"Honey? Honey? 'Sung?"
The blackness of Yunsung's eyelids seemed to swirl. His brain wanted to wake up and greet Talim, but his body was too tired, his head was too hot...he could just fall asleep...
But at that moment something like a speck of rain dashed between his fluttering eyelash. His head juttered with the heat of the small droplet which swum over to his left tear duct, further swimming his vision. "Yunsung, you're alive!" and he felt an unusually strong set of arms pick up his head and cuddle it against something warm and soft. His neck ached as it was lifted up, and then the rest of his aching chest and abdomen, so he might have been sitting up if he stopped rocking from side to side...
Suddenly a sudden slap on the back brought him back to earth, his eyes shot open as he keeled over, coughing and spluttering the last drops of water out of his gullet. "That's better..." he heard Talim say soothingly.
"Sweet Almighty!" were the first two things he said, still gasping for air. His ears started to work a little better- he could now hear the ripplings of water which meant they were still at the lake. He remembered Taki had been trying to suffocate him. He searched for Talim's face.
"Where is she?"
"She's away, my love." she said calmly to him, "she's gone."
He found himself reaching forward to make sure she wasn't a ghost. Her very warm and very solid hand entwined with his. "What happened?" he asked, still finding his breath.
She frowned, "We may not have time for the story. Our mission is complete, however, there is a...complication. A sacrifice, if you will..."
Yunsung struggled with his hazy brain to think, "I don't understand." he muttered, "Do you mean Taki?"
"No." she replied. "I'm sorry, Yunsung. I'm very very sorry."
He almost laughed. "What have you done now?"
She paused, so only the soft noise of the lake could be heard. She said, "Soul Edge was destroyed. I discovered...I discovered it cannot use the same host twice...The soul becomes to strong..."
Yunsung suddenly realized what she was talking about, and taking hold of her shoulders fearfully, he said fearfully "You didn't."
"I did." she said sadly.
He shook his head at her. He went on shaking it, unable to believe she was killing herself, was about to fade before his eyes. The way her eyes were looking at him told him there was no point in yelling or crying or screaming.
"Yes. I had to." Talim said quite calmly and gravely, "You know why I did it." she said, "You know why I took in Soul Edge. I couldn't risk it falling into Taki's hands. Now it will be absorbed by my body, ultimately draining my life-lines. There's nothing you can do. I'm sorry. I saved you so I could spend time with you..."
Yunsung paused for a moment, his heart beating so hard against his chest it was like he had run a marathon. Then, suddenly he said, "We will, love, we will." and sat down beside her, putting his arm around her. "How long do we have?"
"Hours." she said, putting her soft head of hair on his shoulder. "Not long."
"Enough." Yunsung replied, leaning over and kissing her several times on the neck to let her know.
"It's a bit open..." said Talim breathlessly, as her once grave murmur began to change to a more enticing drawl. "Isn't it?" For a moment, Yunsung paused for thought. Then he stood up, took Talim's hand to help her to her feet, and slowly guided her into the trees that had been behind them.
OooOoOo
"You have never been better, Yunsung." Talim sighed.
"Neither have you." He replied in a satisfied tone. They were back out in front of the lake, fully clothed again, admiring the beauty of the water and the sunny sky above. Yunsung was sitting down, and Talim was lying beside him, her head on his lap. There were no physical signs yet that Talim was fading, but it must have been happening, Yunsung knew not to ever doubt her. He was just thinking about the best way to spend their last few moments together.
"Hey Talim, " he said, looking down at her head on his lap. He liked how her eyes looked from this angle, "Want to go fishing again?"
"Alright." she replied, smiling. Yunsung shifted out from underneath her, stood up and lifted her up from under her arms and onto her feet. She stayed up for a second, and then began to fall backwards. Yunsung caught her, "Got you. C'mon." He started to push her back up again.
"I- I can't!" Talim cried, "My legs won't move!"
And sure enough Talim's legs didn't seem to have any life left in them from where Yunsung saw- they just hung from her body like a rag doll's. "They're...they're gone..." she whispered.
"It's ok! It's ok!" he said hurriedly, laying her back down and trying to calm her. He stroked her hair back behind her head for her and knelt beside her, "We can just talk, alright."
"Alright." said Talim unsteadily, "Um...I love you."
"I love you too." said Yunsung, grinning.
There was a silence which seemed to last for ages after that, where they just looked at each other, frowning, unable to say anything. Talim sighed, "Not much to say, really, is there?"
"Yeah." said Yunsung thoughtfully. He guessed he'd better say what had been on his mind since he heard about how she consumed Soul Edge, "Talim, what am I going to do once you're gone? My life pretty much revolves around you...I wouldn't know where else to turn or to go or to do..."
Talim was visibly very moved, "That's both the best and worst thing I've ever been told." she said tremulously.
Yunsung shook his head, "What am I going to do?" he sighed, his grief beginning to overcome him.
"Oh 'Sung, I know you're going to find happiness somewhere." she said lovingly, taking hold of his hand, "I know it."
He smiled at her, trying to force back the tears which were threatening to burst from his eyes.
"Why..." said Talim thoughtfully, "Don't you try Mina? She loves you, y'know. She'll look after you."
"I don't really see it some how." he remarked.
She laughed, but in mid-laugh took a deep, hoarse breath as if she was being choked. Yunsung reacted quickly, lifting her upwards to try and help her to breathe.
"Talim?"
"It's alright...I'm just..."she gasped, as her breathing began to become deeper, faster and more urgent, "going...I'm...going...I..." she grasped the hairs on the back of his head and pushed, "I love you..." She pulled their lips together with her very last ounces of strength. Yunsung begged her lips to stay with his, but they fell back with her head. She was gone.
But as soon as Yunsung was about to resign to his own greif, she wasn't. Her eyes snapped open again, one of her hands went straight to her heart and the other gripped Yunsung's shoulder painfully. "Run!" she gasped, before he could react, "Just run! Get away from here!" and then as quickly as she had awakened, she collapsed once more.
"What? Run away from what?" Yunsung cried to her lifeless body as the winds began to pick up around him. He shook her, "From what? Talim...Talim please don't go!" he cried, about to bury his head into her unmoving body, unaware of the gusts beginning to push him.
He heard a high scream from somewhere. He looked up, and just as he did something smashed into him from the side and he hurtled through the air, something keeping a very tight grip around his body as the trees whizzed by in front of him at a phenomenal speed.
Smash! He felt his shoulder bash into the bark of a large tree, and he fell a couple of feet to the ground, somebody else landing on top of him. "Are you alright?" said a female voice.
"You're gone. You're dead." said Yunsung, still dazed from the collision and unwilling to believe who he was talking to.
"I wish I was. But I'm not." said Taki.
"I suppose you're happy." said Yunsung angrily, preferring to stare back towards the clearing than look at her. He could just see the trees farthest away being fiercely battered by the wind there. Except here there was very little wind at all.
"I am not. I am finding it difficult to come to terms with." she replied.
"You're telling me." he said grumpily, "But we're not talking about the same thing, are we?"
"Yes." she said, in a different tone than usual, "We are."
Yunsung was so surprised that he braved looking at her. Taki sat beside him, staring at the grass and not at him for once, looking completely and utterly lost for words for once, looking completely defenseless. For once. She wasn't visibly sad, but just looking at her Yunsung could tell that sadness was something difficult for someone like her to come by.
"You're even more unbelievable than I thought." he said to her spitefully.
She didn't reply.
"I don't know why I'm not stabbing you." he continued vindictively.
"Please do." she said tonelessly, "At least my final act will be a good one."
"What good act could someone like you ever do?" Yunsung snarled.
Taki looked at him concernedly(yes, concernedly), "Did you not want to be rescued? If you didn't...if you didn't then please kill me anyway."
"No." said Yunsung, turning away from her again to look at the clearing. The trees were getting punished even worse, and behind them was a great, swirling grey blur. "I'm not going to give you that kind of satisfaction."
"Apt. Apt." she said, her voice going up an octave. Again, Yunsung felt compelled to look at her – it was something he couldn't believe. Taki was short of breath, her normally pale cheeks began to turn pink, and her small eyes were beginning to swim.
"You're disgusting!" was the only thing Yunsung could say to her.
"I know!" she cried, bursting into tears, and screaming through gnashed teeth, "Here I am now, the infant life has always tortured me with! I am no stronger than a child! I am nothing, failed as a ninja, failed in goodness already!" She gasped, tears now streaming from her eyes, and screamed, "SOMEBODY HELP ME!"
"Shut up!" Yunsung shouted.
Taki did immediately. She sniffed. The was an ominous howling noise coming from the clearing.
"You're right. You're nothing but an infant and a coward!" he snarled.
She nodded. Then, slowly, shaking, she took off her ninja robe, and withdrew one of her knives. She poised the knife at her breast-
It wouldn't move because Yunsung had stopped her. "No." he said.
"Y-y-yes..."she begged, pulling the knife weakly, "P-p-please..."
"No!" he shouted at her, keeping a firm grip on the knife, not sure if he should tug it away or not. "It'll solve nothing!" But she made a sharp, sudden tug, and the knife sunk right into her chest, right where her heart was.
"No!"
"Yes...Yes..."Taki gasped in response, looking up at him with a look of astonished triumph on her face. Then her expression changed to fear, and she began to fall backwards.
Yunsung caught her back, "Taki!" he warned her as her body began to fall limp, becoming a dead weight on his arm. "Taki! Don't do this to me, now!" But just like Talim her head fell black, and he was forced to put her down, her lifeless body putting too much strain on his arm. She lay there, still, her eyes open, Yunsung shook his head at her, thinking about how things could have been for her. But he couldn't feel any kind of respect for the life she had lived. He had no intention of burying her. All he did was close her blankly staring eyes, the noise of the tornado blowing now causing his ears to ring, and he laid her sideways between the trees.
He turned away from Taki's corpse and looked toward the tornado. He wondered when it was ever going to stop. As if to answer his question, the winds began to die down, the noise stopped as suddenly as it had started, and the grey bulk blocking the clearing spaced out and disappeared like Taki's clones. The trees stopped moving. Yunsung took a deep breath, and began what seemed like his longest journey, towards the clearing.
oOoOoOo
He approached the clearing slowly, dreading finding Talim's dead body in the water or in the trees somewhere, smashed and broken by the sudden storm. But he had to- he had to bury her and give her the respect she deserved- as a magnificent wife and saviour to the world. He could now see the broken and tattered trees closest to the clearing. He thought numbly about the golden light and how he was saved, but he was more concerned with what he could possibly do with his life now...
Something light-coloured was coming into view, something which was lying on the ground next to the lake, where branches and small trees floated. At least he didn't have to go looking for her, Yunsung thought. But as he got ever closer, he noticed something peculiar- he couldn't see any blood or any other abrasions yet, and he was almost at the edge of the clearing. He quickened his pace.
A body who was unmistakably Talim lay in the middle of the clearing. She was naked, but her skin looked completely unharmed; even the scars she had before were gone. Her skin looked as soft as a newborn child's. Her eyes were closed, and Yunsung's heart jumped into his throat when she took a breath.
"T-T-Talim?" he said, unable to believe it.
Slowly her eyes opened, and swiveled onto him.
"Please...please stop doing that." Yunsung said, putting a hand on his forehead and feeling faint.
She blinked at him once, and then looked down on her body. She looked up at him wryly, "What did you do with my clothes?"
"Maybe you're a ghost and don't need them anymore." Yunsung pondered, seriously thinking about it.
Talim smirked, "You'd like that, wouldn't you?"
Yunsung was still unwilling to go any closer to her in case she might disappear, "Talim, seriously..." he said tremulously, "W-why aren't you dead?"
"I was dead."she said, still lying on the ground quite still, "But I was given a second chance. The Wind did. I didn't want to go Into the Trees yet. She asked me to be with her but I would rather be down here."
"Talim... Talim this is incredible!" Yunsung exclaimed, "You just..."
"No-one is going to find out." she said sagely, "And you'll never tell."
Suddenly, a persuasive thought came into Yunsung's head: Why should you tell? You've got so many reasons not to! You don't even have to name them. Yunsung scratched his head and looked down at Talim, "What else can you do apart from coming back from the dead?"
"Nothing more. I'm just human now. Can't read the wind, can't do anything strange." she said sadly, looking up into the sky, "I'm just Talim now."
"I suppose I wouldn't have it any other way." said Yunsung, finally finding the courage to kneel down beside her. Her first movement was to take his head between her hands and pull him down to kiss him. Then she stood up, and he stood up with her. She sniggered a little, looking down at herself, than at Yunsung, "What am I going to do?"
"You might just have to go natural." said Yunsung, admiring her new body.
"But people will think I'm a nymph with skin like this." she said, rubbing her arm.
Yunsung took her in his arms. Her skin was very soft indeed, and he found his hands having a bit of an adventure. Talim slapped him, jumped away, and said something about leaves. Any Yunsung felt, at last, everything was back to normal.
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That's it! After about seven months this story has reached it's conclusion! Of course, detailed reviews would be much appreciated! And I'll leave a little note afterwards in retrospect of this story. So REVIEW PLEASE!