There was a scream, one never ending blood curdling scream, grating on my mind's edges, nerves curling, like nails dragging over a chalk board. It was unnerving and no matter how much I tried I couldn't block it out. The world was eerily dark, not like behind closed eyelids but with a grey tinge to it, blotches of muted color danced in front of my eyes but I couldn't focus on anything.
My throat felt rough and dried out, as if I had chocked down sand and somehow I had difficulties to breathe. The scream ended abruptly when I forced in a labored breath, and it took another few seconds until I realized that I had been screaming.
With the realization came the pain, it had been there the whole time, but my consciousness had blocked it out mostly. And then I screamed again, the sound felt like sandpaper on my throat and the grey world in front of my eyes blurred even more.
This time the scream chocked down almost immediately after it had started, I didn't have enough air to sustain it and soon I was gasping again, like a fish out of water. And that was exactly how I felt, helpless, like a fish caught and tossed onto dry land, wriggling and gasping desperately but the saving water was nowhere near in range.
I was vaguely aware of still being suspended against the wall by invisible bonds and that something was terribly, terribly wrong, but my memories about how I actually ended up there were more than hazy. I recalled a conversation, a battle, but no, I wasn't the one who fought it, a revelation, and then pain, immense pain, and I still didn't remember why.
My body was on fire. The only reason I was still sure that I had arms and legs was because the pain I felt was too widespread to just center on my torso. It was everywhere, my blood was pulsing with it, and everything seemed to originate from one single point in my shoulder. Or my toes, I wasn't too sure on that.
I was still screaming but there was no sound, just a dry gasp, the echo cutting through the pain in my mind. The pain eased eventually, until it was a faint pulse underneath my skin, a throbbing that was dull enough to temporarily ignore. The haze in front of my eyes cleared and I could make out shapes again, and slowly, ever so slowly, my mind caught up on what was happening.
Extraction.
I had been right, it wasn't anything pleasant, but I never expected it to be this.
Yao had taken a long injection needle from the table and injected something into me, I remembered the anxiety and fear I felt at the sight of the thick yellow liquid, and I had only paid half attention to what had been said. It wasn't my first injection, the pain of the needle had been bearable, despite its thickness, and afterwards I felt only a little sore at the spot under my collar bone.
At first it had felt cool, almost soothing, and then a numb feeling had spread from the injection spot. I remembered Yao's finger in my hair as he pushed the strands back, his hands cold on my skin as he explained to me what he was about to do. There had been a numbing veil on my mind and I had only half understood that he needed to dilute my blood, and that it was going to be painful, hence the tranquilizer, but when he pressed his mouth over the wound and did something, my whole world blacked out in agony.
I blinked a few times to get the image clearer but the sight that greeted me would have made me double over, hadn't it been for the restricting magic. A long tube ran from my clavicle to a container on the ground, a container filled with what looked like blood, only it had a sickening pale hue to it.
"Sorry about that." I snapped my attention from the container to Yao who leaned idly against the wall, arms crossed as he idly tapped his fingers against his forearm. "I haven't used that in a while, forgot how painful it is."
I wanted to say something, ask what this was all about, but my voice came only out as a dry whisper. My throat was burning and I craved for water.
"Your blood needs processing, I had to pull out the effect of the mark. You can think of it as an antibody-antigen reaction. Ember's magic reacted to my saliva, and now your blood is all potent and ready."
I looked down again to where tube was wedged under my skin, held in place by two clamps that bit painfully in my skin, right where the four parallel claw marks were that Mathias had left there such a long time ago. The container was almost full, and I wondered how much more it would take for me to die of blood loss, it already seemed too much, and if my wooziness was anything to go by, I was close. But that could have been the effect of the tranquilizer.
"Why do you need so much?" I asked, voice barely audible above the scraping of my throat, but I forced the sounds out anyway.
"Because its complex magic." Yao said solemnly and gestured to the side, where Kiku was patiently waiting. As far as I could see, Matthew was still knocked out on the floor underneath the window "Complex magic needs a lot of blood, but don't worry, Ember's magic is protecting you, so far. His words alerted me to the silence that had grown outside, the sounds of fighting from earlier had stopped and I was struck with another wave of fear and worry for Mathias' life.
Judging by the amount of blood they had drained, I must have been out for quite a while. If Mathias hadn't been able to fight of his attackers by now, there was a big chance that they had fought off him. I felt a new layer of cold dread settle in my stomach, and it didn't help that Kiku stepped forward and removed the clamps and the tube. It only added to my panic, because now that they had my blood they no longer needed me, and with Mathias down there was no way of me getting out of this alive.
I clung to the only string of hope I could find. Yao had said that Ember's magic was keeping me alive, so that meant he was still alive, maybe at the verge of dying but not yet dead, I had to believe in that or else I would start screaming. And then it hit me, suddenly and with full force, how little attention I had really paid to what was supposed to be my one true love.
I loved Mathias, god knew I did, but I had never really taken the time to show him or tell him properly. I had just taken his support for granted and never given something back. If we died now, he would never know, he would never understand how important he was. And all this time I had just dragged him along, never once stopping to appreciate the unquestioning love he offered, even though I had bound him with spells to my will, even though I had used him like a tool for my own goals.
I couldn't die, not like this, I couldn't let him die without telling him, not without showing him one last time that he meant the world to me. My eyes were filled with tears, and I was crying openly, but I didn't care. And I didn't care that I was begging when I spoke up, voice still barely above a whisper.
"Ember, where is Ember? Let me see him, please." Just one more time.
Ember? Your dragon went down when he heard your first scream, he didn't seem to take that well." Yao shrugged dismissively, his focus now drawn to the container that Kiku had just screwed shut.
"Please." I repeated, tears streaming down my face as I pushed back the sobs that threatened to escape.
"I doubt he'll be in the right condition to see you." My chest constricted and I gave up on holding back my sobs. The physical pain, the emotional pain, it was all too much and I couldn't stand the thought of losing my soul mate to a battle he was forced in because of me.
"Shut him up." Yao snapped as he dragged the container to the table. I tried to wiggle away, but Kiku grabbed my head and forced a piece of cloth between my teeth. That didn't stop the sobbing, but it muffled enough of the sounds to please Yao apparently.
Yao's back was in the way so I couldn't see what he was doing, but I heavily doubted that it could be anything good. I could see smoke wafting up and a sharp smell filled the air. It had already been hard to breathe with the gag in my mouth, but now it was almost impossible. The stench made my throat constrict and I fought down a cough that would definitely end badly with the cloth still wedged between my teeth.
"Finally." Yao breathed, voice brimming with exhilaration. "Finally." He repeated it as he lifted a bowl from the table, smoke still billowing from its contents, and took a deep breath. For a moment his face seemed to change through the veil of the smoke, his features pulled out into a reptilian shape, eyes glowing red and the shadows of long sharp teeth ghosting over his lip.
Time seemed to freeze then, as our eyes locked and I saw my fear reflected in those insatiable glowing reds. All the strength, what little strength I had preserved, left my body and I sagged against the wall, unable to hold myself up anymore as I Bowed my head in defeat. I didn't understand d what was going on, or if I even had a chance of coming out alive, but I very well knew, that there was nothing I could do.
It was almost a relief to finally admit that I was powerless, that I had been powerless to begin with, and that all the supposed power I had held before, was just a delusion. I only wished I realized that sooner, before I led everyone into disaster.
I closed my eyes as Yao lifted the bowl to his lips, doubtless to drink its contents. I didn't want to see the result of my failure. There was a hissing sound and then I heard rapid tapping, like feet running up stairs, but that couldn't be, and then there was a shout and a scream, and suddenly the magic holding me up dispersed and I flopped unceremoniously to the ground.
There were new voices, shouting and growling, but the sudden drop to the ground had my head spinning and I found it hard to focus on anything. Someone screamed again and I heard a loud and clear 'Nooooo', that sounded suspiciously like Yao, but that couldn't be, he got what he wanted, why would he scream no.
A hand was in my hair and it took me a moment to realize it was my own, dragging through the strands in an attempt to calm the raging headache that had erupted behind my temple.
"Lukas, are you alright?" Someone was there right beside me, pulling my hands away from my face, and I had to blink a few times before my vision was clear enough to recognize them.
"Vash?" I couldn't believe it. And there behind Vash was Berwald, struggling with what appeared to be Yao, only his contours were distorted, as if he had been stopped mid transformation. Kiku lied unconscious on the floor, blood matting the strands of his hair.
"Why are you here?" I asked as Vash pulled me to my feet, voice scratchy in my throat.
"The guards turned on Arthur and his men, shortly after you left. I figured that there was something off and that you would be at the heart of the storm by now. So here we are, cavalry barging in with guns blazing."
"What about Mathias?" I couldn't hide the anxiety from my voice, but there was a flash of understanding in Vash's eyes.
"He's fine. He managed to crash land outside of the palace and Gilbert's got his back."
Relief flooded me, pure and infinite relief. Mathias was fine and Gilbert out there meant that Ludwig was fine too.
"You two, get out of here." Berwald shouted, pressing Yao up against the wall, but he had a hard time holding on as Yao struggled out of his grip. "I'll hold him off."
"You will pay for this." Yao growled, clasping his hand around Berwald's arm and pushing him, slowly but inevitably, away from him. "It was almost done, almost, and you interrupted the ritual." He threw Berwald off with one vicious shove and Vash and I had to actually duck out of the way not to get hit by him.
"Look at me now. I am a monstrosity and you did that."
"You were going to transform in here? How well did you think that would have worked?" I spat, laying all my frustration in my voice. It was certainly not the right thing to say in this situation, but I didn't care. The snarl that pushed out of Yao's contorted mouth was enough satisfaction for me. At this point, all I wanted was to make him suffer for what he put me through.
"Don't mock me, human. You know nothing. I was going to be generous and let you live but now I will bleed you out until you are nothing but a dry husk." He launched himself forward, and it was all thanks to Vash's inhumanly quick reflexes that he didn't impale me with his claws. A gunshot echoed through the room and Yao screeched, but the bullets only stopped him for the seconds it took him to claw them out of his chest, before he whipped around to resume his attack.
I scrambled backwards, but there was a wall behind me and I instinctively cowered behind my arms, knowing very well that they would do nothing to protect me. I braced for an impact that never happened. Berwald had barreled into Yao at the last second, deterring his trajectory enough for him to crash into the wall next to me, shaking the whole building in the process.
"Lukas, get out. NOW." Vash commanded and aimed his guns again, shooting past Berwald's shoulder right into Yao's forehead. It would have been too easy, of course, for that to stop him, but it got me enough time to scramble my way to the stairwell that led down and I dived head first trough it, bracing my descent with my hands but I scraped more than just a bit of skin.
The room above me seemed to explode in gunfire and bodies slamming into walls and I was torn between fleeing and staying to help with the fight. I knew that I wouldn't be of much help, but it just felt so wrong to just leave like that. I had left too many people to die already, I couldn't bear to do it again.
It was a groan that made the decision for me. Matthew lied right next to the edge of the stairs, eyes halfway open as he tried to focus on me. Without much thinking I grabbed his shoulders and pulled him down after me. After all I couldn't find it in me to be mad at him, for being fooled by Yao just like I had been. At least he deserved to be saved.
"No." Matthew gripped my shirt, pulling me down. "You need… stop… blood… only you." It was hard to make out the words as Matthew was still suffering from the effects of whatever it was that Kiku did to him.
"What do you mean?" I realized what he was trying to tell me, I needed to stop Yao, but I just had no clue how. "How can I stop him, how?" I realized I had my hands grasped into Matthew's shirt and I carefully released him, to give him more room.
"The bowl… blood… bowl." Matthew coughed, his eyes going out of focus as he slumped down. I swallowed hard as another crash sounded from above. I had enough of all these second hand fights that were going on around me while I could only listen. I neither knew what Matthew had been trying to tell me exactly, nor how he even possessed that knowledge, but I damn well knew that it was time to do something.
I peeked over the edge of the stairs, Berwald was pinned down by Yao and tried desperately to fend off his claws, while Vash fumbled to reload the one gun that remained to him, the other lying bent and useless in the corner. The bowl was on the floor next to the table, a long crack running down its side and I swallow again. Hopefully I would know what to do with it once I reached the bowl. Or else…
I shook off the thought and the doubts that threatened to immobilize me and then I surged forward, keeping my eyes straight on target, ignoring Vash's protest and the feral growl that emanated from the two fighting dragons.
I stumbled over a piece of debris that had been lying on the ground and my hands screamed in protest as I fell on my already scraped off palms, but I shoved the pain away to where I had stored my fear. I scrambled the rest of the way on my hands and knees and then my hands finally closed around the bowl. But then I hit a dead end.
I still didn't know what to do with it. The bowl wasn't completely empty, there was clotted blood inside the bowl, mixed with what looked like burnt herbs and a small grey stone that looked like- never mind it was a bone that looked suspiciously like a human finger. I felt sick, and that wasn't entirely because of the biting smell that still lingered around the bowl.
I tried to recall what I knew about magic, especially blood magic, but unfortunately I came up mostly blank. Blood was pure potency, it was the essence of life, but the very key to blood magic was sacrifice. In this case it was either the human bone or the blood Yao had taken from me, probably both.
To undo Yao's magic I would need to undo the sacrifice, and that meant…
I didn't know if I should hope that I was wrong or if that was really the solution to this problem. But either way I had no other choice, doing nothing was definitely the worst I could be doing right now, even though it was a long shot to begin with.
But oh god, couldn't I just throw away the bone and hope that it would do the trick? But it wouldn't be this easy, it was never this easy. I prayed, to whatever deity was out there, that this would work, that I was right, because if it wasn't , that meant that we were officially screwed.
Oh God, please let this work.
...
A/N: We're nearing the end my dears, only two more chapters and then an Epilogue. And don't worry, contrary to popular belief, I will not kill everyone. I'm not that evil, okay maybe I am, but I still won't kill everyone. Just one half of your OTPs muahahaha.
Just kidding.
Okay now I feel bad, because I did kill two halves of two OTPs :/
Sorry about that.