Chapter 19

The end was somewhat anticlimactic, although just before the end it didn't look like it would be. Enraged by the interference of the Silver King, Nagare Hisui released a huge burst of power that forced everybody to duck desperately, to not be fried alive. In the haste, Munakata ended up hitting a wall, briefly stunning himself. When he blinked back his vision, Hisui was still raging.

As though in a slow motion, Munakata saw his headset tumbling through the air. It must have fallen at the impact, he thought, trying to catch the device. He failed, which turned out to be lucky: not even a split of a second after Munakata's fingers closed around air a few centimetres away from the flying device a green lightning shot from the channel control to the headphone.

It would have fried his brain, he thought blankly. For a moment, that was the only thought he was capable of and he recognized it as shock: never before he has been so close to dying. Then, like a different sort of lightning shooting through his brain, he remembered that Anna and Weismann also wore headsets. Fear fuelling his actions, he called up all the power he could and focused it on dispersing the fog.

Fog, after all, was just a visible cloud of water droplets. Even originating from the Grey King's power and carrying the protective ability, its basic, physical properties remained unchanged and the Blue King could easily change the fog into tiny ice crystals. For a moment, everything was fragmented in an insanity-inducing chaos of prisms. Then, before Munakata could remove the ice, a fiery blaze sublimated it into nothing. The Blue and Red King's abilities always cancelled each other out.

Having good visibility returned was almost dizzying for a moment and Munakata barely dodged a shot from the enraged Grey King. He got his bearings back quickly and changed his evasion into an attack, sabre gleaming as it cut the clean air. Its edge clang as the Grey King met it with his antique gun.

'Why the hell won't you play by the script for once, Munakata?' the man dressed like a priest growled. Munakata felt his lips stretch in a cold smile. He knew it didn't reach his eyes at all.

'I make my own scripts,' he replied, keeping his tone light and pleasant. 'Now maybe you'd like to follow it and die,' he suggested, the meaning of the words and the real intention to kill the Grey King clashing with the pleasant tone.

'Reisi,' the Red King shouted behind him. He didn't question the warning: without hesitation, he jumped to the side and the electric shock meant for him hit the Grey King square on the chest.

He didn't scream. He barely even gasped. When Munakata landed and turned back to the enemy, he saw the Grey King collapse to the ground in complete silence. Even as he fell it felt as though the sound was somewhat muted, though there was no reason for it to be.

Without even realizing, Munakata found himself holding his breath, turning his eyes away from the man who couldn't have survived such an electric shock to the one who had unwillingly struck an ally.

Nagare Hisui was completely frozen, hand still outstretched from the attack, eyes opened impossibly wide. He didn't even seem to be breathing as he watched the Grey King on the marble floor of the Slate chamber. Only the hairline crackles of electricity were jumping from him and back, some escaping and disappearing into thin air. Their uneven buzzing was the only sound in the chamber.

Slowly, so impossibly slowly, the hand fell to the Green King's side. The shocked expression melted like evening's snow in the morning sun, gradually replaced by incomprehension and Munakata understood then that the Grey King meant much more to Nagare Hisui than any of them could have suspected.

Seconds trickled past with agonizing slowness.

Nagare Hisui fell to his knees, grabbing his hair and pulling so harshly it was a wonder he hasn't pulled any out. In the silence, Munakata could now hear his breathing: heavy and irregular. Something about it started a warning bell in the back of his mind and he took a step further away from the grieving man.

The heel of Munakata's shoe clacked against the smooth marble, shattering the silence.

He froze, because so did Nagare Hisui. However, when nothing happened for a few more seconds, Munakata glanced to see Anna Kushina and Adolf K Weismann, the latter holding his head with a pained grimace on his face, not too far away. His eyes met with those of the Red King and in them he read a warning.

Again, he didn't question it. Without a split of a second of hesitation, he threw up the strongest protective barrier he could over the three of them. It wasn't a second too early.

With an animalistic wail of denial, Nagare Hisui snapped.

Green filled the air, the crackling of electricity so loud that Munakata couldn't hear anything else until the crack in his protective barrier rang out like a gunshot. He turned his head to where the damage was, seeing that electricity was already zapping through it.

A sudden wave of warmth told him that Anna Kushina has activated her own sanctum, throwing a second layer of protection over them. To make it easier for her, Munakata walked up closer, eyes never leaving the man in the middle of the chamber, barely visible through the storm of green lightning bolts.

They hit everything: walls, lamps, ceiling. Small explosions marked the buzzling every time they found something they could easily destroy.

A third protective layer, like translucent, liquid mercury, wrapped around them.

The ceiling cracked ominously and right afterwards, the sliding doors exploded outwards, one after another. Their combined auras should keep them unscathed even if everything came crashing down, but if the constructions fell down around the Tower-

As suddenly as it started, everything stopped.

It took a few heartbeats for Munakata to realize that the danger was over, at least as long as the Tower's construction would hold. For a few more seconds, electric discharges zipped across the marble chaotically, before finding outlet in the wooden constructions that were once holding the sliding doors.

The Grey King was no more than a burned corpse, beyond recognition.

The Green King, collapsed right over the Dresden Slate, looked untouched, except for where his heart should be. The fabric of his clothes was burnt around the grotesque, unnatural hole in his body. Under him, the floor was visibly cracked and, Munakata shuddered seeing it, it appeared that even the Dresden Slate has been damaged.

There was no doubt that the two enemies were dead.

Slowly, Munakata allowed relief to flood him, in waves, like a coming tide. He hasn't been forced to kill another King, further damaging his Sword of Damocles. Unwillingly, Nagare Hisui took that task upon himself. And all this mess was over.

Instinctively, he put a hand to the channel control, to call Awashima and ask her to report, but his fingers touched his hair. Ah yes, the headset was destroyed. He wondered whether Awashima or anybody was trying to reach him even now and what they made of the lack of answer. Then again, until a few seconds ago they had the Sword of Damocles to show them that he was alive.

'We should find the others,' Anna Kushina whispered. Her voice trembled and when Munakata turned to her, he saw her looking away from the two bodies. Immediately remembering that she was just a little girl, he walked her out of the chamber, Weismann following them after only a brief hesitation. There was no need to worry about either of the fallen Kings after all, no need to restrain or guard them.

'Are you both alright?' Munakata asked. Anna quietly replied that she has had a brief premonition and tore the headset off her head right on time to avoid Nagare Hisui's sneaky attack. She also told them that her beads have been crushed in the final madness, although she had no idea why.

Weismann dryly noted that he was still immortal. He sounded almost like he regretted it.

All the traps were still engaged, meaning that the lifts were disabled. With no means of communication to tell somebody to disengage the security measures, the easiest for them was to follow the path of destruction created by Nagare Hisui and his clansmen. Weismann levitated them down the staircases, faster than they could have gone down themselves, and through the holes left in the fire doors.

That was how they found Misaki Yata and Sukuna Gojo, in the area where the Red clan was supposed to delay the J-ranked clansmen. As soon as she noticed them, Anna Kushina shouted and wriggled in protest and the Silver King let them all to the ground.

As the Red King rushed to her clansman in obvious distress, and the Silver King kneeled next to the Green clansman, Munakata looked around. The area was completely devastated: charred with fire and electricity alike, walls missing bits and pieces a bit everywhere around and the ceiling crumbling slightly in one corner.

'He's still alive,' the Weismann announced. He exchanged a grim look with Munakata and they both turned to Anna, who was sobbing next to Misaki, holding onto his hand.

Munakata winced. Stopping Sukuna Gojo was quite a feat, but he doubted it would comfort her or any of HOMRA. Or Fushimi, he thought and the immediate sting of pain corrected him: it wouldn't have comforted Fushimi. Except, his third-in-command was dead as well, sent to a suicidal mission he accepted without a word of protest. After all, it was logical that he would go, since the Green King has been interested in him much before, since he had the Jungle account since he was a kid.

And the Blue King obeyed logic.

It was funny how his heart didn't seem to agree.

As Weismann went to Anna, Munakata snapped the power-restraining handcuffs on Gojo far more viciously than needed. Unprofessional, he scolded himself in his thoughts, even though he couldn't bring himself to care.

'Anna, he's still alive,' he heard Weismann and a bout of ugly jealousy tore through his thoughts. So the Red King would get to keep her clansmen, he thought and immediately stomped down on the emotion, before anything could be voiced. 'He will not hold for long, we have to get help.'

'As soon as we get down, we can have Awashima send in ambulances,' Munakata reminded them, failing to keep the bitterness out of his voice. They had medical teams, from the Gold clan's facility, standing by after all.

The Silver King looked at him weirdly, before understanding flashed in the overly kind eyes.

'Captain, Fushimi is alive,' he said. Munakata stared at him, uncomprehending in the first moment. 'Well, he was when I have gone up. Kuroh- I mean the Black Dog has arrived on time to stop the bullet. In all honesty I thought that he and the Colourless King have joined the Green clan for a moment, but-'

'We should hurry to get help to Misaki,' the Red King interrupted Weismann's revelations. She was right, but Munakata was too stunned by what he was hearing to react before the Silver King had them floating above the ground, far faster than before. Indeed, he barely had the time to reshape the world around the fact that he owed a great favour to the Black Dog when they arrived in the devastated entrance.

Chaos ruled outside, but one thing was immediately clear: the Jungle players were not there anymore. If not for the bodies and injured masked people stranded here and there on the ground, Munakata could almost believe they have never been there.

Quickly approaching sirens signalled that somebody has already called for medical help.

Relieved shouts pierced the chaos when their arrival was noted and, seconds later, the female Strain all but collided with Weismann, crying and shouting at the same time. All Munakata could understand from her was "Kurosuke" and "dying", but it was enough to grasp the situation. He looked in the direction from where she has likely come and indeed, the Black Dog was on the ground, blood pooling around his midsection, while somebody held his head and shoulders on their lap.

The "somebody's" identity became clear when the dark aura spread around the person and the gravely wounded swordsman. The Blue clansmen, who were checking out the wounded enemies nearby, distanced themselves somewhat. As it spread, the aura licked the other man on the ground just next to the Colourless King and her Black Dog, a man with a familiar katana sticking out from his abdomen. Munakata stiffened, remembering a very important fact.

'Sir, I'm relieved-' Awashima has arrived in the same second.

'Somebody, restrain Mishakuji, now,' he ordered sharply. With a gasp, Awashima repeated the order, putting a name to it and Domiyoji rushed to comply. While there, he also took the katana out, depositing it at the edge of the Colourless aura hesitantly.

'Captain,' Awashima started again and this time Munakata turned to look at her, taking in her injuries and fatigued expression. 'We couldn't reach you after your Sword of Damocles dissolved,' she said. Munakata softened his expression. She must have been really worried to take on that tone, he thought.

'Please send a medical team up to where team three was positioned,' Anna Kushina shouted, getting the attention of pretty much everybody nearby. Awashima repeated "team three" in a surprised whisper. Somebody from HOMRA moved a step towards Anna and Munakata noticed Fushimi kneeling on the ground, looking absolutely devastated. Ryuho Kamo was holding onto his shoulder, saying something to him urgently.

Oh, Munakata thought. He could barely focus through the relief that the Silver King hasn't been wrong about Fushimi, but even then he could realize what has happened. In a loud, commanding voice, he stopped a medic and ordered him to go get Misaki Yata from the Tower and immediately take him to hospital. Both Kamo and Fushimi looked at him when he spoke the name and for a moment Munakata thought Fushimi might faint.

Of course nothing like that happened. As the news filtered through to his third-in-command, the anguished expression melted into his default: displeased at having to deal with living creatures. He firmly pushed Kamo away when the latter tried to help him up and walked up to report. In the meantime, Awashima directed medical teams quickly: one to take care of the Black Dog and a few others to follow her and Kamamoto of HOMRA up the Tower to where Gojo and Mishakuji have been delayed.

Munakata felt proud of them both.