Chapter 27: Border of Life II: The Multicolored Blossoms
A princess and a pup. A ghost and a guardian. A fool and an even bigger fool. The duo of Yuyuko and Ran was a combination never before seen in all of Gensokyo, but that just spoke volumes of the urgency of their given mission. They could feign ignorance to their guests all they wished, but Alex would never buy it.
"Brag and boast you dumb kitsune, but I am going to reach your master and make her pay for what she's done..." Alex mumbled internally while bearing a scowl.
Ran was deeply humored by his expression of frustration, and with wide smirk her pupils shrunk to slits while her irises glistened off the radiance of the cherry blossoms, "There is still time to bow your head and beg for forgiveness."
"Forgiveness from who?" Alex broke into laughter and swung his pointer finger towards Ran, "YOU?"
The kitsune stiffened her upper lip and let out a short growl, flustered by the boy's incorrigible lack of respect, and with a beastly deepening of her voice she peered at him with eyes of black ice and responded, "You know exactly whom I refer to."
Alex raised his right brow with a smug smile and remarked, "That's funny, cause SHE told me that your master's dead."
Ran peeked over shoulder and Yuyuko vouched for her while continuing to fan her face, "You can still ask the dead for forgiveness."
"You guys are really putting in a lotta effort to keep this charade going," Shina remarked, tapping the back of her head with a pistol while wondering how long this back-and-forth was going to last, "What's the point really?"
Ran switched places with Yuyuko like they were on a turntable, and with her chin held high she said, "If you fail to see the point, then that means our goal's are succeeding."
Shina shook her head and swung her arms up, then let them drop to her hips as she said in a tired voice, "Alex, they're not gonna give up on this hubbub, are they?"
Alex let out a long sigh, "No...No they aren't."
Thus he swung his sword up viciously towards Ran and yelled at her, "Fine then. If you're going to be a stubborn mutt, then once I send you back to where your master is, I want you to deliver this message..."
He crossed his brows and squinted his eyes, both flaring up with the wildness of a dragon, while his voice became strictly monotone, "Shina and I will never give up until we find her and kill her."
Ran swapped back to her original spot and sneered deeply at the boy, "Message received."
She then raised her right claws up across from her face and boasted in a theatrical manner, "But alas, there will be no need to send it...For this is where your hubris causes your downfall, 'mighty' Phoenix of Destruction."
"Keep barking, you're just a dumb noisy mutt." Alex fiercely retorted.
Ran's face became a little gnarled up around her mouth, making her look as though she was both angry and composed. After a vicious snap of her fingers she tucked her arms into her sleeves and rolled backwards to get in front of Yuyuko. The princess then drew a Spell Card atop her spread out fan and remarked, "Are you ready, Ran?"
"Let us be done with these two feckless children, Ms. Saigyouji." Ran commented, matching Yuyuko's gentle tone with only a hint of ridicule towards their enemies.
"Butterfly Dichotomy 'The Rainbow's Deceit'." Yuyuko said, gracefully breaking her Spell Card with a twirl similar to the one before.
She then floated there with her arms down while a beautiful bouquet of butterflies colored like cherry blossom petals flew out from behind her. The butterflies split apart into groups of five, covering the four corners surrounding her and Ran, and with each flap of their wings they sent dozens of spherical bullets flying in all directions.
Alex and Shina flew back to get a better idea of what trickery the dastardly duo would get up to with this Spell Card, and attacked with fireballs and bullets while avoiding their projectiles. Alex rightfully saw this whole duel as a waste of time, only going along with it because victory on his part would wear down his foe's stamina and make it easier to force them to reveal Yukari's location.
While Yuyuko's butterflies flew as though actually alive, Ran contributed to the Spell Card by creating a terrifyingly twisted twister of small shiny blue diamonds. Her and Yuyuko were in the eye of this storm, protected by its fast, continuous twirl.
Ran slowly guided the diamonds outward, hoping to either ensnare the two or lead them towards Yuyuko's butterflies. The ghost had more to add to help towards that result, and threw forth three butterflies from both sides of her body two at a time.
They fluttered fifteen feet out in a second then stalled in place, exploding into a flowery array of bullets not unlike a dying dandelion letting its seedlings scatter to the wind. Alex and Shina were caught unawares by the sudden bursts and briefly lost focus on their attacks.
During their forced respite, Ran coerced her diamonds inward until they were all an inch separate from her and Yuyuko. Then she spun them around, faster and faster like an out-of-control carousel, until finally sending them flying flagrantly across the sky like a storm of loose needles.
A few of them scraped by Alex. Shina managed to avoid them all narrowly with a flip sideways, but was instead accosted by some of Yuyuko's bullets. But she made sure to repay the princess back with a few bullets of her own, of course.
Alex swung his palms together, taking advantage of the lull in Danmaku to blast both his foes with a single large fireball. Hardly surprising, given who they pal around with, but neither showed signs of fatigue.
There was little reason for her to do so beyond personal enjoyment, but Ran shoved the failure on his part to make her flinch by smirking from the side of her face. Ran then flicked her right hand out and summoned more diamonds, but these were red and spun in the opposite direction of their predecessors.
But now that she'd already played her hand, it would prove simple to avoid any further bullets from her. Though Yuyuko's were still meddlesome, and Alex honestly didn't know how to dodge them while keeping a steady aim on the princess.
Shina was nimble enough to manage the Danmaku from both parties, though a few still slipped by because, in all honesty, the gaps were too small for someone as tall as her to feasibly fly between all of them untouched. Though she knew it'd be dumb to curse her height right now. Being unable to enjoy this duel bothered her more, honestly.
This was the only time she'd felt as though she wasn't participating in a Spell Card duel. The bullets were beautiful, gorgeous even! And the backdrop, with the blossoming trees juxtapositioned with the empty sky? Simply. Breathtaking. The spirit of grace and elegance was present in this duel, certainly, but that wasn't what bugged her.
When she looked across the battlefield at Alex and paid attention to how viciously he attacked his enemies, it all clicked in her head. He was still himself, but for how much longer? The closer they got to Yukari, the more his sanity seemed to be slipping away.
He had every right to hate the witch of the boundary. She hated her too, perhaps just as much. But it pained her to see him take that hatred out on others, even if Yuyuko and Ran deserved some of it for stringing him along just as badly as Yukari has.
The last thing she wanted was to attempt to reach out to him, only for her fingers to slip right through. So for all that talk earlier about hashing out their problems, she could only view herself as a hypocrite now, for her tongue was like stone and her throat rougher than a desert, leaving it impossible for anything worthwhile to surface.
"I hope its nothing..." She thought regarding her thoughts, before resuming to focus on the current problem after a droll sigh.
By this point in time Ran was starting to condense her diamond storm for the second part of her attack. Alex had been throwing fireballs primarily at her, but was frustrated at the lack of results. Words were burning her more than his flames.
While keeping an eye on the Danmaku, Alex looked over to Shina. Her eyelids were sagging, and that optimistic shine in her eyes seemed like a flicker struggling to maintain itself.
"This is all Yukari's fault..." He murmured to himself. She'd done far better than he had expected up until this point. He could look through all the dictionaries in the universe and never find the proper words to express how proud he was of her.
But even she was showing her limits. She was firing bullets but their was no energy to them, nor was their any of that flightiness in her movements. It was an awkward comparison to make, but Alex saw her behavior as something akin to being trapped in an office job. She was just going through the motions, trying to make it through the day.
It wasn't as though that smile wouldn't shine bright again. Alex knew it'd return the moment she saw her family again. But would it remain so beyond that? The uncertainty of that guilted Alex a little, cause that would happen only because of her involvement with him.
"Goddamn NO...That's just what that witch wants me to think." He roughly shook his head and tried to remain concentrated on the duel. But at this point, the mental exercises he was doing were more exhausting than some stupid bullets.
The only commitment he had to this fight was roughing up Yukari's closest allies so the witch would understand how serious he was. He had no intention of killing Yuyuko or even Ran. Going that far wasn't necessary. They meant nothing to him in the grand scheme of things.
...Though that didn't stop Ran's diamonds from being a real pain in the ass. They flew faster than hummingbirds and were they not Danmaku they would be capable of slicing the tree behind them down to splinters in an instant.
And its doubtful it would take any effort on her part. Perhaps it was a good thing Yuyuko had leashed the mild-mannered kitsune to play things her way. Even with the power of his Phoenix Form, Alex would rather avoid being on the tail end of that mutt's claws.
After going through the motions of avoiding the diamonds, Alex kept throwing his fireballs out at a fervent rate. But as Ran summoned more diamonds, he noticed something fishy. This new batch was also red, not blue as he was expecting.
"So she's not following a concrete pattern. Hmph, whatever..." He kept attacking after a stand-offish shrug of the shoulders and a roll of the eyes. Time continued to pass, unimpeded by his efforts to make something, ANYTHING different happen.
It wasn't worth it to get bored over this either. Boredom would lead to tiredness, and a lack of focus. So instead Alex just grew more frustrated and desperate in his attacks, taking on more Danmaku than physically necessary just so his attacks would hasten how fast they'd win.
"Will you just lose already?!" He growled in his head, which was starting to strain from the stress of his constant negativity.
Ran's diamond storm was about to be unleashed, meaning it was time to go through the same droll efforts to dodge it. It was spinning counterclockwise, meaning they'd fly at him from the right. So he flew left, thinking that in doing so the diamonds wouldn't have a duller impact should they happen to hit.
Yet at the last second before firing, Ran flashed a clear and devilish smirk, causing Alex's frustration to temporarily break and force him to pay closer attention. The kitsune's trickery didn't just come in the form of combining her Danmaku with Yuyuko's. No, she had also disguised the color of her Danmaku, playing this game on a psychological level that her opponents' had no chance of laying foot upon.
The diamonds went flying clockwise and "sliced" through Alex and Shina as they gasped "Shit!" and "Shoot!" simultaneously in shock. It wasn't a few middling bullets either, but a whole storm of them. If there was a proper thing to compare it too, it was like being swarmed by angry bees.
The assault rapidly ripped through the two's stamina, and afterwards Ran reared her head back and burst into a brief fit of haughty laughter. Alex and Shina glared straight at her, letting out a growl that made her delighted beyond imagination to listen to.
She swiped the underside of her right claws under her chin and sneered in Alex's general direction, boasting with but a bit of restraint being shaken off, "My brilliance only compares to a mere fraction of my master's! And you honestly believe that you stand a chance against-"
"Shut up!" Alex and Shina yelled with similar ferocity, making even one as a proud as Ran feel the urge to retract her boisterous nature and quiver feebly.
Yuyuko giggled and waved her fan some more, remarking in a bizarrely casual tone considering her choice of words, "Isn't that strange to say? You know, since your master's dead..."
She softly closed her eyes with a smile, having difficulty playing along with that teeny little lie anymore. Ran scoffed and waved her arms in a criss-cross before her chest to summon more diamonds, this time colored blue.
She thought she was being clever, hiding the nature of her diamonds behind different colors. But that was simply one of those one-time tricks magicians pull to fool young kids. Like for example, the old "pull a quarter out from behind the ear" trick.
Surely Ran couldn't seriously been expected to keep a haughty air around her by pulling off a trick so juvenille even a fairy could figure it out? Yes, she would certainly have to be punished for thinking so highly of herself...But that was a task best left for her master, Alex thought, assuming there'd even be a master left to punish her by the time he was done with them.
Though to Ran's credit, had it not been for following the rules of the Spell Cards, that would've been a legitimately tricky tactic to overcome. But alas, she could make her diamonds green, yellow, pink, black, or any of the other hundreds of colors out there...One pattern would still move clockwise, and the other counterclockwise. Those are the rules, and not even she can break them.
So as she wallowed in the frustrations of her overthinking getting the better of her, Alex and Shina were able to coordinate their attacks splendidly, unleashing some of their best efforts upon both their opponents. Alex focused Ran, Shina focused Yuyuko, and it would not be long before they came to the conclusion of this particular Spell Card.
Yet as its end drew near, Yuyuko unfolded her fan before her face and let out a barely audible giggle.
A curtain of darkness fell upon the Netherworld, blanketing the cherry blossoms that were so full of life seconds ago. There was no echo to signal the Spell Card destruction, but the Danmaku could no longer be felt. Alex and Shina floated where they were, able to feel but not see themselves clearly.
The realm had become utterly silent, rid of even the gentle, chilling breeze. Alex lit up his body with fire and looked around, unable to find their opponent's silhouettes. With a twitch of his nose he called out, "Shina can you hear me?!"
"Loud 'n clear Alex!" She hollered with a shaken voice, "I-Is it over?"
"...Of course not, they're just getting started." He cautiously voiced as he veered his gaze to the right, sensing a brief flicker of power coming from where the mighty tree stood.
Then another flicker of power came hard from the left, reminding him of the gentle caress of spring. Two cherry blossom trees lit up brightly like stage lights on the red carpet of a movie premiere in Hollywood. Then two more, and two more, and two more again. Soon both rows were all relit, their luminescence much grander than before.
The shadow of the tree's trunk became visible because of this, and the rest of the tree slowly followed. The Netherworld's shadows were undressed by the increasing light, revealing a beautifully fully blossomed tree grander than any oak, taller than most skyscrapers, and as deadly as a Shinigami.
The restless spirits of the afterlife came to life in droves, wandering the skies around the tree's petals as wistful snow white trails. And floating before all the petals with a lifeless presence that poisoned the beauty around her was Yuyuko, glowing absolutely stunningly like a sunset in front of a large see-through fan with a flowery pattern laid against a blue-violet gradient flourish.
Ran had taken to crouching before the ghost, acting almost as her watchdog. The princess flashed a humble smile towards her awe-struck observers as she summoned forth a sparkling Spell Card. Without a hint of remorse or malice, she drew her hand towards the card, surrounding it with her fingers.
"Sleep beneath your wreath of flames, Phoenix of Destruction."
"Rest your weary eyes with a final smile, Shina Aurora."
"Last Word..." Yuyuko crushed the Spell Card and spread her arms out to the horizon, accepting the embrace of the spirits around her as her soothing voice spoke the card's name, "Border of Life ~Under Death's Shadow."
Before any Danmaku was sent forth Alex threw some fireballs up, only for them to pass right through Yuyuko. He then clutched his hands back tight against his sides and growled, "Guess we'll just have to focus down Ran..."
Yuyuko sent forth dozens of butterflies downward, where with each flap of their wings they swung left and right while throwing waves of spherical bullets out. Petals shed forth from the mighty tree at a ludicrous rate, yet were just as quickly replenished. They spread themselves out, spiraling around and around to create a funnel between the tree and the ground, with all four involved in the duel trapped inside.
The petal storm obscured many of the butterflies while also bringing its own tricks to the table. Shina and Alex advanced deeper into the springtime funnel to ensure the connection of their attacks on Ran, but along the way some of the petals detached from the funnel and were flung their way.
They moved at lightspeed, proving impossible to avoid. But they didn't come frequently enough to be of any concern, so they just let them be. The butterflies' bullets were deadlier in number and size, especially with the constraints of the funnel tunneling them towards a single point.
"Isn't this breeching the Spell Card rules?" Shina pondered innocently while weaving around the bullets with ease.
"Do you seriously think they care?" Alex chided her with a ragged voice as he succumbed to many of the bullets in his way.
It took a few seconds before the two could finally start fighting back against Ran, but as they bombarded her with bullets and fireballs the kitsune's muscles tightened and she prepared to strike out on her own.
"Ms. Saigyouji, if I may..."
"Go as wild as your heart desires Ran, I will be fine on my own." Yuyuko said without a care in the world.
Ran unleashed a fanged smile that froze the air stiff from the pressure it exuded, while hidden under her sleeves her fingers began to tremble, "I was waiting to hear that..."
Alex blinked, and Ran was gone like the wind. He could feel her presence on the outside of the blossom twister, but it was moving too fast to get a decent idea of when or how to attack her. When she finally made her reappearance, she bolted through the twister repeatedly in no singular direction.
In her wake she left behind bright blue orbs, each with their own pair of radial spikes that were a clear indicator of something else preparing to attack. After returning to Yuyuko's side, the orbs fired off a criss-cross of lasers so tightly weaved together that not even a fly would be able to easily sneak through.
Alex and Shina had to back off and watch as the orbs shunted down the funnel at lightning speeds, carrying their lasers with them. Moving without thinking, Alex grabbed onto Shina's waist and carried her around the lasers. What he lacked in agility he more than made up for in quick bursts of speed.
And Shina, at the very least, was grateful to find that his touch was still warm. Likewise, Alex was comforted feeling the tension in her muscles melt away. After dodging Ran's initial array of lasers, he let go of her and focused right away on his opponents, missing her briefest of smiles.
"We'll just have to hit Ran whenever she stops moving." Alex commented with a bitter grumbling afterwards.
"Ya sure its that kinda Spell Card?" Shina wondered as she took another look up at Yuyuko.
"Huh?" Alex glanced at her all bewildered while she snapped her fingers with a backhanded flick of the wrist and leaned close to his ear.
"It might be one of those timed ones." She deduced with a whisper.
He crossed his arms and shook his head, "Then Ran would be immune to our attacks too. I think my plan's the best. Just throw everything we've got at Ran and if it doesn't work out then well..."
With a brisk shrug of the shoulders he nonchalantly said, "Who cares. Time'll run out eventually."
A couple bullets flew on by his face, reminding him that now wasn't the time to lollygag. He stiffened his fighting stance towards Ran, who once more bolted off without a trace. While he awaited her return to the battlefield, Shina came up with her own hopefully brilliant plan of attack.
If Ran wasn't going to stand still for long, then wouldn't it better to punish her for being so wild than wait for her to stop? The versatility of her Gunslinger Drive gave her many options to trap the kitsune, but sometimes being basic was the best.
Shina drew both her weapons up and created a pair of cannon-like barrels with pincers around the lip of them, each sparking with a psuedo-electricity. She created a mine between the pincers and the lightning increased their power before she discharged them around the funnel.
It was a bit of flimsy hope to assume that Ran would so easily be tricked by these mines. Arrogant she may be, but if she could sniff out human blood from miles away then feeling the static from these mines would be child's play. Ran's fur stick on end as she plunged into the twister, allowing her to guide herself away from the mines with quick precision every time.
Shina clicked her tongue against the rough of her mouth and was greatly disappointed. Though she still gave herself an A for effort, cause it sounded good on paper. She'd try something else AFTER dodging the second barrage of Ran's lasers.
The pattern of lasers was different but covered the same general space. Ran didn't even try any tricks with them, possibly because her pride was still wounded from her earlier failure. While dodging around the lasers, the two were assaulted by Yuyuko's bullets, which had honestly slipped their mind with everything else they had to deal with.
After Ran's lasers subsided, Alex threw many fireballs at her in a flurry that filled the confines of the twister completely. Meanwhile Shina stayed back and contemplated a plan to attack Ran during her runs, believing that her bullets would just get in Alex's way right now.
"Think Shina think. If she can evade mines, what else do ya got?"
The immediate idea was "Bigger mines!" but that just sounded like she was aping Alex's thoughts. No, there had to be something better to whip out from her arsenal.
"I got it! Counter lasers...with lasers!" She threw her hands up and crafted many drones out of aura, numbering at least in the twenties when she was done.
Alex looked back and saw her quick and hard at work, but could feel she was draining a lot of aura to get this accomplished without a guarantee it would work. It was too late to say anything to stop her, so he'd just have to back up her plan in hopes it'd work.
"Alright...we'll try it your way." He swung his fists up and faced the kitsune as she prepared another charge.
The moment Ran was off, Shina sent her countless drones flying while cheering them on gleefully like they were her own children, "Go get 'em dears!"
She focused on them while sweat started to drip from her forehead, aligning them all neatly around the twister's circumference. Ran immediately smashed through a couple of them, making them detonate like bombs, but Shina cared more about charging up the rest.
Ran kept attacking the drones while preparing her lasers, and she swiftly brought the number down to ten. Alex was preparing his own surprise in the meanwhile, gathering the power of a hundred thunderstorms within each of his tiny fingertips.
He thrust his hands out and blasted the area around Shina's drones with lightning, forcing Ran to pick her poison. Either get zapped, or get lasered. Neither option was pretty, even in Danmaku, so Ran stubbornly tried to weave her body around the lightning, believing herself a wily enough fox to get the job done.
But alas, she was mistaken. Shina's lasers went off, filling in the holes between Alex's lightning that he kept up through incredible strain. Ran battered through a vicious arrangement of attacks and was quickly beaten down before her lasers got a chance to fire off one more attack.
Her body limped in the center of the twister for a moment, then collapsed out of it before her infuriated gaze could etch a sigil of hatred into Alex's soul. But curiously, the Spell Card was not at its end. Yuyuko chuckled loudly enough to grab the two's attention skyward, and from there all the cherry blossom petal broke formation and gathered to her sides to become a massive pair of butterfly wings.
A shadow was cast over the two, the afforementioned "Death's Shadow", so to speak. With Yuyuko's fan acting as the pointer, all the petals aimed directly at her enemies and began to glow like fireflies. Without a word, she released a relentless hail mary consisting of the most lasers Alex and Shina had ever seen in their life.
"Oh good lord..." Alex gasped with eyes as wide as dinner plates, "There's no way in HELL anyone'd be able to dodge that!"
But for this kind of desperation to surface from Yuyuko meant that him and Shina were so SO very close to victory. He could taste it like the sweat rolling down his cheek. Without any plan or thought towards how to win, he pushed his feet back and charged straight for the ghost.
Shina swung her arm up to stop him, but was far too late. So she really had no choice but to follow him on his reckless course of attack. They rammed forward, smashing into many lasers that diverted their course, but never losing the resilience necessary to press on.
Yuyuko floated there, having no thoughts to give on their performance beyond a smile. But perhaps it was a smile that held a second meaning? Only she knew the truth.
There was no indication that anything had changed beyond his gut telling him it had, but Alex still coiled his right fist back and set it aflame. His body became a torpedo set to home in on a singular target. What he felt now, the determination and rage to persist against all odds, was only a fraction of what he'd show against Yukari when the fated moment arrived.
Shina couldn't keep up with Alex's speed this time, but wouldn't lag back so much as to be useless. She cocked a rocket launcher up before her face and took aim at Alex's feet, firing a rocket into them to help propel him faster along. He glanced back for a second, thanking her in his head.
Then he swung his fist out with all he had, smashing into Yuyuko's gut with the force necessary to level the accursed tree behind her. The cherry blossom petals lost their splendor of life, becoming as dull as ashes, and the fan behind her faded into nothingness.
Alex grit his teeth and drew his fist back, and like the ashen petals around her Yuyuko fell gently to the trunk of the tree. But unlike her beastly companion, she fell gracefully upon her knees, and laid her hands beside them. Her eyes were closed and her body silent for a few seconds. She then looked up towards the sky, haunted by the pale spirits of the dead, and saw them flying into the tree.
Then her vision was obscured by Alex, who plummeted to the ground and sent the rocks around him flying through the cherry blossom trees. His fists were tight like knots of steel, and the wrinkles littered across his forehead were all born of anger. He slowly approached Yuyuko, stopping a few feet away, and stared him down with the white hot intensity of a sun.
"Enough games spectre. Where. Is. Yukari?" His voice was gravely, and his lips were snarled into this indescrible scowl.
Shina landing beside him did little to quell that anger. She peered over his shoulder and was frightened off by the sight of his scowl, which dredged up horrible memories of that monsterous split personality of his.
"Alex, calm down, please..." She whispered in his ear.
"Do you seriously think she'll just give up her location if we sit down, drink tea, and pretend nothing happened?!" Alex suddenly yelled back in her face, which scared her even more. Her silent retreat struck a chord in his heart, and made it feel heavier.
With a dreadful look in his eyes he turned away and murmured, "I-I'm sorry..."
The air, for a brief moment, suddenly grew cold and lifeless. Alex lifted his head up and looked down at Yuyuko, who silently mouthed something before wearing a smile. His body tensed up and he lifted her up so hard by her collar that her hat fell off. She stared at him with lifeless eyes as he spat angrily in her face, "What the hell are you trying-"
"Thump..."
The sound was limp, cushioned by the many petals that had fallen to the ground. Alex's body felt cold, and his muscles grew weak to the point of being unable to hold onto Yuyuko any longer. As she dropped to her feet he spun his head to the left, and lost all sensation of feeling in his mind and heart.
Shina's body lied on the ground, her skin now increasingly pale. There was no blood, no wound, nothing. She didn't breath, have a pulse, nothing. There was no smile, no fear, nothing.
She was dead.
Alex's eyes trembled, and his breath became ragged in a desperate struggle on whether he should breath or scream. He had cradled her lifeless corpse once before...No person should ever have had to experience this nightmare twice. But this wasn't a nightmare, this was once more reality at its cruelest. And he knew exactly who to blame for this.
Tears flew from his eyes as he turned around with sword drawn overhead and a vicious roar scraping the sides of his throat. Halfway through delivering the killing blow to Yuyuko, however, his body just stopped. He felt nothing, not even a flicker of rage, as he collapsed at the feet of the ghostly princess. She drew her fan, hiding an expression only she knew about, as she glamed down at the boy's lifeless body without attachment or pity.
"Perhaps in another time, Phoenix of Destruction..." Was the last thing he heard whispered before the darkness drew his soul into an eternity of despair...
THE END.
…
…
…
If only fate were so kind, then that would be the desired result. Committing the ultimate human folly of arrogance, Alex Whiter would die, his life tragically cut short before his ultimate triumph and redemption for the worthless life he led beforehand.
But this is not a kind universe. Its a cruel one filled with misery. Once more that meddlesome clock will tick away backwards, carrying the boy's wretched soul towards yet another second chance at redemption. How many "second chances" does he deserve...Just for being the vessel to the one you cherish most in this world, oh ignoble stone?
...Perhaps I am getting a little carried away here. It is not the time for this kind of talk. Not yet, but soon it shall be. For now, let us watch the hands of time rewind to a point not too far back, where the world branched in a somewhat different manner.
"...Tick, tock, tick, tock..."
Alex gasped, breathing in the air of life like a refreshing drink of water. He swung his head around, viewing the world in monochrome. Time had stopped, but not of his free will. He quickly took in the sights. Shina was behind him, her frightened face burned into his mind forever. Yuyuko was still kneeling on the ground, her mouth in the middle of moving.
"I-I...I'm back?" He patted his body down, feeling its warmth amidst the cold sweat formed on his skin.
"No...No that's not it. I...I leapt back in time? Just like with..." Alex shook his head. The logistics didn't matter. He had a second chance to save Shina's life, but the question remained as to how?
Yuyuko's power was responsible, but it seems he was dropped in the middle of her activating it.
"What's the friggin' point then? You're just going to make me repeat..." While turning around stiff and frustrated at the bad hand he was dealt, Alex noticed something abnormal in the air. The lifelessness he felt before was levitated halfway between Yuyuko and Shina, a phenomenon that'd only be possible to experience in this state of frozen time.
It did have something of a physical form, but it was contorted and looked like nothing he'd ever seen before.
A feminine voice beckoned to him with a desperate plea, "Please! You can still save her!"
"The hell...? Where'd that voice..." Alex shook his head some more, chalking that voice up to a hallucination born of stress. But he got the gist of what he needed to do now, and was not going to hesitate in the slightest. He drew his sword and went for all seven triggers, pulling them as he ran headfirst in front of the power of death.
As time resumed his body was consumed in a golden blaze, catching Shina by surprise. The fire faded with the spread of Alex's crimson feathered wings and both his arms, which mounted an impenetrable defense between Yuyuko and Shina. He grit his teeth as tight as possible while a wispy green shield was summoned in front of him.
The power of death left a chill of anguishing crawling through his body, but otherwise...He was fine. It was a risky gambit, and had he failed he knew that would be it this time. But knowing that Yuyuko's power manifested in an invisible, physical form made his decision the correct one. He had defended Shina with everything he had. His Soul Shields, his body, and his very existence were all put on the line. It had felt like his greatest triumph, but sadly...This was only the beginning.
Yuyuko rose to her feet, looking far less bothered by his sudden call to protection than he was expecting. He threw his tightest scowl right in her face, and growled defiantly at her devilry, "If I said it once...I've said it a thousand times..."
His eyes flared wide open as he yelled at the ghost not in rage, but through the passion of his love, "NONE OF YOU...WILL LAY ANOTHER GODDAMN HAND ON SHINA!"
Next Time: Defiant to the End