Folly & Agendas & Talulah

Chapter 39: Kinship

Misha fired her gun until it ran out of ammunition. She slammed her pistol on the ground and ran towards him. She threw a punch and tried to push the Draco aside, but her sorrow got in the way. 

"You killed him! You. Killed him!" She shrieked. 

Kaiser Rye stopped healing Skullshatterer and grabbed both of Misha's arms. He looked at her rage-filled eyes with a straight face. 

"First you save me! Then you go around killing the Infected! Who exactly are you?!" 

Misha thrashed her arms around. Kaiser Rye took a punch to his arm, but he barely felt it. She kept on delivering punch after punch, but it was futile. 

"You - you - killed! My... brother!" She wailed.

"Misha... he's not dead." But the Ursus didn't hear him, her emotions filled her fragile body until she sank to her knees, heartbroken. Her hands were stained with blood, sweat and tears. 

A pair of fingers twitched. A hand moved. An arm reached for the crying Ursus. His touch was light and cold, but it was also heavy and warm. He eventually touched Misha's legs, and she stopped crying.

"Miii... sha..." 

"Alex?" 

Misha ripped off the gas mask hiding her brother's face, and saw a smile underneath. She held his head up and watched a thin line of blood coming from his mouth. Two brown eyes stared blankly ahead as Misha called his name.

"Alex? Alex? Can you hear me?!"

"Mii... sha... I... can..."

The one known as Skullshatterer was just a teen Ursus on the inside; just a young soul in a callous world. Misha was on her knees, holding her brother's head as he vomited blood. Kaiser Rye lifted his hand and started releasing his Arts onto him; a ray of white covered them. The large opening in his chest was slowly healing, it was fast enough to spare Alex some time, but it didn't seem enough.

"Alex..." Misha uttered.

"Misha," Alex said. "I want... to go... now..."

"Go? Where...?"

"I want... to go home..." 

Alex's strained his last breaths to procure his words. The veil of white surrounding them slowly morphed into a silvery-gray. Misha held his face as she covered up the wound on his chest. The Reunion emblem on his outfit was torn apart, his clothes were tattered and ragged. 

"But we can't go home!" Misha cried. "It's gone. The Reunion captured it and-"

"But... I still... want to go... home. I promised my friends... that we'll play again... someday..."

Kaiser Rye watched as he loosened his control over his Arts; the silver light dissipated, leaving the two siblings alone. Misha hugged Alex in her arms as she tried to comfort the last moments of his life.

"Alex..."

The deafening sounds of battle came to an abrupt end, catching the Draco's attention as he put a hand on Misha's shoulder. The clashing of blades stopped. The only sounds that persisted were the cries of dying soldiers.

Off in the distance, the outlines of a Cautus and a Lung were visible.  

"Where do you want to go?" Kaiser Rye asked; his words sounded like smoke flowing in the wind. He put his hand over the dying Ursus's head. A calming aura emitted from his palm until it enveloped the Reunion leader's head. Misha watched with endless tears, like a river meeting its end at a waterfall.