Whumptober 2020 Day 9: For The Greater Good—"Take me instead"/"Run!"/Ritual Sacrifice
Word Count: 396
Author: Katie/Ally (aquietwritingcorner/realitybreakgirl)
Rating: T
Characters: Riza Hawkeye
Summary: Riza is resolved even as she's bleeding out on the cold floor in the middle of a transmutation circle.
Notes: If I had more time I'd look up more dialogue and incorporate it. I do not have time.
Ritual Sacrifice
Her hand pressed as hard as she could manage into her neck, although she knew that it was doing little good. The blood flow from her severed artery was too much for her hold in with just one hand—or even with two hands. She knew that her time was limited. More so if she moved. The fast her heartrate, the more blood she would lose, and the faster she would lose it. And although she had resolved not to move, the rejected Bradley candidate picked her up by her arm and dragged her over to the transmutation circle—something that didn't help the situation at all.
She knew what they were doing. Sacrifice. They were trying to make the colonel into a human sacrifice. And they were sacrificing her to do it. To make him participate in this ritual, to become part of whatever their ritual was. They were going to sacrifice her to force him to become a human sacrifice, to complete their ritual—a ritual that, she was certain, would sacrifice more people then was every acceptable.
She wasn't going to allow it. She wouldn't allow them to use her that way. She wouldn't let them turn him into a human sacrifice. If she was going to sacrifice her life, it would be on her own terms, and not on theirs. It would be to save him, to save others, and not to doom them.
Riza could feel her consciousness wavering, but she stubbornly held on. She could hear the talking of the man with the gold tooth, but her eyes were focused on the colonel—on Roy. Roy, who she had known as a child. Roy, who had been kind to her. Roy, who she had fallen in love with, and who fell in love with her. She focused on him, and his eyes were fixated on hers. She could see every thought he was having in his head. She could see how he would have changed place with her in a heartbeat.
She could see him seriously considering human transmutation.
She wouldn't allow it.
"I've been given orders… not to die."
Her words were to him. Her resolve was to him. And, as she noticed something that might save him, her signal was to him.
She wouldn't allow this ritual sacrifice to happen—and she made sure that he knew it.