"Neither of you will interfere with Reeve's plans." James told them as the bay door closed on the plane in which they were located.
Both chevaliers were obviously upset that they could not assist their queen, but it was an undeniable truth that she was on her own now. At least until the planes set down at whatever location they were headed to.
"What is Reeve Roswell planning?" Solomon asked of James, who had yet to change back to human form.
"His intentions are of no consequence to you; now that you are separated from her, your part in this is over."
"You will tell us what he intends to do to Saya." Solomon spoke, threatening to attack James once more.
"There is no point in the three of us fighting anymore; it has lost all meaning. Now that Saya is alone, the last part of his plan shall go into effect."
"What do you mean?"
James' monstrous form began to shrink and his skin began to look less like armor.
Ultimately, he returned to his human form, and he stood up as straight as he could.
"Now it will all end. Prepare yourselves; this tiresome, pointless war will finally come to a close."
"Tell me, do you really believe that humans deserve to be saved?" Reeve asked Saya as he sheathed his katana and walked a few steps towards her; it did not bear much significance, as there were yards in-between them.
"I told you once before; I have to fight to protect humans from chiropterans."
"But why?" He questioned her.
Her eyes narrowed in suspicion.
"What do you mean?"
"There is no such thing as a "have to" beyond death. Not one thing in this world has an obligation to do anything; the only difference is that humans delude themselves into believing that they 'must do this' or that they 'have to do that'. In reality, they merely aren't willing to accept the responsibility of making a decision."
The glowing hue of his eyes ceased as he continued.
"The fact that you are delusional enough to believe in the fallacies of human beliefs just goes to show how far gone you are. However, it doesn't need to be that way; you don't have to continue fighting on the humans' side. You can come over to the side on which you belong-"
"Stop."
He ceased his movement, as well as his talking, at her command.
"Solomon once tried to get me to join the chiropteran side, and I told him the same thing I'll tell you; I will kill chiropterans to protect humans. And that is my decision."
At first Reeve just looked disappointed, but then he sighed.
"There really is no way to open your eyes, is there?"
Diva's eyes widened slightly as something took hold of her. Before she knew it, she had been thrown into the cabin, and the door had been closed and locked behind her from the cargo bay.
Saya sensed an opening, and began to rush forward, but Reeve suddenly whipped around, his eyes glowing with both energy and anger as he yelled at her.
"You fool! All of this is your own fault! You claim that you have to fight, that you don't want to do this, but that it is necessary! But that's bullshit! You're the one that played out the events that led to the chiropterans and humans becoming more than just different species; you are the war between them made manifest. Your unending ignorance and infinite amount of naiveté, coupled with your everlasting life typifies the continuity of this idiotic war!"
Saya stopped in her tracks, once again overcome by the shear intensity of his hatred.
"It was you who released Diva from her cell, and it was you that didn't stay with her after she was released, allowing her to be led around by that bastard Amshel like a child raised by a madman. You're the one that chased her for hundreds of years with no thought of trying to help her, but only to kill her; to clean her up like some kind of accidental spill. But she is not some random source of ignorance for you to prey upon and I am not going to allow you to continue this destructive little tantrum of yours!"
He threw his sheathed sword across the bay, into the wall of the cabin as his left hand tensed and caused his knuckles to crack.
"I do not tolerate either ignorance or weakness! If Diva's change is not enough for you and the world, then I will change you and the world for Diva!"
He lunged across the cargo bay and struck at her sword with his claw, forcing the girl back several feet. As she readied herself again she saw that he was facing down towards the floor.
The young man felt something drip from his eyes and looked up at her again.
"I refuse…" He spoke, his voice vacant of anger now.
"I refuse to allow you or anyone else to continue putting her through all of this pain and suffering when all she wants to do is be happy and be loved."
Saya was shaking now, but he imagined it had nothing to do with either fear or anger. The girl drew a hand up her blade, coating it in her blood once more as he brought up his left hand.
There were a few moments of relative silence, though they could both hear Diva trying to get through the cabin door. It was fortunate that he had not given her a large amount of blood today, otherwise she would have easily been able to do so. It was also fortunate because one way or another, one of the people whom she loved was going to die.
A large drop of blood on Saya's sword slid down it, silently descending towards the tip of the blade. The seconds seemed longer and it looked as if the blood was moving slower and slower as time passed. Finally, it dripped from the sword onto the floor, and they leapt at each other.
In the air steel met diamond, though Saya had learned from the last time they "fought" that she should not strike with the sharp side of the blade, as it would just become dull, so instead she had struck with the blunt side. She was using both hands, but Reeve was outright naturally stronger, so it was quite an even match for a few seconds, before he leaned back on his left leg, brought the right one up, bent it, and side-kicked the girl in stomach, likely crushing her intestines for a few moments. Saya stumbled back, just barely keeping her sword up
"That can't be the extent to which you're willing to fight." He spoke in admonishment.
Somehow Saya struggled to her feet, and readied herself again.
"Do you know where we're headed?" He asked her.
"Why does it matter?" She asked in a cough."You'll find out soon enough."
Reeve speared forward, stopping just out of range of her attack as she slashed horizontally, and then he stepped towards the girl, grabbing her arm with both hands and going beneath it to end up on her other side. He pulled up on her arm, causing the girl to resist, and then pulled down sharply, dislocating her arm, causing her to cry out in pain, and making her drop her sword in the process, before he swept her legs out from under her with one of his own. He drew up a leg into the air, covering his pelvis with a hand to protect it as he did so, and then brought his heel down like an axe onto her chest, easily crushing the bones and organs within before he pulled his foot off of her.
"… how disappointing." He spoke solemnly as he began to walk away, back towards the cabin. As he did so, however, he heard Saya getting up.
"So this is how you fight; your enemies aren't willing to kill you so you just keep getting up every time they refuse to finish you off and continue attacking them until you eventually get in a lucky hit."
"You can say whatever you'd like about me. About how I am, or how I live." She spoke, using her sword to help push herself up.
"But I have to continue fighting. Too much has happened for me to just lay down my sword or my life, regardless of whether what you say is true or not."
He turned back to face her.
"This is all my fault, which is why I must continue fighting, for as long as I can."
"If that is the way that you truly feel… then you are far more pathetic than I had imagined. That you live for no reason other than to fight for something which will never be fixed shows your commitment to mindless fighting to avoid any true hardship; you would rather lose friends and family than accept true responsibility."
Her face was stone.
"Then if you find yourself responsible for everything brought about by the existence of chiropterans, does that mean you'll accept the wrath I've gathered since I became part of this 'war'?"
Saya did not respond.
"I'll take that as a yes." He said, bringing up his transformed hand and looking at it. The thing was the mark of how much he'd been eaten away since he'd become part of this species. It was his reminder of what he had suffered, and how low he'd fallen. More than anything else though, it was a symbol of his hatred. And he had stored all of his hatred in it since the day he was cursed with the thing.
He gazed at it a few moments longer, and then it began to tremble, and his jaw clenched. And he glared at the girl as if he were an animal. Despite the resoluteness in her gaze even she flinched when he turned his gaze back upon was gone. He had been standing in front of the cabin door not a second ago, but in half of that he had crossed the space between them and struck the sword from her hands before she could so much as ready it. Before the girl could even realize what he'd done his right hand leapt up and grabbed her by the throat, lifting her up into the air as it did so. The girl choked as her breath was forced from her lungs, and soon saliva was being coughed out by her with the air. He could have killed her then and there, but not yet…
"That's all?" He spat at her before throwing the girl into another wall of the carrier plane, just barely controlling himself enough so that it wouldn't rupture. It did, however, create an immense dent in the heavy metal, and when Saya rolled down to the ground in a heap she had barely begun to feel nauseous before he was above her.
His left hand grabbed for her back, the pure carbon of it naturally going through both her skin and her muscle and creating makeshift "handholds" in her body as he gripped her spine and threw her back across the cargo bay, causing the girl to skid along the hard metal surface of the floor.
He glared at her as she crawled away from him, still vainly trying to reach her sword. It filled him with disgust; she was just like an ant, an ant which didn't know how to do anything other than it was told, even if it was made evident that it would fail.
"It's not just you…" He spoke, his voice gruff.
"This entire world is filled with nothing but noise; chaff; wastes of space which serve to do nothing more than consume resources and put them into mindlessly killing others and continuing their own disgusting bloodlines. They do so without thought and without consideration. One might even say they are no different than bugs."
Saya reached her sword and turned back towards him, but she was still on the floor, and her look of determination was equally mixed with fear.
"You realize that you are going to die; that I can kill you at any time. And yet you continue to fight. For what reason? Because you 'have' to? Or because something told you to? Regardless, for all of your genetic superiority over humans, you think for yourself no more than they do."
Saya rose, and brought her sword up again, not saying a word.
"I'll crush you. Burn you. You'll be reduced to nothing but ash! And the human race along with you! And from that otherwise useless ash shall arise a world full of people that will think for themselves, live forever, and have an infinite resource supply from which to draw. It won't be until then that the world will be free of its albatrosses and will finally be able to once again continue to evolve itself."
The girl paid him no heed, and began to charge, her wounds already healed.
"But to do that…"
She swung her sword at him, only for Reeve's left hand to catch it and force the base of the blade dull.
"You have to go first."
Saya had just enough time to widen her eyes before Reeve's palm thrust into her chest and sent her hurtling through the door of the cabin, and into the pilot's control console, rendering the part which she had collided with inoperable.
Diva was standing not a foot from the doorway, and gazed at him, but his eyes only looked at Saya, still glowing like blazing fires, demanding the naïve and worthless girl's sacrifice.
His eyes drifted upwards, and a grin flashed across his face as he realized they were heading for a city. Upon this realization he widened his stance, and rooted himself to the floor. He closed his eyes and waited patiently as the cargo plane headed on a crash course for the middle of the city, and towards the end of the war.
