Loyal Riptide

Part 2 Chapter 7

       Kohsaku pushed back Yoko into a wooden bench behind her and shoved Hizashi back into a marble pillar. Hearing the sound of broken pieces and crunches made his heart wince, but he has to get this done in order to fulfill the tasks ahead. He won't let his own children get in the way of that.

Yoko dashed past him and sliced his arm equipped with his sword with her crystal arms. He gasped in pain, but that didn't stop him from stabbing his sword into her shoulder where the crystal seemed to not have grown. Yoko fell back holding her shoulder tightly with blood dripping down her arm and that was when she realized she had to get lower.

She released the crystal from her arms and shifted them to her legs quickly every time to made an upward kick at her father's chin. She didn't want to kill him, but if it meant it led to Asa getting on the throne again she's all for it. Kohsaku's head snapped up as his chin made impact with his daughter's crystallized kick, falling into a garden full of dying tulips.

That's when a battle cry screamed from above and his head collided with Yoko's shield except she wasn't the one using it. His head felt foggy but once he regained his focus he saw the golden haired king running up to Hizashi with his back turned. He took it as his chance and so he threw his sword towards the human king, but it only clanged off of Yoko's chest plate and fell to the bloodied grass.

Yoko planted a foot on the ground and began to spin herself rapidly until she was nothing than a spinning prism of crystal and started ripping through the garden like a tornado. He managed to escape from having his neck sliced and found coverage his daughter when she stopped spinning to face him. He leapt at her and began kicking her swiftly before tripping her onto the grass and gripping her face in his hand.

"I raised you both myself," Kohsaku told her brushing aside Yoko's bangs to reveal the crystal that replaced her eye when she got her powers, "I raised one to be the elegant well mannered one, the other; a monster. But I didn't expect you both to betray me." Yoko's eyes widened and so did Hizashi who tried to run over but Dorian held her back. "You mean we were just some experiment to you? To see which side of life created the ideal daughter for you?" Hizashi yelled across the garden.

"After your mother died unexpectedly I wanted to see how and why, so I decided to put you up to the test to see if manual labor or a kindled free spirit was the culprit." He explained, still gripping Yoko, "but it appears that both were to blame..."

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       "You can't be in here, Yoko. The princess will be here any moment and I don't think she'll like seeing some hyper active girl bursting through her corridors." An eight year old Hizashi growled at her twin sister. "Oh come on, I want to see the new friend you were always talking about! It didn't take long for me to figure who it was, 'Zashi." Yoko replied, bouncing around on the balls of her feet.  

A door to the right clacked open which startled them both, but it was only a plum haired princess that stood in the doorway. "Who is she?" The princess spoke softly, confused to see almost two identical people that looked like her maid. "I am Yoko, 'Zashi's twin sister! You must be Asa!" Yoko introduced giddily as she shook her hand frantically. The princess, Asa's eyes lit up at the fact she had a new playmate when Hizashi was too busy cleaning.

"Do you want to see what I learned at school today? We learned about our kingdom's history!" Yoko chirped as she took her sister's hand and dragged her into the princess's large room. She opened her book bag that was over her shoulder and produced a large textbook with a leather cover onto the bed. "If you read here it has his majesty's name in it! I know it isn't super interesting but I just find it neat." She explained as she pointed to the late king's name on one of the pages.

"Where does it say that? I don't know how you see it." Hizashi piped in looking very confused as she skimmed the page. "What I thought you knew how to read considering that you worked in the palace with dad!" Her sister replied, sounding saddened. Hizashi shook her head and her sister only replied with a silent 'oh' produced by the shape of her mouth. 

"What is school like?" The princess said changing the subject as she flipped through the textbook. "Oh, it's boring half the time but I guess that's only because I only have Kaiyu to talk to during class." Yoko explained, her face going all moshed. Asa then asked about who this Kaiyu person was and both the twins said that soon they'll sneak her out and introduce him.Despite him being a worry wart about them 'kidnapping' the princess. 

After Hizashi finished with her work the two sisters walked home through the underground tunnels to their home. "You know, I wish dad would put you in school. I am tired of being different from you." Yoko sighed as looked out into the main lagoon with the multiple species of fish swimming about.

"Yeah, I wish he did, too."

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       Yoko commanded the crystal to her face and sharp tips of it embedded themselves into her father's hand who yelped in pain. With her face released Yoko went in for the final blow, but the ground beneath began to cave away and fall into the lake below. She got herself out of the way and as she glanced back to see if Hizashi and Dorian were out of harms way something sharp ripped through her.

Her head jerked down to her abdomen where a sword rested right inside the stomach and blood flowed from the wound. Kohsaku commanded his coral sword to come back to him and his materialized it when he had his hand close to his daughter's stomach. Yoko gripped her father's shoulders and stared into his deep red eyes akin to hers, her hands trebling and tears fogging up her vision. She knew this is where it all ended and she wanted the man that saw her beginning see that it was him that ended, she wanted him to see the life waste away from her eyes and realize how he had failed them all.

Her mind became foggy and her body grew weaker and weaker before she let herself fall down the ruined garden to the now rubble covered lake below. Screams filled her ears before all that was left was the beautiful starry sky she had longed to see for a very long time, the kind that only came at the right time.

This was the right time.

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       Hizashi screamed until her throat no longer could handle it and her voice became nothing more than whisper in the dark. Tears poured down her face as she watched her sister fall down onto the rocky rubble below and not move. She caught eyes with her father and she couldn't see not one bit of regret in them, only power and success along with disappointment. The shield Dorian used to protect Hizashi behind began to fade away and it fell from his hands, onto the grass before it faded into nothingness. 

She couldn't handle it, she couldn't handle of this excuse of a man that stood before her, the wasted space he now was. She commanded her sword to her and dashed towards her father who did nothing to stop the assault that came to him, he only stood there with tired eyes. With a swipe of her sword Kohsaku's head fell to the bloodied grass and his body along with it.

She didn't pay much attention to the pieces of her father as she was already descending the rubble to get to her sister with Dorian in tow. Yoko laid silently atop the rocks with a serene expression on her face tilted towards the heavens. The sword in her stomach faded away along with the memories of her father but with further inspection the crystal that rested in her eye was gone, too. Hizashi frantically searched around her with the help of Dorian and nestled between the now matted part of Yoko's bangs was the Heart of the Crystal. 

She held the crystal gently between her two fingers questioning if she truly needed this, the one thing that caused her sister so much pain after every use. She shook her head and popped it in her mouth along with the salty taste of her tears and gulped it down. Dorian gently placed his blood stained cape around her shoulders and rested his cheek on her shoulder as they just sat there with her tears filling the night sky.

After some time a loud bang filled the serene moment of tears and regret as a warning shot was fired into the water not too far from Aenon's ports. "I knew everything would turn out like this after I accepted Taura's invitation, so I took it upon myself to bring help." Dorian explained softly not bearing to move. The white and red sails of West Gate's navy flapped in the bone chilling wind as little specks of soldiers began heaving themselves down into small rowboats to get to the main land.

"But I guess they were too late."