Thank you to Mizuna Kurenagi for reviewing last chapter

Chapter XXXI: Confessions

To say that killing Jagura after all that she had dont didn't feel just the slightest bit satisfying would be a flat out lie.

Watching the life fade from her eyes as she gargle on her own blood before sliding to the floor lifeless as Mahina pulled the sword from her body, it would be a sight Mahina planned to take to her grave.

But it still felt just the smallest bit...hollow

That was the word that came to Mahina's mind and she turned her head to spit out the mouthful of flesh, bone, blood and tissue she'd bitten off. Her vengeance felt hollow no matter how badly she had wanted it. After all the noble may be gone but the damage Jagura had caused could never be reversed. Mahina could never go back to how she was before all of this…What could she possibly do next?

Before her own distress and doubt could take hold a ghost of a hand reached out through a newly familiar connection and pressed against Mahina's cheek. A soothing scent of pine and snow followed it and as she took it in she knew what her answer was.

Keep moving, we just keep moving.

Drawn to the presence that gave her this answer, Mahina glanced behind her across the room and directly at Kiba meeting his eyes instantly. The connection between them was so potent now, so sensitive to each wolf that Kiba didn't have to tilt his head in concern to get across his worry for her condition. Mahina offered a faint smile in response and nodded her head. Physically she was alright enough.

They made it, they survived.

Darcia watched this silent exchange with a hum of interest earning him both Mahina and Kiba's gaze. No one moved as the man pushed himself back to his feet as if he hadn't been stabbed through with a dagger earlier.

"As I thought," he spoke with a grunt as he stood at his full height "you truly are the chosen wolf"

"What are you? I have to know. You're not a wolf or a noble" asked Kiba but Darcia didn't answer the question posed to him, he didn't even bother to addressed Kiba's claims about what he might be. Instead he turned to Kiba and held out his hand, something gleamed his palm.

Mahina had to squint her eyes to get a better view of it but even then from the distance she stood all she could make out was a singular orb.

What first looked like light reflecting off its surface now looked like it was coming from the sphere itself and the longer Mahina stared at it the more she felt like she recognized it.

The very sight of it in Darcia's hands made her angry, made her yearn for it

"That…" Mahina breathed out, both Kiba and Darcia turned to look about Mahina but she couldn't find words to speak on.

"I was chosen as well" declared Darcia as he turned his gaze back to Kiba "now i understand. It not merely that we search for paradise but that paradise is calling for us." As those words left his lip Darcia closed his fingers back around the orb and turned away his miss matched eyes connected with Mahina's pupiless crimson ones before he calmly began walking towards her.

Not at all liking the idea of him being close to her Mahina bared her teeth, bracing herself for another fight with the remaining threat to drew closer and closer and closer and then…

He passed her and walked right out the door leaving a trail of blood in his wake.

That was it

He left

Like it was nothing

Like he didn't see what he had made of Mahina

With a deep breath and a shaky sigh Mahina leaned her back against the wall behind her, ignoring the stench of Jagura's blood as it further stained her gown. Mahina was stunned to silence for what must have been a second but felt like a lifetime. Perhaps Mahina had forgotten all those year she'd spent under Darcia's watchful eye but he had never forgotten.

He had known all this time what she was and what he had done to her. He probably remembered that stupid vow he made to her so long ago and yet he still tried countless times to kill her and here, at the climax of it all, he just...left?

No

No, Mahina would not stand for this.

Darcia couldn't just walk away without answering for his actions and Mahina refused to let him just leave with that orb he had. Something in her told Mahina it didn't belong to him.

"Mahina?" Mahina barely registered Toboe's voice or anyone else's for that matter anymore. Her mind zeroed in on her new purpose: to find Darcia and drag all the truths he kept from Mahina to the light. The sword she'd impaled Jagura with barely felt like anything in Mahina's hands but the sound of the metal scraping against the floor run in her ears as she dragged it behind her and down the hall.

If the sounds of the sword Mahina dragged all the way here hadn't already tipped Darcia off that she was after him her barbarically uncharacteristic yelling would have.

Darcia had more than enough time to step out of the way before the wind whistled beside his ear from the missed swing. Mahina yelped, being thrown off balance but the sword that was not only too heavy for her but Darcia knew for a fact she had no idea how to use. Mahina was raised a wolf not a warrior. She was fast though, Darcia would give her that. He spun on his foot with ease to turn and face Mahina and watch her fall to her hands and knees, panting all the way.

Oh how Mahina had so drastically changed since the very first day Darcia had laid eyes on her.

A small tan girl with brown hair and big blue eyes now stood before Darcia as a completely different entity. Her tiny body grew to a petite yet slender form, her tanned skin now pale. The long black hair that once made Mahina believe she was Darcia's daughter was white as snow and the pupils of her eyes were gone, replaced by nothing but pure red.

And yet Mahina was not blind

And yet her gaze remained ever as sharp as it always had been.

She pushed herself to her full height in a smooth motion allowing Darcia to take in the blood that dripped from her chin and stained her gowned. This was it, this was the goddess of Paradise, and her stare alone gave Darcia pause.

"You didn't really think I was just going to let you walk out of here, did you?"

"..." Darcia said nothing as Mahina took two steps forward, her bare feet leaving bloody prints on the floor as she stepped on the blood Darcia had been trailing behind him.

"All this time" she breathed out he lips curled upward in a hard to miss snarl, her bruised and bloodied hands squeezed the hilt of the sword she brought "… all the things you've done to us...helping us stop Jagura absolves you of nothing"

"I did not come here seeking absolution…" Darcia shook his head "I was called here" Mahina laughed, a mocking laugh of course but a laugh all the same. Darcia ignored it as he spoke on "It surprised me too but I knew as soon as I heard your voice…"

"..." She stopped laughing, now she glared at him.

"You don't remember do you?" Darcia arched a brow "yesterday, when you screamed to the heavens? I heard you thousands of miles away and I knew it was time." If he thought about it Darcia could still feel the uncontrollable throb in his wolf's eye when he had heard her call for him "when I found you here, in Jagura's keep with all the pieces I needed, it all but solidified the truth for me."

It was truth Mahina seemed to still deny, she even recoiled from him "Found me… but how?"

"The same way I've always found you." chuckled Darcia taking a step forward as Mahina took a step back "You didn't think I was a fool to your connection with Cheza did you?" that connection was what made Darcia choose Mahina in the first place, it's what kept her alive all these years even when Darcia had given up hope "I counted on it, and thank to a little chip in the back of your neck I could track you wherever you went"

"..." Mahina's free hand shot up, vanishing into her snow white hair to touch the back of her neck "So…" her brow furrowed and she frowned deeply "That night Cheza bloomed… it was because of me you found us"

"That doesn't matter anymore" Darcia chuckled "...come." he opened his palm to show Mahina the orb like he had shown the white wolf. "Our Paradise awaits"

"... That…" Mahina flinched just a bit, her eyes locking on the object. "That does not belong to you." She made no sounds like she knew what the item was but Darcia could tell just by the look on her face, Mahina was drawn to it.

"Then, sweet maiden…" Darcia grinned closing his fingers around it, his grin only growing when Mahina growled at him. "Come take it from me."

Mahina didn't need any further invitation to act upon.

With another yell she charged forward, sword swinging for Darcia's neck, but Mahina was not used to using a weapon and the one she wielded was much too heavy for her to properly swing. Darcia dodge the first strike with ease, and the second one even easier than that even as Mahina's yells echoed the empty hall and the steel she swung sung with every collision it had with the floor or the wall when it missed its target.

She tried her hardest, Mahina did, but even with an injury like the one Darcia had Mahina couldn't hope to accomplish anything fighting like this. His free hand found Mahina's wrist and he easily yanked her hand-sword and all- away from him forcing a pained scream to come from Mahina.

"There is no point to all of this." Darcia spoke, his face drawing closer to hers with each word. "This world we stand in now is about to die and the time has come for the chosen to open paradise...the true paradise."

"... a paradise created from a curse world is meaningless…" Mahina whimpered in pain. Darcia paused. Those were the words Mahina had whispered to him in Jagura's fake paradise. "Just because your cursed eye lets you see the truth...it's meaningless. It wont open paradise for you...and the one you find...won't have Hamona...father."

Father.

The word was hissed out, a word often used for love and affection spat out of those lovely lips with hatred and mockery but Darcia was almost deaf to Mahina's tone over the fact that she called him father.

Darcia could almost laugh at the situation.

Actually he did, a long and hearty laugh that echoed the halls and made Mahina's harsh glare soften into a weary and nervous stare.

"The gods and their cruel fates," Darcia chuckled out under Mahina's stare "and here I thought I had suffered enough" Mahina furrowed her brow, her mouth open to question Darcia surely but he didn't give her room to. He squeezed Mahina's wrist, agitating her injury enough to make her yowl in pain releasing the sword from her grip. Darcia swept Mahina's legs from under her and the two of them toppled to the floor.

Time turned back for Darcia in that moment.

The two of them were no longer in Jagura keep but home. Back in the lonely halls of their own keep, in the dark sanctuary of Mahina's room. Darcia loomed over Mahina's form, a beautiful white angel bathed in blood sprawled helplessly under him. She looked so very different but her eyes-her penetrating stare-were the same.

Somehow Mahina remembered again

Even now she stared up at Darcia like she used to all those years ago.

"She hurt you so badly…" Darcia's eyes wandered to the angry red lines that marred Mahina's wrist, wounds made by the wires Jagura bound her in. Made tight with every intention of drawing Mahina's precious blood. "all for a nobles paradise...a fake paradise"

"You'll open the same" Mahina's voice was soft

"No… i won't" Darcia shook his head "… not with the moon crucible...not when I have you" If Mahina was concerned she didn't show it, her expression was as stoic as Darcia recalled it always being. "You speak of truths," the Noble continued "that my cursed eye only lets me see that truth. When I saw Jagura's false paradise with my wolfs eye I also saw much more than that." the veil that had been ripped from Darcia's eyes just when Jagura's Paradise was going to claim him, he'd never forget the truth now that he'd seen it. "As I looked out at the wastelands of Jagura's lie I saw you." Darcia reached up to touch Mahina, his precious key. "You glowed like a beacon in the darkness, you called to me… you told me to open my eyes and I listened and when I did I saw the truth, little one." He used his cloak to wipe at the blood that smeared across Mahina's face and though Mahina tried to turn her head away at first she eventually let Darcia do as he pleased. He had her pinned after all.

"That was when I knew for certain. Mahina… my precious key… that was why you continue to come back to me, continue to find your way into my life no matter how many times i tried to snuff you out of it" His hand found Mahina's long neck and he gripped it, much like he had once before. Mahina's hands immediately found Darcia's wrist, her nails digging into his skin until she drew blood but Darcia couldn't feel the pain.

Jagura… she must have poisoned that dagger and now it was working its way through Darcia's system, eating away at his body.

"You know it as well...even if you don't, you can sense it-how it's changed you. You...you're having trouble changing to your true form...aren't you." Mahina froze, her eyes grew wide at the statement and made it clear Darcias was right.

Mahina's body, so mixed with wolf and flower maiden, could no longer decided which was Mahina's true form and as a result Mahina was trapped in some inbetween of the two-at some points she moved like a wolf, ripped into flesh like a wolf...and yet here she was, faced with a wounded human who should be easy prey for her superior wolf body and yet she attacked him with a sword.

"This is how it was always meant to be Mahina." Darcia didn't squeeze down on Mahina's neck deciding to lean down and press his forehead against her, like he had done that day he swore that they would find paradise. "You and I, opening paradise together. Just like I promised."

But that would have to wait it seemed.

The tender moment of Darcia's,finally reunited with his precious key, was shattered by the loud snarl of an interloper.

Silent as a grave and deadlier than any of his kind, the white wolf leapt at Darcia from seemingly nowhere nearly swiping at Darcia if he hadn't leapt back and out of the way. Instead his teeth caught the end of Darcia's cloak and managed to rip it from the noble's body. The white wolf snarled at Darcia, his body looming over Mahina's sprawled form trying his best to cover the maiden and block her from Darcia's view.

Darcia smirked at the wolf, he too was chosen that much was true as Mahina carefully sat up and silently dropped her head against the white wolf's body. The contact eased the wolfs hostility against Darcia. Though the wolf stopped growling he never once looked away from Darcia.

"Mahina" Mahina flinched when Darcia called her name and the white wolf growled in reaction "You know it to be true… we will fulfill our promise and open paradise together" And with that said Darcia back off, sending Mahina's newfound protector a smirk before turning and continuing on his way.

Soon she would come to him

And they would do what they were always meant to do

But for now Darcia would wait.

The hall echoed with Darcia's footsteps for a choking amount of time and both Kiba and Mahina herself were silent for every second of it.

Kiba didn't look at Mahina, he hadn't since he'd arrived in the hallway.

But When? When had he arrived?

For once Mahina felt herself cursing Kiba's silent nature, curse herself for being too distracted to pick up Kiba's scent in the heat of the moment. How much over that conversation had he heard? It didn't matter… he'd probably heard enough...seen enough to have an idea of the truth. Yet he didn't move away from Mahina nor push her off when she pressed against his side. He just stood there, staring down the hall Darcia had left from until his retreating footsteps vanished. When silence finally came to the hall Kiba's stiff body relaxed and Mahina tentatively relaxed against it.

"... Kiba?" Mahina hesitantly gripped Kiba's jacket but didn't dare to lift her face to look at him. Kiba was silent, unmoving.

A true neutral being as the dust settled, neither hostile nor welcoming and it left Mahina reeling. Kiba was blank, as empty as the hall they sat in giving Mahina nothing to gauge the situation from. She'd never felt nothing from Kiba before and nothing was a scary thing.

After some self encouragement Mahina raised her head, peeking over the cover of Kiba's jacket to look at him. All she saw of the male was his unruly brown hair, he'd yet to turn and look back at her. Yet to speak a word.

Please… please say something before Mahina lost her mind.

"You lead him to Cheza" as if hearing her silent plea Kiba finally did speak though he still didn't look at Mahina and she flinched at his words. It was probably for the better that he didn't look at her if the accusation he'd just directed at her meant anything. When Mahina didn't bother to defend herself Kiba kept speaking "You're the reason he found us that night… why he kept finding us"

"..."

"You called him Father…"

Now Mahina winced. She let go of the white wolf and turned away from Kiba until her back was to his.

So he had heard more than enough of the conversation.

He knew the truth about her now, at the worst possible time to find out.

"...Jagura burned my home to the ground when I was just a pup" Mahina's words came out of her in a soft whisper but in an empty hall like this that didn't matter. "I was captured, taken from the blaze before it could kill me for reasons I still don't fully know but...then Darcia came and took me away from it all. That was when, I think, I first met Cheza." Kiba responded with a intake of breath but Mahina refused to turn back around. "After that it's… blurry" she went on with her story, even now the details of her life under Darcia's watch were still fuzzy.

Mahina knew she had been there for years, she knew she had Cheza's blood in her but she'd yet to understand how she had forgotten so much. There was a phantom white wolf in her memory who constantly reminded her that her soul had been taken at some point. Cheza had pulled her back twice but the rest was just a confusing jumble of memories the she-wolf had yet to have the time to sort through.

".… for the longest time i've always had holes in my memory…" Mahina mused on "of who I was and where I came from...for the longest time the only thing I could remember was her name and that I needed to find her." and so she chased the feeling, chased the name and then she arrived at Freeze City and met Kiba and their journey began "But the longer we've gone on this journey the more those holes have slowly started to fill back in until I realized the truth."

"The truth?" Kiba questioned

"If you want to open Paradise" Mahina breathed out "… you have to kill me."

Silence, complete and utter silence.

"I am part of Cheza…" Cheza's words found their way to Mahina's lips "Cheza is part of me… it's what draws us to one another." like two half trying to be whole again, that was why they felt each other why Mahina even felt the Hanabito. "But to open Paradise you only need one of us…" whoever died would return to the other after all. Two would become one, the only one Kiba needed

One that hadn't betrayed his trust

Cheza, not Mahina.

Mahina glanced over her shoulder at Kiba briefly only to catch him looking over his shoulder at her. "He won't be able to find you if i'm dead anyway" she declared before looking away from Kiba again. If she died and Kiba left her here the chip Darcia tracked would be useless. When Kiba made no sound or moves to argue with Mahina she let out a sigh "I probably have no right to ask you this but… at least make it quick."

Cheza would feel it, she would cry and scream. If it was quick so too would Cheza's suffering be quick. She would feel Mahina's death but then she would be whole.

Silence. Still Kiba said nothing and for a breath Mahina thought Kiba would also do nothing.

Until she felt his fingers press down on the back of her neck

Until he, quicker than he'd ever been, slammed Mahina down onto the tile.

Mahina yelped, her vision swirling for a moment when her face collided with the floor and she scrambled to brace herself against it and push herself back up. Kiba was there, however, and he wasn't having it. Before Mahina could completely push herself up Kiba's hand traveled from the back of her neck to her shoulder before he shoved Mahina down, flat against the floor.

"K-Kiba?" Mahina croaked out but Kiba didn't speak back, refused to speak. When Mahina tried to look back at him he forced her head back down with his free hand. His shadow painted the floor as Kiba loomed over Mahina's pinned for and through it all he said nothing to her.

So he had decided, Mahina would die.

She had expected this, she might even say hoped for it, but in the face of it-in the face of this cold, silent end to her story- her heart throbbed in her chest. It raced blood through her body and pumped adrenaline into her every being. Though her mind had accepted this fate her spirit wanted to live and her instincts reacted.

Hands clenched into tight fist, Mahina pushed against Kiba but he simply put more weight on top of her force and defiant yell from Mahina's throat. She kicked but Kiba used his own legs to pin hers down and when Mahina managed to turn her head to look back at Kiba, the white wolf had his teeth bared. The feeling of his teeth digging into her neck burned sending lighting pain down the females spine.

The scream that ripped across the hall registered to Mahina before she realized it had come from her own throat but when it did Mahina was scrambling to fight Kiba off her. Her clenched hands slammed against the floor and she kicked and bucked at him the best she could but Kiba was stronger, bigger and he refused to let Mahina escape. Tears burned Mahina's eyes and she kept screaming.

But Kiba never let up.

And he through it all he never spoke a word.

He let her neck go but just long enough to bite back down on it hard enough that a sharp CRUNCH rung out among Mahina's screaming.

That was the breaking point, Mahina put all her strength into throwing Kiba off her.

Free of his weight she scrambled away from the white wolf until her back hit the wall across from him her hand immediately going to the back of her neck where Kiba's teeth once dug in blanketing her fingers with blood that came from the holes. Heart still pounding in her chest, Mahina braced herself, getting ready to fight of what she expected was a second attack from the male but it never came…

Kiba carefully picked himself back up the air between them was tense as Mahina waited for Kiba's next move.

He had decided to kill her

His actions just now were proof of it

Mahina knew she deserved it but…

But…

She didn't want to die

Mahina tensed when Kiba lifted his head to look at her but when azure met crimson Mahina saw no hatred in Kiba's eyes. She saw no murderous intent or even a flicker of hostility instead kiba was stoic as ever. He held Mahina's gaze when he spat something out of his mouth letting it clatter to the floor between them.

"..." She chanced looking down at it and her panting gave way to a shuttering gasp.

It was a small bit of plastic, broken in two probably thanks to Kiba biting it.

The chip Darcia spoke of…

Mahina looked form the chip to Kiba surprised.

"I saw it too" He finally spoke to her

"...what?"

"When it opened I heard a voice" Kiba spoke so calmly as he closed the distance between the two of them. Mahina would not be fool though. Despite Kiba's attempt to look non threatening Mahina flinched when he drew close, pressing herself against the wall as if it would swallow her whole "it called to me and told me to open my eyes…" Kiba didn't seem bothering in the least by Mahina's attempt to escape, his voice was so temptingly soothing "it said that Paradise was created from a cursed world… it told me to see...and when I did… I saw it too… I saw you"

The wall at Mahina's back didn't swallow her no matter how had she pressed against it so she braced for the inevitable death as Kiba got closer and closer and-

"Mahina" Kiba spoke softly earning Mahina's gaze. He sat just before her with a face Mahina had never seen on him before. His eyes were soft, his lips curved ever so slightly upward to a gentle smile. He didn't try to get any closer to Mahina but he tilted his head trying to catch her gaze. "Don't shut me out"

...Don't… what?

Mahina's brow furrowed in confusion and Kiba sighed at this. Carefully he reached out for Mahina, pausing when she flinched again.

"Before, I could feel you even when you weren't in the room with me." he explained quietly as he tried again to reach for Mahina, inching just a bit closer when she didn't flinch away from him "I could hear your voice and if i closed my eyes I could see was like we were connected all of a sudden and I could feel everything.. Your fear.. Your sorrow your pleas for help…When I got free it lead me straight to you"

"...you" Mahina breathed out "You felt…" So she hadn't imagined it. Somehow Kiba had formed the same kind of connection Mahina had formed with Cheza. Mahina's mind was racing again, trying desperately to make sense of all this information but Kiba's touch centered her again. His touch was gentle compared to Darcia's when he took hold of Mahina's wrist and pulled it from its place against her neck.

"But now…" he spoke carefully placing Mahina's hand in his lap "I can't feel anything at all no matter how hard I try"

Mahina let her eyes wander to the hand Kiba held in wonder.

So, when she felt nothing from Kiba it wasn't because he didn't feel anything.. It was because she had somehow blocked in out?

"Mahina" Crimson met azure again and for a beat Mahina didn't act. She didn't know what would happen in the next few moment if she did this and her weariness showed on her face she was sure of it. But Kiba was patient, unmoving but patient all the same "Do you believe in me?"

The question he'd asked her before was back again and as their fingers laced together Mahina realized the truth of it all. Despite everything she trusted Kiba.

"...with all my heart" Mahina answered the same as before.

The wall was cast down

The connection was allowed to flourish

Kiba's immediate feelings came rushing through as if they had been patiently waiting to be allowed in and it sent a shudder down Mahina's spine. Kiba was far from a neutral being and now Mahina could feel it.

He worried

He cared

He feared

He cherished

He desired

He needed

He loved

It was so strong, stronger than Cheza, stronger than anything Mahina had ever felt and before she could stop herself she was closing the remaining space between the two of them but Kiba welcomed her as she crawling into his lap and buried her face into his neck with a whine.

This feeling, it felt so warm and bright. Light the first rays of sun after a harsh winter storm.

Kiba was here, that was what he was trying to desperately to tell Mahina, he was here and he would always be here. He didn't care where she had come from, he didn't care what brought them to this point.

Kiba was here for Mahina, Kiba was here for it all.

And he refused to let Mahina go.

"How can you…" A sudden lump swelled in Mahina's throat making speech even harder in the moment but Mahina for once didn't bother to swallow it down. Her eyes burned with tears and her slender frame shivered as tears finally spilled free "now that you know the truth….how can you so easily?"

How could he so easily accept her?

How could he so easily love her?

She was a monster, a creature twisted and changed by nobles to do their bidding

She'd almost gotten him killed

How could he be okay with any of this?

Kiba's chuckle virabted Mahina's whole body and she let out another whine when the male wrapped his arms around her smaller form practically enveloping her with his larger body. He nuzzle against her head mixing his pine scent with the sharp copper smell of her blood.

"Because" he replied "I swore I would get us to Paradise. Together."

And he refused to sacrifice Cheza or Mahina to do it.

Mahina let out a long shaky sigh. As the tears fell freely the black of her pupils returned, the red that had taken them over now fading to nothing and as Mahina closed her eyes she could feel Kiba fingers running through her fur. Her body relaxed completely against Kiba and his strong, warm, feelings leaked their way through her system.

Together in Paradise.

Mahina wanted that

She wanted it with everything in her that could want.