Title: A Blood Memory -- Climax
Rating: Hard PG-13, maybe R...
Warnings: Mucho angst, lotsa blood, and, of course, swearing ^.^
A/N: Before I say anything else, I have a public service announcement:
GO SEE X-MEN 2!! Holy HELL! That movies rocks! It's awesome! It's actiony! It's trippy! And furthermore:
NIGHTCRAWLER IS A SWIFTMEISTER! THAT MEANS HE IS A BEING OF PURE SWIFTYNESS! THAT MEANS GO SEE HIM NOW! HE'S RIGHT AT THE BEGINNING, SO DON'T GET TO THE THEATRE LATE! *pantpant* and that preview for 28 days later looked pretty shweet too... anyways-
MidnightLoner- "aniki" is what Jim call Gene in the original Japanese version. It's translated as "older brother" or "mentor." And... this chapter is considerably worse(bloody) than the last one- just a warning.
I hope I didn't try through all those chapters that hard to work people up for nothing...Oh well, I'll probably end up rewriting this sometime anyways. Here goes my first attempt at violent angst- wish me luck! ^.^;
====
When Jim woke, the clouds were giving way to a dimming orange sun. He felt terrible, physically and inwardly, as he recalled what had happened. The dryness was back in his eyes, his throat and his heart. He pulled himself to his feet, leaning against the brick wall for support, and made his way back to his car, which suddenly didn't seem to be worth so much. He opened the door, fairly crawled in, and sat, not even touching the wheel. How could he go back?
He wouldn't. So where? He felt something terrible in his stomach, deep within, an ill sensation that he likened to how he had felt the day before he'd gotten deathly ill. That had been years ago, soon after he had met...
His thoughts trailed off, and a ringing filled his head. Things were not right, nothing was today. He felt afraid, terrified that he and... his aniki, not Gene, aniki. He was afraid that they would never feel right again when they were near each other. His teeth gritted together painfully, but he did not notice it. His head swam as he squeezed his eyes shut, and the sun turned darker. Unexpectedly, he slammed his fist down on the wheel, narrowly missing the horn, and bowed his head in frustration.
====
A bounty? On her? She felt flattered as she fingered the handle of her katana. No one had ever noticed her before, before she had publicly killed. That had been a mistake, the only time she was caught in the act (though she had easily escaped), and so she was underestimated. It was a small bounty, not worth risking your life over. They didn't know that, though. She wondered if anyone would even bother to hunt her.
She watched the water rush by. It was deep.
====
Gene had taken the spare car, a fair piece of crap. He kept himself from thinking of how he usually got around when not walking, did not think that maybe he would need backup. He was still furious at Jim and himself, and deeply regretted what he had done. Had he been wrong the whole time?
No. he consciously stopped that train of thought and concentrated on what information he had found. It hadn't been hard to find the files on the assassin, had been almost insultingly easy to learn where to find her. It wasn't far out of the city, either. This would be easy, and it was just what he needed, though he was a little sorry to have left Melfina so worried. But he could sort the rest out later. Now he just had to think of fighting, something real and direct, something he excelled at.
His gloved hand searched beside him for his caster, and he cursed when he remembered that Jim had been cleaning it for him not long ago. Too late to get it now. Not that that he needed it, he figured. His regular gun would be fine, and he was good enough at hand-to-hand combat if he somehow lost it.
The sun turned redder as Gene drove on, and the town slowly became country. It wasn't much longer, a little after he had passed a farm where he once had fought one of the Kei pirates. He ignored the memory and turned down a dusty road. He stopped a little ways away from where the info had said the bounty could be found. He got out and closed the door behind himself, careful not to slam it, and his confidence seemed even more assured as he walked toward the scene. He viewed the area methodically, taking careful note of every potential coverspace or trap as he always did. He made his way to the field before the buildings and sparse trees, and there he called out her name.
"Nikita!" The leaves of trees rustled as wind sprung up, seeming to try to push Gene away. "Nikita Blade!"
====
She amused herself by listening to him shouting her name, calling for her to come out and poking around. When he finally fell silent, she began to edge towards him. She waited, hidden in the long shadows of her "house," for him to turn and walk away. He did. Immediately, she abandoned her hiding place and trotted silently towards him. She was mere yards from the man when she drew her blade and lunged.
====
Jim wasn't quite sure where he was going now. It seemed to be in the general direction of his home at first, but soon his course had turned. As he drove, wondering what the hell he was doing, he remembered a set of directions. He wasn't sure where he had heard them, but could see no reason to not cater to a whim and follow the directions.
It might have been an unfortunate twist of fate, or maybe a necessary turn of events to waylay a worse fate, that the directions were part of a set of information he had acquired while researching a bounty.
====
The only warning Gene had was the metallic "shing" the sword made as it was drawn. He whirled, looked up, and met burnt orange eyes. Her loose sleeves flapped as she brought the blade stabbing down from behind her head. She missed Gene as he yelled in surprise and ducked away, shedding his pinned cloak. He retreated to a safe distance as the woman pulled her sword, half-buried from the force of the blow, out of the dirt. She swung it around, holding it out parallel to the ground and shrugging her fiery hair from her face. Gene hid his unsettlement at being attacked so swiftly and quietly beneath a cocky smirk.
"So, you wait 'til my back's turned, huh?" He looks down at her, for she is lacking in stature and his chin is arrogantly tipped up. She makes no reply except a wicked, half-sided smile. A half-moment later, she attacked again, running the sword directly at him. He turned aside, but she was already whirling around, slicing towards his torso, and he barely jumped out of the way. She came forward again, cutting up and then down, and Gene's smile was wiped away as he wondered, had he misjudged her because of the bounty? How reliable was it? She whipped her sword around again once more, and Gene had no time to duck or dodge. He gritted his teeth and Nikita frowned at the sharp clang her katana made as it hit Gene's black knife. He turned her blade aside, quickly, and slashed at her. He almost hit her, instead barely nicking a fold of cloth. She stepped back and studied him, breathing evenly. Gene was winded, but did the same. He was sure now that, once he was done with this, he was going to maim the person who put up the misleading bounty. Severely.
Nikita raised her sword, and Gene transferred his knife to his left hand, drawing his gun with the other. He shot, but she was already ducking under and coming at him again. Again, he raised his knife to turn her aside and fired once more, but missed, and she had changed the target. Seeing the cutting edge coming towards his wrist like a bird of prey, he dropped the gun and activated his light-shield, and the katana was repelled. Nikita was surprised only for a moment as the shock ran up her arm, but she switched hands and shook out her arm calmly, and cut, one-handed towards Gene. Her aim was to get him out of reach of his gun, which she kicked towards the woods. It flew all the way, revealing the spring-coiled muscles she hid beneath a slight, almost childlike physique. Now, she thought as he succumbed to her aims. She raised her sword for a death stroke, but stopped. She coughed and stumbled back from Gene's booted foot, which had caught her hard in the gut.
====
Jim was not expecting to find Gene's spare car on the side of the road. What was he doing here? Hadn't he been at home. His curiosity overcoming his apprehension at having to face his aniki again so soon, he stopped the car a little past the other and got out. As he turned to close the door, he spied Gene's castor gun in the back seat. How... he wondered, then remembered that he had been working on it. He had been too busy to remember to give it back, and picked it up now. Maybe he could use it as a sort of a peace offering. He smirked inwardly. Right. A gun as a peace offering. He picked it up and buckled the holster to his belt, then set off across the field to find Gene.
When he was halfway across the field, he thought he saw movement not far from a river, between that and an old stone building. He couldn't tell very well what it might be, as it was obscured by the growing darkness, but it seemed rapid. He decided to play it safe and moved into the cover of the sparse trees as he approached. As he did so, he was startled to hear shots, then a pause and a distant clang.
With a jolt he remembered where he had found the directions. He ran.
====
For a moment, Gene's confidence returned almost full-force.
"Stupid bitch. You really aren't worth that much." Anger mingled with his smugness as he turned and hastened towards the trees to retrieve his weapon.
Nikita's bowed head looked up slowly as she panted, and her eyes were narrowed as she glared at Gene's back. She would not be shamed this way. She was so much better than him. She straightened, and the tip cut the earth as she charged him, she yelled as she drew the sword back and stabbed at him. He whirled around, eyes wide, and dodged not quite fast enough to avoid a deep cut in his left arm. She sliced again, one-handed, swinging the blade almost erratically at Gene, but he knocked it away from him with his knife once more. Unexpectedly, as Gene's kick had been, she swung the back of her fist against the side of his head, knocking him back and almost to the ground as he reeled dizzily. As he looked down through a haze, moving back and away from Nikita's snakelike katana, he spotted his gun, he ducked down and reached for it, but flame-hued woman had seized her chance. As he bent down to grab his gun, she jumped forward, planting her feet upon his shoulders and forcing him down to the ground with this totally unexpected move. His weapon was out of reach and his head was still murky with the blow, and Nikita was raising her sword, a sneer terrifyingly distorting her almost elven features.
A terrible shot rang out, and Nikita stopped, shocked at the sudden wild pain in her side. Blood seeped through the pale fabric of her shirt, and only her stunned surprise kept the pain at bay. The shot had lit the air with a violet-hued fire, and the heat of the castor shell seared the right side of her body.
It was hard to see in the dark, and Jim was only a fair shot. The shell had not even directly hit her, but had only grazed her with its bespelled aura. Jim had been knocked back, stunned and laying on his back. He groaned. He had never used a castor gun before, and had not anticipated the painful recoil. He felt fairly sure he had hit her, he had to have. Gene's panicked voice yanked him from his momentary daze. He had never before heard his aniki panic.
"JIM! GET UP!" Almost immediately after her initial shock, Nikita's utter rage had destroyed every shred of her concentration on Gene. It had also overcome the pain in her bloodied side, and now, as time seemed to move excruciatingly slowly, she whirled and stampeded toward Jim, eyes bestially mad. He struggled to his feet, terrified, and there was no way that Gene could make it in time, though time seemed to stretch until it might break and cast the world into nothing.
Jim raised the castor rifle again, fired desperately and managed to stay on his feet. Now that Nikita's full attention was on him, though, he could never hit her. She reached him, and Gene felt as if he were watching freeze frames from a horrible movie. His head whipped around as if in whiplash as he searched for his gun, and there it was as Nikita's first cut severed tendons and muscle. Jim's hand convulsed and the weapon dropped as blood sprayed out, his eyes were wide, desperately, terribly wide as Gene lunged for his gun, and his mind was screaming a monotone "NONONONO," because even after the worst fight they could have, he could never let Jim go like this.
Nikita drew her sword back again, and as Jim tried to reach for his wound, to hold the spurting blood in, almost reached for it and turned just a fraction, but a fraction's difference can change the course of rivers. He was looking up at her, nothing more than a frightened little kid, but she had no pity in her fury. Gene's hand closed on the gun, dragged it toward him as he pulled himself up, moving like a leaden golem.
The blade came, scenting life and hating it, wanting it, searching for it, and finding it. Nikita drove it forward while Gene was years way from stopping her, and it pierced skin. It pierced skin, slicing through flesh and bone and blood vessels. It fired into him, and Jim thought he might vomit, if not from pain, then from the realization that there was blade before him and blade behind him, and that he had been utterly impaled. The pain was fiery, like Nikita's hair and eyes, and he choked on the metal as it seemed she would never withdraw it. She did, and Jim did vomit, he vomited a sanguine mess of spit and blood as the sword slid back through his flesh. The force with which she had stabbed him had pushed him back towards the drop, and now it drew him forward, and as the tip of the weapon relinquished his flesh it drew a dark ribbon with it, crimson and curling like smoke in the air.
Gene fired once, twice, and again. His aim was true, guided by desperation and fear, and she coughed wetly. She pitched forward, stumbling against Jim, and past him, and one last shot threw her into the river, polluting it with her blood. Now Jim fell, was on the ground watering the grasses with his own swiftly escaping blood. Gene ran toward him, and he was so afraid, so afraid to let Jim die after what he had done.
It couldn't end like this.
It couldn't.
====
A/N:
o.O
there is no excuse.
i am a terrible, terrible person.
Rating: Hard PG-13, maybe R...
Warnings: Mucho angst, lotsa blood, and, of course, swearing ^.^
A/N: Before I say anything else, I have a public service announcement:
GO SEE X-MEN 2!! Holy HELL! That movies rocks! It's awesome! It's actiony! It's trippy! And furthermore:
NIGHTCRAWLER IS A SWIFTMEISTER! THAT MEANS HE IS A BEING OF PURE SWIFTYNESS! THAT MEANS GO SEE HIM NOW! HE'S RIGHT AT THE BEGINNING, SO DON'T GET TO THE THEATRE LATE! *pantpant* and that preview for 28 days later looked pretty shweet too... anyways-
MidnightLoner- "aniki" is what Jim call Gene in the original Japanese version. It's translated as "older brother" or "mentor." And... this chapter is considerably worse(bloody) than the last one- just a warning.
I hope I didn't try through all those chapters that hard to work people up for nothing...Oh well, I'll probably end up rewriting this sometime anyways. Here goes my first attempt at violent angst- wish me luck! ^.^;
====
When Jim woke, the clouds were giving way to a dimming orange sun. He felt terrible, physically and inwardly, as he recalled what had happened. The dryness was back in his eyes, his throat and his heart. He pulled himself to his feet, leaning against the brick wall for support, and made his way back to his car, which suddenly didn't seem to be worth so much. He opened the door, fairly crawled in, and sat, not even touching the wheel. How could he go back?
He wouldn't. So where? He felt something terrible in his stomach, deep within, an ill sensation that he likened to how he had felt the day before he'd gotten deathly ill. That had been years ago, soon after he had met...
His thoughts trailed off, and a ringing filled his head. Things were not right, nothing was today. He felt afraid, terrified that he and... his aniki, not Gene, aniki. He was afraid that they would never feel right again when they were near each other. His teeth gritted together painfully, but he did not notice it. His head swam as he squeezed his eyes shut, and the sun turned darker. Unexpectedly, he slammed his fist down on the wheel, narrowly missing the horn, and bowed his head in frustration.
====
A bounty? On her? She felt flattered as she fingered the handle of her katana. No one had ever noticed her before, before she had publicly killed. That had been a mistake, the only time she was caught in the act (though she had easily escaped), and so she was underestimated. It was a small bounty, not worth risking your life over. They didn't know that, though. She wondered if anyone would even bother to hunt her.
She watched the water rush by. It was deep.
====
Gene had taken the spare car, a fair piece of crap. He kept himself from thinking of how he usually got around when not walking, did not think that maybe he would need backup. He was still furious at Jim and himself, and deeply regretted what he had done. Had he been wrong the whole time?
No. he consciously stopped that train of thought and concentrated on what information he had found. It hadn't been hard to find the files on the assassin, had been almost insultingly easy to learn where to find her. It wasn't far out of the city, either. This would be easy, and it was just what he needed, though he was a little sorry to have left Melfina so worried. But he could sort the rest out later. Now he just had to think of fighting, something real and direct, something he excelled at.
His gloved hand searched beside him for his caster, and he cursed when he remembered that Jim had been cleaning it for him not long ago. Too late to get it now. Not that that he needed it, he figured. His regular gun would be fine, and he was good enough at hand-to-hand combat if he somehow lost it.
The sun turned redder as Gene drove on, and the town slowly became country. It wasn't much longer, a little after he had passed a farm where he once had fought one of the Kei pirates. He ignored the memory and turned down a dusty road. He stopped a little ways away from where the info had said the bounty could be found. He got out and closed the door behind himself, careful not to slam it, and his confidence seemed even more assured as he walked toward the scene. He viewed the area methodically, taking careful note of every potential coverspace or trap as he always did. He made his way to the field before the buildings and sparse trees, and there he called out her name.
"Nikita!" The leaves of trees rustled as wind sprung up, seeming to try to push Gene away. "Nikita Blade!"
====
She amused herself by listening to him shouting her name, calling for her to come out and poking around. When he finally fell silent, she began to edge towards him. She waited, hidden in the long shadows of her "house," for him to turn and walk away. He did. Immediately, she abandoned her hiding place and trotted silently towards him. She was mere yards from the man when she drew her blade and lunged.
====
Jim wasn't quite sure where he was going now. It seemed to be in the general direction of his home at first, but soon his course had turned. As he drove, wondering what the hell he was doing, he remembered a set of directions. He wasn't sure where he had heard them, but could see no reason to not cater to a whim and follow the directions.
It might have been an unfortunate twist of fate, or maybe a necessary turn of events to waylay a worse fate, that the directions were part of a set of information he had acquired while researching a bounty.
====
The only warning Gene had was the metallic "shing" the sword made as it was drawn. He whirled, looked up, and met burnt orange eyes. Her loose sleeves flapped as she brought the blade stabbing down from behind her head. She missed Gene as he yelled in surprise and ducked away, shedding his pinned cloak. He retreated to a safe distance as the woman pulled her sword, half-buried from the force of the blow, out of the dirt. She swung it around, holding it out parallel to the ground and shrugging her fiery hair from her face. Gene hid his unsettlement at being attacked so swiftly and quietly beneath a cocky smirk.
"So, you wait 'til my back's turned, huh?" He looks down at her, for she is lacking in stature and his chin is arrogantly tipped up. She makes no reply except a wicked, half-sided smile. A half-moment later, she attacked again, running the sword directly at him. He turned aside, but she was already whirling around, slicing towards his torso, and he barely jumped out of the way. She came forward again, cutting up and then down, and Gene's smile was wiped away as he wondered, had he misjudged her because of the bounty? How reliable was it? She whipped her sword around again once more, and Gene had no time to duck or dodge. He gritted his teeth and Nikita frowned at the sharp clang her katana made as it hit Gene's black knife. He turned her blade aside, quickly, and slashed at her. He almost hit her, instead barely nicking a fold of cloth. She stepped back and studied him, breathing evenly. Gene was winded, but did the same. He was sure now that, once he was done with this, he was going to maim the person who put up the misleading bounty. Severely.
Nikita raised her sword, and Gene transferred his knife to his left hand, drawing his gun with the other. He shot, but she was already ducking under and coming at him again. Again, he raised his knife to turn her aside and fired once more, but missed, and she had changed the target. Seeing the cutting edge coming towards his wrist like a bird of prey, he dropped the gun and activated his light-shield, and the katana was repelled. Nikita was surprised only for a moment as the shock ran up her arm, but she switched hands and shook out her arm calmly, and cut, one-handed towards Gene. Her aim was to get him out of reach of his gun, which she kicked towards the woods. It flew all the way, revealing the spring-coiled muscles she hid beneath a slight, almost childlike physique. Now, she thought as he succumbed to her aims. She raised her sword for a death stroke, but stopped. She coughed and stumbled back from Gene's booted foot, which had caught her hard in the gut.
====
Jim was not expecting to find Gene's spare car on the side of the road. What was he doing here? Hadn't he been at home. His curiosity overcoming his apprehension at having to face his aniki again so soon, he stopped the car a little past the other and got out. As he turned to close the door, he spied Gene's castor gun in the back seat. How... he wondered, then remembered that he had been working on it. He had been too busy to remember to give it back, and picked it up now. Maybe he could use it as a sort of a peace offering. He smirked inwardly. Right. A gun as a peace offering. He picked it up and buckled the holster to his belt, then set off across the field to find Gene.
When he was halfway across the field, he thought he saw movement not far from a river, between that and an old stone building. He couldn't tell very well what it might be, as it was obscured by the growing darkness, but it seemed rapid. He decided to play it safe and moved into the cover of the sparse trees as he approached. As he did so, he was startled to hear shots, then a pause and a distant clang.
With a jolt he remembered where he had found the directions. He ran.
====
For a moment, Gene's confidence returned almost full-force.
"Stupid bitch. You really aren't worth that much." Anger mingled with his smugness as he turned and hastened towards the trees to retrieve his weapon.
Nikita's bowed head looked up slowly as she panted, and her eyes were narrowed as she glared at Gene's back. She would not be shamed this way. She was so much better than him. She straightened, and the tip cut the earth as she charged him, she yelled as she drew the sword back and stabbed at him. He whirled around, eyes wide, and dodged not quite fast enough to avoid a deep cut in his left arm. She sliced again, one-handed, swinging the blade almost erratically at Gene, but he knocked it away from him with his knife once more. Unexpectedly, as Gene's kick had been, she swung the back of her fist against the side of his head, knocking him back and almost to the ground as he reeled dizzily. As he looked down through a haze, moving back and away from Nikita's snakelike katana, he spotted his gun, he ducked down and reached for it, but flame-hued woman had seized her chance. As he bent down to grab his gun, she jumped forward, planting her feet upon his shoulders and forcing him down to the ground with this totally unexpected move. His weapon was out of reach and his head was still murky with the blow, and Nikita was raising her sword, a sneer terrifyingly distorting her almost elven features.
A terrible shot rang out, and Nikita stopped, shocked at the sudden wild pain in her side. Blood seeped through the pale fabric of her shirt, and only her stunned surprise kept the pain at bay. The shot had lit the air with a violet-hued fire, and the heat of the castor shell seared the right side of her body.
It was hard to see in the dark, and Jim was only a fair shot. The shell had not even directly hit her, but had only grazed her with its bespelled aura. Jim had been knocked back, stunned and laying on his back. He groaned. He had never used a castor gun before, and had not anticipated the painful recoil. He felt fairly sure he had hit her, he had to have. Gene's panicked voice yanked him from his momentary daze. He had never before heard his aniki panic.
"JIM! GET UP!" Almost immediately after her initial shock, Nikita's utter rage had destroyed every shred of her concentration on Gene. It had also overcome the pain in her bloodied side, and now, as time seemed to move excruciatingly slowly, she whirled and stampeded toward Jim, eyes bestially mad. He struggled to his feet, terrified, and there was no way that Gene could make it in time, though time seemed to stretch until it might break and cast the world into nothing.
Jim raised the castor rifle again, fired desperately and managed to stay on his feet. Now that Nikita's full attention was on him, though, he could never hit her. She reached him, and Gene felt as if he were watching freeze frames from a horrible movie. His head whipped around as if in whiplash as he searched for his gun, and there it was as Nikita's first cut severed tendons and muscle. Jim's hand convulsed and the weapon dropped as blood sprayed out, his eyes were wide, desperately, terribly wide as Gene lunged for his gun, and his mind was screaming a monotone "NONONONO," because even after the worst fight they could have, he could never let Jim go like this.
Nikita drew her sword back again, and as Jim tried to reach for his wound, to hold the spurting blood in, almost reached for it and turned just a fraction, but a fraction's difference can change the course of rivers. He was looking up at her, nothing more than a frightened little kid, but she had no pity in her fury. Gene's hand closed on the gun, dragged it toward him as he pulled himself up, moving like a leaden golem.
The blade came, scenting life and hating it, wanting it, searching for it, and finding it. Nikita drove it forward while Gene was years way from stopping her, and it pierced skin. It pierced skin, slicing through flesh and bone and blood vessels. It fired into him, and Jim thought he might vomit, if not from pain, then from the realization that there was blade before him and blade behind him, and that he had been utterly impaled. The pain was fiery, like Nikita's hair and eyes, and he choked on the metal as it seemed she would never withdraw it. She did, and Jim did vomit, he vomited a sanguine mess of spit and blood as the sword slid back through his flesh. The force with which she had stabbed him had pushed him back towards the drop, and now it drew him forward, and as the tip of the weapon relinquished his flesh it drew a dark ribbon with it, crimson and curling like smoke in the air.
Gene fired once, twice, and again. His aim was true, guided by desperation and fear, and she coughed wetly. She pitched forward, stumbling against Jim, and past him, and one last shot threw her into the river, polluting it with her blood. Now Jim fell, was on the ground watering the grasses with his own swiftly escaping blood. Gene ran toward him, and he was so afraid, so afraid to let Jim die after what he had done.
It couldn't end like this.
It couldn't.
====
A/N:
o.O
there is no excuse.
i am a terrible, terrible person.