The next morning it was clear out. But so bitter cold it hurt to breathe. The ice underfoot snapped with brittle frustration, and the snow hissed angrily around thick boots. The sun was blinding on the snow; that piercing light that tends to paint everything with a thick, cruel brush. They had been walking for hours; Gourry had become increasingly agitated far before dawn, and decided he needed to press on. Driven by whatever small thing with sharp teeth that lurked behind his ribcage, and gnawed and gnawed and gnawed. Zelgadis had seen the wild look in his eyes and just went to fetch Amelia. Culmination was sharp now in the air and it tasted tinny in the back of the throat. It tasted metallic, and all three were abnormally wide awake when the attack came.
Impossible flames just welled to life around them, cackling and black, like a non-fire. Gourry's blade cut through them cleanly, killing the magic to reveal the slightly thrown off mage himself, blood-stained and cancerous. Gourry's attack was silent, immediately dropping his pack and just.. leaving the ground, sword extended.
A fireball of impossibly hue flew at Amelia. The young mage easily dodged it and threw back her own good morning kiss called "BLAST ASH!" as Zelgadis cast Astral Vine. Four henchmen stepped out to flank their boss, becoming men-shaped from wolf-shaped in sickly purple cocooning, menacing and unreal and bitter, as the scent of cloves hung, strangely, in the air.
Gourry ignored them, and they concentrated all their energies on the out-numbered duo, seeming to want to leave the Blade alone.
One fell easily; Amelia's Flare Bit combined with Zel's sword slash and he seemed to...consume himself. The energy in him was hot and intent and rotten, and the same black color as the flames swallowed the unnamed follower in a thirsty gulp. Amelia and Zel could only stare for the moment, ducking a black attack spell just in time.
Gourry said not a word, his sword his enunciation through thrust, slash, and parry. The magician wanted to be Death. Gourry was going to send him to oblivion for a proper introduction. Again and again, pre-knowledge saved him where Lina had been surprised. A swing, a cut, and broken magic dissolved at his feet time and again, Lina riding unseen on his back, her smell constant, and her hands a comfort around his neck. For the first time, he could feel her. And it had been so long since she had been there.
Two attackers were left now. Their magic wasn't as trained as The Man's, and they had proven surprisingly fragile once their defense was broken. One slipped the defenses, a blow to her ribs sending Amelia flailing, onto her a knees, her cry drowned by Zelgadis' vengeful attack. One now.
First blood. Gourry's blade met the murderer's shoulder, rendering the arm useless. The chimeric shaman could only stare in shock as Gourry.. RETREATED?! And let the bastard cast healing?! Was even Gourry that stupid?! "GOURRY! YOU FOOL!! ATTACK!! ATTACK NOW!!" The blond head never even turned to acknowledge the cry.
A moment of silence, and the killer confidently concentrated on his healing, thinking all the dark vermin in his head; mental rats darting here and there and spreading their internal disease. He's weak, says one tidbit, he's useless without the Dra Matta says another, we can defeat him easily.. oh so easily... the smirk is a raven's cough in the darkness, and whispers of intellect continue to scurry in his black-clad head. The Dra Matta is dead..
Gourry had been so silent, frozen to his heated core deep within. He stared at the killer, sword point down, and the sudden absence of silence startled Amelia.
"Why?"
The killer smiled as a thousand hisses became laughter in his mind. "Why what?"
"Damn you." Gourry did not enunciate it; there was no harsh spill of words. There was.. nothing. Only truth. The truth that he intended to see out. To damn him. With Gourry's own hands.
"OH! YOU must mean the Dra Matta!" His smile was sharp now, and bleeding in Gourry's soul.
The man's front teeth were crooked. And all Gourry could think of was laughing clear eyes the color of a stormy sunset. And then they turned into crooked teeth. Crooked fucking teeth. The irony was literally sickening.
"She has a name!". The last word bore all of Gourry's weight as he leaned on it. A name that had no one to answer it now.
"Well. She HAD a name."
Zel and Amelia flew forward to begin a spell attack as Gourry's eyes widened and his iris' shrunk. "And I'll take away yours!"
Amelia stopped Zel just in time as Gourry turned needle quick and slashed at them both, a warning; Gourry never missed. Zel stared in shock as his sword landed neatly in Gourry's palm before Zel had quite realized it was gone. The Guardian was gone. Gourry was all shine now; beautiful and gleaming, and a sharp thrilling edge that had a terrible, terrible thirst. The red haired girl clung to his shoulders in a reassuring weight that only he ever saw or felt. But.. that's how they had always been. Looking at a stunned Zelgadis and a frightened Amelia he drove the chimera's sword blade-first into the rock he stood upon. The shaman had an eerie sensation that the blade would never show a scratch, and the hilt would forever yearn for a different palm. He stared at them, a great silent beast with it's smiling silver claw. Slowly Zel raised his hands, taking a step back, and Gourry uttered one word: "Mine."
"But Gourry-san -- " Zelgadis picked her up at the middle and backed into the tree line with her. Gourry stared for a minute more, the blue in his eyes heated metal that only waited to kill. It dreamed of blood spilled and blood yet to shed.
For a moment more he stared at them, something painful in his features. Then he swung back to the killer, satisfied to have him all to himself. A thousand red lines seemed to course across his gaze and he saw them all connect and form the evil that stood so confidently before him. Miles of delicate tubing, veins too small to see with the naked eye. All waiting for the one correct swing of the willing blade that lay with coiled eagerness in his hilted palm, and the amazing balance that gave all life its flow would be rent with surgical precision. There was an art to healing. And there was an art to death.
The blood in her eyes ran down his shoulders and under his skin and the first strike was his. The battle began again, every magic thrown just behind an invisible whisper in his ears, and the slash of razor bladed instinct sending the black loathing to fall at his feet before a touch. Relentlessly he drove the man back, the idiot, the jellyfish, and his real splendor shown through in his hands. Who needed brains when you had this?
Zelgadis stared. That was all you could do when acting as witness to this kind of destruction. The terror of it. The pain of it. The glory of it. Every spark of resentment he had ever felt for the gentle giant seemed to melt and pulse to a flow in his breaking heart, and he realized THIS was what he had envied for so long in Gourry Gabriev. All of this brilliance, all of this truth, and all of this talent. How can you not resent someone who is everything you wanted to be, far away inside? The unknown swordsman became dark where he had been light, the skill the counter-balance to the perfect features that seemed to exist as a reminder to Zelgadis of his own deformity. And the blaze of self-destruction, the poetry of his suffering, and the depth of his soul. It was a shattering experience, watching a star consume it's self.
A disembodied voice began to chant in a strange tone and accent, high and metallic, and a ball of light that screamed for blood began to grow in a sickening pulse from delicately spaced fingers. Together in front, echoes of the Ra Tilt and the Dragon Slave both, but an attack spell of frighteningly unknown trajectory. Gourry's eyes were widened and blinded both, and pure instinct had taken over, allowing him to do what he always did best. Fight.
Zelgadis still held Amelia, absent in his awe, and Amelia did not know her fingers were buried in his sleeves. They stared as, in the language of metal and warfare, Gourry saw what he sought.
An opening.
And it led to his strike, cleanly severing both hands at the wrist, the metal heated and cauterizing the blow, taking it one stop from a killing. Silence screeched now in the forest proper, and Gourry's face was hard and unforgiving, his gentleness robbed and murdered by this before him. A tiny ghost sat at his shoulders still, her eyes a burning stare as the sociopathic caster stared at what had been his cherished weapon.
Gone.
"Like Lina is gone. Her name is Lina." The sword rose once more. "And yours is No More." The whine of the blade's cut cleaved the man's scream as Gourry neatly severed his head from his body, letting it roll where it might.
And silence took back it's normal flow, everything returning to "normal" with absurd haste; nature seeming eager to look away and pretend nothing had happened. Gourry just stood where he has struck, arms limp now and strong chest heaving. Lina's cloak still lay at his waist, a dark bruise on a shining warrior. His head slumped on his neck and he stared at the remains of a nameless nothing who had killed the brightest star in the universe, just because he could. "Lina." Gourry whispered, and and then... tears of all things, as the emotional well over-flowed and ran down his face.
"We did it."
"Gourry.."
"Gourry-san..." His companions started towards him. Amelia had a tremulous smile on her face, hoping this was the healing process at last. Zelgadis jerked her backwards at the last minute, some precognition keeping them both away from their friend. Gourry seemed to fold in on himself for a moment. And then he exploded outwards, a scream throwing his head back, and he raised his blade high in the air.
"GOURRY!" Zelgadis and Amelia screamed, fearing that moment of impalement, fearing the sight of that long blade protruding in bloodied obscenity from the man's back. But that moment never came, the guardian slamming the flat of the blade onto the rocks the now- fallen killer had used as back cover. The blade seemed to slow down as every moment around and in them grew and grew, and they saw every dazzle of sunlight snap along the broken pieces as they arched and then landed to bounce lightly around him.
Chest still heaving, he speared the broken end through the severed neck of the killer's head, and with another cry, drove the hilt into the rock, chipping pieces at terrifying speeds, cutting his arms in shallow skims. The result was a grim offering. It was tribute to his fallen friend and lover, and it was a statement. The guardian was no more.
All Amelia and Zelgadis could do was stare in horror at what he had done. At what he had said with no words. Gourry had a macabre and dark eloquence at times.
"Lina." was all he said, and he turned, and strode back towards the inn.
"Gourry-san!" Amelia burst out, running after him. "We-we have to at least bury him!"
"So bury him then. I'll have none of it." He never slowed his pace.
"But-but -- Gourry-san!" He stopped abruptly, letting Amelia shoot past him a few steps before she could backpedal.
"Gourry-san!" she said again, trotting to his side, her eyes darkening with anger.
"No Amelia." he was quiet. So.. quiet. The light that had burned so brightly in the battle seemed to have gone out now, burned away to nothing. "I did what I did. He is what he tried to make Lina. A ghost." By not burying the remains.. no name on a stone.. Gourry had condemned Lina's killer to a forever of no identity. To wander, searching for himself, as Gourry had done forever since Lina had gone. "Let the wolves have him" And he continued walking back to the inn. There was no longer any point in pressing on. He wanted to go to sleep.
Zelgadis slowly caught up to the princess as she stared at Gourry's departure. "C'mon, Amelia. It's not a good idea to leave him alone right now." Reluctantly the young ruler allowed herself to be led away by Zelgadis-san. It was hard to believe any of this had happened. "Gourry's right, you know. It is vengence. Think of Lina." Amelia DID think of Lina-san. For some time now she had been afraid she was the only one who still did.
"Tonight he's in high gear. And he's running. The.. beauty, of the unexpected."
-- Rod Sirling, The Twilight Zone