You know I was trying to bring some happiness but writers block's a pain. So I'm just posting this. It was a story excerpt but who knows what I'll do with it? By the way, it's snowing out here! Woohoo~

Thanks Teeny! That is probably the best comment I've gotten in a while. And Neko, I know it was depressing. The title fools you all! AHAHA! Okay I'm done.

Need to write some more and DP are you still alive? I wanna read more of your stuff! XD Sorry, I'm rather hyper right now.

Anyway, enjoy!

Title: Pleas

Genre: General

Rating: T

Warning: Innocent Innuendo, totally didn't know it was there honest, violence, swearing

Summary: The dead stay dead.

Fragmented

18. Pleas

He was running. Through trees and clearings and endless boughs, he was running. The glade was coiling around him, trying to muffle his footsteps, to deafen his ears to almost everything. And still, a child kept screaming.

No, it wasn't one. It was two, two with the garbled, misshaped voice of one body. Cries of pain, of fear, melded with the crashes of leather and blunt steel against flesh merged with the harmony of death. It was a song, a song he knew so well. He had left them behind. Hours ago, he had left behind his charges and fled like a coward. So why could he still hear them as though they were right next to him? By now, they were dead.

Suddenly, as though his thoughts had summoned them, they were in front of him. The gaze that was tainted with despair pierced him. On his face was not the empty frown he'd seen before, had come to expect, but a bitter, serene smile. He knew that face too. The teen had grown up fearing that face, because it meant things were about to be all shot to hell and that people would be killed. A golden, ethereal glow surrounded the small, ragged body. It moved like smoke around him, loose and free. Free, that was something the child never would be. It was certain now. Right?

"You're dead," whispered the elder. You aren't supposed to be here! The dead stay down! I left you back there, so why are you here now? "You're dead."

The smile widened. "We are!" he chirped, as happy as could be. The teen jolted back, staring at him with a mixture of disbelief and horror. What the hell? How can you be smiling at a time like this?

"What's wrong with you," he nearly screamed. "You're dead. I practically killed you! You're supposed to be angry, sad, vengeful, something other than smiling!"

The pale boy tilted his head. "Why? It's not the first time."

That completely threw the male off. He couldn't think of a reply except to stutter out, "W-Wha…"

There was a frown on the delicate face now, crossing his arms over his chest. The glow soared gently past his arms, revealing the faintest of scars, scars from blades, from whips. He winced. Then the little child laughed, the sound angelic. "That's right! We've died before and we'll die again! Not the first, not the last, they become the future and the past!" With another little laugh, he danced away for a moment, spinning in place with his arms outstretched. He appeared to be reaching for a nonexistent sun. Then he lowered his arms and seemed to sadden. Finally. But it wasn't a sad frown. It was a knowing one.

"You know," he began. "It's not yet."

"What's not yet?" The elder was still afraid, still tempting to flee but his body was paralyzed now. He had waited too long.

The boy walked up to him and laced his fingers on the other's temple. He was smiling again. Damn him. There was a shudder, feeling the light flow over his body. It hurt. He wanted the darkness. "This death. It's not yet. You can still make it change. You can still save us. If you want." For some reason, even though there was so much brightness, he felt sick, black. His body trembled as whispers sang lightly in his ears, icy and full of shadows. The hand left his chin and pointed a finger on his chest. "It's up to this. It has to be followed by this." The digit moved to rest against his forehead. "If they don't work together, everything will come full-circle. And you…"

"What about me?" He wasn't sure he wanted to know.

The boy shook his head. "It'll all go away. And if it all goes away, well…" He shrugged. "You can guess right?"

The elder felt his head spinning. This was unreal. A part of him wanted to know more, to understand more, but another part was stronger. That part was in denial. They should be dead. Ghosts don't exist, especially not here! (But where is here?) Unfortunately, that part was stronger. "The dead should stay dead!" he howled as his grip on sanity abruptly snapped. For the first time, terror broke into the other voice. It wavered, wandering the path between one and two.

"No don't do that!" The child wailed, shying away. "You don't have to do that! Stop that!" The teen let out a wild screech and picked up a fallen bough. Taking it in both hands like a baseball bat, he charged wildly at the glowing form, which just kept backing away. He raised his hands to defend himself as the wood slammed down repeatedly. Instead of pain-filled screams, there were broken, pitiful sobs.

"Why? Why, why, why? You're hurting us. You're killing us! Stop this! Please stop it!" The fearful sounds and light began to quiet slowly as he continued to assault the child. A manic grin was on the teen's face.

"Yes I am! You will stay dead!"

"Don't listen to it!" The child begged. "It will kill you! We know it will!"

"I don't care!" he screamed in a fit of insanity and ecstasy. "You won't come back! You'll leave me be! Die!" Yet even as he kept hitting him with the branch, he wondered. It was scary because the child wasn't bleeding and even the dead bleed. The elder raised the branch high. Mismatched gold pierced him and he froze in pure horror. Even as he sobbed, pleaded, and trembled in fear, there was still a pretty smile on his face.

"Akira please," Agito whispered hollowly. "Please Akira not again."

Akira felt his arms tremble. Then the branch swung down and there was a sickening crack.

He woke with a start.