From The Ashes Chapter 15: 15: The World of Adults, a sakura wars fanfic

Rating: PG-13/R- LANGUAGE, VIOLENCE, ADULT SITUATIONS.

"FROM THE ASHES" – The World of Adults

No, I'm not a friggin' sorcerer, if that's what you're thinking. Well, actually, I guess I am, if you're not creative enough to think of a less archaic term.

I was born in Kilkenny, Ireland, and lived there until I was fifteen. For as long as I can remember, I've been able to see and hear things that most other people not only couldn't see and hear, but didn't even believe existed.

One old lady who lived up on the hill at the north end of my town, she did believe me. And when I was ten years old, she agreed to teach me a little bit of control over my rather unusual abilities. And from that, I was able to extrapolate and learn a bit of control – or should I say command? – over those things I could see and hear.

That's the problem with the Kazuar. No one ever believed her or taught her. Her power over the element of Water still scares her half to death. And if everyone reacted to it all her life the way we reacted to it the night she froze the water glass, it's no wonder she doesn't talk about it or acknowledge it.

I'm focusing now on the cracked picture frame with the soldier in it.

"Name was Yuri-Mikha—"

"Shh!"

Valentinov is standing just inside the closed door behind me. I'm sitting cross-legged on the floor in one of the empty offices of the Douglas-Stewart Building – the room where we dumped all of the Kazuar's stuff.

I think it is a bad idea to bring Valentinov here, especially if there's any chance of him figuring out what we're doing and why we want the girl. But Brent wants him to confirm what I find as a test of my skill, and whatever Brent's using to augment my ability won't work if I leave the building. So here we are.

"…Nikolayevich." I finish the name he started telling me before I could figure it out for myself.

Valentinov blinks in surprise. "Da… Nikolayevich… How did y—"

"Whaddaya think I was kiddin'?" I close my eyes again and grip the frame of the picture again, keeping my fingers away from the glass Cav cracked when he brought the duffel up. "Sandy blonde hair, tall and thin…"

Valentinov huffs. "You holding his photograph! This you could see with your eyes!"

"Shaddup, it's slow in startin', awright?"

Valentinov approaches gingerly and I manage a slightly altered state of consciousness. My face relaxes and an image begins to form behind my eyes. I can tell I'm talking, though softly. I'm telling Valentinov what I'm seeing and hearing, but almost all my attention is on the images, not on this world at all, and certainly not on what I'm saying.

Oddly, I'm not seeing Nikolayevich. I am Nikolayevich. All the images are from the first person perspective, as if I am inside his body. In reality, he is probably inside mine at the moment. Or at least, his memories are. I'm seeing the girl, the Kazuar, through his eyes. She is much younger. Much younger. The past four years have aged her dramatically. She's wearing a dusky rose-coloured wool coat trimmed in white rabbit fur. Her fuzzy mittens are gripped around the handle of a handgun. Her back is to me – to Nikolayevich. His hand is on her shoulder.

"Relax," he tells her, "your grip is too stiff."

My feet are cold. I am used to the feeling. The girl's name is Maria. Maria Tachibana. Her father was important. She is trembling, but not with the cold, she is afraid.

BANG!

One of the tin cans set in the snowdrift is blown backwards by her bullet.

"Excellent!"

They are speaking in Russian. I hear Nikolayevich's voice inside my head. Somehow, I can understand them.

The scene fades, replaced with the sound of a whispered warning in Russian.

My heart starts pounding. My breath plumes into mist in the cold, snow-filled air. I am wearing mittens with the index finger separated so I can still get my finger into the trigger of my bayoneted rifle.

Through the fog and snow, across the field, I can make out several large shadows through my darkly tinted glasses. Tanks. And at that moment, I know beyond knowing that we are going to die. We are on foot. We cannot face down the tanks.

Time seems to slow to a crawl. The sound of my own breathing is torturously loud. I turn and look back at my men. And my girl. Suddenly I feel sick with desperation.

I was selfish. Maria would die because I wanted her to be near me. If only I had sent her away when things started to get dangerous…

I love her. More than anything else, more than the preservation of my life. My men are prepared to die by my side, but my desire to save Maria is most of what motivates my decision – something I will never admit, even to myself.

"RETREAT!" I scream, my voice breaking over the desperation. Gunfire has begun.

A cry of pain from one of my men. I turn and see Maria kneeling beside him. "Are you all right?" she whispers to him and takes his arm to help him up.

My heart aches for her, longs for her. I know I will never see her again.

Maria's eyes are gleaming like emeralds, her face is alight. She is holding a paper target in her mittened hands, and she is beaming. She is proud of herself. And the first person she needs to tell is me. And of all the things I have accomplished in my life thus far, I am pleased with nothing more than with that. She holds up the target, a large hole torn through the exact center by at least three bullets. Dimitrovich's daughter is a paradox – the voice of an angel when she chooses to sing, and the aim of a demon when she chooses to kill.

The soldier allows Maria to haul him to his feet and she pulls his arm supportingly around her neck.

Maria is stubborn. She is so sick that she is flushed with fever, and still she seeks something to do. She has tried to tell me for months what she feels, tried to be everything she believes I expect of her, and I can think of only one way to show her that she is more than I could ever have dreamed. She drops her stick in surprise, and I will regret this when I release her, but for now I can do nothing but kiss her.

Another cry of pain, this time it is Maria's. She grips her side with her hand as she and the soldier she was supporting stumble to their knees. A bullet has ripped clean through the side of her coat, leaving a long cut. That means it cannot have gone deep, if it even cut her at all. Thank God…

"Second Lieutenant!" I repeat my command, urgently. "RETREAT!"

"But, Captain--!"

I am the luckiest man in the world. I must be. I know it is a privilege, lying here with her in my arms, holding her safely until I can see the tent roof brightening with a dawn I am begging not to come. Her face is so peaceful when she sleeps, no grief or worry creasing a brow too young to bear such burdens. She is so young, she should not carry such sorrow. I lightly brush my fingers through her hair, smoothing it back from her face. If I can do anything for this precious girl, I will make Russia a better place than the one in which our parents died.

"Maria! Please! Get the men out of here! I will lead the enemy away!"

"No, Captain!" There are tears in her eyes. She knows as well as I do that we will not both live through this. "Come with us, please!"

"RETREAT!" Someone at the back of the ranks echoes my command, and I give Maria my stoniest gaze through my dark glasses. I can actually see her heart breaking.

Her hair smells beautiful, fresh and cold, almost like the air smells when it is going to snow. I never wish to forget how it feels to have her head resting on my chest, to see her smile and hear her whisper that she can count the beating of my heart. I will never forget the soft sound of her breathing as she sleeps in my arms, the small sound of protest she makes as she begins to wake, tightening her arms around me as if angry with the dawn for coming to separate us.

"I've given you an order, Second Lieutenant!" my voice is cracking with grief, but I must maintain command of myself, for her sake if nothing else. "Get your soldiers out of here!" Her soldiers. Not mine. When I am gone, they will be hers.

"But—"

"NOW, DAMN IT!"

"It's morning," I whisper to her and she moans in dismay, burying her face in my shoulder and curling under the stiff and wretched wool blankets of the army. I return the embrace, tightly, and then try to disentangle us again.

"No…" she sighs and clings to me.

How can I resist that? I smile and stroke her hair, and whisper to her. "Maria, come on, we are meeting Major Valentinov's regiment today. Come… before the rest of the regiment wakes."

"I don't want to hide from them, Yuri…" she sits up and holds the sheet to her chest, not quite pouting. She never pouts. But she looks just sullen enough to wring my heart out.

"FALL BACK!" one of the lieutenants cries. "FALL BA—" and then he will cry no more. The manner in which he fell, forward onto his face, with his arms at uncomfortable angles, makes it clear that he will never rise again.

Maria does not turn back. And I'm certain it's taking most of her courage not to do so. She stumbles once more, bringing the soldier down with her again. From the way she moved and cried out, she'd been shot a second time. When she stands, she is limping, favouring her right leg.

They are killing her. These bastards are killing the one I hold most dear, little piece at a time.

If I look at her for one more moment instead of at the enemy, I will not buy her an escape. With a growl of rage, I turn and run toward the tanks. I hear Maria's cry behind me. I pull the pin from a grenade and pause to hurl it with all my strength toward one of the tanks.

Before the first grenade explodes, I am already pulling the pin on a second one. And that's all I'll have time for.

Just as I'm turning to run and follow our retreat, I realize something so clearly that I nearly miss a step.

The tanks are marked with the emblem of the Russian regiment Major Valentinov had once mentioned to me. The commander of this regiment had met with Valentinov – according to Valentinov – in order to negotiate a stipulated cease-fire with some of the Revolutionaries. And Valentinov was the one who arranged the rendezvous with us, here.

Valentinov had betrayed us to the enemy. Maria!

I turn to run toward her. She is lying on her stomach in the snow. I don't know where the soldier she was helping is now. She is dragging herself back through the snow, leaving a trail of blood behind her, trying to reach her rifle, which she apparently dropped. Her right mitten is soaked in blood, and I deduce that her gun must have been shot from her hand. I can see the blood as she reaches her right hand toward me, her eyes no longer on her weapon.

"CAPTAIN!"

I feel an excruciating pain in my chest as Captain Yuri-Mikhail Nikolayevich is torn open from behind by half a dozen bullets or more.

I drop the picture frame and clutch my chest. I open my eyes and rise up onto my knees to turn and glare at Valentinov.

"Predatel!" I yell, and then later realize what language I'd said it in. Valentinov's eyes widen in surprise and he takes a step back from me.

"Wh-what are you talking about, Patrick?" he stammers in English.

…Patrick.

I stagger and grimace, putting a hand to my head. Valentinov takes my arm to steady me.

"S-sorry…" I breathe as he guides me to a chair. "Kinda… Kinda clingy, that memory…"

"Is all right…" but Valentinov looks a little shaken.

"So'd I do okay?" I grin slyly at him.

"Exactly accurate," he whispers as if I'd discovered some great mystery. A bit too much awe for my taste.

"That was some serious shit, Valentinov. Did you really betray that army?"

Valentinov exhales a long, slow breath of cigarette smoke in a hiss and turns to stand at the window. He runs a hand through his gray hair, then tips his head to one side, then the other, popping his stiff neck. "Revolutionaries never had chance of winning," he begins. I can tell this will likely be a long confession, so I start bagging up Maria's stuff again.

The Kazuar. Not Maria.

I try to shake the last remnants of Nikolayevich's memories from my mind, feeling a little embarrassed, like I'd just walked in on them making love. Which, in a spiritual sense… I sort of did. I'd seen, heard, felt everything Nikolayevich felt for Mar—the Kazuar, and the recovery from that is being a little slow. It was just a little more intimate than spiritual memories usually are. Intense.

Valentinov's continuing his story, and I continue shoving the Kazuar's things into a duffel bag.

"That army… promised… overlook my crimes against Czar. And that of all regiment. If I help to defeat Revolutionaries."

"So ya got threatened. That's rough." I stuff a blue blouse into a duffel and pack it down hard so I can tie it off. Hopefully I don't sound too much like I don't give a shit.

"Not threatened." Valentinov tosses the stub of his cigarette to the floor and slides his hands into his pockets, curtaining back the jacket of his sage green designer Italian suit. "Bought."

"Ya sold out? Huh. Interestin'. Hey, toss me dat bottle'a brandy, wouldya?"

Valentinov's always looked real sharp and snazzy for a Major in an army of treasonous Revolutionaries, even before he came to his cousin's kingdom in New York. His hair's always in perfect condition, his goatee always expertly trimmed. His shoes are always shined and his pants are always pressed and tailored to a perfect length. His cigars are all Cuban and his vodka is all Russian. His cashmere scarf is driven-snow white. The Russian army set this guy up good for leading them to Nikolayevich's regiment.

Valentinov comes over to hand me the bottle I asked for. I pour the full contents over the three tightly-packed duffel bags. I managed to get all her stuff into three bags. I sling two of them over my shoulder and Valentinov picks up the third bag, holding it by the drawstrings at his side so that only his fingers need touch the brandy-soaked bag. "You are certain Maria has no idea... what happened that day?"

"Not that I could see." I almost ask Valentinov if he's sure he wants to do this, since he looks a little tormented at the moment. But then, I'm beginning to suspect that's just how Russian people look.

I follow him down to the boiler room and prop open the door to the back alley for some air flow as Valentinov strikes a match and tosses it onto the three duffel bags we've dumped into the incinerator.

The fire is soon big enough to spill orange-yellow light into the alley. It's nearly 6:00pm and it's already dark outside. For a moment, I wonder if anyone will see the flames, but the only other building that looks out into this alley is an office, and it closed for the night an hour ago. Besides, Douglas-Stewart incinerates trash back here all the time. A fire won't seem like anything strange.

Still, there's no mistaking the click of the hammer being cocked on an Enfield Mark 1 customized Star Revolver.

"Hooo-leeee shit…" I turn around.

In the doorway, like death itself, stands the Kazuar, framed by snow and darkness, with the reflected firelight flashing in her narrowed green eyes.

She knows I'm here, but her glare is focused on Valentinov and her gun is aimed at him. For his part, Valentinov looks completely unconcerned. And I gotta admit, that's impressive, because here's me trying not to shit myself.

"Maria," he smiles and spreads his arms as if he is expecting a hug. In his right hand is a cigarette and a match. He walks toward her, utterly ignoring the gun barrel down which he is staring. He strikes his match on the doorframe and lights his cigarette.

"Let us do what is polite… and take outside with this, da?" He gestures her to back up, and at first, she doesn't move. Then the Kazuar takes a step backward haltingly, her gun still trained on Valentinov, backing out into the alley. Valentinov tips his cigarette at me and gives me the barest of sideward glances as he follows the Kazuar outside.

I get the message clear enough: Kill her. Damn it! This is exactly what Brent wanted to avoid. He'd been researching the 'talent' in three countries for two years and had found only this girl, one other girl and a boy. Of the three, only this one was still alive. Having talents like we do tends to get a person killed by the opportunistic, the greedy, and the very frightened.

Nevertheless, I couldn't see another way out without risking myself. I'd let the Russians kill each other, but if the Kazuar shoots first, she'll get me next. If Valentinov shoots first, I'll have to answer to him why I didn't follow instructions. And he's just as likely to kill me. I'm too important to Brent for him to let me die. I drop the sixth bullet into the cartridge and click the cylinder into place behind the barrel.

"Sorry, kid," I shake my head as I step into the doorway outside, my gun aimed as I start to cock it, "But y—"

My eyes widen in surprise at the sudden loud noise.

Her gun had fired.

She's looking at me, but she cocks her gun again and turns her aim back to Valentinov.

A sharp, heavy pain blooms across my chest and I look down at myself.

The front of my shirt is rapidly soaking with my blood.

She shot me! The bitch shot me!

I'm about to heave a breath in to curse the shit out of her, but I cannot draw breath. I cough instead and drop my gun. My hands seem to have gone all weak on me. Suddenly, my legs won't hold me up, and I fall to the ground, halfway in and halfway out of the door.

How appropriate, I think as my limbs are numbing, that I should die on the threshold between inside and out.

I hear voices again. They are speaking in Russian now, Valentinov and Maria are, but I understand them nonetheless. Kazuar. Not Maria. Kazuar.

I turn my head with all my remaining strength to see blurred versions of Maria and Valentinov standing in the alley in the snow.

"Please tell me, Major," Maria's voice is a calm, terrifying, deadly whisper, and her gun is still fixed firmly on Valentinov. "In that battle at Moscow, the enemy had set up an ambush. Did you know about that, Major?"

Valentinov chuckles and cracks his neck from one side to the other. "Ah, Maria… the world of adults is so dirty…" He reaches into his coat to draw his gun, but Maria is faster.

BANG!

Then Valentinov is on the ground beside me. The hammer on Mar—the Kazuar's gun cocks back again. My vision has gone black, but I can tell by the sound of his voice. I can also tell by the groans of pain and intermittent cursing that Valentinov's, unlike mine, had not been a fatal shot. She has another shot left, and she's loaded and ready.

Then I hear the hammer softly click back into place, the trigger never pulled. She isn't going to shoot him again.

I hear the slow creak of snow under a light boot as she rocks back on one heel, then pivots, and walks away, leaving us to bleed out in the alley – both of us with guns drawn, looking for all the world, or all the police would care, like we'd shot each other.

I don't want to die!

(Patrick…)

The same voice I heard upstairs last night, when we were stashing the Kazuar's stuff… I'd thought it was a ghost.

(I won't let you die, Patrick…)

Whose voice is it?

(I am… that is, I was… a powerful man, once. Very talented in the selfsame arts where your talents lie, Patrick O'Rourke.)

I'm cold. Everything feels unreal. Part of me wants to be wary, to be scared. But that part of me is too small and can't win over the rest of me, which is too numb and too tired to muster a reaction. Am I dead?

(Yes. And no.)

I don't understand.

(My name is Rupert Hamilton.)

Hamilton… was my mother's maiden name.

(Indeed, Patrick. And she was, like you are, heir to my legacy.)

But now we are both dead…

(No, Patrick… I told you… I won't let you die. I won't ever let you die. We will work together, Patrick, you and I. You will perfect an art I did not live long enough to hone. You will become what I did not. Together we will.)

Suddenly, all things are clear to me. Not just that which concerned me, but All Things. My eyes are opened with the white-hot brilliance of a thousand suns. It is hideous in its beauty, and agonizing in its ecstasy. And we are— I am—

(We are one.)

I am Patrick…

(Hamilton… Yes…

I am.

And I have work to do.

Language Glossary:

Predatel! – Russian for "Traitor!"