Nothing Else Matters

By: Dark Mousy

Chapter Nineteen

"Death's Mercy"

                "I…" Zechs felt the tip of the dagger against the juncture of his neck, and as Treize drew it back, most likely to deliver the killing blow, he spoke. "I feel pity for you, Treize."

                His words were cold, and filled with venom. Treize was caught by surprise long enough for Zechs to turn, and grab Treize's hand, which held the dagger. Treize's eyes narrowed in anger, and he growled as he used all his force to push Zechs back-first into the ground, as rose petals bunched around him.

                The Lightning Count's eyes stayed fixed, as the ornate dagger stopped directly before punching through Zechs' eye. Beads of sweat ran down both men's foreheads as Zechs groaned with the effort of keeping the blade from coursing through his eye.

                "I feel pity for you, Treize." He repeated, as the dagger was slowly being pushed away from such a vital area. "You are nothing without your insanity, which you hold to you like a love."

                "Insane, am I?" Treize replied, his voice gruff with exertion, as he tried to push against Zechs to pierce him with the dagger. "If I was so insane I would have ravaged her when I had more the chance!"

                A growl was emitted from Zechs' throat, and with that burst of anger he was finally able to push Treize off and away from him. Treize dug his sword into the stone ground, and jumped to his feet; anger shining like daggers in his eyes. "If I was so insane I wouldn't have given a second thought about how she chose you over me!"

                "What?" Zechs rose to his feet, holding his sword at his side.

                "Don't play the idiot, Milliard. I've seen the way you look at her, I watch you like a hawk. You came all the way here, to face death, for HER!" Treize rushed forward without another sound, and Zechs had barely enough reaction time to raise his sword and parry the blow. "You have the gall to call ME insane when I am EVERYTHING you have ALWAYS wanted to be! I have ALL the power you have always strived for, and you call me insane?! What you call insanity is nothing more than power! It is nothing more than what you wish you could have, if only a taste!"

                Zechs' eyes flared with an unknown emotion as he pulled back, giving Treize the exact edge to put a deep laceration in his side. He made a small noise in his throat, reflexively putting his free hand to the bleeding gash as he took another step back from Treize… and another, as if his steps would falter. The pain seemed to wrack his entire being, and his hand was warm and wet with his own blood.

                "I am everything you aren't, Milliard. We are one in the same. We are brothers!" Treize's chest heaved. "And I… I could offer her ANYTHING she could ever desire while you have nothing to give! You ARE nothing, do you hear me?! NOTHING!"

                Zechs narrowed his icy eyes, and dropped his sword. As Treize took this as a sign of surrender, Zechs ran forward; tackling Treize to the ground in a flurry of rose petals.

                "It is you who will die as nothing, with nothing."