[ VERNON-POV ]
The cell's atmosphere was electric.
It was a mutual feeling.
It slithered through the cell, a heavy and pregnant aura, coiling around my senses like smoke from a guilty pleasure you vow would be your last but you know you will do again.
Akira was still pressing his forehead against mine, so near that I could sense his skin's warmth, his restraint's strength.
Our breaths formed a tangle in the feeble light, sharp and irregular—like two knives getting ready for slaughter.
His eyes were glued to mine—dominant, provoking, and menacing.
Blood relatives.
Nature's enemies.
Instinct's worst.
His hold on my arm got stronger, his fingers sinking into the flesh just enough to make me aware that he could crush the bone if he so wished.
The heartbeat in my neck pulsed stronger and stronger. Every suppressed demand was pulling upward, freed by the confinement, the pressure, and the unspoken memories between us.
It was me who stepped back first.
Not that I was the one who lost, but rather because I was aware of the destination of the trip.
Yura was right in the middle of the cell, lurking in the shadows, her stare cutting and sharp as shards of glass.
Yuna's wings very quietly moved behind us, the ruffling like very far away fire inhaling air. The existence of angels—whether they had fallen or not—was a reminder that they were not meant to dwindle in cages.
"I hope you have a good plan," I said, my voice barely audible and harsh. "For, if we are not released from here soon, I will demolish this whole place, one brick at a time."
Akira smiled.
It was that slow, irritating twist of his lips, which always occurred before drawing blood.
"An hour," he said quite and with a good reason.
"Change of guard shift. That's when we'll go."
He didn't shout at all. He never needed to.
Yura gave a single nod, and she was already gone. Quiet. Lethal. Intent in every step. Akira looked at Yuna.
"Only the shadow cloak. No flare-ups. No surges of power beyond what's necessary."
Yuna's gaze was very bright but at the same time very old and impenetrable. Her wings were barely moved but they still sent a little air drifting around.
"The wards are hungry" she warned in a low voice. "They are going to sense us."
"Let them starve," was the answer of Akira.
The wait was pure torture.
The passing of minutes felt like that of hours. Each sound was amplified unbearably.
Each breath was like stealing.
The cell was hotter— or maybe it was us, too closely packed with violence and memories and the like. Akira was walking with a lion's fury in a cage.
I could not help watching him. We were shaped in the same blaze. And sometimes, when I was so close, it was hard to distinguish between where brotherhood finished and where something much more dangerous started.
And then—
The keys.
Metal dragged over metal.
Akira stopped moving.
Now.
Yura placed her palm on the door.
She could feel a very weak vibration that was under her skin. The lock opened so quietly that it was hardly heard.
The door was ajar.
A vacant corridor. Lights that buzzed. Silence was stretched out extremely thinly.
The wings of Yuna wrapped us around, the shadows devouring our forms completely.
As the cold air touched my skin we came out, moving as one—trained, deadly, and unavoidable. The labyrinth of the asylum was winding infinitely, the veins in a dying body.
Sleeping people: snoring, moaning, and smelling of despair.
There came a guard around the corner.
Akira was on the move.
A knife went in and the throat was cut and there was silence.
The dead body fell down before the sound had a chance to come out. Blood was fast and dark in pooling.
Wordlessly, we pulled him on one side. Yura's eyes met mine over the dead body— there was recognition flashing there. We had been through this before.
Farther in.
Through the heavy-duty doors.
Through the slumbering monsters. I could feel the wards bearing down more and more—the invisible force that was eating away my bones and testing Yuna's cloak was getting stronger.
The outer yard was just in front of us.
A steel gate. There was a power source that was whining beneath it.
Akira forced the keycard that he had taken to the panel. Sparks were flying. The lock was screaming.
And then—
Alarms went off.
The whole yard was lit up in red. Sirens cut through the darkness of the night.
"INTRUDERS!"
From the towers, guards were coming down in large numbers.
The whole thing went up in smoke.
I unsheathed my sword.
The first guard went down, forepart detached and he was screaming and blood was all over the floor.
Yura was every strike of planting next to me like a hurricane, every blow, nonjudgmental and accurate.
Akira very much delighted—he was too loud and so free—with the fire dancing at his hands, and nothing was able to withstand the heat and the force.
Yuna broke loose.
Her wings were emitted at once, staying dark against the lights, and while the wind was howling, the bodies were scattered as if they were rag dolls.
All of a sudden, pain hit me—just like when one is hit by a police baton—but I was enraged and thus I could struggle on and through it. I pushed my sword in to the very end and sensed the barrier yielding.
We were in a fight back to back.
Blood everywhere, screams, and utter chaos.
Then, the wall.
Akira was concentrating—just the right amount of control. The fire was roaring. The blast of fire destroyed the stone and the darkness around it.
There was freedom waiting on the other side.
In the distance, Tokyo was on fire.
We jumped—
And the heavens burst open.
A huge rift in the sky was seen, pulsating, and full of life. Demons had come out like a plague that was unleashed and they were screaming as they went down to the city. The buildings were trembling and reality was howling.
After that—
A sound was heard.
Father's sound.
It was amplified. It was victorious.
"Welcome to your home, my sons. Now the game is over."
We were motionless at the border of fleeing.
And a silhouette came out of the shadows behind the rupture.
Huge wings.
Fiery eyes.
Old and wrong presence.
Lucarious.