*hums Duty* Final chapter. It turned out okay, though it seemed a little short. Please enjoy.
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There was an alarming blackness enveloping him. He strained, trying to repel it, not quite remembering how to ward it away. Intangible, colorless sands were blown away from the buried scriptures within his mind, revealing memories, stiff, as if they had been dormant for ages. He slowly recalled sight, and stared upwards at the confusing collage of bright patterns and shapes. Strange sensations worked their way up towards his mind... it took him some time to realize that he was in pain. He tried to cry out, but he discovered he had no breath, and began gulping air frantically.
Something's voice began to stand over the agony, ancient thoughts coursing upwards through the earth to seek his consciousness out. It urged him to pull himself out of the vulnerable position, to stand... He shivered, searching along a limb to find a hand to steady himself with. The other gripped something he could push against the ground to help right himself, and he leaned on it, dizzy, trying to make sense of the pandemonium before him. One shoulder pulsed with crippling pain, and the other received short shocks from something beyond it... ripped and mangled.
He wanted to question it, but had forgotten how. He was tattered, wings shredded, with long tears in his robes and splintered bones, beaten against cliffside and heavy earth. His mind had taken the worst of the blows, and lay shattered, memories glinting helplessly like the crystal dust from broken glass. He sensed ruin, and shrank from it, bewildered... lost.
An almost familiar voice floated around him, circling his partially crushed thoughts. He tried to look behind him to see who was speaking, but he could not find the strength.
Bring the princess back.
Had there been a princess once? He could hardly remember. Back where...? Somewhere... where there was a scornful smile painted in colors of death.
If the princess has so much as a scratch...
The pain did not seem to matter so much anymore. The graceful hands belonging to that wicked smirk began sweeping up the fractured memories and pile them together again, all the while speaking in a cold, sinister tone.
Black Waltz no. 3...
Three looked down, towards the cable car tracks. Souls drew closer... certain souls. He found movement again, guided by a partially rebuilt consciousness, following the voice's command...
Kill them... all of them.
The cable car drifted forwards slowly. Three stood before it, still bent and crippled, but wearing a crazed smile. He felt the humans gradually approaching, inching closer to their destruction... How wonderful it would be to crush their purposeless lives, slowly and painfully... These deaths were surely to be looked forward to... he did not doubt the silvery voice.
Yes...
The cable car operator at the front saw the dark form in front of them. Three's smile widened as he saw the human's expression twist into one of total terror and dread, rejoicing at the sound of the man's cry of fear rising above the machine's gentle rumble.
Thunder...
Three let lightning spill from his hands, licking at the car, riding up its metal sides and caressing it with its beautiful, hateful claws. The operator reached for the emergency break, and the Waltz released the thunder's hold. His ears suddenly began to sing and he staggered, clinging to his staff, a bit alarmed with the sudden difficulty. Death had never hurt the one that brought about the destruction before...
Yet, a bright presence still approaching drew his attention away.
There they are.
He limped towards that glittering soul, wincing a bit with each step, leaning heavily on his staff. Yet the combined powers of that spirit's pull and the sweet memories of those commands kept him moving forwards, until he could see them... a familiar color armor, somewhat dull... a young man, to be torn apart... and the brilliant princess.
Mission... retrieve... princess... alive...
He echoed those words, and though speaking drew more pain, it was pleasing to watch the expressions of the two males darken, and the princess's eyes widen as she took a step back. "Isn't that the one we saw on the cargo ship?" she gasped, drawing behind the knight.
Mission...
That armor clanked forward. "Monster! I'll finish you off this time!" Three made no sense of his words, but heard the threat, the challenge...
...retrieve...
She ran after him. "Wait, Steiner!" She turned to the Waltz, reluctant to look into the glazed fire of his eyes, and her voice rose again. "Tell me something! Why do you want to capture me?"
...princess...
"Princess, it's too dangerous! Please stand back!"
...alive...
He repeated after the voice, still smiling slightly, bracing against the staff, feeling black magic beginning to swirl in the air around him. The young man drew a sword, like a sword from long ago. "It's no use! It doesn't understand!"
"But---"
Three took a step more, all recognition of pain vanishing.
KILL...
"Eliminate... all!" he hissed, unleashing his thunder. The two men were sent sprawling by the force of the blast as the princess cried out and leapt aside, eyes wide. The knight regained his footing and charged, sword first, into the mage. Three stumbled, hanging onto the voice, numb and still crazed, with frozen crystals forming at his hands. Sparks of Blizzard bit into his enemy, sliding into the cracks between plates of armor, joining there, sealing him within a coat of ice. Three swung his staff against the frozen soldier, cracking the shell which exploded with great force. The human moaned and staggered backwards, horror in his eyes, then keeled over.
The younger man ran forward only to be skewered on the staff's cruel blade.
But...
He threw the body aside, watching the flying ribbons of blood with delight. Death had been unleashed, and was destroying everything...
...I now realize that there is no more that can be done with this weapon.
He would have been laughing.
It is done.
The voice let go, and the pain came spilling back into recognition. Three staggered, choking, trembling violently as the agony returned, clawing and attacking him without mercy. His legs grew almost too weak to support him, and he clung to the staff, attempting to do the same to the power which had abandoned him.
"Please! Tell me!" He raised his head to look in the direction the cries were coming from. The princess's voice was very sweet and beautiful, even when she was so alarmed. "Please!!" Her eyes pleaded with him... what did she want? His thoughts seemed to be drifting away...
Something about that voice... a song... a golden smile... trust and resignation... The light that was spilling out her eyes...
Shocked, he recognized that shine from a beginning, long ago, in memories lost, yet somehow recovered. Giving not magic... the ability to destroy, to draw death, to draw pain... not power... to be taken away again... but...
A swing of a magician's rod snapped the thread between Black Waltz 3 and light.
This time, all came from darkness. Memories and desires for anything else diffused outwards into the heavy liquid, the breath of the dead, and were sucked away. There would be no other way. That was how vengeance wanted it.
Red-gold light pulsed from within the chamber, blind, but bitter...
There would be no double failure.
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Whew! There goes one fic. Chapters 3 and 4 are really screaming to be rewritten, though, so I'll go back to them someday. I'll do my best to resist the urge to continue this... @@;
Anyhow, I would REALLY appreciate some reviews. Please send me all your comments about the fic, and any suggestions. Should I do fics for 1-kun and 2-kun? Should I wipe this abomination off the site? Get a life? I love to please readers. ^^ *bows*