"Go ahead!" Eric continued to shout, a piercing anger of voice spewing against reflective walls. Many surrounding pairs of eyes widened, shocked, filled to their pupil's deep brim with disbelief. "Kill me! But, even so, I won't give up that easily!" Now it made sense; now the cloud of confusion and uncertainty cleared into bright, lit up puffs set ablaze by a bronze harness of sky and sun. "I'm not the one that was to come to!" With that word, the confident boy began to stand; however, not only did he have confidence, he had a crazy, ablaze passion of determination, one that couldn't be put out, not by wind, not by water, not by cold air or anything. It was a fire that burned forever – the flame of eternity that proved that it would never die, and proved that it could overcome anything. Slowly his legs straightened, tall like trees, slowly his feet fixed their stance regularly, and slowly, the downed chest of this red-clothed boy began to rise, straighten, fill and burst with one thought in mind: victory.
No way… Hibiyomi thought as he watched with solemn eyes, his emotion not emitted by the stands of his facial features. Shock hid behind that emotionless mask, the face that was numb, frostbitten in years of hate, broken memories, a broken piece of mirror, a mask that never- ever came off. "All right!" Zack shouted from his distant place, jumping high towards the ceiling. He held a fist out, bursting with enthusiasm from watching the fight. Everyone cheered, even some councils.
Daniel smiled, nodded. "Go, Eric!!" Marissa shouted in a humorous frenzy, eyes burning with passionate cheering, shaking a fist of detestation for the "enemy." Her face grew ten times her size. Derek stood stiff, tense with tight locks for muscles. Walter remained, lingering in indifference as Madasora became piqued, a curious smile spreading on his face. Cheers were silenced by the long, eternity walls; darkness told the coming of the ending of tension; soon the battle would end. Soon enough, someone would get hurt. Really hurt. Muffles cheers continued, wordless shouts of jubilation, a rejoiced chorus never-ending, mixed tones rapped from a broken disc. Eric stood, and lifted his eyes, his confident, never worn out eyes. His fists clenched; his fingers burned, hissed with a striking threat, and then, set itself ablaze with a burning passion of determination, wildfire bluster of purpose. Amazing… Madasora thought as he watched not too casually. Could this actually be the first time Hibiyomi…he paused, gulped. Loses?
Eric let out a cry, a cry that would forever remain in troubled ears, a cry of solution, a cry of that had fingers – fingers that wouldn't let go, fingers that would grasp, reach, and hold to their dreams, hold to the mountain's tip for this is what people lack, and this is what they would give. The peak of the mountain was hard to get to, though – and where would everyone be without someone to teach us how to climb it, hike it for ourselves to see what wondrous things it can do for us, someone like Kahibi Eric? Eric thrust out his fist in the air, shot out the set aflame head of orange and yellow, crackling like a hot, intense missile blistering the air with heat. "Eric…" Hibiyomi silently muttered to himself. He watched the boy, the fireball as it neared, torpedoed. "Enough!"
Sending out a wave of energy, deep, thorough claws of shadow, of darkness erupted from the plaster ground in a wave, sharp, curvy pillars of hate, of grudge rising, cracking the floor, coming as quickly as agile could define. The pillars made dents, slits on the ground, made it uneven to some degree, and with that, collided with the hot blaze. Sparks of light scattered; the shadows and flame died together. Eric was left, disappointed yet still not ready to give up, lungs heavily breathing in a breath worth a million inhales second after second. Mouth was left open, too tired to close. Shoulders shrugged with the intake of air, as if he did not know what to do next, as if he didn't know the answer to his question. "I'll put and end to this now!" Hibiyomi declared, eyes pulsing with anger, cracks of anguish red reaching like branched fingers of trees to the pupil, an angry obsession, possession of his body starting from the eyes. With that word, he clapped his hands together, strongly, piercing the weakened walls of orange that were moldy with dark.
As if on cue, Eric fell to his knees. He let out a despaired cry, a distinguished anguish. He managed to keep it at one knee; his body weak as he felt the blood continue to overflow from his slit injuries. Damn it! he thought. His eyes shuddered, teeth ground; he couldn't move. Millions of shocked, soft voices cried the teenager's name, the name they had failed to recognize for so long, bouncing, shivering off the walls that were empty with no purpose, but with no purpose came with no mistakes, no let-downs, no guilt, or disappointment. "Can't move?" Hibiyomi asked, hints of victory in his soft murmur of voice. Why was he so confident that he was to win? "It's no wonder; when you got sliced by my needles just before, I sent my own free spirit energy into your body from the wounds to seal your links. It took them a while, but it seems they finally worked; you can no longer use your powers."
Eric said nothing, unable to speak through gritted teeth, one eye winced, handling the pain that shot through his stomach, throat, chest and hands. I can feel it… he thought. I can feel the crazy pain shooting through where my gates are, I can't even feel my own Half Spirit anymore…! But… I can't lose! I can't! He told himself the same thing over and over and over again. "Eric," Hibiyomi called out to the eighteen year old boy full of purpose. Eric pulled up his head, his eyes with difficulty. He scowled as he strained to think, strained to look. His senses were swaying; he was losing a right mind. Half his body was now corrupted; what else could happen to him? What else?! He thought, but he couldn't hear them. He thought something; he didn't know what, but he thought something. "When I told you I wasn't going to hold back any longer, I meant it, Eric!" Hibiyomi shouted loudly, making sure the boy heard him. Eric strained to decipher the message. His eyesight blurred, turned left and right, left and right, even though his head was not moving. Movement was unthinkable, mobility was no longer a word available to him. "I'll kill you now… with a move that'll finally put fear into your eyes instead of confidence!" Hibiyomi fixed his stance, leaned forward. Dark, shadow energy began to form at his feet, spiraling around him, flowing upward in a growing tornado that didn't seem to widen.
No way! Hanabikai thought, grinding his teeth. "He's not really thinking of -"
"He could be," Tsukansu cut him off. "He's Hibiyomi, after all. You know him." Hanabikai stared at his closest friend, and then, processing the words, scowled, scowled hard. He turned back, and tightened his scolding look. His fists clenched, rattled and shook at his side. Damn it, damn it, damn it! He thought. It was helpless. Could he do anything at this point? No.
"Eric can't survive that!" he said through grit teeth. He growled under his breath. His eyes shuddered in anxiety, in hesitation. What should I do? He thought. What should I do?!
Fear… Daniel thought all the way on the other side. He remembered what Hibiyomi had just said to Eric about fear. It's something I promised Shintenmaru I wouldn't have anymore, he thought in disappointment for himself. Just the mention of that word sent him in a downward spiral of depression, of a feeling of failure.
The black ebony spirals continued to stream upward like a parade of thick nets, crawling, greedy fingers ready to take in Hibiyomi, take him in a shadowy hold of hell. For so long he controlled this move, for so long he had not used it. He was not sure if he could do it as good as he did before; but even so, the weakest type would kill even a Minor – and give fatal wounds to a council. Then, suddenly, above the dark, blackened spirals, the darkness began to form, began to churn into something else – another form, another figure. It gave away the dark silhouette of eight, creepy legs, of sharp, tarantula fangs. Fur of black blankness formed, spikes of hairy darkness. It became as wide as the room, and hissed, scowled. Hibiyomi leaned, feeling his shoulders fall downward, slump in their sockets as his face became overtaken with black, his eyes thickening with darkness from the pupil expansion, until his eyes became nothing but a blank sorrow, a dull possession of hell; the devil.
Eric continued to breathe heavily. He strained to watch the black hissing monster, panting breaths rising and flattening his chest. "I…I'm not… giving up!" he strained his teeth as he got a hard time getting up, legs trembling, spin shivering with immobility. Then, he collapsed back to the floor, unable to rise. He gave a low cry as he fell back to the beginning. His eyes winced horridly, determinatively, but would determination alone help him keep his life? Only time would tell, only the hands of the clock held the answer in their forecast fingers, blatant grasps unnoticed as people watched them tick away at a three-sixty degree collection of numbers.
Should I interrupt? Hanabikai thought, confused thoughts blurring even more into delta smears, becoming a colored, blatant code of words – a black and white rainbow printed, lost, broken, shattered in his mind, falling like rain, rain that he was supposed to caught and fixed, but fell to the ground anyway, shattering into a million, billion tiny pieces, unable to be repaired. And he- he just stood there, watching them like glowering hail, watching them shine in light before the shards of glass pieced together scrambled thoughts in his mind, and doing a poor job at that. Should I interrupt? He raised a thought for once. No! he denied quickly as he watched the spiraling, intensifying darkness. Even I can't survive that move! Even so, that attack will track Eric down! I can't do anything even if I tried! Damn it!
"It's too bad," Kakori's hidden voice said from the shadows, sympathetically. Voices gave their senses of conclusion of battle, sad, misfortune. Misfortune that they didn't care to help and pretended that they wanted to.
"Yeah," Dirondo answered him, her voice weak and delicate, soft and strong.
I…I'm not…! Eric continued to think, his whole body trembling, shaking, shuddering in weakness and disability as he tried to get back up. Suddenly, he had an image of his mother, his mother's sad, cold, wrinkled face – closed eyes that would never become live and flash a happy, brightened look ever again. "Ah!" Eric shouted from despair and memory followed by a long, painful scream of emotion and physic. He fell to the floor once again. His knees collapsed onto the plaster and shot pain through his legs. He began to heavily breathe again, the screams ending, a forced demise to resume the breathing, the heavy, two ton breathing. Tension shot through the air, and everyone, everyone waited. Everyone thought – knew that this was the end. The end of the one they so believed in. Few even began to cry. The Minors tried to near Eric, but even a little more past the threshold of the door, they would get caught up in the charging attack. Shadows piled against the ceiling and began to dominate the whole room, Hibiyomi's body the center of the spiraling darkness, unmoving as if he had been possessed by a ghost.
Then, suddenly, at the Minors side of the hall, they heard running, clicking of shoes. Their damp faces turned, jeered, jerked to find who it could be. Two figures approached, revealing their frantic silhouettes in the darkness. They ran, side by side, tension running through their blood like intersecting veins of sickly green. They wondered who it was, until finally, the figures began to show their full presences. One had a long river of hair that swung like a park swing from side to side, ricocheting off each other in strands. Frantic, feminine feet ran towards them. The other figure had long hair as well, yet not even competition for the first's. It was a masculine type of long hair, barely to the shoulders with wider shoulders than the first. Then, they came to view. The color poured into them like fire did to your shocked faces. It was none other than the two missing Minors, Teresa and Lance. Their frantic, worrisome faces told the Minors of their hard time getting here; the whole dimension was like a maze, after all.
"We finally found you guys!" the shouted in relief, laughing at themselves. "This place is like a maze!" They approached. Then, Teresa and Lance found their troubled faces, their own worrisome looks. "What's wrong?" she asked. Lance was thinking the same. She tilted her head in curiosity, and peered past their shoulders. Then, something caught her eye. Swirls of black. Her eyes widened. Her expression froze. Her legs began to act by herself, her own breathing even stalled. She quickly ran past them without realizing, a subconscious act of an emotion, an emotion she couldn't think to describe. Her sweat trailed behind her swinging, rush of purple hair blur as she knocked people over by their shoulders. She ran over Walter's asleep appearance without noticing it, and ran to the bare threshold of the hallway. Her eyes – they froze even more, unable to comprehend just what was happening; or, rather, she did not want to accept what she had thought she comprehended. But it was no use. It was the truth, and her eyes – the moistened. "N…no way…" her voice trailed, as if there was more for her to say, but she had forgotten all complicated words above "hello." "What…What is…?" she couldn't finish the sentence.
A hand softly, delicately landed on her shoulder, support. It was the tiny, innocent touch of the miniscule sensation Daniel. His sympathetic look trailed behind hers that was filled with disbelief. "It's over," he muttered, hating to be the bearer of bad news, his voice cracking, his lips moving in a slim, bare movement that drained with reluctance.
"N-no… no!" Teresa said, knowing nothing else to say. Her eyes, they were confused; her thoughts – they were scrambled like her favorite morning yellow breakfast. But she couldn't think of things like food – things that are enjoyable now. No, the thought of good sickened her. Gave her pangs of pain, pangs of nausea. She felt no need for those things now – no need for food, for fun, for happiness, for hope. Her eyes were frozen, blistering with muzzled thoughts, bound in a tight, loose feeling – an indecisive emotion. Her mind was left blank, because her thoughts could get nowhere through. She watched through her eyes, her pure, violet eyes that Eric – lying on the floor, was breathing, heavily, strongly, begging, pleading for another chance as if. And she – she wanted to help him, she wanted to pick him up and wake him up, just like he had done to her. But it was too late now – much too late for that. And she told herself that – and felt pain all over. Behind her, Lance bowed his head, lost in solemnity.
Eric lifted his stare, and caught Teresa in his eye for just a second, a split, blurry a second. He caught her emotional stare, her worrisome eyes crumbling down, ready to cry. Her purple hair seemed so innocent, yet so stained and tainted with horrible memories, but finally they were erased – and he didn't want them to come back. He wanted to smile at her, act cool, but he couldn't – it was too hard to even do that. He continued to breathe hard, one eye remained closed as if wanting to go to sleep and leave this world. Then, a large spider's growl brought his eyes away from her. It was at the ceiling and as wide as the room itself. Its mouth opened in a wounded hunger that was never satisfied, a bloodthirsty set of fangs unquenched. It growled once more with its pure black lips, its dark, ebony body of surreal energy. It shouldn't even be alive – yet it was. It so was, with those low groans, that scent of devious shadow, its body odor, its crawling, creepy legs.
"Die!" Hibiyomi cried out with a blank face. The spirals stopped. They burst. He fell back to his feet, back still slouched and head still bowed to the ground. The spider hissed once more before attacking, and then, and then – blasted a huge pillar, a strength beam of shadow, a wave of darkness. Eric had no choice but to stay still. Then, he turned to Teresa. He tried to smile, so desperately tried to smile, watching the beam of black near him, closer and closer as he heard nothing but his heartbeat. Then, finally managing to do it, gave a tiny, miniscule, effortful smirk; a smirk hidden in the face of society. And then – just as that smile blossomed and came to birth, he was overtaken. His body – it was sent flying, it was gone as the wave of dark blasted him, away and away and away into nothingness… into nonexistence.
The beam kept at him, hitting him continuously as his body remained at its head, continued its inescapable rounds of attacks. The shadows hit at his stomach, causing his limbs to flail wildly at his side, limply, weakly. The continuous beating was full of pain – full of blood, and he could not use his powers. He could not move. He could not do anything… but smile. Teresa looked up as he was sent flying through the air, like a shooting star, a shooting star that left with her wish, left back for the sky and not for the earth, the ground, to put that wish into effect.
Her eyes were widened, her worrisome flipped to tense fear, fear for his loss of life. Her delicate fingers brought themselves to her chest, and through widened, beautiful eyes, if you looked in closer and closer, zoomed in more and more into the violet innocence of new insight, you could see Eric, arms and legs flailing, weakly, unable to do anything; not even screaming. He was like a doll now, an empty doll with no emotions, no facial features – and this is what Hibiyomi wanted. This is what Hibiyomi wished for. Then, Eric crashed into the wall. He crashed into the wall and sent dust and chunks of plaster flying, spewed out through the enormous, sudden eruption of smoke. A huge, seventh dent of the battle was made, and the attack – it ended. And what was left? What was left to control Teresa's emotions, to manipulate her into crying, or cheering? It was a gamble. A gamble that she never, ever wanted to take again. The impact of the crash broke a whole thick layer of that wall, the right part of the wall on the councils' side. Smoke continued to drag out, a suspenseful, dreadful mist of cloud cover. Rocks were outside of the cloud of smoke, staying still in solemnity, as if crying, crying for the Minor, crying for his pain and this kindhearted purpose that never, ever had a chance. Imagine what the world would've been… if he hadn't been….
Hibiyomi fell to his knees, his eyes returning to his face, as if they themselves were the attack. He began his own heavy breathing. I've used up too much energy for that one move, he thought, his panting wearing him out, his organs, his legs, his arms – everything. His forehead pulsed with a major headache, as if a hangover from the immense release of energy.
Teresa fell to her own knees a soft, delicate, clear bead that lost its necklace trailed down her face. Her cheeks puffed, moistened, became hot. Her lips silently sealed themselves, and her legs, sprawled weakly to the floor, crumbled in energy. Her head bowed, as if in shame, losing all will to move, all will to think, all will to live. "Eric…lost?" she muttered to herself silently, barely, as if her last words. Her lips – they failed to move any longer, actually resistant to it, deciding that there was no purpose to it, no helping or support to it. The smoke continued to hiss from the demised scene.
"It's a wonder why he had to die," Dylan muttered sadly, sympathetic face distorted into a deep sorrow. He had lost all energy, too, but not all will; at least he still had his will. Everyone agreed without words. Their solemn faces looked down in respect to the Minor they failed to acknowledge, failed to get to know. The eternal hissing of the slowly clearing smoke would stay in their minds, a memoir of this confident, most purposeful Minor ever. It was a monumental hiss, a hiss of memories; memories that had failed to be made. People sighed. Walter – he remained inside his shell of indifference.
"No," Madasora interrupted. People picked their heads up, confused. They looked at him, looked at his face filled with normality, filled up as if nothing were wrong. They asked questions, questions with their eyes because their lips failed to function any longer – their mouths finding their own acts selfish, and deciding to shut themselves in shame, in guilt – because they couldn't help. They never could. What was the point of them? They were something one could call extra weight, at least now they were. "Look." He nodded his head towards the clearing cloud of dust.
Frantically, they all looked to it. Rocks crumbled inside; the Minors heard it. Scraping of feet – sad, lifting of limp arms. Blood dripped horridly to the floor like a flood. "W-What!?" shouts from the Minors came as the smoke cleared, hints of nausea growing into the pits of their stomach, washing over them with a phlegm-like sickness that begged, pleaded for their retching, their throttling of tongue.
"Teresa," Daniel called sympathetically, sadly to the girl who crumbled to half her size, shoulders sadly, depressively slouched. He brought back a comforting hand to her shoulder. He gripped it, lightly. She failed to pick her head up. "Look." Teresa, reluctantly, followed. Her slow picking up of stare slowly arose like a tiny blossoming flower of spring. And then… with slight nausea – she gasped.