. Dried blood.

"There are more coming."

"Sai?"

"Yes, Shiro?"

"How can a man be scared even if he is afraid?"

"Is it even possible?" Kuroh asks softly.

"Yes, it is."

"How would you know?"

"Because I feel so. I've been through that."

For the first time, Shiro realizes that she is human and is capable of redemption.


- / -

"I want to be a vassal!"

"Saika-chan, you're too young!" the Blackfish protests. He holds her up in the air. Her arms wave wildly.

"I want to!"

"Fugaku," his wife whispers.

The dark-haired young boy catches the child's eye. He smiles at her, as if her view is endearing.

"Saika-chan, it's –"

"There is no problem."

Ichigen's word is law.


- / -

"Guess I'd better get to work. It seems Fushimi is growing impatient." Reisi Munakata speaks. His eyes scan her – she knows his suspicions.

"He wants me, Kuroh!"

Anger. Impatience. He sees it on her face.

"No, I don't think so."

Neko squeals.

"As I suspected, a third party. An unknown Strain was behind this."

Sai grits her teeth. She expects him to rattle off her name. She is a criminal. The Blue King wants her dead. HOMRA has watches on her. Kuroh of the Colorless has her under his command. What else can be expected?

"Let me fight him," she volunteers. "I owe him something. The Blackfish remembers – so do I."

The Blue King snaked his way in front of her face.

"So we meet again, Quick Silver." He eyed her tonfas cautiously. He had seen her fight before, Sai noted. He had seen how fast she was capable of. He had seen how an opportunist she was in the state of battle. He had seen the lines and graphs she had drawn with her fist and how she was no easy kill. Undefeated. Unbent. Unbroken – mercury on the brink of its horizon.

"I never imagined you can be a wolf in the battlefield," he commented. "I thought you were a harmless brawler at first, but I already had my own suspicions."

"So you had me profiled," Sai said swiftly. "I know you had the power to."

"Yes. Your acting skills were a few bits above the average. Almost had me convinced – except for those moves and that quick temper."

"Cut to the chase, Blue King." Sai bit her chapped lips. "I don't enjoy my meals to be sugarcoated. I want them bitter and harsh and unyielding."

The King smiled at her. "Interesting. I never expected this lady to be so…blunt. I was initially in doubt of you, as you proved yourself to be a girl needy of a place here in the city, and I thought you were not really harmless. Those tonfas prove it all."

They were not mine at all, to begin with.

"They belong to the Blackfish of the Colorless. Used to, until he retired and took a beautiful young heiress to wife."

Mother?

Reisi Munakata was a filthy liar. As far as she had known, her father always said that he went on to fight with tonfas as he married all the time.

"Liar."

"Sai-"

Kuroh gripped her tightly. "I promised myself never to let you go. Letting you do so will be a grave error. It's my duty – to protect you."

"From what? Yourself? Myself?" A trickle of sweat fell down her cheek.

"From your greatest enemy: your anger."

"You two are quite… the unlikely pair. The Black Dog and the Quick Silver, daughter to the Blackfish and the former King's vassal."

"And how is it your business?"

"It worries me frankly, you, a young lady of such high birth and caliber, are with this young man." Munakata fingered his glasses. As he spoke, the shuffling of more feet was more audible. More men were coming. They were going to be surrounded by those SCEPTER 4. The illusions had vanished.

"We're outnumbered," Sai muttered to herself.

"Uh, you think we should surrender?" Shiro asked.

"I'll hold him off."

"K-Kuroh!" Sai protested.

"The two of you can fend for yourselves."

"Hey, what about –"

Too late. Kuroh had used this weird power of his. Once he was done securing the exit for Neko and Shiro, he nodded at her grimly.

"I know you are a woman attached to duty. Perhaps it will be your honor to do it along me, now."

Sai said nothing.

A storm of swords and a clash of men later, she found herself fighting back-to-back indirectly. Kuroh was taking on Munakata, and she his vassals. The vassals were damn strong. As she crossed her tonfas to block their attacks, she felt a little uneasy at the thought of Kuroh taking on the Blue King. She felt worried, even, as Kuroh was hers. He was her prey, not a King's, she was destined to be the one to murder her, not the Blue King.

Sai kicked one off her feet and hit him with her tonfas on the head.

A loud slap interrupts.

"Didn't you hear me?"

As she tries to finish off the fight, her beat is a march. It is Symphony No. 5, dancing on the hell of the Seventh Canto of the Inferno. There is a clash of men, in front of her – Munakata and Kuroh, who resort to hand-to-hand combat. She admits, she uses her speed to overtake her opponent, but Kuroh, with all his pretty grace, is younger and less experienced in fights than mature Munakata. It unsettles her, worries her so much she'll lose him.

She cannot let him be like this. But he fights – as she is quick, he is fast. As she is dexterous, long-limbed and quick, he hits with will and his heart. But he falls again, and she finds herself breathless. Somehow, her fire has cooled – her murder target is weak.

Kill him. Kill him. Yet something else resounds: a beat of a heart that wants to take him away to someplace safe.

Inwardly, Sai is shocked to see all this: that a man can be true and steadfast and be a real knight. That a woman with a man's will can have a heart, too.


- / -

"The young man is the new King who will replace Ichigen Miwa."

Sai bites her lips. Her fingers shake. Kuroh, fight. Kuroh, die. She watches words fly out of his mouth, honest.

"And you."

Her.

"What do you want from me? A punch? A fight. I can put up. I am the Blackfish's daughter, I am the Quick Silver. I have made a vow to never bow down," Sai replied warily. "If you take Kuroh's head, then Shiro may as well take yours. And he'll give it to me to relish, even if everything that comes out of his mouth is a lie. So does mine."

Munakata chuckled and smiled. "The daughter of the Blackfish, truly! No, my dear, I don't demand heads, I demand pawns."

"I am not one. I am a vassal. I am pledged."

"To who, my dear? It interests me very much."

Courtesy is a lady's armor.

She edges nearer, daring herself to act like a lady. How come it never came to be easy? She was a girl. But she had the iron of a man under those looks. It was to save her life, and Kuroh's (nice, yes) ass as well as Shiro's.

"To the one who replaces Miwa Ichigen. I am a woman with a weak and feeble body but my soul is promised to my Clan, sir."

The light shines – silver as mercury.


- / -

"It's not serious my foot!"

Sai practically scraped the blood off his face with her face towel. Shiro and Neko watched in the distance, half-fascinated by her wiping Kuroh's face.

"You protected Shiro. And you… defended me. Now the debt is paid. I don't owe you anymore."

She is about to scrub his nose when his hands capture her wrist.

"No."

"Why do you say so, Kuroh?"

"I… can't let you do this to me. You've seen enough, Sai."

"Well, I don't approve. You really need to get cleaned and I care not for your pride. I insist. I am the daughter of the Blackfish – no one dares to defy me nor my will."

Kuroh smiled at her as she wiped the corner of his lips.

"Spoke well like one. You… You have defied enough to be the man that you could have been…"

"Hush."

"No, I cannot." Kuroh stared at Neko with some kind of suspicion. "I think I've figured it out."

"Huh?"

"That girl"-Neko, no doubt-"has the power to alter memories with her illusions, Sai. In reality, there has been no concrete proof that Yashiro Isana even exists."

"Then everything else is a lie," Sai concludes harshly.

She felt Shiro's eyes on her.

"Worry not, Shiro. I know what it feels like to have everything you know that everything is a lie. That the lies cover the dark truth we would rather not wish to know at all."

Shiro wonders at her.


- / -

Izumi waits.


- / -

Everything unfolds – the way the night lights drift for the night.

"I think he wants you," Kuroh tells her.

"Wants me?"

"As a vassal, no doubt. I see why. Shiro admires you. I can see it in the way he looks at you."

"I should not be. Kuroh, we are not yet sure if he will replace Ichigen. Up to then, I have made some plans. If he does become the King, I will turn this game of thrones over and join him with you. I am born a vassal, die a vassal."

"And if he dies?"

Sai scowls.

"I become the Faceless Man in my dream. I wander around, with little purpose. I've seen the world better than you do."

"You don't have to. You can always return to me. Watanabe-san doesn't mind your presence. She must want to make a lady out of you. Your sons will serve the next King, and might even be a King."

"That's not me at all." She sadly hangs her head. "Where am I going to live? Will I go back to school?"

"Live with me, then. I'll take care of you. Your parents have enough worries on their heads. I promised our King I would take good care of you. Your brothers worry about you, too."

"No. My brothers are not like me. They want their lives lived to conform to society. Me, no. I am isolated. I am alienated. Like you. This is the far circuit of fate."

"Then I assure you, I will not let you be alone."

When she looks back at him, his face is soft, his tone caring.

Can such a thing be? Can he care for her? Can he protect better? Ah, the world and its mysteries are difficult to comprehend.

"How can you prove it? I've seen so much darkness, Kuroh." Not for the first time, she feels lighter than the chain of steel she has been for a few months. "I've been harmed. I've trained to be tough. Can't you let it –"

"Have faith. Believe in our master's words. They never fail the good."


Notes: Hope you all liked this chapter!