She . . . couldn't respond. If Eld listened closely, he'd hear how she was whimpering. Whimpering with her teeth sunk into her lower lip until it bled, all to keep from letting out another cry, all to keep from alerting Eld to the fact that she was, in fact, in an excruciating state of pain, one so bad that she was actually crying. If he could see her, he'd have seen how she was quickly nodding her head, even though she had her face planted within the bed, the only obstacle she seemed to have in her dark world, and was holding onto her left shoulder so tight her knuckles lightened in color. Her left arm, likewise, remained by her side, completely limp. It felt as if she wouldn't have been able to use it even if she tried. It felt as if her entire shoulder had snapped in half.

This, however, created a horrible problem. Kageko couldn't concentrate. She couldn't even began to focus on anything other than her shoulder . . .

Eld wouldn't even see it coming. One second, he was retreating back a few steps and inquiring as to Kageko's current status, and the next, he'd have no direction, no view, no sound, no feeling-- all just a sudden blur, a rush of blood to his skull, a rush of numbness throughout his body, a rush of everything that was not right or fair in the world, all at once, striking him in the side of his cranium like Oboreru with a steel staff.

And indeed, he'd not experience a blur of sensations, he'd experience nothing more than a complete lack of sensation, as if in a state somewhere between consciousness and not, a blind and debilitating state when everything was a blur, all sound was an ear piercing ring, and your legs just didn't want to move for you anymore.

Was there pain? No. Would there be pain? Nothing more than a mild headache. The massive concussion would be very real, but almost all of the pain would instead flood into a different source . . .

Something was definitely wrong. For a moment he concentrated on her more intensely, so that he could see her as well as hear her (though this always gave him a bit of a headache when he was awake). Your arm! he exclaimed, starting to realize that it was very well how his arm should have looked after that last hit. It's-

And then everything went blurry, Kageko disappeared along with the real world as all his senses took flight and left him behind. K-Kageko? he called in his head with a rising sense of panic. If were possible for him to be trapped between her world and his, he thought this was how it might have felt--somewhere between light and shadow, where it all mixed together in an incomprehensible swirl.

He didn't feel pain, nor was he truly unconscious it seemed, but he was numb and dizzy and helpless all the same.

In a dark world, a shadeling lay upon the ground. She'd gone off the bed. She'd been knocked off, thrown to the floor. There, she lay limply, scarlet eyes half open and staring off into the darkness-- an eternal field of shadows that took on a much stronger blur than usual. The very fact that she couldn't feel any pain anymore, didn't move from her position on the floor, half-curled up in the fetal position, but prematurely defeated before she could, and the fact that her skull was cradled by a slowly growing pool of crimson were all facts with the merit of worry.

In a more real world, she'd be dead. In this world, her mind told her she should be dead-- and she played the part as if it were really true.

When vision at last returned to Eldridge Tsukimono, he'd come to realize that he was laying upon his side, with the water lapping against his back. He was right at the edge of the beach. Even still, though, moving would be difficult. The pain might not have been felt, but damage to his brain had been done. It was only temporary, and bound to heal itself, but a concussion was still a concussion, and as it was his second on this day, the results were tremendously worse. If he got another, though . . . then he'd be risking serious, long lasting injury. By virtue of what he was, he could get away with two in a day, but his body was still human-- there was only so much it could handle.

That, perhaps, would be the least of his worries, as during those moments when all he could do was look into a dizzied, blurred world, he'd see the vague image of Oboreru standing over him. The quarter staff was held over his head with one hand, aimed straight down like a spear, but when he finally hurled it down at him, it only passed by his skull and sunk into the moist earth. He'd missed-- perhaps intentionally so.

With another passing second of long hesitation, the man bent down, and sitting upon one knee, he investigated the darkness Eld could no longer grasp. It was only inches from Eld's hand. Oboreru tapped it once, before giving in and letting his fingers wrap about its obsidian form-- before he stood and turned away from Tsukimono without a word.

"Unhh..." While he didn't really hurt--at least not as badly as he felt like he should--he couldn't help but groan as he came around. Even if it wasn't painful, there was still a rush of awareness again. What happened?

He didn't have much time to consider; when he opened his eyes, Oboreru was standing over him, staff poised for a finishing blow. Eld tried to move, but his body just would not obey him--it was as though he were a puppet with the strings cut. He couldn't even flinch as the staff was thrust at him...

...but he felt no impact, not even a dull one, and he realized that Oboreru for whatever reason had missed him. Given his skill, it could only be intentional.

But he didn't have time to be relieved, for it seemed the reason for abandoning the staff was so that he could reach for a different weapon.

No! Eld cried out as his opponent grabbed his scythe--grabbed Kageko--before turning around starting to walk away. Move! Move! MOVE!

And with sudden desperation he managed to get his feet just enough under him for a feeble lunge, and wrap his arms around Oboreru's legs.

Eld took hold of Oboreru's leg, but it wasn't that which had the man stopped in place. He was instead staring at the scythe in his hand . . .

The darkness clinging to the scythe slowly eroded away, back into its own recesses and curling back with vivid trembling. The southern blade groaned silently as it twitched and spasmed, straightening and quickly losing all cutting properties. The northern blade twisted and straightened out perpendicular to the rest of it, growing in length, and losing the shadows that coated it. In that second long regression of form, the darkness clinging to the weapon dissipated, details returned, and the weapon took the form of a simple farming scythe once again.

Oboreru looked down at it, regarding it with a passive glare, before he took another step forward, kicking Eld's hand from his leg as he did so.

The next time Oboreru stopped, however, was when he realized that Akizetsumei was standing before him. He'd barely even felt the wind that beckoned her arrival this time. She was much more silent, but not for lack of trying. She held a closed fan towards him indicatively and breathed a deep breath of exasperation. Her other fan did not appear to be present, but perhaps with reason, as Akizets was holding onto her side painfully, with a hint of blood upon her fingers.

"You're in no condition to fight anymore, sister," Oboreru scowled.

Akizets said nothing. She took in another deep breath, and then another.

"You don't even know why you're fighting anymore, do you?"

She narrowed her eyes. Maybe . . . he was right. No, he was right. He was clearly right. But that didn't mean she didn't still feel the need to fight.

"...And...you...do?"

He'd been kicked off and sent face first into the sand, but he slowly, agonizingly pulled himself to his feet. A wave of pain had washed over him when the scythe reverted back to its original form, but he grit his teeth and clenched his fists and fought it.

He was a bit unsteady on his feet, but he made it upright anyway. "All she may have is feeling, but at least she's in control of her's," he stated with a slight slur, stumbling back and instinctively grabbing something that was sticking out of the sand to support himself.

Akizets bit her lip. Why did Eld say something kind about her? Why did he compare her and Oboreru in a way to defend her? Hadn't she attacked him? Hadn't he attacked her? They were enemies on a battlefield, not friends. Even before, it wasn't like they knew each other enough to be real friends to begin with.

. . . hell, even if they'd known each other for years, they'd never have been real friends.

Oboreru practically stumbled forward after Eld's statement. His features curled in rage. It was perhaps the first time he reacted to something emotionally in an acceptably correct way-- but not quite. This was an extreme. Suddenly, he hated Eld all over again.

"WHAT DO YOU KNOW?!" the man screamed. He didn't bother just raising his voice, yelling, or shouting-- he screamed, nearly at the top of his lungs.

This was followed, in short, by a direct attack on Eld's person. Eld might have been in a poor physical state, but that wasn't going to stop Oboreru from taking a swing at him-- and not with his fist, either. That, perhaps, would not have been satisfying enough for him. He reared back the scythe as he turned to Tsukimono, and with the utmost rage, swung it at him, horizontally, with full intents to drag the blade through Eld's gut and kill him on the spot. Whatever mercy he'd shown Tsukimono a moment prior was all but gone, then.

Oboreru's swing would have provided a great opportunity for Eld to counter and possibly take the scythe back...well, at least if he wasn't still reeling from his second concussion of the day.

As it was, all he could do was push back from the staff he'd been leaning on and out of reach, but it caused him stumble back onto the ground onto the sand.

He looked around rapidly for a way out, but he didn't see one; the lake was to his back, and with his opponent's power trying to escape into it would have been suicide. All he could hope for is that Oboreru wouldn't pursue him or telegraph his second attack as much as he did his first...

The scythe's blade passed Eld by a narrow margin. Tsukimono fell back, on on the ground, he was perfect prey for Oboreru. His expression turned from rage to indifference as he suddenly lifted the polearm with his right hand, and with one more step forward, swung it to a drop, fully intending to pierce Eld's chest with the very point of the weapon-- something very possible, considering how sharp the blade actually was. It was a cruel irony. Etsu was the one who insisted that Eld take care of his weapon, only for it to wind up in another man's hands.

The blade did not strike true, however. There was a weak wind, followed in short by the sound of a loud clash-- and a wince.

Were Eld to look up, he'd find Akizetsumei standing above him, bent at her knees, holding back the edge of the weapon with a closed fan. Her left hand was still upon her bleeding side, and her knees felt like they were going to give way at any second. Still, though, she bit her lower lip and forced her body to react as she wanted-- no, as she needed.

Oboreru withdrew the blade and regarded his sister passively. Akizets tried to stand up straight, and succeeded only after one near failure. She let go of her side with her left hand, and though her hand appeared to be stained somewhat by light bleeding, she recalled a momentary flash of light within that hand, and the second form of the weapon of her choice. Akizets let her left arm hang by her side, while her right was out forward, closed fan pointed ahead. This appeared to be her basic stance.

Oboreru's mood shifted once again, and rage was no longer making him sloppy--his second attack was coming too quick, and Eld's limbs lacked the strength to move. Nothing stopped him from flinching this time...

But there was a burst of wind, and when he looked again he wasn't staring at Oboreru but rather a much slimmer (and more attractive) form. Kaze had blocked the attack, and saved his life.

"Sorry," he muttered, not liking having to be saved but grateful all the same. Even if she was probably just doing it out of her desire to not have them fight. "Just...give me a minute...to clear my head." He propped himself on one knee, drying to get the last of the buzzing pounding in his ears to subside.

"It's . . ." Akizets trailed off. She averted her eyes from her brother, but addressed Eld all the same. "It's fine. You don't have to apologize . . ."

"So, what is this?" Oboreru interjected, "For what he's done, you're willing to forgive him so readily? That's just . . . that's just . . ."

Eld would have the moment he needed to recuperate. Oboreru and Akizetsumei were not likely to fight in the very near future. They both seemed relaxed-- on edge, but relaxed, perhaps in a constant state of defensive. They both recognized each others strengths, and especially recognized that they, themselves, were all equally injured, and weren't going to be fighting at 100% for the next day, at best.

Again, Akizetsumei replied, but not in an affirmed or strong way. Her voice was quiet, meek. She hadn't much courage left to exert. She hadn't much more will to fight left in her. This would just have to end quickly. "No-- I don't think I could ever forgive him."

"What is it, then?" Oboreru growled, "Why do you just-- keep-- protecting him?"

"He's not . . . a bad person. He might have done something bad, but that doesn't make him a bad person, and I," Akizets paused; she sighed sadly, "I just . . . I just don't want to see anymore blood today."

"But . . . but I have it, Akizetsumei! The dusk remnant . . ." Oboreru held the scythe out indicatively, "It's ours, now. We can do anything! We can live, just like those normal people. We can be real. We might even be able to bring Father back."

Akizetsumei hesitated. Her right arm felt weak; it wanted to fall by her side. Her knees felt weak, too. She didn't feel like standing anymore. She didn't feel the vindication anymore. It was going away, fading with every one of Oboreru's words. There were some things there that she could not argue-- good points that he suddenly brought up and, in turn, reminded her that they were very real circumstances of their lives.

"With his blood," Oboreru pointed, then, towards Eld, "We'll have it all!"

Akizets felt her arm stiffen again. It no longer floated down to her side. Instead, it went up, and pointed her closed fan at Oboreru's throat. She narrowed her eyes. "Then I've no choice but to beat you."

Oboreru was visibly taken aback. He stepped back as if in shock. "What . . .?"

"And take you . . . and the dusk remnant . . . home," Akizetsumei continued; all meekness was gone from her voice, with, instead, a vindicated, full of renewed conviction: "And find a better way."

Oboreru sneered. His face contorted to one of pain, anger, sorrow, and indifference, in a sudden wave of uncontrolled emotions that filled him to the brim, twisted his mind, and filled his heart with a sudden, ever present loathing. His muscles twitched, his brow furrowed, his eyes clamped shut. He hunched forward in the briefest moments of madness, and restrained himself from letting out a roar.

"Move, Akizetsumei," he declared darkly.

"No," she replied, headstrong.

"I SAID," he lifted the scythe, "MOVE."

Oboreru brought the scythe down hard. Akizets, as expected blocked it, but strained as soon as she did. Her body still felt somewhat weak and weary. Rather than leave it at that, however, Oboreru quickly brought the edge up for another strike-- one which she did her best to clash her closed fan against again, followed by another overhead strike.

The danger in these were not the blows themselves, but how fast Oboreru was executing them. Akizetsumei was already weakened after the course of a long battle with sustained injuries, one of which included falling on a particularly sharp rock, and she wasn't quite in the best position to block all of these for Eld-- no, she couldn't. Each time she blocked, her knees felt a little weaker. She winced with each blow, half shut her eyes, and tensed up most of her body in forced willpower.

After the tenth consecutive strike, however, it became impossible. Her arm was thrown up, knocked over her head, forcing her into a momentary stumble, as Oboreru brought the scythe's deadly tip down towards her again . . .

He...didn't really understand what Oboreru was talking about. He referred to Kageko as the "dusk remnant," and one of those terms he knew...but his talk about being normal, needing his blood...it all went over his head. These people seemed to know something about him and Kageko, however, that he didn't, that much was certain.

But regardless...no matter how what they wanted with Kageko, they didn't consider her to be a person...and even if he ever decided to part with her, he'd never give to someone who'd kill their own sister.

He closed his eyes for a moment, and took a deep breath. He couldn't afford to hesitate any longer. From this point on, it had to be all or nothing. His eyes opened, and he moved.

Rather than death at the business end of the scythe, Kaze would feel an arm around her waist, pulling her back a little and pressing her against another warm body. And Oboreru would feel--and see--his own weapon holding the scythe back, held by Eldridge Tsukimono.

"For Kaze's sake, I didn't want to hurt you anymore than I had to. But...I won't let you kill her, and I won't let you take Kageko, no matter what. I'm done holding back."

The clash lasted for some period of time. Akizetsumei was especially surprised by it. She hadn't expected Eld to do anything helpful for her ever again. She'd attacked him! She'd made it a point to hurt him! She never wanted to make him bleed, and felt terrible for the cut on his cheek, but she genuinely wanted to hurt him, maybe give him a few bruises along the way. Akizets wanted to hurt Eld as much as she wanted to defeat her brother and take him home. In the end, though, she couldn't bring herself to feel that want for Eld anymore.

As Oboreru withdrew the scythe from the quarterstaff, Akizetsumei leaned forward, to leave Eld's protective grip on her. She looked up to him with an almost questioning look, before nodding ever so slightly, and looking ahead, to Oboreru before them. Eld wasn't a terrible person. She couldn't forgive him, but he had no interest in doing more than protecting people. Oboreru, though . . . all he wanted to do was hurt people-- hurt Eld, hurt her, and hurt so many more. Akizetsumei couldn't let him get away with that anymore. He had so many times in the past; she felt that, she feared it, but she knew it was true-- and she couldn't let it happen anymore.

"And I--" Akizetsumei began, meek at first, but as she settled on her own two feet without the slightest bit of help, "--I won't let you bring anyone harm, not anymore, brother! Even if that makes me a traitor, I won't hold back, either!"

It was as if Akizetsumei had delivered the final blow to Oboreru's heart. He stepped back-- no, he stumbled back, just as he did whenever it appeared as if something was said to genuinely harm him. One foot back behind the next, repeated drunkenly for several paces, until at last he stopped, his shoulders hulking forward, his head hung low.

"Fine . . ." he seethed with chest heaving, ". . . fine . . ."

In the distance, there was a crash. The waterfall, lifted to the heavens, eroded quickly, weakened, and fell in a harrowing catastrophe. The lake, half-drained as it was, filled an extra layer in a momentous roar-- and yet, the sky did little to better itself. In fact . . . it only worsened. The sky, once gray, took a very different form. The clouds that blocked the late evening sun removed, suddenly, all hope of the light ever coming back. Their forms blacked so much that they would have rivaled the dark mists of Kageko's world. Black, hateful storm clouds . . .

". . . fine . . ." he whispered with heavy breath, carrying what sounded like a sad, yet present child-like happiness-- expending the last of it he could feel.

The water collecting at his feet suddenly formed a rush. The waves became unnatural, gathering in the distance, near the midst of the lake, churning rapidly and charging to the lakeside. It crashed behind Oboreru, but did not stop there. White water cycled into the air, lifted, and unnaturally redefined its own shape. Every fraction of a second that passed boosted its force tremendously. Most of it came from the tidal wave emitted by the reverse waterfall, all of it surged for Oboreru, every last drop, as if the lake's full current was suddenly drawn to him and only him.

In that split second that the waves gathered, they crashed and towered behind him in a momentous instant of explosive force. Never before and never again would either Eldridge Tsukimono or Akizetsumei witness water, natural water, shake the world beneath their feet in a harrowing call of rage, hate, loathing, jealousy, and every ill felt emotion ever birthed into the world by man, every emotion forced upon Oboreru's cracked and bleeding heart. There was nothing left, nothing optimistic, nothing good.

And as the water collected behind him explosively, he swung the scythe out, right handed, shoulders forward, head forward, body hunched over, lips parted and a trickle of water escaping the corner of his lips; he twitched his head, and snapped his neck inhumanly to level his gaze upon them, providing not the snare of a broken neck, but the crash of broken water.

With that last movement, Oboreru roared last words he intended any of them to hear: "Then I'll harvest you both!!!"

. . . Oboreru was not going to hold back anymore, either . . .

The explosive force left behind what appeared to be a solid mass of water: a tough, trembling mass of blue collected around Oboreru, flaring jagged edges from all ends with Oboreru's numbingly slow heartbeat, yet crafted all the same like that of a fully formed hand, fingers twitching and thumb spasming under the will that formed it-- that gathered the mass, roughly the size of the Tsukimono clinic itself, with a rigid, arm like connection to the remnants of the lake . . .

While to say he was afraid wouldn't be accurate, Eld couldn't deny that Oboreru's sudden display of power gave him pause. He wasn't really sure how to approach attacking something like that, at least not safely. Without Kageko, dealing with his water attacks would be much more difficult.

"I don't suppose you can do something like that," Eld commented to Kaze, wondering if this was the kind of scale Gestahl's final attack would have been on if he'd been able to complete it.

Regardless of how they approached, though, he knew physical attacks alone were just not going to cut it. He began to focus on his Qi, causing a small wind to pick up about him...

Watching it all come about before her, Akizetsumei's eyes widened and her resolve slowly but surely began to shake. She couldn't name anything; she felt as if she'd seen something like this before, or had perhaps heard of it before-- or maybe even knew of it, deep down in her soul, somewhere, wherever that soul might be. For reasons she couldn't understand, she felt scared-- immediately, scared. That never happened before. Emotions never changed that quickly for her. She was in just as much shock by this as she was frightened-- and not for Eld or herself, oddly. She'd felt a fear for her brother.

"I . . ." she trailed off; she was visibly shaken, and it made her speech drawn out, with lengthy pauses between each thought, "I don't . . . know . . ."

That fear she felt for her brother soon became a source of resolve. Akizetsumei stuck close to Eld's side, with both steel fans now open. It seemed that she, too, came to the same conclusion that Eld did. The open fans were only good for ranged attacks, and were guaranteed to break and become unusable if ever used for close ranged melee.

The jagged hand around Oboreru, guided by an ill felt decree, reared back, the gargantuan arm jutting out of the lake lifting and moving back. It cleared a dozen feet from Oboreru, before its hulking mass tore into him, palm striking him from behind, fingers clenching into a tight, transluscent fist. As if encountering a great force, Oboreru broke down. His midsection broke apart, slid away from the rest of his body, and muddled in the blue. His hands broke away, his hips, thighs, legs, and head, severed instantly, but leaving behind not even the slightest trace of gore, guts, or blood. There was no blood to be had. There were no guts to be spilled.

Oboreru's leer faded as his skull, drifting amidst the hand, faded just the same, turning the same blue as his body and the scythe, a dark, ominous blue, that hastily faded into the same translucent azure of the hand, arm, and lake.

There was no further sign of Oboreru, nor the scythe that he'd plundered from Eldridge Tsukimono, the weapon his family referred to as the Dusk Remnant. It was following this, as well, that both Akizets and Eld would feel raindrops upon them; the dark storm clouds, rolling with thunder, had begun to pour.