Lyn: Thanks so much for your regular reviews they are keeping me going lol. There will be a little sneaky something about Fujima in the epilogue so please look forward to that. On with the showdown! It's a bit of a rollercoaster so fasten your seatbelt ;D
Kaede4ever: Thanks so much for reading along I'm so glad you're excited for the ending. Haha I really love the hanaru in this fic I could write about it all day. Such a screwed up relationship. I recently realised that you could actually read this whole fic as a metaphor for a rape-victim's battle against depression/suicide. But maybe I'm thinking too deep about it? Anyway, do enjoy!
Demon
Chapter 12
I believe in you. I can show you that.
I can see right through all your empty lies.
I won't stay long in this world so wrong.
Say goodbye
As we dance with the devil tonight.
(Breaking Benjamin - Dance with the Devil)
Footfalls. Sandals in the grass. Pacing right. Left. Circling. The world was silent all around.
Just waiting.
Concentration ran like a rod of tension, weighing down upon the air like a thunderstorm.
Grass slapped flat. The air as it cried out, parted, drawing silent as it closed once again.
It seemed so odd that in this dead and silent sphere, such intense chaos could be concentrated into such a small space. A ball of tension, straining under the pressure, crackling with short bursts of violence.
Above, Sendoh observed numbly, the winter sun had passed its low apex. It continued towards the west. He wondered which among them there and now would be privileged enough to see it set.
He tracked the clouds that moved aching through the paleness. Their slowness was something soothing to his eyes. For any time he tried to focus on the movement occurring directly before him, his mind and body reeled. He could not process this. It was beyond his understanding.
The dragon.
At war with the phoenix.
The pitch sword made a thrust and Sendoh felt the knife of wind it made in its movement like a blade against his chest. He wobbled a little where he knelt, frustrated by his immobility, yet knowing that even had he been free he could not have taken a single step. He could not even tell which of these two primal forces had the upper hand. He could not follow anything that was going on, except that any time they did break apart he saw that each was intensely focused. Contained in a world that was only them and their swords and one another and their winding history that stretched beyond Sendoh's comprehension.
Sakuragi slowly lifted his hand to wipe away the blood that dribbled from a cut on his cheek. He looked irritated. Rukawa flicked his sword absent-mindedly, sending a few black droplets to dash against the grass.
Then he raised Akira again and for a short moment, paused.
Then he was gone.
Sakuragi went left, anticipating somehow the path that Akira was making, deflecting the attack that came at him like lightning. He went up and Rukawa went under, the whirl of feathered wings sending a blast of dust and dry grass up from the floor. The swords crashed into one another once twice three four five times in the split second of their passing. And then Sakuragi had retreated to the further side of the grass, and Rukawa was crouched there in the dust, a tiger waiting to pounce, adjusting Akira with one efficient snap of his wrist. His empty eyes remained fixed on the demon before him.
Sakuragi stretched out his shoulders and scowled.
"You're too dependent on your speed," he said provokingly. "You won't beat me."
Rukawa didn't answer but moved, too fast for Sendoh to follow, leaping at Sakuragi with one sweeping blast of his wings. Sendoh could only suck in his breath. With every pass, every lightning exchange of tortured steel, his anxiety rose to a fever. He clenched his fists and felt his heart twist in his chest.
Everything tilted on a knife edge in those deadly quick exchanges. The smallest mistake... the smallest error... and everything could fall apart.
Please let him be safe.
Please, please just let him be safe.
The two adversaries ricochetted apart almost as soon as they connected. Rukawa was sent hurtling backwards through the air under the force of Sakuragi's swing, snapping his brilliant white wings out to slow his motion. Sakuragi, less elegant, crashed heavily against the trunk behind him. He lifted his hand to grip his upper arm tightly with a snarl. This time blood dripped out from between his fingers and his eyes darkened to a sunset red.
Sendoh took in the sight of the wound uncertainly. The black liquid that dripped silently from Sakuragi's fingertips. Afraid to even think what it might mean.
A spark of hope seemed to ignite in his gut. Until this moment he had only been forcing himself to believe - telling himself to trust in Kaede because there had been no other choice. But deep down he'd always been afraid to allow himself to hope.
But Akira had landed true. Sakuragi bled while Kaede was unharmed. Was it possible? That Kaede was stronger? That Kaede could actually... win? It seemed dangerous and reckless to even think it.
Kaede did not waste time savouring his upper hand. He hit a tree feet first, bending to a crouch before propelling himself back towards Sakuragi.
Irritation flickered over Sakuragi's face at Rukawa's persistence. Before Rukawa had time to reach him he had already lifted his sword in one hand and swung it from a distance.
Sendoh's eyes saw the moment in time when Kaede changed direction. It must have been a very near miss because he tripped and practically rolled aside, abandoning his pass as Sakuragi's attack snapped right by his ear. He dug Akira into the ground like an anchor as his speed threatened to carry him away, sliding several feet across the grass before he stopped and looked up at the demon in confusion.
Sakuragi was still standing by the distant tree pressing hard upon his bleeding arm. His feet had not moved, and yet his attack had stretched nearly the full length of the grass. Far further than his blade should have been able to reach. And the reason for that was that the heavy iron greatsword in his hands was gone, and instead Sakuragi held a coiled black whip.
For a moment Sendoh could make no sense of it.
Sakuragi smirked, his red eyes slowly diffusing to brown. "You won't beat me in speed," he boasted.
The sword had changed, Sendoh realised finally. Skipjack wasn't gone at all. It was still there, in Sakuragi's hand. The whip.
Rukawa's face too showed his surprise. Not even Kaede had known, it seemed, that Skipjack could change shape in much the way Sakuragi could.
Sendoh's heavy sense of misgiving returned. What number of tricks did Sakuragi have up his sleeve? Was it naive to assume they'd even began to brush against the limits of his strength?
Sakuragi raised the whip again, bringing a strange dancing life into the black coils of steel as if it were a living thing, and with one wide swing he sent it snapping towards Kaede.
It whistled through the air with a noise like claws on flint.
Too late to dodge, Kaede took the brunt of the blow on the edge of his sword, but even with two hands on the hilt the force sent him backwards, his feet sliding helplessly across the ground. As the whip recoiled, he set his feet and flexed his wings in expectation of the next swing. But Sakuragi only took his time reeling the whip back into his hand, the same infernal arrogance written into his smirk.
"Tell me," Sakuragi said. "Are you still drawing on the magic to maintain that form, or is this shape a permanent one?" His eyes took on a malicious gleam. "What will happen when I eliminate the source of your power?"
For a moment Sendoh wasn't sure what he meant. Then Sakuragi's eyes turned towards the house.
He lifted the whip in Sendoh's direction and Sendoh felt his heart stutter in his chest.
How strange, that despite the cold and blinding panic which seized him then, he should notice odd things with such clarity. Like the fact that Skipjack was no longer a whip. He saw with some wildly misplaced fascination that the black weaponhad changed again in the blink of an eye, and Sakuragi now held a horned longbow, ebony black, almost as tall as the demon himself, with curled goat-horn tips and a black arrow set with black swan feathers that pointed straight towards Sendoh's heart.
Sendoh swallowed pure fear, tasting his miserable whimper of distress. He tugged at his binds, some deep rooted instinct telling him to dodge aside. But it was futile. He could not move at all.
The arrow loosed.
It was a heartbeat of time. Just one. The pulse of blood in Sendoh's ears throbbed only once. A rapid disjointed terror that rose around the speeding shaft like a scream.
His frantic mind recalled the time Kaede had saved him from Minami's sword. How his senses had spun so fast but his body had been unable to react. That unexpected sound, the snap of Kaede's horrendous wings, and the sword that had never reached him. But this time, Sendoh did not even have time enough to close his eyes.
But Kaede moved fast.
He slammed Akira into the ground with a swing like an axe, and under the sword's blow the earth parted in a long fissure. The wheel turning under Sendoh's knees slowed to a crawl as the sword lit up brightly, drawing upon whatever power remained. The demon arrow slammed into a wall of earth and debris that lifted from the ground like a shield in front of Sendoh, and there it shattered away into nothing.
The earth and stones fell back down to the floor with a sound like rain.
"I see," Sakuragi said in a low, dangerous voice. His eyes had narrowed, fixed on the sword in Kaede's hand. "I had forgotten how irritating the watchers could be."
Sendoh took in a rough, startled breath. He had almost forgotten that the magic in the sword was meant for his protection. That he was, perhaps, the key to Rukawa's victory. Or, seen another way, his achilles heel. He was both Kaede's strength, and his greatest weakness.
Sakuragi slowly lowered the longbow, which melded immediately back to the form of a greatsword. "It's been a long time," Sakuragi admitted, "since I've needed to use Skipjack's many forms." He gave a loose smile and considered the black sword. "I like the greatsword best. It suits me, don't you think? But where's the fun in being restricted?" He held the sword out before him in two hands, dug his fingers into the handle, and physically pulled it apart.
Sendoh saw the solid black steel part down the middle, running liquid for a moment as if it had melted under Sakuragi's strength. It then reformed itself instantly as two separate swords. Twin black katanas which Sakuragi held out, one in each hand.
"Come then," he said to Kaede, the long braid of his hair twisting with his motion. His wings lifted and flexed ominously, arching to their peak, charcoal black and swirling ash. Sendoh was reminded just how large and powerful Sakuragi was. The great demon's lips turned upwards, the sharp glint of his canines pressing against his lips. "Let's make it rain blood," he declared with a venomous smile.
Then he vanished from Sendoh's sight.
His attack came with such speed that Kaede was forced into a hurried defence, his eyes flashing right and left, struggling to follow the paths of both blades at once. He had to cope with far greater complexity than before, and all at a speed that Sendoh could not even see. Not to mention the fact, as Sendoh knew well enough, that one sword did not block two.
One black blade caught a shallow nook on Rukawa's thigh before he could avoid it, silver blood seeping onto his kimono. The other stabbed forward in a concentrated thrust, aiming to pierce the muscle of his shoulder, and Rukawa had no choice but to retreat. He leapt back with a swift beat of his pearl wings, landing lightly, putting a cautious distance between himself and Sakuragi's twin blades, eyeing Sakuragi warily.
Sakuragi gave a mocking snort. "You never were the swordsman Mittchi was," he cracked his neck ominously. "Always second best."
Rukawa ignored the taunt, bending for a brief moment to grip the wound on his thigh.
"You've made a serious mistake, appearing before me in that form Kaede..." Sakuragi continued, squaring himself to where Kaede remained at a distance. "There's no one who can take you back from me this time. Mittchi is just a shadow of what he once was. Kiminobu doesn't have the guts or the resolve. Do you know what I'm going to do to you?" He gestured in a dramatic sweep of his arms, "I'm going to nail you to my wall," he purred, his eyes full of a terrible anticipation. "Right opposite my throne. With a ball between your teeth and a blindfold over your eyes, and your broken wings spread wide." He parted his palms to demonstrate. "I'll pin you there for everyone to see. My rare little butterfly." He licked his lips. "Everyone who sees you hanging there naked and bleeding will know. The story of The Third. Who you are. What you are. That you - are – mine." His final words came out with a snarl, punctuated by the flare of heat around his feet, blackening the grass.
Sendoh felt the threats run over him like hot fingers, pouring into his mind, pooling around his fears like lava, paralysing.
But Kaede only straightened, giving a short impatient tut, and raised his sword once again. He did not seem afraid. Sendoh could not understand how Sakuragi's terrible words could have so little effect on him.
It is because he has always known, he realised with sudden clarity. He has always known the price of his failure.
He has carried this weight all along.
He found himself staring intently at Rukawa. Seeing him anew, all over again. How strong he was. How beautiful. How sad.
He could recall the cool smoothness of his small hand as he'd gripped Sendoh's while they ran from the burning tavern. The intensity of his eyes in the light of the temple kitchen fire. His beauty reflected in the rippled surface of the bath water. His head thrown back against Sendoh's pillow. And then the darkness that always came over him whenever his thoughts had turned to Sakuragi.
Kaede-
"Do you really think you can survive another pass?" Sakuragi's amused taunt interrupted Sendoh's swirling thoughts, causing him to look up again. "Butterfly?"
Kaede only narrowed his eyes, flexing his white wings. Every inch of him thrummed with strength and speed, but still all Sendoh could see was his smallness next to Sakuragi's power. His lightness compared to Sakuragi's strength. His gentleness against Sakuragi's violence.
The demon had been born to his nature. The rage and hate and heat beat through his veins and pulsed in his black heart. Killing came to him like breathing.
But the angel? No. He had been innocent. He had been forced to fight not from instinct but out of a desperate necessity. Beautiful creature who had never been meant to harm a single living thing. Fighting against himself and his own nature just as much as against the foe that stood before him.
Sendoh recalled his words then – I feel like I'm destroying myself. Every time I kill I'm sure I lose something. Some part of me-
It shouldn't be this way. It should never have-
Sendoh bit down hard on his lip, interrupting his own thoughts. What was the point of lamenting the unfairness of fate when reality stood before them?
Don't think like that. He is strong. He can win. He can win. He tried to believe it, but his stomach felt loose with fear.
Sakuragi moved suddenly, bursting forward at ferocious speed, bringing his swords at a wide angle, the hardest attack for Rukawa to block. Rukawa dropped downwards, evading the strike, one hand on the floor to steady himself as Sakuragi's swords passed over his head. But Sakuragi's wings shifted as he anticipated Rukawa's direction, his left hand changing direction in that moment and slicing quickly downwards. Rukawa brought up Akira to block the attack, somehow managing to protect himself as Sakuragi passed. But Sakuragi still had his right hand free, and the second sword came not straight down but from Rukawa's blind side in an arc. A flicker of malicious victory flashed in Sakuragi's violet eyes.
Sendoh did not have time to gasp Kaede's name, but he felt the terror flood through him. A terrible ringing fear seizing up his veins as he saw the disaster about to happen.
But in that second of twisting his body, Rukawa reached out with his left hand as if his palm could block Sakuragi's sword, and his lips... moved.
Sendoh neither heard what he said nor saw what he did, but he felt it. A pulse of energy. Something that passed right through him, into him. Touching something that reverberated in the cavern of his chest.
A... miracle? For a moment he did not know what else it could be.
It was there, he realised in astonishment. The sound, the cadence. Something in Rukawa's unheard voice. The hum. It passed right through him as if Rukawa was speaking directly to his heart. A tune, a song. Something he'd strained for his entire life, but never quite caught with his ears until he'd put his head against Rukawa's chest and heard it in his heartbeat.
"Innocence..?" Sendoh realised in astonishment as the sound pierced him, set his muscles trembling as if he would rise to meet Rukawa's voice.
This is it, Sendoh realised. I can hear it so clearly I…
His eyes widened, something jumping in his chest.
He'd never heard it so perfectly than at that moment. It moved around him, resplendent in light.
And then he knew. The truth. Like some great gear finally slotting into its place. The truth. The winding string of history twisting its a long and bloody trail. And everything connected.
He saw Rukawa's eyes shrouded in his hood. The sword. How Rukawa had pulled him from that burning house and pressed the sword into his small hands. Led him to Anzai's tavern and set his feet upon the only path he'd ever walked. The path that led to this moment.
Sendoh gasped. He knew it even before he saw Innocence shimmer in the long grass and come into Rukawa's hand like she was flying home.
Rukawa's long fingers closed around the hilt, finding their way into the familiar leather, gripping tightly, reaching back into the past. He stabbed upwards ferociously in that one motion, plunging Innocence deep into Sakuragi's side, making use of Sakuragi's own downward motion to force her through his defense.
No, Sendoh realised. This was no miracle. It was the demon lord walking blindly into the trap Rukawa had laid sixteen years before.
Sakuragi let out an awful screech that grated in Sendoh's ears like nails, his body lurching away, Innocence tearing a chunk out of his side.
Rukawa, unbalanced, hit the ground hard and rolled away, somehow maintaining his grip on the two swords, holding them close across his chest.
He rolled to a bumpy stop and was on his feet at once, one sword in each hand, his wings outstretched wide. Perfection.
He rushed back towards the wounded Sakuragi without pause. Without mercy. His eyes focused on nothing but the hole in Sakuragi's defense.
Sakuragi staggered, clutching his side. His shape flickered and blurred. A wolf. A snake. A dragon. Wounded. "That sword," he snarled, the whites of his eyes showing bright. Fighting to recover his balance, to hold his form, struggling to raise Skipjack, his eyes blazing hot so that the grass around his feet curled and blackened in a great circle of his anger, "You gave him your sword!"
Rukawa rushed in upon him without mercy, his eyes cold and hard, his wings a whirl of terror.
The breath seemed to have solidified in Sendoh's chest.
Innocence was the sword of the Third. He'd always known it, somewhere. Deep down. It hadn't made sense to him but it had always been true.
Three swords for three apprentices. Hadn't Mitsui told him on the very first day?
Vengeance. Mercy. Innocence.
Why hadn't he realised?
Sendoh's heart clenched.
...my whole life. Every day since the first day...
...was Kaede there?
Protecting me?
All those near misses and the unnatural good luck that had followed Sendoh throughout his life suddenly made it seem so obvious.
Kaede had saved him the day his parents died. Kaede had protected him every day since. And every moment of pain that had been reflected along Innocence's blade, had been reflected in Kaede's eyes just the same.
And now…
For the first time Sendoh knew he was seeing Rukawa's full most power. His full supernal strength.
"Go-" he whispered, prayed, squeezing his eyes closed. Go. Now. Now. Now!
Innocence split the air like thunder, fast and light, but it was the brilliance crackling down Akira's blade that gave Kaede speed beyond all nature and logic.
Combined, the slayer, the watcher, and the angel, Kaede leapt, his terrible eyes filled with a terrible vengeance, fixed upon the struggling demon before him.
The two swords formed a cross with Sakuragi's neck vulnerable right between them. Rukawa narrowed his eyes and snapped his arms wide, the swords slicing over one another like scissors closing upon Sakuragi's life.
Sakuragi's hand jumped up to his chest, wide-eyed, pressing flat against his heart as if in astonishment.
Then, the house exploded.
Sendoh felt the force of wind slam into his back like a gale.
The world went white, then black. The air... turned... heavy. Thick and slow. Weighing them down. Sendoh blinked but could see nothing.
The space was filled with a terrible buzzing that scratched its way into Sendoh's mind like a thousand furious insects, and Innocence's song was swallowed up in the blistering static.
Everything... slowed.
Then, stopped.
The two swords slicked into Sakuragi's skin, breaking through a thin layer, drawing tiny bulbs of black blood. And there was Sakuragi's dark smile. And flat under his palm, the keys that hung around his neck.
No- Sendoh screamed in silence. His mouth moving in a world devoid of sound.
Kaede- Kaede!
But it was too late.
Out of the gate a twisted dark vine struck out and speared its way through the very centre of Rukawa's beautiful wings like a harpoon.
Feathers lifted and scattered like dust.
Silence.
Caught in the stillness, Kaede's eyes went wide. The world was frozen. Nothing moved.
And then the gate pulsed.
Rukawa took the full force of the gate's energy and was flung the full length of the grass, smashing into a tree, the swords scattering from his hands. He hit the ground hard.
The world seemed to rush back in the void around them. Colour. Sound. Time.
Sakuragi remained still, the twin blades had already reformed into one that he held loosely in his hand. He brought up his fingers to feel the shallow cuts on either side of his neck, smearing the black blood over his skin under his thumb.
"Oh," he breathed. "Oh. That was close."
The gate yawned behind Sendoh, quieting, settling. The violent buzzing faded.
Blood dripped from Sendoh's ears. Every inch of him felt like it had been compressed. Every part of his body crushed under the warping fabric of the gate.
But now it was worse. Because there was an eerie silence. Emptiness. His panicked breathing and wild heartbeat. And the silence.
The sound of Kaede's defeat.
Sendoh stared in disbelief.
No…
A cruel ripple twisted in Sakuragi's low chuckle.
The gate. How had they forgotten the gate? Sakuragi's greatest power had never been in his sword or his strength, but in the keys he wore around his neck.
The demon was laughing now and his eyes were green, his hair long and loose in a cascade of red fire down his back, victorious.
He walked towards Rukawa's crumpled body with slow steps and Sendoh felt the vomit of terror rise in his throat.
"The first time I had you, you were nothing," Sakuragi began, his sandals quiet on the blackened grass. "But look at you now. You are strong enough to contend with me. Perhaps, all things being equal, you might even have won." He reached Rukawa and kicked him roughly onto his back. "But this was never a fair fight. You were never going to win, Kaede."
Rukawa winced, tried to roll over, to get up, but it was clear he was dazed. He had hit his head hard, and silver blood was splattered across the floor around him, and smeared all the way down the trunk of the tree he had hit.
Sakuragi smirked, and stepped deliberately onto one of Rukawa's wings, making him moan weakly. He bent to examine the damage. A hole, nearly a foot across, had been punched straight through the centre of each wing. All blood and feathers. Smearing silver across the floor. Ruined.
"I didn't want to do damage like this," Sakuragi lamented. "But knowing your strength now, perhaps it's for the best."
He reached out to idly sooth some of the ruffled and broken feathers, as if doing so might fix the horrendous wound. Then he casually gripped the bone at the top of the wing and pulled it upwards against the weight of his foot until it snapped.
The sound of that bone breaking cut its way into Sendoh like a knife.
This couldn't be happening. This wasn't right. This-
Rukawa arched and twisted as the pain broke him out of his concussion, a cry rising on his lips, his eyes widening with shock. Sakuragi dropped the broken wing carelessly, and it fell limp, with a sickening bent upon the ground. Rukawa moved weakly, clutching desperately at the grass, still fighting to rise, gasping through the pain.
"Beautiful..." Sakuragi observed, and dropped to his knees, straddling Rukawa's chest. "Look at that pain. I could watch you forever..." he leaned forward and twisted his fingers tightly into Rukawa's hair, pulling his head back to better admire the expression of agony on his face. "What am I saying?" he chided himself with a smirk, "I will."
No, no, no! Sendoh was screaming in his mind. He had been so close. So close-
Sakuragi released Rukawa's hair and with one hand on his neck shoved him hard back against the floor until he choked. Then he grasped his wrists, forcing them up together above his head against the ground, leaving him prone. Rukawa twisted and kicked beneath him, but he had no strength against Sakuragi.
"Stay still, butterfly," Sakuragi smirked. He reached again for Skipjack, except now, Sendoh saw, it was a sharpened spear, long and thin with a jagged razor-sharp point.
His eyes dancing with delight, Sakuragi lifted the spear high, and then stabbed the point down, straight through the centre of Rukawa's palms. The weapon went deep into the ground below.
Silver blood flooded from Rukawa's impaled hands and he gave a gasp and a cry that ended when Sakuragi placed his hands around his throat and squeezed tightly until he was silenced.
Then Sakuragi sat up and looked down on him with an affectionate smile as Rukawa twitched and shuddered with the pain. "You don't know how long I've wanted this..." his hands trailed down Rukawa's trembling chest and began to play with the obi at his waist. "Savour this," he instructed. "Because these are the last clothes you'll ever wear."
He sliced the obi apart with one long claw.
Rukawa hiccupped fearfully, his eyes moving unfocused as Sakuragi ran his razor-sharp nails up over his throat and over his lips.
"Oh-" Sakuragi crooned quietly. "The things I am going to do to you…"
Rukawa could do nothing but tremble beneath him.
Sendoh felt something inside him die.
He sagged in his binds, his head dropping. He did not think he could watch. But he hated himself for looking away. If Sakuragi was going to rape Kaede, was he so selfish as to wish he didn't have to see? Was it selfish to hope that it would happen beyond his sight and beyond his hearing? That that would somehow be better?
He forced himself to crack open one eye, only to see Sakuragi's long claws slide lovingly around Kaede's throat and squeeze softly, his eyes shining gold.
"Hanamichi-" Kaede managed to gasp weakly around Sakuragi's tight grip.
"Yes, my love?" Sakuragi bent down tenderly, brushing the tip of his nose affectionately against Kaede's, his thin snake-like tongue flickering out against Kaede's lips. Kaede took a rough and desperate drag of air.
"Let him go," he rasped.
Sendoh froze cold.
Sakuragi smiled at him for a moment before straightening up again, his knees digging hard into his wings to hold him down. He turned his head in amusement to consider Sendoh.
"Ah yes," he replied as if just remembering. "I was hoping that you would beg. Do not disappoint me now my sweet. What-" he let his claws run affectionately over Rukawa's cheek, scoring three fine cuts into his skin. "-what would you pay? In exchange for one mortal life?"
No, Kaede- Sendoh felt a spark of fury twist up his throat, but he could do nothing. Could not save him from this situation nor force Sakuragi's wicked hands away from his neck or remove the terrible spear through his hands nor fix his broken wings. He could do nothing. Say nothing. Worthless.
"Anything," Rukawa whispered back.
Sakuragi tightened his grip on Rukawa's neck even as Sendoh clenched his fists hard in his binds, feeling his smashed finger flare with pain but not caring. What did it matter now?
A thin noise of pain escaped Rukawa's crushed throat.
"You can do better than that. Tell me what I want to hear. Go on."
Rukawa's eyes were wide, gazing up at Sakuragi. Sendoh knew that look. The mindless confusion and panic. The pain and weakness. Unable to think, to reason, to do anything at all.
"I- I- ugh-" he winced in pain. "Hanamichi- please…"
"Would you give me your body?" Sakuragi pressed him.
"Yes," Rukawa agreed without hesitation.
"Would you give me your obedience? Your loyalty? Would you take me as your lover? Would you offer yourself to me wholly and completely?"
"Yes."
"Then say so!"
He slackened his grip just slightly so Rukawa could manage a full breath.
"Go on, my love. Beg."
"I..." a tremor ran through Rukawa's body. "Hanamichi- I... I'll give you... my body... my... loyalty my-" he was cut short when Sakuragi pressed abruptly down on his throat once again, shutting off his air tightly.
"That's cute. But tell me this. Can you give me your love?"
Rukawa could only stare up at him, his mouth forced open wide in the struggle to breathe.
"You see, there's really nothing you can offer me that I can't take for myself. But that... that, well, wouldn't that be something? To say that you love me. I would pay much more than the boy if you were to love me. What do you think? Would you promise to love me?"
Rukawa gave a small nod of his head, his eyes wide and pleading.
Sakuragi smiled and leaned down as if to kiss him. But he stopped just short of Rukawa's lips, his smile dissolving.
"But we both know," he hissed, his voice turning fierce and his eyes blazing red, "that you would be lying."
Rukawa could only stare up at him in despair.
"I've never demanded your love," Sakuragi continued, close to Rukawa's face, hunkered over him as if crooning over some precious object in his hands. "I've always been satisfied with your hate. You could never love me. I know that." He took a breath. "But do you think you can treat me as something irrelevant? You think you can give yourself away as if I didn't already own you? As if I were nothing to you? Do you really have the audacity to believe that you can ignore me? Feel indifferently about me? Treat me as some kind of inconvenience?"
His hot mouth blasted his words like scalding steam onto Rukawa's cheeks, his speech becoming more angry by the word.
"You belong to me," he hissed at him, giving him a frustrated shake. "You're mine. I loved you first. I've made you everything that you are. And I've never wanted more. I would have been satisfied with your hate forever. But- you changed everything! Do you really care for him so much you would offer yourself to me? Do you have any idea how angry that makes me?! How can you love him more than you hate me?"
He paused with another breath, his chest expanding, his shoulders lifting. Then he let the air go, and his furious expression melted into a sad smile, eyes fading to honey brown, his hair falling in a long curtain around his face.
"But it's okay," he whispered, turning to a consoling tone. "It's simple, isn't it? All I have to do is… take him from you. Just one click of my fingers, and I'll have all your hate, Kaede. You'll be all mine again." He lifted his hand towards Sendoh, his fingers tensed together, and immediately Sendoh recalled the way Aida had dissolved into ash and dust at the simple motion of those hellish fingers. "Watch carefully my dear."
"No..." Rukawa pleaded, desperate, "Hanamichi- please- I... I…"
"Ah, yes. Wait," Sakuragi paused for a long moment and smiled. "I did make a promise to you, didn't I?" His expression had changed now to one of childish delight. A boy playing with his toys. His eyes had become a most brilliant orange, sparkling like the sun, clearly enjoying nothing quite so much as having Kaede helpless and begging beneath him, wholly within his power. Smiling to himself, Sakuragi reached out far to the side and picked up Akira from where it had fallen from Kaede's hand. The steel remained grey and dull as Sakuragi lifted it and admired it for a moment.
"Perfect," he whispered. "This is exactly what I need." He rose slowly to his feet, swinging the sword side to side as if testing it against the air. He lifted his eyes to Sendoh and gave a cruel smile.
"Your heart, mortal."
With a last desperate gasp, Rukawa tried to find the breath to call Innocence back to him, but even as he did so, Sakuragi lifted one foot and brought in down hard on his neck. Rukawa's body jerked violently in response, his voice gone.
"No, no," Sakuragi chided him. "None of that now. This is inevitable. Surely you can understand that." He raised his voice to address Sendoh. "Are you ready, mortal? I'll pull your heart out nice and slow. You might even hear the veins snapping... if you don't scream too loudly." He licked his lips. "Don't worry. I'll make sure to keep you alive for as long as I can."
Sendoh forced himself to breathe. The binds that held him just as tight as before. The reality so concentrated he could taste it in his mouth.
He didn't want Kaede to see this. Didn't want him to remember him in this way. Dying in this way.
I've wanted to die for so long, he reflected. But not like this. Please... not like this.
Kaede had asked only one thing of him - stay alive. He had done so. He had fulfilled his role. But it hadn't been enough. What else did he have left to give?
He lifted his eyes to see Sakuragi standing there, huge and menacing and without mercy. And behind him, Kaede. Horribly broken. Struggling even to breathe.
And this was defeat. Final. Absolute.
Despite the awful death Sakuragi intended for him, Sendoh realised it was an easy way out compared to Kaede's fate.
Because Kaede would be Sakuragi's plaything. Sakuragi's prisoner and slave. Sakuragi's to possess and break and torture. Today. And all the days that would follow. Perhaps forever. Had it always been so? Was this truly the only outcome that there had ever been?
Was this their story?
Kaede had begged him to stay alive. But Sendoh knew, and he had always known, that that was not his fate.
I will never have the opportunity to live for him.
I was always fated to die for him.
I'm not afraid of death. I am only afraid of dying meaninglessly.
He took a long steadying breath and realised that he knew what he must do.
"No," he managed to answer Sakuragi's question. His voice was shallow and weakened. "Not yet. You haven't... beaten me yet."
His arms and shoulders trembled as he looked across the way at him. He was fully aware of how pathetic he must appear. How terribly transparent his bravado must seem.
Sakuragi scoffed quietly. "Proud little mouse," he sneered. "We'll soon see how long you can keep up that brave face."
"I told you before," Sendoh asserted quietly. "I'm not afraid of you."
"Then you're a fool," Sakuragi hissed at him.
"I'm not... dead yet," Sendoh managed to gasp.
Sakuragi gave a visible roll of his eyes. "Then do your best, little boy," he smirked as he stepped Sendoh's way.
Sendoh's eyes moved to Innocence where she lay by the tree, silver blood splattered on her hilt.
One chance. Right here. The smallest fluttering in his chest.
"Innocence..." he said, closed his eyes, and took a breath. He recalled the hours he'd spent trying to learn her ways, struggling to hear the sound of her song that was always somehow just beyond his grasp, coming to him only through Kaede's presence. He had never truly succeeded. Certainly he'd never even been close to bringing her to his hand. But that didn't seem to matter now. Because he could recall too that she had been at his side for sixteen long years. Every demon he'd ever slain, every practise swing, every trial and every challenge, every time he'd woken up in a gutter somewhere, she'd been there. Every moment of his life had been lived in her reflection.
And right now he could hear it. A perfect hum down at the very base of his hearing. Because Kaede had sung this song and something in him had awakened. He knew. He knew how to do it now. Kaede had showed him.
"Innocence," he repeated, angling the timbre of his voice downwards, seeking to catch that note, that perfect pitch that shook still now in the cavity of his chest where Kaede had placed it.
He heard the sword react to his voice. A delicate shiver running up her blade as she awoke to him. He could hear it, could feel it, like fingers up his own spine.
The words didn't matter, he recalled Rukawa telling him.
He focused his eyes sharply.
"Come," he demanded.
The sword began to glow.
Sakuragi made no move, only watching in amused curiosity to see what Sendoh intended to do.
She did not rush to him, but moved with a graceful slowness. Controlled. She hung vertical in the air, turning slowly as if on a string, the glow of her blade shining softly. She was beautiful, he saw, his eyes running over her. Flawless steel, ferociously sharp. This blade of heaven. The sword of The Third. He felt a rush of gratitude.
You and me, he told her silently. We've both been wronged.
They forged you as a weapon. To kill. To slay. To rain blood. Your beauty never hid your darkness. You were always a sword. Always intended to suffer and to bring suffering. And for that they tempered you in the flames and sacrificed you to the darkness.
But they were wrong.
Killing was never your purpose.
Through everything you've suffered it didn't erase the truth.
You were forged not to slay, but to protect.
He let himself smile.
And so was I.
The sword began to move slowly around him in a circle, the song rising in a delicate harmony, humming and hovering precisely, responding to the heart that beat in his throat, to the sound of his breath, to the whispering trail of his thoughts. He felt that she was attached to his heart by a string. The slightest tug and he could move her as he willed. And as she circled him she brushed gently against each of his binds. They disintegrated into ash in her divine light. The darkness vanished into nothing.
He hit the floor hard as the binds dissolved, his body without any strength at all. But even then, the sword found his palm and pressed herself into it insistently. Familiar, soft leather. Old friend. Precious, reliable partner. He gripped it. The hum of the blade had movement, had a strength of its own. Though it seemed strange, it was as if the sword moved his arm, and not his exhausted arm that moved the sword. And yet he understood too that the sword only responded to him, and did not move of her own will but because of his.
Still, he felt as if she had a soul.
Thank you, old friend.
He somehow managed to scramble to his feet, and turn himself to face death straight on, glad to have her in his hand.
"I did not realise you were a master of that sword," Sakuragi observed with a dangerous quietness, watching suspiciously. He moved Akira back and forththrough the air, feeling its weight, testing its balance. "But it will make no difference."
Sendoh did not react. Sakuragi's eyes were intense and focused. He was not playing around.
Sendoh took a quick breath.
Then before he knew it, before he was ready, Sakuragi flew at him.
He came in a terrible burst of speed that swallowed the distance between them in moments. Purposefully slow enough for Sendoh to follow with his eyes, but too fast for him to even consider dodging aside. Sendoh set his feet firmly.
All right. Come on. Come on.
It didn't matter the cost. At that moment he had no intention beyond saving Kaede from the appalling fate Sakuragi intended for him. That was all. For Kaede. If only he could protect Kaede, any price was worthwhile.
I must.
He adjusted his grip on Innocence slightly. Sakuragi's wings gave a thunderous snap, slamming down against the air to give him more speed. He was an utterly terrifying sight, filling Sendoh's vision, sword raised in readiness to strike.
Sendoh held Innocence loosely across his body. He recalled Mitsui's words suddenly, said right here on the open grass. He could hear his voice as clearly as if he were standing right beside him. "You don't have a hope in hell of blocking anything."
Yeah, Sendoh thought. I know that. He's too fast. Too strong. He outclasses me in every possible way.
"You'd better focus on attacking... you might get lucky."
Luck? No. That had run out long ago.
I cannot hope to overcome this enemy with force, with skill, or with strength. I have only one advantage - the very fact that I am so weak.
He gripped Innocence tightly and felt the song rise up in his head and in his lungs, louder and louder, until it was a positive catastrophe of sound.
Then he took one last breath. Perhaps the final of his life.
I must wait.
Akira was traveling like a lightning bolt, point-first, making the air scream around its tip as it trust forward ready to pierce his chest and skewer his heart.
Wait.
Kogure's lessons were dim in the back of his mind. He had to feel it. Stumble his way into the harmony that sounded now like chaos around him. Bring his mind around to the song. Let it take him over. Let everything else cease to exist.
He caught hold of it.
The world around him seemed to slow, contract, turn tiny and concentrated. He couldn't see anything but that steel tip drawing closer as Sakuragi thrust it forward towards his heart in a lightning quick stab.
Innocence slanted defensively before him, ready to engage, to parry, to block the deadly blow.
But then the song changed. Rukawa must have heard it change as Sendoh's grip loosened slightly and Innocence dipped lower. Perhaps he was nervous. Perhaps he was simply exhausted. But Sakuragi saw his error and his eyes shone.
Sendoh forced himself to wait.
Akira shimmered through his defense, taking easy advantage of his mistake, its path clear of barriers. All at once it was there, far too soon, too fast, dangerous and deadly and pressing forward to take him.
It brushed his clothes.
Wait.
The fibres gave way before the sharp steel, parting silently to allow the sword tip to touch his skin.
Wait.
For a fraction of a moment he felt Akira's coldness, but the next his skin was punctured. It was no armour, no barrier at all. The sword drifted between his ribs. Sakuragi was nothing if not accurate. No bone blocked the blade's path, or slowed the vicious stab.
I am not afraid to die.
The muscles of his chest gave way without any resistance at all, allowing the blade through. It caught the inner edge of a lung, pressing ever forward to the centre of him.
Wait. Still wait.
Not yet.
Not until the last moment.
He was already dead. He knew that. But the timing. The timing was everything. One miserable mortal life in exchange for so much.
"He's not asking you to die for him." Mitsui reminded him.
"Isn't he?" Sendoh answered back.
He felt a strange satisfaction. He had always known. He had always expected to pay this price.
Finally the cold blue light of the sword tickled the frantic muscle of his heart. It was swollen, mid-beat, hot and living. The centre of him. The very point of his existence. The place where his love for Kaede had accumulated.
Ah-
The world had ground to a stop around him. Sakuragi's intense expression so close by. His smirk. His eyes fixed and determined and totally focused on the perfect path the sword was making.
And beyond him... Kaede.
Sendoh felt something hurt deep inside to see his intense desperation. The wide fear in his eyes, the terror and the agony of his defeat. Knowing that he had to watch Sendoh die.
It's okay, Akira wanted him to know. I'm not afraid.
My whole life has been for this moment. I guess destiny has a funny way of seeing itself through.
Sixteen years ago you chose me for this.
And so this is my gift to you.
Slowly, millimetre by millimetre, the sword entered his heart. He could feel it. Cold. So cold. Kaede's love and very sword that embodied the many long years of his protection touching the very centre of him. It was enough to make him smile.
He could sense Sakuragi's radiating satisfaction. The smell of his victory. The seeping pungency of his arrogance as he passed the point beyond which there was no going back. Not for Sendoh Akira. Not for Sakuragi, either.
Now.
In the last moment of his life Sendoh brought Innocence up with everything he had. Lightning fast, well beyond his mortal limits, as if he had thrust every last piece of his soul into the blade and she screamed with the sound of that song. Every facet of his life and his being. Anything he was worth he forced it all into that one motion, Innocence guiding his aim.
He felt his arm break with the impact as the sword caught Sakuragi across the chest, sweeping up through his torso in a great explosion of violence, the divine blade cracking through ribs and flesh and hell itself, catching at last the chain about Sakuragi's neck, the silver links dragging on the point of the sword until it snapped, and the five silver keys caught the sunlight as they fell to the floor with a sound like bells.
But, the tip of Akira continued onwards. Nothing could have stopped her, slicing through him, cutting her way out of Sendoh's back to stick hard, point first into the post, and pin him there, the blade vibrating gently. A perfect path through the centre of his heart. One life in exchange for another.
Sendoh slumped forward over the sword, his broken arm dangling, lifeless.
Everything he'd had, he had paid.
Sakuragi lurched backwards, blood pouring from his open chest, scrabbling at the horrific wound with two blackened bloodied hands, his face showing his disbelief.
"No..." he breathed, "... how...?"
The mighty demon staggered, his great body failing him, his wings flickered in and out of sight as he weakened, unable to maintain his form.
With a broken cry, Kaede forced himself through the pain, clenching his ruined hands around the shaft that impaled them, slippery with blood, and breathless with the agony, tugged hard once, twice, three times until it came free of the ground. The black blade fell away in a rush of blood.
He took a breath that was more tears than air.
But despite the pain, he moved. He had to. Sendoh's sacrifice couldn't be in vain. He couldn't let Sakuragi escape. He had to kill him. Now. This one precious chance for which Akira had given his life.
Now. Now. Now.
His hands clenched weakly around Skipjack's staff - the only weapon within his reach - agony exploding in his ruined hands.
But although he knew what he had to do, logic and sense and instinct screaming in his mind - strike him down! take your revenge! - he couldn't seem to move. He could barely see for the tears.
It hurt. It hurt more than anything Sakuragi had ever done to him. This pain. A thousand moments of revenge wouldn't have justified it.
A... Akira...?
He felt small. Helpless. A frightened child. His dry lips taking the shape of his name, trembling too much to speak aloud.
Don't…
Please…
No…
He could hardly bring himself to look.
Terrified, he forced his eyes to take in the sight Sendoh's lifeless body. A cry rose on his lips, long and heartbroken.
Heedless of Sakuragi dying nearby, Sendoh's body was all he could see.
He crawled towards him over the grass, shivering and crying, the sound of his pain a low wail in his throat.
How could this be?
How had this happened?
Rukawa's eyes roamed wildly over Sendoh's body in a haze of agonised disbelief.
We were meant to be together. I was meant to find a way. There had to be a way. I was going to find it and you... you were going to be beside me... forever.
Akira…
Akira-
A wretched sob broke past his lips.
It couldn't be true. It couldn't be.
Fujima's words taunted him. "Don't let that mortal die."
I- I- I- I can't lose you- I can't-
No…
He saw that Sendoh still had Innocence grasped tightly in the fist of his limp broken arm. He hadn't dropped her. Every finger still clinging on to her hilt as if, even in death, he was desperate not to let her fall.
Then Rukawa's eyes fearfully took in the sword that protruded from his chest, still glowing faintly blue. It was a fatal blow. Not even an immortal would have survived it. Sendoh hadn't even tried to block it. He'd invited the sword, accepted death in exchange for that one moment in which he'd been within the circle of Sakuragi's defense. The meagre sliver of a second in which not even Sakuragi could have stopped his attack.
But what did that matter now?
Rukawa would have given his soul to Lucifer himself if it would have spared him this moment. He'd have given anything... anything... and yet…
A fresh rush of tears blinded him. Oh, God. It hurt. It hurt so much.
Through the tears, he could see the faint blue light of that accursed sword still shining her cold blue light.
Rukawa watched it despairingly, cursing the blade, the watchers, the heavens, anything, everything, himself most of all. He'd done this. He'd done this.
But it was Sakuragi who seemed to understand. The significance of that blue light. Shining. Still.
He spoke in an angry hiss. "I should have known," he snarled, glaring at Sendoh's limp body furiously, "that that sword wouldn't cut you."
For a moment, nothing changed.
Then.
There was no blood, Rukawa suddenly realised with a terrified thrill.
There was... no... blood.
"Akira-!" he gasped.
Against all expectations, Sendoh lifted his head and gave an anxious groan.
Rukawa froze where he was, still on his hands and knees.
Sendoh's eyes drifted confusedly down and settled on the sword that should have killed him, faintly aglow with familiar pale blue light. He slowly lifted his left hand and lay it on the hilt, moving lethargically as if in a dream. With a wince he pulled it free of the post, and out of his chest.
There was no pain. No wound. His heart was beating still, unharmed. His lungs took eager breaths of air. Akira glinted softly in his hand, icy cold and reassuring in his grip.
A sword that protects a mortal slayer, sharing one name, and a magic that can only be used in his defence.
I'm... alive, he realised vaguely.
He lifted his eyes to meet Kaede's astonished stare. Then he saw Sakuragi bleeding and writhing with pain on the ground, his face pale and angry, hopelessly wounded.
What was I doing-?
Oh... yes.
Akira fell with a clatter from his shaking hands and he managed to stagger towards Kaede. His legs felt weak and numb, his whole body strange and disbelieving.
When he was close enough he slowly lifted his right arm, wincing with pain, and offered the hilt of Innocence to Rukawa who stood and stared at him with wide eyes as if he didn't dare trust his own senses.
"This is yours," Sendoh managed to tell him, holding Innocence out. "I... promised you... this moment."
But Rukawa did not take the sword from him. "No-" he whispered hoarsely. "It's your right. You do it."
Sendoh shook his head and offered the sword more insistently. Even if he had wanted to be the one to end Sakuragi's life, he didn't have anything left. He could barely stand upright. Rukawa seemed to realise this, but still he refused to take the sword.
Instead he stepped unsteadily away, his broken wing dragging against the ground. He clutched his wounded hands together protectively, nursing them as he walked until he reached the sword that had fallen and, wincing, picked it up again. Akira's blue light returned, glowing silently, even as blood dripped silver from his hand.
"No-" Sakuragi growled, scrabbling against the ground, pushing himself across the dirt weakly in an attempt to get away. His eyes were fixed on Akira with disgust. "Not that sword," he said. He lifted his eyes to Rukawa's face. "If you would slay me, then let me die by your hate. Not that- that-" his breathing was becoming laboured, his voice losing it's ambience. Rukawa began to approach him silently.
"Kaede, are you so cruel?" Sakuragi murmured in disbelief. His hand clutched anxiously at the horrific wound across his chest as if he could hold the gash closed. "Slay me with Innocence. Please. Give me your hate, your anger. Not... not that thing that you... share with- with- him," he took a rasping breath. "I... love you," he pleaded. "Have some pity, Kaede. Kaede, please."
Rukawa stopped right before him, his sandals kicking up a little dust. He raised the sword in two bleeding hands.
For a fraction of a second he recalled Fujima's words.
He loves you. He is you. His existence is bound to you in a thousand ways. Slay him and live on to stare blindly into the emptiness of despair.
"Fuck you," he decided. "You deserve no pity."
He shifted his feet, and swung Akira. It passed like a ray of light through Sakuragi's neck. And Sakuragi Hanamichi did not speak again.
-tbc
I know I said this would be the last chapter but I just don't have the energy to write the conclusion hahaha. So there'll be one more chapter to wrap it up and then a short epilogue. Since there's one more chapter I'll wait to post the song list for this fic until next time.
Give yourself 100 points if you guessed that Sendoh would defeat Sakuragi.
Give yourself 200 points if you knew "the stranger" was Kaede all along.
Yeah! You made it! Congratulations!
Please tell me what you thought and whether you enjoyed it :D Seriously, I live for reviews.