Hello, everyone! As usual, I don't own anything, I'm just a fan writing some fiction. The italicized quote is from The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald. Please enjoy!

39- The Colossal Vitality of Illusion

"Stop banging on that door! For goodness' sakes, where do you think you are?"

Azarel pulled the door open and Enrique shied away from it sheepishly. "I heard some big crashes and yelling down the hall, and then a few minutes ago everything got quiet. I was worried."

"So you started that racket? I didn't lock the door. You could've just come out to investigate."

"…you told me to stay put. Even though I was really worried, I didn't want to disobey you." Enrique murmured. "I'm sorry."

Azarel's expression softened. "Well, I appreciate your unfailing loyalty and your worry for my well-being. I shouldn't have scolded you so harshly."

Enrique shifted his weight nervously. "Yeah, so… uh… where's Zara?"

Azarel put on an act of disappointment. "Oh, Zara. He left. He took all of his belongings and left us."

"What?!" Enrique tensed up in panic. "I thought you were just going to scold him for letting the hostage go! I didn't think you were going to run him off! We have t-"

"I didn't run him off. He betrayed us." Azarel cut Enrique's sentence short. "He declared that he wanted nothing more to do with us- either of us."

"…what?" Enrique took a step back.

"He said that he didn't agree with our mission, and was angry because of it. He took everything that he owned and left, saying that he never wanted to see our faces again."

Enrique looked around in shock. "B-but… he wouldn't… he's my frie- er, our friend."

Azarel put a hand on Enrique's shoulder before he could back away, looking deeply into his eyes. "I'm sorry, Enrique. You're still too young to understand this. In life, there are going to be people who will betray you."

"But Zara isn't one of those people." Enrique protested. "I know he isn't."

"The painful thing about betrayal is that it never comes from the people you'd expect." Azarel declared. "It's high time you learned that."

"B-but… he left his book!" Enrique exclaimed. He sunk out of Azarel's grip and dashed over to the windowsill, brushing off the battered copy of The Great Gatsby. "He was in the middle of reading this to me."

"I can tell you how it ends." Azarel shrugged.

"Don't do that!"

"Spoiler: Gatsby dies at the end."

"What?"

"You honestly weren't expecting that to happen?"

Enrique hugged the book close. "You're lying. That's not what happens at the end. I'm sure of it."

"I promise it's true." Azarel insisted. "And you want to hear what happens to Daisy?"

"No!"

"I'll tell you anyway: Daisy doesn't care. She doesn't care one bit that the man she used to love is dead."

"No! That's not what happens!"

"She runs away with Tom and forgets about the whole thing."

"You're lying!"

"It's all true. Cross my heart." Azarel replied serenely, making the accompanying hand-gesture. "The lesson to be learned is, sometimes you have to let people go. Sometimes people disappear from your life and there's nothing that can be done. Forgetting about them and continuing on like you were before they interrupted is the only thing left to do."

"No." Enrique declared confidently. "That's not the point of the book. It can't be. If it is, then the build-up of the theme so far has been for nothing. It's about tearing away a false illusion of happiness, not about tearing relationships apart!"

Azarel responded with an eye-roll. "What would you know about literature?"

Enrique deflated a little. "…w-well, I…"

"That's what I thought."

Enrique sighed and turned his back on Azarel. "I still think we should return the book to him."

"He might not have wanted it after you touched it." Azarel shrugged.

"Me?"

"He said some rather hurtful things about you before he left. I guess he got tired of pretending to be your friend."

Enrique's expression had turned back to panic now. "That can't be true."

"Oh, it's true. He was eager to get rid of a dumb, illiterate weakling like you."

There was a pause. Enrique drew a cautious breath.

"Were those his exact words?"

"They certainly were." Azarel nodded. "Cross my heart."

Enrique was silent again. He opened the book to the bookmarked page and began to flip backwards. For a few minutes, he flipped around in the book, turning page after page, going back and forth. At first Azarel thought he was looking for a picture, but it soon became clear that the book lacked illustrations.

"There must have been moments even that afternoon when Daisy tumbled short of his dreams" Enrique read aloud, "— not through her own fault, but because of the clo-colossal vita-vitality of his illusion. It had gone beyond her, beyond everything. He had thrown himself into it with a creative passion, adding to it all the time, decking it out with every bright feather that drifted his way. No amount of fire or freshness can challenge what a man will store up in his ghostly heart."

Azarel took a step backward- both at the force of the words, and at the fact that Enrique read them so eloquently, only stumbling twice. Enrique handed over the book with his thumb over the words he'd just read aloud, proving to Azarel that they really existed on the page.

"Wh-when did you learn to read?" Azarel spluttered.

"A friend taught me." Enrique answered. "That's how I know you're lying. I may be weak, but I'm not dumb. I have a voice and I can speak for myself. Zara would never mention my illiteracy. He's the one who saved me from it."

"That bastard." Azarel breathed. "He was trying to steal you from the beginning."

"What did you do to him?!" Enrique dropped the book and violently grabbed hold of the front of Azarel's coat. "Tell me!"

"I didn't do anything." Azarel answered. "I gave him back his belongings and sent him on his way. That's it. End of story."

"There's more to it than that. Tell me."

"Hey, hey," Azarel waved one hand, trying to get Enrique to move back a little. "I also extended a hand of hospitality to him. I let him take whatever supplies he needed." When Enrique gave a questioning stare, Azarel motioned to the bag that had been slung over one shoulder. "Remember this?"

Enrique pulled the bag off Azarel's shoulder and started rummaging through it. "This is your death-trap." he scolded. "There's nothing of use in here. Just awful torture devices and weapons- a gun, a dagger, a bottle of-" He stopped abruptly as he searched for the object he had mentioned without success. He pulled things out and tossed them to the group, but still he couldn't find it. A wave of morbid realization passed over his face. "… my gods…" he breathed softly. "…you killed him."

"I did nothing of the sort." Azarel defended calmly.

Enrique lunged forward again, grabbing the front of Azarel's coat. "YOU KILLED HIM!" he sobbed. "HE'S DEAD, AND YOU'RE GONNA STAND HERE AND LIE TO MY FACE AND TELL ME THAT IT WAS ALL HIS FAULT AND YOU'RE NOT RESPONSIBLE AND-"

"I am not." Azarel cut him off. "I gave him the option of taking anything he wanted. His blood is on his own hands now, not mine."

Enrique slowly let his hands slide off Azarel's coat. "…then he might still be alive." he murmured. "I've gotta save him. I've gotta find him! ZAR-"

Azarel grabbed hold of Enrique's wrist as he ran towards the door.

"Where do you think you're going?"

"I'm going to save him!" Enrique struggled, but Azarel's grip was firm.

"He's no longer one of us. You have no loyalty to him."

"I do!" Enrique continued to struggle. "I love him!"

"You don't know what love is!"

"Oh, and you think you do?" Enrique still couldn't pull his wrist free.

"Of course I do!" Azarel exclaimed desperately. "I love you!"

Enrique stopped suddenly.

"…is that true?"

Azarel's grip loosened. "Yes." It was more of a plea than an answer.

Enrique turned away, causing Azarel's grip on his wrist to tighten again. He didn't care, however.

"Then you definitely don't know what love is."

Azarel jumped backwards, as if burned. "Wha-?"

"You don't love me. I know you don't."

"How could you? How could you say that?!" Azarel demanded. "I gave you everything! I'd do anything for you!"

"You don't love me." Enrique responded firmly. "You love the idea of me."

"What?"

"I'm a stand-in. I'm just a dummy playing the role of someone you used to love, and you want me to be him. But I'm not him, Azarel. The one you love isn't me." Enrique pointed. "It's the man who gave you that pink barrette, isn't it?"

Azarel's face fell, one hand shakily making its way up to touch the flower clip that was clasped onto a thick lock of dark hair.

"I'm right, aren't I?"

"The man who gave me this barrette… betrayed me long ago. He taught me that no one can be trusted. I don't love him. I hate him."

"Then why do you still wear it? Why do you protect it with your life?"

Azarel was silent.

"If you didn't still love him, you wouldn't want to wear it. But you do because it means something to you- because he means something to you. That's love. And that's why I have to rescue Zara: because I love him the way you love the person who's so special to you!"

After another moment's silence, Enrique turned and began to leave. Azarel lunged forward and grabbed him, however, placing a dagger against his throat. It was the one from the bag Enrique had been going through earlier- when had Azarel picked it up?

"If you leave this house now, you're as good as dead. I will not accept you back."

Enrique squirmed. "I don't need you."

"Know this: tonight I am going out to kill the man who gave me this barrette. I'll kill you too if I ever see your face again."

"Then you won't." Enrique insisted.

"Enrique! Don't make a decisions you'll regret! The last student I had completely flunked every lesson that I gave him. But I had high hopes for you. I knew that you were different- that you could be a great Mazoku. Don't give up that chance!"

Enrique's reply was simple. "Let go of me."

Azarel complied, pulling the dagger away from his throat.

"I won't make a decision that I'll regret. I have to go. I can't let Zara die. I love him."

Azarel said nothing as Enrique turned and walked towards the door. Just as he reached the threshold, the Mazoku spoke up.

"Enrique! Before you go- here."

"Huh?" Enrique was surprised to see the dagger offered to him, not as a threat, but as a gift.

"Take it. It's for you."

"I don't understand."

"Let me spoil the ending of another classic for you. Romeo, stricken with grief over thinking he'd lost the girl he loves, drinks poison and dies. When Juliet finds him, she herself is so heartbroken that she stabs herself in the chest." Azarel imitated the pose Zara had struck weeks earlier. "O, happy dagger, this is thy sheath! There rust and let me die! is how the line actually goes. Remember that."

Enrique caught the meaning, and narrowed his eyes.

"I will."

He left and didn't look back.

Enrique shuffled through the snow as best he could. It didn't matter that he'd given his coat to Miss Hayze- he wasn't bothered at all by the cold. But he still wished he had some way of knowing where Zara had run to. The falling snow had mostly covered up any footprints, though some slight indentations in the snow's surface were visible. Enrique traced them as best he could, skirting around the edge of the forest. The forest itself took up most of the valley, thick and difficult to walk through. With tall mountain peaks framing the outsides of the forest, there was a very small area in which Zara could have walked. He couldn't have gone far in such a short amount of time…

With relief, Enrique noticed a small figured huddled by the base of one of the outlying trees. There was a chance it wasn't Zara, but in such a deserted area of the continent, who else could it be?

As Enrique got closer, a wash of conflicting emotions washed over him. It was Zara, but he looked awful. His face was flushed and covered in dark, blotchy bruises. His nose, raw from the cold, had started bleeding again, but he hadn't done anything to stop it and the thin ribbon of blood had slid down his lips, falling in tiny droplets off of his chin. It was a horrible, horrible sight, and Enrique felt a rush of hatred well up inside him as he recognized Azarel's handiwork.

"Zara! Hey, wake up!" he yelled, finally reaching the boy's side. Enrique knelt down to talk to him, but he didn't respond. In his hands, he clutched some small block of wood that slightly resembled a bird if you looked at it the right way. Enrique wasn't sure what that was about, but that was the least of his worry at the moment.

"C'mon, Zara, wake up! Talk to me, will you? Zara!"

The longer he went without a response, the more frightened Enrique became. He grabbed Zara's shoulders and tried to pull the boy to his feet in an attempt to wake him up, but Zara just slid limply in his grip.

Tears stung Enrique's eyes as he shifted Zara's weight into his arms and wiped the boy's face off with one shirt sleeve. It didn't do much besides smudge the blood around, but it was all Enrique could manage.

"Please, Zara, don't die. You can't die." He turned his attention outwards, desperately hoping that someone might be nearby. "Help! Somebody! Anybody? …please…?"

"I thought you said there was a beaten path." Lyos grumbled as he used the sword he'd borrowed from Miss Hayze's armoury to hack their way through the overgrowth. "It's a jungle out here."

"The east coast of the Kataart Mountains is home to one of the world's finest temperate rainforests." Pestis explained. "The air moving west from the ocean is forced to drop all of its moisture before crossing the mountains, resulting in the high average rainfall throughout the year."

"I didn't ask for an explanation about the forest. I just wanted to know if there really was a path here." Lyos sighed.

"There used to be. It was a few decades ago."

"If there wasn't so much snow, we might be able to see it a little better." Zelgadis pointed out, staring at the ground in front of him.

"It's okay! I know the way perfectly!" Pestis interrupted. He was leading the group, walking backwards, as though trying to show off. Unfortunately, he tripped over a fallen tree and landed with his back in the snow. Zelgadis cringed and Lyos groaned.

"Be careful! Even if you know the way, it's dangerous when it's snowy like this." Shizuri scolded, helping Pestis back to his feet.

"Sorry about that." Pestis responded. "A lot can change in a forest in just a short amount of time. It's amazing how the ecosystem repairs itself and continues growing indefinitely. Everything in this forest relies on detritus- like this log- for nutrients. The forest thrives on death."

"That's enough about death." Gourry interrupted, walking onward, tugging on Pestis' arm. "If we're late, there's no telling what Azarel will do."

"Relax, Gourry it's fine." Pestis waved one hand. "Azarel knows that I tend to be fashionably late."

"There's nothing fashionable about being late." Zelgadis scolded, giving Pestis a push from behind. "I'd rather that we were there early and had to wait for Azarel than for us to be late and Azarel do something unthinkable."

"Why are you guys so antsy?" Pestis asked. "What do you think Azarel is going to do?"

"Mister Nisery," Gourry tugged on the sleeve of his coat. "may I ask a question?"

"Of course!"

"Are you talking about the same Azarel that we're talking about?"

Pestis blinked in confusion. "Huh?"

"What I mean to say is," Gourry sheepishly scratched the back of his head. "I just don't think you think of Azarel the same way that we do. I think you're seeing your old friend Azarel, and not the monster that she has become."

There was a moment of silence. Pestis looked around and took a deep breath.

"But… the Azarel I used to know and the Azarel I know now… they're the same Mazoku. Sure, things have happened, but… I know the real Azarel is in there deep down."

"This is the same Azarel that challenged you to a battle to the death three days ago, isn't it?" Shizuri asked.

"Oh, don't worry about that." Pestis waved one hand. "Azarel wouldn't dream of killing me. There's no way in-"

"Be quiet."

Zelgadis' order seemed out of place, and caught the rest of the group by surprise.

"I-I'm sorry! I was just saying that I-" Pestis tried to apologize, but Zelgadis cut him off.

"Not you. I thought I heard something strange."

The group was silent again. They trusted Zelgadis' acute sense of hearing, but they were willing to admit that the forest seemed quiet enough.

"I recognize that voice! It's coming from this way!" Zelgadis, likely the most agile of the group, took off due west, dodging vines and branches in his way.

"W-wait for us!"

Lyos frantically sliced through the forest growth to create a path where there wasn't one. He nearly tripped over obstacles hidden by the snow several times, each time righting himself, but lost sight of Zelgadis quickly. The group finally had to stop and listen intently. Besides Zelgadis, Gourry had the best hearing of the group, and ended up being the leader. It wasn't long, though, before everyone could hear it- Zelgadis' voice frantically asking questions over the clamour of a child sobbing. They finally caught up, but the scene they met was not at all what they had initially expected.

Gourry was the first to verbally respond.

He screamed.

Zelgadis was on his knees, protectively cradling Zara's limp body, one hand clutched firmly on the child's wrist as he checked for signs of life. Enrique was beside him, crying profusely and attempting to answer questions through his tears.

"Please, you've gotta save him!" Enrique sobbed. "You have to make sure he's okay! I love him- you can't let him die!"