For several moments Fenix could only stare at her, slightly surprised--possibly the first time his expression had changed in front of Emma. It was hard to believe she could look like this, and say these kinds of things.

But it quickly passed, and his neutral expression reigned once more. The reason for his surprise went unstated for the moment.

"So, happiness lies only in death, does it? Will you give that happiness to the whole village? To me? To her?" he asked, gesturing behind her to Mayako. "And then eventually to yourself? Or are you willing to put up with the 'burden' of being alive for the sake of delivering happiness to others?" The last line was delivered almost sardonically.

He wondered if she really believed what she said, or if it was just a convenient excuse, something that sounded plausible that she was spouting to hide her real motives.

"Eventually," Emma replied.

It was . . . honest. Sickeningly honest. Were one to determine her mad before, one would be wrong; far off from a real, genuine madness-- one that could potentially drive her to violence against people she knew and loved, or once loved, or maybe still loved.

Mayako wanted to exclaim that Emma couldn't possibly mean that, perhaps even try and remind her of all the times the two of them had together, and try and reminder her, perhaps, of how important those times were--but she couldn't. Somehow, she knew that they'd just be shrugged off. This knowledge made Mayako want to scream, personally. But what would she have screamed? How loud would she have screamed? At whom would she have screamed? Emma, perhaps?

"We all die someday," Emma reiterated, philosophy gone from her voice, the underlying madness in her tone as all that remained, "It's just . . . a matter of when, and maybe this is all our time, to burn away in this mad house. This place that breeds lunacy?"

"Hillcrest!" she exclaimed as she let her eyes fall from the sky, and focus instead upon Fenix Black before her, "A breeding ground of decadence and decay. It's just a mad house, where death is the only escape. Eld, Etsu, my dad, your dad, your mom--all gone to Death. They got out. They didn't need to be in the mad house anymore. That's just how it goes, with Hillcrest. You're here until you don't need to be; you're here until you're not crazy anymore. But all the crazies are lifers now, and they'll just make more, so burn it down and stop the cycle! Isn't that what that man said?"

Emma opened her mouth again, but not to speak her own words--this time she was quoting something, or someone rather, someone Mayako knew all too well. "Burt it all, burn it all . . . this place, this town on the hill, burn it all. It's the blight of the world, the breeder of chaos, the creator of all things that will burn the world down! So burn it all, burn it all, lay the place to waste 'fore it sets the world afire."

"Takamine, Tsukimono, Vaerbond, all of them--mad in their own right. Mad with religion, mad with ideology, and mad with despair. Everyone's crazy in their own right--but we're all crazier here. Black's here, Memories were here--come and gone, stuck around or left, because they got better? Or maybe because they died? Black, you haven't died, but you're a lifer in the making. You'll settle here with Mayako, you'll fuck like bunnies, you'll make a child crazier than all of us. The Tsukimonos could have another. The Sheppards could and the Bellams have six already! Good Mr. Bellam, a raving lunatic. Did you know he's medically retarded? All his children are, too. They fit right in."

"Then, maybe Davis will come back," Emma's tone change, maintaining the feature of madness, yet gaining some form of mock hope, "And maybe we'll fuck like you two, and maybe I'll have a kid as crazy as yours. Then in fifteen or twenty years, yours and my kid will make another, who knows? And they'll all be crazier than the rest. They'll all be worse than Harama. They'll live their teenage years like Sarah. They'll fight their whole lives like Eld. They'll suffer like Mayako. They'll sit around and deny themselves like Black. And for all their fighting, they'll lose like Remmy. Then, they'll grow old and be like dad. Or maybe like Harama, or Maya, Rebbecca, or maybe even Urikuse? They'll go their whole lives and be dead like me."

"So, break the cycle." Emma's tone returned to the low, underlying madness of before; she lowered her eyes, her brow, and her whole head, casting much of a shadow upon the entirety of her face.

"Start with the unmentionables; the places all already broken down. They start looking the wrong way. They look at the places broken already. I'd have hit Mayako's house if it weren't already hit. He got to it first. He got to the Takamines first--he got to everyone first. He never got to the heart of it, though, the place everyone goes to delay the inevitable, the place where so much of Hillcrest just sits daily. He never got to the clinic. And that's the whole point, isn't it?"

"Cleanse them all in fire. Lay the town to ruin and barren the forest, and no life sprouts up ever again. Maybe I'll burn in the forest, too." Emma thought aloud, a passing, musing thought, as her eyes fell lower, focused upon the earth, "Maybe we'll all meet in hell, then. We'll be happier there."

He tried to hold it in; he tried to keep his composure, and mostly succeeded all through Emma's speech, only small movements of the muscles in his face betraying any reaction. In particular to the comment about how he was denying himself; what he was denying himself was something he would have been interested in other circumstances. But no, all of it together, it was just too much, and finally he couldn't hold it back any longer.

He laughed. It was a short, dark laugh, but it was a laugh nonetheless--the first time he'd made the noise since awakening from a coma that lasted half a year. It was not a particularly pleasant sound.

"Abandon all hope! The twelve year-old has condemned us all!" He shook his head, sardonic smile on his face. "What a poor wretch you are. Lost your family, picked up a few scars, and you decide that living isn't in anyone's best interests. You try to act mature, but in the end you're just a small, selfish kid in a small, selfish world."

He jerked his head behind him, to the bulk of the village. "Bad things have happened here, I won't deny that, but you think this place is cursed? That it's special?" He let out another laugh, even shorter, just a single sharp, hollow sound. "This isn't the only place to have problems with bandits, madmen, and who knows what else. Do you think you're the only girl ever to lose friends and family? I know kids who've lost everything even younger than you, except they never had people like Mayako or the Tsukimonos looking out for them."

"This place isn't special-" he jerked his head back to indicate the village, "-and you circumstances aren't unique; you think you're on some kind of crusade? You aren't. You're just a spoiled girl who was hurt and now wants to hurt others. You won't solve anything, you won't break any cycles; you'll just perpetuate the next one, kill the next innocent, cause the next avenger without a cause to rise."

"Life isn't easy, it isn't fun. It's hard and it's painful. You won't change that, I won't change that; no one who ever stepped foot in this village or ever will again will change it. So go ahead, burn everything, but you'll be stopped before you've hardly begun, because despite everything people still find life worth living. You'll end up dead or in jail, just another footnote, another story for people to whisper about over a drink, if even that."

He glared down at her, red eyes infuriated and reflecting the flames behind her. "So stop acting like you're some heroine in a tragedy for the ages and grow the fuck up."

For a long time, there was silence-- a biting silence between Fenix, Emma, and Mayako, as it appeared as if a stone faced Emma experienced the recoil of Fenix's words, spurring the muscle beneath her right eye to twitch; she shut her eyes and bared her clenched teeth in a sneer. Mayako, on the other hand, experienced innumerable feelings. Between Emma's and Fenix's expositions, she felt lost, insulted, and alone. Both spoke in ways that made her feel personally insulted, both, individually, would have made her cry with such statements, but together, they did something else.

They made Mayako drop a facade.

She averted her eyes, dropped her arms to her sides, and clenched her hands into tight fists. She wanted now to slap them both. Emma, for everything she said about her, Fenix, Eld, Sarah, Remmy, and all of their parents, especially the ones that were passed, especially Mayako's own-- and Fenix, for everything he said, all of it in some way applied to her; she was not as extreme as Emma, perhaps, but she felt isolated, she felt pain, and she felt an underlying want to lash out at someone-- so . . . so . . . so screw him, too.

Mayako hadn't a genuine want for any extreme pain for either of them, she just wanted to smack them. She wanted to call Emma an ignorant bitch and smack her as hard as she possibly could. Then, she wanted to call Fenix an ungrateful and heartless prick and smack him, too, except lighter than she might smack Emma, for Fenix was already injured, and though she suddenly didn't want to act as Fenix's nurse anymore, she couldn't be responsible for putting him in the hospital for any longer, if she could even do that sort of thing.

No, Mayako hadn't any wish for permanent injury on anyone. She bit her lower lip. She was about to go through with it-- starting with Emma. Before she could take that step forward, however, Emma reacted to Fenix.

"Guess you'll go first, then," Emma whispered as she drew her left hand up, to take the hilt of her wooden sword with her right.

It was only then that Mayako looked to Emma again, and in horror at what was about to happen, cried for her to stop, "E-Emma, don't--!"

Without further words, Emma drew back the wooden sword in her possession, Remmy's wooden sword, passed down to her, passed from Remmy to Eld, then from Eld to her. She drew it back quick, hasty, but not without actually thinking about it--about it, how to strike, where to strike, how strong to hit, and with both hands upon its hilt, let it go: a forward momentum; she stepped forward, swung with all her might, guided by a pent up rage to fuel her muscles with a new course of adrenaline, and guide her hands through a horizontal motion--

And Fenix would feel then a sharp pain in his side, as a wooden crutch under his left arm snapped at the middle and jabbed into his side, whilst a wooden sword met his ribs, to potentially let them ring a resounding snap and shudder, and throw the weak, injured man off of his feet.

There was a trade-off in demeanor; as Emma became angrier Fenix began to cool off, regaining control of his temper, which he realized he'd unfortunately lost just then. Not that she didn't deserve a verbal thrashing, but it was still not very good conduct to go off on a twelve year old, even fire-starting, potentially murderous one.

He wasn't surprised when Emma hit him; what did surprise him was that she broke through the crutch in one swing and smashed into his ribs, the crack of the former making it slightly difficult to make out the crack of the latter. He gasped and doubled over as he fell to the side, the pain making it too difficult to hold himself up with just one crutch.

Coughing up a little blood, he did his best to bring the other crutch around in an attempt to ward off any further assault. "F-Feel better now?" His voice would have been flat, except that he couldn't hide the pain of having a couple of his ribs likely broken.

"Nope," Emma replied in the most matter of fact tone that she could, whilst she slammed the wooden sword into his other crutch, fully intending to knock it away from him or break it, just as she had the last one. She was clearly trying to render him defenseless--and once she did . . .

Another strike would befall him-- and another, and another. They weren't particularly strong attacks, as she wasn't rearing her weapon back and swinging with all her might, but a slew of unaimed, quick blows to his arms, chest, and face might be enough to leave Fenix bloodied and battered. She would keep this up until he was moving much slower, perhaps even unable to lift his arms up to defend himself, perhaps even on the last leg of his life. It didn't quite matter when, only that he wouldn't be moving too well at the time, and only then would she finally stop--

"E-Emma! G-God, no, stop it!" Mayako pleaded in the midst of this, but it would do little good; Emma wouldn't stop until she was content with the knowledge that Fenix was a bloody pulp.

--only to stamp her foot upon Fenix's chest--hard, with absolutely no regard for his new and previous injuries. She lowed her body slightly, to allow herself the chance to get a better look at his face. If he could still see by then, he might catch a glimpse of the inhuman side of her face, and up close, how reanimated it truly made her appear. "Reanimated," dead--death, where age didn't matter, only the knowledge that one could die, and that this being could be the one that brought it upon them.

Then, and only then, would she stand up straight again, and once more holding the wooden sword in both hands, lift it up over her head . . .

For awhile Fenix managed to fend off the blows--now that he knew what he was dealing with, he wasn't going to give up his last defense so easily. Even in his weakened state, he displayed a determination to defend himself.

However, he couldn't keep it up for very long; his arm got too tired to hold the crutch properly, and it was knocked out of his hand, sent skidding across the dirt. From there all he could do was cover particularly vulnerable areas with his arms and endure, coughing up blood whenever she struck a particularly harsh blow.

This went on until Emma finally was satisfied or perhaps just bored, and Fenix felt a sudden, harsh weight on his chest that caused him to gasp in pain and shortness of breath, and cough out more blood. It was impossible to tell how close he was to death; he certainly looked it, with most of his visible body bloodied and bruised, his arms especially looking mangled. Only his face remained relatively unscathed, having been covered most of the time.

She lowered herself to look at him, giving him a clear view of her as well. She looked half-dead herself, but artificially so; it occurred to him that there was no chance her appearance was an accident. She had to be trying deliberately to look scary, which would have been kind of amusing if he'd noticed it earlier. Now, it didn't offer him much comfort.

As she raised the wooden sword over her head, he realized she really meant to kill him, and that wasn't something he could allow. His own arm came up, shaking, poised as though holding something, finger crooked around an invisible trigger. Perhaps it was forgotten until now, but both girls had to remember what he could do--Emma, who's seen him fight with Theleaus, and Mayako, who'd witnessed it just a few days ago.

All it would take is one burst of energy, he could summon his crossbow and fire a shot, and it would be over. Mayako might hate him, but he valued his life, and there were other lives that might have been struggling without him, that were much more deserving of his attention than the selfish girl before him. It was the only logical choice, and he prided himself on making those kind of choices when others couldn't.

His arm fell limply to the ground. He couldn't do it; perhaps it was because of how much he owed Mayako and Remmy, or perhaps he just didn't want killing a child on his conscience...or maybe it was that he was more influenced by a certain someone than he thought. Regardless, no matter how much he told himself it was the logical choice he couldn't do it.

All he could do was laugh weakly. I'm such an idiot...

"E-Emma, stop! Emma!" Mayako cried again.

This time, Emma did. She looked behind her briefly, regarding Mayako with the damaged side of her face-- Mayako, who was but a foot away from her. Tears were welled up in the girl's eyes, her knees were shaking, but that didn't stop her from standing up in defense of a man she wanted no further harm to come to. He said something cruel, but that didn't mean he needed to die. That didn't mean Emma needed to beat him any more.

"You'll kill him!" Mayako pleaded.

Emma looked away from Mayako, allowed her eyes to trail back down to Fenix's bloodied face, and felt a slight twinge at the corner of her lip. She didn't know what direction it was going; she could barely feel it. She could barely feel anything. There was something about this, this image-- something that made her feel numb.

Without further word, she lifted the wooded sword higher. Her eyes were narrowed upon Fenix's face--that was it, her target, she was going to smash his head in. Emma really was going to kill this man.

But when she went to swing the wooden sword down, she found herself unable--but not for reasons of conscience. Rather, something was caught on her weapon. Emma snapped her head to the side, stared behind her, and acknowledged what happened: Mayako, in spite of personal weakness, was clinging to the weapon, pulling it back and holding it with both of her arms. Emma furrowed her brow, but only gave this a moment of thought.

With her left hand, she let go of the weapon, and in the same movement, stepped back, off of Fenix and into Mayako, elbow first. She reared her elbow back into the girl's sternum as hard as possible, cuing Mayako to gasp and whimper softly as she felt a stronger urge to collapse to her knees. Yet, despite this new pain, she didn't; she continued to cling to the wooded blade, though her eyes were shut.

With further force required, Emma took the whole of her attention away from Fenix. She turned, still holding onto the hilt of her weapon with her right hand, and once she was facing Mayako, squeezed it with her left and pulled up on it--prompting Mayako to cling to it even tighter.

"I-- I won't-- I won't let you . . . Emma," Mayako whispered between clenched teeth, audibly in pain, but fighting against it and Emma all the same-- and for what? For Fenix? For herself? The village? Or maybe . . . Emma herself?

Emma furrowed her brow and pursed her lips. Mayako really wasn't going to let go. She tensed her arms briefly, but released the weapon almost immediately after. "Fine. I don't need it . . ."

But yet, as soon as she let go, drew her right arm back, and threw her fist into Mayako's face, striking her with a step forward into the blow, throwing her weight into it, spurring a surprised yelp from the girl as she tumbled back, to land upon her tailbone--sitting up, it seemed, and clutching the wooden sword in her arms, trembling all over, and whimpering ever so softly; already, it looked like her nose was purple; blood was collected at both nostrils, which seeped down to her upper lip, spawning a horribly pained sniffle, a suppression of a cry, and a tensing up of her whole body.

". . . for you," Emma concluded with a sneer.

Straining his body as much as it would allow at the moment, Fenix managed to pull himself into a sitting position. His entire body ached, or at least the good chunk of it that Emma had been raining blows on. His arms in particular felt like they might snap, and moving his torso caused a sharp pain where Emma had first hit him in the ribs. He noted that there and in a few other smaller patches the hospital gown was stained with blood.

But that wasn't as important as what was happening with the girls. As much as he appreciated the reprieve, having her take her anger out on Mayako wasn't a better option.

"Look at yourself, Emma!" he spat, coughing a bit. "You willingly offered to take her place to protect her, you threatened to kill me if I harmed her, and now you're going to beat her up? Are you going to kill her, like you want to kill me?"

Mayako heard it all; she tightened her arms around the weapon she held and thought as if in prayer. Oh God . . . Emma, Fenix-- j-just . . . stop it . . .

Emma sneered first, before turning away from Mayako and back to Fenix. He took her attention back, but perhaps not for the better. She said nothing to him, but it was clear he had her undivided attention again. She stepped to the side of him, to take the upper half of the broken crutch. She examined it briefly, ignoring Fenix for just a moment, before putting the shoulder rest on the ground. She jabbed her foot against it, holding onto the side, and pushed with her foot while ripping on the wooden pole of it. A snap cued its release.

In just a moment, she stood over Fenix again, this time with the makings of a stake in her right hand. With little more than a glare to address him, she knelt by him, to grab him by the hair and pull his head back, whilst her right arm lifted, a foot long piece of hard, jagged wood in her hand, and Fenix's throat the object of her violent affection.

"S-stop-- E-Emma, stop this . . . please . . ." Mayako, no longer able to hold the tears back, pleaded in fear for her life, Fenix's life, and Emma's . . .

But Emma did nothing, nothing more than raise the stake higher.

Slowly, Mayako made her way up. She dug the hilt of the wooden sword into the ground and forced herself to stand. On shaky legs, she stood . . .

And then, knowing that if she did nothing, Fenix Black would be killed, Mayako screamed, bordering somewhat on shrill, and perhaps the loudest she'd ever raised her voice to someone, "I . . . I said stop!!"

There was a long pause. Emma did stop; she refrained from driving the stake down into Fenix and she stood slightly, hunched over Fenix, the sharp stick of wood in her hand, still raised, still poised to sink down into Fenix's throat. Slowly, she stood up straight; slowly, she turned to face her friend.

"Or what, Mayako?" Emma asked sternly.

Emma took a step forward. Mayako took a step back. As if prepared to defend herself, she held the wooden sword out in both of her hands, but incorrectly; she held it by the wooden blade, with the hilt at the very top; it was top heavy and painful to hold onto, but it was the only thing she had to defend herself.

"Or-- what--?" Emma insisted as she took another step forward.

Mayako took another step back. Emma took another forward, Mayako another back. By the time Emma stopped, Mayako could feel the strong heat of the burning ranch house behind her. It felt like it singed the back of her neck and all the hair on her head. Mayako winced, both at this and the horrible pain in her nose and tailbone; one of these two felt broken. She didn't know which. She could walk just fine, but she couldn't breath out of her nose. With much hesitation, fearing perhaps that she might be pushed back a few more times, perhaps even pushed far enough to be lit afire, Mayako looked at Emma, now vibrant in the light of the fire.

"Will you hit me? Is that it? You'll take a swing at me? Break me open? Is it that it? You have it there, you can. You can take a swing at me whenever you want! Everyone will be better off for it, won't they? You know they'll all die if you don't, right? You know where I'll go from here. You know I'll set the clinic on fire. And the Sheppards' and all the shops, the tavern, everything. You know they'll all die, Mayako!" Emma stated, a deliberate attempt at antagonizing Mayako, or . . .

. . . or perhaps it had something to do with her, something more than just antagonizing; when Mayako looked at her face, she saw that the hair tucked behind her right ear had slipped out and fallen before the scarred side of her face; there was barely anything of her face that could be seen at all, little more than the glossy reflection of fire in her emerald eyes. In her tone, there was something missing, some reflection of madness that still clung to her vocal chords, but fell to the wayside in a sudden wave of rationality that was, however briefly, instilled upon her mind.

As if prophesying the future, Emma declared in a soft, but knowing voice, "Or maybe . . . they'll kill me in self defense . . ."

Emma opened her arms, dropping the sharp stick of wood to the ground. She opened herself up to Mayako, not to embrace her, but to embrace her decision, a decision perhaps that Emma felt Mayako hadn't the courage to do--to take a swing at her.

"So what, Mayako? What are you waiting for?!" Emma resorted, then, to screaming, just as Mayako did before, "You want this to stop, don't you?!"

Mayako tightened her grip on the weapon; the wooden edge dug into her hands, and she looked away from Emma; she shut her eyes tightly, let the tears flow down her cheeks, and took in a gasp for air. She wanted to scream, scream at the top of her lungs, scream anything, profanities, gibberish, anything. She wanted all of this to stop, but she didn't want to be the one that stopped it. She didn't want the responsibility; through everything, she didn't want to be the one that made the swing.

But who would?

There was a long silence between them.



When suddenly, somewhere, the music stopped--

--stopped dead by a crack that echoed throughout the hills and village that rested upon it; wood driving into bone, a hollow structure of bone, inducing that sickening, stopping crack, as Emma Vaerbond, with wide eyes, collapsed. She was thrown off of her feet, removed from position on the ground, thrown top heavy, hurled head first, struck in the right cheekbone by the hilt of her own weapon, and tossed in a sudden display of limpness, striking the ground shoulder first, head second, and legs last, to lay limp in the grass-- to lay, where she could do little more than breath.

Mayako, standing, was frozen. She couldn't find any breath left in her, nor strength, nor will to be. In spite of this, she took in a gasp, followed by a shallow breath out, another gasp, and several shallow breaths, as she hung her head forward and shook.

Wide eyed shock was apparent on her face, as trembling arms could hold the wooden sword no longer. It fell hilt first, followed shortly by Mayako herself, who collapsed to her knees, shoulders, head, and body sulked forward, and an ever so subtle sobbing escaping into the air . . .

As Emma approached him again he stared up at her defiantly. She intended to kill him again, stab him with the splintered end of the crutch this time, right through the throat. Would she really do it? He wasn't sure he could doubt it, but there was nothing else he could do, if he wasn't willing to kill her...

But once more Mayako interrupted. Fenix wasn't going to let Emma have the chance to hurt her if he could help it; once she turned her back on him he began to crawl towards the intact crutch. He wasn't sure what he'd do with it--he could hardly crawl, let alone walk--but it was better than nothing.

Just as he reached it, though, he heard a loud crack, interrupting the long silence between the girls and he knew he was too late. But rather than see Mayako struck down as he feared, it was Emma that was sent tumbling to the ground. He wondered if the blow had truly hurt that much, or if it was just shock. Had Mayako paid him any attention at all she would have seen the look of surprise on his own face.

With a heavy sigh he settled where he was. Moving closer wasn't going to accomplish anything now. He would have liked to say something to Mayako, but he just didn't know what, so he addressed Emma instead. "That's what you wanted all along, wasn't it? You didn't plan to finish me off; you wanted me to kill you." It would explain why she kept stalling--even with Mayako's interference, had she truly wanted to she could have killed him in short order before dealing with her.

"You lost, Emma. Guess you'll just have to tough things out like the rest of us."

Fenix, however, didn't get the full declaration out before he was interrupted--though, not by Emma. This one circumstance had Mayako interrupting him. In the end, he was only able to say that Emma lost.

"Shut up, Fenix!"

Although the deliberate and angry tone of her voice may have been betrayed by her meek sobs, Mayako raised her voice over Fenix's, for the first and perhaps last time, if she could possibly help it.

Emma didn't need to be antagonized anymore; it was over; she wasn't getting up, not right now, not without help. It was over. No one needed to have the last word here. What would happen, though, if Emma was conscious? What if she was inspired to hate again, what if she got up, took a stake, and drove it into Fenix's throat like she originally planned? Mayako didn't think she had it in her to hit Emma again. The most she could do was stop Fenix before he antagonized her any further. It was for the best-- for everyone's sake.

"Just . . . stop . . ." Mayako whispered, now fallen from the angry tone, and back down to a soft and meek sobbing. Emma wasn't getting up, and neither was she. Fenix was the only one standing. That was good enough. All Mayako could do now was beg the last standing member of the conflict to just stop . . .

"Sorry..." He'd apparently said something wrong again. It made sense, he supposed; he might not have liked Emma, but Mayako cared much more for her than for him. Even if she deserved it, she probably didn't want to hear him insult her or otherwise comment on it.

Truthfully it didn't really feel like much of a victory to him either. If he saw me now he'd be laughing his ass off. He was now hurt worse than when he'd started, Mayako was in tears, and Emma was either unconscious or still too stunned to respond. It could have been worse, but it was still bad.

Again, he wanted to say something else to her--that she should get Emma back to the clinic, or that she did the right thing, or something, but in the end he just wasn't able to. He wasn't charismatic enough to get them to value his opinion, that much he knew.

So he just sat there, and stared down at his lap, wanting desperately to be in a condition where he could make a meaningful difference again.

Emma stirred just a bit. Something felt broken--something inside and out. She slowly pulled herself up, but felt unable to stand; at best, she could sit up. Emma lifted her hand to her face, touching her cheekbone with trembling fingers, leading her only to wince and withdraw her fingers. She moved her jaw and soon felt the same pain. She blinked and felt that pain. Something was broken. If Fenix looked to her, he'd see that she was bleeding below her right eye, and quite tremendously, at that. The skin was broken and something below that, too, must have been broken. Mayako had floored her. Somewhere, deep down on the inside, Mayako could hurt someone. She could hurt someone badly. It was just a matter of how much a person pushed her, and nothing more.

Mayako didn't look up. She stared at the ground, collapsed where she was, tasting her own blood on her lips as a clearly broken nose continued to drain its scarlet contents down her face.

In the distance, though, there was a sound, one Fenix and Mayako heard awhile back, when they were investigating the first burning house. It was a sound of a crowd, of feet trudging through the grass, beginning in the distance and quickly closing in on them. Soon, they wouldn't be alone.

The sound was accompanied by light, though it didn't stand out between the two blazing houses. Soon they were within view, the search party (or at least part of it), some holding torches or lanterns, led by Rebbecca Tsukimono. When they got close enough to see the details of the three, they collectively stopped short, taken aback.

Mayako had a broken nose, Emma a broken cheekbone, blood pouring from both injuries. But Fenix looked like he'd been mauled, battered and bloodied. The fact that he'd taken all that in his state and remained conscious was either miraculous or supernatural.

"What happened here?" Rebbecca asked, surprise and concern evident in her voice.

She looked to Mayako, but it was Fenix who drew her attention by shrugging. "What does it look like?" he responded unhelpfully.

Murmurs rippled through the crowd; three young people, two of them minors, all with various degrees of injury. Any number of things could have happened, but given the circumstances. All signs pointed to one thing. "The Vaerbond girl did this, didn't she?" a male drawl spoke up from somewhere in the group.

This set off more whispering, and caused Rebbecca to look at the young girl sadly. "Emma..." she started, but before she could gather her thoughts enough to continue, a loud laugh burst out from Fenix, startling many of the closer villagers.

"You see something wrong and blame the twelve year old? You really are a bunch of idiots, aren't you?" he exclaimed, his voice dripping with all the contempt he could muster, genuine or not.

He wasn't very charismatic. Expressing sympathy, or kindness, or even just convincing someone that his view was valid were things he was terrible at. But if there was one thing he knew, it was how to be hated.

"The hell you talking 'bout boy?"

Rebbecca spoke up here. "I don't see any other way; Mayako wouldn't do this, and in your condition-"

"Fools!" Fenix interrupted. "That's why I hate this stupid, backwater village. It breeds stupid, backwater people. You don't think, you just go on existing, never looking at anything twice. If it were up to me..." Planting the single crutch into the ground, he struggled to pull himself to his feet, using it to more or less support his entire weight. Even then it was tough, his arms wanted nothing more than to go limp and never move again, but he forced them to.

Finally, with a burst of energy, he was up to his full height, towering over everyone but the blacksmith--but that wasn't all. Silhouetted against the blaze were flames of a different color. Black flames, in the shape of wings, coming from Fenix's back.

"If it was up to me, this whole town would burn!" he roared.

The display of undeniable supernatural power took the entire crowd aback, Rebbecca included. Several people continued to slowly back away, preparing to run.

They needn't have worried. Fenix's pose lasted only a few seconds before his wings were extinguished and he collapsed back onto the ground. "Damn...if it wasn't for those damn girls..." he coughed.