Hey I hope yall like this. I spent literally almost 8 hours working and reworking this because I didn't like how it felt. I finally got it when I started listening to some sad Fairytail music, Shukumei, if you're wondering. Shit worked like a charm after that. This is the start of something awesome. I hope yall enjoy it.
ALSO holly crap were at 630k views I missed the 500k ): thank all of you for reading and enjoying this please tell me how i can improve and do better.
THANK YOU
Chapter 83: The Storm
Varion came out of the portal and came to an abrupt stop in the middle of the square.
There was blood on the street, buildings were still smoking, injured people were scattered across the ground while others tried to help them…. This was his home, his people he had helped build up and cared for.
He looked around for someone, anyone who could tell him what had happened.
His eyes landed on Benimaru. The kijin was standing over two people on the ground, fists clenched so tight that blood was running between his fingers, shoulders shaking. Shuna knelt at his feet, wiping someone's face carefully, but her hands were unsteady and shaking constantly.
Varion's eyes went to the person under those hands.
White hair. White clothes that he recognized in an instant.
His heart stopped.
He took half a step forward, froze, then appeared over them before he had time to even think about moving. Benimaru flinched and Shuna's hands jerked back from Prinz's face in surprise.
Prinz lay still on the ground, her white hair spread out behind her, the clothes she had designed to match his were disheveled from where she had fallen. The biggest thing that caught his attention was the hole in her chest and the area around it that was stained red. He stared at her with his eyes wide and his mouth open. His hands were shaking. His lips had started to tremble and he could not make them stop.
He tried to lower himself down, but his knees gave out instead.
He hit the stone hard and stayed there, staring at her face. One hand went out toward her, shaking worse the closer it got. His fingers slid up her cheek and cupped the right side of her face.
She was cold, so cold like he was touching stone.
A choking sound tore up his throat and he killed it before it could get out.
He pulled her into his arms as carefully as he could. Tears were already welling up by the time he had her against his chest. For a second her usual bright playful smile flashed across her face, the one she wore when she teased him or got a reaction she liked out of him. Then it was gone, she just looked like she was sleeping.
"H-hey. This isn't funny, P-prinz," His voice broke and stuttered when he said her name. "Y-you can stop playing now. O-okay? You're scaring me."
Tears ran down his face and landed on hers.
He reached for her with his magicules hoping he would feel something, anything to answer him back.
Nothing did, just silence and an absence that felt glaring to his senses.
'No. No. She… she can't be.'
He nudged her gently with his hand trying to rouse her.
"Come on. I-It's time to wake up, D-dear. W-we have so much to do, so much to…"
The rest of it caught in his throat. A muffled sound escaped him anyway. He brought his cheek to hers and nudged her again, lighter this time, like she might break if he did it wrong.
She still did not move.
He started trembling so hard he had to pull her closer. His face went into her hair. He tried to hold the next sound in and failed. A small, broken hiccup shook through him, then the tears came faster, and he could not get them back under control. He rocked with her without meaning to, a sharp ache opening up in his chest while he kept his face hidden in her hair.
He started remembering all the times she had smiled at him and laughed with him, the quiet moment that they spent together.
The first time she looked at him sat with that smirk. The red streak cutting down beside it, making the whole smile even more breathtaking in the best way.
He sobbed into her hair and held on like his life depended on it.
A portal tore open behind him.
Rimuri came through already looking panicked. She saw him holding Prinz, rocking, and stopped dead in her tracks. Then her face broke as tears started pooling in her eyes. She dropped to her knees in front of them and pulled both of them in as tight as she could, trying to envelope Varion and Prinz as much as possible.
Varion flinched at the sudden contact.
Then he went deeper into her arms looking for something he couldn't quite name. Her being there pulled the last bit of resilience out of him.
'I failed her. I failed Father. I failed everyone. I got so much stronger and this still happens.' he thought. What, what if I'm the problem. What if I'm the reason all this happens to those I love.'
Rimuri felt his shift in emotions and decided that sitting there wasn't going to change anything.
Her crying cut off like someone had flipped a switch. She pulled back, wiped at her face, and was on her feet a second later, already pacing in front of him. Words spilled out of her under her breath, half to herself and half to Great Sage, jumping from one idea to the next too fast to finish. Her magicules kept slipping. After the third time she shoved her mask on and pressed it down like that would make her hands stop shaking.
Varion did not get up.
The overwhelming sadness and grief drained out of him. What replaced it was a colder numbness. He sat there with Prinz against his chest and stared at her face.
'This… this is my fault. If I hadn't gone out. If I had just stayed and protected them…'
His fists clenched in the back of her clothes. Anger pushed up through the other emotions, then fell apart just as fast and left him feeling empty again.
'No. I think I get it now.'
The thought came in quiet.
'I failed to protect her. This is my fault. I made a promise to protect her. The one thing I swore I would do right after what happened to Father and I failed. I am a failure.'
Rimuri stopped walking.
"What do you mean we can't?" Her voice snapped across the square. "We have to do something, there has to be a way."
Her magicules spiked so hard the mask split down the middle. The crack ran from the eye like a tear. Real ones were already sliding down her neck, past the broken edges of it, while she stood there shaking.
Rimuri's mouth opened again, ready to start another argument with Great Sage, when a voice broke through the quiet as a group of 3 familiar faces ran towards them.
Ellen, Cabal, and Gido were headed towards them. They had somber but determined looks set on their faces.
"Rimuri, we heard what happened!" Ellen yelled
"I know a way to bring—"
She stopped dead in her tracks when her eyes took in the scene in front of her.
Varion was on the ground with Prinz in his arms. Ellen's hand clapped over her mouth. She started shaking her head, trying to deny what she was seeing, like that would make the picture change.
Varion looked up.
The guilt hit first. This was Prinz's little sister, one of the most important people in her life. He had promised that he would take care of her. Now Ellen was staring at her body in his arms, and all he could think was that he had done this to both of them.
Ellen let out a broken whimper.
She sprinted the last of the distance and dropped over her sister, her hands hovering over her like she was afraid to touch her as tears poured down her face. For a few seconds that was all she could do or think about. Then the reason she had come here slammed back into her head.
She twisted toward Varion and grabbed onto him, fists in his clothes, pleading through the tears.
"Please. Please, you have to bring her back. You have to. I can't— I can't lose her. Please."
Varion stared at her. He looked lost.
"I would if I could," he muttered.
"There is a way. There is a way to bring the dead back." Her voice shook, but she did not let go of him. "Your sister did it. So you can too. Right? Right?"
The words hit him like a punch.
'I can have her back.'
A feeling ignited in his chest. It was not a hope, It was a need, sudden and violent, feeling that consumed all others. His head snapped up. The green in his eyes pulled into vertical slits. He caught Ellen by the arms firmly and stared her down.
"Elyun." His voice was low. "Tell me everything. Right. Now."
Rimuri moved, she caught Varion's wrist first, then slid her hand to his face, forcing his eyes off Ellen and onto hers.
"Varion. Look at me. Easy, you need to calm down. Let her talk." She kept her hand there until his grip on Ellen loosened. "Ellen. Tell me everything from the beginning, don't leave anything out, ok."
Ellen swallowed and nodded.
She told them the full story she knew. A dragon and a human had a daughter. They called her the Dragon Princess. The dragon made her a companion, a child of itself, and the two of them were inseparable. A nation came for her and killed the little dragon. This caused the girl to lose herself in her rage. She tore that country apart, tens of thousands of people, and when she was finished she turned into a Demon Lord, the energy from this caused the dragon to come back but it wasn't the same, it was soulless and mindless causing destruction and rampaging across the land. Left with no other choice, the crying girl had to seal the dragon away with her own hands.
Ellen's voice frayed on the last part, but she did not stop.
"That girl is your sister," she said, looking at Varion. "I know it is. And if she could do it, then you can too. Unlike the dragons, Prinz and everyone else's bodies are fresh and intact so it should work right."
Varion did not blink the whole way through. He held Prinz against his chest and listened like the story was the only thing left in the world that mattered.
When Ellen finished, the square had gone quiet enough to hear what it meant.
One of them would have to become a Demon Lord.
[Notice. The layered barriers are preventing the souls of the deceased from dispersing. Estimated probability of successful resurrection after awakening as a True Demon Lord: 3.14%.]
Varion did not look away from Prinz when he answered.
"I'll do it." He brushed his hand against her hair, almost absent. "If I have to destroy Falmuth and every other country that was involved to do it, then so be it."
Nobody spoke.
They all stared at Varion in surprise. It was almost like they were staring at a different person with how casually and how certain he had spoken about wiping multiple nations off the map if needed.