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Mitsuzane didn't understand why his hands were trembling as they walked through the crack into Helheim. The two groups went their separate ways. That seemed to only make it worse.
"What's with you?" Yoko almost immediately picked up on him.
Mitsuzane couldn't meet her gaze, "Nothing. Just... nervous, I guess."
"Are you doubting what were doing?" Yoko got closer.
"N-no. Nii-san... is in the way. He... he needs to go... I'm just... I've never done something like this before..." Mitsuzane mumbled.
"Then come on. We need to go before Sid gets too far into it." Yoko started walking.
Mitsuzane followed behind her. His mind was running wild and his hands still wouldn't stop trembling. He was about to watch them kill his brother. And he was helping them. Even if he personally was not going to get his hands dirty, the fact he was just letting this happen and not stopping them made him just as guilty. Would Takatora hate him forever if he found out?
It was hard to come to terms with. He was killing the one person in his family who was left. The one who had taken care of him for so long. Even for as badly as Takatora messed up raising him, he was still his brother. Mitsuzane knew deep down that all those hurtful words he had been told were just Takatora trying to protect him. He just didn't want to believe it.
Before he knew it, they reached the fight. Sid was taking on Takatora. Yoko transformed and joined in. Mitsuzane watched, eyes wide. So many different emotions were running through him as he watched the two of them beat his brother.
"This is it." A hand was placed on his shoulder.
Mitsuzane glanced over at Ryouma, "No going back now. They've exposed themselves as being an enemy to him."
"Indeed. Smart boy." Ryouma chuckled before he went to join in as well.
The entire altercation was a blur to Mitsuzane. He knew they exchanged words, but none really registered in his head. His heart was pounding so loud it was drowning out everything else.
The next thing he clearly saw was Sid holding Takatora toward the edge of a cliff. And that was when his brother finally realized he was around.
"Mitsuzane!"
Mitsuzane felt his heart pound louder. He felt like he might pass out. Why did he have to notice him?
"Run, Mitsuzane!"
Run...? Even in this moment all Takatora cared about was him staying safe? And here he was... an accomplice in his murder.
No. No... He couldn't. This wasn't right. He couldn't do this. Takatora didn't deserve to die. Mitsuzane couldn't find enough reason left in him to convince him otherwise. Despite everything that had fueled this decision before, it meant nothing to him now.
Mitsuzane rushed forwards and slammed himself as hard as he could into Sid. It caused Sid to let go of Takatora and stumble backwards. Sid clicked his tongue in annoyance.
"Guess we'll just send both brothers to an early grave."
Sid charged at Mitsuzane. Mitsuzane was frozen. He didn't know what to do now. He hadn't thought the rest of this rescue mission through. As Sid swung his weapon, it was grabbed and blocked.
"I won't let you lay a hand on him as long as I'm alive." Takatora had managed to block the attack. He was glaring at Sid.
"Nii-san..." Mitsuzane's voice trembled as he spoke.
"How annoying." Sid grumbled, "Either of you care to help out here or are you more entertained just watching me?"
On that, Yoko rushed in. Mitsuzane dodged her attack. Takatora placed himself in front of the younger boy, doing his best to fend off both attackers. Mitsuzane was shaking even more as they were cornered against the cliff again. He hugged Takatora from behind, tears falling down his face now.
He shouldn't have tried to save him... He disregarded the one thing Takatora had wanted. For him to stay safe. By him foolishly running in to try and save him, they both were knocking on death's doorstep now.
"Have a fun trip down." Sid taunted, before him and Yoko both hit Takatora as hard as they could with their weapons.
The cliff gave out and with them now being knocked off balance, they fell. The last thing Mitsuzane remembered before they hit the ground was Takatora quickly pulling him as close as possible before they completely went down.
...
Mitsuzane groaned as he came to. He weakly opened his eyes to find he was face-first on the ground. It took a bit of effort, but he managed to push himself into a sitting position. He looked around.
"Nii-san!"
Takatora laid nearby, also face-first on the floor. Mitsuzane stumbled his way over and rolled Takatora onto his back. Mitsuzane let out a sigh of relief as he saw Takatora's chest rising and falling. He was also still alive. Thank god...
They managed to survive that fall. Mitsuzane took in his appearance. Surprisingly he wasn't that injured from the fall. Had when Takatora grabbed him been to try and protect him from the fall? It seemed very likely considering that said man looked in considerably worse condition than he did.
"Nii-san..." Mitsuzane cautiously tried to wake him up.
It took quite a bit of prodding before Takatora let out a groan. After another few seconds, his eyes opened.
"Nii-san..." Mitsuzane whispered in relief.
"Mitsuzane...?" Takatora slowly moved to push himself into a sitting position.
"We're alive..." Mitsuzane said, "But... now we're lost in Helheim."
"We'll find a way out." Takatora placed a hand on his shoulder, "Be a bit anticlimactic to survive such a fall and then die because we can't find a way out."
"Are you okay, nii-san?" Mitsuzane asked worriedly. Takatora had winced when he moved.
"I'll live." Takatora replied, "Are you alright?"
"Yeah. I'm not that badly hurt. You... protected me, didn't you, nii-san?"
Takatora nodded, "I tried to."
They fell into silence for a while. Mitsuzane didn't know what to say. There were a lot of things on his mind that he could say but nothing wanted to come out.
"Do you have any idea as to what the hell those three are up to?" Takatora finally decided to break the silence.
"Kill you?" Mitsuzane offered.
"But why?"
"Well... Ryouma... doesn't want to save humanity. He wants to rule it. If you managed to get an overlord and actually find a way to stop the spread of Helheim, he would be doomed." Mitsuzane explained quietly, "They never wanted you to know about the overlords."
"So back when he was going off about this being the key to evolution and about being a god... this is what he meant? How long have I been being played...?" Takatora sighed, "How do you know this information though?"
Mitsuzane gulped, "Uh... I... I um... overheard them talking."
"Mitsuzane. Tell me the truth." Takatora saw through him.
For once he wasn't able to keep his facade up. His actually emotions were sneaking through.
"I... was part of this..." Mitsuzane admitted quietly, staring down at the ground, "I was there when they planned to kill you..."
"How bad of a brother have I been to you for this to happen?" Takatora whispered, mostly talking to himself from the look of it.
"Nii-san..." Mitsuzane glanced back up at him, "I... I'm sorry... you've just been trying to keep me safe and I... I..."
"Keeping you safe..." Takatora repeated, "I guess I hurt you with my methods, didn't I?"
Mitsuzane nodded, "You refused to support me in what I wanted to do. It hurt. I know you meant well but... being told everything I've found joy in is useless and worthless hurt."
"I'm sorry." Takatora pulled him into a hug, "I never even stopped to think about how you might feel. I should've noticed before now. I'm sorry, Mitsuzane. I'm so sorry..."
Mitsuzane hugged him back. Tears stung in the corner of his eyes. He had always wanted the day to come that he could finally tell his brother just how he felt, but this wasn't what he had imagined it to be like. He had envisioned himself screaming at Takatora and not accepting any sort of apology he could think to offer. Instead he was a crying mess who just wanted things to go back to the way they used to be.
"What do we do now, nii-san?" Mitsuzane asked quietly.
"We get moving and try to find a way out." Takatora replied, "With you missing maybe Kazuraba might come searching here for you. That might be the only way we're getting out of here. We can't go through the crack at Yggdrasil. They'll kill us the moment we step into view. Only other option I can think of is either we find a crack letting inves out into our world or perhaps one of these overlords may cooperate and help but... seems like we're an enemy to them."
"Can you stand?" Mitsuzane asked in worry.
Takatora pushed himself to his feet, "I'm fine. I promise. Nothing I can't handle."
Mitsuzane quickly got to his feet at well. He moved to provide support for Takatora just to be safe. He didn't seem to be completely steady on his feet.
"Let's get moving."
It was a very slow walk through the forest. It felt eerily quiet. Quiet should be a good thing, right? That meant they wouldn't find any inves. Neither were in much of a condition to fight right now.
At the same time, inves could be a good thing. That could lead them to a crack and they could get back to their world. If they could manage to get through the swarm of inves that would be around it, that was. They both still had their drivers, but with the injuries from the fall it wasn't likely they'd be able to fight that well.
"Do you really think Kouta-san would look here for me?" Mitsuzane questioned.
"I'm betting on Ryouma going after Kazuraba as well. He wouldn't keep his mouth shut about killing you while fighting him. I doubt Kazuraba would accept it without proof." Takatora replied, "Then again, you know him better than I ever will. You should be asking yourself that more than me."
"Kouta-san always shows up where he's not wanted and meddles with things. This shouldn't be any different." Mitsuzane said.
It was true. At least to him. Kouta always interrupted or ruined everything. But maybe he would ruin Ryouma's plans too. It would be just like him.
"Is that how you perceive his actions?" Takatora questioned, "Is he not your friend? Why are you so negative about what he's been doing?"
Mitsuzane was not prepared to be questioned about his relationship with Kouta. He thought he was doing quite well to hide how he truly was feeling about the other boy. He really didn't want to talk about his problems with Kouta. What would Takatora even understand about it?
"He just... frustrates me sometimes." Mitsuzane stated, carefully choosing his words, "He doesn't see things how I do and... I wish he could understand why I don't like him doing some things he does."
"I see."
...
It had been quite a while of walking. There was nothing of use around them. They ran into the occasional inves but were able to sneak by without alerting them. The mood was quite low.
"Nii-san... maybe we should rest for a bit?" Mitsuzane said.
They were both trudging through the forest at this point. It might be a good idea to just lay low for a bit and rest. They needed some energy to keep going and were thoroughly lacking in that department.
"It's too dangerous to stop. We'd need to find better shelter to hide in." Takatora rejected his request.
He did have a point, unfortunately. Stopping in the open could make them easy to spot if an inves wandered by. It would be risky to let down their guard in the open. But Mitsuzane really wanted to stop for a bit. Everything hurt. Even if Takatora didn't say anything, it was easy to see his injuries were also starting to ache.
And then they finally got a lucky break. They found a crack that had just opened. Not many inves were around yet. The ones that were had almost all gone through already.
Mitsuzane and Takatora exchanged looks and quickly rushed to enter the crack. They came out back in the town. Takatora grabbed Mitsuzane roughly by his arm and pulled him into an alley. They should be out of sight if any more inves showed up.
"Alright... we're back." Takatora said, "Let's get moving. We shouldn't hang near this crack long. Who knows if they might come to check it out."
"Where are we going?" Mitsuzane asked. He assumed they would go home, but he wasn't positive.
"We'll try to make it back to the house. If we can't, let's try to find where your friends are hiding out."
"Okay."
Mitsuzane very much didn't want to go to their hangout. Not in this condition. He didn't want to worry Mai so much. Hopefully they would have an easy time getting home.
"Nii-san? What are you planning to do about Ryouma?" Mitsuzane asked as they started sneaking around the city.
"I'm not sure yet. I guess one way or another he needs to go. If he stays in control this entire situation is just going to get worse." Takatora replied, "I'd prefer for you to stay out of this, but I can't stop you if you follow me."
"Kouta-san may be useful." Mitsuzane hated that he was saying that, "If there's three people we'll be fighting, we should try to at least be even in numbers."
"We can see then. I trust your judgment on him."
"We can talk more later. I just wanna get home and take a breather..."
"I can't argue with that. Let's keep moving then. We're almost there."