Chapter 43 - Burning

Iris

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Valkyre snarled, stumbling to his feet, launching himself at the light-blooded female. This time, the magic in his palm gathered, then shot out in a zig-zagging line that snapped and doubled back on itself, striking Eire between the collarbones, sending her skidding back a few steps, but not enough to make her lose her balance.
The angel darted forward immediately, snapping the blade from his boot into his hand, blood-slicked fingers curling tightly around the stiff, leather-wrapped hilt. He slashed at the other, but Eire only lept backwards, wings flaring brightly for an instant, then vanishing as she was pushed into the confines of the narrow ally between bookshelves, the cases looming above them, as if enclosing them in.
Valkyre swung the blade sharply, cutting upwards, the hot blood pumping through his veins making his eyes lock on to her thin, fragile neck. He pushed magic into the slice of steel now, and though Eire managed to dodge the physical blow, the magic struck her instead, missing her neck but slashing through the fabric of her shoulder, leaving an angry black smash of magic on her pale white skin.
She screeched, then lept up suddenly, vanishing over the tops of the bookcases.
Valkyre was left suddenly alone, breathless, his arm trembling with the pain, the effort. The angel glanced around, but there was no sign of the other, and his vision was much too limited here.
Valkyre began to back out, eyes still scouring the tops of the bookcases, heartbeat pounding heavily in his ears, the gaps glimpsed between the dusty voluminous books all seeming to contain flickering shadows and dancing black eyes...
Too late, he heard the lightest shift of clothing. The angel whirled around, seeing the long fingernails, the white magic glowing as the hand darted towards him, aimed at his neck...
And then they stopped.
Valkyre was frozen for an instant, stunned. Small hand around Eire's arm, fingers clenched tightly... and...
His eyes.
Sharp and narrowed, the eyes that glowed through the boy's disheveled gray hair were blood-red, cold and focused.
Valkyre was frozen in place, blood feeling like it'd frozen in his veins. ...When was the last time he'd seen those eyes? Iris... he...
Eire hissed, teeth flashing. She made as if to pull her arm away, but the boy held his grip, and in one smooth movement abruptly twisted her limb around painfully, half-dragging the light-blooded female to the ground, arm pinned behind her back. Eire shrieked in pain, struggling.
"...I..." Valkyre stared in dumbfounded amazement, unable to pull his gaze away from the boy's cold, calculating gaze, the small fingernails digging into Eire's pale smooth flesh, knuckles gleaming white. His face... his eyes... burning, bright, narrowed, filled with anger, hate...
"I... Iris-!"
The boy stopped, snapped his head around at the words, staring at Valkyre, ruby-red eyes wide, the angel's face reflected down to his cores. Iris blinked, sharply.
The angel took a small, hesitant step forwards, reaching out with his sticky, stained fingers.
The boy seemed to draw away from him slightly, confusion in his dark ruby gaze.
"...Iris?"
His eyes seemed to cloud over, the boy drawing into himself, as if to try and find something he'd forgotten, name something he'd lost...
Eire seized the opportunity to tear herself away, snarling, her other hand whirling around with a swirl of angelic magic glowing brightly in her palm.
Valkyre saw the splash of light, pulsing, humming with the power it contained. His body acted for his petrified mind, legs pushing him forwards, darting between the light-blooded female and the boy, the arm with the blade in it swinging out.
The steel edge of the blade bit and slashed along Eire's forearm, thrown up to guard against the attack, but her other hand still swept around, the palm catching Valkyre full-on in the chest.
Both the angel and Iris were sent flying back, the boy's limp body hitting and skidding over the black, dusty floor, Valkyre on the other hand slamming against an expanse of bare wall between the tables of computers and slumping over.
Pain blotted out his vision, splattering black and red over his eyes. The angel felt like his entire body was on fire. The impact of the heavy cement wall had been nothing, nor the back of his skull hitting the sill marking the border between the glass walls and the normal plaster...
But his chest felt aflame, the burning feeling consuming him, turning him inside out. His veins felt like tunnels for searing fire and his left arm seeming to accompany it, trembling continually, quivering. His breathing was ragged, pain exploding like bright sunbursts behind his eyes, pounding at his skull. Maybe that impact had hurt some.
The slightest gasp of a word, the soft exhale of a breath.
The angel blinked his eyes open lethargically, sharply inhaling a broken lungful of air as he tried to hold back the pain in his ribs, his chest, feeling blood trickle down below his scalpline, warmth seeping just behind his ear.
Iris.
The boy's body had rolled as it landed, facing the angel, the thin, gaunt arms struggling to push the frail form back up, the sifting gray hair falling over the boy's eyes and face.
And yet...
"...Val...kyre."
The boy looked up, eyes half-lidded, tired and almost sleepy-looking.
And gray.
The same stone-gray, empty gray eyes that Valkyre knew, that he recognized as the eyes of the one being his world now centered about, the one thing his hands could protect.
That he'd failed to protect.
Iris smiled.
Valkyre gasped out a breath he hadn't known he'd been holding, the pain inside of him ebbing, pulling back just slightly.
And then, there was the flaring of wings.
Iris whirled around, seeing Eire walking towards them, illuminated white wings unfurled, a small swirling, wisping ball of yet more angelic magic in her hand. Her other arm hung limpy at her side, the fabric of her black shirt slashed to ribbons, the wound at her shoulder glowing angry red-black from Valkyre's blow, the lower half of her left forearm showing the gaping wound from the hit dealt by the blade, dark blood dripping on the floor.
Valkyre choked in a breath, holding it in as he tried to push himself away from the wall with his good arm, the fires in his ribs blooming back again, making him wince in pain, gritting his teeth. He almost slipped, hands wet and sticky, and would've collapsed if he hadn't managed to push himself back, leaning on trembling, half-bent legs.
In front of the angel, Iris had also risen to his feet, if somewhat shakily, his thin legs seemingly bound to collapse at any instant.
Eire stopped, standing in front of the boy, gazing down through her long, slightly mussed white hair, fingers tightening around the magic in her palm.
"...Don't..." The boy's voice was ragged, gasping.
"Don't... t-touch... ...him..."
Eire's faceted black eyes blinked, twice.
She smiled then, and closed her eyes. Her right hand relaxed, magic dulling slightly, gathering lazily, sluggishly.
Then, abruptly, she snapped her wings around, as if to hit him. The boy flinched, arms raised, and at the same time, Eire brought up her arm again with the pulsing magic. Her long, slender fingers found their way to the boy's face, fingertips poised on the scalpline, palm's center over the boy's forehead.
The white-winged angel was smiling, but her black eyes raised, found Valkyre's, locking on to them.
The pulse of magic blasted out.
Iris screamed, body jerking suddenly upright, head snapping back.
Valkyre, frozen, suddenly saw black and white whirl around the boy's form, stretching above into the air, humming with power but restrained, light, crisp, otherworldly, like the sudden feeling of dew-laden grass and moist air flooding a musty, stale dry room.
The wings were there, haloed glowing arched white, feathers ruffling silently, and dark velvet-edged curves of angular, ridged black, unfolding into the darkness...
But it was only an image.
Even as he watched the wings rise into the air, Valkyre could stare straight through them, translucent like frosted glass, and see Eire, face still impassive, smiling.
Iris' small body slumped, and the wings broke off, dissipating like mist before a cool, sweeping wind into the air.
The boy's body crumpled to the ground.
"You-!"
Valkyre's paralysis snapped away, and the angel grabbed at the slippery sill under his hand, pushing himself fully to his feet. He lunged forward, snapping a small dagger out from a sheath strapped on his waist, stilling his trembling hand on the hard hilt and singing thrum of metal.
Valkyre lunged at the light-blooded female, feigning a strike to the left, which Eire fell for, dodging to away from the suspected blow and leaving her side off-guard. The angel spun around, blade slashing out. The steel edge bit through the fabric over her stomach, sank deeper, deeper, digging itself into her waist, her side, Valkyre's glove and fingers slicked in fresh hot blood, splattering over his hand.
The small dagger's blade finally emerged, having bit straight through her side, flinging droplets of blood through the air, leaving a gaping, slit wound.
Valkyre stood there for a moment, stunned at his own action, startled by the other's lack of reaction. The angel looked up into the other's face, where the stony black eyes glinted back at him.
Eire smiled, light, chuckling laughter bubbling from her throat. Her wing swept in then from the side, striking Valkyre heavily in the gut, almost lifting him up in the air.
The angel doubled over at the pain, gasping heavily, stumbling backwards. He felt himself slipping, falling, the wing still driving hard into his stomach.
He landed hard on his back, gasping breathlessly at the impact, seeing nothing but swirling black and bursts of red in his vision, faintly hearing the scraping shuffling of the wing being drawn back.
His chest was aflame still, burning at him, feeling like the blood inside of him was boiling, seething, pumping itself furiously through his veins, screaming to get out...
The angel had his eyes squeezed shut, trying to force down the pain, the burning fires... His eyes snapped open suddenly at a cool hand on his shoulder, pressing against him softly, lightly.
Eire's long hair tangled, drifted over his face, her pale pale skin and black eyes burning into him. The wires in her cheek marred the otherwise alabaster, stone-smooth skin, weaving themselves through her flesh and vanishing again beneath her eye. The light-blooded female was crouching beside him, hand on his shoulder pinning him down, wings spread over them both, surrounding them in milky-white tainted dark.
Valkyre tried to get his hands to respond, tried to push feeling back into his functional arm, to feel the hilt of the dagger he only hoped was still in his hands. His body screamed in protest.
And then, Eire leaned down further and kissed him.
His pain exploded, shattering, his vision turning purely black, the burning sensation inside of him drenched suddenly, replaced by a vacuum that sucked up the poisonous, ice-edged shards of glass throughout his body and smashed them all into his heart and empty cavern of a chest, pain sizzling and crackling through him like electricity, snapping along and shattering each and every individual nerve in his body, down to his core, draining him dry, swirling through him with the force of an uncontrolled hurricane, snapping his bones, crushing his veins, his heart, his lungs...
His heart beat once, thumped loudly, echoing in his ears, jerking his entire body upwards, snapping his eyes open.
Eire pulled her lips apart, sat back, the blood from her wound leaving a warm, wet stain on the other's body that he didn't, couldn't feel, her senseless smile still on her face, black eyes widened, empty, gaze like...
...Like that thing they'd fought at the inn. The creature with two different colored eyes, that didn't die through a blade to the heart. That looked...
His heart, seemingly with great effort, beat again, sending pain starbursting over Valkyre's entire body, making him gasp, inhalation of air feeling like razor blades sluicing down his throat, stabbing themselves through and through his lungs. He wanted it to stop. He wanted the burning to do away, the ice to dissipate, wanted his heart to stop, hold still, leave him...
Hot, burning, boiling blood flooded through his veins. His head throbbed, his wounds screaming out as if with voices, as if through torn, hoarse and bloodied throats. The blood that slicked down over his skin seemed to scald him alive, like melted metal or acid, bubbling away his flesh.
Eire was smiling, standing, turning away from him, glowing white wings ringing her, the one arm still dangling uselessly.
Valkyre gasped, groaned as his heart beat again, the pain flooding through him afresh, ripping him apart muscle by muscle, nerve by nerve. Burning, flaming, all-consuming, never stopping...
Like there was something dark crawling over him, talons digging into him, something coming back up from some black, hidden pit, laughing as it tore him apart and dragged him down. Something... familiar... something returning...
Eire was bending down, grabbing something, arm locked tightly around it...
...Iris.
The boy was still conscious, struggling, gasping, weakening.
The gray eyes, wide and frightened, locked on Valkyre's dulled, unseeing violet. The angel saw the gray, felt he should remember something... he struggled, wanting to move, to rise, to grab the gray back and crush it tightly against himself, knowing it would all be his own, the one thing he'd sworn to protect...
The pain overrode his wants, tearing at him viciously, consuming him from the inside out. He wanted to give up, wanted to lay back, tell his heart to stop... to die, to let it burn away, let him loose it all to emptiness, sinking into soft velvet and shattered glass rather than facing this pain one more time...
"VALKYRE!"
His eyes snapped open, body flinching, feeling himself struggling to fight again, his heart giving out a heavy, slow thump that echoed throughout his entire form, throughout his complete, broken being.
Iris had screamed. The ceiling was crumbling, littering the ground all around them, collapsed by a deafening blast the angel hadn't even heard.
Eire had flared her wings, crouching down. The boy was wrapped around by her arm, Iris' gray eyes wide, scared, pained, mouth wide open, one thin arm reaching out for Valkyre, for his guardian angel protector...
And then he was gone, along with Eire and the black streak of Rheis, plaster and dust and mortar crumbling all around, showing a night sky painfully bright and pinpricked with glittering, glaring stars, winking and bobbing.
Valkyre felt like something had died inside of himself, a final flickering flame trying to hold up against the eternal, unending waves of pain, and all he wanted was to rise, to fly, to find the boy, the gray, and take it all back...
He was struggling, working his arm behind himself, trying to push himself up, trying to blot out the sharp bursts of pain... he managed to half-rise, then his heart pounded one more time, and he screamed, from pain twisting and mingling with the raging fires and endless burning, from pain that curled up his heart and crushed it in its cold sharp palm, from something much, much worse that made his vision blur again and something warm and hot slide down his face, skidding away as he felt himself falling, falling backwards again.
And, finally, the darkness and nothingness that he'd so wanted consumed him, closing him up in a black, velvety purse of empty shells and swirled images, of gray eyes and red eyes and neon-white and black and wings.

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AN: I am now officially over-descriptive.
...Majorly. >>;
That then resulted in Valkyre getting bashed around a bit more than I'd wanted. ...At least, I think I didn't want that to happen... ^^;
Hurm. I had to cut out parts of Rheis and Raguel fighting 'cuz there was no good way to put it in without it feeling like a slideshow movie, so I'll have to save it for later. Oh well.
I also realized that this is the first time I've used caps for an entire word.
...I think it deserved to be.
And, Astri, I know, Iris really is like a Colette. >>; Damn, I didn't mean for that to be happening. Luckily, this should be the last time. ^^;
Well, that's all for now, duckies. Thankya all, and see ya~

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