Rurouni Kenshin Fan Fiction ❯ Feuding Hearts ❯ Sustain Me ( Chapter 8 )

"This is fucking bullshit," Sano cursed, punching into his left hand. "I'm sick of just standing around here like this; there's gotta be some way we can help them!" There was no way he would prove Shishio right by doing nothing while, of all people, Saitou's wife led the assault against their enemy. It just had to be the woman that no one would have expected.

Aoshi let out a sound somewhere between a grunt and a laugh, crossing his arms in front of his chest.

"What?" Sano questioned, quirking an eyebrow in response to the stoic man's odd reaction.

"Our thought exactly," Evangelina translated, trying to hide the shaking in her voice. Unlike their fathers, the children had been raised in a peaceful time, free from the blood-storm of war or revolution. They'd never seen battle before, let alone one that decided the fate of them all, and possibly their world.

After overhearing them, Shishio smirked. "You can help by getting out of our way," he mummbled to himself, casting a sideways glance to the battling flames that surrounded them. Blue and amber were fiercely intertwining with each other, leading to the realization that their leader was, in fact focusing her own spirit to keep the flames from harming her friends and family. However, from the scene of the dying blue flames playing out around them, he could concur that she had momentarily dropped her guard to a much lesser degree, making it easy to overcome her distracted energy.

He readied his sword and everyone went on the defense, expecting a head-on attack. "So predictable..." he laughed to himself.

"Don't go quiet on me now," Shizuka ordered, lowering her head. "Speak with volume or don't speak at all."

"I said," he began, grinning sadistically now, "You're so predictable!"

The amber flames completely consumed their blue advisaries, roaring toward the heavens like ferocious vines growing up to the sky. However, they joined together at the peak, forming a flaming roof and closing off all hope of escape for angels and mortals alike.

"Now feel honored, pathetic weaklings!" Shishio ordered, forming a barrier around himself. "You get to die bathed in the fires of HELL!"

"Everyone, look out!" Kenshin warned futily. However, it was far too late.

Hawatari thought that evil laughter would be the last thing she'd ever hear as the flames rained down to destroy her. Suddenly she felt a tight pressure on her right hand before strong arms wrapped themselves around her waist, dragging her to the ground.

'Duil...'

The boy recklessly threw himself on top of her, tumbling a little before resting with her body beneath his. Even if it killed them both, he'd go out protecting her, no matter how much he knew she hated it.

Everyone gripped themselves for the inevitable worst, tensing as they waited the split second between the life and death. Saitou barely felt it, the light brush of gloved arms around his waist.

"Not here," was whispered quickly into his ear before four screams pierced through the night air. Saitou raised his eyes only to find blue wings spread out above him, bending under the force of the fire pouring down onto them. His wife's face was buried in his shoulder, her pained screams muffled in his coat's collar.

'This isn't right. I shouldn't need to be protected by anyone, let alone my wife,' Saitou mentally cursed, left with nothing but the option of resting his hand softly on the top of her head. Hopefully it would be over soon.

"Kit! Kit, stop!" Sano pleaded, wrapping his arms around her neck. "You don't need to do this!"

Eventually the flames stopped and Shishio expected to find a pile of burnt corpses lying helplessly at his feet.

Instead he found four spent angels, gasping in immeasurable pain in the arms of their husbands, their wings broken and bloody behind them.

"You are all, argueably, the dumbest self-sacrifcing morons I've ever fought," Shishio stated, sounding genuinely disgusted. "What are they worth to you? The world you now have no chance at protecting?"

"Just because they protect the weak and do not live by YOUR way of thinking does not mean they are stupid, that it does not," Kenshin argued angrily. "People are meant to find their own truth, just as Soujirou did. He was living a happy, peaceful life without you, and now look what you did!"

"Sukiko," Soujirou breathed out shakily, staring wide-eyed at the pink blood that covered his hand. "Why...?"

Duil and Hawatari finally sat up, the boy's hand not gone from around hers. She looked over at him and blushed, snapping her hand back and standing on her own. They both turned to face away from each other and rushed to their mothers' sides.

"I could never fly anyway," Hoshiko laughed out weakly, "So what good are wings?" she reached up to touch Saitou's face as she lay across his lap. "Can you help me up?"

With expressionless eyes Saitou pulled his wife to her feet, her arm wrapped around his shoulders. Everyone else followed suit, wives leaning against their husbands for support.

"You're defenseless now; what's the fun in that?" Shishio asked, feigning disappointment.

"If you want to treat this like a game then that's fine with us, Mokoto Shishio," Aoshi sneered, forcing all of his disdain to flow through his words. "But if they cannot fight then we will in their place."

Kenshin, Saitou and Soujirou placed their hands over their weapons to verify Aoshi's statement.

"And what good will that do? I'll just regenerate afterward," the bandaged demon reminded them, resting his sword on his shoulder. "Face it, you're all doomed now."

Kenshin wrapped his fingers around his sword's hilt, refusing to accept defeat. "No, it can't be over yet."

"That's right, this isn't over yet..." Hoshiko argued, pushing away from the warm body supporting her and staggering forward into the stinging chill of the winter night. Her hot, ragged breaths floated away from her parted lips in white huffs, disolving into the air around her. All around her, dark blue blood was pooling by her feet, dripping from the singed wings on her back.

Saitou immediately reached out to grab her arm. "What do you think you're doing? You're in no condition to fight." And much to his suprise, Hoshiko forcefully wrenched away from his grasp.

"Don't tell me what I can and cannot do," she snapped without thinking, immediately regretting the words. Everyone was shocked at that, even Shishio.

"So Saitou, your wife talks back? I thought you go more for the docile housewife type," Shishio laughed, finding himself very amusing.

"I'm sorry," she whispered faintly, turning back to Shishio and clenching her bow again. "Mokoto Shishio, we WILL make you pay for what you did to us all those years ago."

"How so?" he wondered, cocking his head to the side. "Pierce me with another arrow that will have no effect? Whip me and leave welts that will heal in moments? Hide behind your water walls and rain stars all you like, it won't stop me in the long run."

"No!" Sukiko suddenly screamed, bringing everyone's attention to her. "You're wrong. We WILL defeat you Shishio. We did it once and we'll find a way again!"

"Your last method was a technicality. We BOTH lost that one and you know it."

Pink tears streaked down pale cheeks.

"But we're angels," Kitai stated, looking down at her whip. "Aren't we...?" she looked up at Sano (who of course, looked confused) and smiled before continuing, "...so aren't we supposed to be driven by the will to protect what we love?"

"Mom," was all Duil could collect to say as he helped her stand on her own.

"The will to live, and to allow others to live. It's what drove me to defeat him before, that it was," Kenshin remembered. "If you can find it within yourselves, I have faith that you can win."

"This is not the time to lose faith now," Shizuka said, bringing a slight smile to her fellow Celestial Guardians' faces with her silly pun.

"No, of course not," Hoshiko agreed, shaking her head. Suddenly her eyes went wide with realization. "So what is your plan now, Shishio?"

Shishio quirked an eyebrow at her odd tone. "You speak as if I'm the one crippled and bleeding before the enemy. But if you really want to know the details of your deaths ahead of time, I'll be more than happy to share." He grinned that sick, twisted little grin of his before his continued.

"Sick freak..." Hawatari mummbled under her breath.

"I'll take you out one by one this time, no more flashy fireworks," he planned, getting back into a readied stance again.

"All talk," the Leader scoffed, tossing off his words like that were nothing. 'Hajime, I'm counting on you. Don't let me down.' She let out a shocked yell and got to her knees on the ground, peeling one blue glove away to reveal a large burn mark. She looked above it to find that a hole had been burned into her right wing, allowing the flames to reach her arm as well. Holding a bow was going to be difficult now.

"Such a weakness," Shishio scolded, taking a step forward. "Let me end your misery now!"

In a blink he was gone, footprints in frosted snow acting as the only indicator of his position. Hoshiko gripped herself and prayed for intervetion.

The sound of metal against metal was like a sweet melody for her as she opened her eyes and found herself facing her husband's back. The blade of Shishio's Mugengin was inching closer and closer but Saitou didn't give up pushing against it with his katana, anchoring his feet in the ground and refusing to move.

Just as the saw-like edge was about to graze his throat, a foot shot out from behind him, kicking between his legs and crashing into Shishio's kneecap with a sickening crack.

"Silver, attack at full strength!"

Willing herself to overcome the pain, her hand still held by her son, Kitai summoned forth another Seismic Eruption, calling out the attack name as the ground split apart again. However, this time her own silver aura mixed with the uprooted earth. This was truly her last ditch effort.

"Pink, block any escape!"

Soujirou lifted Sukiko's arms, allowing her to easily send the same rain of metalic, pink stars to fall behind the retreating Shishio. This time each of their many blades seemed infused with a pink light.

Shishio scraped the blade of his sword against his scabbard, hoping to use fire to deflect the dual attacks.

"Red, extinguish his defense!"

The red waters drenched their enemy as Aoshi's hands rested over Shizuka's on the staff, all three attacks connecting at once and sending Shishio digging into the split ground below him.

All four Guardians collasped backwards, their bodies now completely spent. The bandaged body before them wasn't moving. Had they won...?

"The next generation is safe," Kenshin realized, smiling.

"Can you heal them again?" Soujirou asked pulling her up so that he could rest his chin on her head.

She shook her head and raised her hand up to rest on his chest. She smiled faintly when she felt Yozakura hug her from the side, gently snaking around bleeding legs.

"Kit, did I ever tell you you have beautiful blood?" Sano asked, trying to lighten the mood as the shimmering liquid soaked into his pants and shirt.

"Dad," Duil started, "Shut up, you're dumb."

"Duil," Hawatari called from her mother's side. "Shut up, it's hereditary."

"Shove it, Devil Spawn," Kitai breathed out.

"Will you live through this?" Aoshi asked, ghosting his hands over broken red wings.

"Yeah, all we need is for Hoshiko to-"

She got cut off by a gigantic explosion that no one anticipated. Shishio's sillouette could be made out amongst the smoke and debris that everyone shielded their eyes from.

"No..." Yozakura chocked out, holding her hands over her mouth in shock.

"Impossible..." Aoshi gasped as the dust settled, showing Shishio, healed and engulfed in flames.

"Round three," he called, his flaming aura bursting with so much energy that everyone lifted an arm again to shield their eyes. "This is our finale..."