Well, since I'm an evil person I won't even say something this time and I will just try to preserve my life a few more days. Thanks for the murdering comments from last chapter lovelies, I love you too~ As always, for the anons I can't answer by private message:
Guest: Demon Thanks n_n
Guest: How. Dare. You. You just killed him like that?! I almost cried! Gah! Poor Kid is gonna suicide now, isn't he? They don't deserve this tragedy, you evil author! ;_; Hahaha, yeah, I did, it couldn't end so easily could it? About Kidd he's not gonna need to suicide, the bond will just kill it, easy and quickly. He's a living zombi.
Guest: I wish you would surprise the readers with double chapters :/ that ending is too cruel... I know, but I can't translate that quick and you need to acept things little by little.
Kidd saw him fall. Slowly. As a last cruel joke of fate forcing him to observe every little detail without missing anything from the scene. While he just remained paralyzed, too shocked and incredulous to do anything.
Law was smiling at him at the moment, holding out his hand for Kidd to take it so they could return to the wonderful life that Kidd had been practically touching with his fingers. It was over, he had recovered his partner, he was now going to be happy, he would have a life and could stop worrying about the world.
When the bright sword had showed through Law's chest, piercing through him without the slightest warning, Kidd hadn't understood what he was seeing.
He didn't understand until he had seen Law's horrified face, until a muffled sound had come out of his mouth when the sword had turned in his chest, tearing his heart with a small movement. It was not until the scarlet red blood was running down the face of his partner staining Kidd too, that the dragon understood what was happening, it was not until Law's eyes lost that precious shine the dragon so adored, that Kidd reacted.
Rising from the ground quickly, Kidd grabbed his partner with his only arm and was thus preventing Law to collide with the dirty and disgusting soil through the fall and doing himself more harm.
However, when the weight of his mate lay safe and secure in his arm, Law had already left this world.
Kidd knew it without needing to check his pulse, without listening to his breathing, or seeing his beautiful face. Law was dead. Solitude surrounded Kidd again. The link was broken. There was absolutely nothing.
He was alone.
Kidd roared in utter darkness and felt the whole city tremble around him. Breathing heavily Kidd began to shake in a heavy panic attack. His eyes misted with tears unable to breathe. He was drowning, he was dying, he was following his partner to the other world and everything seemed to be over.
His mind seemed to dissociate from his body while shaking in spasms, Kidd gripped the now lifeless body of the tanned against his own. Possessive. Refusing to let him go.
In front of him, Killer finally reached Akainu and, in the next moment, the body of the man was rolling on the ground, halved by a violent attack. Across the huge square, Shanks, still transformed into a huge and elegant red dragon, roared and whined sadly responding to Kidd's broken roar. Doflamingo, still sitting among the ruins, had his eyes fixed on Law's body with his eyes open with surprise and pure horror.
Everything seemed to have stopped in that moment to contemplate the scene. There wasn't the slightest sound in the square, not even the smallest bird sang nor were more explosions of the battles heard. Everything seemed to have ended with Law's death.
Kidd roared back sadly as his body shook in a spasm of pure pain. He did not understand. His mind could not assimilate the idea, Law could not be dead. Like a lost child, Kidd was still looking for the link in his increasingly desperate mind convinced that there would be one, that it could not have disappeared, not after everything they had been through.
Law's body remained motionless against his own, cooling, blood pouring from the gaping wound in his chest and staining everything with that horrible crimson red. All signs indicated that he had lost him, but Kidd refused to surrender. He kept searching. Getting lost in his own mind. Crying in desperation for being back in that absolute darkness.
Refusing to let go, Kidd kissed the pale and expressionless face of his dark haired mate now with eyes closed in peace. He called, begged him to return and not leave him alone. But Law was not listening, and the darkness just grew, threatening to devour him.
Law did not respond. He would never do.
The world seemed to tremble when Kidd finally understood that he was alone again. His mind seemed to break into a thousand shattered pieces, the immense power he had suddenly stood free and the square and center of Rome became the very definition of chaos.
Killer was shouting something as he fled from his side unable to approach him, Doflamingo kept watching Law, ignoring the other exorcists pulling at him and begging him to get out of there. Shanks had disappeared.
Kidd embraced Law as he felt the tears running down his face with no intention of stopping, while from his mouth escaped groans of pure solitude.
The redhead's power filled the air around them.
The rocks of the Parthenon, the ruins of the city, the walls of houses and even the cobblestones from the floor raised in the air, shaking suspended in nothingness as if a magnetic field kept them there. Then they began turning in a wide circle whose epicenter was the dragon himself and his partner, turning and turning, faster and faster, hitting trees, people, bumping into each other and creating instantly a massive swirl of air and stones around the couple like a wall protecting them from the world.
A tornado that almost wiped out half the city as the dragon cried, oblivious to what he was causing. Too mired in sadness.
.
.
.
Doflamingo watched the storm from a safe place several kilometers away from the city. The sun had set and had risen three times in the sky since the disaster had begun, invoked by the dragon himself. Since the huge swirl of sand and debris had risen high and huge into the sky to get lost in an enormous thundercloud that would lit it at night with flashes of lightning, the world seemed to have darkened forever.
Doflamingo had never seen anything like this. Even the desert storms he had witnessed in several of his missions to Africa couldn't be compared with this. Sandstorms passed. You could protect yourself from a sandstorm. But this strange weather phenomenon seemed to have a mind of its own to guide it.
The storm had swept everything in its path when it began, without distinguishing friend from foe it had destroyed half the city creating a perfect circle from which it stood tall and imposing in the air, roaring sadly like the cries of a dragon. It didn't move in the least, always in the same place, rotating in the same direction, with the precision of a cutting sword it destroyed anyone who dared to venture into it.
Doflamingo had watched it every night since the battle had ended and he had just waited.
Such power could not be maintained for too long, the dragon could not hold it much longer no matter the power he had, when the storm finished and just dissolved itself in the air, Doflamingo knew it would be when the dragon has died.
So Doflamingo waited. Every night he watched the monstrous and silent storm and waited for the miracle or the tragic end that would define the future of the world. Doflamingo waited, as the remnants of the army of beasts did too.
Kidd was the leader of those men, the strongest of them all, all had put their hope in him, and if Kidd perished in that battle, the hope would fade and disappear along with it as if it had never existed. They have won the battle and freedom, but if Kidd, the symbol and head of the rebellion, perished, the price would simply be too high.
Another war would break out soon, this time internal.
Without a king to govern them, the council of dragons would fight to get the now empty throne. Shanks and Marco had ended up fighting the previous evening, the tension too great, the pain of losing a friend too recent, and any comments insulting, too risque at the time. At this rate a war would soon break out. Europe itself would fall into chaos, some races fighting against the other to gain the control Kidd had held for centuries. Without a ruler, the clans of creatures would pounce on each other, without successor to the throne, the conflict was inevitable.
They might have won this war, but that would be meaningless if Kidd died.
They needed him more than ever, not only to maintain control, but for what Kidd and the relationship he had with Law meant for this world. The alliance between humans and beasts. The hope that everything could work out. It could be the beginning that many expected, the beginning of a new world.
But that might be asking too much.
Kidd had been wounded in the worst possible way. To ask him to get up and continue fighting would be too much. It would be cruel. So Doflamingo said nothing during those days and just helped resolve conflicts that arose in the army's camp that had been set up south of the city in one of the forests surrounding Rome, between the sea and the huge storm. Day after day he tried to keep the peace, and diminish competition, night after night he sat in his tent on the outskirts of the forest between high herbs and the fields of wheat and watched the storm while praying to every God he knew up there for a miracle that he didn't even understand.
Doflamingo had refused to think of his nephew, in the images that were burned into his mind of his body covered in blood. Law would not die. The dragon was still alive, and while Kidd was alive, Doflamingo still hoped. He had seen the miracles that the link could do, like the one where Law had survived the reeducation and returned with them thanks to the dragon. There was hope, another miracle could happen. Doflamingo refused to lose all hope, he refused to think about the apocalypse that would happen in the world if the dragon died.
Every night Doflamingo refused to stop praying for Law to return to them.
.
.
.
When the storm faded into nothingness, Killer was several kilometers away from the city, watching from afar in silence. Seven days. Kidd had endured seven days. More than anyone had ever done after losing their other half. Seven as the seven dragons, as the seven continents and the seven stars.
Seven was the number of magic.
Killer's tortured eyes closed feeling incredibly lost. Unlike many in the camp, he had not kept the hope, Kidd had already lost his family once and the blow had completely changed him, it was impossible to survive a second lost. Killer had seen the passion in the eyes of the redhead when he spoke of Law, he had seen his love and despair at the situation of the boy.
Killer knew his friend and knew how cruel the world was. Kidd would not survive this time. Miracles didn't exist.
That's why he had been preparing for this in the long, silent days where everyone had been too tense. Slowly he had prepared for the day when his friend couldn't stand it anymore and would fall into the abyss following his beloved partner. He had been preparing mentally to pick up the lifeless body of his friend and brother, and Law, to bury them as they deserved, as the heroes of the tragedy.
But deep down the blond knew he would never be prepared for something like this. Kidd was his last family, to bury him and lose him forever after all they had been through together would destroy a part of his soul. Killer himself didn't know how he should survive this last loss.
So when the storm vanished into thin air, stopping as quickly as it had begun, Killer walked to the deserted city of Rome, walking slowly without wanting to face what he knew he would find there.
As the storm disappeared from the place covering the city with a fine black sand, Killer strolled among the jumbled streets now deserted and the ruins of the old city, feeling in his bones the impressive silence that freeze it. There was no one, no animals, no plants nor the slightest trace of life after the destructive storm, the palaces and old buildings that had previously risen imposingly and beautiful in the city were now destroyed and covered by that black dust that furrowed the air, blackening everything and falling to the ground like ashes behind the devastating fire.
It was as if the world had become more sinister in this place after the tragedy that had happened here.
But the outer city was nothing compared to the huge barren esplanade that the storm had dug into the center of the city where it had ravaged. The buildings were completely gone, the fountains, the streets, everything had been eradicated to create a perfect circle of several kilometers where there was only black earth and huge dunes that rose and flowed on the ground with the wind after the storm.
And there, right in the center, in a small and tiny circle of stones, two figures were stopped in the same position as Killer remembered having seen them the last time seven days ago.
Kidd was on his knees, head bowed and his one arm around Law's body protectively holding him against his chest without moving in the slightest, with his face touching Law's as if to give him a last kiss. Law was now pale, his body partially lying on Kidd's knees and the floor, and the blood of his body scattered over the cobblestones around them was now pure black.
Killer stood at the edge of that small circle of stones and, realizing that someone had followed him, he turned to look at a dark exorcist who was panting behind him and who watched Law's body in horror from a distance almost on the verge of tears.
Killer's mind instantly identify him as a "friend", Penguin one of the companions of Kidd's mate. He was no danger Killer quickly thought. However, just when seeing him, something inside him shouted that the boy was someone important to him and that he should pay him attention, something just cried in happiness inside of him when seeing that little exorcist.
But at this moment, his concern for Kidd was superior and he simply ignored that warning focusing again on his beloved brother.
Kidd was his last family, the little man could wait.
Killer then approached slowly the motionless couple in the midst of that paramo, but Kidd didn't react to his presence as he normally did, he didn't move and Killer felt his worst fear confirmed. Making an impossible effort, the blonde knelt in front of his friend and the lifeless body of Law, and watched his face carefully.
Kidd's eyes were red, almost as intense as his hair, he had huge black circles of exhaustion below them, and traces of blood and tears on his cheeks. All his muscles seemed tense and stiff after spending days in the same position without moving in the least, but even so, the grip the redhead had on Law's body remained firm, and his chest was rising and falling weakly.
Kidd was alive, or at least as alive as someone in his situation might be. His gaze instead destroyed something inside the blond shifter, it was just so empty, so lost, so ... weak.
Killer felt the lump in his throat tighten.
He needed to get his friend out of here, he needed to give him a bed, food, and get him out of the misery that he was suffering. Instinct and his whole being screamed at him to help his family. To see Kidd like this - Kidd who had always been someone so strong, who had always managed to survive, who was the role model for all of them - completely crushed Killer's world.
Opening his mouth and talking with all the delicacy and care he could, Killer tried to return Kidd to the cruel world in which they lived. He could not lose him. Not this way.
"Kidd, let's go" he whispered low, not daring even to touch his brother who seemed about to break "the other six are waiting for you"
.
.
.
The storm roaring inside of Kidd, pain, anger, frustration, disappointment, sadness, despair... all blended in his head spinning and spinning in the same direction without letting him think. Kidd didn't know how much time he spend in that state, time didn't matter, time could change, lengthen and shorten if he felt like doing it, time didn't matter.
What mattered was that Law was now dead.
The storm raged long and hard, stealing his power, weakening him and helping him fight the darkness that surrounded him in the emptiness of his mind. Kidd had fought against that deep nothing, but as always, he was unable to hold on and again he had lost. He had lost. With the last breath of energy, Kidd had seen the barrier fade and expose him to the darkness, the tragedy, the harsh reality.
Law was dead.
For a moment, Kidd didn't know how much, time didn't matter, time could be changed, Kidd just watched the approaching darkness surrounding him slowly, gradually encircling and destroying him, extinguishing his life in a slow and painful progress. But Kidd didn't care, nothing mattered, if he died then perhaps he would join Law in the other world, there was nothing to fight for, there was nothing left.
With patience and fearlessness Kidd waited for the end.
That was when the words entered his mind, reverberating with the echo of a voice that he didn't remember who it belonged to. Darkness had devoured the memory long since.
"The other six are waiting for you"
The other six. Because they were seven. Seven. Seven stars. Seven continents. Seven Dragons. But Kidd knew only six. Shanks, Marco, Jimbe, Hancock, Dragon and himself. America, Australia, Atlantis, Asia, Africa and Europe. Polaris, Sirius, Rigel, Orion, Vega and Antares. The seventh never appeared, the seventh was a mystery surrounded in myths and legends older than the world itself, the seventh... the seventh was magic.
His mother had told him stories and children's tales about that dragon, and even then, they were considered legends and hoaxes that they shouldn't believe. Thousands of years ago they weren't even considered true, just old stories, just scary legends ... Kidd had laughed when he had seen the seventh seat for the first time in the councils.
Nowadays nobody remembered the stories, no one knew who owned that seat.
But at the end of his life, all those legends came back to the redhead's head, while he returned to relive those moments, sitting in the blue scaled body of his mother while she told him stories mentally projecting the images in his head.
As she told him that the seventh dragon could...
Kidd jumped from the floor hugging Law against his body tightly, not daring to leave him for even a moment to keep the darkness at bay. The tan body had turned cold, his pulse frozen in his veins, his skin paler than Kidd's own...
But Kidd could no longer mourn over Law. It was not physically possible. Kidd refused to mourn now. He would give everything he had for Law, until there were no more options, until the darkness took him forever.
The city had disappeared around him curiously giving a vast expanse of black sand. Kidd blinked feeling his body numb and hurt. Beside him Killer and another boy stared at him surprised with something like fear and worry in their eyes. Kidd ignored them. There was no time. The darkness was consuming him and the journey will take time.
Without hesitation he transformed into the great beast of red scales that had terrorized so many people. He changed into the form in which Law had seen him for the first time and everything had begun.
This time the change hurt, Kidd felt his bones stretch, his skin break to give way to the bright scales and the huge wings, and he barely held back the cry of pain. He had no magic, had no strength and his mind was too shattered for that. But he ignored it. He had to give everything. There was no other chance. This could be a suicide, the legend could be only a legend, but Kidd could not give up, not now.
Ignoring the cries of his friend to stop, Kidd took the body of Law carefully in a claw and he raised flying in the air laden with his own magic. His whole body ached, and he didn't know if he could stand the trip, he didn't know if he could get there before the darkness consumed him, but there was no choice.
Spinning in the air, Kidd set his course to the south, to the neighboring city of Naples.
To the famous mount Vesuvius.
Learning time:
Tecnically, Orion it's not at star, it's a constelation, but it's sounded better than Batelgeuse (that come's from an arabic bad translation and means "Hand of Orion") that was the one I was going to use. But we will call it Orion, and fuck it all.
Also, for the ones that don't know, the mount Vesuvius, was thought to be the entrance to hell in a lot of old myths (after pompei people was kind of terrified of it), as well as a sacred place in honor of Hercules, the hero of the 12 labours that Disney destroyed and turned into another different story.
The number seven is also a magic number in a lot of religions: seven days of creation and seven deadly sins in the catolic religion, seven lucky gods in the japanese one, seven heavens and seven hells in islam...but it is always good and that's a curious thing.
