Back on the balcony, Rou's cold fury continued, relentlessly aiming every ice attack in his roster at Lin. As Rou charged a lethal looking blow, Lin's rage grew. "You think you can take me?", he roared as the flurry of ice attacks intensified. "You can't even melt my ice you're so pissed off!" Rou taunted. Lin had met his gaze with a chilling glare, "You're still such a child, Rou. You'd never even think that I've gone through just as much emotional pain as you, I've spent years trying to warn you, but you never listened!", he exclaimed.
"Well, if you say you're in pain, why didn't you prevent mine!", Rou shouted back as he summoned another series of ice attacks. "Why did you leave your only family?", asked Lin with a brief hint of a childish smile, "You just want to leave me, just like our mother did...", Lin explained. Rou's smirk broke into a cold, lifeless stare, "You're callous, unhealthily vain!", he said coldly. Lin refused to respond, laughing when while firing seething flames at his brother, "It's what I needed to do to stay strong!", he remarked in a booming register.
"I'll never forgive you Lin! You don't deserve to be my brother! ", screamed a maniacal Rou. "You tricked my heart, my mind, even my will!" He rushed at his brother, but Lin was ready. "You'll never understand my conviction, and for that you will pay!". The men began charging at each other with not remorse , Rou dodging fireballs with unnatural ease and hair-trigger accuracy, and Lin trouncing glaciers and melting every frozen object in sight.
"Go to hell, you bastard!", screamed the enraged redhead. The two men continued to duel for what seemed like eternity, both of them intent on one thing, destroying each other. "Huh! Giving up your love for vengeance! Sound familiar to you?", Lin teased while dousing Rou in a wave of fire. Rou countered with a small yet compact ice wall, blocking Lin's trejectory, "I would never give up my love for anything! Demitris, he remains in my heart even as I fight this battle. It's you with the vengeance!", Rou declared. "I guess there's only one option then!", replied Lin murderously, gathering up every ember in his body.
"I don't think so!", Rou roared in an overwhelming fury. The ground beneath his feet began to quake, and the only thing that kept him from falling to serious danger, kept Rou firmly on his feet was the eerie ice. Lin could barely hold on due to the vigourous shaking. "Rou, what is this?!", Lin squealed. "Freezing from where you'll never expect.", he replied daringly. Suddenly, sharp, crystalline ice began to erupt from the balcony floor, knocking Lin to the ground. "Wow, you're really planning on destroying your home to slaughter me...", the older brother responded.
The quaking oscillated throughout the ground and first floors of the mansion, so much so that it could be heard on the west wing corridor of the building, where Fleur and her allies resided. "Fleur, is there a massive earthquake?", asked Craaq, shivering. Fleur readied her answer, but Demitris interrupted her. "I know what this is, it's coming from Rou's battle. If I've correctly identified this move, then we could be in big trouble...", he muttered. "What is it, Demitris?", questioned Fleur.
Demitris sighed, "He's freezing the balcony floor from the inside, we have to do something!", he stated in distress.
Blind to it all, Rou and Lin were back at full force, preparing themselves for the final blow. "This is the last I will see of you, Rou Okumura!", Lin announced, his hands burst into a corkscrew of flames , "I hope you know what you've done!". Rou scoffed, "I don't think so, the shit is going to hit the fan!". The blue haired proceeded to unleash a barrage of icicles, when an unexpected visitor arrived. "This will not be the fate of my home!", they announce.
Coming up the flaming stairs was Fleur, alongside Viper, Craaq and Demitris, With a swipe, Viper uses her wand to dissipate every sign of combustion, giving the others room to assist. "Demitris, I knew you'd pull through!", Rou commented. "Damn it! I thought we'd got rid of you guys!", yelled Lin, highly surprised. Despite the assistance, Rou quickly started to make a move on Lin again, but on Demitris's instruction, Craaq drew a sword between them.
"No!", Demitris ordered. The one eyed man kept his ground despite Lin's attempts at burning him, promptly stopped by Fleur's many weapon threats. Finally, he was able to tell his side of the story. "I don't want you getting consumed by your own trauma again. Yes, it's going to be hard, but this time, I'll do my best to help you in the right direction. I'm not forcing you, Rou; but at the auction, I was so caught up in preventing an attack that I forgot to think of the repercussions to your mind and led Lin straight to you...".
And with that, Rou spoke up, "Demitris, I don't know what to say. All this time I ran away from my fear, yet still chased it at the sand time, hoping one day it won't hurt me, one day I could face the man that forced me to kill Kakei, and ultimately the love inside me...". Demitris shed a tear, "I love you Rou...", he cried. "A week ago, I would've rejected you for the sake of your safety, but I can't keep it inside. I love you too, Demitris." Rou confessed. ve inside me...". Demitris shed a tear, "I love you Rou...", he cried.
"N-no...", Lin interrupted, but Viper restrained him in a firm lock of titanium chains before he could get to the couple. Rou and Demitris took each other into an affectionate embrace, staring into each other's eyes. In that brief minute, no one else mattered. For them, there was no other place but the other, and in that moment, their lips touched and nothing was going to be the same again.
Fleur, Craaq and Viper applauded and the enamoured men looked back smiling. Then, after a short break, Fleur gave her next orders. "I'm so glad we've found you both, in love and happy at that. But now the real challenge begins, reuniting with Shiva and Sulena, retrieving Aster and finally showing Vox the door!". The group raised their fists and leaving Lin behind shackled, headed for a place to hide out.
However, the red haired man was subsequently swiped upon their departure.