I changed my mind. The last few sections ran so long that I had to break them up. But the next chapter will definitely be the last one. Really.
49
For a moment, Nagira stood in shock. Narrowly escaping death always seemed to do that to him. But after a few seconds, he became aware of his surroundings again. And he noticed the blood. The reddish-brown stain was still visible on the gravelly sand in front of the cave, even under the pale dust from the cave collapse. As he scanned the ground, Nagira noticed more stains. Most were small, only a few drops. They seemed to lead away from the cave into a pile of rocks that stood a few yards away. He was suddenly reminded of the Roman Colosseum with its sandy floor to soak up the blood of the ancient gladiators. By the time that image passed, Amon was already halfway down the trail and Nagira could only follow him.
They skirted around the edge of the rocks and stopped as they came to the other side. Robin was sitting right where they had left her when they went into the cave. The rocks that formed her seat seemed to be cradling her now. Her face was blank at first, but then she blinked and lifted her head slowly to look at Amon and Nagira. Her dull eyes were so calm, Nagira could hardly stand to look into them. Her black dress was shining wet from the waist down. The trail of blood ended in a puddle around her shoes.
Nagira moved closer and crouched down beside her. She was breathing in quiet gasps and her hands were shaking where they lay on the rocks. She looked at Nagira and then back up at Amon. When she finally spoke, her voice came in a ragged whisper.
"I think... I really messed up this time, Amon."
Nagira could feel his heart tearing as he watched her.
"Don't worry, kid," he said, trying not to let his voice break. "We're gonna get you to a hospital. You're gonna be okay."
"There isn't time for that," Integra said. Her voice made Nagira jump a little. He hadn't noticed her approaching. She was standing behind him and once she had spoken she turned to look at Amon. As if on cue, Robin sighed weakly and her eyes closed.
Amon had not moved an inch. He had been standing there, his eyes locked with Robin's. But now he took a few steps closer, close enough to touch. Without taking his eyes from Robin's face, he put his hand on the hilt of the sword stuck through his belt. He drew it without a moments hesitation.
"Stand back," he said.
Nagira stood up and took a step back. He found himself standing beside Integra. They exchanged glances and then turned their attention back to Amon and Robin. He stood over her with the sword raised in his right hand. He froze like that for another moment and then swung the blade down. It passed through Robin's body like a ghost through a wall. Nothing happened for what felt like a long time. And then Robin opened her eyes again. They were as bright as always. Nagira noticed that her hands had stopped shaking and now she moved one of them to where her fatal wound had been just a few seconds ago. She looked up at Amon's serious face with a combination of confusion and wonder.
"Amon," she said, not sure what she wanted to say.
"Let's go," he said. He sheathed the Tenseiga and turned his back to Robin as he began to head for the slope they had to climb. Robin pulled herself up from her seat and followed him. She didn't seem to notice the congealing pool of blood she was leaving behind on the ground, or that she was tracking red shoeprints across the sand. Nagira and Integra exchanged glances again and went after them.
50
The next day, Integra woke up back in the hotel room, feeling like she'd slept for a week. She spent the morning sitting on the couch staring at the Tetsusaiga, trying to recognize what exactly made it special. Amon had scraped some of the dust and hairs from inside the bindings of the hilt the night before. But to Integra it looked like nothing more than a well-used old sword. There was no sign of the magic that had supposedly slain giant demons centuries ago. Nor was there a trace of the static electricity that Amon claimed to have felt when he touched the sword. She had no luck consulting Walter either.
"It will make a lovely heirloom," was all he could think of to say.
It wasn't until mid-afternoon when she met Amon outside Raven's Flat that she began to let that mystery go.
"You said the DNA test results were ready," Integra said by way of greeting.
"It will be easier to explain if I show you," Amon replied.
On the way up in the elevator, Integra pulled a stick of chewing gum from her pocket. Amon stared at her as she unwrapped it.
"It's your fault I'm reduced to this," Integra said without looking at him. She inserted the gum carefully into her mouth and started chewing slowly.
Amon smirked and seemed about to laugh when the elevator doors opened on the office.
Though she had only been there once before, it struck Integra as strange that everybody was crowded into the conference room. It seemed even stranger when they all looked up at her and Amon as they walked in and then filed silently back to their computer terminals. It seemed like a bad omen, and Integra was pretty sure of what it meant.
Two projection screens were working in the conference room when she and Amon entered. One of them displayed what looked like an x-ray film with several columns of slightly blurred black dashes. The other was a data table that was probably meant to explain the image on the other screen. Integra didn't understand either at first glance, though she knew what they were. The DNA test results.
"These are mine," Amon said, keeping his eyes on the screens.
"And?" Integra asked, hoping for a clear answer.
"There are too many similarities to be a coincidence," he said flatly.
Integra got the feeling that he was trying not to state the obvious. She wasn't going to force him.
"Let me see mine," she said.
Amon tapped a few buttons on the keyboard in front of them in a sequence Integra didn't bother to follow. The images on the screens changed. But not as much as she expected. For a minute, she surveyed the film image. The first column, representing the sample taken from the Tetsusaiga, was almost the same as the one from the Tenseiga. In fact, the dashes in the film image were so alike that Integra had to lean forward slightly to pick out the differences. But when she finally looked across at her own column, she was only looking for similarities.
"The results are the same for both of us," Amon said unnecessarily.
"So it's true," she said.
"Yeah."
Story Notes:
I'm sorry if that first scene was a bit gruesome. But I wanted to make it realistic and not sugarcoat it. And the worse the situation looked, the better Tenseiga would look when it saved the day.
"...static electricity..." - The Tetsusaiga has a magical barrier around it that keeps unworthy demons from touching it. In the Inuyasha anime series, the barrier always reacted to Sesshomaru and burned him badly if he took hold of the sword. But because Amon is mostly human, the barrier reacted only slightly. In fact, the reaction was so weak that he mistook it for a common static shock.
"...a lovely heirloom..." - Myouga the flea demon said the exact same thing about the Tetsusaiga in episode 6 of Inuyasha when Inuyasha himself first acquired the sword and doubted it's worth.
"The DNA test..." - I'm using "CSI time" in this story, which means that the DNA results are back the next day. In reality, labs can take weeks to have DNA test results ready. Crime dramas like CSI artificially accelerate the process to keep their stories moving at a fast pace.
"...blurred black dashes..." - This is as close as I could get to describing DNA test results visually. The dashes represent genetic markers that experts use to compare different samples of DNA. If two samples are related to each other then they will have a lot of the same markers and the columns of dashes in the image will be similar. More detail oriented readers will notice that I didn't give a number for how many markers Amon and Integra share with their ancestors, as a real DNA test would clearly state. This is because I have absolutely no idea what that number would be and no idea how to find out. Sorry about that…