Story:Kings of Strife/Part 16

Part Sixteen
'Just a couple miles south of here, at the valley of the mountains...'

Those words echoed through Crono's brain over and over as he traversed the increasingly more rocky soil of southern Inusia. They rolled around his cranium, dancing and teasing his increasingly serious mood. His face was in a permanent frown, scowling at his fate, and his eyes continued their trademark droop. But his mind was racing, complaining and pointing out parts of the landscape he should remember for later, praying, hating. Everything was changing, even the weather. It was beginning to get warmer, slowly by surely, and by now he had unzipped his jacket and fastened it around his neck. Now it flowed behind him like a cape in the high elevation wind.

And windy it was. In his travels, the sun had risen and the distant mountains to the south had gotten ever closer. His feet ached, most likely pocked with blisters after his recent travels, but he refused to even acknowledge it. He climbed and descended the hills before they evolved into rocky trails and paths. Then he climbed and rolled, jumped chasms and rose up stalks of ancient rock. Silence and the wind blew around the air, exposing nothing, showing everything. His grimace never changed, but his eyes were darker than ever. All the mercenary thought of was walking, south by southwest, and how he would eventually get there. The place spoken of in whispers, in tongues unknown to the coast and deserts of Inusia...

The Black Pass. Once a large, proud fortress overlooking the relatively short, yet dangerous Aquari Mountains. Their short height showed their old age, but they were numerous and served as a very effective natural barrier between the dominating empire that was Inusia and the small, empty country of Shimura. The mountains were once a bane to anyone not going through the Black Pass, crawling with bandits or mountain beasts, or anything worse. No innkeeper was devoid of tales of a hideous beast from the Aquaries. Quite cleverly, the Black Pass was always crawling with Inusian soldiers, and thus charged a tax on anyone trying to get from one country to the other. Foreboding indeed, but a beacon of safety and travels nonetheless.

And then the Mist arrived.

Crono stood on the top of a peak, now. A skinny path ran onwards, ever onwards, and beneath him he could see the Mist. Black and unruly, running its icy fingers across the landscape and staining it void. Corpses littered the dark valley, each holding a story worth a million words. Disgusting. Dark mountains enclosed the narrow path, sheer rocky hills making forward the only viable path. There was no escaping the entity. Silverius looked upon the land with a distant, opaque eye, no qualms in his gaze. He readjusted his coat on his shoulders and donned the pitch black hood over his head. A chill was coming.

The Black Mist, named after the castle it attacked. The Mist appeared out of nowhere fifteen years ago, according to word, slipping in with the night and making its deep cuts visible. Nobody knew where it came from or why it happened, or why it still persists to this day, but it was quite clear what its effects were. Any attempts to investigate it failed. Anything that even touched it quickly died. Always inky black and humid in substance, no matter the outside conditions, the mist crawled into any living thing and seemed to suck the life out of it until they fell over and died. Internal organs stopped working and eventually evaporated, brains shriveled, and limbs instinctively curled into the fetal position, no matter what. An incredibly painful death.

Crono Silverius stalked towards the tall Black Pass, marching towards the Black Mist and his inevitable death. There was no fear in his eyes, nor his brain, not an iota. The Mist drew closer, ever closer, and the Graveyard Valley beckoned another false tombstone. Dead bodies and souls grinned at him, laughing, pointing at his foolishness. Skinny, dried up babies watched with wide, sunken-in eyes. He glared at them and walked onward, and the Mist took him. He stopped walking as it met him, faltering, but did not fall. He clawed at his eyes and coughed, feeling the Mist driving into his eye sockets and piercing his every nerve. Groping, poking, stabbing...

...retreating. Just as soon as it began, the Mist had left his body, reaching around him but seeming to not be touching. All of a sudden ... non-toxic? His nerves still stung, but seemed otherwise unhurt from the biological onslaught. He looked around with pins and needles, watching the thick air swish around, almost repelling his presence. His eyes widened for a moment before looking back up to the castle glaring over him. Whatever just happened was a sign - he had the strength of will to save Maria. And he was going to do it. Now he set off in an encouraged run, dashing, his coat fluttering and flapping behind him. The wind was absent in the valley, which was odd; with how hard it was raging outside, how could it just stop here? Yet another unnatural feature.

He was more determined than ever. The travel to the Black Pass had taken all day, he noticed, and the sky was considerably darker than it was when he stood atop the path's peak. It fit his dusky mood, caressing and clinging closer to him than the Mist did. The night's vale was long, and the farther he dug into the landscape, the less corpses were piled about the trails. Almost replacing them were frequent uprisings of sharp, dark rock, jutting towards the sky and breaking the rocky ground. Calling out to the tired masses among the sky, of which he was not one. Not yet.

Finally he found the path beginning to ascend. The Mist lowered from air level, to below his neck, to below his waist, and finally under him. The Graveyard Valley was gone...The Black Mist beneath him. For some reason, he had survived the impossible, but it would only get worse from here. Crono clenched his gunblade's handle at his waist and looked upwards to the gigantic castle barring his way. This fiasco would come to a close today, even if he had to do it himself. The wind was back again, running through his loose fitting shirt and lowering his hood. The huge towers of the Black Fortress and the shadow-drenched doorway looked upon him and laughed.

It still felt odd for him to walk around without his bandages, his scars bare to the earth and the wind and other people. But when he was finished here, the bandages would be back in his possession. The scars would be covered. The failures would be erased.

*****

The walk to the castle was thin and long. A metal drawbridge of sorts showed the way over a sudden chasm in front of the dilapidated fort. As he made his way closer, it became clear why the Fort was named as it was - all of the bricks that built it seemed to be purely black. Even the drawbridge was made up of the obsidian construction, so dark that it seemed to meld with the inky abyss below. Crono cautiously walked up the drawbridge, edging closer to his destination.

The Black Fortress was situated on a hill of sorts, a raised plot of land that jutted from the relatively flat plateau of the Graveyard below. The night painted all of the surrounding landscape in various shades of black and dark brown, creating sharp spears of darkness that erupted from the natural ground. As he made it across the drawbridge, Crono turned around and kicked a somewhat medium sized rock down the chasm. He waited a minute without hearing it fall. ...Looks like I should make sure this bridge is intact when I get out of here. If he escaped.

Now he found himself at the entrance of the Castle, and its hardwood door was the only thing he could see that wasn't black. It was slightly ajar. The Crimson Death was expecting him, after all. Crono looked up once to the skies where the tall spires of the obsidian castle mixed together with the icy sky. No stars, no moon tonight - only darkness. Crono looked back down and took a deep breath before unsheathing his gunblade and holding it at his side, slightly raised. The time had come. His booted foot gingerly struck the door, pushing it open with a dreadful creak. He wandered inside as the gate slowly opened all the way.

What greeted him was a great and wide hall, sparsely decorated with a decaying carpet and various ruined tapestries on the distant walls. Two chandeliers hung on the ceilings, completely still, and one lay on the floor and surrounded by broken glass. Crono overstepped it and continued to scan his surroundings. Various iron doors led to other rooms, apparently, but most of them were either covered by rubble, rusted shut and obviously unused, or ripped off their hinges. The only footsteps on the dusty carpet were ones that led straight forward, up an extravagantly large spiral staircase. Around the stairs was a pure glass railway. Crono made his way to the stairs, constantly looking left and right to make sure his surroundings were safe.

The castle was empty, he concluded. Deathly quiet, completely empty, and entirely ruined. The glancing thought that constantly went through his mind was what exactly had happened here. What could have caused such damage and so thoroughly eradicated a population? He shuddered as he neared the end of the staircase. If it was indeed the Crimson Death, as he thought, then the psycho had to be stopped immediately. I knew he was a threat, but not to this level...!

Instantly upon finding himself upon the second floor landing, a light in a distant room down a hall caught his attention. He let his enthusiasm get the best of him and started walking towards the room, his eyes focused on the light. While walking, he slipped and fell, but stopped himself on his hands without making too much noise. What the... He brushed his hand around the floor where he slipped and squinted as he examined what was apparently the catalyst of his spill. A dark brown piece of...hair?

...Dark brown hair!

Fury flashed in Crono's eyes as he stood up with a stomp. This was going too far - Gin Kama Taoris had laid a hand on Maria, on Maria's hair. Now he fully unsheathed his gunblade and began to run through the halls, racing towards the golden light at the end of the tunnel, towards salvation and retribution. His feet thundered through the empty fortress while all pretenses of stealth evaporated. "TAOOORIS!" A passionate scream rang through the castle. Finally Crono found himself in the large room in which the light was on, and after allowing his eyes to adapt to the sudden, overcoming light, he looked forward and saw the target of his enmity causally sitting on top of a black throne, both his weapons embedded in the ground next to him.

The Crimson Death looked down at Crono and slapped both hands on the arms of the throne before pushing himself up, his jacket flowing from the movement. His eyes slowly opened and locked with the black pools of Crono's, and a devilish grin crept up his face that only served to set Crono's temper on fire. "Now...Who said you could invoke my name through that disgusting mouth of yours?" He stepped down a step closer towards his black-clad enemy. "I was wondering if you really would have come or not. I must say, I'm pleasantly surprised you got through the Mist..." Crono suddenly raced towards Gin with his sword raised to strike, but the man in red blocked it with both swords suddenly retrieved. "Come on, you'll have to do that." He chuckled in Crono's face.

The mercenary put more pressure into his attack, his face contorted and twisted with unbearable rage, but the two's steel embrace didn't budge an inch. Gin matched him inch for inch. "Don't give me any of your bullshit today. WHERE IS SHE?!" He began to shake, veins protruding from under his black hair. "Grrgh...Answer me! TAORIS!" Crono almost spit his words out from how tightly his teeth were clenched. Abruptly he lost his hold on the situation and Gin's swords slashed into the air, pushing Crono's sword away with such force that he was launched into the air, his eyes wide. Things seemed to move in slow motion as Crono twisted in the air, trying to land on his feet and move away from the man in red, but an armored black foot crashed into his side and sent him flying. He landed on the floor some feet away, slamming into the ground and coughing.

"Agh..."

Crono turned and caught his gunblade by the handle as it fell next to him, not even noticing the level of reflexive foresight he commanded to do such a thing. All of his attention went to the man in the red coat, now open and exposing his heavily scarred and muscular chest, a rippled six pack almost bursting from beneath his skin. Gin's face held a dark expression, eyes still half-closed but glaring downward at Crono's eyes with the killer instinct of a predator about to utterly destroy its prey. Now it was Gin who spit his wrathful words out.

"I told you once already not to say my name in vain. If I have to say something twice...that means the listener is unintelligent. Inferior." Gin lifted his left broadsword and pointed it at Crono, who was still on the ground. "I don't care what your petty little mission is. I will never tolerate inferiorities."

Crono rolled backwards to put some distance behind him and the Crimson Death. As he untangled his coat from beneath his legs, he began to remember their first fight, and then their second. He had lost both times because he rushed in and couldn't keep up a good defense - obviously close combat with the Death would spell out just that for him. Now was the time to compose himself and not to let his anger get the best of him, for it would certainly lead to his downfall. As he picked himself up off the ground, a plan began to formulate in his mind. Gin began to slowly but confidently stride down the steps from his tall seat.

"Look, I don't care about any of your neurotic problems, alright?! Just give her back to me, that's all I want!"

He looked around at the wide room they were in and found it mostly still composed of the usual rubble and debris of the locale, along with the same emptiness and high ceiling. The same uniform black stone coated every wall and floor, brick by stone brick. A balcony lead to the north, watching over the rocky outcrops from which Crono had traveled. The ceiling leading to this part was almost entirely destroyed, and in fact the balcony was no more than a part of the wall that had been attacked and pointed out unnaturally. Sunlight would have pierced into the dark room during the day. It would be beautiful, majestic even, if it wasn't so ruined, or if he weren't in life-threatening danger. He turned his eyes to Gin again, quickly and with alarm noticing that he was a few steps closer than the moment earlier. He couldn't take his eyes off the man, not again.

"Can't you hear me? Come on - where have you taken her?!" Crono took a backstep and raised his gunblade, passively entering a defensive position and watching Gin's every move.

Gin didn't reply, which Crono predicted. Crono wouldn't be satisfied if he did; the time for negotiation had long passed. He did slightly hope that Gin did reply, perhaps stalling him and giving more time for a plan, but soon he was sure that this was a foolish hope that would not happen. He stepped backwards again, planting his left foot behind him slightly sideways for support, rigid and firm. No more running away at this point, he acknowledged. Gin walked closer still and ever silent, and Crono reached into his bag tied to his belt on his backside. He fumbled by the Crystal as his hand probed for the object he sought before he found it, but didn't remove it yet. His eyes continued to watch Gin as he advanced, slowly and slowly but moving ever closer, keeping vigil on the man's cerulean blue eyes. They never once left Crono's face, he was sure, and this meant his plan had a chance.

Gin stepped within a foot of Crono, and it was then that his plan came to action. Crono pushed off with his back foot, jumping forward in a lunging manner, and slashed his sword horizontally at Gin's chest. As expected, Gin pulled up his twin swords amazingly quickly to parry, and the three blades collided for a split second before Gin pulled them back apart again. The resulting force kicked Crono into the air again, and this time Gin jumped with him and slashed his sword to cut Crono back down. Their gazes met in this quick sortie, and Crono's eyes twinkled with cocky delight as he raised his own sword to parry the blow. Once again, the force from meeting Gin's strike sent him flying, this time straight ahead from Gin and away from the balcony. The clash of the sword muffled the click from his grenade, and as he flew backwards, he chucked it at Gin, aiming at the ceiling more than he seemed to aim at the man. A growl left the red-haired man's mouth as he casually tilted his head and let the grenade fly above him.

"Bodacious fool, did you think you would hit me with that?!"

Crono was nearing the ground now, and Gin was just beginning to descend as he realized just what he had dodged. He gave a sort of spin in the air as he looked upward at the grenade, mere moments from its destination. Crono couldn't help but chuckle. Grenades don't need to hit you to go off, you jackass. Right on target and seconds before its delayed detonation, the grenade hit the dilapidated chandelier hanging from the ceiling and its fiery contents exploded. The impact forced Crono to the ground with a huge amount of force, but he was far enough away from the cheap weapon's small explosion that he wasn't in any real danger. Unluckily for Gin, the resulting fires and shockwaves were enough to cause most of the ceiling near him to come crashing down, burying his limp, fire-afflicted form as it smashed into the ground directly below him.

It took Crono a minute to stand up and brush the dirt off his clothes. Free from damage, sure, but he was definitely not free of the structural damage of crashing to the floor twice in a row by a warrior of almost juggernaut levels of power. I can feel the bruises coming already, he thought as he picked up his gunblade and inspected his handiwork. A large pile of flaming debris now stood mockingly over where Gin once boasted, and above the crater another floor of castle infrastructure could be seen. Crono lightly inspected his gunblade as he walked away from the mess, its fiery glow adding a warm atmosphere to the otherwise pitch black room.Well, now I have to look through this creepy place to find Maria...

Suddenly his body's control left him. Crono's guise of satisfaction and somewhat unfulfilled anger swept to one of confusion and terror as a subtle tone of light green seemed to fill the walls around him. He couldn't even more his eyes to examine the area, no matter how frantically he tried. His internal organs were still in his control, but his heart began to beat quickly and desperation ran rampant as he failed to move within his own body. What in the hell...?! Then a voice danced through his ears, a female one for sure, high and somewhat quiet yet husky and confident. Nonchalant. Worrying.

"Yes, so the shade was supposed to be verdant green, I knew that one was a fluke...Hm." The voice moved from directly behind him now - its source was moving, but was still out of his vision. Probably purposely. He tried to force himself to calm down and think. "This one required a bit of preparation, but he did say that it would work...I suppose he knows what he speaks of, sometimes. I'm still not used to ordering him around myself, but after seeing how badly he blundered himself into that mess over there, maybe he's right. He might need me after all." What was this girl talking about? Crono didn't recognize her voice...Was she an ally of the Crimson Death? How could anyone work with that monster? Then, interrupting all thought and dispelling his calm composure, a point of metal touched on the nape of his neck. It was instantly recognizable - a sword. His first instinct was to tighten his muscles up, roll out of the way, grab his gunblade, shoot, aim, shoot, anything, but he was trapped, and once again fear dragged him down from the pillars of reason.

"The trap won't last long, so I'll make this quick - you are about to be gored by Nolstuvainia Sestrum, of the Mortisian royal line. Rejoice in your ephemeral time left, for little get to be directly executed by the blade of the future." The blade's tip left the skin on his neck, moving to do as was predicted, and he could do nothing about it. One second, two, it was coming –

"Stop." He recognized this voice, but wasn't sure if it relieved him or frightened him even more. The fatal stab never came, but he was sure that this voice was that of Gin Kama Taoris. "He's mine."

A noise, then; the girl turning around from her target to face Taoris. "Oh, so you've decided to stop being useless and wake up now? And since when do you give orders? Didn't you say that was my job?" A conversation began to start, and Crono was still motionless. He strained his muscles to move even an inch, and sweat began to creep through his clothes. It was itchy, irritating. But how could the girl talk so casually to Taoris? Was she his ally?

"You're my commander, but this one...This man is mine." Next was what sounded like a grunt from the girl and a hurried movement. Gin spoke again. "Now let me through."

"How dare you touch me like that?! Why, do I need to remind you who I am?! I won't stand for you to put your hands on me! Listen, damn you!" The girl was flustered. Were the two not as allied as he thought? A realization flashed through Crono's head as he twitched - he twitched, and moved his eyeballs, then sniffed his nostrils - a realization that he was slightly free. Movement was returning to him, slowly yet surely. Could it be tied to the girl? Was her frustration disrupting the hold over him?

The footsteps behind him stopped, and Gin spoke quietly yet wrathfully. "I told you to move, dammit. All you have to do is focus your little magic spells and make sure he doesn't move, alright?! That's not too hard for Your Majesty, is it?" While he spoke, Crono turned his head slightly to look behind him and see the situation. Gin had his back turned to Crono, and was standing over a very short girl, the one who had binded Crono, apparently. She looked at him with occupied eyes, barely containing anger, and didn't see him at all. Gin was noticeably damaged, his coat gone and much of his skin either burned or gone entirely, but he stood with the same tall confidence that he always had. How...?!

Suddenly the girl started and her eyes went to Crono. The two locked eyes immediately, and Gin followed her lead without a word. Both men turned in the same instant, Crono whirling his gunblade around and shooting without taking precise aim. It was surprisingly on target, and as Gin pushed his arm out to shove the girl out of harm's way, the bullet crashed right into his forehead. His eyes widened and his arms jolted as he was pushed off his feet, but his body was still when he fell backwards onto the floor. As soon as it began, the fight had ended again. The girl, Nolstuvainia?, stood a few feet away, looking at Gin's outspread cadaver with wide eyes. Crono took a limping step toward her after a moment, and she looked up to him with fear.

She backed away and raised her sword to him, a rapier with a jeweled and golden hilt. Probably expensive. "Stay away from me! I...I command you! Stop!" Crono continued to limp towards her, full control slowly returning to his body. He opened his mouth to speak, but his throat was dry and barely a sound came out. The girl's large emerald eyes pierced aggressively at his. "I said, stay away!" Her free left hand made a motion and a circle in the air before she pointed a finger at Crono. He stopped, looking around, before he noticed a red hue on the floor directly behind the girl, an unnatural illumination in the black room. Something told him to run, move somehow, and now he could and did, but full control was not yet his. He ran towards the girl, who flinched but did not lower her blade, before he tripped and almost fell over his own feet. The air directly above his lowered head zipped and seemed to cease existence, and the disturbance around his ears caused him to fall on his behind.

He gave a confused look at the girl, still watching him with wide eyes, before looking behind him. The door he was walking towards was slammed open, two red hued spears embedded in its black stone. Crono looked back at the girl, the red glow behind her now absent. The two watched each other in veiled awkwardness before she swiftly began to make another circle with her hand.

"Wait, no!" His voice cracked, he observed, as he sat up and frantically moved to gain his footing. The girl froze, her left arm behind her and ready to strike towards him. He dropped his blade and put up his hands, panting as he truly looked at the short girl for the first time. She had big green eyes and her hair, long and brown, was tied back. "Have you seen...Is there another girl here? Maria, that's her name. I'm here for her, that's all!" Now that Gin was down, he wasn't in proper condition to take down this girl, who obviously had more than a few tricks up her sleeve. Even if her sleeves were rolled past her shoulders.

Now Nolstuvainia tilted her head slightly and looked at him with confusion. "What are you talking about? Nobody has been in this place for 15 years. It's a graveyard. Haven't you heard of this place?" She nodded to Gin, whose body was now behind Crono. "He said he was bringing you here. Nothing about another girl being here."

"But...But he said, I...He said..." Crono put his hands down and looked to the side, his eyes widening. If she wasn't here, then... "...Gah!" He unconsciously cried out and opened his mouth as a single drop of blood forced itself from his lips. Shooting, stabbing amazingly agonizing pain flew up from his stomach, rushing through his body and removing all logical thought. He looked up to the unknown girl again, now with her left hand over her mouth and her eyes staring at his torso. Crono looked down and saw his own gunblade ran through his stomach, its blade dripping blood.

"You didn't think I'd die that easily, did you?"

Taoris removed the blade from Crono's body, leaving behind a slotted void in his lower torso that was quickly filled by blood. The girl backed up against the pitch black wall, her terrified eyes watching the wound and the liquid oil oozing from it. Crono stuttered, copper tasting blood leaking from the edges of his mouth, and held his opening with both hands as he turned and looked at Gin's face. The two stood and watched each other for a moment, Crono's eyes wide and losing their luster. He looked confused and appalled as if he couldn't grasp just what had happened to him, quickly darkening hands grasping at the unbelievable amounts of blood decorating it. Gin looked at the dead man standing with scorn, glaring not at his injury but looking down at his entire personage.

"Just die already."

Silverius faltered and finally screamed out in pain as the slight tumble left his now exposed insides astray. He looked up at Gin with those same eyes, dark brown - almost completely black - and blazing with emotion. He struggled to speak, but found it a difficult toil, with the amount of blood apparently racing to escape his body from every opening.

"N...No...! It wasn't... I'm not supposed to end like this! Guah..." He held a slippery hand to the black wall, letting himself lean upon it. "I can't..." He wheezed. "I haven't... Not yet! Agh..." An agonizing cough let out even more bodily fluids. He was light and numb now, the excruciating pain trading its position for a loss of control over his body. His knees buckled and his vision blurred - he could feel his life, like his blood, falling through his fingers.

Gin scoffed and began to walk towards the weak man, and Vainia looked away and let out a scream of her own. "What a pathetic death. I thought you had potential." He instinctively reached for his blades that were usually sheathed by the small of his back, but upon finding them absent, cracked his knuckles in preparation to finish the job with his own hands. By the time Gin was in range, Crono was looking in the distance at nothing and his mouth moved, but no sound escaped the man's throat anymore. Gin looked at him with his usual stony look and kneed the mercenary in his wound, eliciting an immediate response of widened eyes and a silent scream. Crono's eyes locked with Gin's and stared them down as their owner backed up and fell straight downwards.

Gin looked at the man once more before stomping on Crono's hole once again, this time gaining no reaction save a squishing sound from the opened flesh and innards. The body didn't move at all, and its blood mingled with the pure black stone floor. He melted into his tomb, much like so many before him.

No more did he look upon what could have been, instead turning and moving towards Vainia. The man with red hair tensed up upon standing near his diminutive companion, a feeling of awkward silence passing through him. He tried to bend over slightly and put his arm around her waist, but she eschewed his touch and couldn't even look at him. For the first time, Taoris looked at his hands, colored red from blood, and wasn't filled with elation upon seeing their coverings. He opened his mouth and tried to say something, anything, but was somehow feeling sick and disgusted. How long had it been since he felt such a way...?

Taoris let his head hang and outstretched an arm out to Nolstuvainia. "Listen, he..." All of a sudden the girl turned once again, her long ponytail writhing in the air after her motion came to a stop. She startled him enough that he finished talking and looked down to her face, noticing her eyes instinctively glance at the corpse behind Gin before quickly looking back to Gin's face. He stopped talking and let her speak.

"Don't say anything to me, you freak. Nothing!" She held a hand behind her and let the other one point at Gin, its pitchforks and torches removing every feeling from Gin's body. She pointed to him like the others did, so long ago, as if he was to blame...And for the first time since then, it hurt hum, and he had no idea why. "He told me, you know. While you were playing dead over there - very convincing, by the way! - he told me that he came here looking for someone. He said you told him that someone was here for him, some girl. But obviously there isn't, you pedantic fool! Why did you...For what reason would you deceive him like so?! What did you accomplish by killing him like this, in this horrible place, miles from the nearest living thing?!" She caught her breath and stared at her tall compatriot as they both digested her words of passion. Vainia was genuinely distressed and in pain because of what had transpired. What she had seen in those man's eyes as he died, as his life just kept running out of him, was the most terrible despair she had ever seen in her life. No amount of poverty-stricken subjects or rejected suitor had ever shown such pained, heart-tugging sadness... Was this what it was like for something to die? Would she have to grow used to this? The very idea sickened her, and so was the Crimson Death who stood before her, proudly bearing the blood of his fresh kill as feathers of a peacock.

As for Gin, he could barely fathom this girl who defiantly stood before him. She showed genuine anguish for the Crystal thief, a man she had never met before and had clearly intended to kill him. But most striking to him, most appalling, was how she did indeed care and show horror at the idea of a man dying, yet proclaimed herself to be a powerful, self-dependent princess. She was obviously weak and not of moral strength, so how did she muster the strength and willpower to command him or scold him? Why was it working? He realized, now upon inspection, that she was the reason he was changing, that she had such an effect on him already. He refused to look back at the downed mercenary, head compelled to stay forward by some strange feeling he hadn't felt in at least a decade. Fear? Shame? Nonsense...The Crimson Death felt no such things. Right? Of course. So what was this girl doing? What did she expect from him? Of course he felt no remorse for killing this man, the capacity to feel such a thing had been eradicated from him when the tragedy happened. This he knew for a fact. All this and more was what passed through Taoris' mind as Vainia interrogated him, but he never got the chance to say any of it, because she looked from him and to the corpse behind him, eyes widening. Her finger dropped and she fell to her knees. A murmur filled to the brim with desperation slithered from her petite lips to the blackened air.

"Yoin mejn Gottuen... Am I dreaming?" She spoke another language for a second, one that Taoris recognized as the ancient high aristocratic language of Mortis. Something she had never spoken before...What could have caused such an outburst? The Crimson Death turned, chin high and fists raising again, before what he saw made them both fall involuntarily.

Singun Crono Silverius stood once again, blood coating his clothes and body, skin sunken in and almost blackened, arms limp and back hunched, and with a right eye that seemed to shine with such a bright shine of orange. Its iris was impossibly luminescent, and it looked straight at Gin Kama Taoris. Slowly, ever slowly, his right arm reached forward, hand open and fingers jointed, and stood completely straight. Reaching for something, grabbing for something impossibly out of range. The room was silent and nobody moved a single muscle until Crono spoke, his mouth opening and a single drop of blood slipping down his chin.

"I said, I told you, I... I won't let it end like this. I have to tell her..." His arm fell to his side again swiftly, much faster than its ascension. Now he bent over, his torso moving towards the floor but his legs and butt not moving an iota. By the time his arms could reach the floor, his spine protruded from his back very visibly, and Vainia was filled with revulsion. Crono's right hand reached out and grabbed the bloody handle of his discarded gunblade, but his eye never moved from its gaze of Gin.

Silverius slowly righted himself and pushed out his chest, arms still limp but now holding tightly onto his weapon. The darkness and shadow seemed to embrace him, cloaking him in its embrace and hiding his wound and blood from view. His head tilted back slightly so that he was looking down at Taoris in a way, and his mouth opened again. The room was at absolute zero as he spoke.

"You won't take her from me."

The man with a red mane of hair looked at his new enemy with a face of awe, and once again the room was frozen over in an awkward silence. Without letting his eyes leave the somehow living man, he instinctively reached behind him for his blades, but again mentally pinched himself upon grabbing only air. The explosion earlier - when Silverius outsmarted him, he noted with a bit of salt - had destroyed most of his clothes and ripped off most of his skin, embedding shrapnel inside him in various locations and displacing his two swords beneath the pile of rubble. He was defenseless, this new thing stood before him, and - a quick look behind him confirmed this - Nolstuvainia was too frightened to be of any use to him. What might have filled him with disappointment in the girl was repressed as he looked over Silverius once again, an unknown feeling blooming within his chest. He tensed up, the hair on the back of his neck and the sides of his arms bristling in anticipation. No; I will not wait for him to move first. Taoris turned around again to look at Vainia, and caught her eye contact after a moment. He jerked his head towards the entrance, in order to signal her to escape. She looked at him with wide, uncomprehending eyes, and he turned his head again towards his enemy. I'll just have to distract him.

A bitter memory once again flashed in Gin's head, and a primitive plan of action fell into his lap. A devilish grin danced on his cheekbones, some of the skin peeling off, as he eased up his tensed state and sauntered to Silverius' position. Resurrected or not, I am still superior to him, and he won't be able to take me off guard, was what Taoris believed. He continued without opposition, stopping a mere foot before Silverius. The man's lone eye looked up the inch or two of a height difference between the two men. Taoris opened his mouth to speak, to taunt the man, when he suddenly found himself breathless. With a knee to the chest and a crack in the air, Silverius had knocked the wind out of Gin, and next he slammed him in the head with the hilt of his gunblade.

Taoris was sent sprawling, his forehead bleeding and the blood obscuring his vision. He staggered to his feet and felt at his wound, his eye squinting from the blood and his good one glancing back at Silverius. The man stood in his same pose, it seemed, an impossibly lax one that betrayed the blood on his gunblade hilt and the predatorial eye watching Taoris no matter where he went. The taller man looked at this specimen with eyes of astonishment and disbelief, and he could practically hear his world crashing down around him. When...when did he move? Why didn't I see him? Now he felt the air shift again but only saw a blur of the man, suddenly far and now close, and his breathing grew difficult. As always, there was no pain, but Gin could feel a seizing in his chest as Silverius materialized in front of him. Much as his enemy had done only minutes earlier, Taoris looked down and saw the gunblade impaled into his chest, directly puncturing his right lung. A splash of blood forced itself out of his mouth, but a definite reaction did not come yet. He simply could not believe what was happening.

Silverius spoke for him, in the gravely and abstract voice that now characterized his new form. "You tell me where she is." Nothing seemed to move as he spoke, a frightening quality that only managed to unnerve and immobilize Gin further. He grunted, grinding his teeth and feeling his copper-tasting blood in his lips, and drew back a fist to punch Silverius square in his face. Before it could connect, before he could even throw it, Silverius' left arm jumped forward and held his in an iron embrace. Gin struggled, his clearly larger muscles flexing as he attempted to free himself, but now he was unmistakably caught by the swordsman in two ways. Silverius spoke again, the remarkable emptiness of his voice visibly startling. "You tell me where she is." Not a change in volume or melody accompanied this phrase and he didn't wait a moment for Gin to speak, instead strengthening his grip on his gunblade and raising it higher into the air, cutting through Gin's lung and breaking his collarbone in one stroke.

Taoris looked at his new wound in amazement and horror, shocked at the grotesqueness of both the wound and its cause, a morbid form of fascination at seeing his arm, still tightly gripped by Silverius' one hand, hanging by a mere string of flesh and muscle. Blood ran out of the gaping wound with rushing frenzy, coating Silverius and Taoris both, but once again from the river of sempiternity did not any pain flow.

"You tell me where she is." Silverius' gunblade, previously elevated straight up in the air from the trajectory of its attack, sliced downwards at an angle, cutting open Taoris' fragmented torso from collar to his abdomen. "You tell me where she is." Another slice, this time upwards and another somewhat shallow cut. Gin Taoris, once frozen from shock, now could not move much of his upper body due to the sheer damage done to him. "You tell me where she is. You tell me where she is. You tell me where sh-"

The empty rant of Silverius was interrupted as a floating, ethereal red-tinted hammer smashed into his head, and he was flung off his feet and into the wall a few feet away. His body did not move, and upon the hammer's attack, the hand holding Gin's arm in place involuntarily opened, allowing the man - now covered in red once again, this time of his own blood - to fall to the floor as Silverius crashed into the obsidian stone. As his body fell from the impact on the wall, Silverius did not move but to turn his head and look at Taoris. He spoke no longer.

Meanwhile, the source of the hammer, Nolstuvainia Sestrum, misplaced and afraid, raced to Gin's side and found what she saw as disgusting and stomach-churning. The man lay with wide, diluted eyes in a puddle of his own blood and gore bits. Various flaps of skin and scraps of shrapnel/organs lay scattered around his smorgasbord, and he made no attempt to move but to cough every second or two and let blood out of his mouth. Vainia looked at his pale blue eyes, bearing only to look at the eyes, and spoke to him desperately.

"No, oh no, are you alright? please!" She slapped his cheek, gingerly wiping off some of the blood that stained her hand afterwards, and his eyes looked at her and squinted in focus. He opened his mouth, presumably to speak, but all that escaped was a vile gurgling of the blood in his throat. "Come on, you're alright, aren't you?" She heard a shuffling and noticed Silverius preparing to move himself. "Shit! No, stay away from us!" A quick circle motion with both her hands created a rune circle beneath Silverius that was tinted blue, and he sound found himself immobile again. Now she looked back to Gin Kama Taoris and felt herself about to dry-heave as she gathered together his barely hanging remains into a sort of pile on top of his torso, or what was left of it. Looking at Silverius' nonmoving form constantly, she held on to Taoris' form from his back and stood up with him, holding the limp man as a sort of dastardly basket that bled. He was surprisingly light for his size.

Vainia backed away, moving away from the entrance that Silverius had entered into - presumably the exit that led into Shimuria - and staring at him. Her big green eyes quivered with fear and disgust and Gin's blood now decorated the entirety of her uniform. Just when she felt she was free, a moment before she crossed the threshold of the cavernous room and further into the ruin of the castle for an escape, Silverius let out a titanic scream, startling Vainia into stopping and staring again at the imprisoned man.

"YOU TELL ME WHERE SHE IS! DON'T YOU LEAVE UNTIL YOU TELL ME WHERE SHE IS! GRAAAAAGHHH!!" His screams continued, unabated, as Vainia turned around and absconded with further haste. His frustrated sorrows continued to echo in the large, empty castle of pure blackness, with no sign of stopping any time soon. Vainia looked down at her burden with an ironic look of sorrow and pity. What had transpired this day was a chain of events she was not likely to remember, and with good reason. She could only shake her head at Taoris, whose gaze was again unfocused and wandering, and attempt to control the shaking and goosebumps her entire body held.

What could you have done to this man, she thought. Her thoughts were all she had to comfort herself in the face of such horrors. ...What did he do to you?

...End of Part Sixteen.

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