Sweet Odium - Chapter 35: Chapter 35

[Rune]
Everything had become a blurr in front of my eyes when explosions, screams and gunshots were heard everywhere.
Everytime I attacked Peter I needed to check for the ones surrounding us in close range of the attack. Meanwhile the man himself fought with no regard for others and mercilessly swung his dagger again and again. Not even his own mens lifes meant anything to him so I was left with needing to protect everyone else instead of focusing on the battle.
In one moment we were both jumping up high in the sky while at the other the earth was shaking when our fists met.
Every scream of victory turned into groans of pain and despair and the the ground was bathed in red.
"WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS?! THE PEOPLE YOU SWORE TO PROTECT ARE BEING MASSACRED!" I yelled out at him barely dodging the dagger he still aimed at every part of my body with no hesitation. A shock wave erupted from his body and I was brutally thrown through the air. Before I crashed with the crowd, his fist came swinging at my side so my body hit the floor so hardly the earth was shaking once again.
The left half of my face was covered in blood but I was far away from giving up. Every hit he landed made my determination rise. I would not stop even if I was at the verge of death.
"You still don't get it, do you?" Peter came walking at where I was still crawling on the ground and wiped the sweat from his forehead.
Small pieces of rocks and other objects had left bleeding scratches on his face and neck but compared to me he was still well able to fight.
I pushed myself up on my feet but was immediately smashed down again when Peter rammed his heel into my back.
I groaned when a sharp pain went through my whole body and numbed my senses for a second.
"Who cares who dies in this battle and who lives? At the end I'll be the strongest one among them all. Mellontikos, Inoue, Hwang... it doesn't matter what group they belong to because they'll all be crawling at my feet just like you are." He hissed and pulled my hair mercilessly yanking my head back.
"You're gonna die right here and now, my dear nephew." He growled and held the cursed dagger at my throat so its blue glow was blinding my view.
I grinned at him bitterly and coughed out a clot of blood. The regeneration ability had been weakened by the exhausted state of my body as well as the poison gifted ability that Peter had used on me.
"You'll never have control over any of them. They'd rather die than being under an abandoned weakling!" I yelled out and used the opportunity to pull out a small knife from my side and cut off my hair right were he held it.
Immediately, I rolled to the side and began to run again.
I needed more time to think of another strategy. Everything I did left barely a scratch on him and I hadn't been able to absorb his powers at all.
The worst disadvantage was that we couldn't know how many abilities Peter had obtained already.
Abruptly, I stopped in the middle of the fight when I witnessed a Mellontikos soldier firing at none other than Neil. He had his back turned to the soldier but I was fast enough to catch the bullets before they could hit him.
The strands of my blond hair that was now short fell into my face when I pushed Raven's brother to the side once again when Peter came at us with an aura of tremendous bloodlust.
"EVACUATE!!" I yelled at him in desperation when Neil noticed that I had been the one to save him just now.
"STAYING HERE ANY LONGER WILL LEAD TO ENORMOUS CASUALITIES!" I added but Peter did not leave me a second to speak my mind.
"YOUR PLAN FAILED AND NOW YOU'RE ORDERING US TO PULL BACK WHEN TRYING TO ACCOUNT FOR YOUR FAILURE?" Neil's face had turned red as he brutally smashed the soldiers head.
Peter's eyes shot to the side when he heard him and I grasped the situation too late to react.
"NEIL!" I warned him but in the blink of a an eye Peter's dagger hat cut his side deeply.
"NO!" I threw a rock at the man and chased after him in panic and fury.
"STOP RUNNING AWAY YOU FUCKING SON OF A BITCH." I blocked his way and soon the grass beneath us lit up in raging flames from the heat my body spread to our surroundings.
"How dare you..." my voice was shaking but the only noise that I could hear was his laugh.
"What? Was that a friend of yours? To bad he'll die of blood loss in a few moments. Maybe his soul has already been absorbed?" He wondered with a shrug and proceed to advance forward again.
[Raven]
I fought my way through the chaos of war but there was no sign of Rune except for continuing explosions and eruptions all around me.
In panic I turned to all sides until I spotted aunt Mary wiping out a whole squad of armed Mellontikos soldiers.
"Mary!!" I caught up to her and took my place at her back so we had all of our surroundings in view.
"Raven, we can manage defending ourselves but their leader is no match for any of us. If Rune doesn't succeed, we'll all die." She said out in a serious tone but no exhaustion was heard from her.
"I need to find him. I need to find Rune." I explained making her stop in her actions for a second and avert her eyes from the enemies to look at me.
"Raven, you cannot get into their range, they're not ordinary gifted ones... they'll accidently kill you faster than you can manage to see Rune's face." Her eyes turned dark but I would not let myself be discouraged by that.
"I know very well that I cannot help him but I need to be there. I need to be there for him, I need to make sure he survives." I pleaded but my aunt did not answer to me.
"I cannot tell you were he is because I simply don't know. They have the ability of superspeed to they could change location any second."
And with that comment we were forced to split apart when a grenade was thrown at us.
"Shit!!" I hissed and threw myself to the side to avoid the explosion.
When my body hit the ground, my hearing was gone for a few seconds and I could not focus my eyes on anything.
In pain I held my head and blinked a few times when suddenly two people caught my eye.
It was more like an incredibly fast blurr of motion that brought chaos with it where ever it was.
It had to be them... Rune and Peter.
There was obviously no possiblity for me to get much closer to them but my goal was not to interfere but to watch them.
I had only lost them for a few seconds but next thing I knew was a crowd of people running from a wave of heat that burned away trees and grass. When it hit me my eyes started stinging like crazy.
"Fuck!" I groaned and blinked again and again but the only thing in my vision were spots of light.
Even so, the sudden change of noise didn't go unnoticed.
The battle was still going on in full brutality but right in front me where the people had ran from, it was strangely quiet.
"No more games, Rune. Let's end this right here." I clearly made out Peter's voice and when I slowly blinked again I finally saw the crazy man standing above a body that didn't move.
Rune... it was Rune laying there livelessly on the ground!! His hair was partly colored red and his chest wasn't moving to his breath.
Peter played with the cursed dagger in his hand and in the blink of an eye he suddenly swung it down to Rune's chest.
It felt like time froze at that moment...
The blue shining dagger was sticking out of Runes body and the laugh of a maniac echoed through the air despite the noise of battle. Eyes from around us turned to the scene, screams of fear were heard and on top of all that my heart was beating so loudly that my ears were about to burst.
He stabbed him... he stabbed Rune.
We couldn't lose... I couldn't lose him.
"RUNE!" A shout came from my throat that was louder than any other when I started running to him and Peter.
"FUCK OFF!" I shot at Peter but he easily dodged as soon as his head turned my way.
"If it isn't the little-..." he giggled when suddenly Rune's hand shot up to grab the his leg that was exposed bare skin due to a cut in his pants fabric.
It happened so suddenly that neither me nor Peter reacted quickly enough.
The dagger was still sticking out of Rune's chest but instead of what I thought, his eyes were gleaming with life energy.
"Don't lay a finger on him." Rune spat out before his eyes turned white like the light of a star.
A wave of energy brought me to the ground and Peter was suddenly screaming in pain.
I saw all colors of light suddenly emitting from his body, high up in the sky before they flowed to Rune's body at a tremendous pace.
The more gifted powers he absorbed, the brighter his body started glowing and the hotter the air around us got.
Peter was crawling on the ground, desperately trying to make the younger let go but he was already too late.
The light from Rune got so bright that I couldn't endure looking at it any longer. What was that overwhelming power!?
"RAVEN! GET AWAY FROM THERE!" I turned around to see Neil comming my way.
"NEIL! STAY AWAY FROM HERE!" I shouted back suddenly being aware of the deadly danger that built up around Rune... but my brother didn't stop and kept running until he almost reached me.
"RAVEN!"
In that moment the earth shook and every standing person was swept of their feet when a giant explosion came right from Rune and Peter.
I threw myself to the side and saw the shadow of Neil trying to shield me until everything went black.
I thought that I had passed out again but it was actually the sky that had turned pitch black for about 3 seconds. It drastically cleared up after that and what I saw in front of me was nothing but destruction. All the plants around the spot were Peter and Rune had been standing before were dry and brown, not like they were burned but like someone sucked all the life force out of them.
There was the corpse of Peter on the ground under the same condition. His bones were visible under his skin like he had lost all his muscles and fat. His eyes were nothing but black holes and the only object that stayed unharmed was the cursed dagger that had stopped shining bluely.
But there was no sign of Rune...
The battle field had gotten quiet... some soldiers of Mellontikos had dropped their weapons and held their hands up in defeat, others had started running but were either caught or shot in the attempt.
My eyes trailed down to the body that was right in front of me.
"Neil..." I wanted to yell but there was only a faint whisper comming from my lips. I pulled him on my lap and held his head that was pale like a ghost.
"Neil... Neil!" I shook him carefully but every second that passed with him not moving I shook stronger.
He didn't breath... his heart was not beating but there was no injury on him. Why wasn't he responding? Why didn't he open his eyes?!
"NEIL!" Again I shouted out his name and held his hand tightly. It was so cold...
"Raven... Raven what happened?! What-" I heard my aunt approaching from behind but when she saw my brother in my arms her voice was swallowed by the silence of shock. With wide teary eyes she pressed her hand on her lips.
"He won't wake up .... He won't wake up! We have to take him to a hospital, we need to save him!" I panicked even more and felt my own tear drops on my skin.
"Raven, it's too late." It was Vince who had followed the leader here. He sat sat down next to me and pulled me away from Neil's body carefully.
"No! NO!" I resisted with all the force I could afford but even that was not enough to win against Vince right now.
"Raven... this explosion has wiped out every living being inside a certain radius. If Neil hadn't shielded you, both of you would be dead now..."
"I couldn't even say goodbye to him, Vince." I pleaded the other in desperation.
"In war there is never time to say goodbye..."
"I was never as good as him, he was never proud of me so why did he die in my place?! Why did he do that when his own life is so much more valuable than mine?! I should've died! Not him!" I cried out and turned around to look at the corpse of my brother again.
All had happened so quickly... Neil had never been the person to put the value of another's life over his own and especially not mine. I had always thought he hated me... that he felt ashamed to be my brother.
"Raven... there is something else..." Vince stated and pulled me out of my thoughts when he pointed at the corpse of Peter.
"Rune... he's gone." he stated. I thought I was already at the limit of what my heart could take but the realization of what Vince had said sank in bit by bit and poisoned my heart from the inside.
"You can sense him, Vince... where is he? He must have escaped." I pretended to be hopeful when in fact I already knew that I was imagining things.
"Raven, the explosion... it was Rune who caused it..." he slowly spoke and I pushed myself up to run to the spot were Rune had sat just a minute ago.
"Do you think..."
"Yes" Vince already knew what I was about to say.
"It was him who exploded. I- It was Rune." He stuttered and fell to the floor grabbing his hair.
Even Vince couldn't stop the shock from taking over his body.
It simply felt so much away from reality. I remembered me and Rune speaking about what we'd have for dinner after this was over... and now he was gone? Just like that?
Just like that I lost my brother and my boyfriend?
I laughed out quietly.
Why was I alive then? Why was I alive to suffer from their death to the core of my heart?
Somewhere far away I heard someone announcing the gifted families victory and loud cheering suddenly sounded from the crowd.
Despite all the losses these people could still be proud of their victory... but this was no victory... this was the worst outcome of all.