Sakura Tree

~CHAPTER FIFTEEN~

Grasshopper lightly grazed his talon across his crown. Because it wrapped around his horns, it never shifted and remained in the most comfortable place for a heavy crown on Grasshopper's head. Or at least, Grasshopper would have expected the pure-gold crown to be uncomfortably heavy on his head and horns. It was surprisingly light, except when he made some specific movements that caused sparking, horrible pain to strain his horns.

He was sitting practically under Chinch's talons at the throne room, slumped and staring unhappily at Chinch as always. He shivered uncomfortably as he felt Chinch's warm, dry tail curl around his shoulders. Fraxinus left from his report of the kingdom. Grasshopper found it slightly creepy that Chicnh required a daily report of the entire activity of the kingdom. It was as if he thought that the scared-into-obedience small tribe would suddenly pull a move that shoved him back in prison. Everybody knew he could just escape anyways, though.

Unless they found a way to kill him that made him impossible to come back... that was a start to a plan. "You're excused," Chinch's voice snapped Grasshopper out of his thoughts. Grasshopper nodded and stepped up, shaking himself, and stepped out of the room awkwardly. He heard Rainbow mumble something to Chinch and when Grasshopper looked back he saw Chinch nodding.

Grasshopper wandered the halls of the palace until he saw Sakura. They both stepped up to each other, both half-crying. Grasshopper flung his wings open and surrounded him and Sakura. They couldn't live like this. They had to defeat Chinch. Grasshopper pulled away from Sakura, but still kept his wings partly around her.

"Listen, Sakura, I know you can't respond but-" Sakura pricked up her ears and a dragon coughed behind them.

"Grasshopper and Princess Sakura. I need your help." Grasshopper whirled around and saw Rainbow standing there nervously. "I have a plan to defeat Chinch, but I'll need your help."

---

Apparently Rainbow was always secretive. Even when sharing a plan. Rainbow's plan was very vague, and whenever she had a part in the plan, she would just tell them that they didn't have to know, or it wasn't that important, or just skipped it.

And without that vital information(most of the plan), Sakura and Grasshopper's parts made very little sense. But they would have to roll with it if they ever had a chance to defeat Chinch. And so Grasshopper was now standing in the sun with a shard of glass and a torch stand. Rainbow had just handed him the objects and told him to light the torch.

Grasshopper sighed and dropped the shard of glass onto the ground. It shattered into a few pieces. Grasshopper slid off the crown that Chinch had given him and used the shiny gold surface to grasp a sunbeam and direct the beam to the torch. It almost immediately caught a spark, which caused it to blaze alive. Finally! If Leafwing's had fire, that would have been much easier.

Grasshopper dipped his head and slipped the crown on once more. He held up the small, metal torch that was now ablaze. Grasshopper was staring at the flames of the torch when Forestwings began filtering from buildings all of a sudden and Grasshopper smiled just the tiniest bit. Chinch had sprang the alarm he made with his animus magic. At this point, Sakura should have freed Redwood and the rest of the 'disloyal' Forestwing's.

When all of the Forestwings had disappeared from Grasshopper's sight he slipped away to the palace. He was currently near the walls of the kingdom, but it didn't take long to get into the palace. Grasshopper immediately hurried through the halls towards the prisons. Rainbow had said that he might be able to find Chinch in the throne room, but she would try to make him go to the prisons, so if he wasn't in the prisons Grasshopper should go to the throne room to catch Chinch.

Dragons filled the small palace. Even when Grasshopper got to the staircase entrance, dragons were pouring in. Dragons were entering the prisons from all entrances. Grasshopper found a small opening and leaped at the opportunity to get to the prisons. He squeezed past dragons and the trapdoor.

Everything and everybody was in chaos. But way more than just Forestwing's were in the battle. Apparently Sakura hadn't just released a few dragons, but the entire prisons. Leafwings and Silkwing's flitted around and flew with the Forestwing's. Grasshopper noticed two dragons avoiding battle in one of the open cells. Manchineel and GhostGum. GhostGum looked in Grasshopper's direction, but didn't lock onto his gaze like Chinch did with Grasshopper.

If those two weren't leaping into battle, they probably had some reason and Grasshopper wasn't going to point them out just to force them to fight. Grasshopper nodded at Manchineel reassuringly, but she stared him in the eye and slitted her eyes. Grasshopper yelped when talons gripped him and pulled him into the air.

Sakura hugged him. "Grasshopper! Oh thank god Rainbow helped me get that muzzle thing off! I thought that releasing more of the prisoners than asked might be a better distraction..." Sakura glanced at the small torch that Grasshopper had nearly flipped over.

"Rainbow said that we should meet her and Chinch at the top level..." Sakura twisted her gaze to glance at the top level, which they could only see the bottom of the ledge of. They both glanced at each other. Was this a good idea? Rainbow had been so vague, which suddenly made Grasshopper question her intentions in the moment. He took a deep breath and flew up to the top floor.

Grasshopper looked around and spotted Rainbow grabbing Chinch's wing and talking to him. As he flew closer he could hear Rainbow pleading for Chinch to not go into battle. Rainbow was even crying, and Grasshopper couldn't tell if she was just the best actor he had ever seen, or if she was truly concerned for Chinch.

Grasshopper and Sakura landed near Rainbow and Chinch. Rainbow turned to face Grasshopper while still firmly gripping Chinch's wing. Rainbow had a few garments on, namely two bejeweled pouches and some wing laces.

Rainbow unfurled her tail and something dropped out, but Grasshopper couldn't tell what before she whipped around and ended up behind Chinch's wing. She yelped, but that seemed more fake than any of the other acts she had been doing. Grasshopper supposed she was good at pretending she is what she wasn't because she had pretended to be good for seven years, more if you count as long as she had been friends with Chinch. That made Grasshopper even more worried.

Rainbow suddenly leaped away from Chinch to face Grasshopper. Whatever Rainbow had thrown on the ground suddenly grew into intertwined vines that formed a bowl shape at the top. Rainbow slapped the torch out of Grasshopper's talon with her tail into the vine bowl and it lit ablaze.

Rainbow swiftly whipped out a dagger from one of her pouches, curling behind Chinch in one swift motion. Rainbow thrust the dagger through Chinch and because of the longer blade it thrust through his heart.

Chinch let out a single, blood curdling scream that caused all other noises to stop dead silent. Chinch went limp and Rainbow shoved his body out of the dagger she had thrust through him and kicked him into the blazing vine bowl. The flames flickered out once Chinch's body disintegrated into ash.

Rainbow pulled the second pouch off of her neck and swept the ashes into it. Grasshopper glanced into the pouch, which was lined with hard clay to hold the ashes in. Grasshopper looked up and stared at Rainbow in disbelief. She looked undisturbed.

"Now it's time to throw this disrespectfully around the kingdom," Rainbow said confidently.

A/N

AND SO THE MAIN SUPER CRAZY PLOT TWIST ENDING OCCURS

HELL YEAH 

anyways i'll go try to CALMLY finish the last two chapter thingies