Night Hunters

Chapter Eleven: Towards the End

"I wonder what is going to happen now?" Kagami wondered.

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"Is it really for the best?" A mournful six-year-old Akashi Seijuro asked Kuroko Tamaki and Nijimura Shuzo even as the two younger ones waited patiently as the older teen saddled the two horses. "Is it really for the best?" He asked again, turning his head towards the Rakuzan Villa behind him.

"You know that nothing we say can convince the king and queen to release him." Tamaki told her cousin quietly. Honestly, she doesn't think that it's a good idea to simply lock the older royal twin up either, but the other alternative is... "Besides, there had already been a public announcement about the Crown Prince—you."

And if the public learns about Seiki and his true nature, there would be a true scandal like no other, was on the minds of all three, but not spoken out loud.

"Come on, Your Highness." Twelve-year-old Nijimura Shuzo held out a hand to the red haired prince, ready to help him on the horse whilst Tamaki got onto her own horse with some difficulty due to her small size. "We should get back."

"I know." Sei murmured mournfully, looking back at Rakuzan Villa wistfully. "I...can't come back here again, can I?" He asked, but neither one of the two with him answered. "Locking him up like this... Not even allowing him to take a step outside... Not even allowing anyone outside ourselves, Shirogane, Uncle Takeru and Aunt Mayumi to learn about his existence..." Sei trailed off. "Wouldn't it be a kinder fate if they'd just killed him when he was a baby?"

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The infirmary was silent for a long time after all four of them—Tamaki, Shigehiro, Haizaki and Nijimura have finished telling Akashi Seijuro everything that they knew, even answering all his questions with the Crown Prince drilling them on everything that had happened for the past four years ever since the murders of his parents, and then when he was somehow drugged and woke up the next day within the confines of Rakuzan Villa, with his twin brother taking his place as the Crown Prince.

"I see..." Akashi murmured at last, finally managing to look at his subordinates' eyes. The things that they'd told him that had been happening in Teiko for the past four years have been horrific, and he almost didn't want to believe them. But he knows his own brother, and he knew that it is what Seiki is capable of doing. "So Midorima is..." He trailed off slowly, looking at his own cousin who looks ready to cry.

Neither Midorima nor Tamaki have confirmed or denied the rumours going around that they have been dating back before things have gone spiralling down to Hell, but Akashi is neither blind nor deaf. The two have been amongst the few that took on regular bodyguard shifts for his guard detail, especially after they have finished their apprenticeships. He had seen the way that Midorima and Tamaki have looked at each other, and he definitely didn't miss the way that Midorima's second-in-command—Takao Kazunari had looked at Tamaki. But as it wasn't any of his business, Akashi had said nothing, and had kept out of his cousin's love life.

"I told him not to do it!" Tamaki burst out. "I told him to stay alive! 'To be human is to be a monster, and the act of being a monster makes you truly human'." Sitting on a chair behind her, Nijimura stiffened—as that had been what he had told Tamaki before he'd left the Royal Guard. "Shu-nii told me that once. So why couldn't he...— Why couldn't Shin stay alive?"

"Tamaki..." Shigehiro murmured, feeling rather guilty.

"I...never even...said that I'm sorry...! I never told him that I love him!" Tamaki covered her eyes with her left hand, not wanting any of the males currently in the room with her to see that she had been crying. "I know that he went the way that he want to. I know that he died a hero's death—by making sure that you could be rescued. But... There must have been a better way. Why must he be such a martyr? The true victors in a war are those that survive. We both knew that. I'd never blamed him for doing what he had to do, as it is what he has to do under the Red King's rule to survive. So why...? Why does Shin have to die?"