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Crawford pushed his glasses up on his nose, watching with a building sense of dread as Farfarello placed the last candle at the edge of the pentagram. Outwardly, he was still locked in the calm visage he had taken years at Rosenkreuz to develop, but inwardly, he was seething. His powers were being blocked again, leaving him to swim along in the stream of events like an ordinary human. He took his frustration out on the building, glaring impotently at half reformed wreckage. Rosenkreuz had more than kept their end of the bargain, clearing and partially rebuilding the original site of the spell. Ground stone had been meticulously laid to complete the warding that would prevent anyone from getting into the center...or anything from getting out. What remained of the original building was supported by endless lines of wood and steel scaffolding and lattice work to restore some sense of stability for one last night. Crawford's skin crawled with the power that still effused from the very air surrounding the miscarried summons. The entire site reeked of magic, black and white. It was chillingly similar to the temple of the Triad, as they cast their sabotaged spell. A short whisper of feet on the still dirt covered floor announced Yuki's return. Schuldich followed sulkily, leading a clearly spellbound Weiß behind him. Ken was haphazardly dressed in an ill-fitting white shirt and dark pants. A mirthless message from Schuldich said that they had walked almost the entire way from the Koneko before Yuki could be convinced that leaving the boy nude would cause more problems than they had time for. The German had 'acquired' the clothes from a passing youth who would wake in an alley to find himself a victim of a mugging. Not that it would matter much if Yuki succeeded tonight. Mugging would certainly be the least of their worries. The witch had changed into an outfit of black silk, a twin to the one her borrowed body had been found in after Farfarello had dragged her from under the wreckage. Schuldich led the half conscious Ken to the center of the ward, the boy lying down without complaint. His arms and legs were bound to iron spikes driven into the concrete and secured with new leather thongs. Crawford saw the binding as a sign of Yuki's insecurity. There was a chance that she couldn't hold the boy through the spell. The Mors had been set in a stand just above Ken's head, iron gleaming. The Yami no Hon had been set up at the furthest end of the pentagram, on a thick podium of dark wood. With almost reverent hands, Yuki opened to the center of the pages. The pale vellum pulsed with a darkness that Crawford could almost feel. The witch cackled madly, her face taking a deathly pallor in the unnatural light. Drawing power from the damned tome, she raised her nearly skeletal hands and entered the warding. "Let's begin..." §*§*§*§*§ Youji stopped short as he slid from the car, cigarette falling from his lips. "Anyone else see that?" Omi and Nagi had opened the window on the other side of car, their heads pressed together in wonder as they gazed out over what had been wreckage mere days ago. Mere days before, the warehouse had been nothing but a collection of sheet metal and piles of concrete. Aya had seen the report about the unexplained collapse that had left only two walls relatively intact. As if in denial, four walls now stood darkly, shimmering with a light that couldn't be seen by human eyes. Magic held what was left of the building together with night bright lines. In the air above and around the partial ruins, blood red paths of magic were pulled taut, edges raw where they had been stretched and torn by the Summoning. Imperceptibly, the lines were being drawn towards the building again, called by a greater power. "The power is still here. The very fabric still weak..." Nagi whispered, feeling their own web throb in response to the presence of the well. Aya didn't pause long before brushing past his teammates. "Time is running out...for us and Ken." He waited just long enough to see Omi take a following step and then turned to the building. Omi and Nagi took off to keep up, but Youji hissed in frustration. "Back into Hell..." §*§*§*§*§ Schuldich found himself watching the ceremony with a sick fascination. There wasn't much else he could do; he was even more powerless than when they had sabotaged the Triad's spell. At least then they'd had a plan. Relying on the good guys was starting to give him gray hairs. ::Schuldich.:: The red head didn't turn. ::I think that cowardice is the better part of valor, don't you?:: He saw Crawford nod partially, then begin backing away from the pentagram with painfully slow steps. The German was about to follow when he found he couldn't move. His entire body was frozen. Yuki seemed not to notice Schwarz as she raised a silver dagger. "Bound to flesh, free once more." With a viscous slash, the witch cut her forearm, blood streaming freely down the too pale skin into rivulets that dripped a sickening cadence in the silent area. With slow, practiced steps, she walked across the warding, blood streaming behind her. Her body aged years with each step, until her skin was stretched near transparent over her bones, radiating the same sick non-light as her cursed book. She reached forward to grasp the Mors with a bloodied fist, gasping as her life force entwined itself with the ancient iron instrument. Her hand tightened, and blood coursed along the smooth metal until it began to pool on the dusty floor. She looked about her, smirking at Schwarz's attempts to break her holding. Their part in this had come. ::Come to me.:: Farfarello was the first to answer, taking one point of the pentagram with purposeful steps, as if this is what he had intended to do anyway. Schuldich laughed bitterly to himself as his own body began to feel the command. The Irishman probably didn't care one way or another: witchcraft was definitely going to make God scream. The compulsion was undeniable, despite Schuldich's efforts to keep his feet from moving to the ground stone edge of the warding. A bare glance revealed Crawford in a similar plight: Yuki had called in her deal with Aste. Schwarz was hers. §*§*§*§*§ The Key looked around sharply, feeling the pull of Yuki's spell as she attempted to pull him from Ken's mind. The darkness was beginning to break, pools of reddened light seeking entrance into the last refuge. Chains groaned beneath Ken's renewed efforts to escape, flesh tearing. They would both be destroyed, Ken's soul ripped into non-existence and the Key once again nothing but pure, unfeeling power. Light poured into the sanctuary, bathing Ken in a ghastly blood red halo. Suddenly, he was aware... He was aware of the small confined world within the pentagram, everything limned in the pallor of a weak white flame. Human figures were reduced to nothing but flickering outlines, luminescent candles set at the corners where the magic symbol met and bound. He knew each flame by name, watching as the one named Schuldich began to flicker wildly as the warmth was drawn from his body into the invisible void. The others of Schwarz were in a similar situation, innate magic being drawn from their bodies. Yuki was at the center of the draw, body swollen with power. The moment had come... §*§*§*§*§ The remains of Schwarz took their places at the edge of the pentagram, unable to battle against Yuki's increased magic. She drew against the remains of the original spell, wounded red lines nearly visible under the strain. Weiß watched helplessly as the power was drawn into the well of the Mors. The air screamed and the earth groaned with the stolen energy. As he watched Schwarz struggle against their invisible bonds, Aya knew they were too slow...too careful. Yuki moved quickly, not needing the witching hour of the Hallowed Eve to tear the universe again; it was still weak and scarred. Drawing on the untapped potential of the remaining Schwarz would allow the witch to open the universe once again. Aya surged forward as the staff flashed once before it plunged through Ken's body. An unearthly crack resounded as it found and stuck fast in the concrete below. Five voices screamed in unison, Weiß dropping to their knees in echoed agony. Yuki laughed in manic triumph. Weiß had come to witness the destruction of their companion's soul, separating the coven forever. There would be no return for Hidaka. He would be nothing but a bloody memory. ::The pain was soul rending. Twin mouths opened in silent despair, unable to voice their agony. The Key staggered forward, trying to catch himself on Ken's shoulders. A shock range through their bodies as the hands passed through flesh, chains cracking like breaking ice.:: Crawford was still conscious though he could see that Schuldich had taken the worst of the drain, the German laying on the floor, chest heaving with shallow breaths. His own strength was waning fast, but he could feel something shifting, moving...and his power snapped back in staggering clarity. ::Melting. He was melting, body liquid and pliable as the Key passed borrowed hands across his skin. One pass...two...skin ceased to have boundaries and the lines between them disappeared. The Key approached slowly, Ken feeling the eerie sense of leaning in to kiss a mirror, only no surface prevented their lips from touching. It wasn't a kiss in any known sense, as the Key smiled gently and faded into the magic from which it came. ::The chains fell in a cascade of slivered steel, Ken dropping to his knees with his sudden release. He looked up into the bloody light, body incandescing as he stepped from his mind into his body.:: Yuki cried with despair as Ken broke her blood spell, the magic falling to tatters about him. Her hands froze above the pools of his blood, her skin losing vitality until they had become nearly mummified. Her body followed with horrificly quick aging, spell claiming her magic as well as that of the near dead Schwarz. Her scream was cut short as Ken's head snapped up, arms and legs ripping up the metal spikes that held his bonds with a shower of pulverized concrete. Now free, his hands reached up to grasp the staff that violated his body, snapping the Mors at the point where it entered. The shirt was more crimson than white, and clung with sickening wetness as the boy sat up, the last inches of the staff remaining in the floor. The deep crimson blood flared around where the assassin stood bleeding, dark color leeching to an impossible white. Both witch and assassin were subsumed. ::We are one!:: The mental cry took the form of an icy wind, sweeping back across the lines of the pentagram. Yuki was trapped by the force and she beat futilely against the barrier, screams whipped away in the maelstrom. The light flared again, a final cry echoing in sudden stillness. ::We will live!:: §*§*§*§*§ Aya felt the wind only seconds before if ripped into the scaffolding, forcing him back as the metal and wood rained in broken jags. Still frozen with Ken's pain, he could only crouch, weakened arms coming up to protect his head. The wind passed quickly, destroying all the new work that Rosenkreuz had put into the building. He hadn't realized that he had fallen until he felt Youji's hands under his arms. He stared at the uneven wall before him, hand clenched unconsciously over his heart. Their connection with Ken had been severed with the light. Omi was already moving, small hands searching the rubble for openings. Nagi joined him, mind sending twisted steel bending back away from his companion. "Aya! Here!" It was little larger than a crawlspace. Nagi took Omi's hand and together they lifted the debris another few inches to give Aya clearance. Sweat beaded on his forehead, Omi nodded. Aya and Youji moved as quickly as they could, working through snags and over larger pieces of concrete. The scene they came upon was much different from what they had left. The pentagram was dark ash, burned into the stone beneath it. Three dusty bodies lay quietly a the edges, but Aya didn't have the time nor the care to wonder if any of Schwarz still breathed. His entire focus was on the two bodies laying at the center, painted with his lover's blood. He could sense Ken's heart beating with his own, the too slow rhythm becoming louder as he approached. Aya fell to his knees, pulling Ken from the floor onto his lap. Miraculously, the Mors wound was no longer bleeding. But he knew that Ken and the witch were beyond him. Kami...Ken...you can't leave me now... "The one who tastes of his blood..." Youji seemed just as shocked as Aya at the words. The blonde recovered quickly, nodding to the still warm blood covering Ken from neck to knee. "Remember. The Key told us. Whoever tastes of his blood has the Key's power." But will it take me to where he is? Aya shrugged off his own question, fingertips dipping into small pool of his lover's lifeblood. With trembling fingers, he raised his hand to his mouth, and tasted the crimson fluid. That single instant expanded into an eternity, and Aya's world changed. His already heightened sense were submerged in a world of magic and power. His eyes could see what remained of the deep well where the spell had been cast, but no hole remained into the mortal world. There was, however, a faint silver thread that pulsed across the empty air to where the tear had once been. Looking down, he could see the thread coming from Ken's body, at a point just above his heart, joining with four other threads, one from each of the coven. Their link. His way to Ken. He didn't bother to waste time with warning Youji. He couldn't help. Aya reached and threw himself along the thread he sensed, consciousness soaring from his body. There was no real sensation, just a sudden sense of being there. A world of white, where Ken was facing off with the witch. He watched as Yuki looked about in despair, before giving one lonely cry. "Mother!" §*§*§*§*§ Ken and Yuki opened their eyes at the same moment. The failed magic had been redirected by the Key, taking them into a white world between the realities. It took them both a moment to become fully aware of where they were and the realization tore at the emaciated witch's mind. She stood, spinning a frantic circle. "Mother!" the witch screamed, her voice echoing brokenly in the white. Ken and Key sighed, their hand poised for the final damning blow. "Your mother cannot help you here." His arm fell sharply and the universe tore open. Aya found himself lying a few feet from Ken and Yuki, shaking off the last of the passage between the worlds. His lover's face was grim as he faced what appeared to be nothing but a narrow slip of darkness before him. There was nothing behind the tear but black, all the darker because of the white, chilling and empty. Suddenly, the wail of inhuman suffering drifted to them, Aya gasping as the emotions of the damned threatened to become his own. "Ken, no!" Aya screamed, cold with realization. Aya's cry nearly broke Ken's will. He thought he could handle Yuki without his team getting involved, but part of him was glad that his love would risk soul obliteration to follow. Aya called again, but Ken would not turn. He could not finish what was needed if he turned now. Without looking back, he held Aya firm, determined to save his lover from his own inevitable fate. His hands wove in the air before him, fingers grasping at the unseen. The tear began to flux and waver, the edges becoming squared until Ken had molded an image into the barren white: a single innocuous door, only a few feet from the warring pair. Yuki gasped in horror and recognition. "You wouldn't. You can't hold me..." A last instant of smugness caught her features. "The Door cannot be closed as long as you live! The Key..." The assassin sighed tiredly. "It will lock behind me." "Behind?" Realization of Ken's intent wiped the last of any sanity from the witch's mind. She screamed, throwing herself at her enemy's feet. She beat at his legs, pleading and offering anything to save herself from the end she had spent millennia running from. When her tirade was done, blood drooled from her mouth and her eyes were wild with fear and hate. Almost gently, Ken touched her head with a single finger, momentarily soothing away the madness. It would be her last peace for the rest of eternity. Aya couldn't be sure what moved, but suddenly Ken and the captive witch were much closer to the Door. The shadows increased in frenzy, some daring to reach into the white. Yuki cowered before the door, broken by what fate lay beyond. Ken gripped one skeletal arm, the other reaching for the gilded knob. It opened soundlessly at his touch. Solid darkness poured from the open door, long fingered shadows gripping at the wood and Ken's hand. They seemed to ignore the assassin, instead attracted by some unseen aura about Yuki. Drawn to the evil steeped in her soul, the shadows pulled against the silent witch and with a resigned sigh, Ken released her arm. Without contact, his peace broke and her maddened screaming resumed. The wail from beyond the door rose in response, despairing screams turning to a momentary triumph at claiming another damned soul. It was only moments before Yuki disappeared beyond and her screams became indistinguishable from the hellish voices. Ken turned to Aya, blue gray eyes anguished. "I am the Key. As long as I live, the door to Hell can never be closed. It's over now." A sad smile. "You're free." He turned back to door, head lowered. "Remember me." Somehow inadequate for what he felt in his mind, Ken knew if he said more he would never have the will to finish. And it would never end. One determined step took him past the threshold and into the darkness of Hell, sides of the door slamming behind him with a soul shattering bang. With agonizing slowness, the thin line, the scar, dissolved bottom up, leaving nothing but Aya in the white between. Alone.
::title - final chapter:: ::to madiha, tschubi-chan, and portia:: ::this is it. the end. really.:: |
