Fan Fiction ❯ Wilted Light ❯ Part 4 - Manshinsoui [Wounds] ( Chapter 4 )

The penance for our sins

Isn't the reality that one day we die,

But one day we have to reflect.

Reflection is sin's cruel way of reminding us

That the things that were done were wrong....

Part Four

Manshinsoui

1: Bounded

Ravine's eyes were shot wide with shock, for at first she hadn't realized what had happened until the pain had reached her entire body, and then gone numb. The blood fell, leaving Ravine with the recognition that she had just been struck. However, she wasn't just struck, because there was more to it. There was pain. Why did she feel such pain...?

Drip.... Drip, drip.

What...? Why is everything so...?

Dark.

***

By the time Vincent had decided to defy Ravine's request, him and Eyrie were probably too later, because when they opened the door to the final level, managing to elude the attacks of the Gingitsune for they had probably cleared the upper levels when Aleron was passing by with Ravine in custody.

The doors swung open, with him and Eyrie in the middle, ready to face just about anything, but not ready for what they had seen just then.

"Its too late," said Aleron, whom looked up at them in a way that told them that he'd known.

That was why the hallways were so clear! Vincent apprehended.

"Why...? Why have you don't this...?" Eyrie said, backing away and closed her eyes from the sight of Ravine. She couldn't bare to see the one who she'd least expected to die so soon, the one who she'd seen much stronger than her yet younger than herself, to have fallen. She covered her mouth with her hand, her eyes widened. "How...?"

"How?" Grayson urged, turning around, the katana in his hand dripping with Ravine's blood. "You take the blade, and you jab it into her, much like this."

With a swift movement, Grayson spun around, his sword digging into Aleron's skull. He hadn't expected it, and because of that, there was no expression visible upon his manifestation. He didn't have the chance to react, because at that moment, Aleron fell at the mercy of his betrayer, his blood staining the ground and Grayson's sword, and the man fell at Ravine's side.

Eyrie wrenched herself away from the sight, throwing herself up against the wall to avert her gaze from the two bodies, while Vincent watched in unreserved aversion. "You...." he snarled, gripping the sword of an Gingitsune tightly. "Why did you do it?"

"Who? Killing Ravine or that brainless git of a chief?"

"Both!"

"Don't make me laugh at you, kid," Grayson said, grinning. "I won't hesitate to kill you either. Pull up that blade will only call for a battle, and with that, you know what I will do."

His rage overtook him, Vincent hadn't cared. He ran forward with his katana before him, Eyrie unable to move fast enough to stop him as she had foretold what was to happen when he did so. Vincent rushed, and with a scream, he swung his blade and aimed for Grayson's shoulder. However, Grayson had been much faster than Vincent, pulling his katana out and digging the blade into his side. Vincent wasn't shocked, but he was immobile until he found himself falling...just like the others.

And with that, Vincent Halcross, had fallen.

Eyrie wanted to scream, her hands pressed tightly over her face so that she wouldn't. She couldn't yell, nor do anything, as she watched the two die, as well as the man that they were there to take out in the first place.

Grayson sighed, twisting the blade out of Vincent's fallen body, whose burgundy eyes were transfixed upon his sight, his final view. The assassin walked towards Eyrie and smiled. "Good to see you again, Eyrie. Too bad there wasn't a way to finish what we started, nor I can do that right now," he sighed, yawning and walked away. "I'll catch you later, eh?"

For Grayson was gone, abandoning Eyrie again.

Eyrie dropped onto her knees, weakened, trembling, and wept.

***

Ravine.... Ravine.... Oh, Ravine, wake up.

"Mum...?"

No, it is Demara.

"Hogosha...."

That's right. Your Hogosha, a face appeared before Ravine darkened sight, a glowing hand touched her face lightly and smiled. Ravine, it isn't too late to live. If you let me take you, help you, I can save you, and then you can avenge your friend. You can see the one you love, the only one you loved, again.

"But, that's...."

I know you'd be cheating it again, but Ravine, do you want you killer to walk away?

"No, I don't...." She looked up, her hand enclosed over the pale hand of her Hogosha, smiling back as Demara smiled down at her. "I want to kill him. I want to kill them all for what they have done to me. I want them all dead, Demara. Can you give me that?"

The Hogosha nodded. I can, Ravine. I will take you to your glory.

"Thank you...." Ravine whispered. "Thank you....for everything...."

Ravine screamed as the pain rushed and outpouring throughout her body, and the darkness wilted into the luminosity, the light from the world of the living.

***

The killing wound healed, and Ravine's eyes slowly opened to stare up at the skylight of the room, the top of the Hinomi tower. She blinked, her eyes shifting.

What happened? she asked herself, pressing a hand over the wound on her neck as she got up onto her knee. The scar is still there, the blood is stained...my hands.... She took out her hands and stared at her bloody palms, blood mixed between hers and the Gingitsune's blood. None of it has changed. Not yet, nothing. Nothing's changed, except....

A body was placed before her, the eyes of the man, Kalasan Umbregar, gazed upwards at her, his face cut in two, his skull cut open so that red liquids seeped out between the cracks of his bones, the whites of his eyes crimson and his own blood poured from his lips like a river. Ravine stared at him for a while, and then as her stunned thoughts pulled it all together, she knew that he was dead. As well as the second body laid next to her.

Second body? Ravine took another look, and found Eyrie, Vincent cradled in her arms and she rocked back and forth, taking him with her with every sway, tears streamed down her eyes. When Ravine rose, it was like she didn't even know that she was there.

"Tell me this is a dream...." she begged.

Ravine nodded. "Yes."

"Please tell me that none of this happened...."

"No, it didn't."

"Then...now what?"

"We do what we are supposed to do," Ravine whispered. "...live."

Live? For a brief moment, Ravine had tasted death, she felt it, she lived it, she saw the darkness that yearned for her presence, to take her away and suck her into it's endless abyss and deprive her of everything that she had known to love, known to live.

Eyrie's pain, she felt her pain.... She felt malice and remorse.

"I'm sorry," Ravine said, tears streaming down her eyes, though disappeared under her chin. "I am so sorry, Eyrie. I have to go."

"You're going to kill him...right?"

"Yes, I will."

"Good. Do him in good, Ravine, make it painful. Make him suffer for what he's done to Vince. Make him pay for what he's done," she whimpered, holding onto Vincent tighter and cried.

She took the sword Vincent had used, and swore to herself that when she killed Grayson, that she would use this against him, she would use the weapon that was his only chance for the revenge that he couldn't have.

Ravine left Eyrie to her lamentation, for there was a single deed to be done, a final sin that she had to commit before she confronts to those she had known and those who thought they had known her, to go back to her school and let everyone know what she had done. They needed to know, she couldn't let them believe her dead so easily, when she had simply died there on the spot and was revived by the Hogosha who called herself Demara.

Demara, Ravine's only ally.

Forever, Eyrie would weep. Ravine knew this because this day would never leave her. The nightmare and reality of what happened in this building, the Hinomi tower, would stay with her, haunt her, Ravine's actions would never be okay with anyone. Yet...they needed to know."

Ravine did not cry that day. She refused to cry.

For she was bounded to her sins, her silent laments.

***

Ravine followed the railroad tracks of the Hogwarts Express, the road that would take her back to her school. For many days she'd gone without rest, without food nor water. She'd wandered in the shadows of the city and traveled freely when dark, she felt no fear at night when others would. And for the first time in her life, she was free to walk about without worrying about someone emerging to kill her.

For nothing could kill her anymore. Not with her Hogosha aiding her.

Ravine stumbled over the tracks, catching the sword in the air, the one she had taken out of the Hinomi, she had been too caught up in the thoughts of what had happened in the passed two weeks, since Vincent was killed in the Hinomi tower, and Ravine lost her life once more. Frequently her hand would grasp her throat to reassure her that did happened, and it wasn't just a dream, like what Eyrie tried to convince herself what it was. All these events, what happened two weeks ago, it seemed so...dreamlike, like it could've have been real. It was too horrible for it to be real.

Two weeks had passed, and since then, Ravine's been traveling from Scotland by train, to London, and then was taking the long way back home, to the only place she could call a home. Home where those who cared about her wound be, but she didn't deserve their care. It had been a quaint thought that nobody had noticed a girl wandering the streets of London, alone, covered in blood of those who she had killed and some that belong to herself, carrying a sword in her hand. Then again, she had been in the darkness the entire time, eluding herself from the sight of those around her.

They needed to know how these wounds have scarred themselves into her flesh so deeply that they will never heal, never to stop hurting. Ravine wanted to much to cry, to throw herself onto her knees and just die right there, permanently. To fall asleep and never wake, to run and never stop from the reality that she had committed such unforgivable crimes.

Her heart aches, eyes burning from the tears that refused to come, her body shuddered as she continued to walk. Ravine's feet screamed in agony, though she walked on, she continued, with Vincent's voice ringing in her ears.

Dead. Vincent was dead, and it was because of Grayson. Once she gets things settled....

Ravine came across an overpass, a bridge that the train crossed that overlooked a river thousands of miles below. If she were to fall, to jump and attempt to end it all, then this would have been the perfect place to do so, for there was a guarantee what she would die.

"Knew you weren't the dying type," said Grayson, who was standing behind her.

Ravine stopped, standing up straight from her crouching position she'd been walking in all this time. She threw her head back to look up at the sky, watching as the sun started to set and night beginning to fall. A feverish smile formed on her lips as her eyes closed lightly and with ease. She could have laughed if she had the strength to.

Noticing her strange reaction, Grayson quirked a brow and then pulled out his katana. "Will you survive a five hundred foot fall? Would you be revived if your body were to be distorted by my blade? What would happen then, Ravine?"

"I would come back. Dying fully is a painful thing, though," she said, gradually reopening her golden eyes, her hand held the sword thin sword that was used by Vincent, gripping it in her grasp tightly. "Well then, aren't you going to strike me? Kill me?"

"Such a futile choice," he said. "Hypocritical Ravine, forever to be written as the murderer of hundreds of wizards who were meant to be brought home to their families. The heartless sinner Ravine Jaxon, I don't know which title would go better for you when you are placed as the immense fool that you are, wandering upon this earth thinking that you cannot die, that you are immortal. Understand this, Ravine, that even if you can't die, that you will forever be cursed with guilt, and that is much worse than death."

Agreeing, she nodded. "I am a sinner. I am a hypocrite. I am a killer. You are right, Grayson, you are very right. And because of that, because of the truth that you've spoken, I know that Vincent died because I died, and he shouldn't been involved, right? None of them should have been involved. Nobody. I will take responsibility of my crimes and I will take whatever punishment suits them the most."

Grayson smiled in satisfaction, raising his katana, but stopped when he heard Ravine speak the next words in a cadenced rhyme that sounded more of a chant rather then her actually speaking.

"Death is but a shadow of merciless fear, for when the end you know draws near. You'll cower and hide and weep from demise, for the one to take it is the one you despise. I show no mercy, while you show no pain.... For it is your end which draws near... Taken from the one you'd once slain."

After a moment of silence, Ravine then added in after her rhyme, her back still turned to him as she spoke, aware that he had his weapon drawn to her. "Here is something that I think that you must get right, Grayson...."

He ignored her, then swallowed hard and raised his katana again, ready to strike down on her, when Ravine took up her blade and twirled around in a motion that was much too fast for his sight. The next thing that he would comprehend is that Ravine stuck a blade into his chest, blood seeping from the steeled blade that was taking his life, his breath, his thoughts.

"Sinners such as I don't deserve the walk towards the glory of Hell nor death, but eternal darkness," her tone was taken within an expressionless, her eyes flashed in a way that frightened Grayson at that very moment, when he came to realized something.

Grayson spoke, and Ravine's appearance remained stoic and emotionless as she thrusted him to the side of the bridge, his katana dropping from his grasp and fell down along with him, his words gave her heart a great significance to what kind of a person she was, and for how much she needed to atone for, that she could never make up the wrongdoings that she had perpetrated.

"Funny," Grayson had said in a rasped voice before she made him fall, "that in all my years, had I never seen such a human being have an appalling face such as yours...and those eyes that look like I am staring into the manifestations of a demon."

Ravine watched his body fall, for he would already be dead by the time he hit the water, when she then turned, and walked away.

2: Wounds

A demon.

Demon.... A demon was what she had become. No human was capable of obtaining such a frightening appearance like she had when her anger surged to force against a single man who had felt nothing but anger and hatred towards her. The man who had a right to hate her, a right to kill her, and he had been right when he proved that she was selfish to not die.

The world would be better without a demon like myself, Ravine thought, standing before Hogwarts at last, the sword in her hand.

Night had fallen, and Ravine stood alone. She'd walked up to the Whomping Willow, that stood inanimately when she approached. A branch swept out and instead of striking her, it permitted her, wrapping a twig around her hand in acceptance.

"You know what I can do, can you?" Ravine said weakly. "You know, don't you...?"

***

Rain fell from the sky, leaving Ravine dampened as she leaned against the tree from up high, the Whomping Willow remained still and allowed her to get soaked, yet Ravine didn't find much of a reason not to be. She could go inside, she couldn't face them.

The people inside the school, they wouldn't understand. The people she knew.... None of them would know, they would look at her as a sinner too. But Ravine acknowledged that. Ravine looked down at her hand, stained with Grayson's blood. Her eyes swelled with tears when she covered her face with her hands and sat there on the tree, and thought about a lot of things.

She thought about Vincent, who had taken her in and accepted her just like this willow had. He had remained by her side even until he met his end, refusing to let her fall, but he had died thinking that she was dead. Ravine mourned for his death.

Kalasan Umbregar...he wanted to kill her because she was the direct descendant of the ones he hated most. He wanted to see her dead with every passion flowing in his veins, so he sent the Gingitsune after her. His reason was foolish and unworthy to be fulfilled.

Ravine thought about Eyrie.... Was she crying up until this day?

Grayson would forever hate her even to death, and Ravine accepted that, for he had every right to hate her unlike Kalasan Umbregar, yet she was glad that they were both dead. Two beings on this world that shouldn't be here, gone. Yet there was a sense of emptiness that filled her heart, pain that was worse than the pain she had felt when she died.

This pain was much worse than any other, for it crumbled her heart, stabbed at it like it was something that wanted to be poked at and tortured. Was this self torment? Was this guilt? Was there also a soothing voice that tried to talk her into commemoration that sounded very much like Demara?

No, it had been a song. That song, the ballad of the Nyne. Demara was singing the ballad.

Foths alas no scrachet

Konlo he da

Foths alas scrachane

Konlo he da

Vardos no ta slor nos Eden, rue uso

Vardos hai alas fothar, jare alas haas

Konlo aie foths alas scrachane, hademio

Sloe he alas scrachet

Lesar fas dias kaa fai

Lesar fas sine aie dai

Aie sine forthlasa nos nona slor nos Eden.

Forthlasa nos salva Eden.

"What have I done?" she whispered as the song drew itself to an end, bringing her thoughts to a finality as she closed her eyes and rested for the first time in a long time, as there is that one final question that she will never cease to ask herself and question her own humanity....

What have I done?

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