Original Stories Fan Fiction ❯ Shattered Illusions ❯ True Threat ( Chapter 52 )

XxXxXxXx

Shattered Illusions

Chapter 52: True Threat

By: Melissa Norvell

XxXxXxXx

Hide watched with emotionless, dead eyes as Hizaki reached forward to extend his fingernails. Everyone but Copernicus jumped out of the way. The king hesitated for a moment, then finally moved towards him and kneed the pretty male in the stomach so hard that spit flew from his mouth.

Teru cackled as swung his whip around, high above him and came down on him.

"I'll get you for killing my sister, you bastard!" The red head flung his weapon forward. It lurched out and wrapped itself around Hizaki's neck as the skilled prince controlled it, slamming the pretty vampire into a tree and landing a few feet from him with a smile of his face as Hizaki's body fell down, limp. On the tree, there was an indintation from how hard he slammed into the bark. "Like I'm going to think that I killed you in one hit." He wasn't that stupid.

Before he could speak a word more, he was kicked in the side so hard that it sent his body rolling across the ground.

"Teru!" Zino called out and rushed to his side, but Hizaki held out his hand and blasted him back.

"Zino!" Millie called out.

"I'm not here to play games. I'm not going to go lightly on you. I'll never forgive what you've done to Hide." The Princess of Illusions was going to go stronger than he ever had before. He felt empowered and full of anger, waiting to visciously tear apart whoever dared to defy him.

"It is far less of a punishment than the one you bestowed upon my parents, and Prince Yale. You're very selfish to keep Hide's soul so painfully bound to this world for the sheer pleasure of letting him see you defeat us." As much as the drag queen thought that his ideals were just and right, what he was doing was wrong. Copernicus wasn't going to waste a second telling him so.

"He wanted to see you suffer. I'm carrying out his goal! He wants to see the world rid of the Wittenburg bloodline. As his respected lover, I'll carry out Hide's dying wish and allow him to spend this moment knowing that he hasn't died in vain," Hizaki placed a hand to his chest. He spoke as if he was out of touch with reality, and maybe he was. However, he wasn't going to let them win. Even if this wasn't the happiest ending to his fairytale, it was the right one.

"You're mad with delusion." What kind of person reanimated their dead lover to make them watch a fight like this? Horatio thought Hizaki had lost all semblance of a brain.

"They're dead. You should let them rest," Copernicus wanted him to get that through his head. Even if he won the battle, his spells weren't going to last forever.

Hizaki threw out his hand in a fury of emotions, "die!" His voice was sharp and full of malice as spikes erupted from the ground all around him.

"Get down, my lord!" Horatio called out as he tackled the brunette to the ground just before a spike burst through the ground and tried to skewer him on its point.

Millie ran through the spikes as they shot up around her, raining clods of dirt and chunks of grass on her. She was nearly taken out by one of them, then jumped up into a tree for protection. However, a spike split the tree in half, causing her to fall from her branch as she jumped down.

The side of the tree that Teru was on fell over towards him. He jumped down out of it as leaves rained down around him and tucked his feet under her body, rolling out of the way and popping back up in one, smooth motion. He jumped back, releasing his whip into the air at Hizaki. It hit his form as it busted into a plume of petals.

"Damn," Teru cursed, "another illusion."

Hizaki appeared behind him and tried to chop off his head with his fingernails, but Teru ducked and brought his foot around in a forceful spin kick. Sticking his leg out as he pulled up his skirt, the drag queen tried to trip the prince but turned to see Horatio coming at him. The blade pierced through the cross-dresser's form as Teru scrambled out of the way. However, the sword went through the vanishing image and stuck into the ground.

"Damn it, I missed," Horatio huffed.

"Yeah! You missed me, too. So I'm happy that you did," Teru looked a little peeved at the recklessness of the green-haired man.

"Sorry about that. I wanted to make sure that I didn't have an opportunity to miss him." As long as Hizaki was engaged in a battle with someone else, Horatio was sure that he would have been too distracted to notice him. He was wrong.

Copernicus turned and his blade clashed with Hizaki's extended nails. The two struggled against each other to gain the upper hand. Then, the king swung his sword with all of his might, knocking Hizaki back and sending his snake chain of blades at him. They spiraled out towards him. The princess jumped out of the way, evading the first attack, but the blades followed him.

Looking behind him, the psivamp's face twisted into a look of irritation. 'I've got to do something about this.' Just then, a smile crossed his face, "of course."

Turning, he elongated his nails and pinned them to a nearby tree, disabling their effects. The blades clattered together as they stopped in motion. "Take that, your majesty," he mocked as he landed a few feet away.

"Water Dragon!" Horatio summoned his attack and pointed his weapon towards Hizaki. The shape of a dragon formed from summoned water and swirled around the tip of his sword, then grew in length as it stretched out towards the evil princess, growing in size.

Before it was about to hit him, it washed away as simple waves of water as Hizaki vanished from sight.

"Damn," Horatio cursed and glanced around. "Where did he go?"

"Behind you," that familiar voice rang as Hizaki appeared and kicked him in the middle of the back with his high-heeled shoe. The knight jolted forward.

Millie fired a few bullets and hit Hizaki in the shoulder a few times. He felt the piercing bullets and turned around, extending his nails at the girl. She tried to move but they caught her gun, pinning it to a tree and knocking her on her butt.

She scooted back, kicking her feet as the princess came towards her.

"Did you think that little trick would work on me, you insignificant knight," Hizaki's voice was darker than it had ever been, filled to the brim with malice and hatred.

It was then that Millie realized her troubles. 'Crap! What do I do now? I'm so screwed!'

He reached his hand down, but then it stopped as his eyes grew wide. Zino had cut him across his back, ripping his precious dress and staining it with blood. Out of anger, he turned and punched Zino in the stomach as hard as he could, sending the male backwards into a tree. Millie leg swept him and Hizaki fell. Horatio appeared on top of him and axe handled him into the ground.

Millie thanked the knight as he delivered a swift kick to the princess' body then shoved him away with his foot. The drag queen laid there, motionlessly for a moment before bursting into a set of large, spiraling vines that latched on to Horatio and Millie. They wrapped around their waists tightly and launched the both of them into the air as they screamed in terror.

"I'll get you down!" Teru ran over with his whip and launched it at the vines but they simply deflected it. The whip ricocheted back at him and he swiftly caught it in his hand. "Damn, I can't get through to them." Despite having razors on it, the weapon wasn't effective enough. He needed a sword, or someone with one.

Horatio ran over and swung his sword, trying to chop through them, but all his blade did was make tiny lacerations that did nothing. "What? What in the hell is this thing made of? I can't break the outer skin of it."

"Help! I can't get down!" Millie screamed from high above, swaying back and forth as she kicked and punched the vines.

"Rigatama!" Copernicus shouted and waved his sword, creating his signature snake chain. Then he commanded them to disperse, and the blades flew off in different directions. The made impact with the plants, slicing them, but not enough to cause major damage.

"Try throwing a magic attack at it. Physical attacks obvious don't work," Tsubomi suggested.

"Right," Copernicus agreed and created a red whip of energy. He released it at the two vines that held his knight and friend. It sliced through them, causing the plant to drop both of them. Millie landed on her back and Horatio landed on his feet, catching himself gracefully.

"Thanks Copernicus," the gun slinger sat up, rubbing her back. It was a small price to pay for what could have happened.

Hizaki created a whip of energy and sent it out at Tsubomi and Teru, who both evaded his attack. The drag queen lunged at Tsubomi and tried to stab her with his nails, but she spin kicked him in the stomach, causing him to recoil with a hand over the afflicted area.

Zino ran at him and tried to decapitate him, but Hizaki turned around and blasted him back again. Tsubomi got on her hands and spun her legs around to try and take him out, but Hizaki spun around and punched her in the stomach.

Shock ran across the Princess of Illusion's face as blades came at him.

"You think that you've beaten me? I'm far more powerful than you could ever imagine. Ha! Magic Circle!" Hizaki held out his hand as a ring of magic text appeared around him on the ground, glowing with iridescent light. "Red Storm!" He shouted the words as they symbols began to swirl around him at llight speed.

"What's going on?" Zino asked, his form bathed in red.

"This is-" Tsubomi cut herself off.

"This is advanced alchemy. We can't get away from this," Copernicus' visage turned dire as everyone was blasted back in a burst of red magic. Their forms flew up into the air as Hizaki's maniacal laughter sounded through the air.

"I did it!" He panted in an unstable, crazed tone as he held both sides of his face, grinning like a mad man. "I've killed them all." Looking around, he saw everyone lying on the ground, unmoving. The drag queen then turned to Hide and smiled brilliantly. "My beautiful Hide, I've accomplished the goal you've set out for me!" Spreading his arms out, as if to show off the glory of his defeat, he continued. "Look! Look at my glorious handiwork, my love! Now, we can finally be together!"

Hide said nothing, and simply stared ahead.

Hizaki walked over to Copernicus, who lay on his side. "Your superior bloodline meant nothing in the end. Even if you had won this fight, you would have no clue what to do for yourself."

Suddenly, the ground busted under his feet and shock lit up across his face. "What the hell is this?!" A hand reached up and grabbed his ankle as the Inheritor burst from the ground, chunks of earth falling from his body as he swung his sword.

"Randomize!" Copernicus commanded as his blades flew from the blade, shredding Hizaki's intricate dress as they ripped through his outfit and left lacerations on his body.

'Impossible! How is this happening to me? I thought I had them for sure. What went wrong?' His plan was fool proof. How could they have possibly known that he was going to perform Red Storm?

"Raging Dragon!" Horatio called out as his dragon-like beam spiraled towards the drag queen. He screamed, hit by the attack as the remnants of his dress were shredded even more and his body thrown backwards.

Tsubomi was on him and kicked him in the face. Zino was a few feet away and axe handled him into the ground as the feminine male clutched his face in pain.

"You'd like to think we're all dead," Zino remarked.

"For an illusionist, you're easily fooled," Horatio taunted the wounded male.

"He's just delusional. He wants to badly to believe that Hide is alive," Copernicus brought up his dead lover to add insult to injury.

"He is alive!" Hizaki argued and shouted at them. "He's right before you!"

"I'll never forgive you for all the pain that you've put Prince Yake through. He never deserved anything that happened to him," Millie's voice was cold as ice.

"Neither did my parents," Copernicus added.

"Don't forget what happened to you as well," Tsubomi reminded him of his own manipulation and torment.

Grabbing the male by the arm, her master swung him around like a rag doll and let go of him. Hizaki's battered body flew through the air and hit a tree. In a heap of tattered fabric, he slid down the abrasive bark and sat on the ground with his knees bent and legs out to their respective sides. His head hung and dirty, signed curls bounced.

"You killed my sister, you bastard," Teru remarked as Hizaki's finger nails extended towards them all again, causing them to evade them.

With his other hand, Hizaki held out his hand and summoned a magical stream of energy that traveled toward the group. Horatio got into the direct line of fire and summoned his silver dragon energy attack, blasting the familiar dragon-shaped energy from his sword as it busted through the magical stream and destroyed it.

A wicked smile crossed the princess' face.

Horatio was suddenly illuminated in red light as a beam burst through the ground and blasted him. The knight yelled in pain as he was engulfed in energy.

Tsubomi yelled his name and ran over to him, but she was cut off mid-way by a giant spike that busted through the ground in front of her. She had to skid to a stop in order to evade it.

Zino attempted to chop him in half from behind but a hand hit him in the back of the neck, causing him to black out and crash into the ground, short of his goal. Millie turned to pull out her gun, but Hizaki threw a ball of energy into the ground. It ripped up everything in its path, splitting the earth and scarring the soil as it hit her. The girl let out a scream and fell to the ground, knocked out.

A pleasant smile crossed the drag queen's face. "None of you can ever hope to defeat me! The Time of Ending is near!"

Hizaki glanced behind him to see Hide, standing there silently as he normally did. Just then, the glowing string that held his head on his body burst into sparkles and his head slid off of his neck and plopped onto the ground.

"Huh?" Hizaki's eyes were widened in shock and the events seemed to happen in slow motion as the headless body fell to the ground.

'No...No! He was supposed to see me defeat them. He wasn't supposed to die so soon! I can't bring him back. The same spell won't work again if it's already been performed on that body.' In that instant, Hizaki fell apart. The only thing he could do was stare as his world tumbled down around him and utter his lover's name is disbelief.

Blood leaked out onto the grass as blades surfaced from the ground and wrapped around his own body.

It was all his doing.

Damn him!

"Copernicus..."

Pulling his blades tightly, they dug into him, tearing the flesh and digging into it tenaciously. Bones crunches and organs were penetrated as they continued their journey through him, destroying it beyond all repair as it was sliced in little pieces. If this kept up, he was going to be dismembered. Pain shot through his body, radiating as the cruel blades dug further and further into him.

"It's over. You won't be manipulating anyone anymore. The puppet is once more rebelling against its master. Then again, was I even your puppet?" Copernicus asked the question with a steely expression.

"No. No, please don't," Hizaki's voice was broken and emotional as he begged to have his life spared.

He pulled the blades tighter as they continued to dig into his body, Hizaki screamed in agony as he watched his body lay in little pieces before him. His blood leaked out onto the grass even more, staining it in a pool of fluid at his feet. He could feel the blood cascading down his feet as he began to lose feeling in his body.

"Die, Hizaki...Suffer as I have suffered all of these years, unintentionally serving under you. I know I can't make you suffer enough for what you put everyone through," Copernicus was determined to see his anguish. He wanted nothing more for the psivamp to weep, for his pain to be transparent. It's what he deserved.

"It's over," Millie told him. "Everything we fought so hard for is over."

"I can go back to Ramada, and rule my country as the last of the Wittenburg bloodline. At the risk of everything, all is peaceful once more...but," he looked down at the fallen princess at his feet, in pieces and dismembered, "what now? After all of this time, walking along the cruel strings of the puppet master and dancing to them as he saw fit. Can I really continue to live once they've been cut? What happens now?"

His eyes lifted from the dead eyes of the psivamp as they glanced to the blue skies above. "What's left for me now?"

"I can't believe it's finally over," Zino was happy, but he also felt kind of empty from it all. Like Copernicus, he felt a sense of accomplishment but he had been doing it for so long that it become routine and his life revolved around it. What was left for them now?

"Yeah," Millie glanced at Prince Yale's corpse, "Now he can finally rest in peace."

'I would have really loved to marry you, Prince Yale Axis Wittenburg. I hope you went to heaven. If you did, I want to meet you there someday.'

"You've been avenged my sister. I'll return to our land and rule in your honor. This isn't goodbye, it's only temporary," Teru smiled in resolve to himself. "Surely...someday, I'll see you again."

Frowning, Copernicus lowered his head before he felt a warm hand on his shoulder. Glancing over to the source of the warmth, he saw Tsubomi looking at him with concern.

"Hey, are you alright?"

"Where do I go from here?" He asked. His heart was void now, and the only goal he had all of this time was now gone. Somehow, his story felt open-ended.

"We'll go back to the way things were. We'll just have to rewrite them a little." That was her plan, anyway. Peace wasn't going to feel right for a while, but they would settle into their new lifestyle. That's how life worked.

"Now that this is over, will you stay by my side forever?"

"I told you, I'll follow you to the depths of hell and back," the fact that Tsubomi went through everything she had with him should have been a testament to that.

"Tsubomi," he said her name endearingly.

"I want to help you get back up on your feet. So now it's your turn to stick by my side," the donor gave him a kind smile.

He smiled back. "I would be honored."

"Tomorrow begins the start of a new life, for all of us," Horatio smiled at his weary friends. Now, they could all rest easily without the threat of being overthrown. This sense of peace felt nice.

...To Be Continued