http://clampfix.fanworks.net/rgv-fix/yashasst.txt </head><body><pre>Yasha's Story: After Ashura. . . by: Kyra Ryuoh "Ashura!" A veil of ruby dims my eyes as rage, colder than frozen steel, grips my shoulders. My frame shudders as I spring off the straw bed, hurling off the covers. The spot Ashura had occupied had left an empty indentation in the bed yearning to be filled. Yamato's piercing shriek splits my skull; I feel my body writhe in pain, afflicted with uncontrollable convulsions, laid low on the cold stone floor. Ashura, where are you? "Yasha-ou!" Cool hands restrain my fevered body, the burning brow. Smooth pebbles bite into my skin, every nerve having been sensitized, as beaded sweat rolls down along the contours of my face and arms. "Ashura!" I must get up! Yamato's Heavenly Wolf, give me strength. I thrash against the restraining hands, now shackles upon my wrists. In a moment, they are gone, followed by a clatter of shattering porcelain. "Ashura!" I cannot think, know not where my feet are leading me to as I burst through the locked door with Yamato in hand, heedless of the flying splinters. "Yasha!" A voice calls from behind. It is not Ashura's, not of my concern. Ashura is in danger, and I am not there to protect her--that is why Yamato is singing. Please, don't die. It's not your fault they died, Ashura--it's all because of me. I could not protect a single one of them--don't leave me now! You could never be the Black Ashura, and even if, I would rather have the entire world destroyed than to see you hurt... Her elfish little face floats before my eyes with those luminous gold eyes and gracefully pointed ears of the Ashura clan--so like her father, Ashura-ou. "If the sole important person to you in this world will bring you disasters, what would you do?" Ashura-ou had asked me once, a faraway dream when the world was a haven of stability. How I had hung worshipfully to every hallowed syllable, admiration brimming in my eyes. So magnificent! "Protect her." My answer had been definite back then, and determined, it remains so . "Reach out with both my arms and do my utmost to protect her." "Then become strong for that important person." Ashura-ou's soft-spoken words aroused such fire and inspiration. Had he known about Ashura, his only child--the last of his line? "For the sake of protecting whom you will meet in the future." Suddenly, Yamato falls silent, as though cut in mid-sentence. There is a cold emptiness in my heart, a void I had never felt before gaping wide like the gateway to abyss. Fear. Dread. Alone. "No!" My eyes widen, an expression of stark and abject horror pervades my features. There can only be one answer for Yamato's silence--Shurato's absence. Ashura's death of eternal sleep. Life and consciousness without Ashura?--how preferable death is! To be together forever! Unsheathing Yamato, a cold, lifeless metal glinting dully in the morning light, I turn its edge upon myself. "Yasha!" The sword is wrenched away--I scramble after it in desperation, in anguish. "Please, Yasha. Stop. For Ashura's sake." Ryu-ou muscled figure is hurtled against my chest. "Ashura is dead!" I try to push him away, to pry him off my arms. "I have failed her!" "Yasha-ou." Kurara-ou's voice is a bucket of ice water thrown at my face, a cold moon beam of reason. "You," she pauses for emphasis, "are being selfish. Ashura died for you, so you could live. You have proven that you will die for her sake. Now, do you love her enough to live?" "What is life without--" She strides forward to face my still struggling form. Her arm, winds back, lashes forward to strike me across the face--the crack echoes off the high mountain walls, an ear-splitting reverberation in the deafeningly quiet air. "Idiot!" Her hand bunches in the brown folds of my shirt. "Go ahead and kill yourself, then. Take the easy road out. Then Taishakuten will have triumphed and Ashura would have sacrificed her life in vain." I am released. Deprived of all strength, I fall to my knees. Calmly, Kurara leans over, softly hissing in my ear, "Go and throw away Ashura's last gift." So, I roam this plane of existence, condemned to an eternity without Ashura. A pursued renegade without a purpose; yet I live. I dream. And in my dreams are my realities. Ashura in my arms. Such heaven. Forever in my arms. . . </pre><p><a href="./">Back</a></p><p><a href=http://www.dreamhost.com/donate.cgi?id=216><img border=0 alt="Donate towards our web hosting bill!" src=https://secure.newdream.net/donate1.gif></a></p></body></html>