"Not all lives are worth the same.
That's just the plain reality of it. Some people are simply worth more than others. Some people just matter more. You could have ten people in a room, but giving me five of them doesn't necessary mean I got a fair deal. I could have gotten the five better people. Or with my luck, the five worse.
There is a factor of personal bias, of course. I might value an individual less than someone else will. But my point stands; not all lives weigh equally, and when it comes time for one of us to pass through to the void, this difference becomes clear. Unfortunately, most people aren't aware of it until they are about to die, and their friends leave them to perish, or worse, betray them.
The only one who always seems to understand a person's worth is God himself. He always finds some way of making sure the tables are spread evenly at the end of the day. Most good soldiers won't die without taking a good number of vampires with them. Worthless assholes usually die in some filthy corner, all alone. Somehow that guy always manages to get a fair trade.
I've seen him fooled a couple times, though. Sometimes you can swap a less valuable life for a more precious one. Sometimes you can pull a sleight of hand and the big guy won't even notice. Maybe that's because he's supposed to love us all equally, or whatever. I guess that's where the personal bias comes in.
So if it ever comes between me and my sister, I hope I'll be able to fool him too."
-Kimizuki Shiho
Chapter 9: For My Angel
It was like the earth itself was turning over.
Kimizuki felt his body lurching to the side as the entire chamber began to violently shudder, and then he was dazed as he flew clear across the room, smacking his head against the wall. He blearily saw the rest of his teammates launching through the air as well, floored by the mysterious massive impact they had just absorbed.
It was so loud. Everything was shaking so severely that the carefully drawn lines of the universe were beginning to unravel, and a deep, guttural roar was blasting upwards from the very depths of hell itself, like the devil had unleashed his most fearsome beast, ready to claim the surface world for his own.
Kimizuki clapped his hands over his ears, head splitting open from the intense noise, and tried desperately to get his bearings.
That was when he saw Mirai's glass chamber cracking open clear down the middle, like a fragile eggshell.
Everything else flew out of Kimizuki's mind the moment he saw this. His natural soldier's instinct kicked in, augmented by a fiercely protective drive, and then time began to slow as his mind went into overdrive.
"Krul!" he screamed, struggling to be heard over the roar of the earth.
The vampire was standing the closest to the glass orb, as she was the only one strong enough not to be thrown across the room by the impact. She barely heard her name being called, but seemed to understand, as she leapt forward so that she was standing directly in front of Mirai, before the hairline crack in the glass.
Pulling her arm back, she punched a big hole in the spherical capsule, grabbing Mirai and pulling her to freedom.
The myriad of tubes and wires attached to the girl's skin whined in protest, but Krul simply slashed those off, sending nameless smoke spewing across the room. She clutched the small girl to her chest as she leapt over to Kimizuki, who was just managing to stumble to his feet.
"What the hell is going on!" Mitsuba yelled over the shaking, ducking her head as a thin stream of debris fell from the ceiling. "Is it an earthquake?"
"I don't know!" Kimizuki shouted back, as Mitsuba clung fearfully to the blonde, who for once said nothing in protest. "But we need to get out of here before we-"
The rest of his words were lost to the ether as a deep, rattling boom emanated from somewhere near the base of the Stone Tree, and then the entire chamber was tilting vertical.
Kimizuki swore as he was launched into the air again, free falling as the entire squad spilled back against the wall, which was now quickly becoming the floor. He felt his guts seizing up from the vertigo as the entire structure lurched sideways, causing even Krul to stumble and grab onto the edge of the glass orb, the shards cutting her fingers.
Then it was like the apex of a rollercoaster, than single quiet moment at the top right before the drop, as they hung precariously at the top of the world.
And then, as was always inevitable, they began to fall.
"Oh my god!" Yoichi bellowed, his scream long and drawn out, and Kimizuki could only grit his teeth as gravity smashed down on them like a giant hammer, pasting a hand to his face so his glasses wouldn't fly off. They were plummeting down, down, like the Stone Tree had been axed by a gargantuan lumberjack, and in mere seconds they were going to be red smears on the cavern floor.
Briefly, he hoped he would be allowed to join Mirai in heaven.
The next few seconds were a wild blur to him. He only remembered seeing Krul leap down next to them, then a powerful arm looping around his midsection, and then two words screamed into his ear, like a call from above:
"Hold on!"
Thinking he might as well comply, Kimizuki did just that.
Krul took a deep breath and launched herself upwards as forcefully as she could, blasting into the air and rocketing through the open window directly above them. Suddenly the walls of the chamber were gone, and they were free falling through the air again, the wind whistling past their ears, the floor rushing up to meet them-
Krul lashed out with her one free arm, just barely sinking her claws into the stone of a passing cliffside.
Their long fall game to a sudden and painful halt, and Kimizuki had his eyes screwed shut so he couldn't see, but he felt his shoulders wail in protest as they were nearly wrenched out of their sockets, as he clung for dear life to the end of the vampire's leg. Even when they had stopped falling he did not dare open his eyes, instead digging his fingers into Krul's shoe as deep as they would go, praying to the lord his shoulders wouldn't give out.
Then a horrible rending sound rose up from behind him, and he had to look.
There, just a hundred yards behind them, the Stone Tree was collapsing.
It was like watching a great giant fall to his knees. The massive stone structure had lost its base entirely, huge shards of rubble blowing outwards in a big ring of smoke far below, swallowing up soldiers who were desperately trying to run away from the chaos. Slabs of rock larger than ordinary buildings were dislocating from the pillar and falling to the earth like genuine meteors, raining death from above, but the horrible screams of the men being crushed at ground level were swallowed by the deafening noise of the entire cavern turning in on itself.
"Kimizuki!" the boy's eyes widened when he heard his name, and looked down to realize that Mitsuba was dangling from his ankle, and below her, Yoichi was clinging to the girl's wrist. He hadn't even noticed them holding onto them until now; the awesomeness of the destruction before him had been too mind consuming.
Above him, Krul gave a great grunt of effort, still hanging onto the cliffside from the tips of her fingers. Her other arm was wrapped around beneath Mirai's armpits, and Kimizuki was only a foot from his little sister's face, that beautiful face he had been waiting to see for god knew how long.
At last the vampire flexed her muscles and pulled herself on top of the cliff, dragging all four of the humans along with her through sheer willpower. Soon they were all collapsed on solid ground, gasping for breath, incredulous at what they had just survived.
"Mirai…" Kimizuki murmured, crawling over to where Krul had set the girl down. He dragged a knuckle across her face, ghosting them across the deep curse marks that scored through her skin. The girl's eyes were closed and she seemed unconscious, dead to the insanity taking place around her.
"Not right now," Krul said tersely, standing between them. She scooped up Mirai in her arms and took point. "I'll carry her. We need to get out of here before the entire cavern collapses."
Kimizuki made to follow the vampire, but not before stealing one last glance at the cavern.
Below them, all of the lower levels was descending into a supermassive sinkhole.
I wonder if Kureto managed to survive that.
Yuu was at war with himself.
As he watched Guren's sword closed in on his heart, he wondered if it was worth it to resist. Maybe if he allowed his mentor to kill him the man would come to his senses and finally find himself. It was a stupid gamble to make, obviously, but he was so emotionally wrought at the moment he hardly cared.
Then the floor itself tilted sideways, and the sword missed him by an inch, burying itself into the stone by his ear.
A moment later Shinoa appeared, crashing into Guren's side and sending him flying into the wall.
"Shinoa!" Yuu exclaimed, leaping up to catch the girl before she fell herself.
But it was too late, as another deafening boom shook the entire castle, and they were all thrown to their hands and knees.
Yuu's mind was a whirlwind of thoughts and emotions. He had no idea what the hell was going on. He had no idea why the world seemed to be falling apart around him, both literally and figuratively.
But it didn't matter, because Guren's sword was arcing down at his head.
He raised his own blade and parried the blow at the last moment, staggering backwards as the building continued to shudder on its very foundations. Shinoa darted in to cover for him, blocking Guren's follow up strike before leaping back to safety.
"Guren, please!" Yuu pleaded, one hand wrapped around a piece of furniture to keep his balance. The tiny record player on the desk was thrown to the floor, smashed to pieces. "Come to your senses! This isn't you!"
"Quite the contrary," Guren said, smiling darkly as he charged them a second time, his blade a deadly web of steel. "I've never felt more like myself."
Shinoa rushed forward to protect Yuu's side, but her scythe was easily batted away by Guren's sword. Before the man could strike his former pupil, however, Mika's length of steel formed a wall between them, stopping him.
"If you won't listen to us with words," the vampire snarled, "We'll have to force it into you."
Guren grinned widely as he stepped back, settling into a defensive stance.
"Come and get me, then!"
Mika and Shinoa both leapt forward to continue the fight, and Yuu joined them a moment later, tears forming in his eyes.
They traded blows for several seconds, weapons a messy blur between them, a hazy border between life and death. It was genuinely the most difficult sword fight Yuu had ever found himself in; despite it being three against one, Guren was more than easily holding his own, his blade fed by the power of the hungry demons residing within. And the castle was shaking the entire time, making their footing precarious and unreliable.
At long last Guren spun around on the spot, and Yuu spotted a tiny opening. He instinctively turned his wrist to strike the exposed spot, but hesitated at the last moment.
His teacher sensed this immediately, and made him pay for it.
Something heavy and powerful struck Yuu square in the chest, as Guren completed his spin and kicked him with as much weight as he could muster. Yuu was blasted backwards through the door of the office, his body smashing the wood to pieces before slamming against the wall of the hall outside, actually knocking him unconscious for a moment or two.
"Yuu!" Shinoa screamed, and Mika just barely managed to block a swing that would have taken the sergeant's head off, as Guren took advantage of her distraction.
Then the world wobbled again, and when Yuu groggily regained consciousness he saw the castle literally splitting in two.
It was one of the most surreal things he had ever seen. For a moment the entire planet seemed to scream, and then the castle as a whole was lifted clear off the ground, bouncing him several inches up in the air before slamming back down, and as the magnitude of the impact rippled through the structure the hallway cracked clear down the middle to his left.
The schism was wide and absolute; it seemed to happen in a terrifyingly slow fashion, but in reality it was only a few seconds, as the entire west wing of the palace dissociated itself from the rest of the building. A great chasm yawned open a mere foot to Yuu's left, a deep, wide hole that shot straight down to the first floor, far far far below.
Yuu threw himself away from the pit, a cold sweat breaking out across his brow, the sound of pulverized rock and the clashing of steel ringing in his ears. Back inside the office the eastern wall had completely peeled off, so that Mika was fighting with his back to an endless abyss.
And that was when the impossible happened.
Guren managed to get beneath the vampire's guard, and his sword bit into Mika's calf.
The blond cried out in pain and faltered only a step, but that was enough to undo everything. The demon possessed swordsman shoved Shinoa away before kicking Mika beneath the chin, sending him staggering back towards the abyss.
He teetered on the edge for a single moment, then fell.
No.
"MIKA!" Yuu howled, but it was too late, his brother was gone, swallowed by the huge crack that split the castle down the middle, falling between dozens of floors, falling past the belching fire of the boiler room, before disappearing into the blackness.
"No!" he tried to drag himself back into the office, but found his path blocked by Guren, and looked up to find the man smiling hysterically down at him.
"Every dream ends, Yuu," he said. "Even yours."
Yuu scrambled back and barely dodged a swing at his head, shuffling backwards with his sword in one hand, which he had miraculously managed to hold onto.
The hallway was tilting backwards; it was like a great hill was rising up before him, and Guren was walking down that hill towards him, forcing him back step by step.
Yuu blinked the tears from his eyes and attacked, his voice hoarse and laced with pain. Student and master began to spar, the dream against the nightmare, hope versus regret. He poured everything he knew into his attacks, but Guren continued to force him back, down the incline of the hallway as the two halves of the castle continued to peel away from each other, like a budding flower.
A deep rumble, and the walls shook around them again, chunks of rubble falling to the floor. Yuu saw Guren stumble and swung, but his strike lacked conviction and was blocked.
"You were a fool to come here, Yuu!" Guren bellowed, forcing his voice to be heard over the moans of the earth. "You only made it easier for me to kill you!"
"You aren't Guren!" Yuu screamed back, redoubling his efforts, parrying and counterattacking like a madman.
Guren laughed out loud, his sword moving too quickly to follow. "You're wrong, Yuu! This is the purest form of Guren Ichinose! The man who gave his soul for power. His soul for his loved ones! These are the ideals you so cherish! I am the man you call your teacher!"
With that he gripped his blade with both hands and brought it down on Yuu's head. The younger swordsman blocked it, but the force of the blow sending him reeling back. The extreme angle of the floor caused him to lose his balance and he fell, skidding back several yards.
The moment Yuu managed to dig his fingers into the carpet and stop himself, his master was upon him.
"You're weak!" Guren snarled, grabbing Yuu by the hair and lifting him in the air. "A man with your dreams needs power! Power like mine. The power to protect everyone. Do you not see, Yuu? Do you not see the glory of the answer your master has discovered?"
"The real Guren…would never…" Yuu croaked, his scalp searing with pain. The rumbling of the castle was so dense his words were lost.
Guren raised an eyebrow, hefting his sword and poising it over his student's heart.
"You still don't understand, Yuu," he said softly. "There's only one Guren Ichinose. And that's me."
Yuu's vision was going black. Through his hazy eyes he saw a painting dangling from the wall above them, hanging on by the steel of a single nail, precariously close to falling.
Showing his teeth, he drew his arm back and threw his sword at Guren's head.
It missed rather badly, as the man simply moved his face to the side and allowed the blade to sing by him.
"Really, Yuu?" Guren laughed, his grip on the boy's hair tightening. "I taught you better than-"
Yuu's sword struck the painting and knocked it off the wall, and it tumbled down the tilted hallway towards them, rotating once before smashing open on Guren's head.
He yelped in surprise, and Yuu took this chance to twist and sink his teeth into the man's wrist, forcing him to let go. The painful fingers in his hair disappeared, and then he was free, falling back down to the ground-
The western wing of the castle lost something important far below, and the entire hallway tilted to a ninety degree angle.
One moment the floor was below Yuu's feet, and the next it was gone, as the floor became the wall and the new floor was the closed window at the far end of the hall, a drop that was several yards long. He hung suspended in space for half a second before plummeting, screaming as the window rushed up to meet him, and he turned his back to it at the last moment.
His spine crashed into the window at full force, cracking the glass and knocking the wind clear out of his lungs. He knew immediately that he had hurt his back somehow; he could feel the wet press of blood as it leaked through his shirt, the glass shards cutting deep into his skin.
His sword impaled itself into the wall by his shoulder a moment later, having joined him for the drop.
Then a second heavy thump on top of him, as Guren landed with his feet on either side of Yuu's hips.
Yuu looked up at Guren, his body too beaten and broken to muster resistance. He looked into those deep red eyes and knew with a great conviction that it was not his old master that he had crossed blades with today. He still believed that the real Guren was in there somewhere, the teacher had been taught to respect, and ultimately learned to love.
But maybe, in this life, he wasn't meant to find out for sure.
Guren raised his sword, blood trickling down his face from where the painting had struck him. He was no longer smiling.
"Goodbye, Yuu," he said. "You will die well."
"But not today," Shinoa said savagely, before smashing into him from above.
Yuu's eyes widened as the sergeant absolutely bowled Guren aside, realizing that she must have jumped down the entire length of the hallway before landing feet first on top of the lieutenant general, though she chose not to use her scythe to kill him instead.
Guren crashed against the glass of the window beside Yuu, cracking it further, but quickly leapt to his feet, bringing his sword to bear.
He was just barely out of reach, but Yuu reached out weakly and grabbed the man's ankle, giving it a tug.
That was enough to make Guren stumble, giving Shinoa just enough reach to slash his right wrist open with the edge of her scythe, his bright red blood splattering across the wall.
The swordsman roared in pain and related his grip, the demon sword falling from his hand and clattering on top of Yuu, who wrapped an instinctive hand around it.
"No!" Guren snarled, leaping forward and tackling Yuu.
That was a bit too much for the window to handle, and with the added weight it simply gave in.
Oh. Yuu felt his clothes begin to flap violently around his body as all three of them felt through the open window, out of the collapsed west wing and into free fall. He wrenched Guren's sword away from its owner and kicked him away, using the momentum to face his body towards the ground, which turned out to be a bad idea because it was coming a lot faster than he had anticipated.
"Shi-chan!" Shinoa commanded, holding her hand out before her.
The demon manifested itself in the air around them, enveloping all three of them in a black cloud of miasma. Yuu's vision went dark as all the light around him was blocked out, and then there was nothing, just the inside of Shikama Doji's world.
Then the black cloud dispersed, and he found himself in the middle of a wasteland.
All around them, the remains of the great Sanguinem palace lay in shambles. Mountains of rubble were stacked lie tombs all around them, and the larger pieces of stone had crushed entire buildings, spewing wreckage all across the street they were sitting on. Behind him, in the center of all the madness, only the first floor of the castle remained standing, and even then there was but a skeleton, and probably dozens of bodies crushed beneath the rubble.
It seemed that Shikama Doji had kept them covered until the palace had finished collapsing, lest they suffer the same gruesome fate. Yuu had had no concept of time while he was enveloped in the miasma; it could have been minutes, or even hours.
Something shifted on his chest, and he looked down to see Shinoa sprawled out on top of him.
"Shinoa," he whispered, shaking her. "Shinoa, are you okay?"
The sergeant just groaned something incoherent in response, then flashed him a weak thumbs up.
"My little Shi-chan is quiet reliable, don't you think?" she wheezed, coughing out a bunch of dust that was clogging her lungs. She looked up at him and flashed a winning smile, though it wasn't very convincing with all the dirt smeared across her face.
Yuu smiled and used his thumb to wipe some grime from the girl's cheek. "You're crazy, you know that?"
"Not as crazy as you."
Before Yuu could reply, a small pile of rubble was kicked aside to his right, and Guren emerged from the wreckage.
The two of them quickly detached themselves and got to their feet, watching pensively as their former teacher looked forlornly at the destruction around them.
Yuu noticed that both his and Guren's swords had landed nearby. They must have been protected by Shikama as well. He ignored them though, more worried about the man he had come here to save.
Guren finished taking in the ruins of the palace, then turned to look at his pupils, confusion written across his face.
"Did I…?" he asked softly, pointing at the scene behind him.
"Well, not on your own," Yuu said, his voice still thick with emotion. He swallowed before continuing. "But you could have welcomed us better."
Guren fell to his knees on the rubble, burying his face in his hands.
"God. I am so sorry, Yuu. I can't believe it…"
Yuu began to walk towards him, but Shinoa calmly stopped him, grabbing onto the boy's sleeve.
"It could be a trap," she whispered. "Be careful."
Yuu bit his lip, hating the need for caution, but knew she was right. He walked over and picked up the two swords that had fallen nearby, inspecting them in turn.
"So, am I talking to the real Guren Ichinose now?" he asked, looking up at the man.
Guren met the boy's eyes, and lowered his head.
"More or less, yes. It's me."
It was empty in the vicinity around them; it appeared that everyone else had either fled or was dead. The only sounds were the distant noises of explosions somewhere else in the city, and the occasional shudder of the cavern walls.
"Come with us, Guren," Yuu said at last. He put the two blades together and sheathed them in his belt. "We've come all this way for you. Leave with us and we can put this war behind us."
Guren seemed to hesitate, then lowered his head again.
"I can't, Yuu. No one's truly safe until this war is over and won. Until every vampire is eradicated from Japan, I can't rest easy. I can't trust my happiness. Isn't that what you wanted too?"
"It was," Yuu murmured. "It is. But I care about protecting my family more than killing vampires. I don't believe that one has to follow the other. We can run away, Guren. We can leave all this behind. Don't you want that?"
Meanwhile, Shinoa made sure to scan the area, suspicious that they weren't alone as they seemed. Then she noticed, sitting at the far end of the street, a small motorcycle parked by a destroyed lamp post.
That must be the ride Mito had arranged for them.
"I can't just leave, Yuu," Guren said desperately, wrapping his arms around his body. "Try to understand. I have to take care of the rest of the Moon Demons, too. If I betray the JIDA and follow you I can't guarantee their safety. And Kureto could always catch up to us."
"Yes, I could," Kureto agreed, before launching a bolt of lightning at them.
Yuu saw the streak of energy lancing towards them and lunged, grabbing Guren and throwing them both to the ground. The electricity arced overhead and obliterated a rock instead, sending razor sharp shards raining down from above.
"Run!" Shinoa yelled, sprinting after the other two, who were bolting for a nearby house that hadn't been ruined by the falling rubble.
Powerful streaks of lightning sparks at her heels as she ran; one particularly close bolt blew up the street right next to her, digging up little stones that cut into her legs. But she ignored the pain and kept running.
At last Guren and Yuu both threw open the door to the house and plunged inside, and in a wild fit of inspiration, Shinoa kicked the door closed and turned to face Kureto.
The head of the Hiiragi clan stopped in his tracks, then smiled bemusedly.
"She can't buy us time forever. Not against Kureto," Yuu said urgently, grabbing Guren by the elbow. "Come with us! We have no choice but to run now."
Guren looked truly conflicted as he stood frozen inside the house. "I…I don't know…"
"Guren, please! I've come all this way for you!" Yuu said desperately, grabbing him with both hands. "We can leave this all behind. My dream is for all of us to be together!"
Yuu's master looked down at him with a sad look in his eyes.
"But what about my dream?" the man whispered. "I feel like…my dream doesn't have the same people in it as yours."
Kureto raised his weapon, and a single arc of electricity jetted towards Shinoa.
The sergeant spun her scythe in a graceful circle, mentally calling on Shikama Doji. The demon manifested as a portal and swallowed the lightning, causing it to disappear.
The amused look on Kureto's face deepened. "You dare to stand before me? Either you are deluded or you care nothing for your own life…"
"Yeah, it's probably one of those," Shinoa muttered.
The Hiiragi head snorted. "You were such a disappointment, Hiiragi Shinoa. I feel disgusted to share the same family name with you. To think that you and your sister sprang from the same womb. You truly are a disgrace."
"Thanks," Shinoa said drily, settling into a defensive stance.
Kureto smiled, lowering his blade. "I am not above compassion, however. If you surrender now and rejoin the clan, I just might find it within myself to forgive you."
"You've got it all wrong, Kureto," the sergeant sighed, shaking her head. "I'm the one who should be doing the forgiving."
"That so?" Kureto asked airily, before sending three lightning bolts at her.
Shinoa whirled her scythe around her body, exerting her powers to their maximum. Three dark portals opened up and absorbed the attacks, and she winced as their power sapped the energy from her body.
Then, before she could recover, Kureto rushed forward and swung his sword.
Shinoa's eyes went wide.
Inside the house, Yuu and Guren both whirled around when Shinoa came crashing in through the front door, sliding across the floor. Yuu caught her and looked up just as Kureto walked into the house.
"Oh, there you are, Guren," he noted. "You allowed these two children to disarm you? How pathetic."
"Kureto…" Guren murmured, in a daze. "Just what is going on here?"
"If you mean the massive explosions, that would be the work of those accursed vampires," Kureto said darkly, waving at the cavern around them. "They snuck beneath the city and detonated a bomb. My men have been dispatched to retrieve the Seraph. Once we have it secured we will have to leave this city. But at least the enemy can't have it either."
With that said, he threw another lightning bolt at Yuu, who just barely managed to dodge it in time.
"Hold still, young man," Kureto growled. "Don't make this difficult."
He raised his sword to strike again, but couldn't complete it before Guren punched him in the face.
Yuu and Shinoa watched in shock as both men fell to the floor, each grappling for dominance over the other. "Run!" Guren shouted over his shoulder before taking a kick to his jaw, Kureto's sword now forgotten on the floor.
Yuu felt his chest tightening. "But-"
"Go!"
"Yuu, we have to go," Shinoa said fiercely, grabbing her friend and pulling him along behind her. Tears were stinging her own eyes, but she also understood that there was no better way out of this. She dragged Yuu out of the house, the boy stumbling along behind her, at a loss.
She led him over to the bike parked at the end of the street, pulling them both onto the worn leather seat. The key was already in the ignition; she turned it and the engine roared to life, the steady putting sound matching the movement between her legs.
Before Yuu could get any second thoughts she revved the engine, feeling it growl beneath them, and took off down the street, towards the rendezvous point they had arranged that morning.
Yuu wept quietly the whole way, clutching to the back of her shirt.
Shinoa said nothing, preferring to let him do the crying for her.
Mika was lost.
Something large and rather heavy had struck his head after Guren kicked him off the edge of the palace, and next thing he knew he was waking up inside some dark chamber, a small cave located deep underground, a level below the main city of Sanguinem.
After a few minutes of sitting around and trying to remember what day of the week it was, he reasoned that the palace must have collapsed from the tremors, and he had fallen down to the subterranean level. That was as much as he could infer, anyway; the only passageway up was blocked by a mountain of rubble.
So he had no choice but to follow the cave to see where it led, hoping he would find an exit soon.
Despite being completely alone, the walk was far from relaxing; the entire cave system would shudder violently every few minutes, and threads of dust would fall from the ceiling, almost threatening to collapse down on top of him. It was already a god damn miracle that he was still breathing, but he found himself praying quietly as he made his way through the tunnels, using his sense of awareness to guide him.
His leg was giving him hell. Since the wound had been given by a demon weapon it was not healing, and he was limping slightly with every step, a constant reminder of his earlier mistake. That was the last time Guren Ichinose would get the one up on him.
Well, assuming Mika even made it out of this place alive.
Kimizuki must be rubbing off on me, he thought, slapping himself for his negativity.
Lifting his arm, he checked his watch for the time. He had only fifteen minutes left until he was supposed to rendezvous with the others. As long as he managed to reach the surface he ought to be able to find his way to the designated location, but he wasn't so sure if the plan was still in effect or not. They hadn't exactly been anticipating a massive vampire attack on the city.
That was his guess, anyway; the entire place reeked of his kind now, so it was the logical guess. He just hoped he wouldn't run into anybody while he was down here.
Just his luck, because when he turned the next corner he bumped right into a human soldier.
Well, at least it isn't vampires, he thought.
The soldier flinched and jumped backwards, lifting the bill of his cap to get a closer look at Mika. His eyes widened when he realized who the boy was, and he turned around to scream something down the tunnel he had just come from.
Mika drew his sword and stabbed the man through the chest, killing him instantly.
It turned out to be inconsequential, however, because a moment later about thirty more men appeared around the corner, just in time to catch Mika in the middle of wrenching his sword out of their friend.
Mika took one look at them, and ran.
Shit, he thought, as thirty footsteps began thundering after him, like another tunnel quake. His leg was on fire but he kept running anyway, since there was no way he could take on thirty soldiers in the cramped space of the tunnels, and in his current condition. He was low on blood, too.
Just my luck.
Kimizuki was lost.
"Any idea where the hell we are?" he barked over his shoulder, even as he ran at full speed.
"Not too sure," Krul said honestly, sprinting by his side. "Many of the tunnels around here have collapsed. And I was never too familiar with this area to begin with."
"Oh, that's just swell," the boy muttered.
"Um, guys?" Yoichi yelped. He was running behind them, beside Mitsuba. "They're gaining on us."
Apparently the JIDA really liked having the Seraph around, because they currently had an entire platoon on their asses, and they had been running for the past ten minutes. Kureto had issued some sort of order to secure the Seraph, only for the army to discover their ultimate weapon was missing, and that was how they ended up in this predicament.
It didn't help that they had no idea where they were running, either. Probably in circles.
Yoichi wailed in panic as he blindly fired some arrows behind him, trying to stall the enemy. The rest of them could only continue to run.
"Through here!" Krul suddenly said, taking an abrupt left. She was still carrying Mirai in her arms, so Kimizuki had no choice but to comply, diving into the tunnels after her.
A flash of white interrupted his vision, and then Mika appeared at the far end of the tunnel, sprinting straight towards them.
"Mika!" Kimizuki exclaimed. "What the hell are you doing down here?"
The vampire said nothing, just gestured wildly with his hands, which Kimizuki did not understand at all until he saw the thirty odd men hot on the blond's heels.
"Oh, great," he complained, coming to a complete stop. Mika met up with them, and now they had two hordes of enemies coming from either side, with nowhere to run.
"You! Fire at the ceiling!" Krul ordered, kicking Yoichi in the shins. The archer fumbled with his bow before releasing an explosive arrow straight up, sending a shower of debris raining down on them. The impact exposed a hole that seemed to lead up to a higher level.
"My guess was right," Krul said, rounding relieved. She grabbed Kimizuki and tossed him up through the hole, followed by Mitsuba. Mika grabbed Yoichi and leapt up himself, leaving only Krul, who kicked a hole clean through one soldier's chest before leaping through the hole herself.
Yoichi loosed another explosive arrow, sealing the entrance behind them.
Shinoa's watch beeped while they were riding, flashing with a newly received message.
She peered at it for a brief moment, reading the words that had been sent to the device, presumably from Kimizuki's squad.
"Kimizuki says he met Mika on the way back," she called over her shoulder. The wind was whipping through her hair, as she pushed the bike as hard as it could go. "They're safe!"
"Mika's safe?" Yuu shouted back, right into her ear.
Shinoa nodded, and she felt Yuu rest his forehead against her back in relief.
That feeling quickly disappeared, however, as they both remembered who they had been forced to leave behind.
Shinoa was taking the motorcycle through the winding streets of Sanguinem, between ancient looking houses made of stone and fenced by cobblestone roads. Privately, she was glad she had learned to ride a motor bike when she was younger; it was just a stupid hobby that Guren had indulged her in for a while, but it was paying off big time now.
She revved the engine with her wrist, eyes flicking down to check the time; ten minutes left until the scheduled rendezvous. All sorts of things had gone horribly wrong with this plan, but the plan was still the plan. She had specifically instructed everybody to stick to it unless told otherwise. They would head to the designated escape spot.
Yuu was sitting quietly in his seat behind her, arms looped firmly around Shinoa's waist. He was holding on a bit more tightly than was necessary, almost like he was hugging her, seeking comfort. Shinoa didn't say anything as they wove their way through the city, thinking that he deserved that much indulgence at the moment, even if she felt like breaking down herself. Whatever pain she might be feeling over Guren, Yuu was probably experiencing tenfold.
The sergeant grew so absorbed thinking about this that she almost didn't notice the vampire before it was too late.
It was crouching on top of a nearby building, waiting for them to come close enough so he could leap down and kill them with a single swipe. Shinoa saw him coming through the corner of her eye and swung her body hard to the side, tilting the bike and veering sharply off course.
The vampire overshot them and landed on the road instead, and only then did Shinoa noticed that there were over a dozen of them, crawling over the rooftops in pursuit, like a great infection that had risen up from the ground.
"Hold on to me!" Shinoa said sharply, before righting the bike and taking off at full speed, the engine roaring behind them. This must be the second phase of the vampire attack. First the explosions would rock the humans to their core, and then they would swarm in and finish off who was left.
The vampires behind them all screeched in unison before taking off in pursuit, leaping across the rooftops. Shinoa showed her teeth as she revved the engine again, coaxing as much as speed out of the bike as she could. The buildings swept past them in blurs, but still the vampires kept up with them, a testament to their physical prowess.
One vampire leapt down towards them, and Yuu cut him out of the air with his sword, and the enemy burst into ashes. Shinoa turned the bike and zoomed down an alternate route with less buildings, the taillight of the bike leaving a deep red streak in their wake, like blood that the vampires wanted.
"Go down that way!" Yuu shouted into her ear, before turning to slash at another vampire. "We're almost there!"
Shinoa leaned forward in her seat to reduce drag and followed Yuu's instructions, flying across a bridge so fast she thought the bike's chassis would fall apart.
Finally they crossed the bridge, and the buildings that had followed them on either side suddenly disappeared, and they were out in the open, on a long wide road that led straight into the wall of the cavern, where the pulley system that was to be their method of escape lay.
"Shinoa, over there!" Yuu said, pointing past her shoulder.
There, holed up right in the middle of the road, was Kimizuki's squad. They were sitting inside a massive crater that had been blown out of the road by an even larger piece of rubble, a huge rock that was sitting on the lip of the crater between them and the cavern wall.
And beyond them, holed up behind their own ridiculous amount of defenses, was another horde of vampires. It appeared that they had known about this unused entrance and chose to infiltrate the city through here, and were now preventing Kimizuki's squad from escaping.
The humans and vampire in question were hiding behind the giant boulder, crouching down inside the crater for extra protection. They were the literal definition of sitting ducks, sitting with their hands over their heads as the vampires bombarded the face of the boulder with explosives, and though it was holding that wouldn't last forever.
Shinoa looked past the boulder at the vampires blocking their path, then back at the dozen or so more on their tail. The odds did not look good. There were far less enemies behind them, but she wasn't about to go back the way they came. That was illogical.
Just as she was beginning to consider driving the motorcycle straight into the vampires beyond the boulder, a harsh yellow light blossomed behind her.
Dreading what had just occurred, she turned around, squinting as the light blinded her.
There, standing on top of the last of the buildings, was Hiiragi Kureto.
The air around him was fizzling with static, and blast marks riddled the rooftops around him. Shinoa saw several clouds of ash rising into the air and knew Kureto had eradicated all of them in one strike. It appeared their pursuers had been dealt with.
Before she could feel any measure of gratitude, however, the rest of Kureto's army appeared behind him.
What seemed like a hundred JIDA soldiers emerged from between the buildings beneath Kureto's feet, swarming out onto the open street, trying desperately to reach the exit at the far end. The entire city was in full evacuation mode, and past the road they saw their freedom.
Shinoa cursed as the number of human soldiers behind them continued to swell, then looked back up at the dozens of vampires dug in at the escape entrance. They were stuck between two equally unpleasant masses.
As soon as one of the humans came into the line of sight of the vampires, someone behind the defenses shouted an order, and a war machine launched an explosive at them.
It struck far behind her, but she still felt the impact of the explosion slam into them as they rode. Shinoa came to a skidding stop and the lip of the crater and leapt off the bike, the two of them tumbling down into the hole with the rest of their teammates who caught them at the bottom.
"Mika!" Yuu exclaimed, grabbing his brother and hugging him fiercely. The blond embraced him with equal vigor, though they both made sure to keep their heads down. "God, I thought you were dead!"
"So did I, honestly," Mika said, laughing a little giddily. "But a certain someone was nice enough to save me along the way."
"So I guess we're even now?" Kimizuki asked drily, earning an elbow in the side from Mika.
"Is that her?" Shinoa whispered.
All eyes turned to Mirai, whom Krul had set down on the surface of the crater, as far beneath cover as was possible. The vampire was sitting protectively over the comatose girl's body, shielding it from rubble with her arm.
"That's her," Kimizuki confirmed, his voice catching a bit. "I almost couldn't believe it when I saw her. After all this time…"
His voice trailed off, and Mika gave the boy's shoulder an assuring squeeze, which Kimizuki surprisingly didn't brush off.
Before anyone could speak up again, there was another deep explosion from behind them, as Shinoa looked to find that the vampire had launched another explosive shell at the human company.
"This isn't good," she muttered, peeking over the lip of the crater. The humans had all retreated behind the line of buildings by now, where they began digging themselves in, much like the vampires had. "Our path is blocked both ways."
As she spoke, a dozen JIDA soldiers raised a wall of second class demon bows, releasing a swarm of arrows into the air.
"Take cover!" she commanded, throwing herself beneath the lip of the crater. The rest of the squad followed suit, Kimizuki grabbing his sister and dragging her along with him, shielding her with his body.
The arrow shower descended upon the cave entrance at the far end of the street, but some stray shots found their way into the crater, the bolts impaling themselves in the dirt. One particular arrow struck the earth right between Yoichi's legs, making him go pale and tuck himself further in.
Almost immediately after the attack was finished the vampires responded with one of their own, launching two more explosive shells across the street. They landed near the edge of the buildings, and Shinoa's entire squad had to duck as the impact shook the earth itself, and a dust cloud rushed outward only to spill into the crater where they were hiding.
"Fuck! We can't just sit here like this!" Mitsuba shouted, coughing badly as the dust whirled around them like sand demons. Shinoa closed her eyes and buried her face in Yuu's shirt until the smoke passed, colliding with the boulder and dissipating.
"Well, we can't exactly run out there either," Mika said grimly, peeking around at the vampires, then ducking back again when they fire yet another shell. "We'll get blown to bits."
"We'll get blown to bits sitting here like ducks!"
"You're more than welcome to go first, then."
"Would you-"
"Stop it!" Yuu yelled, covering his and Shinoa's heads as another mortar fired off, throwing up a cloud of debris that rained down on them like pellets. "We need to focus on a way out of this!"
"If I know anything about the way Lest prepares for war, those vampires over there won't be running out of shells anytime soon," Krul said darkly.
Everyone huddled together as the humans returned another wave of arrows, this time with some bolts of magic thrown in for good measure. One of them went errant and struck the middle of the crater, sending flaming tufts of dirt flying everywhere.
Kimizuki cursed and threw his body over Mirai, gritting his teeth when the flames bit into him. Yoichi quickly stamped the flames out, but the burns were already there, not that he let it show.
"We've got to get the hell out of here," he growled, rolling onto his back and wincing when his burns smarted. "Otherwise we'll never-"
He was interrupted by the sound of the vampire's war machine launching another shell, but this time it didn't land behind them where the humans were.
Instead it crashed straight into the boulder that stood between them and the vampires.
A great gout of fire rushed out from the boulder on either side, but miraculously the massive stone did not shatter, and remained standing, smoking from the heat of the projectile that had been launched into it.
Kimizuki finally realized what was about to happen a moment later, but by then it was much too late to do anything about it.
"Oh, god," he whispered.
The war machine fired again, and this time the shell completely obliterated the boulder, and then it was chaos.
Mika and Krul both formed a ring around the rest of the squad with this bodies, trying to protect all of them at once. Mitsuba raised her axe. Shinoa stuck her scythe out through Krul's arm and summoned the power of Shikama Doji, creating the largest absorption portal she could physically muster.
Then the boulder exploded, pelting them with a literal wall of razor sharp stone, and they could only screw their eyes shut as hell collapsed upon them, flaming pieces of rock spearing down like vengeful arrows. The sound of an explosive shell detonating so close popped all of their eardrums, and for a moment all they could hear was a high pitched ringing, a sound that consumed everything, even the pain of the instant.
Then it was over, and Krul and Mika collapsed to the floor, their bodies cut and bleeding from the beating they had taken, Shinoa sweating and shaking badly from all the energy she had just expended to keep them alive. The crater was burning with several tiny fires, and the great boulder that had protected them till now was gone, destroyed by the vampire war machine.
"They must have had trouble aiming with it in the way," Yoichi whispered, his voice at an odd volume because he could no longer hear. "So they got rid of it."
Yuu raised his throbbing head to peer at the far end of the chasm.
His irises shrank.
"No."
The vampires were loading their war machine once more, and now that they could see the terrible contraption clearly it was quite easy to tell that they were aiming straight at the crater, intending to annihilate anything inside with one fell swoop.
"Oh, shit," Mika said softly. "Guys, we have to run. We have to run now."
"Run where?!" Mitsuba snapped, finally breaking from the stress of the situation. "Where the fuck are we supposed to run, Mika? That's a fucking war machine over there!"
"We can go the other way!"
"There's an entire army waiting for us, you damn fool!"
Shinoa felt her heart beginning to stop as she watched the war machine prepare to fire again, with the knowledge that there was nothing she could do to stop it. Yuu's fingers wrapped tightly around hers, and when she looked up at him, they were both wearing the same stricken expression, the kind that said it as too soon, it was too soon for them to die, they were still young, still had so much left they wanted to do, not die in a god forsaken hole in a place much too close to hell.
She looked over and Krul and saw only a grim expression on the noble's face. Such was the poise of a queen. Even in the face of death the vampire relinquished nothing.
She turned her gaze to Kimizuki, and found the boy staring blankly down at his sister.
So many thoughts were racing through his mind at the moment that he didn't know which one to choose and follow to its inevitable end. Could he use his coffin technique? No; that would only work on one person, and it would take nine seconds. They didn't have nine seconds. Some way to destroy the mortar, perhaps; the only thing that came to mind was Yoichi's arrows, but they were too weak to take down something of that size. There must be some way, some way…
Kimizuki found his mind stretching into oblivion as he continued to look down at his sister. How long he had yearned to see this beautiful face again. In a world filled with hurt and disappointment, she was the only one who had never betrayed him. She was the only one he could give his heart to without remorse. As long as he could protect Mirai, nothing else in the world really mattered.
A thin red line appeared on the girl's cheek, and then a paper thin cut was opening up in her pale skin, a single crimson teardrop falling down to her chin, like a final farewell.
Kimizuki panicked, reaching out to catch the blood drop with his finger, trying to find a way to put it back, to close the wound and sow it up so that there was no scar, no mark on the skin. But there was no way to do that. There was no real way for him to restore things to the way they had been before. The happy life he had been dreaming about all these years; a future where Mirai was healthy and content, with no weigh on her shoulders.
It occurred to him then that in all those dreams, in all those night spent thinking about such a future, he had never been present. Never once had Kimizuki dreamed of a future where he and Mirai existed together. It was only her, his sister, in all her pure and unadulterated radiance.
Not all lives were worth the same.
Maybe it was time to fool God.
Leaning down, he placed a gentle kiss on his sister's forehead.
Mika blinked when Kimizuki suddenly grabbed him, and said something that was lost in the rumbling of the earth.
"What?" the vampire asked, leaning in closer.
"Look after my sister," Kimizuki said softly into Mika's ear.
He let the boy go and stood up, then turned and walked to the other side of the crater.
"What the hell are you doing, Kimizuki?" Yuu shouted. "Put your head down before it gets blown off!"
"Don't tell me what to do," Kimizuki snorted, drawing both of his swords. He turned and regarded his squad mates, who stared in horror back at him, wondering what had gotten into him.
He tried to think of something to say, something that would give verbal meaning to this moment, but couldn't think of anything. That was ironic, wasn't it? He was the guy who always had some sort of witty comeback, but now, on the threshold of death, he couldn't come up with anything. Maybe that was for the best. Maybe his end was better left wordless. He wouldn't want those words to make their way to Mirai, after all.
So at last his eyes fell upon Mika, who blinked in wonder as they gazed at each other.
The bespectacled boy smiled, and said, "I'm counting on you, okay?"
Mika blinked, then rose to his own feet, saying, "Kimizuki, no-"
Kimizuki impaled himself with his own two blades.
"Are you sure about this?" Kiseki-O asked, turning back to look at him.
Kimizuki lifted his head and met his demon's eyes with a conviction not normally found in his race. Kiseki-O felt goosebumps rising on his skin looking into those eyes.
"I've never been sure about anything. You know that. But this is my decision."
The green haired demon blinked, then looked off in the distance.
"You know," he said, "I chose you because I thought you seemed like a level headed sort of guy. Guess I was wrong."
He was surprised to hear Kimizuki laugh at that.
"Only a crazy person would let his little sister die an early death," he said. "Wouldn't you agree?"
Kiseki-O smiled to himself. Humans were so endlessly fascinating.
"Very well, Kimizuki," he said. "I will grant your request. I wish you good fortune in the next life."
Kimizuki smiled forlornly, but his response was typical.
"No, you don't."
Back in reality, Kimizuki began to change.
Black flames sprouted all over his body, steadily growing in size and intensity. They grew until they consumed his entire body, so that he form was now entirely black and shifting, like the manifestation of a demon. The boy's form began to wave and warp in on itself, as the very fabric of reality was twisted to grant the epic request he had made of his companion.
The twin blades in his hands clattered to the floor, then faded into dust. The glasses fell from his face, the lenses cracking as they were thrown to the side, the last remaining remnant of the boy who had once been known as Kimizuki Shiho.
And at long last, the demon began to grow. It increased in size at an incredible clip, the black flames licking their way across his body as he towered above the little humans huddled together in the crater, rising to his great and proud height as a fully realized demon, the soul of the boy that had been gifted to the never-ending wrath of Kiseki-O.
Finally, deep within the heart of the black monster that now stood like a building over the crater, the last of Kimizuki's soul was consumed.
The boy was no more.
"Stars above…" Krul said in awe, tilting her head back to take in the sight of it, an actual full demon, completely manifested in the physical plane. This hadn't occurred ever since the humans learned how to bind demons with curses.
"No…no, Kimizuki, no!" Yoichi sobbed, reaching out to what had once been his friend, like he could reach into the huge black mass and pull Kimizuki out. "Don't do this!"
The manifestation of Kiseki-O threw its head back and roared, a deep, ugly sound, one that made everyone, both human and vampire, freeze in place.
Shinoa could only watch, captivated, as the demon raised its arm and smashed it into the vampire's defenses.
It was like another bomb had gone off. The entire cavern shook from the force of the blow, as every single vampire holed up in the cave was killed in an instant, destroyed by the massive demonic fist that had come to crush them. The war machine was smushed like a paper crane, the metal bending like silly putty, and suddenly the path forward was open.
Only then did Shinoa come to her senses. "Come on," she said, grabbing everyone and pushing them forward, towards the exit. "Go, go!"
The entire squad pulled themselves out of the crater and began sprinting towards the cave, passing straight beneath the manifestation of Kiseki-O. The demon turned to face the human army, apparently unconcerned with Shinoa's squad, and roared again, its voice alone causing Yuu to stumble.
Someone on the human side screamed, and they all opened fire at once.
Shinoa kept her head down as they ran, errant arrows raining down all around them. Behind her, she heard Kiseki-O bellow and rip a building to shreds.
They entered the cave, which was a small space barely large enough to fit a hundred people. There was a single car sized platform in the center of the platform, attached to a complex pulley system that was designed to carry heavy loads to the surface. In this case, the heavy load was them.
Shinoa vaulted over the railing of the platform, and was about to look for the switch when Yoichi gasped and pointed at where they had come from.
"Look."
Out in the cavern, Kiseki-O was tearing the world to pieces. The seismic waves emanating from its attacks were rocking all of Sanguinem to its roots, and the floor of the cavern was beginning to sink in on itself, swallowed by the lower levels below. Kiseki-O had already fallen halfway into the sinkhole itself, and as they watched it raised both arms and slammed the earth once more, rocking the entire cave from side to side.
"We need to leave before the entire city falls into hell," Mitsuba snapped, searching for the switch. "How the hell do you work this thing?"
There was a moment of frantic searching as everyone tried to figure the pulley system out, until Krul swore and smashed the mechanism with her fist.
That seemed to work, because the ropes began spinning rapidly, and the platform began to move.
As soon as they were clear of the ground the cavern shuddered again, and a stray arrow zoomed into the cave, nearly taking Shinoa's head off. Instead it shredded through the ribbon in her hair, and Yuu just barely caught it before it fell down to the ground.
As they ascended, Yoichi began wailing loudly, saying things that made no sense, except for Kimizuki's name, which he said over and over again. The rest of the squad drew tight expressions, all but Mika, who was stunned into silence, his tongue cut out by what Kimizuki had just done.
The pulleys were gaining traction, and soon they were flying up towards the surface. Shinoa could see a small square of light up above and hope flared in her chest. Perhaps they could make it out of this okay.
Too soon. There was a loud crash as the entire chute shook, and everyone clung to the railing of the platform as the pulleys squealed, right on the verge of breaking. Chunks of rock were breaking off the walls of the chute and falling into the platform, adding to the weight, slowing their precarious ascent, and Shinoa could only close her eyes and pray as they continued to rush towards the sky-
The heaving of the earth had altered the position of the exits to the surface world, and when the platform reached the end of the pulley system it was not at the location it was designed to stop at. Instead the platform stopped abruptly without warning, opening up through the side of a hill.
Shinoa felt herself being lifted off her feet, and then she was pinwheeling through the air, the cold surface oxygen shocking her with its harsh temperature. She flew for more than a few seconds before crashing back down onto the thick grass, somehow managing to not break anything.
Yuu, who she had been holding on to, landed somewhere nearby, impacting softly on the grass.
Her adrenaline was still pumping. She picked herself up as soon as possible and pulled Yuu to his feet, the boy stumbling somewhat on the grass. The surface air felt thin and insubstantial after spending so long underground.
"Let's find the others and get out of here," she said urgently. "Come on, before they-"
"You there!"
A single arrow buried itself in the ground between them, and then from the hilltops the entirely of the JIDA emerged, as nearly every single soldier who had managed to evacuate safety turned their eyes to the two of them. After flying through the air, Shinoa had failed to realize that they were not alone.
She jerked her head to the side and saw the rest of the squad standing a couple hundred yards away, looking around in panic for somewhere to run.
Their eyes met across the great distance, and Shinoa flashed them one of the few military signals she knew.
Run.
Another arrow came close to cutting across her eyes, and next thing she knew they were both running, their shoes rushing through the grass as they fled. The soldiers behind them began shouting, and the shouting never seemed to stop, but neither did they. They dove into a thicket of trees and began heading for the city, trying to put as much distance between them and the men as possible, not daring to look back, knowing that if they did they would see two hundred soldiers on their tail, pursuing them with every intent to commit murder.
They had failed to save Guren, but they had his sword. They had succeeded in saving Mirai, but Kimizuki was dead and the squad was split up. Shinoa didn't know whether she was supposed to laugh or cry.
Yuu seemed to know, though. He wept silently as they ran, his tears marking their trail of escape, a warped path of sorrow.
Above them, little specks of white began to fall from the sky.
First snow.
A/N
I don't usually deal in character deaths. In fact, I think it might be accurate to say Kimizuki is the first major character I've ever killed in my writing. I don't expect everyone to agree with this decision, but I felt it was best for the story. Please tell me your thoughts.
Things will slow down a little after this. The last two chapters have been extremely hectic, even for me. I wrote this one in a single sitting. Probably lots of typos again, but I'll try to clean them up in a day or two. Apologies to anyone who reads this before that.
Thanks for reading!
~Banshee
Reviewer Responses
Annabeth-Cyone: 'Mother I failed you' LOL I mean technically it should be father but...you do you man. Also I'm really sorry for ruining your brotp.
Littlemouse: If things go according to plan I'll finish this. Not that I'm much of a planner.
