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Shakugan no Hybrids: Chapter 36

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Chapter 36: Whatever the cost

The eerie silence around her fades away after her desperate outcry.
Silence replaced by..it’s hard for her to describe.
Faint whispers in the wind, not enough to make out words, just loud enough to understand they are part of some sort of language.
Murmuring in the forest, so quiet it could just as well be a figment of her imagination.
Sounding...surprised? aggressive? inconclusive? wondering?
Discussing...something?
Shadows..within the dark forest depths..no footsteps..no echoes.
Is there anything there?
Anyone?
She cannot be sure.
“If I ask for help...in a place like this who..or what...would answer such a plea?” Shana asks herself.
It certainly is a risk, considering the situation she is in.
Her chances could not be any worse.
A weakened little girl leaving a trail of blood could attract many things...many predators..
Does such a great risk truly bring great reward?

Still..the sound is still there.. the whispering...waiting...perhaps pondering?
It is becoming louder, there really is something whispering!
A tiny glimmer of hope finds its way into the former flamehazes desperation as she tries to understand the strange language that drifts on the wind and through the trees, but the sounds are still faint enough to be nothing but background gibberish to her mortal ears.
But it is clear enough for her to understand one thing: This language has not been spoken since the dawn of man.
Whatever is there, observing..must be old..very old.

In the meantime the wind has increased in strength as It howls with disheartening strength.
Just as she is about to give in..give up..the tiny hairs on her arms stand right up, and not from the cold.
It stems from a very human realization: She is not alone anymore.
Beneath the shadow of the trees the faint outline of a figure has appeared.
Very faint,weak, transparent, so fleeting it could almost just be another forest shadow.
Exhausted Shana looks up, sweating from the intense effort it takes to do so.
“Is there...someone there...? I can feel you! Come on out! Please...!”
The wound in her side continues to bleed in a steady pace as Shana applies pressure to it with her hands, trying to buy herself more time.

The whispering intensifies, and now she can finally hear separate words.
In sync..almost like a choir.
No.. different choirs.
Disagreeing with one another.

“Impressive...seeing us...feeling us...” one set of voices speaks as one.
"She will die...she is on the edge between places.." another groups adds.
"Die...she will die.." the first choir agrees.
“It does not have to be that way.”
A single voice goes against those who spoke earlier.
“She can be our last chance.
Our instrument.”
"Comes...from you?" the second choir asks the owner of the unknown voice.
"She is ours...not your side"
"Their side...not ours..." the first choir agrees.
"She is your kind" the single voice agrees.
“And long ago that would have been it.
But not any longer.
Over time, have we not become at least a bit more alike?"
"Over time" the first choir answers.
"little bit...." the second choir also agrees.
"But..different..." it adds.
"We have lost. we fade. I will take this chance."
The voice speaks without fear.
The voice of a leader.
"Rash...impulsive..." the other voices make their disapproval known.
"Rather burn out bright like what I was, than fade away as I am" the mysterious voice replies as its owner dismisses the others.
The faint figure becomes more easy to see now, and Shana understands that he is the owner of the lone voice.
A huge figure, muscular, with the head of a bull.
A minotaur like in old human myths..
“I  know this one!” Shana realizes.
Despite his appearance being more fleeting and see-through this time, she remembers him from the night when she  spied on Malachite in the woods.
This..is Jures.
The long dead ghostly Denizen slowly rolls his muscles before fixating his red eyes on the little wounded girl in front of him.
"We hear you. I, Jures, Wander of the Starless Skies, hear you".

“Kh!”
A muffled outcry is the only thing Shana can produce as she struggles to stay on her feet once more.
Staying conscious is taking its toll, and she bites her lip so hard it starts to bleed as well.
The blood from her side still steadily drips down, colouring the snow around her, as a crimson pool of red slowly forms below her feet. Leaning against the  nearest tree to retain at least a bit of balance she does her best to focus on the entity before her. It is hard to see him clearly, as her vision is becoming blurry, going in and out of focus.
“I want…no..I MUST stay strong!”  Shana thinks, clinging to the glimmer of hope inside of her. Hope for…help..strength..vengeance.

“I must stay strong and stop this! The man who used me…abused me..betrayed me..I cannot let him get away with this! I must stay alive! I must live! This is not my end! This was not supposed to happen! It is not supposed to be this way…not like this…”
And in that moment, the former flamehaze makes a choice.
The same choice he had made…the hybrid…different circumstances but the same words.
They appear in her mind, massive, brooding thoughts, thoughts of no return: Survive. Whatever the cost.
Like..a denizen would.
“Give me..strength..”
She struggles as the words come slowly, rolling of her tongue as if they were boulders.
“Give me…your power..to do the right thing!

Desperately Shana extends her arm towards the ghostly figure, her eyes showing recognition, not fear and no hesitation, just recognition with hints of anger.
But at the same time, as her mind goes in and out in a strange stupor, her mind is rational, working and her heart is still beating. Her extended arm is stained by her own clotted blood, some drops fall to the snowy ground, where it joins the  rest of the life that has seeped out of her.
“Give me power...to stand and protect...what I swore at!” she asks once more, slightly more urging this time.

"Oh child..power..strength...those are demands I am not sure if I want to fullfill them yet" Jures answers.
"Doing the right thing...what is right? And does that align with what I feel is right? What is right?
You are asking for plenty, while knowing nothing of us, and we know nothing of you.
I know close to nothing of you.
But I can grant your request to stand.
Because this...” he points at her wound with one of his big arms, “ should not be.”
He comes closer and touches Shana for a brief moment.
She can’t help it but a slight shriek escapes her lips.
It hurts, as if all the cold in the world is suddenly focused on that single open wound...
And then the pain lessens.
As Shana looks at her side she sees that the skin around her injury is white as snow, and tiny crystals of frost have formed around it. The wound itself is frozen, the blood now cold and hard as ice, preventing more of it to drip out, closing the wound off. for now.

“He”,the tall ghost speaks as he refers to Malachite, “made a choice I hoped he would make in a different way. And now, we both haves choices to make in the moments we won by me doing that” he concludes while pointing at her now frozen wound.
Shana breathes heavily as she looks at her frozen side. Her breath is coming out in clouds.. but she prefer the coldness to the sting of pain and the stupor of death. She holds the frozen part with her hand before looking up at the ghost of Existence once more.

That question it asked…clearly it wants an answer.
“The right thing...is justice. This man used me and stole what was mine, without asking, without caring and he nearly killed me. The right thing would be for everyone to get what's theirs and what they deserve.”

Weakened by the bloodloss..dizzy because of the loss of her flame..for the first time in forever Shana feels truly alone as she tries to convince the ghost of her reasoning and convictions. She can hardly remember this loneliness. “Was this how it was like before Alastor came into my body?” she wonders. “It feels like a very distant past..I have fought without Power of Existance before.. But this time it feels different. I feel like a child again and I hate it! No power at all…I am so weak. Even when I trained to become a flamehaze I did not feel like this!”
She notices Jures red eyes are starting to wonder off.
“Focus!” she tells herself, “these feelings will have to wait! I have someone I have to convince right now..”



“He took my companion and my weapon and he nearly took my life” she continues. “I care not for his motives at the moment. All I know is that he stole something from me. Something dear to me..intimate. This is not something that is called "right", no matter what pushed him to do this. The purpose does not always justify the means, and I know deep in my heart that whatever the reason, what he did to me was horrible. All I want is to get back what is mine and protect the Balance of the World once more, as the Flaming Haired Blazing Eyed Hunter.” She looks at the long dead Crimson Lord with a confident gaze, confidence she does not feel. “Please” she thinks, “be convinced. Let it be enough..Help me…Please…let it be enough..”
To all who have followed this story, sorry for the delay!
Due to real-life obligations the updates for this story come a bit slower than we all would like ( real life and all).
But rest assured that the project is still very much alive, just updated at random times.

Shakugan No Hybrids is a story within the Shakugan No Shana universe, following an alternate timeline.
Basically, this story picks up somewhere in the last quarter of season two.
This means that all the events from Shakugan No Shana Final never took place.
Yuji discovered the true identity of Konoe Fumina, and thus the events of the last few episodes of season two ( near christmas ) never happened either.
The start of this story kicks off in January after that christmas.
This is a co-production, based on roleplay conversations between me and :iconflame-haze--shana:

Visit her page, the amount of work she puts into her roleplaying is amazing!
© 2017 - 2024 AngelsWillFallFirst
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Flame-Haze--Shana's avatar
[Yes finally we're on the move again. Sorry for the absense and stuff. Once more thank you for the mention

Well...for the last part...I am not sure it is right to be there...^^; I mean usually Shana is absolutely certain of her answers in cases like this...and even if she is not, she never pleads for it to be... So...apart from that okay :)]