Chapter 50

Demon Moon Carnival

Warnings: Blood, gore, violence, swearing, more gore and some more blood

Important AN: Since there has been a considerable break in my continuation of this story I think it's only fair to name the people speaking, so that it doesn't get too damn confusing! Hope this helps. The first voice is Lorelei/Yusuke, Schu's sister who is also a reincarnation of an ancient warrior from Yami and Tatsuha's time (wow that sounds crazy when I write it down!), then it's Yoji for the second part, and then it ends with Schuldich. Okay, enjoy!

I woke to the smell of blood and dirt. The mud beneath my nails and the rain in my hair and the breath in my lungs. I coughed and felt the rough passage of air leaving my throat, but it was oh so different. Everything was different now.

I managed to struggle into a standing position, the sound of shouting far off and carried in the wind. The fire was still burning, low and bright, deep umber and glaring gold. I split my lips apart and welcomed the taste of rainwater sliding down my throat. Then I laughed, laughed with a voice I had not used in over five hundred years.

I looked down to my hands with glee, feeling the grin spread across my face along with my long, black hair. I gripped at it, sliding my hands through the mass, continuing down my body, over the smooth chest now devoid of breasts, down and down. Yes, I was definitely a man. It had worked. It had worked!

"My Lord Uesugi!" I cried out in a deep, guttural wail, "Your dream, our dream, my lord! It's coming!"

No more pandering to the limitations of that woman's body, no more disgusting female bodily functions, finally I was back inside my own body, my own, all mine. I looked to the smoke scarred sky and screamed.

"I am Mori Yusuke," feeling like a raving lunatic and loving every moment of it, "welcome to hell!"

That was when I remembered the intruders. I slowly floated down from my high, looking to the ground in confusion. That American, and the one eyed freak, and my 'little brother', where the fuck were they? I coughed again, growling in frustration, wishing that I was wearing my armour and my sword, I would have hunted them down and killed them like dogs! Yes, my master, my lord, he would praise me, he would love me! I must kill them!

Yet when I took but a single step I faltered and fell, a sickening pain blooming in my stomach. I crumpled to the wet mud, holding my insides as if they would burst from my body. My teeth clenched together and I keened. The pain, oh kami, why did it hurt so!?

"My Lord," I croaked out through clenched teeth, before the vomit rose in my throat and there was sick mixed with blood all over the ground before me.

I panted, spitting, hating the acrid taste. My body shivered, as if rejecting the vile fluid, but soon I was feeling better. I uncurled my clenched hands, feeling light headed but at least the pain had stopped. I sighed a little, spitting again.

"Once I am restored," I whispered, a manic grin gleaming once again on my lips, "once I am whole again, I'm going to rip your spine out of your body and watch you die, little brother. And as for you, Yamagata-chan, you can watch Yoshitsuna die all over again, and I'll let it be the last thing you ever see."

When I finally regained consciousness, after watching sweet little Aya-chan's body be used for the darkest of magic, I wished that I hadn't. I was lying face down, my mouth and nose submerged in the blood. I panicked and scrambled back, crying out and choking, trying to get the stench out of my nose, the taste from my mouth. It tasted like rotten things, dead things, and I backed up against something soft. As I looked round only the hollow eyes of a limbless body greeted me. I was leaning against a pile of bodies, their mouths yawning open, calling to each other. I scrambled away, trying to orient myself.

That's when I noticed it.

The body parts, on the floor, in piles, they were moving. Squirming like maggots in a festering wound. I gagged and tried to fight back the hysteria as I watched limbs and sinew groping for each other, like blind men crawling the floor, shifting and finding one another and stitching back together, blood vessels and bone.

"No," I gasped out breathlessly, "no. Wh-what's happening. Where are we? What's happening!?"

A hand on my shoulder stopped me in my tracks. I screamed, turning to kill whatever was there, whatever undead fucking freak was trying to touch me. I didn't get very far. Ran stood there, looking into my horror struck eyes with a cold fury. I was glad that it was not for me, because his glare almost scared me more than the twitching, scraping limbs beneath my feet. However it calmed me down, it always had, knowing that at least someone was in control.

"He's bringing them back to life," Ran said coldly, his hand squeezing my shoulder painfully, "his army. The sick fucking bastard."

I couldn't have agreed with him more. I looked around me, finding Yami and Tatsuha stumbling from the ground, much as I had. Somehow they didn't seem as repulsed by the sight as I was, and I couldn't help but despise them their cold attitude. With Ran, even if he wasn't my Ran, I was used to that cold gaze and the unemotional response, but even he was showing some reaction. Then the world froze.

"Well gentleman," a deep gravely sound emanated from the centre of the room, "how do you like my show?"

I followed Yami and Tatsuha's twin gaze, looking at the spot where Aya-chan had once stood. There was a man, tall and stately, handsome in face, the remains of the virginal white dress hanging from his body in rags. His limbs were bathed in streaks of blood, globs of yellow fat and strips of flesh which I could tell, numbly, were not his own. I didn't need to wonder why as he bent to the ground, picking up a random organ from the floor and then squeezing it between his fingers until it burst sickeningly. He watched us with a smile as he spread the remains of the mutilated organ over his tanned flesh. I felt myself back into Ran, his other hand coming up to hold me still in mimicry of an embrace.

"You've condemned them Uesugi," Ran's voice was harsh, "their souls will never rest."
"Rest?" the monster before us laughed, stepping forwards through the pool of blood, kicking aside a hand as it dragged itself across the floor, "I didn't bring them back to rest, my dear Fujimiya. I brought them back to fight for me. I brought them back to give me power."
"But you..." I spoke in a strangled voice, clearing my throat before continuing, "you're killing them!"
"Killing? Oh no, no, not killing," as he approached I could feel the bile at the back of my throat, the hairs rising on the back of my neck, I could feel just how wrong he was, how my body rejected his very existence, "absorbing, little Weiss, absorbing and assimilating. Just as I will do to you and your little band."

I swallowed, trying to ready myself for a fight, but my hands were shaking and I felt weak and sick and so very, very out of my depth. I opened my mouth but the only thing that escaped was a soft cry. He was getting closer, yet I couldn't move.

"I'll kill you," Ran said quietly, his mouth beside my ear as he addressed Uesugi, "I'll make you suffer for everything you have done. I swear it!"

And then he grabbed my hand and ran. The window that he threw me through was thankfully not that high from the ground. Still, I hit the ground with considerable force, and knocked the air from my lungs. I scrambled to get up, trying to wrap my head around the situation, but only too glad to be away from that...that monster. My skin crawled, just from knowing he was in there, with my friends, just being this close to him was instinctually wrong. I was happy to follow Ran's obvious plan of escape.

"Ran!" I shouted up to the window, "Yami, Tatsuha, hurry the fuck up, we need to go!"

The shock of the explosion sent me flying, even from outside. I was slammed into a tree and once again lost the air in my lungs. My back burned with the pain and something was stabbed into my thigh. I grit my teeth and forced myself up, feeling down my leg and wincing at the small branch I found there, imbedded in my leg. I let out a yell and snapped it off, leaving the main part inside my body. The last thing I wanted to do right now was pull it out and bleed to fucking death.

"What the fuck was that?" I coughed out, looking dazedly to the wall where the window had once been only to find a huge hole in its place, "Fuck! Hey Ran! Ran!?"

I managed to pull myself up the tree, staring into the smoke. Then, finally, Ran's bedraggled figure emerged from the smoke, towing a coughing Tatsuha with him. Yami stumbled along behind them, looking pale and weak, but doing his best to run.

"Hurry!" Ran said, catching sight of me, "We have to get out of here, now! We are no match for him, not like this."
"Yeah, well I kind of figured that, smartass!" I yelled back, pointing to my bleeding leg, "Do I look like I'll be running anywhere?"
"Fucking hell!" he swore loudly, letting go of Tatsuha after making sure that he could stand, he picked me up bridal style as if I were nothing but a ragdoll, "Do I have to do everything myself?"

So we ran, through the woods with the howling of recomposing bodies and tortured souls dogging our heels. The pain in my leg only worsened as the shock wore off and Ran didn't have time to be gentle. My back ached and I thought I would die every time Ran jumped over a log or made any sudden movements. I bit my lip and felt blood. I think I passed out before we even reached the van.

"Crawford," I said groggily, opening my eyes; I was surprised to find myself staring at the inside of the van, "what..? Where are we?"
"Don't ask stupid fucking questions," Crawford growled, coming into view as he strapped me into the seat and then exited through the wide side door, slamming it shut.

I was totally disoriented. Despite the pain and the blood and the smell of fire and death on my clothes, things were relatively calm and quiet. I was strapped into the middle seat of the front row in the back of the van. It was bright and Crawford was moving around outside like a pale ghost, checking the van over quickly but efficiently. Then I noticed Farferello, sitting in the front passenger seat, his head leaning back against the headrest.

"Farf, hey," I said, trying to get his attention, wondering why my chest hurt so much, "what..?"

He turned around to look at me, his one eye seeming to glow in the darkness. He looked so sad.

Sad.

"Nagi," I breathed out, ending in a dry sobbing choke, "oh god, Nagi, we can't leave him, we can't..."

Silence greeted me as I trailed off, body going numb. Crawford climbed back into the van, his movements quick and sure, ignoring me completely. I trembled, trying to get myself under control, to remember what had happened as well as I could. Crawford turned the key and the engine rumbled into life.

"Are you going to leave them?" I heard Farferello ask with genuine curiosity.
"I'm not risking anything for them," Crawford said darkly, "least of all my team."
"Crawford..." I said weakly, not sure why I was even speaking.
"What?" he asked harshly, looking at me in the rear view mirror, "What is it?"

I just stared at him, shaking. This was wrong, all wrong. It couldn't be like this, we were all supposed to be okay in the end. That wasn't how it was supposed to be!

"Fuck Schuldich I don't have time for this!" he put his foot down and the van's back wheels spun in the mud, swerving violently.

We jerked forwards, but were stopped by a sudden yell.

"Stop! Wait! Don't you fucking dare!"

Tatsuha's glare was a force to be reckoned with as he held on to his younger counterpart, but it didn't have a patch on Fujimiya Ran as he bundled an unconscious Yoji into the van. I tensed at the sight of him, but realised that with my mind in the state it was I probably wouldn't be up for a fight.

"Don't worry," Tatsuha said grimly as he noticed my reaction, "I can vouch for him."

That would have to be enough for now, I thought, until we can tie him to a fucking chair and slowly, very slowly kill him. The fucking bastard. The fucking bastard! Once they were all inside Crawford didn't wait for permission, but simply floored it and we sped off into the beckoning morning.

"Fujimiya," I said coldly, glad that I was so weak I could hardly move because I would have lunged at him had I the strength to remove my seatbelt, "you piece of fucking shit, I'm going to kill you and I'll make it last."

Tatsuha looked taken aback, confused, although Yami looked as if some theory of his had been confirmed. Fujimiya only looked cold and detached, his eyes staying focused on Yoji as he strapped him in tightly and tried to stop the bleeding in his leg.

"Quiet Schuldich," I heard Crawford say from the driver's seat, his cold tone only fuelling my rage.
"Don't you tell me to be fucking quiet you unemotional, hypocritical fuck!" I yelled, "He killed Nagi! I saw him, he killed him, he killed him! I'll fucking kill you Fujimiya!"
"Ran," Tatsuha's voice was strained but I couldn't focus on it, not with the returning adrenaline pumping through my veins, "is that true?"
"You fucking murderer!" I screamed.
"Schuldich kindly shut the fuck up!" Crawford said back tightly, "I'm trying to concentrate..."

It's a good thing Crawford is such a good driver or he would have never seen the other cars coming, and dying in a car crash after going through all that shit would have just been fucking embarrassing.

AN: Oh god, how long it has been! That chapter was fun though, I hope you liked it! Sorry if I haven't replied to any reviews (I feel kinda stupid doing it so long after they've been posted, I'm such a lazy asshole sometimes!) but let me just say thank you to everyone who has reviewed this story and I hope it will be done and dusted soon (we're on our way for a small rest period and then the big finale people! Woohoo!) And it will be the reunion of Ken and Ran soon too, oh the excitement!

I also want to say a huge thanks again to Gillian Sillis, my little antagonist who has pestered me so many times to keep going with this story. THANK YOU! I hope this wasn't too gory for you...Same goes for Heather if you're still reading!

Okay, I hope to update a little more frequently than usual after this! My writers block for this story should be officially over (thank god!)

Maiko