The Same Coin

The Sun and The Moon - One Of Them

"Hiso—"

Hisoka seized her by the throat, digging his fingers into the vulnerable flesh of her neck, and smashed her against the wall. She choked under his grip as he squeezed, compressing her windpipe, and dragged her up the wall with pure brute force. Her feet dangled off the ground. Winry closed her hands around his forearm as she struggled to get a breath.

"Don't do this," she coughed hoarsely.

"Are you one of them?" Hisoka hissed. Winry's lips parted to answer but she only managed a wordless rasp. His hand drew tighter. She couldn't breathe. She could feel cells dying through her body as he cut off her oxygen completely. She was desperate for air, but she held out longer through willpower alone. If she struck back it would be the end. There would be no turning away from this path of no return. There was still a chance for Hisoka to walk away with his life.

Her lips moved, mouthing the word "Stop" but no sound accompanied it.

He turned, throwing her like a doll across the room. Winry slammed into the stretcher and it toppled over on top of her as she landed. Her cry was guttural and weak, but she sucked in lungfuls of air gratefully. Her vision throbbed as she struggled to slide out from under it, and Hisoka prowled toward her. He snatched the stretcher and flung it out of his way.

"You got what you wanted," she said, coughing as she pushed away from him with her heels. "You wanted to fight Chrollo, you got it."

"The Troupe conspired for my loss," Hisoka whispered, his words dripping with menace as he grabbed her up by the front of her shirt, shaking her violently.

"You left the Troupe for this opportunity, they had no loyalty to you!"

He flung her at the ground and Winry landed in a crouch, hastily throwing up her left arm and focusing her aura into it as he kicked her hard. She tumbled backward in a roll away from him, putting distance between them as she tried to get to her feet. Hisoka was on her again already, raising his leg to stomp her.

"Hisoka, stop!"

She leapt away, narrowly missing the heel of his shoe.

"You refuse to fight back?" he snarled. His body turned to track her as she moved so that the stretcher was between them. He would rip her limb from limb until he was satisfied if he found the opening, and she knew it. "So you've given Chrollo your ability, too."

"No! I don't want to fight you, it doesn't have to come to this! You accepted the fight on his terms, you gave him the opportunity for every advantage, and he took it advantage of it."

He stalked toward her, unmoved by her words.

"Are you one of the Troupe now, mink?" Hisoka whispered.

Winry bit the inside of her cheek then squared her jaw, digging her heels into the ground. Her entire body was shaking with nerves. So it had come to this — her life or his. She'd once thought that if she couldn't kill Hisoka, then she didn't deserve the Troupe's attention. He was so clever though. Could she kill him? She'd have to try.

"I set you free," he continued, his big hands cranking into fists. "I did not judge or restrain you. I gave you your liberation, and you choose them."

"I wanted to choose you!" Her voice cracked, and his amber eyes narrowed, arched brows creasing together at his words. "For years, Hisoka, I chose you. I lived alongside you, I trained alongside you, I took you as the monster that you are. I chose that. And no matter what I did you refused to see me as anything but an outsider." She jabbed her hand toward the sealed doors, chest heaving with her breaths as the words she had suffocated for so long found their voice. "They have done for me what I did for you, and they will return it in kind. But you've made it clear that's a cost too high for you to pay."