Title: Lord of Death 27?
Author: Seraphim Grace
Archive: if you want it ask.
Feedback: Always appreciated and replied to.
Rating: R.
Pairings: Burgeoning 1x2
Warnings: Angst. Some gore.
Notes: AU, and features necromancy
Duo and Heero are taken to a strange world where Duo is worshipped because he calls himself Shinigami
Over the field of Samrath the sun rose like a stripper, slowly pulling away clouds to reveal it's nakedness. Of them all only Minako did not seem surprised to see them.
To the southwest the Garvem were a black mass, their armour shining in the prelight and glistening with colours, making them look like an army of beetles gathered and waiting. Their banner was a large black hand on a red field that snapped and billowed in the slight wind. Heero was impressed by their discipline
To the south east, pressed against the imposing black forest, the Termigent, were the Senshi, and high sat the Seraphim-adjutant, Danan D'Karioni, on his white horse. They had no banner but they wore golden cloaks emblazoned with a pair of open white wings.
The senshi were to the north, gathered under many banners. Upon seeing them Minako reached into her saddlebag and pulled out a long white wool robe, snapping it out to shake out the creases.
"No," Tobin said upon seeing it, "Mamoru's not here. You promised, Mina."
"I made my oaths," she answered stiffly, fastening the robe with a chain about her waist. "And I keep them." She looked at Duo, "this is the duty of the lAdy of Meirin, such as it is, we walk the battlefields to bring peace to the dead." She sounded sad, "Tobin, Heero, take him to Meirin, please." There was a look about her as if she would cry. "I'll be fine." She continued not waiting for their protest.
"It is against orders." Heero answered, "and it opens to many variables for the execution of a successful mission, I will only leave for Meirin with you." His tone was bland. "We do not have to enter this fray."
Minako sighed, "I do," she said. "If you're so determined to fight," she looked at Tobin, "keep them safe, the Senshi will protect me."
Duo realised sometihng, "you knew this was coming, didn't you?" He asked, "that's why you sent Mamoru away."
Minako didn't answer him, she just spurred her horse on to join the gathered Senshi.
As soon as minako reached them the Senshi charged.
Duo could hear their battle-cries and the thunder of their hooves. To the Southwest was a knotted mass of men in glossy black armour, and to the Southeast the soldiers wore white under a banner of outstretched golden wings. The majority of the Senshi wore a crest of a crystal bell, but their standard said shi ne. The men in black had long pikes atopped with curving blades and the men in white had blades strapped under their forearms.
They screamed obscenities at the Senshi who wore lacquered wooden armour. They pulled scarves, called kamen, from around their necks to cover their mouths with a murmur of eta, unclean. The other armies charged in and it was chaos, limbs flew and heads rolled and blood spattered, Tobin and Heero pulled him away from the fighting, up agianst the forest, but making sure not to enter it, even slightly.
What he saw next altered everything, later he would say it was a pivotal moment, because as the three armies clattered together, amongst the blood and gobbets, mud and heat of battle, she stood surrounded by those that fell. She was giving them comfort as she rewove their silver threads into the loom above. The dead of all the armies gathered around her as she appeased their terrible loss. He saw in that instant what it meant to be the Lady of Meirin.
None of those living on this field could see what she could see, what he could see. Duo understood that now. Then Minako looked directly at him, at Duo, and bowed her head as if to an equal. She deliberately acknowledged him. The white army attacked her from behind. The knot of Senshi around her were cut down like blades of wheat. They grabbed her, one placing a broken black sword to her throat. Her face was calm as another calm forward, and Duo was transfixed. The man pulled a steel helmet from his head and threw it back into the mud. It was Danan and he followed the line of Minako's gaze, but there was no way that he could make out what it was she focussed on, there was too much in the way. He just wanted to see what she did.
He forced her unto the ground and put his knees on her hips, she was strangely quiescent. He placed the tip of the curved knife under his right forearm to her solar plexus, and then pushed in and up, splitting her open like a melon. As she lay dying, held down by his knees, she smiled at Deakon as the man with no helmet put his hand in side her chest and ripped out her beating heart with a dreadful wrench.
Duo tried to struggle out of Heero's grip but Tobin stopped him and Heero held him firm, crushing him against his chest. The armies were not done, even after Minako fell, they hacked and they slashed amongst themselves, but a second woman took the field. She wore shimmering white that seemed to throw light about her. She was younger than the lady, no older than Duo maybe, and her hair was the colour of chestnuts shining in the sun, and amongst her short curls she wore a golden circlet, but stuck through it were two feathers, one black one white. Her eyes were fixed directly on his as she stepped through the battle. They couldn't see her. But it wasn't her eyes that held him, though they were eerily similar to his own. Raised behind her, golden in the golden light, was a single feathered wing. It was outstretched like the banner of the man with no helmet. He fell forward and rolled unto his side whilst he dry retched, because he had no more to come, and his knees were pulled into his chest as he sobbed and the girl with the one wing came closer and closer. "Deakon," she said and she squeezed his eyes shut, pressing his head to Heero's neck and wished it all away.
HE became aware of the horse moving beneath him as Heero and Tobin led the field, he just pressed himself agianst Heero and wished that he could cry. He wished he could understand what Minako had done, and why.
Instead they carried him away from the field, as helpless as a newborn, to the tower of Meirin. Part of him knew he should dismount, that he should take the field in Minako's place. He could hear the dead screaming out in anguish. He felt something tugging at him, scratching at his inner walls, "Deakon," the woman with the one wing whispered, "call the Ningyo." So he did. "Avenge her."
He pulled his head away from the safe crook of Heero's neck and whispered, "Ningyo, tasukete." Saying the words that she told him to say.
Before Duo couldn't have said that he had seen the dark shadows in the forest, but they had been there, waiting for him, he knew it now. They were men, or had been at one point, their flesh was grey and mottled, a copper band stained green with verdigris circled each man's forehead, almost carved into the meat of it, creating a wedge in their heads. It was clear that their backs had been broken, they were stooped over, dragging their forearms agaisnt the ground as they loped into the fray, and from the wrists their hands had been cut away and long bladed knives put in their place. There could not have been more than a hundred of them.
They fell upon the Seraphim, Garvem and Senshi alike as they screamed and they died.
A Garvem with a red band about his arm managed to almost completely sever the head of one of the Ningyo, it fell back flopping but still the sewn up eyes and mouth started, convulsing, and still the Ningyo attacked relentlessly, hacking with one hand and stabbing with the other. It took a much weaker blow to fell the Garvem.
Duo knew what they were, even as Heero hissed under his breath. They were the dead, they were the reanimated dead. "He is mine." Duo said, "only I will kill the Seraphim who killed her, bring him to me." He could make those commands, because they were dead, because they would serve him. Who the lady with the one wing was he did not know, nor, did he care.
It was a massacre.
Danan D'Karioni realised quickly that he was responsible for the century of deathless, merciless, mindless warriors that flooded the field, clutching Minako's heart to his chest, as if it was a priceless treasure and not a lump of useless flesh, he ran. He ran as hard as he could, with the loping Ningyo fast behind him. If they caught him Duo did not see because Heero had spurred his horse into a gallop and was murmuring in his ear as they fled the field, leaving the Ningyo and the slaughter behind.
Author's Note
Ningyo technically means doll.