A Hatred That Will Never Bloom Into Friendship

The blood in my throat spurts out of my mouth and rushes carelessly down my chin and onto the cold ground. I hear a scream to the left of me, but I was too beaten and exhausted to look at him.

I had done it, I tell myself surely in my head. It had actually worked. In one of my last attempts, I had managed to kill one of the Brothers of Treachery.

~~*~~

Hah! I think we wearied out this slow painful death sentence long enough. Don’t you think, brother?” Toshio asks Yasu, sneering.

“Yes, I agree. It was fun while it lasted, but I think it’s time to put him out of his misery.” Yasu laughs maniacally, stepping closer to my knelled body.

This was it, I thought woefully. Death was approaching me, and I couldn’t do anything to hinder it. I had tried everything to stop the two brothers; close combat, diversions, and traps. All the strategies I could think of, but none prevailed.

Now, I was on my knees in unbearable pain, and a part of me almost welcomed for my life to be taken. But somewhere in the back of my mind, in the last same part of my consciousness, something told me not to. Not to welcome death. Not yet, anyway. I still had to try something; I couldn’t give up like this, like a dog bowing to its masters. I laughed mentally at that; it was somehow funny to me.

In between all my needless endeavors to impede the two brothers; I kept glancing at Kimina; at her lifeless form. Her words she said to me before Lloyd was killed still rang in my head, and I fought for her. And I fought for Lloyd as well. I laughed internally because in just a few moments, I had changed somewhat. I didn’t want to just run or give up and let them obliterate me; I had fought for them both, in trying to appease their deaths.

I lay my head down on the ground sideways, with my right ear pointing downwards, the notions still whirring in my mind. Hmm? I notice something for away from me, at the cliff’s edge. There was a sharp angular bump in the ground; in front of a lone tree. I stared at it for
a long while, before it clicked in my head of what it was. How come I didn’t notice it before?

Another strategy forms in my head, and I hoped desperately that this one would work. I life my head and face the two men in front of me, and push myself up fully on my knees, gritting my teeth from the sharp shooting pain traveling up and down my body.

“Oh, come on now, boy. Haven’t you figured out by now that everything you do is useless against us? Your practically close to death, why not just give up and succumb to the inevitable?” Toshio asks with a shrug of his shoulders, eyeing the three kunai knives I had now in my hand.

I narrow my eyes and throw the first one at them. Both of the brothers dodge it effortlessly; Yasu jumping to the cluster of trees and Toshio jumping towards the cliff’s edge. I almost smile. I throw the last two kunai knives at Toshio, making him jump back even closer to the cliff’s edge, which was right where I wanted him.

Toshio chuckles. “Trying to make me fall over the cliff, eh? I have to say this is the most embarrassing tactic you have come up with yet. To believe you thought it could actually work.” He laughs now, raucously. I wanted to say something in reply, but blood clogged up my throat and I couldn’t speak. I shake off the thought and do a few hand signs. Toshio stops and stares at me, and I could feel Yasu’s eyes on me as well.

I place the palms of my hands on the ground; my pointing finger and thumb touching together in an almost diamond shape. The ground in the area immediately begins to shake violently.

“What’s going on?” Toshio proclaims, losing his balance and falling to the ground. I hear a thud to the right of me; Yasu had also fallen too. I didn’t pay attention to them though; my eyes were locked on the raised part of the earth near Toshio’s feet. In split seconds, the root shoots out of the ground. It tore up the earth as it ravaged upward along the length of the cliff. Rocks exploded into the air, and avalanched into the river far below.

“Toshio!” Yasu yelled to his brother. After a few minutes, I open my eyes as the dust finally settled down. The first thing I saw was the tree, which was lying on its side with the long unending root still attached to it’s undergrowth. In front and around it were endless numbers of small pebbles and rocks, proof of the tree’s destruction. I was in awe.

“Toshio!” Yasu yells again for his brother. I had been so sidetracked by the amount of devastation, that I had almost failed to notice. Toshio was nowhere to be seen; I couldn’t feel a trace of him anywhere in the vicinity. Had it worked? Did I really do it?

“You bastard! What have you done?” Yasu babbles on and on, his mouth agape, and his eyes wide with astonishment. He takes a couple steps forward as the last of the crumpling rock falls down over the edge.

The blood in my throat spurts out of my mouth and rushes carelessly down my chin and onto the cold ground. I hear a scream to the left of me, but I was too beaten and exhausted to look at him.

~~*~~

I couldn’t believe it. I was o overcome with so much delight, that I would’ve jumped for joy if I could. A shadow them looms over my figure, and a hand grabs me roughly by the collar of my shirt.

“You bastard!” Yasu shouts angrily, yanking me off the ground. I yell out in pain. Both my legs burned in utter anguish and they hung in the air in sickening angles.

My right eye gazes into the man’s face (my left eye was swollen shut), and I shudder involuntarily. Yasu’s features were malevolent, almost demonic in a way that it was repulsive to look at. In his left hand he held his sword back away from me. Ready to either plunge it into my heart or stomach. This was it; the thought came back to me. But this time there were no reassurances in my head like the last time. I stare down at the sword, ready for my life to be over. I wasn’t going to fight back now; I couldn’t even if I wanted to, my chakra was completely drained. At least I had managed to kill one of the brothers; that was a victory in itself. I guess I could say that. Yasu was hurt also, maybe not physically but emotionally he was.

I smile and close my eyes. Yasu clutches the blade tighter in his hand and I tense for it to rip into me. But something happened just then that stopped him, but I didn’t open want to my eyes. And that’s when I felt it. I felt a growing power somewhere nearby, but it felt unnatural. It felt like a familiar chakra, but the aura around it was so potent, so unfamiliar.

“What is that?” Yasu questions. His voice was off. He sounded as though he was in awe, but he also sounded confused. Flashes of green light then dances across my closed eyelids.

Yasu clenches my shirt tighter, suffocating me even more. He then gasps. “It can’t be…”

Do I dare open my eyes, I ask myself. I do, and I didn’t believe what I saw.

“No, it can’t be. You were dead,” Yasu exclaims, utterly bewildered, and I agreed with him.

My mouth hung open with disbelief.

Because standing before us, alive and breathing, was Kimina…

End of Rakuyo’s P.O.V