A/N: Prompt from Guest.


9

Remorse


Merag has never been a particularly condescending individual.

No, long ago, in another life, she fought alongside her brother and her kingdom in order to protect the people she loved and the place she once called home. It saddened her to watch the enemy die around her, made her sick - hell, she had even thrown up more than once at the sight of bloodied clothing and scarlet stained grass and glazed over eyes that would never blink again. That was just who she was.

As a Barian after her second birth as a new being, Merag still refused to think of herself as evil. In that place, she didn't hurt her comrades and there was no opposing force to fight and destroy. She was happy, with Nasch at her side, with her old fellow soldiers and kinsmen and dear friend Durbe safe with her.

And then she became human once again, with false childhood memories, with memories erased from her mind altogether. Even then, she wasn't antagonistic, just a fourteen-year-old girl who had friends and a dear sibling and - dare she call him a potential lover? In any case, she had a life in Heartland City, was a teenager who hadn't lived the most normal of lives, but nonetheless had experienced the Earth version of growing up.

No, Merag wasn't a villain.

Never was, never will be.

But that is what everyone calls her as she steals their lives and plagues their Sekkai with an intimidating red light as two worlds collide and bruise each other mercilessly. She watches Tetsuo's form disappear and Kotori's eyes water and Yuuma's heart shatter and Kaito's body give out and Nasch's eyes harden painfully.

She doesn't have the 'privilege' of watching him die.

But the nausea still overcomes her alien body - a feeling she shouldn't be having. Barians have no mouths; it's a way of concealing their emotions further, a way of looking stronger, and way of...hiding. Merag can feel his soul descend into the depths of - no, not Hell, not the place he's condemned himself to - God only knows where.

As she glares up at this forsaken, suffering sky with eyes gradually filling with extraterrestrial tears, she swallows back a harsh sob as her Barian form fades for a moment. She collapses to her knees and the reality of all that has happened comes crashing down on her, knocking away her breath. Remorse threatens to overcome her as she cries out to this dying planet.

Right now, she is just Rio.

Right now, she is that little girl who is trapped in a fire again - one she cannot extinguish, no matter how desperately she tries.

And for a second, it feels like there are lips pressing softly against her salty cheek, the rough feeling of a scar brushing past her ear, like he came to say goodbye, and the Gates of Hell open and-

He's gone.


~Finish~