Fear
Pairing:
Kyo/Hotaru
PG
Warning: Spoilers for Chapter 280 of the manga.
He never thought he could feel fear. He thought fear was the heat of the blood oozing from his wound when somebody pressed a blade against his skin. He thought fear was the rush of fire, his first summon, when he saw his mother die before his eyes. He thought fear was the biting burns from the flames of Sekigahara.
He thought fear was hot.
But he was very wrong. Fear was the chill that seized his heart when he saw Kyo collapse into a pile of inanimate matter. Fear was the shiver running up his spine when Yun-yun's father (what's his name again?) said that Kyo was also infected. Fear was the sudden weakness in his legs when he realized that Kyo might slip through his fingers like dust just as Hishigi did.
There would not even be a corpse left that he could bury himself alive with. There would not even be a funeral pyre that he could light.
Fear would lead to panic. And panic was what made him want to rush forward into the middle of a fight to…to what? There was nothing he could do.
But nobody said fear was rational.
If…if anything was to happen, Hotaru knew he would never forgive Yuan and Akari for stopping him when they did.
Fear was not rational. Neither was love.