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The Reason For Fighting By Kong Ruishu ~~~~~ <There was no dream tonight.. not one. Except the dark. The dark that surrounded me, that cold dark that shivered down by spine... but I wasn't alone. I knew it, I could feel it... but I couldn't see it... I knew he felt the same way. Because he was my brother. Whether we knew much of each other or not. It was that reason... or else I didn't know why... but somehow I felt him there. Sitting there, that empty feeling as well. Why are we bound by the chains of destiny and fate? Must it end like this? But it has to... that's the way it has to be. It's the only way it could be decided.> Prince Alex had opened his eyes sleepily at the perky sound of his attendant's voice. He lazily pulled the blanket over his head, eager to fall into a lazy sleep again. But alas, this was interrupted by his advisor, Sapphirus Hawthorne, who had easily pulled the sheets back off the child-like prince. "It's time to rise and shine, Alex-sama!" he chirped with a smile. "It's time to start a new day of training; you must train hard so you can win the battle of succession. You do want to win, don't you, Ouji? --Uwao!" The purple-headed subordinate stumbled forward as Alex had angrily sat up and immediantly jerked the blanket back from one end. But Sapphirus (or Sapphi, as Alex would call him) tugged it back eagerly. "Pl... Please, Ouji! We... must... begin... the day!" He was biting his bottom lip, now trying to pull it back from the stubborn prince. When finally growing tired of it, Alex had let go and watched with puffed-up cheeks, angrily, as Sapphi had stumbled back and fell to the ground along with the sheet. The attendant groaned slightly and sat upward, gazing up to his prince while rubbing his back. "Ouji... that wasn't very nice to do to me..." "I don't care!" Alex snapped back. "That's what you get for waking me up. And now I can't go back to sleep again, you!" Obviously being smacked in the face with a giant rash called guilt, Sapphirus sighed and stood up while straightening the books in his arms. "Well anyway, it's a beautiful day, so Ouji can eat outside and enjoy the nice morning weather; let's hurry and get your breakfast served so we can go on with the day, alright?" He tried to give Alex a smile, but sighed heavily with a sweatdrop as he was only given another puffed up glare by Alex and walked out to serve his prince's foot outside on the table. Alex meanwhile had slipped out of bed to change into his outfit. He unbuttoned his pajama top shirt and slipped off his hat. He looked around for his clothes, and found them neatly folded and washed by his attendant like they were put every night. He took his shirt and proceeded to put it on before he paused to think... <That dream...> he thought to himself while eyeing the ground, <Was it even a dream...? That couldn't have been it... it was more like me just talking to myself... it wasn't like my normal dreams... of the sky... of him... it was more like...> his eyes kept eyeing down for every minute that had passed on by. He set the shirt back down on the bed and started to pull down his pajama bottoms, but Sapphirus had entered in already. Alex's eyes grew wide. "Ouji, your breakfast is-- Whoa!" Sapphi's eyes had also widened at the sight of Alex. "Wha... wha...! Get out, stupid!" Alex yelled furiously, throwing books at his advisor. The purple-haired attendant had blocked them off with his arms, and stumbled out of the tent and shut it closed, turning around with his face beat red. "Sorry! I'm sorry, Alex-sama! I-- I thought you had finished by now...! I was only...! Uhh..." Sapphi had smacked his own forehead with a hand with guild, more so embarrassed though. He shook his head slightly and walked to the table to make sure Alex's food was all set. The other three were by the table too. Only they were talking to each other veerryyyy quietly while gazing at Sapphi once in a while. The advisor perked an eyebrow at them for a moment and sweatdropped when the three had noticed he was watching him. They chuckled slightly until the angel hunter, Ruby Jackson, had spoken up. "What the hell was that about?" He laughed slightly. Sapphi had immediantly caught what he was saying and folded his arms, jerking his head to the side. "I... don't know what your talking about...!" "Oh c'mon... ya both were screamin' bloody murder in there!" "It was nothing!" The two eyed each other in silence until the pink-haired Aprasas, Plum, had jumped off the table energetically. "Sapphi, Sapphi~~" he cheerfully sang out while holding a plate up to the advisor's face. Sapphirus's eyes twitched while moving his head backward (feeling as if he were about to tip over). "Pleaaase pleaaase let Ouji eat my breakfast I made! I spent alot of time on it!" "Ouji's... uh... meal was already prepared!" Sapphirus choked on the horribly smelling food. For some reason, this didn't look like it turned right, if the smell hadn't immediantly gave it away. Plum had given a pouty face, eyes watering up, and slumped off to eat it himself. The advisor sighed quietly in relief, wondering how anyone would be able to eat it. The blue sage, Beryl, had smiled when watching as he sat cross-legged on top of the table and looked back at Sapphirus. "You want to train Ouji today, right? How do you plan to do that?" he asked. "Ya could always take him out ta angel hunt... or have one of /us/ fight 'im!" Ruby chirped. "That outta toughin' him up a little." He laughed, but was cut off as Sapphirus shook his head and stormed past him to shoo Beryl off of the table. "Alex-sama will study in his books today!" he proclaimed while folding his arms. Ruby and Beryl eyed at each other with an unamused look on their faces and gestured their glances back to the purple-haired advisor. "Books? Again? Geezus, when are ya actually gonna get 'im to fight? I mean, he ain't gonna learn the method of fightin' through books, ya know..." Ruby rolled his eyes and leaned against a tree. Before Sapphi could make a comeback, Alex had walked out and his advisor happily greeted him, trying to forget what happened just minutes ago. Alex was finishing with hooking his chain around his cape and sat down at the table. "Morning!" he greeted to Ruby and Beryl, who had greeted him back. He picked up his fork to begin eating his eggs until Plum had perked to the sight of his ouji and ran to him, carrying his uneaten plate with him. "Ouji~ Ouji~ Morning, Ouji! Please eat Plum's breakfast he made for you this morning~?" Again, his large Aprasas paws lifted up the plate to Alex's face, tail swinging from left to right cheerfully. "Ewwww! Nooo!" Alex pushed the plate towards Plum. "That smells weird!" Again, Plum's face got teary and pushed the plate. "Pleaaaasssee Ouji!" "No, cut it out!" "Plum, let Alex-sama eat!" "Ouji, Ouji, Ouji~~" "I... said... /stop/!" Plum was now whining like a baby, Alex trying to get him to shut up, and Sapphi trying to do so as well. Ruby simply gave a mocking laugh at them while watching the amusment. Beryl had joined in with him. The morning passed and Alex had been forced to read his books... not like he was really reading them though. He groaned at the sight of all the words on the pages and banged his forehead down onto the table. <Aaauugh... I don't want to read all of thisssss...> he moaned to himself with a pitiful look. <Sapphi told me we were going to train for the battle... he never told me were were going to be studying with bookssss!> He looked back when Sapphirus had entered inside happily, carrying two or three more books with him. "How is your studying, Alex-sama?" He smiled. Alex groaned again at the sight of more books and sat up. "Sapphi, I don't want to study anymore! Let's train for battle!" he said. The advisor blinked and eyed around before looking back to Alex. "Train? We are though. Those books will--" "I want to practice fighting though! Pleaaase, Sapphi?" He frowned up at Sapphirus who had been staring back down. He sighed and set down the books. "Very well, Alex-sama... but perhaps we should--" Alex dashed passed Sapphi cheerfully, not bothering to here the rest of his sentence. "--Take it slowly..." Sappirus scratched the back of his head and walked back out of the tent where Alex was cheerfully talking to Ruby about training. "So Mr. Staff Officer's lettin' ya train for battle now, huh? Great, let's do it, kid!" Ruby gave a wide smile and stood up. "I want to help Ouji train!" Plum danced around. "So how do we start?" Alex asked Ruby while standing ready. Ruby's eyebrow arched up. "Well, since I'm gonna help ya train, I'll teach ya. Get your weapon." Alex looked around for a minute and ran back inside the tent, passing Sapphi who had sighed helplessly. He arrived back out a minute later, with his staff in hand. Plum had sat down by the tree Beryl was sitting in the branches of. "Go, Ouji~" the Aprasas called out once in a while. Alex gripped his staff and watched. "Ohhhh, /please/ be careful, Alex-sama!" Sapphi begged. Alex had looked back slightly at his advisor. "Ouji, Ouji, watch out~~" "What...?" Alex didn't have enough time before he looked back, Ruby running at him like crazy and slicing his sword down at him. The blonde-haired prince yelped and held his staff upward, watching it clash with the sword. Ruby chuckled and jumped backward, easily landing on his feet like a cat. "Nice one, kid! But yer gonna have to be faster than that ta keep up wit me!" Again, he had sprinted forward towards Alex, smirking as the boy panicked, yet tried to keep himself ready, holding his staff up again. Sapphi had covered his own eyes, unable to bear to watch how it could have turned out while Plum was hopelessly cheering Alex on still. Beryl, however, had perked, immediately getting to his feet, and jumped off the tree and in front of both Alex and Ruby before he could strike and pushed Alex down to the ground with him. Ruby had immediantly stopped in his tracks and stepped backwards as something had slashed in between him, barely missing, no thanks to Beryl's quick actions. "Ouji!" Plum called in worry while getting to his feet quickly. Sapphirus had quickly ran to his prince who had just barely begun to sit up and covered him into his arms, glaring up at the attacking figure as Beryl had also sat himself up. "An angel!" he called to both Ruby and Plum. "Keep your guard up!" Plum ran to Ruby's side, full of awareness, while at the same time the angel hunter glared around. "Ah, let 'em come! We can take 'em!" "Dirty devils..." another voice chanted painfully as the figure stood to it's feet, it's worn wings folded backward and turned around, blade in it's hand. "Filthy dirty devils...!" It glided towards them all in great speed. Both Plum and Ruby had leaped backward, Beryl easily getting to his feet and flipping backwards. Sapphirus has kept Alex in his arms and jumped to the side, all dodging as the officer thrusted forward a hand, landing on his feet, chanting. The large stone of rock beneath his feet formed together into spikes and lundged themselves at the angel who had shrieked at the blade-like stones that shredded into it's wings. Ruby easily ran forward to it and slashed the bright blue blade of the sword, cutting into the angel's flesh. Alex watched in horror at the blood that had been spilled from it. <Wrong...> he thought to himself. <Why does this seem so wrong?> But he decided to ignore these thoughts. It was better to never think of them. The angels were the enemy of the devils... Only the strong survive... this was how it had to be... and if he was going to be King of Naraku... "Let me go, Sapphi!" He struggled out of the advisor's arms and ran forward. The staff officer's blue eyes widened as Alex quickly made his way towards the angel. "O-- Ouji! Don't do that!" As Alex had drawn closer to the angel, it had perked it's head upward at the boy and jumped back, holding to it's wounds, and threw the blade towards him. Alex immediately stopped running and had barely missed the blade, if it were not for Plum, who had pulled the prince down with him to the ground. They rolled to the side as Ruby glared over to the red-eyed prince. "Hey, idiot!" he shouted, "Don't do reckless things like that! It was expectin' ya to do something that easy, y'know!" Before he could scold anymore, he quickly looked over when Sapphirus had called for them to watch out; the angel started to spark with bolts of lightening and thrusted them all towards Ruby, Plum, and Prince Alex. Plum shut his eyes tightly and clutched onto Alex tightly as the three wailed from the stinging and painful bolts that struck into them. Alex's eyes had almost watered in tears from the striking pain that shook his whole body. Ruby had stopped the handle to his sword and toppled backward to the ground, unable to move the rest of his body, though sparks began to start up around the angel when it was ready to attack again. But Sapphirus's attention was drawn towards Alex in sheer warning. He began to run towards them, but had stopped when bolts of lightning barely missed his feet, sparking at the ground in front of them. The angel drew forward it's hand again to attack. Though Beryl, this time, had jumped behind it, his hand glowing with a bright blue color, and thrusted it forward into the angel's shoulder and down. The angel had screeched an ear piercing scream as part of it's body had been taken away. The bolts of lightening around it had started to die off until part of it's body had finally fell lifelessly to the ground. The blue sage stood upright and looked to Sapphirus to give an assured look to him that it was dead. When this was clear, Sapphirus nodded and quickly made his way to Alex and kneeled beside him, propping him into his arms. "Ouji! Ouji! Alex-sama, please open your eyes! Ouji!" he kept calling to the prince until Alex had forced his eyes open, gritting his teeth in pain. He eyed up slowly towards his attendant and groaned. "Aa... Sapphi... this hurts..." he choaked out. Sapphirus frowned and nodded. "Don't worry... it's gone now, Ouji. Let's get you back into the tent and treated, alright?" Beryl walked to Sapphirus and propped Plum up slowly off of the prince so the advisor could pick him up slowly and take him to his tent. The green-eyed sage looked to Ruby and walked over, kneeling down. Ruby still seemed to be conscious from the quiet grunts that left the angel hunter's mouth. "You okay?" he asked with a smile. "I just got zapped by an angel... ya think I'm okay?" he grumbled. Beryl chuckled and held out a hand towards the redhead, helping him up. When unsteadily getting to his feet, Ruby shook his head. "Damn... that was kinda stupid... I let my guard down for one second..." He bent down to pick up his sword. "Let's just be glad that's all we have to worry 'Bout..." He paused and looked back slowly with the blue-haired boy as more rustling echoed through the trees. They slowly turned around (Plum still unconscious under Beryl's arm) to see more winged figures slowly rush from the shrubs and bushes. They stared at five or six of them before Ruby let out a thought of his mind... "Damn." Sappirus gently set the prince on the bed and frowned down at him. Alex kept his eyes shut tightly and panted. His breathing had become heavy and he was twitching slightly once in a while because of the bolts that had hit his body. "You should have listened to me, Ouji..." Sapphirus frowned. Alex opened his eyes and glared slightly, still trembling. "I... was just trying... to show you... I could fight..." "But attacking an angel so recklessly could have gotten you killed. If it wasn't for the ot--" "But you said so yourself, right?" Alex slowly sat up, panting. His eyes were set sternly on the purple-haired advisor. "Only the strongest in Naraku can survive! How can I be the King of Naraku of you don't let me fight?! I have to learn to fight these things! I have to learn to defend... I... need to know myself that it's alright to kill... in order to keep myself strong." Sapphirus stared in suprise at the prince who had slowly formed tears in his eyes and frowned slowly. "...Ouji..." He slowly wrapped his arms around the small prince. Alex kept glaring, but made no effort to struggle back, tears still formed into small drops. "You /are/ strong already. I can see it. Just by that, you telling me, you're getting stronger..." "Sapphi..." Alex frowned, but had quickly looked over with his advisor as the opening to the tent and sliced open. Sapphirus quickly stood, powering his hand with a formed spell with a glare as an angel slowly stepped in. "Alex-sama!" He looked back to the prince quickly. Alex nodded. "The others...!" Sapphirus had shot the glowing bright spell like a strong wind that had thrown the angel out of the entrance violently. Alex staggered up, gripping his staff, and quickly made his way out with Sapphirus. Alex spotted Ruby, who had been defending off most of the angels, though Beryl seemed to have had his hands full behind him with Plum who still hadn't been able to wake up. Alex called for them as they ran towards them, and had almost tumbled over when the after-feeling of the strike from the bolts started again. Sapphi's eyes widened and caught him. "Ouji?" "I... I'm okay..." Alex frowned, standing upright, and eyed around at the angels around them. Ruby looked around when managing to slash another angel away. "There's too many...!" he proclaimed when preparing his sword again for another swing, should another one try to attack. "We need ta get outta here!" Sapphirus almost shot a suprised glare at Ruby. "We can't just...!" "Watch it, it's doing it again!" Beryl cut in. Instead of one. Almost all of the angels that were attacking them started to glow with sharp bolts. Before either of them could attack or make a spell to protect themselves, Alex, Sapphirus, Ruby, Beryl, and Plum in his arms were all struck down with the huge bolts striking into everyone. They all wailed and hit the ground backwards. Alex's body had felt as if it were going to explode from the burning heat inside him. His vision had blacked out, but he still could hear the stinging sounds of explosions or feel the burning heat against his face. <Empty... was this the same feeling I had in my dreams...? Instead this feeling's burning my chest... I can hear the others... now... I don't feel like this is for me anymore. The reason to fight... so I can protect not just myself... but others. I have to protect the others. If I lose to Platina... what would happen to the others if I'm to lose to Platina? Every single one I've become close to... I don't want anything to happen to them. Sapphi... the others... I must become strong... so I can protect you... I must become strong. I /have/ to!> Alex's eyes had opened quickly. They were a bit in shock, his own blood trailing out from him, but this didn't stop him from staggering to his feet. Sapphirus's eyes widened and looked back at him. "Ouji?" he asked in suprise. Scars covered Sapphi's body and there were tears in his cape, a scratch was across his cheek dripping down blood. Ruby was on one knee barely being supported by his own sword. Blood ran down his arm with deep gashes and wounds, and Beryl was on the ground, covering Plum. He wasn't hurt as bad, but he carried a few bruises and scars himself. They all watched in suprise as Alex limped foreward at the group of angels who were ready to attack again... "Hey, idiot!" Ruby glared. "Don't get in front, you...!" "I have to get stronger..." Alex frowned. "I have to get stronger..." His eyes trailed slowly to all of them that stared. "For Naraku... for all of you..." "Ouji..." Sapphirus blinked. Alex immediately looked back to the angels, holding upwards his staff. "Naraku is for the strongest that survive. I'll protect the ones who aren't strong enough, and for the ones I want to protect!" A shining red light beamed from his staff. Both Ruby and Beryl shielded their eyes from the piercing light, but Sapphirus kept trying to look for his prince through the light. "Ouji! /Ouji/!" Through the blindness of the light, the angels' bodies began to shred apart, shrieking and wailing, and one by one they fell to the ground lifelessly. The light slowly dimmed away and Alex was now on his knees, panting, desperate to stay awake. Sapphirus immediantly ran to him and caught him in his arms. "Ouji? Alex-sama!" were the only words from his advisor that Alex could hear before he blacked out completely. ~~~~~ Plum's eyes opened slowly to see Ruby and Beryl looking down at him. He blinked awake and sat up quickly, looking around. "The angels! Are the angels gone?" he asked question after question, looking around. Ruby nodded and looked to the tent where Sapphirus was busy tending to his prince. "Yup... the kid brought 'em all down! Can ya believe it? The /kid/ did it!" Beryl looked to Ruby in silence before looking up to the sky. "He's getting stronger." He sighed quietly. The other two looked to him and then up to the sky to see a small bird's feather dropping down. Beryl caught it with his hand. "He might be able to win this battle... and then some..." "Then some?" Plum blinked and looked back to the tent. Ruby spotted Sapphirus slowly walking out and headed towards him. "Hey... the kid's alright?" he asked. Sapphirus smiled and nodded, explaining to them that he was finally awake. Plum immediantly dashed passed the two to see Alex. He went into the tent quickly to see Alex sleepily sitting up in bed, rubbing his eyes. With a blink of an eye, Plum pounced onto him causing the small prince to yelp in suprise. "OUJI, OUJI! Your okay~~ Plum was so worried!" Alex sweatdropped at him and looked over at Ruby and Beryl, who walked into the tent. "Whadduya know!" started Ruby, folding his arms. "The kid's alive! Idiot, next time ya wanna scare us that bad, /don't/." Alex had almost chuckled but stopped and looked at him. "You all were worried about me?" "Worried?" Plum sobbed playfully on Alex, huggling him. "Of course we were worried! We could've lost Ouji!" //You didn't even know, Alex was hurt and in bed until now..// Beryl thought with a sweatdropped, but decided not to say it out loud. Alex smiled slowly at everyone as Sapphirus entered in. <Now I know the reason for fighting against Platina... maybe it's not to make sure he didn't make a fool out of me... but I'll fight for all of these people... the ones that no matter what, stood by my side...> "Well now that your gettin' better..." Ruby started with a devilish (go figure) smirk, "Now I'm gonna train ya twice as hard now! /Ha/!" "WHAAATT?" ~~~~~
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