The Colour Purple Chapter 91: Absolution from Sin, a king of fighters fanfic

The Colour Purple... The King of Fighters '95

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This (chapter) fanfiction was originally written circa: [XX.96] (Thank you)

"Which Character are you?"

Note to self: Legacy chapter numbering (32- - -), does not match. [Original chapter written 2016]

"Saaaahh…" He said waving both his arms open, the camera lenses around him capturing every picture frame as it rotated round a round, to the side, wildly with a shrill roar of rapture.

"SHO-KEI!"

To take a life as punishment. As an offering…

The soft shrill sound made a slight echo in the sky, one not so overt but enough to resonate in the back of your head. A familiar sound – in the dark sky – its outline just barely discernable when the sky gave way to the warm grey dusk.

…an offering – to our one, true, MASTER!

…

Six boys. Six bodies in perfect synchronisity, without taking their eyes from their enemy crossed their right arm across their bodies and drew their swords from their left shoulder when their faces floated up from the edge of that concrete rooftop. As akin to the grim reaper whose face slowly bubbled up from a black quagmire.

It came to touch all. Like death. It touched all – like RAIN.

"AAAA!" The archer screamed in fright letting go of his arrow that flew wildly but still hit his enemy's stomach squarely and drove the ninja back into the short, 3 foot high wall that surrounded the rooftop. By sheer luck, the archer of the 1st brigade was able to save himself from his enemy that had his sword drawn and was ready to cleave his head off his shoulders just as he reached the top of his vertical leap and by some superhuman feat was able to scale a 4 story building barefoot.

The body just laid by the wall slumped, his enemy's sword on the ground propping its wielder's hand mid-air that still held its hilt in a death grip.

There was no more time, he knew that more of them could scale up the wall so he swung his right arm back to his quiver to pull out another arrow to continue his volley of attack. Pinched between his fingers, he lifted his forearm up, penduluming the arrow up to its place in front of his bowstring. He ran forward to the edge of the roof, pushing his left arm out straight on his bow…

Clack klack.

The archer could not help but look to the ground a few feet in front of him, he could not help but stop and stare, and as perplexing as it was, for some peculiar reason he stared at his trembling right hand, his fingers shaking and unable to make a fist. On the ground in front of him was his arrow, motionless on the ground.

"Ah." He gasped. "Agh." The guttural gurgle was the only sound that left his throat. As much as he tried, as his brain transmitted commands to his arm, it simply swung wildly in unpredictable directions.

Just…

He knew in his mind, he had to simply pull back and draw another arrow from his quiver. However it felt as if he was trying to scratch his back with the end of a 5 foot long broomstick. "Agggkkkkgghkk…" His eyes started to move erratically in panic. For some reason, the dead body in front of him had started to move. The ninja, earlier dead slowly pushed himself up by his knees and walked in front of him, and the archer was powerless to retaliate.

Why? What? Why? His hands shook violently.

To answer him – two 8 by 10 inch blocks of wood, each an inch and a half thick dropped to the ground with a clatter, his arrow still embedded in it. A.

A simple, rudimentary, bulletproof vest.

Just where…

Eventhough he knew what to do, his body would not succumb to his wishes, and after a barrage of his incessant questions, the answer revealed itself when the archer realized that an arrowhead floated in front of his face piercing out from his throat like a flower. Inch by inch he tried to turn around but it was already over. Just three feet away behind him, another enemy had snuck in, at point blank range, another enemy archer had driven an arrow through the back of his neck with a small, compact bow, ripping the arrowhead out the front.

In front of him, the one ninja he thought dead stopped and stood a foot in front of him and pulled his sword back.

God. My God. Just where did I go wrong…?

From down below, the ninja of the 8th brigade ran both hands over his head and focused on a distinct spot in front of his toes through his glasses. "…and now…"

The hard, gushing sound – when six swords drove their tips into the soft, rancid flesh of a young boy's chin. In an instant, all the rooftops that watched fell into silence after 6 loud thumps of bodies hitting concrete.

The older ninja, the captain of the 6th brigade pulled himself up and looked at him. "Boy," he stammered.

"Captain Jackson." The boy sighed. "We…" There was no going back now. "We…" Amidst a sea of soft, sweet, snow covered memories, filled with pictures and words – when it was simply once games. "We, we have brought about the…"

…have we not?

Chapter 91: Absolution from Sin.

A Sequence of Uneventful Mornings 26. A wonderful memory.

Have we not brought about – by our own choosing - the END of the WORLD?

…

"Hurry!" The ninja master continued to scream as he leapt from one rooftop to another, pulling the remnants of the 1st and 2nd brigade behind him. "Hurry, we have to secure the princess." He shouted. "There is no time!"

"Master… MASTER!" A young voice shouted behind him, stopping in mid flight, turned around and looked behind him.

The master, skidded to a halt at the next instant, then turned around. "What?!"

"Master! Look!" He pointed up.

The master looked up following the invisible line the young boy traced for him – and up in the sky was a large mass of strange and peculiar origin. It was hard to see in the dark night sky, but now as the faint glow of morning began to roll, he could see its silhouette slightly as his eyes tried to refocus to the light.

Beep.

A small Zeppelin, a rigid airship hoisted by a large balloon floated across the sky.

"Master… is that?" Staring at its pinpoint, spinning propellers…

"Enough!" He roared as he turned. "It is nothing! Keep RUNNING! RUN!"

"Ye… yes Master…" The boy dismissed his fears forcefully and sprinted forward off the edge of the rooftop to keep in pace with his leader. However, that sound, a slight lingering sensation that rattled in his head pulled his face back as he floated in the air. Looking up to the sky, he still wondered to himself, why that dark shadow seemed to watch their agony silently.

…

"Tai Cho!" The normally meek ninja boy exploded into panic and violently shook his Captain in his arms. He grabbed Miura's cold shoulders and rocked his torso back and forth. "Tai Cho! PLEASE! TaiCHO!" Do not you dare do this. You were immortal were you not? You cannot die. Not here… not… "PLEASE! CAPTAIN MIURA!"

His mind was clouded by rabid screaming – a pound of glass shards tearing the insides of his lungs. The sounds grew louder and the garbled wails soon became indiscriminate. It took a hard grip on the side of his neck to push him back and one last loud boom to paint his mind into white.

"I…" the raspy voice said, his face wincing in unbearable pain. "I am not.. am… not.. I am… not deaf… please… stop…" Miura gripped his student's neck with what little strength he had left and pulled his consciousness back into the living world.

"Miu… Captain! CAPTAIN!" The boy said in glee. However, the blight gleam in his voice soon grew dark and rotten when he looked down at his Captain's belly that had been splayed open, and now Miura's intestines erupted from his own body and rested on the boy's uniform. "Ca… Captain…" He could not hide his horror.

Admit it.

"Fine…" Miura wheezed, taking a painful breath. "It… is fine… boy." He said pacing himself with each labored breath, just trying to overcome the wailing pain – but his diaphragm would not contract to help him numb the sensation, and he was breathing in air that had the viscosity of sand. "I am…"

I lived this long so I could see your face.

It is fine. I am immortal. A wretched, disgusting, cowardly IMMORTAL. Miura tilted his head up and to the side, his body had already succumbed to shock – his extremities were ice cold, mucus streamed through his nostrils and over his lips, and his eyes cried tears that he could no longer taste with his trembling lips.

For that one day… when I see…

"Is… is that… that not…" Miura winced in agony, he breathed out and the pain made rivers of tears run down his cheeks. "Is it… that?" Right?

The group of ninjas from the 6th and 8th brigade who surrounded the dying man in solace followed his gaze up and to the side. …and without their knowing an unfamiliar, yet familiar body stood among their ranks shoulder to shoulder.

"Haaaaahhhh," Miura breathed out, no longer able to feel anything but a cold sensation as his essence felt like it was floating and dissolving. "What is it?"

A ninja boy looked to his left and instinctively jumped back a step when he saw a dark shadow stand petrified next to him, and around his pitch dark body was a conflicting warm yellow glow. The corpse breathed out in a hollow empty voice.

Miura…

"Well?" Miura smiled and cried, the proud look on his face did not falter nor crack.

A disembodied voice, an empty and hollow voice that one could hardly hear but echoed loudly as it bounced in your skull, like that Zeppelin that floated across the sky, simply watching… It was wonderful…

" . ." Eiji Kisaragi said, as he stood unmoving shoulder to shoulder with his comrades, as Miura looked up from down below aloofly in his final thesis.

It was. A wonderful memory.

…

"Eiji!" Another boy leapt up and pushed his brother, but even when he heaved both arms with his entire body weight, he found himself being pushed back like he had pushed a brick wall. He looked out up and over confused, then walked back at Eiji Kisaragi. "What."

"Enough. It is over." Jackson shouted.

"No. NO!" The ninja boy shouted in a panic. "There's still a chance. We do not have to die." He said. "We have to go to Kusanagi, we have to tell him the truth…"

"Enough… It is enough. It is over!" Jackson sighed shaking his head. The one boy curled his right bicep behind Miura's head and pulled it up, cradling his Captain's gutted chest with his opposite arm.

"No, if we tell Kusanagi." The frantic ninja turned around and grabbed the bloody burlap sack from Eiji's hand with both arms as quick as lightning and jumped back two leaps. "If…" he tucked the sack close to his chest and extended his left arm out to keep his comrades at bay. "Eiji did it, did he not. He fulfilled his part of the bargain…"

"Eiji,… please…" The one young child cried, still holding his Captain tight. He looked down, smiling, yet under his mask, no one could see. One by one, they finally understood. As we all understood all this time. The young child cradled his father's head in his arms and while he painted a soft calm smile on his face – over his cloth mask… a smile that wanted to say, it is all right. We are here. Even in the darkness, in this empty, painful, lonely darkness… He curled his body downwards instinctively trying to keep the old man's body warm. Putting his beating chest next to his Captain's ear, reminding the old bastard, that they were there – that this sound was what it meant to be alive. The low tone, the beat of his heart was now being muffled by the cold metallic beep of that God in the sky. "Please, Eiji…" He looked at Miura's face. But Miura did not look at the boy who cradled him, instead, his face was now a chalk dust white looking upwards. All of a sudden, nothing mattered. Because he knew… Deep down in his heart. He knew all along… Even as the boy cradled him to his chest and wished for a miracle.

Miura's determination – and his choice – did not falter even then.

Yet, his determination did not waver. And THAT… THAT was… his answer all along.

"Eiji! If you have Iori Yagami's hea…!" The boy shook the burlap sack over his head, and with a thud and a roll, a hard mass, the size of a child's head dropped in front of his toes.

…

"Omigoto." Miura wheezed. Congratulations.

In the GAME of tennis, if you try to hit and return a ball, eventhough it had already bounced out of bounds, and yet you failed – you would lose. A brilliant rule. That, it is.

Had Yoshiki Kusanagi ignored that ball and let it pass, he could have won. Yet if a player were to try to return an already failed ball, and as a result by this last touch, it would fly wildly – even if the first player would have lost, just by the mere fact you responded to his bluff, now the opponent would lose.

…and that is what you did.

Perhaps, it, there could, in another game, be called a double fault. This is what you did.

By your actions, you FORCED Kusanagi to raise his hand despite impossible odds, Eiji Kisaragi. …and reveal to us, that he never cared for you nor I…

….

"If we show him that Eiji…" The small head rolled onto the ground, crimson goo seeped from its severed neck. "We can convince Kusanagi to uphold his part of the bargain…" Frantic and a trembling panic. "If we give him Iori Yagami's HEAD as we promised."

"A double fault." The spectacled boy slumped his shoulders. "Miura knew all along. Yet he chose the same." He pushed his glasses up his face on habit. "And so did we."

…

Can two negatives make a positive? Can two wrongs? Make a right?

A wonderful gamble.

Yes.

Yes, it can.

…

"A!"

"Agh…"

By your selfish acts… Eiji Kisaragi.

"No." A cold, shrill freezing sensation crawled up the young boy's spine.

By your actions. Was what took all of us to realize that Kusanagi never did care for any of us ninja. Eventhough HAD we fulfilled our part of the bargain. Kusanagi had no intent to set us free, eventhough. "Even… though HAD we fulfilled OUR part of the bargain." Miura coughed out a rancid sludge of blood.

…

"I have seen so many dirty things." Miura wheezed. "Though, sometimes even beautiful." Though there was one thing amongst all this… "I have never…"

I have never seen a beautiful wedding. Eiji.

…

By your actions. Was what took all of us to realize that Kusanagi never did care for any of us ninja. Eventhough HAD we fulfilled our part of the bargain. Kusanagi had no intent to set us free, eventhough. "Even… though we fulfilled OUR part of the bargain." Miura coughed out a rancid sludge of blood.

I WILL SHOW IT TO YOU.

It was our creed, all it took to prove YOU were RIGHT.

SHOW YOU. WITHOUT ANY REMORSE – for that is what I am.

A double fault.

Was to PROVE that your enemy was WRONG.

Staring back at the boy was a bloody mass the size of a young child's head – it was the decapitated head of a dog.

…

Miura…

"Well?" Miura smiled and cried. "WHa… what.. can.. what can you.. ss.. ssay…"

Propellers continued twisting in the heavenly sky. Watching… and waiting.

"I was wrong, Miura ." Eiji Kisaragi said in an otherwordly, disembodied hollow voice as he stood unmoving shoulder to shoulder with his comrades, as Miura looked up from down below aloofly in his final thesis.

It was. A wonderful memory.

I, now, absolve myself from a warrior's greatest sin.