Author's Notes:  See chapter one for disclaimer and explanation.

Chestnuts and Cherries By Annie-chan Chapter Ten:  To End It All

Dead silence.

"What did you say…?" Viande finally asked, his voice low and dangerous.  Rage was shining in his eyes, and he looked very close to losing it.

"I said," Marron repeated, "that this is your last day alive."

"Oh, it's the last day alive for one of us," Viande said coldly.  "I'm not too sure that I'm the one it's referring to."  He looked over at Cerise.  "Get over here, Cerise."

Cerise didn't move.

"I said, get over here!" Viande snapped, almost yelling.

Cerise still stayed where she was.

"She doesn't want to go to you," Marron said flatly.

Viande's eyes darted over to Marron, but then ignored him, stepping forward.  He reached out toward Cerise, meaning to take her wrist and pull her behind him.  Marron, who was closer to Viande, quickly put himself between the two, making Viande stop short.

"Get out of my way, Sorcerer Hunter!" Viande hissed, glaring daggers at Marron.  "Get away from her!  She's mine!"

"I repeat, she doesn't want to go to you," Marron replied steadily, the deadly gleam in his eyes replaced by an eerie calmness.  He tilted his head slightly.  "And, she is not yours.  She is nobody's but her own.  She will do as she pleases."

" 'As she pleases'," Viande echoed with distain.  "How can you say that?!  You, who bewitched her into thinking she wants you!  You have no right to say she can do as she pleases!"

"I haven't bewitched her, charmed her, or anything else of the like!" Marron retorted.  "Get that through your head!"

"Liar!" Viande shouted back.  "Prove it!"

"Viande," Cerise said quietly, very quietly.  "He's done nothing to me.  There is no spell or curse or hex or anything else on me that has altered my wants.  I am thinking for myself."

"Shut up, Cerise!" Viande cried, stopping his ears.  "You don't know what you're saying!"

"Viande…"

"That's enough!" he roared.  He looked at Marron again.  "You.  Do you know swords?"

Marron nodded.  He didn't swordfight often, but when he did, it was as if he practiced every day.

"Good," Viande spat.  "That's how we'll settle this.  I stand by my first judgment.  You're not worth wasting magic on."  He walked over to where two swords were hanging crossed on the wall and pulled them down.  As he turned around to throw one sheath and all to Marron, however, his opponent had already summoned the Hamato to his hands, and had pulled the ancient blade from his scabbard.  Viande smirked, hung one of the blades back on the wall, and unsheathed his own sword.

"Stay back, Cerise," Marron said, pushing her back a bit, ready for an attack.

Viande shook his head.  "Not here."  Without warning, he launched himself at a side window, his weight forcing it open, and disappeared.

"What?!" Marron exclaimed in shock.  It was as if Viande had chosen to fall to his death down the sheer drop on that side of the house than face Marron in a fight.  He ran to the window and leaned out.

"Up here," a voice said, and Marron looked up.  Viande was standing on the edge of the roof above him, the point of his sword on the shingles like the end of a cane.  He was looking down on the Sorcerer Hunter with a confident grin.

Marron looked back to Cerise.  "Stay here," he said, and exited the same route Viande had.  A few seconds later, he was standing five feet to Viande's right.

The young Sorcerer turned to face his opponent.  "I look forward to a good fight," he said with another sardonic smile.

Marron eyed him.  "I have never enjoyed killing people, even if they are the worst of tyrants," he said slowly.  "I am willing to spare you if you release Cerise from being your wife.  If you love her as you claim to, you would do so.  A loving husband wants what makes his wife happy, does he not?"

"Quiet," Viande growled.  "What's your name?"

"Marron Glace," Marron answered.

"Well," Viande said with the negligent air of an overindulgent Sorceress, "I know what to put on your gravestone…"  With that, he brought his blade to bear.

Marron sighed and did the same.  He had had a feeling Viande wouldn't accept his offer.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Cerise watched Marron go out the window, and wavered.  Should she follow?  She could get up there as easily as either of the men could.  Then again, being four months pregnant, if she got herself hurt up there, she wouldn't be the only one in danger.  Also, she hated watching fights, even if they were staged and friendly.  This fight was definitely not staged or friendly.  But, the two opponents were the two men she cared most about in the world…

Voices scattered by the wind could be heard as she argued with herself, but her thoughts were interrupted with a loud clang.  The swords had just clashed together.  The fighting had started.  A morbid fear of those sounds sudden welled up within her, and she ran to the window and slammed it shut, doing so with such force as to make the glass panes rattle.

"Oh, God, what do I do…?" she asked the room around her, her voice shaking.  Her eyes were burning, and she was trying her hardest not to cry.  She had told Marron that she wouldn't interfere with his decision, whether he came here to fight Viande or walked out of her life forever.  But, now that he had come and declared that Viande would die, a terrible feeling of fear and remorse was swirling through her veins.  Those two men fighting on the roof would not stop until one of them was dead, and she would be devastated no matter who it was.  True, it would be worse if Marron died, but losing Viande was almost as bad.

A thought struck her, and she tensed up in horror.  What if they killed each other?  What if the victor was too wounded to survive much longer than the loser?  What if, through some freak accident, they both took a tumble off the roof?  Off one side, they would fall three stories to the gardens and possibly hit one of the large landscaping boulders that had been placed for maximum aestheticism.  Off the other side, they'd fall more than one hundred fifty feet off a sheer drop.  The front of the house faced a gentle slope down to the village, but the back perched on an almost vertical cliff.

She walked over to the bed and threw herself facedown on it.  She could still hear the sound of fighting faintly, and she plugged her ears, shutting out the noises altogether.  In the back of her mind, she was glad they had picked swords instead of spells.  A magic battle could endanger the surrounding area, even the village at the foot of the hill.  Yes, Viande's reasoning was that Marron was too low to "waste magic on", but at least it saved the vicinity from substantial damage.

Oh, hell, that doesn't matter! she mentally berated herself.  What do you care about the surrounding area?  You're going to lose one or both of the two men you want most to live!

She suddenly unstopped her ears and pushed herself up.  Did she just hear a cry of pain…?

"Oh, God," she muttered in horror, running to the window and yanking it open.  The fighting sounds had stopped.  Her heart pounding wildly against her ribcage, she climbed up on the windowsill and jumped out.  As the two men before her, she cast a quick levitation spell, elevating herself up to the rooftop.  Even before her feet touched the shingles, she was glancing frantically around for Viande and Marron.  She found them right up at the top of the roof.  Marron was standing up, his feet on either side of the ridge formed by the meeting of the two halves, and Viande was about ten feet away, kneeling down.  As she ran up to them, she saw Marron's sword was tinted red, and Viande's lay several feet away, the cutting edge caught on a broken shingle.  Both men were disheveled and breathing hard.

She stopped a few feet below them, closer to Marron than Viande, afraid to go any closer.

"One last chance, Viande," Marron said, his voice low.  "Let her go, or I kill you!"

Viande was hunched over, one arm supporting him while the other wrapped around his middle over a long gash.  Cerise couldn't tell how deep it was, but it was bleeding badly.

"Why are you doing this…?" Viande asked quietly, a hint of desperation in his voice.  "Why do you insist on tearing us apart?"

"Because, you don't belong together!" Marron replied.  "You two were meant as friends, not any more than that!  I am the one meant for her!  You are trying to keep us apart!"

"You liar!" Viande screamed.  "I love her!  She loves me!"

"Viande," Cerise ventured, very quiet.  "I love you, but not as a wife should.  I think of you as my dearest friend, nothing more.  Marron speaks the truth:  I want to be with him."  Her voice shook as she said this.  She felt like she was reading Viande his death sentence.

"That's not true…!" Viande tried to cry.  It came out as a thin whine, his emotions taking over.  "That can't be true!"  He hit his fist down on the roof so hard, Cerise heard the bones pop.

"If you truly love her," Marron began, "you will let her go.  You should only wish for her what makes her happy.  You should be willing to sacrifice what you want in favor of what she wants.  That is true love."  His voice hardened.  "Instead, you insist on keeping her, claiming she is yours, ruining her quality of life for your own selfish desires.  That is not love.  That's merely gross possessiveness."

Viande was very still, his hair shading his eyes, utterly silent.  For several minutes, he knelt there, not saying a word or making any other signs that he heard them.  Finally, he moved, slowly pushing himself up onto his feet…

Just as he laid his eyes on Marron, his world spun crazily.  As he placed his foot down on the slanted surface of the roof, the sole of his shoe failed to grab the gritty sandpaper-like surface of the shingles, and he slipped.  A yelp was forced from his throat as he landed hard, but his motion didn't stop.  He half-rolled, half-slid toward the edge.

Marron swore and threw the Hamato down, inadvertently embedding its point in the rooftop.  He ignored Cerise's cry of dismay as Viande began to fall, and then her pleas to him to stop as he darted down after Viande.  He could very well send them both over the edge with his speed and recklessness.  Somehow, he managed to get a hold of Viande's arm, but found himself pulled down as well.  Instinctively, he threw his other arm out, seeking something, anything, to grab onto.  Finally, they skidded to a stop as Marron's added weight was enough to thwart gravity, arresting their progress down the slope of the roof.

His skin aching with something akin to but much worse than rug burn, Marron pushed himself up, not letting go of Viande's wrist.  His loose hold abruptly tightened as Viande's first movement made him slip again, sending him over the edge.  He had stopped right on the edge, and was now dangling over the fatal drop behind the house.  The only thing keeping Marron from going over as well was his reflexively grabbing the stone gutter.  The bones of his upper and lower arm jammed together as his stiffened arm took on his full weight.

He gritted his teeth.  "Come on," he said.  "Help me pull you up!"  He braced himself and, ignoring the pain in his body as much as he could, began to slowly haul Viande up onto the roof again.  Viande grabbed onto the edge when he was able and added his strength to the effort…

"Viande!" Cerise cried.  She had made her way down the roof much slower and more cautiously, but was now right next to Marron.  She took a hold of Viande's other arm, pulling him up as well.

"Cerise," Viande whispered, his eyes locking on hers, his voice little more than a whisper.  He was halfway onto the roof now, and could support his own weight, though Marron and Cerise hadn't yet let go.  They stared into each other's eyes for an endless moment, emotions and words passing between them unsaid.  Finally, a sad smile slid across Viande's scratched and chafed face.

He let go.

Both Marron and Cerise cried out in horror as he slipped his hands out of theirs and let himself fall.  Cerise instinctively threw herself forward in an attempt to grab his hand again.  She would have joined him in his fatal fall if Marron hadn't quickly put his arms around her and pulled her back several feet from the edge.  She stared in disbelief at the spot Viande had been only seconds before, tears stinging her widened eyes.

"He did it…he really…did it…" she murmured, her entire body beginning to tremble.  The reality of his suicide slammed into her, and she burst out into tears, screaming her rage and grief to the sky.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*

"Guys!" Carrot called a second before he burst through the door of the inn room.  "Did I hear right?  The Sorcerer's dead?"

Marron had pulled one of the chairs out from the table and was sitting in it, Cerise standing in front of him and dabbing at the severe shingle burn on Marron's face with a medicated cotton ball.  Cerise looked very sober and subdued, and Marron, aside from the occasional wince, was stone-faced.  Neither had the spirits to cast a healing spell at the moment.

Cerise nodded numbly.

"You killed him, then?" Carrot asked Marron.

Both flinched.

"No," Marron said flatly.  "He killed himself."

"Killed himself?" Carrot repeated, surprised.  "Why?"

"Neither of us wish to speak of it right now," Marron said, the slightest hint of sharpness in his voice.

"Oh."  Carrot knew how to read the tones of his brother's voice, and now was not a good time to push him.

"Carrot," Marron said after a few minutes, "please make sure all our stuff is together.  We're leaving for home early tomorrow morning."

To be continued…

Author's Notes:  Sorry about this being two weeks late.  However, I was very busy two weeks ago, and that only compounded the writer's block I had with this chapter.  As a result of the writer's block, I don't know if this chapter is my best work, but it will suffice.  There will be a (probably short) epilogue chapter after this, and since I'm done writing "The Sacred and the Profane", I'll probably write and post that next weekend.  Knowing my ability to follow my update schedules, however, I advise you not to get your hopes up.  Please tell me what you think of this chapter!  This whole story, if you've only recently discovered it!  Let me know in either a review or an email to mangareader@hotmail.com, onegai shimasu!