Chapter Text
Stalking the castle's ruins, single-minded in her purpose, Hana, while angrier than she had ever been or would be in her life, could still think somewhat clearly about her situation. Realizing full well that the castle armory would have been ransacked by this point, Hana still possessed the foresight to rest by the armory and collect a few of the remaining staves. The Nohrian guards assigned to the corridors however, were not allowed to get terribly comfortable. What appeared a human-sized-slash-shaped wisp of that horrible purple flame dashing through the corridors faster than the human eye could reasonably perceive, inflicting either horrible wounds with her blade or those same sickly flames. The Hoshidan dying had largely already either been disposed of or about to have been dealt with as such. However, the survivors among the steadily climbing Nohrian casualties would later swear than the thing which had attacked them was not and could not have been human.
*Closing in on the Hoshidan princess' position with her vanguard having fought off wave upon wave of the translucent enemies, Corinne could see the end of her difficult, bloody path not far ahead. This has to be the end, she thought tiredly, narrowly dodging one of the ghostly arrows sent flying at her head.
"All I ever wanted...was my big sister back!" shouted the princess, those same purple flames emanating from her person and weapon. "Instead...you destroyed my family...you destroyed my country....for what? FOR WHAT?!"
"Hold on, Sakura." said Corrine, eyes downcast. "I'll set your spirit free..."
"Corrine, why do you hesitate!?" Prince Xander shouted over the general chaos and his right-hand woman cleaving through two of the phantoms with her axe. "Move! We have to end this!"
Leaping to her side to avoid another arrow, Corrine complied with the request, the blade Siegfried sending a beam of pure darkness at Sakura. As the beam closed in at three meters or so, something most unexpected happened. A wall of the purple flame shot up immediately in the beam's path, the projectile dissolving harmlessly into the fire. They had all seen these ghostly waters behave unnaturally, but pillars of flame was something new. Prince Leo, tactician extraordinaire, was the first to notice something unwelcome from the ruined rafters; a new combatant possibly?*
**"Corrine, get back!" he shouted, the songstress Azura yanking her dear friend backwards with all her strength. Why exactly she reacted so quickly was about to become painfully clear. With a great quake, the building shook upon the figure's landing, it surrounding itself with seven pillars of the sickly purple flames, all serving as shields for the princess and deadly barriers for the Nohrian army. As the first three columns of flame waned, the figure revealed itself as a human, a girl really, no older than sixteen, the irises of her usually brown eyes colored red, shooting them all an expression of pure hatred for which no words were required; its message of All who raise a weapon to my Lady Sakura deserve death and death alone was abundantly clear.
"What, who is-" Corrine stuttered. "Is that-"
"Dammit, pull back!" ordered Xander. "It's too dangerous to continue the advance like this!"
Unsheathing the Regal Blade, smoke still wafting from its tip, exactly what happened next for Hana was a horrifically violent blur: The traitoress or the Nohrian warlord-prince; both of them their father's good little minions through and through? Either way, it made no difference to Hana who went first; they both intended Sakura harm and no amount of pleading or begging for forgiveness would save them from her blade.
Her swings wild but focused and precise with an inhuman amount of force behind them, before the battle became a complete bloodstained frenzy in her mind, she sprung back several meters, pushing her princess out of harm's way before springing forward to meet the enemy. The specifics were blurry in her mind's eye later on, but she did remember well one of the prince's retainers, a man slightly older than her, futilely attempted to defend his liege from Hana's sword before being overpowered and cut down by the blade in question. In spite of the otherworldly amount of fear, rage, and hatred driving every slash, thrust, and burst of flame from her, Hana would have to give the prince his credit after the battle; he was probably the only one of the Nohrians who neither hesitated nor attempted to flee against her blade. Even as Hana slew his steed out from under his legs, the prince continued to meet her blows with swings and parries of his own. Fatally burning an enraged mage attempting to throw off her concentration, Hana, once again showing the preternatural awareness of her surroundings, sidestepped the second retainer's, the woman's, attempt to bring down an axe on her head and, momentarily springing a few meters into the air, struck downward with her katana, driving the blade through the woman's back with all the force she could muster. At this one act (as well as Hana taunting him by shaking her blood from the blade), the prince lost his composure, beginning to swing his own sword furiously and recklessly at Hana, the swordswoman dodging the slashes as effortlessly as she shrugged off the prince's roars and curses at her. Of course, this loss of composure proved shortly to be his undoing.
Yes, with one of their champions and his retainers no more, the Nohrian army, along with its commander, were forced into a disorganized retreat and Hana dashed forward with the silent encouragement of her princess and her new "friend" driving her onward. In the course of this rout, while a few of their physical fighters, mainly lance-wielders, managed a decent fight here and there, the stragglers fell namelessly before the swordswoman's blade, using an occasional wall of flames to drive them into a more favorable position. While her mind had been almost completely blanked by rage and hatred by this point, Hana noticed something interesting; besides the eldest Nohrian prince and the traitoress, the only other opponent to give her a decent, even good fight, was an absolutely livid woman, her hair as red as the blood staining her armor, managing to hold Hana off for several blows (even throwing her off-balance for a nanosecond) before Hana sent her to the ground by smacking her with the hilt of her blade.
One thing Hoshido's greatest (and likely only remaining by this point) swordswoman could notice and remember very well amidst the carnage was the desperation of the azure songstress, once again starting up that infernal song, that very same song which made her head throb. Her latest prey, the (apparently) mortally-wounded Nohrian prince and his fallen retainer no longer a problem either for her or Sakura, Hana dragged her blade parallel to the ground for a meter or so, sending a geyser of the sickly flame rushing towards the woman. How fortuitous was it that the wielder of the Yato herself blocking Hana's attack and not without some difficulty?
Leaping over the carnage inflicted by her own hand, Hana bought all of her weight and power crashing down on the dragon princess, the fury behind her slashes and strikes against this enemy rivaled only by those delivered against the fallen crown prince. Corrine, managing to regain her footing and locking the swordswoman's blade with her own, attempted to reason with her opponent.
"You're Sakura's retainer, the woman!" she exclaimed, struggling to hold her own against Hana's might. "Please, you have to listen!"
"Shut up, you murdering, traitorous bitch!" Hana spat, her eyes twinkling with a particular venom. "Back at Fort Jinya, I told you I'd kill you, remember?! Right before you set your murdering goons on my troops? So I suppose Queen Mikoto, Lord Ryoma, Lady Hinoka, AND Prince Takumi weren't enough for you?!"
"Listen to me! You don't have to do this!" Sakura isn't hers-"
"HOW DARE YOU speak as if you care about her! And yes, I do! We've both chosen our paths and I know exactly where yours ends! If your 'family' is truly so important to you, let me allow you to join them in whatever foul hell you Nohrians call afterlife!"
The princess had no reason to doubt Hana's sincerity; their clash had already left her more than a little fatigued and could not deny the reality that their casualty rate had become truly catastrophic. Just as she felt her guard about to shatter from the relentless attacks, Corrine noticed something most unusual and more than a little disturbing. Having subtly disengaged from their battle, it took Corrine several moments to directly place Hana's location before her heart sank into her stomach. One of the great pillars supporting the throne room was hanging precariously from its position some four stories above their general position and there stood Hana at the midway point in the rafters, smirking down at Corrine as she slashed the pillar vertically, sending it tumbling downwards at the shattered remnants of her army.
"Lady Corrine, move!" urged Jakob's dignified, yet panicked voice, shoving the princess out from the pillar's path.
Faithfully serving her to the end, Jakob successfully defended his lady from the falling column, but the ashen-haired princess had little time to register her shock and grief. As per the swordswoman's intent, the pillar had caught itself stably on the rock walls a few meters down the stairwell, blocking the path to Sakura for all but the most determined and acrobatic members of Corrine's devastated vanguard, not to mention her more immediate problem of Hana leaping with a downward stab to continue her assault, narrowly missing her opponent's heart. After parrying the first several blows after she returned to her feet, Corrine noticed something odd about her opponent's tactics; apparently, Hana was often forgoing slashes and thrusts at Corrine's vitals in favor of slashing at the exposed skin on her legs and arms, inflicting superficial, but still bloody wounds. While the princess was inclined to ignore these non-life-threatening wounds and continue fighting, after several more rounds of parrying, slashing at, and chasing Hana, Corrine noticed, ever so slowly, her strength fading, taking refuge in another blade lock with Hana.
"So, I take it you want me to kill you first, right?" taunted Hana nastily.
"What?" Corrine panted.
"You're both going to die here tonight anyway, so I figured you wanted me to kill you first instead of your songstress. Don't get me wrong, I can always do her first."
The dragon princess' red eyes suddenly began to shine with a fury rivaled only by those of Hana.
"NO!" she roared. "Crazy bitch! I'll tear your throat out!"
Even through the deep, blood-soaked haze that was her memory of the event, Hana remembered well her second duel with Corrine to be a truly intense and exhilarating battle. Pushing Hana back a meter or so, Corrine darted forth, slashing and thrusting wildly at Hana from every angle she could reasonably reach without endangering herself. Hana for her part, still managed to parry or dodge all of them, but the princess did manage to throw off Hana's balance and concentration a number of times during that minute in which they clashed.
However, Corrine's mistake was putting more distance between the two swordswomen for another charge, Hana taking this opportunity to summon a fireball of that sickly purple flame and send it hurtling at the snowy-haired princess, the burst catching her in the stomach and sending her flying backwards several meters up the stairwell, stopping just short of colliding with one of the pillars. Stopping her melody abruptly, the songstress dashed over to her friend, immediately beginning to apply some sort of solvent to Corrine's wounds.
"Don't overexert yourself!" Azura plead. "I know it looks bad, but we can always-"
"Don't be silly!" Corrine responded tiredly, staggering to her feet and hoisting her Shadow Yato defiantly. "I can still fight...I have to fight. Otherwise...their sacrifices will have been... Azura, look out!"
Like an especially-deadly and enraged arrow, Corrine saw Hana sail through the air, the purple flames trailing behind her and that otherworldly blade in front, directed straight at the azure-haired songstress. Lacking any sort of energy to block Hana with her own blade, Corrine reacted purely on instinct, grasping Azura and shielding her with her own body, Hana's sword catching her right lower back with a pained shriek before both women collapsed to the ground.**
Surrounded by the sights and sounds of the dying and the dead, as well as that ubiquitous coppery smell one associates with any mass bloodletting, Hana looked down at the main target for her revenge, blood staining her white-and-silver armor quite prominently before Hana kicked the Yato from her hand. She was reasonably satisfied with the woman's state, having inflicted her with fairly grievous wounds which no normal human being could be expected to survive. But Hana had more pressing concerns than the affairs of corpses and those soon to be such; the reason she had accepted such terrible power to begin with. With that same nimbleness and acrobatic gait shown in the corridors, Hana traversed the stairwell deftly, leaping over and navigating both preexisting obstacles and the ones there of her own creation, be they (formerly) living or not.
At the foot of the great stairwell, Hana found her liege still quite distressed, the purple flames still emanating from her, chanting her grievances with the dragon princess like mantras.
"You killed them..."Sakura droned impassionately. "You killed them all!...Mother...Ryoma...Takumi...Hinoka...You left us!...You left me!...All alone..."
Her own flames disappearing from her person, Hana took her best friend in her arms, holding onto her for dear life.
"Lady Sakura!" Hana implored. "Lady Sakura! Sakura! Don't worry, I'm here!"
"You killed them...you killed them all..."
"Lady Sakura! I am your sword and your shield! Anyone who means you harm has to go through me! Not even the gods could stop me!"
"Left me...All alone...I'm all alone now..."
Now on the verge of tears, both from the depth of the sorrow in her beloved liege's heart and the sheer emotional intensity of the situation, Hana swore an oath to her dear friend.
"Lady Sakura! Sakura, you're never alone!" she promised. "As long as I live and breathe, I will always be at your side! You're my world! Even though the entire world may be against us, you and I, we'll get through it together! Hoshido needs you, Lady Sakura! I need you, Sakura!"
***With Hana finishing these words, the horrible purple flames dissipated entirely, the ghostly bow vanished into the ether, and (most of all to Hana's delight) the princess' irises returned to their natural brown.
"W-what happened?" asked a particularly-disoriented Sakura. "Wh-what have I been doing?! Where am ?!"
"Shhhh." urged Hana. "You're alright now, milady. They can't hurt you anymore. I won't allow it."
"Please Hana, just hold me."
And so the two girls stood silently for several minutes, the princess resting silently in her champion's embrace, both of them wordlessly giving thanks to everyone and everything possible that they still had someone in this world. Three or so minutes in, Hana experienced a most unwelcome intrusion, one which was promptly rebuffed.
"Wonderful, my child, wonderful!" praised the voice, more than a little pleased with the carnage. "But this is no time to rest. The Nohrians are still-"
"Yeah, thanks for the help, buddy." Hana thought serenely. "But you can sod off now. Lady Sakura is safe for now, I can take it from here. Your job is done."
"What-"
"Didn't I make it clear the first time? Sod. Off. Don't ruin this for me."
While there was certainly a great deal of business to take care of in the battle's aftermath (not least of which and most immediate would be evading a vengeful Nohrian army), apart from this little intrusion, the young ladies were free to simply enjoy the presence of the other for a few more minutes.