Chapter 10: When The Roses Bleed
A/N: Here we go...get your tissues. Thanks to Full Metal Alchemist 3rd Ending Theme, Motherland, for the song in the background to me writing this. And lately, my buzz word has been engulf...strange.
Hakkai felt a deep emptiness in the pit of his stomach. Pain chills zoomed up his spine as he doubled over. He grasped his heart. He breathed heavily, and slowly, after a few minutes of internal pain, he opened his eyes, and he swore, he could see. " W-What?" Hakkai said in shock, seeing the blurry silked emerald blankets that engulfed him.
" My vision...it's returning..." Hakkai gasped, as it quickly faded back and forth between black and colors. This made his head hurt, also considering, if he did see in colors, it was blurry. He heard a knock at the door.
" Come in." He said, rubbing at his eyes.
" Hakkai...?" Yaone gasped, more worried then normal as she opened the door.
" Yes Yaone, what's the matter?" Hakkai asked.
" Father...wants to see you..." She gasped. Hakkai was quite puzzled about the way Yaone was speaking, but he didn't know that behind the door, Shien had a gun pressing into Yaone's back.
" Alright." Hakkai said, unknowingly. " I should tell him my vision is returning as well." He said, more happily, pushing the sheets on the bed back a little.
Shien pushed the barrel of the gun into her back and made Yaone gasp. " Come along then, he's in the garden." He said, trying not to just cry out to her brother not to go. Yaone's heart and stomach hurt. She wanted to throw up, she could sense the worst coming, but could do nothing about it.
" Yes." Hakkai nodded, standing up and walking out of the door. Shien moved Yaone around so he was not visible to Hakkai's returning vision. Shien removed his cloth belt and handed it to Yaone.
" Put it on his eyes." Shien said, pressing the barrel to her neck.
" Oh, Hakkai." She said, taking his hand and pulling him back towards her. " Father said it's a surprise and he wanted you to wear this blindfold." She said nervously, putting the silk cloth over his eyes. Hakkai was quite puzzled, but went along with it anyway with a shrug.
" I'm sorry." She whispered. Shien heard this and pushed the gun into her neck harder, making her gasp and be quiet. Yaone sighed and pulled her brother along out to the garden.
" What exactly is father planning?" Hakkai asked. Yaone's heart sank.
" I don't know, brother." She said softly. " All I can say, is that, you can't be hurt."
" ...That doesn't sound good." Hakkai said softly in return. " What is going--"
" I can't say anymore." Yaone said harshly, yet, Hakkai felt a strong amount of pain and nervousness in his younger sister's tone. She was hurting, but why couldn't she tell him? They were alone, weren't they?
" Ahhh, you brought him here." Homura's whisping voice said, putting his hand under Hakkai's chin. " Good, Yaone...Shien."
" Shien!?" Hakkai gasped.
" Oh, you didn't know? Shien has a gun to your sister's back. Goku and Sanzo are also being held at gunpoint, Kougaiji and Dokugakuji are already dead, they tried to stop Shien." Homura said, kneeling down to a pool of Kougaiji's blood and dipping his finger in it, and tracing it along Hakkai's cheek.
" Why did you do this!?" Hakkai asked.
" Who blindfolded him?" Homura asked Shien, ignorinng Hakkai's question.
" I did, sire. He is slowly returning his vision." Shien informed.
" That's perfect." Homura added. " I still have another surprise for him after all and he still needs to see it." He grinned.
" Answer my question!" Hakkai yelled. Homura raised his hand and slapped Hakkai on the face, knocking him to the ground.
" Don't dare speak to me like that, you ungrateful bastard!" Homura yelled. Hakkai doubled over and gasped out blood, mixing in with the puddles of Kougaiji's and Dokugakuji's that had already fallen. He caught his breath and looked up.
" You can't tell me what to do anymore! You aren't and never were my father!" Hakkai snapped. Homura's pupils shrank in anger, and kicked Hakkai in the stomach.
" STOP!" A ragged, almost beaten, voice yelled out.
'Who was that?' Hakkai thought to himself. Homura looked over at the owner of the voice and grinned. " Zenon." He said simply. And all Hakkai heard was a loud crack and silence. " No, where was I?" Homura growled.
" I believe I was at the part about you not being my father." Hakkai growled bravely, but it ended in another kick to the stomach. Hakkai gasped for air again, and soon calmed his breathing.
" Your mother was a skanky whore. She was married to me, the king! The RULER!" He yelled. " But she gave up on me for a peasant man!" He yelled loudly, kicking Hakkai again. " And bore you! A sick waste of a human soul, existance and flesh!" Homura yelled out. " Imagine, if it wasn't for me, you'd be like your father, poor and homeless, with nothing--"
" But a good heart." Hakkai said.
" Good heart? Shut your mouth. That doesn't matter in the real world. It's just a fake thing to give lower people hope."
" Father, you know the saying 'Money can't buy happiness'? It can't buy love either." Hakkai said, shaking his head.
" She was my mother too, father! And I can see why she left you!" Yaone yelled out.
" Yaone! Don't talk!" Hakkai yelled at her. Yaone silenced, but got the gun in Shien's hand pointed into her skin, making her gasp.
" Since you two want to be such defiant children, unhappy about your lives because of me...how about I show you what I was working on last night..." Homura grinned, turning around to look at the in-shock faces of the rest of the staff. Zenon even grimaced.
" F-Father..." Yaone gasped. She looked over at Goku and Sanzo. Goku's face was red and glossy from the amount of tears he had been crying, and Sanzo kept a stern face, but held Goku's hand. It was the least he could do for Goku, being held at gunpoint, unable to say a word to Hakkai or death. Sanzo rubbed Goku's palm with his thumb and tried to smile at the monkey, but only getting a small whimper and a hug around the waist. Yaone, even in a time like this, smiled softly at such a bittersweet moment.
" Tear them apart!" Homura commanded at the sight of Sanzo and Goku. " I don't need more gay people in my castle.
" Sanzo!" Goku gasped.
" Homura, the least you could do is let me say with me." Sanzo said, meaning no harm in his words.
" I suppose so, after all, you might want each other for the best part of the festivites." Homura grinned.
" Lord Homura, he's here." Zenon said, feeling quite uneasy about their actions, a loud plop voice hitting the dirt ground. It sounded like Zenon has just dropped a full-grown man.
" Take off the blindfold!" Homura yelled at Hakkai, who was now barely balancing on his knees. Hakkai slowly removed the blindfold, the silk caressing his eyelids and slowly opened his eyes. The ground, stained with blood, led only to one thing. A battered, cut, broken and beaten lump of a human.
" Who...Who is that?" Hakkai asked, moving over to the body. He turned it over, as it was on it's side, and wiped away traces of blood and hair that had falled over the man's face.
Yaone slowly started to cry, as did Goku even more. Shien and Zenon were even heartbroken. Homura, still had a smile on his face.
" Honestly...I don't know who this man is..." Hakkai said, quite confused at all this. The man's eyelids twitched slightly and opened, slowly as if just opening them hurt. The man had a freshly broken arm, cuts, bruses, abrasions, punctures, gashes, all over his body. But either way, he managed to open his deep crimson eyes and look up at Hakkai.
" H-Hakkai..." The man gasped. The voice was almost recongizeable...but...it couldn't be...
" G-Gojyo...? No, no, you can't be Gojyo..." Hakkai gasped, tears slowly flooding his eyes.
" Sorry, I'm--not what you expected..." He said, smiling, his voice ragged and broken.
" No...you're much...more beautiful then I thought..." Hakkai smiled softly, caressing Gojyo's cheek. The tears came more rapidly, as Hakkai slowly lowered himself onto Gojyo's chest, wrapping his arms around his lover's shoulders. " You're...more beautiful then anybody I've ever seen in my life." He said, hugging him tightly.
" That's quite a compliment...to somebody who's gonna be dead soon." Gojyo said, trying to smile.
" No, you're not dying..." Hakkai said sternly.
" Homura won't let me live...he won't let me love you..." Gojyo said, tears starting to form in his eyes.
" So...we'll run away, just like you said..." Hakkai gasped through his tears.
" It's too late...even if you manage to fight him off somehow...I can't live with these wounds..." Gojyo said, softly...fadingly.
" No, you can't die! I love you..." Hakkai said, pulling Gojyo tighter. Slowly, Gojyo sat up, hissing in pain at the large amounts of pain generating from the whip marks in his back.
" I love you too...and...I have to say...this wasn't how I wanted to die. I didn't want your last memory of me...to be dead. Some first time impression...you finally see what I look like...but--"
" Gojyo--"
" No...I have to make my last words, the best words you're ever going to hear..." Gojyo said, taking Hakkai's hand, and leaning in to kiss him. Their lips met, softly and slowly...delicately. Gojyo's lips were beaten and blood stained, but Hakkai's were soft and sweet, as they always had been. Their tongues met, only for a moment, until their heads were wrenched apart by Homura.
" Enough! This makes me sick!" Homura yelled, throwing Gojyo against the planter box with Hakkai's roses, making his cough up what seemed a pint of blood. Gojyo gasped for air and coughed. " Shoot him Zenon!" He yelled.
" Homura--" Zenon gasped.
" DO IT!" Homura yelled.
" Hakkai! I love you!" Gojyo yelled.
Bang.
" N-No..." Hakkai gasped.
" And that's the end of that." Homura grinned. " Wasn't as fun as your father, Hakkai, but gave a good fight."
Hakkai didn't say a word. He slowly walked over to a blood stained Gojyo, and hugged his body. " I love you too...we'll meet soon up there...wait for me." He whispered. And, even though nothing was said, Hakkai could feel Gojyo, say a very incharacter...
" You got it, babe."
The next day, Gojyo was cremated, on the wishes of Hakkai, and the ashes were scattered among the now, bloodstained planter box of roses. And while Hakkai scattered the ashes, he sat in the same designated place where Gojyo died, pulled out a gun and...
Bang.
They found his body, half-an-hour later. And as Yaone, Goku and Sanzo greved over Hakkai, and his lover. They noticed, the blood and ash stained roses.
Something percular happened that day.
After years of working on those roses, night and day, rain and snow...
The roses, had finally fully bloomed.
THE END