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Shared Throne

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How can you change the mind of a whole universe?

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It was a morbid scene they created.

In a small hovel, Mouse Rakis stood over the bodies of a little boy's parents. It was broad daylight, and people in the neighborhood were already gathering to see what the commotion was about.

"…Mouse…"

A trailing voice could be heard, but the young man could not tear his sight away.

"Mouse…"

He was rooted to the spot. The pair of glistening kindjal knives in his hands were drenched with blood.

"MOUSE!"

Ilia Amitola slapped him across the face, causing him step sideways off balance.

"Get yourself together!" she shouted.

"Ilia…" he muttered, as if noticing her for the first time. The girl was also brandishing a rapier covered in dark entrails.

"You were right. We should have waited till night."

"No time to worry about that now!" Ilia yelled. "We need to seal off this area!"

"Yes…Right…"

Although he showed acknowledgment, Mouse made no movements. On the other hand, it was his younger sister, Knives, who acted.

The young girl activated the setting on her karambit. After vibrating with a magnetic hum, the blood staining it was dispersed clean. Out of the three of them, she was the least messy, and performed her job the cleanest.

"I'll go outside and settle everyone down. Our soldiers should be here soon, so I'll have them set a perimeter," she answered before rushing out the door, but stopped in the archway. "…We should move the boy and his grandfather. If others see them, it'll only lower morale."

And then, Knives was gone.

Ilia and Mouse could hear the younger Rakis speaking to the crowds outside. She was always considered the more hasty of the two, but with that came a decisiveness that proved crucial in this moment.

"C'mon, Mouse," Ilia shook the young man once more. "I'll get his grandfather, you take the child."

"…Right…"

Mouse moved to pick up the boy, who immediately flinched away from him. He saw the fear in the adolescent's big eyes, and couldn't bring himself to move any further. There was a horror there, an image of a monster that killed his parents right in front of him. A murderous demon with glowing, silver orbs for eyes.

"We don't have time for this. I'm sorry," Ilia stepped between them. Her sword-whip cracked with electricity, which she used to prod the boy. The small body immediately went limp and unconscious.

"ILIA!"

Mouse was met with an immediate backhand.

"Pick him up. We're going."

…

Not ten minutes later, did the pair exit the hovel through the backdoor, and back to the Hanging Gardens. Knives joined them soon after in the throne room, readying to provide Temujin with the report of their most recent cluster fuck.

The Rakis siblings were in charge of rooting out the Cuckoos from Vacuo. They were two of the Kingdom's best Aura Sensors, coupled with their Silver Eyes, it made them the perfect fit for the job.

Usually, Mouse only distributed assignments to their military's stealthiest operatives. More often than not, it was Ilia and some choice others, who took on the dark tasks. Only recently did he learn that Knives carried out most of the work.

His own sister may have been more gifted than he was, but she was younger—and that thought irked him. Mouse wanted to take on at least some of the burden himself, so he decided to participate in the next string of assignments.

The result:

Their most recent operation going completely sideways.

A few hours ago, Mouse detected a pair of Cuckoos. They were impersonating a couple returning from a scouting mission beyond the walls.

Knives had done exceptionally well ridding any of the parasitic Grimm that infiltrated the military ranks, but this new threat had the potential to render that effort naught. If the Cuckoos made it to their facilities of operations, the potential damage they could cause would be massive.

Mouse believed in dealing with the threat immediately to minimize risk. Ilia advocated they waited until night, while everyone slept. A team of ghosts arriving out of the blue, and seemingly killing someone close to you, created more than its tragic scene. It was something she saw happen countless times now. Almost as difficult as the threat the Cuckoo posed, was the difficulty in getting rid of them.

Lately, the Grimm were replacing those deeply embedded in their community. Vacuo's culture was close-knit by nature. It was a strength—but Salem turned that into a liability. The after effects of suddenly finding someone close was a Cuckoo left more than its fair share of waves.

Which led to the most recent tragedy.

Mouse, Ilia, and Knives were to assassinate their two targets as quickly and as cleanly as possible. It was supposed to be simple. They would wait until the boy and the grandfather were out of the room, before they did the deed.

Knives created the distraction, requesting to speak with the household's son and elder. Mouse and Ilia rounded the back of the house and made their move.

Right before the boy Rakis was about to deliver the first execution, he hesitated.

The husband saw his assassins at the last second, and far from turning away in fright, moved immediately to protect his wife.

Are they really Cuckoos? Mouse couldn't stop himself from thinking.

Seeing her partner hesitate, Ilia made up the distance and changed targets. Her blade skewered the husband but caught her weapon at an odd angle due the last-minute adjustment.

The wife screamed, prompting the grandfather and son back into the house. Knives was able to subdue the elder without harm, but the child happened onto the scene.

Knowing its identity was exposed, the Grimm was making ready to kill everyone in the room. Ilia had her sword stuck in the other. Mouse was frozen by the boy who just entered.

"Mouse!"

Knives immediately drew one of her blades, and threw it without hesitation. Her karambit cut a curved gash across the Grimm's throat to stall it from using its voice. Only then, did Mouse snap back to the task before him.

His blades repeatedly gouged the Cuckoo in the form of the boy's mother.

…

…

"That certainly was a shitshow."

The words from Knives cut through the air with the sharpness of her namesake.

"Is that all you have to say?" Mouse snarled at his younger sister.

"No! No, it isn't!" she shouted loud enough for her voice to echo the throne room's walls. "I think we all just saw what we always knew would happen. You're too nice for this kind of dirty work, Mouse! This is exactly what Temujin trained me to do. Not you!"

"Oh! So, what? I'm just supposed to let my sister become an assassin, while I look pretty on the throne, pretending everything's alright?"

"Yeah! Temujin and Minerva raised you to be the leader of our people! Not me! I've got my own job to do!"

"Shut up, both of you!" Ilia placed herself between the siblings. "I'll be the first to admit that was a rough scene, but you guys can't go at each other's throats like this. There's too much at stake."

The Rakkis siblings were silent, as Ilia locked eyes with each of them.

"What? Don't look at me," Knives waved. "You saw it, too."

The girl strode to the throne twisted in steel and wood. Her hand patted the seat violently.

"This?! This is where Mouse sits his ass! And this?" Knives drew a K-Bar from her belt, and stabbed it into the armrest. "This is me!"

The small girl was now glaring furiously at her brother.

"You need to get that through your head, King! Human, Grimm, or Salem, you point, and I kill! That's how Vacuo runs when we take over. The king himself doesn't go out on missions, he sends other people!"

"That's enough, Knives," Ilia tried.

"Do you see Argent fighting with his Armada? Did Straw? You're not Temujin, nobody is. That's why she split our roles. You're the one that commands, I'm the one who fights. So, stay out of my way!"

Mouse finally had enough. He stomped angrily to the throne, and took the K-bar embedded in the armrest. At the same time, he shoved his sister on the seat.

"If you think I'm doing such a bad job at our roles, then how about you be Queen, instead! And I'll be the one who kills!" the boy shouted.

"Oh! I'd love to! But Temujin knows you don't have the stomach for it!"

"You've seen what I can do! You're not better than me!"

"Really? Why don't you just ask Ilia?! You wanna remember, she and that kid almost died cause of you?!"

"Hey! You don't need to bring that up," Ilia replied.

"What do you think?" Mouse turned to her. "You think I'm in the wrong here, too?"

"I…*Sigh* Mouse, you're talented. It's just that…"

While Ilia's voice trailed off, the boy already understood her answer.

"I just wanted to help," he muttered.

"Then, keep learning! Keep training!" Knives yelled again.

"There isn't time, and you know it! The more Cuckoos I can help take out, the more of a chance we might have of winning this war!"

"You and I both see how little difference it makes. We've seen that future. What you do doesn't change it enough."

"And, what?! I'm supposed to just accept what's going to happen?!"

"Yes!"

Mouse's eyes widened in disbelief, while shaking his head. Between the siblings' arguments, Ilia could only watch on with confusion.

"How can you say that?" Mouse asked in disbelief.

"Because Temujin's already accepted it and so have I," Knives' voice cracked briefly, as if holding something back. "The only hope we have is to win the bigger war. We can't have you dying for a future we can't have. It's time to grow up, King."

"Stop calling me that! I'm not a King, and I'm not going to accept that future!"

The two preteens looked like they were about to burst into tears, when Ilia grabbed them both, embracing one in each arm.

…

There was a sullen silence, before the sounds of low sniffling rolled out between the pair. After everything they had been through, it was easy for Ilia to forget the Rakis were not much more than children—children burdened with a greater purpose and an even greater power than she could comprehend.

"Geez, what's with you guys?" she soothed them. "We won't lose this war. I don't know what future you saw with your Semblance, but we can't fight each other."

"I just…! I just want to change it so much!" Mouse pressed harder into Ilia's shoulder.

If she was being honest, she didn't know much about the siblings' abilities. Only they could predict outcomes of the future, and could only change them using the subtlest ways.

"I don't pretend to know what you're going through. But I do think Knives is right about one thing."

"…What?"

She took off his hood, and ruffled his dune-colored hair.

"You're too kind to do the dirty work, Rakis. And Knives," Ilia did the same to the sister, "you can't shut yourself off. You need to let your brother support you when he wants to, and you have to support him in return."

"That's…! What I'm trying to do!"

"See? So, why are you guys arguing, huh? All this talk about roles and having to take over. You're still just kids. You'll find the time to get it right."

""You don't understand.""

"You guys do know it's creepy when you do that talking at the same time thing, right?"

""Sorry.""

*Sigh* "It's okay. But what do you guys mean, I don't understand?"

The siblings stopped crying into Ilia's shoulder and looked at her straight on. Their pair of silver eyes gleamed with a far-off distance.

""It's Temujin…""

She cocked her head to the side.

"What about her?"

""…""

Ilia felt something drop in the pit of her stomach.

"What about her?" she asked again. "What's going to happen to Temujin?"

""…""

Ilia was now holding their arms with a firmer grasp.

"Hey! What future did you see about—"

"Temujin, you are freakin' insane!"

There was a sudden shout accompanying the doors of the throne room opening. When Ilia turned around, she saw Emerald in mid-conversation with Temujin. The entourage that followed were the rest of Team ENMY, along with Minerva and Nai.

"Hm?" Emerald stared at the three occupants. "We interrupting something?"

"Yeah, actually you did," Ilia answered with disdain. "Aren't you supposed to be still in prison? Whatever, that doesn't matter. Temujin, we need to talk."

"Indeed, we do," the old Faunus grinned wryly. "I came up with a way to deal with our little infestation problem."

"What?"

"Yes, in one fell swoop, I might add. And once our ranks are cleansed of those bastards, we can finally take the fight to Salem, instead of waiting around twiddling our toes."

"How—Oh," Ilia's tone dropped, when she realized the plan probably involved Team ENMY being set free. "Do I even want to know?"

"Of course—"

"You'll be playing a very integral part in it, after all."