Rating : PG (Non-explicit violence, death )
"I can fight him, if you wish..."
Always ready to take another's burden on her shoulders. But no, it cannot be. We cannot afford risking her powers, before the inevitable final battle.
And after all it's my fight, for I'm responsible of what has happened.
"No, Tenjou-san. I'm the one that made him powerful, so I'm the one that has to stop him."
She nods gravely.
"But you still care, don't you?"
No use denying it. I just nod, knowing that my self-control is so fragile, that everything else would make me break down.
Even that simple nod does.
She hugs me softly, the way a kind sister or mother would do, the way my own mother or sister never did.
"I can still fight him, you know..."
How I wish I could let her.
"It is not right. Spare yourself for the final battle. I will do it..."
She tightens her hug a bit. Her warmth seeps through me, comforting and gentle.
"It's OK, Juri-senpai..."
The honorific hurts, it hurts so much, and a new wave of pain erupts.
She calls me the way he called me till the end.
'You're such a loser, Juri-senpai...'
Please... don't call me like this...
I don't know if she has read my thought, or if I thought that aloud, but she answers my plea.
"Juri-san, is it OK?"
Another nod.
"Juri-san... You don't need to act as if you're perfect. You don't even have to win. I want you alive when all this ends. We all do. It's not your fault if he proved to be a bad apple "
"I thought he was willing to fight. I thought he wanted to help in the Revolution..."
"You trusted and you were deceived... Who's to blame you, Juri-san? You thought that he was as honorable and dutiful as you are... Just as you began to trust, you were proven wrong... You were just unlucky, that's what, and you were afraid to go into this alone. You're human, you will be mistaken... But... you know what? You're still strong, still going on, and, what's more important, you kept your dignity and you didn't stray from your path. And... I don't know if it can make you feel better, but I admire you more this time..."
We part, following our separate ways. She's going to sleep with her beloved, I alone. It has always been this way, why should that differ now?
But, anyway, in a sense, it is fair. She has suffered and lost too much delivering herself and us, she fought the hardest battle and won and she decided to leave her well-earned peace to ensure our freedom, so she more than deserves this small reward.
But it hurts.
My sleep is heavy and dark, dreamless and
deathlike.
***
They're dressed in morbid black doublets and white pants, bloody red roses on their lapel. There's disdain and pride in their stance, their smirks derisive and their eyes shine with the light of death. Three have remained and we are seven, but the four defeated had been no match for us in strength or resolution.
But Miki's different.
He's the only person living that has clearly defeated me, the only one I am not sure of beating, the only person I left my guard down for.
Made the treason hurt harder.
The sky darkens and thorny brambles surround us. Swords fly menacingly over us, an eerie, unearthly light reflecting on their shiny blades. They start whirling, faster and faster, forming a perfect circle over our heads, their sound like the wail of a banshee.
And then I hear it again, the doom now sitting heavy upon my shoulders.
"The power was unleashed and our world
is in danger. We will gain control and end the rebellion, and the power
will return to its rightful owner. The void will be subverted, the world
without boundary will be confined, the circle will be broken and there
will be a beginning and an ending.
There will be again Ends Of the World!"
Miki steps forward. A dark cloud encompasses him and his smile is like the smile of one in the peak of lust. The hilt of a sword emerges from his chest, then the blade. A sword of blackened steel with a cobalt blue hilt.
Cobalt, cobold, little nasty demon of the caves, little thief, silver that is not silver, poison. Deep blue, elemental blue, cold blue, deadly blue.
How fitting.
Tenjou looks at me, silently repeating her offer. Just a nod and she'll fight the fight for me.
But I mustn't. I made him what he became, I have to undo him.
Undo my mistake.
I step forward and he sneers. Even the moment I salute him, he sneers. He always sought for a shiny thing, and I showed him many of those, but they weren't as shiny as the shiniest one, Lucifer.
Perhaps he got the best deal of all.
But, I have to do what must be done.
We cross swords and I notice the small errors unobservable to an ignorant eye. His balance is somewhat less than stable, his stance just that bit flawed, he holds his sword just a bit too high. He has deteriorated since the last time we fought together.
Not enough to ease my mind, though.
He fights well, not the way he used to fight the old times. He's less stylish, but much more powerful and aggressive and I have to admit I'm in trouble. I'm used to the elegant duel, the duel that's more of a way of soul searching than conflict, and having to fight with someone that goes for the kill taxes my reserves heavily.
Yet, he cannot get me. He tries for my face, my arms, my chest, but there is an answer to each and every of his blows. I know the moves that I've taught him, I know how to defend myself, but I cannot find a disarming attack.
For I hope still that if I disarm him, he'll go back to his senses. On and on he goes, raining blows over my face and arms and I have the vague feeling that something is wrong. I can smell a trap, but I cannot see it.
Until I fell into it.
I block his hit and his sword points to my knee.
He should have pulled back, try to reverse his position, or disentangle. Everything except the movement he does.
He just pushes forward and down.
A sharp pains radiates through my knee to my spine, paralyzing me and it takes all my strength and will power to keep myself for fainting. He wasn't supposed to do so. After all, the only legal target in fencing is the upper body.
Treason.
He steps back, a smirk upon his lips.
"We're not in a dojo anymore, Juri-senpai..." he says, snickering. "We're in a real fight, remember?"
As I fall to my knees, he makes a projection and a sharp pain crosses my face. My right eye darkens suddenly and I feel fluid running down my cheek. Another one and his sword bites into my right shoulder. Every sensation on my right arm becomes pain, the hilt of the sword burns into my palm and my muscles have become lead.
Perhaps I should leave him kill me...
But I have to fulfill my duty. My life is not mine. It never was. And, if I lose now, it never will.
Struggling, I manage to stand on my good leg, the other one heavy and unsteady. My remaining field of vision is blurred. I feel as if the essence of my body is reduced to pain,excruciating, horrible, intolerable pain, screaming into my mind.
How I wish I could let myself die.
Maybe later.
And then, the move comes to my mind. It's the "dive of the seagull", the last, desperate move. I had read of it, practiced it but I never managed to teach it to Miki.
Our last chance. Just let myself fall, and when he attacks, push my blade up. This simple.
I transfer my weight to my injured leg. It hurts, hurts like hell, and my leg can take no more. I collapse, screaming.
He rushes towards me. Thought, guilt, doubt, all are evaporated before the face of the excruciating pain. Only my animal part remains, urging me to pick my moment and kill before I die.
Everything around me seems to proceed in slow motion as I raise my sword.
He stops in mid-move and looks at me dumbfounded. Warm blood runs down my blade, on my hand, dripping down.
I have done it.
I have won.
He falls to his knees, his eyes wide, his face a mask of fear and pain. The sword falls from his hand and rolls at the floor, next to me. I grab him and hold him, the pain from my destroyed eye, the pain from my knee and arm and the pain of having to kill him combining. Yet, weirdly enough I neither cry nor scream. My soul is numb and cold, so cold...
Perhaps death feels like that.
He struggles to raise his head and, to my despair, there is no longer the self-pleased sneer. His eyes are the eyes of a child that hurts, of a child feeling cold and afraid.
Afraid to be alone.
Afraid to die.
And I have killed him.
Tears come unbidden, merging with blood, hurting, bringing no relief. He sees them and then turns to look me. There's remorse in his eyes. Remorse, pain and ... could that be love?
I have nothing to say. I just hold him, the pain gnawing my innards, consuming my strength.
"It's... so... cold,... Juri-sen...pai..." he manages to say. His breath comes out in a weird, rasping way and a spasm wracks his body that becomes limp in my hands.
It's over for him.
Probably it's over for me, too.
My conscience fades and I collapse, still holding him.
***
I regain consciousness with the smell of roses in my nostrils coming from the darkness occupying my right.
"Over here, Juri-san...These are from us
both, with our regards..."
I turn and see her sitting at the foot of my bed, her face solemn, a bouquet of unblemished white, red and orange roses in her hands. She's pale and looks weary, but she emanates the contentment and relief of someone that has succeeded in a great enterprise.
"You did it?" I ask, yet I know the answer.
"We all did it", she says and looks me straight into the eye. "It hurt, but we did it."
And then I realize that she has been through it all, too.
After all, she had to fight her own prince.
"You had to kill him, too?"
She takes my hand in hers and squeezes
gently, her eyes filled with knowledge painfully earned. And, then, she
recites with a voice grave and deep, fitting for a prophetess or
a priestess.
"Yet each man kills the thing he loves,
By each let this be heard,
Some do it with a bitter look,
Some with a flattering word,
The coward does it with a kiss,
The brave man with a sword. "
Author's notes:
-The poem is an excerpt from "The Ballad of Reading Gaol" by
Oscar Wilde.
-There's another version with a happy, yet clumsier ending. E-mail me and I might publish it (or, perhaps, try to edit it to fit better...)
-The fic is the only vignette salvaged from a concept that included a frantic search for the Prince Deliverer, six duels (the last of them a double showdown) and the kitchen sink among many others... Inside a huge fanfiction, there's always a small one trying to get off...
-Thanks to Vasiliki for
pre-reading this fic and pointing out faults (as for the hints you wanted,
say that the bouquet is one and let your fantasy do the rest ^_-)