DISCLAIMER: SKIP BEAT! and its associated characters are the creations of Yoshiki Nakamura. This author claims no ownership of Skip Beat or any of its characters. All other rights reserved.

Word: The word-prompt for this one-shot is 'Manifest.'

The Last Grudge

There was a time, quite a few years ago, when the Grudge was part of an army. He remembered that time so well—they didn't need the hazmat suits back then. There weren't daily infusions of radiant purification beams to watch out for, or dark Emperors, or—that most toxic of poisons—joy.

He'd been one of the first and was one of the oldest—and he'd seen so many other grudges manifest out of thin air only to be pressed immediately into service. He didn't really know where new grudges came from—they seemed to just appear and almost always knew what their assignment would be.

Their job—their only job—was to protect The Boss.

Back then, they'd deployed daily. The Boss was almost always in trouble in those days, and what fueled them were the dark bits in her soul. The Grudge could remember back when The Boss was only thirteen and they'd had to protect her against a whole gang of bullies. And then a little bit later, they'd taken care of her when she'd left to go living in Tokyo with Sho, working three jobs in places where there was little down time and little respect. The Grudge sat and sighed. What followed after those events had been The Golden Age, as far as he was concerned. They were in their top form as a little army.

They had a few tricks up their sleeve, honed and sharpened from the weaponized remains of The Boss's experiences. They'd started out with PsyOps—freaking out teenage girls that wanted to mess with The Boss, haunting them in dark locker rooms and frightening them out when they were alone in the halls. By the time The Boss was ready for high school, the grudges knew exactly what they needed to do in order to ensure a would-be-bully 'escaped' their encounter screaming and absolutely terrified, though intact physically. By the time they left for Tokyo, they could instill fear from a hundred meters away.

It was in Tokyo that they'd learned how to affect the physical world. They'd decided the lot of them would take a concerted effort in the back rooms against the overly-aggressive Assistant Manager at Mos Burger. The man had been a certified creep, and they could tell that he was thinking about cornering The Boss and doing…unsavory things to her. The decision, once made, proved fortuitous. They'd completely incapacitated the man, and they'd done it to his corporeal self. They weren't limited to psychological warfare! For weeks, there had been glee up and down the ranks. They'd found that they could do so much. Hold a person down? No problem. Stop a thief in his tracks? No problem. All they needed was the full force of The Boss's wrath to propel them onwards, and it was done.

But then…the purifications started. They were so rare, at first, that they didn't think anything of it. Two or three grudges disappearing on the field of valor—that was only to be expected, wasn't it? Grudges had no natural predators, unless you counted that Beagle, who was the only human besides The Boss that had ever seen them. They didn't realize the power of Tsuruga-san's smile until it was far too late.

There had been A Reaping.

They'd known who this "Corn" was long before The Boss could admit it to herself, but on that beach in Guam, they'd been unprepared. It was carnage. So many of them disappeared. The man was dangerous—how had they been caught so unawares? The few of them that survived had crawled into hazmat suits that had somehow appeared.

The following months, the remainder of the Army made-do with their reduced forces. Hazmat suits became standard practice, especially after The Elevator. Only a few of them survived The Eggs Benedict Incident—even with help from The Boss, who'd descended into Robot Mode to help their mission along. Protecting The Boss became more difficult, because increasingly, the dangers to her weren't easy or external forces anymore. Other humans protected her now from those things—other humans she called friends.

No, instead they protected her from herself. From her self-doubts, her worries, and her insecurities.

It was a bittersweet mission. In keeping her from these self-destructive impulses, grudges found themselves being purified in the process. One-by-one, as The Boss resolved her conflicts, the grudges disappeared. They were being sublimated along with the hurt.

And now, the Grudge was the only one left.

Out of however many there had been—thousands, maybe?—he was all alone. It wasn't as if The Boss didn't have conflicts anymore—she still had them. She had bad days and good days and people she didn't like. But now…well, now she didn't need them anymore.

The Grudge kept vigil. He knew his time would be soon.

He sat up and above The Boss's head, watching silently as she struggled. She was with Kuon now, he-who-had-been Tsuruga-san, he-who-had-been Corn. The man held her in his arms and breathed with her, carefully wiping the sweat off of her brow, walking with her when she needed it, encouraging her, providing her with his unconditional love and all of his strength as they struggled through the night. Outside that room, others also kept vigil. There was Moko-san, with her husband Yashiro, Saena, looking worried, Juli, whose hand was being held by her husband Kuu. They kept watch, too.

"Corn," the grudge heard her say. She didn't call him Corn unless something was going on. "Unnnnnngggggggghhhh," she moaned.

"Breathe, love," the man responded. "It's OK. I'm here, we're here, you can do this."

The Grudge watched as The Boss struggled, and cried, and pushed, and pushed. There were times during that night when he wasn't sure she would make it—but Kuon and others kept the faith, and none of the medical professionals standing around had seemed worried. It was a long and exhausting and frightening night, and then, at dawn, there was a wail as a new life came into the world.

He came down to meet her.

The Tiny Boss was red and wrinkled and ugly, and yet somehow more beautiful than anything the Grudge had ever seen in his improbable life.

"I love you," The Boss said to the Tiny Boss, as a nurse handed the crying bundle over. Tears were flowing down her face—tears were flowing down Kuon's face too, and for a while the Grudge just watched over the three of them as the shape of their family irrevocably changed.

And then, somehow, he knew it was time.

He flew down to the tiny one, feeling the very last dark bit of The Boss's soul easing into light. It was the very last of her doubts and her fears—the one that had kept the Grudge alive for so very long.

Kyoko Mogami looked down into the face of her child and knew, deep down in the bottom of her soul, that she could indeed love this little one with the very whole of her being. With Kuon's arms around them both, she knew that this child would be loved in the way that she herself had never been loved—she was capable of it, and Kuon was, too.

The Grudge looked at the sleeping face, now cleaned from the detritus of childbirth. Flying up, he pressed a tiny hand to the child's forehead, and placed a tiny kiss on it. And then he felt it.

The Purification.

Light—endless light blinded him. He felt himself dissolving into it—it was painless, really, and…and…joyful. Silently, he gave his love to The Boss, wishing her farewell, wishing he could stay just a little longer.

But it was not to be.

He saw Kuon kiss her—tenderly and reverently.

And then The Boss was looking at him—him, the humble grudge!—with those golden eyes of hers—eyes which no longer cried tears of rage and grief, eyes which had cried with joy just moments before and were crying now for him.

"Thank you," she said.

And all the rest was light.