ToLoveRu Fanfiction – Crimson Darkness Part 3

Well, I’m finally done with Part 3 of Crimson Darkness, my ToLoveRu Fanfiction that turns fanservice comedy into serious action drama. It took a bit longer, because it’s slightly longer than the earlier parts. As always if you missed the first parts, you can catch them here:

Crimson Darkness Part 1

Crimson Darkness Part 2

The pic below is one I got from www.dannychoo.com from one of the member posts. It really has nothing to do with the story, but I thought it looked cute so I’m gratuitously using it here to decorate my fanfic 😀

Continue below to read Part 3 of Crimson Darkness! Hope you all enjoy it!

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Crimson Darkness – A ToLoveRu Fanfiction
            
Fanfiction by Ace Sanchez.

Note: ToLoveRu and its characters belongs to its associated author, Hasemi Saki-san, I’m just using them to have a bit of fun and practise writing again!

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Part 3 – A Dear Friend

Periodic quick wind blew his hair into his eyes as it coincided with the extreme speed of his leaps and dashes while in the process of following the drainage canal to what he hoped was the outskirts of the city. He also hoped that the slow splashing of the stream within the cement valley served to mask what little noise he made, as he landed and jumped in a zig-zag pattern over the slowly moving water.

At a particularly forceful landing, and having to shift his hold beneath the bundle he was carrying, he suddenly encountered soft, but taut material within his palm.

“I hate echii,” the girl with long blonde hair exclaimed softly.

“S-Sorry!” Shocked completely out of his thoughts, he stumbled, boots skidding upon cement, and unexpectedly lost his balance as he immediately let go of what must have been panties. Unfortunately he completely let go of her in the process.

“Do not drop me, Yuuki Rito!” Yami said aloud in alarm, hands scrabbling along his chest for purchase. Finding none, instead she wrapped one of her legs about his waist in desperation. The result was a catastrophic stack as both of them dropped into what they found was knee deep water, himself on top of her.

She stared up at him, the moonlight reflecting from her crimson eyes. “I still hate echii.”

He removed his hand from her now wet chest, and jumped away from her with a splashing sound. His face felt like it could steam all of the water from it. “It-It wasn’t on purpose…”

She gave him a blank stare, and then stood herself up in a matter-of-fact manner, the water dripping from her soaked black dress and tattered cloak. Still not speaking to him, she placed her palm on the cement banks of the canal river and hoisted herself up on to dry land.

“I guess that part of you hasn’t changed,” Rito laughed softly as he did the same and examined the damage. The loose robes he seemed to be wearing were dripping wet, along with the lower half of his sur-coat. Thankfully the canal water seemed relatively clean and sewerage free, so apart from the wetness, they weren’t overly dirty. He sniffed his shoulder. And nor did they smell bad. He shivered a little as a soft wind made itself known to them, quite cold against his wet clothes.

Yami took the tattered black cloak she was wearing over her shoulders and rung some of the water out, making loud splashing noises against the relative silence. “It is fine, Yuuki Rito. We needed to stop anyway. It is not a good idea to leave the city just yet.”

Taking her cue, he also took off his coat and rung some of the water out. He realised that he hadn’t taken a good look at himself since … he had become aware. But he seemed to be wearing exactly the same kind of clothing that Mikan had been wearing. At the thought of his sister, depression again began to sink in. “I know that. But I just didn’t know what to do. Except to get away from there. I-I don’t want to fight Mikan.”

Yami draped her wet cloak over her left shoulder and looked at him seriously. “I am sorry, Yuuki Rito. But they are all like that now. Even … you were.”

He felt at the side of his neck where, for some reason expecting to feel a wound there. However he was surprised to feel nothing there, except freshly healed skin. “If I could break free, that means the others can too.”

She seemed to look sad at that. “Perhaps.” She suddenly sneezed and shivered.

He looked at her wet clothes, but averted his eyes from where the damp material was sticking to her slight chest. “You can transform your body. Why don’t you transform yourself dry?”

She eyed him. “And how do I do that?”

He tilted his head as he actually thought about it. “Change yourself into a towel?”

“Would not the towel also be wet?” The corner of her small mouth lifted. “Also I cannot change my clothing, as they are not a part of my body.”

“Oh.” Then he noticed the set of her eyes, and her pale face. Along with the cuts in her clothes, and the dried blood on her lip, that had now been mostly washed away, she looked absolutely exhausted. Meanwhile, for some reason, he didn’t feel tired at all. A result of his modified body? He still had mostly no memory of what had happened in the years before, and the few glimpses that had shown themselves to him, he dared not think about for fear of what else he would discover if he examined them more deeply. He knew he was being a coward, but just now he didn’t want to think about it. First thing was first, and that was to take care of Yami. “Let’s find somewhere to rest,” he suggested.

She looked around, but couldn’t see much from the high walls of the canal. “We will need to hide.”

 

<><><> 

 

There wasn’t much choice for cover, as they found from the mostly destroyed houses that seemed to fill this part of the neighbourhood. It was mostly a consortium of collapsed roofs, tumbled down walls, and a massive crater in what seemed the centre of the residential area that looked like it had been from some kind of energy blast. In which case, those particular buildings were simply vaporised.

Strangely, the wave of destruction seemed to have spared a child’s playground within a fairly large sized park with overgrown oak trees and shrubs. Which was where they were now, within an intact plastic cubby-house, with its own pretend chimney and fireplace.

He looked at Yami who still shivered occasionally, as they sat next to each other within the enclosed space. “You don’t want to light a fire do you? You look cold.” Even though his clothes were also damp, it didn’t at all feel uncomfortable, but he was worried about her.

She looked at him askance. “The fireplace would melt.”

“I suppose so,” he said, disappointed.

“And also, the smoke would give away our position.”

“I didn’t think of that either,” he said, embarrassed. “I just don’t want you to catch cold.” He couldn’t even offer her his sur-coat, as it was still wet.

She seemed to smile at him without actually smiling. “You worry about the strangest things, Yuuki Rito. I think you should worry more about how we are going to survive.”

“I just want it to be how it was,” he said simply.

She hugged her bent knees and looked down into them, hiding her face. “I do too,” she said quietly.

He looked at her, as she sat, seeming so small and vulnerable, her long blonde hair fanning over her shoulders and body. She didn’t look all that different if it was supposed to be three years from his last memory. Her hair was perhaps a little longer, her clothes slightly different, the black skirts longer, the tattered cloak a little more worn. It was only her eyes, that when he had looked into them, seemed so haunted and hurt. It began to make him think about what must have happened, what she had seen … and suddenly a pair of violet eyes malevolent with sheer hatred dominated his memories. He blinked, willing them away desperately, and when he came back to himself, was surprised to find his eyes damp, as if he had been crying.

“What is it, Yuuki Rito,” Yami said, concerned. She had lifted her head from her knees and was now staring at him.

“I don’t know,” he said, forcing a laugh. He didn’t want to talk about what he had felt just then, so he thought of something else to change the subject. “I was just thinking about, that in three years, I haven’t really grown all that much. I must be eighteen now, and I’m still not all that much taller than you.”

“You aren’t so weak any longer, Yuuki Rito,” she said, pointedly looking at his chest. He looked down to where some of his coat and robes had gotten ripped and he could see the athletic muscles beneath. They weren’t there three years ago. He felt his face heating up.

Noticing what must have been a blush, her face also reddened as she realised what she had said. “I-I didn’t mean it like that. I hate ecchi.” She suddenly changed the subject. “So you have decided that you are going to help me?”

“You still haven’t told me exactly what you are trying to do.”

“I’m an assassin,” she said simply.

He abruptly felt sick, the feeling tightening within his stomach such that he thought he might throw up. “What were you trying to do tonight?” He again began to see the malevolent violet gaze within his mind’s eye, and suddenly he didn’t want to know the answer. He began to say stop, but it was too late.

She looked at him directly, the sadness within her dark eyes unmistakeable. “I was trying to kill Haruna-san.”

And all of what he had suppressed with the mention of that name came tumbling forth like a torrent that had been squeezed behind dark barriers shored up for far too long. The violet eyes within that serene beautiful face telling him without words that he was nothing to her now. An object, without even a shred of feeling. A weapon to be wielded against her enemies.

He didn’t remember himself sliding closer to her and gripping her shoulder tightly with his right hand. “I-I won’t allow you to kill her. Never that!”

She was biting her lip. “You are hurting me, Yuuki Rito.”

He noticed that her shoulder had begun to darken into a bruise within his tight grip. He immediately let go. “I’m sorry!” He gulped, feeling extremely ashamed. It was like a moment of insanity. “I keep saying that, don’t I?” he said weakly, and swallowed, rubbing his eyes which traitorously felt like they would tear up.

“No, it is my fault. I … was too direct.” She looked down into her knees again, hiding her face from him. “I … know how you felt … about … Haruna-san.”

He held her small hand within his. It felt cold, despite the warmness within the small play house. “It doesn’t matter anymore. But I won’t help you kill her. In fact, I’ll stop you if you tried to do it. Instead we’ll wake her up. Wake everyone up,” he said, determined.

She looked at him again, her eyes moist for some reason. “But you were-” She stopped what she was about to say. “Okay then, Yuuki Rito. I will help you ‘wake’ everyone up. However I don’t know how exactly it can be done.”

“What did you do to me?” he asked, thinking back to when he had gotten his first awareness back.

“Nothing. You held me, and I was waiting for a blow that would finally kill me. But it never came. You screamed and then yelled my name. When other humans, and even Mikan, attacked me, that never happened before.”

He tried to remember, but the memory eluded him. He knew it had something to do with a wound on his neck. Instead he thought of something else. “Why don’t we catch one?”

“Catch what, Yuuki Rito?”

“A human.”

She looked at him as if he were a complete idiot. “Have you ever tried to catch lightning?”

Puzzled, he answered, “No?”

“That is what it would be like. Think about what you can do now. Admittedly, you may be more powerful than most of them, but every human left is at least on the physical power level of Gid Lucione Deviluke, if not more, and you remember how powerful he was.”

“But you can kill them.”

“Only because they can still be killed by attacking their …. your … vulnerable spots, like the neck and your heart. Because I have the type of body, speed, and ability to take advantage of that. But to be able to restrain one? Impossible.”

“It doesn’t matter, we … I … need to do it-”

A twig snapped outside.

“Rito!” Yami shouted, her long hair immediately lengthening and stretching around them in a shield of defense.

Instinctively, Rito knew it wouldn’t be enough, and grabbed her about the waist as her shield of hair wrapped around them, and jumped.

Before he could burst through the ceiling, the plastic walls around them seemed to be pulverised, like a sandcastle that had been hit by a nuclear bomb, a gloved fist pillaring though and striking his lower left leg which was unprotected by Yami’s hair. He screamed as it felt like his leg was being disintegrated, the flesh of his shin crumpling, the bones within shattering and crushed to fragments, red mist flying into the air.

After that, the world was a spinning sphere of pain as the impact knocked his leap awry and caused him and Yami to spin in an uncontrollable parabolic arc, before they crashed into one of the park’s oak trees, with a massive cracking sound, the thick trunk snapping at the sheer force, its roots coming part way out of the grassy ground within a shower of dirt.

They fell to the grass and dirt with a thump and a bounce, and slid for several feet, scraping more grass from the soil, before coming to a complete stop.

Yami retracted her shield of hair part way, which had prevented further damage to them from the impact with the tree and ground, and stood up, protectively over him, as she looked in the direction of the destroyed playground.

Ignoring the pain, he sat up, and immediately picked out the distant figure standing nonchalantly within the dust and fragments of his handiwork, and sucked in his breath as he recognised him.

“Saruyama,” he breathed.

It was unmistakably him. Despite the three years seeming to have matured Saruyama much more than it had apparently done him, a taller, and even more muscular body, the face was definitely that of his old best friend. The spiky black hair, over an always cheerful face. Except instead of the usual friendly black-brown eyes, they were now the colour of blood, just like Mikan’s, though they held a bright glow of maliciousness to them, as if what he were looking at, was something that he hated with every part of his being.

“I can’t believe I have this chance, Rito!” he shouted over to them, as he began to walk slowly in their direction, his hands within the pockets of a black sur-coat that was twin to his own. Even his voice was the same. “I can’t thank you enough, now that you’ve given me an excuse to kill you!”

“Snap out of it, Saruyama, you’re being controlled, just like everyone else!” He tried to stand up, but his left leg crumpled like a moist paper towel and he fell over again. He screamed again at the pain.

“Stay still and let it heal,” Yami whispered harshly at him. “I will take care of this, or at least buy you some time.”

Saruyama laughed as if what Rito had said was a particularly funny joke. He continued to approach. “You were always popular with the girls. Even now, one of your harem, stands protectoress over you.” Then his blood-coloured eyes narrowed, his mouth thinning to a slit. “I always hated you for that, you know? You didn’t deserve it. You didn’t deserve your looks, a face that every girl could love.” He smashed a nearby oak tree with the back of his hand in sudden anger, with such force that the area of the trunk he had hit just seemed to cease to exist. The remainder of the tree fell vertically into itself, and then slowly toppled over with a thunderous crash, leaves and branches flying into the air. “And then you found a way to save the Earth from the Devilukes, and you were a hero!” He paused, and stopped his slow, relentless approach. “And I was still a nothing.”

Rito could only be in complete shock over what he was hearing. “You can’t think that,” he said softly. “It’s the Devilin’s brain-washing. They’re making you say this. You’re my best friend.”

For a moment, Saruyama seemed confused. “What are you talking about, brain-washing?”

“Die,” Yami said. She seemed to blink toward Saruyama, her speed impossibly fast. Her left arm was already a seven foot long katana blade sweeping toward the back of his neck.

“You can’t beat me, Yami-chan!” he laughed as he knocked the flat of the blade away with a reverse spinning backhand, and smoothly brought his other fist into a rising uppercut. “You’re nothing but a Non-Human!” Ready for the counter though, Yami had already ducked it and transformed her right leg into another sword.

It all happened almost too quickly, but Rito could only sit up in surprise as Saruyama landed several yards away from her and then crumpled to the ground shouting an ear-piercing yell of pain, his left foot missing from his leg, blood fountaining from the end of his ankle.

“Now you may fight on even … footing with Yuuki Rito,” Yami said in her dead-pan voice. “But you’re too easy, even for me.” She transformed her leg-sword back into a girl’s leg, and this time transformed both of her arms into katanas. “Die.” She leaned forward and shot toward him like a bullet.

“Stop it, Yami!” Rito cried in desperation as he threw himself using all the strength in his good leg. “Don’t kill him!”

His one legged leap managed to propel him in front of Saruyama’s prone body. Yami gasped as she stopped both of her swords in mid-flight.

Laughing, Saruyama grabbed one of his outstretched arms, and used his momentum to throw him into Yami’s attack. Rito coughed blood as one of her blades slid into his stomach as he smashed into her, throwing them both back with massive force.

Blinking forward with extreme speed, Saruyama appeared behind both of them, preparing to throw an elbow into Yami’s back. “I’m not the one going to die, Yami-chan! You are, you whore!”

Rito’s vision darkened to a world with tones of only blood and black. He knew she wouldn’t be able to dodge such a blow with his body impaled upon her sword like this. He also knew that such an elbow into Yami would take her apart like a split melon, based upon the strength Saruyama was all too easily capable of.

He would not allow this.

Instinct and hidden memories of technique overpowered his thoughts. Faster than even Saruyama could move, he twisted both himself and Yami in mid-air, and forced the katana that had exited from his back into the tip of Saruyama’s elbow.

His best friend screamed in abject and total pain as the sharp blade entered the cartilage and skewered his upper arm like pig spit, continuing until it met Rito’s back. Blood fountained over Rito’s face as his momentum continued, and he turned his body slightly to grasp Saruyama’s face with the palm of right hand.

Their flight was ended by the back of Saruyama’s neck striking the suspended steel metal bars of the playground monkey bars that was in their way. An abrupt cracking of bone and tortured steel sound squealed into the air at the impact, and Saruyama’s scream was cut off in sudden mid-yell.

The three of them fell to the ground, in a tangle of bodies.

For a moment, they lay there, with Yami draped on top of him, her sword still impaling him through the stomach, with Saruyama impaled through the elbow behind him. Both he and Yami were breathing hard, sweat pouring from both of them, both of them splashed with blood. Whosever it was, he didn’t know. Probably mostly his.

Saruyama below him was the only one not breathing. His body was still.

“I-I … didn’t want to kill him,” he stuttered. “He was my best friend.” And then his eyes overflowed with wetness, and he began to cry.

Yami looked down upon him, long blonde hair covering them both, her beautiful face sombre, but crimson eyes full of compassion. She leaned her warm forehead against his, saying nothing, as the moon up above was obscured by clouds and they were both cast in shadow.

 

-End Part 3

Quick Link to Part 4 

 

Hmm. This is turning slightly more violent. What do you guys think, tone it down? But I’m fairly happy with this chapter in terms of where I want the story to go. Anyways, let me know what you all think, as always, happy to accept comments and critiques. As many of you know, it’s been a while since I’ve written a serious project so am completely rusty, and am already finding faults everywhere :(.

Ja Matta for now!

~Ace