As usual, please email me at poseidon7801@yahoo.com if you have come up with a title for this Chapter. I would like to state that a part of this Chapter might be a little gross, so don't be eating anything when you are reading this. (Maybe not to the extent of puking, but you have been warned.)
Eva glared up unblinkingly at her younger brother. She was lying on the ground, almost on the brink of death. There was not an inch on her skin that was not covered by first-degree burns, and every single movement sent excruciating pain up and down her body. So acute was the pain that it took all of her resolve not to cry out. Like the heroine she always was, she bore her pain quietly, gritting her teeth every now and then when she had to blink or swallow her saliva to moisten her parched throat.
Arian looked down at her, without a shred of remorse that he had hurt his sister to such an extent. To him, there was nothing worse then letting someone know his innermost secret. And he would kill to keep it that way. Oh yes, he would.
Okay, maybe there was a leeetle bit of remorse on his part, for he squatted down next to Eva and asked if she had any last words.
"Jst don't ask me to convey your feeling for Mariteus. You KNOW that I would never do that!" He smirked. He was so insensitive, even to a dying sibling.
"mkjaffal;lk/...mlkadoiffffalj" Eva mumbled something unintelligible.
"Oh you would have to speak up. I do realise that you're ill-disposed to do that, but try harder, will you?" Saying which, he stooped closer to his sister's mouth to hear what she had to say.
"I...said....NEGLIGENCE IS THE WORST ENEMY OF ALL HUMANS AND GODS ALIKE!!" Eva shouted, and flung a handful of sand into Arian's eyes.
Of course he screamed, for he never saw this coming.
What happened next was even more out of his expectations. Arian had been trying to get the offending sand out of his eyes. With what little strength she had left, Eva performed a series of strokes with her hands, mouthing a mantra to prevent Arian from detecting what she was about to do. A fairly large ball comprising of Fire and Chi started forming in the space between her hands.
Before Arian could react again, the ball was flung toward him at astonishing speed.
He could only deflect it away from his heart at the last second, but failed to drive it away from his......face.
He quickly held up the mirror he always carried wherever he went and studied the effects of that fireball...
His face... the thing he most admired and loved about himself. He looked into the mirror everyday to gaze upon those handsome features, until the sun rose from the West. He loved it almost as much as he loved ...Him. He had used it to bait the many girls in the history of his relationships with the opposite sex. And it was a long list of girls, yes it was. Now that it had turned into this charred...thing (at least, the left side was charred), how is he ever going to live? He could not think of anyone who could love this face, not even Skylar, and certainly not...Him!
A feeling of self-pity had overwhelmed him by now. He could feel a wave of giddiness overcome him as the full extent of the shock hit him. But it was strange that he did not feel any pain at all. Maybe he was really deep in shock. Or the nerves had been damaged along with the skin and flesh...
The self-pity rapidly turned to hate as he whirled towards the dying Eva. He could almost taste this hate, so palpable that it was. He wanted to tear her to pieces; that was the most ardent wish on his mind right now. Why did she always have to stand between him and ......It wasn't enough that there was already a very thick (and now fat) wall between them formed by his lover, now this EVA had to foil his plans too!
He walked over to Eva, who was faintly breathing her last few breaths. She looked up at him in a haughty way, as if to say "There's nothing that you can do to me now, hmmph!"
"Don't be so sure, Eva. There are no definites in a world, especially one with me in it..." Saying which, he gathered Chi in his hand and directed them towards Eva.
All of her wounds healed miraculously. It felt so good to be healed by the cool, soothing Chi that she almost cried in relief. She gazed at him, puzzled, wondering what he was up to.
He grinned evilly, stopping his transmission of the Chi towards Eva.
"Feel better now? Good, that's what I want."
"You must be questioning my motives...Ah, I see that look on your face. It says when did I ever learn to read people's minds or something like that. Well... Hehehe, a dying woman's face is always easy to read..." Slowly he advanced towards Eva, who was desperately trying to inch away. This was, however, a difficult task, for she had not regained her strength.
"You did not think that I would be stupid enough to give you your strength back, did you? Who knows when you might try that sneaky trick of yours again? I might not have a great brain, but I try to avoid getting tricked by the same stuff twice." He looked down at her with his trademark smirk again.
Droplets of blood dripped from his face onto her skin. She could taste the bile that was rapidly rising up her throat. God, how she wanted to puke!
"Err, you're dripping...? she reminded him gingerly.
"I know, ain't it cool? To drip blood and not feel a thing? Hahahahaha!" By now, Arian had reached new heights of delirium and began laughing like a mad hyena.
Eva was afraid now. Very afraid. She had never seen her brother this crazy before, who knows what he might do to her?"
"You are afraid of what I might do, aren't you? Don't worry, I will not touch you at all. I am not interested in unfeminine women such as yourself. It will be a fitting revenge though, but it lowers my class, hahahahahahack ... ha..." He started to choke on his own saliva.
Eva, who still had not gotten up from the ground after numerous weak, ineffectual struggles, widened her eyes as she looked at the mess that was once Arian. He's falling apart, she thought to herself.
Just as suddenly as it started, the mad cackling ceased abruptly. In a move faster than lightning, the Mad One lifted his leg and cracked his sister's skull with the heel of his foot.
Blood, brain liquid and bits of her skull bone was splattered all over the ground. The trunk of a nearby tree was spray-painted in the blood. What had once been Eva's head had become a soggy mass of bloody tissue. The place stunk so badly that even flies dared not to venture near the place.
However bad the state of her brain, Eva was still alive. She was forcibly kept alive by Arian, who kept transmitting enough Chi to keep her in this state.
It was the slowest, most painful torture that anyone could think of. Who would have thought that Arian had such a cruel nature? Eva just hoped that someone would come and kill her off, just to make her suffering end. That was the only way she could think of to escape this.
She then called out the name that always hovered in her mind, hoping that somehow he would save her, in true hero fashion, as he always did for Claudine.
"Hehe, yeah, call his name. You know, don't blame me for what I'm doing now. If you want to blame someone, blame him!" Saying which he crushed what was left of her brain with his foot again, while STILL keeping her alive! (Ewwwww! *_*;;)
Maybe it was her fervent calling that transmitted the message to his heart. Or maybe he was just very near the place. (Or maybe, Mikamiko the storyteller finally felt sorry for her and wanted to end her suffering). Out of nowhere, a figure swooped down from the sky and carried Eva (and her crushed brain) up, up and away, disappearing into the clouds as swiftly as he had first appeared.
Arian stared at the spot where Eva had laid. He could not even react to the sudden appearance of a certain someone, this someone who held a very important place in his heart. And the importance was becoming even larger every minute, every second, until it almost swallowed him whole. He just rooted there, numbly staring at the liquid which had leaked from Eva as she laid there. Stared until his vision blurred, obstructing his view.
Mariteus laid Eva down carefully on an old, creaky bed. He had found this deserted house in the middle of the forest (felt as if an old witch was going to pop up any moment). He could not believe what had happened to Eva. Most of her skull was gone, and she was barely breathing. She repeatedly called his name and was saying "Kill me please, end this suffering for me" as tears kept rolling down her cheeks.
Damn that Arian! He had really gone beyond far this time. If not for the crucial state Eva was in, he would have cheerfully punished him for doing this to his own sister! Mariteus gazed upon Eva's face, holding the white, trembling hand she had held up to his face.
"Mui-mui...is there anything I can do? Anything at all, I will oblige you!" Mariteus sat down beside her as gently as he could to avoid moving the bed too much.
"Kor-kor...Kill...me p...please! I can't stand...The pain cuts through me like a knife!"
"Mui-mui...do you know what you're saying? Killing you will be like killing myself...forgive me for rejecting this request!"
"Bu...but Kor-Kor..." Her face twisted into an unrecognisable shape, as the red-hot pain shot through her again.
"I will save you! I will salvage whatever you had lost during the fight! Believe me, Mui-mui, just hang on!"
Carefully, he sat Eva in an upright position and turned her back towards him. This action had caused quite a bit of a distress to Eva's internal organs, causing her to cough repeatedly. Frowning at his clumsiness, Mariteus took off his shirt and started to direct his internal energy towards his palms. Tapping a few acupoints across her shoulder and back, he started channelling the internal energy gathered at his palms and spread them throughout all the acupoints in Eva's entire body.
Steam emitted from his body as he transmitted his energy into her body. Both of them sweated profusely. The whole room became a sweaty sauna as their temperatures escalated towards the boiling point.
Halfway through the restoration her skull, blood started flowing out of Mariteus' nose, ears and corner of his eyes as his internal energy dipped below level. As he channelled energy through an especially congested acupoint, his Chi suddenly rose up in his throat, causing him to cough out a small pool of blood.
More than a bit alarmed, Eva cried out for him to stop. Even when she knew how stubborn he was, especially when it came to heroic matters like saving his sister.
"Kor-kor, if you do not stop now, I will force myself out of your path. You know what that does, don't you?"
"But if I don't do this now, you will die! I can't live with myself if I do not save you while I can!"
Without another word, Eva repelled the energy that was channelled to her, causing Mariteus to be thrown against the other side of the wall.
Needless to say, her internal organs were injured beyond repair. She coughed up huge amounts of blood that left her brother staring speechlessly.
Mariteus looked at the blood, then at his sister, then at the blood again, unable to decide which was more shocking.
Eva slumped onto the bed like a broken doll. She tried to smile at her brother, but the expression tugged at his heart harder than it would have if she cried.
At the last second, even when she was dying, his sister was still protecting him! She didn't want him to feel sad because of her suffering! Mariteus was tremendously touched by her 'affection' for him, the corner of his eyes wetting ever so slightly.
Yes. After all this, he still thought that all she had for him was sisterly love.
Eva beckoned Mariteus to approach her. At this final second, she wanted to make clear her feelings for him.
Mustn't let him off so easily even after I die. She thought playfully.
"Come here, Kor-kor. I want to talk to you. And help me to adjust to a better position. My back is killing me!" To which Mariteus' face turned ominously black, muttering about how one shouldn't curse herself.
After he had been satisfied that she was lying comfortably, he knelt in front of the bed to hear what she had to say.
"Kor-kor, I want you to know that, for the longest time, I have loved you." As she said these words, she stared at his face, trying to reflect her feelings for him in her eyes.
Mariteus was about to reply in the same way he always did (something like I love you the best among the others too) when something in her eyes stopped him.
This something was familiar to him. Very familiar. For he always had this look himself whenever he was with Claudine or Mikamiko.
It finally hit him, like a Meteor. He stared at her, asking the unspoken question in his expression.
Nod. It was a tiny one, but she did dip her head in confirmation of his suspicions.
All this while Eva thought: Finally he gets it. I had to die for him to be aware of my feelings for him!
Thinking that she must somehow get a reward for trying so hard, Eva reached up and pulled his face close to her own, and gave him her final, deepest kiss.
If only it could end forever....she thought, as tears slid down her cheek silently.
As if air escaping from a balloon, her life flowed out of her body swiftly, and she slumped back onto the bed like a crumpled rag doll discarded by a child.
Mariteus could not react at all. He did not even get the chance to say goodbye to the sister he loved most.
Actually, he had guessed a little about his sister's feelings, but was too cowardly to face them. He did not know how to handle these feelings, without hurting her.
Now, it was too late.
Hugging Eva's dead body tightly, Mariteus cried for the times that they had went fishing, him catching the fish and she roasting them with her fireball. Or the times that they had shared their innermost secrets in the middle of the night.
You could say that they were closer than lovers, for they knew everything about each other (except, of course, Eva's love for him).
Mariteus had lost his soul mate......
Author's Notes: To quote Arian: There are no definites in this world, especially one with Mikamiko (the storyteller) in it *cackle*. Wanna know what is so indefinite about the rest of the story? As I always say...read on! By the way, I used acupoints (acupuncture, hence acupoints, geddit?) because I didn't know what was the English translation for xue (4) dao (4) (ѨµÀ ) which is in Chinese. If anyone knows what it actually is, please, please tell me through email!! Hundreds of thanks to you! Also, if you want to know what Arian will look like after his disfigurement, please visit the Yisheigai Gallery (link is below) where you can also find pictures of Maritues and Claudine. Ciao!
You wanna read the rest of it? Click on the below links......
The introduction
Chapter 1 - The Beginning
Chapter 2 - The Awakening
Chapter 3 - Claudine = Mikamiko?!!
Chapter 4 - Journey to the Centre of the Jungle
Chapter 5 - The Second Condition is......
Chapter 6 - Skylar
Chapter 7 - Old Flame Attack!
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 13
The Yisheigai Gallery
