Endless Waltz, part 8: "Intermission"

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Jiece nearly ripped the door of the combatants' waiting area off its hinges as he nearly collapsed into a seat in the back. Rinn looked over to his sweating, gasping form and cocked an eyebrow. "Tough fight?"

Gasp wheeze "Shut… up…" cough.

"Figured so…"

Naru and Paris came into the room soon afterwards and seated themselves amongst their two other classmates. Naru was the first to submit an outburst. "Four letter word… it's what I currently am… guess."

"Dead?"

"Hurt, actually, but not a bad guess. Those guys are friggin' impossible to top."

Rinn turned his body to match the direction of his head, facing Naru. "Who'd you go up against again?"

Naru craned her neck upwards and leaned back a bit, grabbing the bottom of the bench to keep her balance. "Um… let me think for a bit. I think it was that group of three that they have…"

Rinn slumped a bit and gave her a "are you serious?" kind of look. "We're all split into groups of three, Naru; I don't really think that what you just said really qualifies as a description."

FWAP!

"Ow!" Rinn gasped as he rubbed the aching side of his face. "Where the hell did you get a poorly made and thought out fan?!"

"Pocket."

"I meant originally."

"Oh! Jiece gave it to me… I think it makes him feel somehow adequate when I actually use it."

Jiece flopped out of his chair and onto the floor, face first. The other three denizens of the room looked at his half-dead form for a bit before he finally raised a finger with a very small burst of strength. "I heard that…"

Rinn turned back to Naru. "Why is Jiece like that, exactly?"

"Why do you ask me?"

Rinn and Naru both looked at Jiece for just a bit longer after that. At this point he had somehow moved into the coolest and darkest corner of the room while remaining in the same face-down position. "Sleep…" he muttered as he curled up into a small bard-sphere.

"Somehow…" Rinn began as he looked away, "I don't think I'll get much of a response."

Naru nodded in agreement. "Guess not. Well, the thing is, he just suddenly went completely blank on us. One minute he was slashin' up a storm with that rapier of his and when we needed a bard spell, he just… failed. Not really sure why. Did you notice anything weird?" She finished up the statement by turning the table over to Paris, leaning on a support beam about three feet away from Naru.

Paris looked up from her feet and shook her head, "Nothing unusual, no."

Rinn temporarily lost his mind from the conversation to think a bit about the three who had recently entered the room. When he had first met Jiece, he was much like Trent, only he also seemed to have a lack of morale values… but then, Rinn thought, when the time to save Aran and Verikk from Alucard came around, Jiece jumped on willingly. This sudden lapse in enthusiasm seemed very odd to Rinn.

Then there's Naru, he thought. She was some kind of energetic meet-and-greet machine not too long ago… glad she cooled down now that we've all become so easy-going around each other.

Of course, Rinn continued, if anyone has been changing over the time we've been here, it's Paris. I can remember a time when that question Naru just asked would've been answered with an 'um… well, I… err…' It's nice to see that some people are warming up as opposed to cooling down.

But wait, I wonder if I've gone through any kind of process like this… that's kind of a weird thing to think. "I guess it'd be kind of hard to figure out."

Naru and Paris both eyed Rinn quizzically, which he did not understand before realizing his last sentence was said out loud. "Oh!" he said, "the, uh, reason for Jiece's sudden loss of musical skill, I mean. It'd be pretty hard to figure out how or why that happened, yeah…" Nice.

Rinn continued off of his rather blatant lie wondering why he even bothered to cover it up in the first place. "Have any of you guys seen Aran or Trent? Or Jackson, Dieh, and Mina for that matter?"

"Well, let me see… I think I saw Mina and Jackson in the crowd… they were particularly exuberant." Naru rolled her eyes as she remembered seeing a giant "thumbs-up" sign made of fire coming from Jackson's staff in the middle of her group's match. "But as for Trent and Aran, those two are your responsibility. Has Aran still not come back from his 'unfinished business'?"

"No, that's the strange thing… I just wonder what he went off to do."

"You don't wonder what Trent went off to do?"

Rinn stared blankly at Naru for about 20 seconds before he replied, "This is Trent we're talking about…" he said with a smirk, "he could be doing anything from making brownies to tracking down ghosts."

"Heh, I guess you have a good point."

Without warning, Jiece slumped his arms over the seat next to Naru and pulled himself up, speaking as he did so. "You know what…" he said, pausing to cough up what seemed to be a large wad of dust, "this place sucks for sleeping in."

"Why? Too much dust?"

Jiece used up his remaining strength and body weight to weakly slap Rinn's shoulder as he fell again. "No, too many dragons…"

"Right, Jiece… you actually might want to go back to the dorms, then… I hear we've been dragon free for two months now."

"Shut it." Jiece snapped as he sluggishly moved towards the door, "I was being sarcastic…"

Out of a combination of good timing, boredom, and curiosity, Rinn quietly cast a "sight" spell and stifled a laugh. Naru leaned over to him. "Did I miss something?"

Rinn quietly turned to her and whispered, making sure to be out of earshot of Jiece. "You won't in a sec, just watch the door." And sure enough, just as Jiece was about to reach for the knob…

K'THUNK!

Trent swung the door open with tremendous force, crushing Jiece between it and the wall. "Whatsup, mates?"

No one spoke, especially the now-unconscious Jiece, as Trent made his way over to the empty space between Naru and Rinn. This was mostly due to the fact that Trent had bent his sword and "extra sword" into barbed hook-shaped blades, which were attached to long chains, and had wrapped said chains around his wrists, keeping the blades close at hand. This was especially odd considering that he was wearing a stylish black fedora hat and sunglasses, completely with a blue suit and bright red tie. Rinn was the first to break the silence.

"I know we're all thinking it, so I'll just go ahead… what the hell are you wearing?"

"Combination of God of War, Phoenix Wright, and Elite Beat Agents… I don't understand it, and I don't want to. The fact is that I'm here for the match now, and I intend to fight beside you and Aran with the utmost diligence and spirit!"

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Author comment: If this was an anime, this is the part where everyone but Trent suddenly gets a really exaggerated and silly expression to show how ridiculous what just happened was.

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"Wow, Trent… that was actually… really well thought out."

"Yeah, I read it on a forum post before I came back… what does it mean?"

"Right, nevermind."

The conversation ended for a moment as everyone went off in their separate thoughts. This excluded Jiece, of course, as he was still unconscious and most likely bleeding internally.

Well that's weird… then again, that's Trent, thought Rinn. I wonder if Jiece is okay, anyway. Feh, Aran can do something about it when he gets back, I don't really feel like getting up. Actually, maybe I should do something… Naru might be worried. Wait, what am I saying? If Naru was in the slightest bit worried, she wouldn't have laughed when he got hit, and wouldn't be sitting calmly here right now.

But wait, should she be? They are technically goin' out, after all. Or wait, are they? They never really have actually gone out… then again; we're not aloud outside the school grounds unless it's a school trip. Wait, how did I even get on this subject? I thought I was worried about Jiece… or was Naru worried about Jiece? No wait, I remember, no one is worried, right… then why am I reassuring myself about this? Why am I asking myself questions about myself? Shouldn't I know this stuff about me? Wait, that was a question too!

Rinn clutched the side of his head in the pain of confusion. Ugh, great, now I've got a headache… that's exactly what I need before it's my turn in the arena. Especially considering that we're down by two points here. One more and we're gone… that sucks. And come to think of it, I'm not even that confident about this! Aran's gone and Trent is… Trent.

Damnit.

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"You!" Aran backed up nervously as he faced his sworn enemy: his own father.

"Me." Yazoo said with a feint smile.

"What the hell are you doing here and what's it going to take for me to get you out?!" Aran raised his fists, still without a staff.

"Aran, is that any way to greet your father?"

"You're no father to me, demon!"

At this Yazoo began to laugh heartily. "Demon?" he managed to ask, almost out of breath from laughter, "honestly? Do not forget that you are demon as well, boy."

Aran's eyes widened as his guard dropped slightly. He ground his teeth together and straightened himself out. "Not anymore, 'Dad', Alucard's presence has left me for good… and to prove it, look for yourself." Aran pulled down the neck of his shirt to reveal his neck. "I'm not wearing that accursed collar, and I'm still in control of myself."

"Dear boy… control? You think you have any sort of grasp on your own mind?"

Hmph… "Enough to warn you that if you take even one step towards me, I'll have to show you just how strong I've become without the collar!"

Just to push Aran for the fun of it, Yazoo took exactly one step towards his son. Aran lashed out at him with his bare hand, formed into a claw strike with every intention of going for the heart. Yazoo dodged to the side without a trace of an effort, putting a gun to the back of Aran's head and another to his heart. "You have no idea how pathetic you really are…" he said, pressing the gun barrel near Aran's heart closer, "and yet you have no idea what you're capable of."

"What are you talking about…?" Aran said through clenched teeth, consumed with rage, "you son of a b-!"

Click.

Yazoo interrupted him by jabbing the gun barrel roughly into his neck. "I believe that insult applies more directly to you, son."

At this Aran snapped. Both guns immediately crumbled themselves into small metallic lumps and were flung across the hall with amazing speed, landing with a quiet "clack" far away. Aran turned around quickly and elbowed Yazoo in the stomach with a force that almost caused Yazoo's spine to shatter, sending him rocketing into the wall behind them. With a loud crash and explosion of darkened rubble, Yazoo hit the wall with enough force to create a small crater.

Yazoo clawed his way out of the hole to discover that the intended reaction had taken place. Aran stood before him, his hair several shades darker and eyes now black with white pupils. The stones beneath him began to rot as a dark aura surrounding him slowly became more and more powerful. Yazoo could feel an immense pressure on his ribcage, which began to spread to the other bones of his body as though they were all being very tightly gripped by an unknown force.

"You…" Aran said slowly, speaking in three voices. One voice was that of Aran as he normally was. The second was calm, though, and seemed to radiate the wisdom of enlightenment as it spoke. The third, however, fluctuated rapidly. It seemed like the voice itself, not the host, was driven completely insane with bloodlust; lashing out randomly with a harshness unlike the other two. "You are my enemy. You killed my real father. You killed thousands of my brethren. You brought misery upon countless others. You ruined me."

Yazoo smirked as a small stream of blood began to flow from the corner of his lip. "I made you."

And then it was over in a matter of three seconds.

Aran lashed out with the same claw-hand strike to the heart, this time connecting. Aran felt his hand puncture the frail outer layer of Yazoo's skin and pass through his ribcage, clenching his hand around Yazoo's still-beating heart. This took one second.

With a quick pull-back, Aran had taken the vital organ from his father's body, leaving him to clutch at the empty gap in excruciating pain. Blood poured freely from the once-occupied space and left Yazoo's body in a matter of seconds. However, his death was near instantaneous. This took one second.

Aran suddenly blacked out and fell over, slumped over the form of his deceased father. His features lightened once more and his breathing stopped, if only for a second.

After a minute had passed, Yazoo opened his eyes and stood up, brushing himself off. "Thank god I don't need that thing… good work, Original."

The Original stepped out from the darkness and holstered the stun rifle he had just used on Aran, though it had enough power to take down a bull elephant. "This better have been worth it."

Yazoo smiled as he looked down at his son's limp form. "Oh trust me, it is… now that we've finally brought out the remaining darkness into his common form, he should have power far beyond even our comprehension. Come very soon, Aran will be useful to us… you just wait and see."

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And that's about it for now, folks. I'm back from camp and such, and that was fun as hell to write right there… so I think I'm more or less on a roll. Hopefully I'll be seeing you guys again soon.

Cheers, Jiece.