The Black Swan and the Duck (Princess Tutu FanFic)

Chapter 16: The Blackest of Nights

Fakir put his arm instinctively, preparing for the blow. Except the blow never came.

He heard the sound of the evil Ahiru step back with a small screech.

He opened his eyes to see her fallen back onto the ground. In her place was a white swan with a rough cut up her wing.

So that was Ahiru? He recognized her blue eyes as the big blue eyes that rescued him from Drosselmeyer's lake. And she was bleeding.

"Ahiru? Are you-" He walked closer to her. Not as a duck. A swan. I guess that made sense...in a way, ducks did become swans. But so many pieces to the puzzle were still missing.

She wondered if he really had figured it out. She hesitantly found Fakir's eyes. She wouldn't let Ahira sacrifice Fakir.

Fakir looked rather upset. He turned expecting to see Ahira back in action, but instead saw her laughing rather...insanely.

"You think you're going to stop me from performing my Master's orders? The Knight has to die for the Son to come alive! A sacrifice! You'll be the one stuck as a swan...I will not be a stupid bird, I will have your body!" She chimed out angrily as she stood up and began to lunge forward again.

Fakir took the statement seriously, and took Swan-Ahiru in his arms and nimbly dodged a second blow.

"The son...is that the Sorcerer's son...is that what who you need to bring back?"

"All I have to do is trade a life for a life and thats what the Master-"

"The Sorcerer is the Master isn't he? Who is he now? Who is he hiding as? And if he wanted the Kingdom so badly why is he targeting us and not Prince Mytho?"

"One question at a time young Knight."

Fakir heard the voice and swallowed hard. He knew that voice. It was making sense now.

"You." He turned to see the director smiling, his coat tails floating in the wind, his white open button shirt collar up, and his silver-moon-light hair dusting the front of his eyes. He stood in thin air above them, in an aura of black magic.

"Ah, no surprise? I was certain you hadn't figured me out yet? However I had you two pinned from the start. Drosselmeyer created us from the ballet Swan Lake, so you two dancing so well together made such sense."

"I'm not the Prince."

"In the main story, no. In this story...maybe a Knight is a Prince, or is willing to become one the Princess he falls for. And yet, she loved Prince Mytho so much...left you in the dust..." He smiled evilly, hoping to reawaken old wounds.

Ahiru was starting to follow along. She'd heard Fakir's words to Ahira...and now Kuro's words were linking well with them. She knew she'd loved Mytho...but she'd never really had the mind to realize she'd ever had a past with Fakir. And in that past, it seemed she'd broken his heart. She'd never do that now.

Fakir looked down, his black hair covering his face, and then looked up sharply. His grip around Swan-Ahiru tightened.

"Even if she doesn't love me back, I never would have had the intention to kill your Son. You should pay for turning her into a duck and making her feel less of a girl...a human, a Princess. You should pay for trying to manipulate me to kill the Prince I was trying to protect. You took something from me, I took something from you. It was never intentional."

Ahiru swallowed. Doesn't Love him back... Did he still love her? She looked up at him, his eyes still hard on his enemy. Even if she could speak words, she didn't have

"Ah the noble Knight defends his actions as pure and right...and still...I intend to bring back my son...the dark magic I need to perform requires a sacrifice." His eyes were silver, but Fakir saw blood red in them.

"I tried Master...but the girl...the white swan-" Ahira protested.

"Has been painted red I see. Has the Knife chose another?" He looked rather cool about the miss-hit.

"I wouldn't let you." Fakir protested.

Ahiru felt Fakir's arms around protectively her. Her wing stinging with the ache of the blade. She couldn't fly. She probably couldn't defend Fakir or herself like this. She hadn't thought past saving Fakir from Ahira's blade the first time. She felt the feeling of helplessness overcome her, just as it did when she couldn't remove Mytho's heart shard from her necklace. She had another heart she needed to save, and once again she was helpless.

But Fakir had made her feel better. He'd helped her become at peace with being a Duck and now he was fighting for her freedom as a Human. She'd never expected that her real identity was Princess Tutu. Maybe the reason she hadn't thought before saving Fakir, was it was never a question of thinking about it...it was automatic. His life over hers. He'd saved her once, she owed him that much if not more.

"Then sacrifice yourself young Knight. You have no blade, I destroyed that. I can only awaken my true power with that sacrifice and I will not stop until I get it." Sorcerer Kuro was nothing but sure that he would win.

"You'll have to stop me, I won't just give up." Fakir said first, holding his ground.

"Ah, but I have power on my side and you have no where to go? Forests and darkness are my forte!"

"Fine, but only tell me first how I can reverse the spell on Ahiru!" He said challenging him, full force. If he wasn't going to get anywhere with this, at least

"Hmm...even without your sword, you won't go down without a fight. Well, I guess a trade is fair." He turned to Ahira who was slightly stunned her maker would sacrifice her so quickly. "You'd have to kill her Yin. Only then would she get her own body back...the moon cannot give her freedom tonight...and when the light touches her wings she will be stuck as a swan forever, just as she was a duck." Kuro distanced himself from them by floating up higher in the air.

"How about...if you can destroy her Yin before the sun sets...I'll consider letting you have your fairy tale ending...if not...well someones going to die as my sacrifice."

Fakir thought for a minute, and looked down at Ahiru, still tight in his arms, her blood staining his shirt. "I won't let him win. I promise." He whispered it to him, loud enough so only she could hear. She looked back at him with worried eyes. He took out his hand as if to shake.

"I'll do it."

"Good, here take this you'll need it." Kuro took his hands together flat, and separated them horizontally, and the air between became a sword. He gleamed at him, confidently. "What is a knight without his sword? It cannot resist black magic like it once did, but it will kill what it needs to." He dropped it into Fakir's outstretched hand. He looked to his creation, his Yin. "I'm sorry my pretty black bird, but you had a purpose, and you will fulfill it." With a snap of his fingers Ahira was a black swan again.

Fakir nestled White-Swan-Ahiru in his left arm, and held out his sword in his right. It felt familiar. Too familiar, as if he really was a Knight again. He questioned Kuro's method for changing the Yin back into a swan, if it still had keepers over Ahiru's body.

"Now, my dear Fakir, you did figure out our past, but did you figure out the present? Clever Knight, did you figure out why I had set such black feathers out on each door step?" He looked at Fakir dangerously.

"As a warning. To tell us of your presence and what was coming..." Fakir suggested, rather confidently.

"Well that...and each feather, on the blackest night, like the blackest swan, they would lay themselves in the hearts of the people who had found one on their doorstep, and awaken the black bird beast in their heart." He said. Fakir looked hesitantly back at him.

"Basically, your chances of finding the Yin, are one in a hundred or so." He put out his arms presenting-like and a swarm of black swans flew from the air and surrounded Fakir, one no different from the next. Fakir knew too well, one wrong guess and he would kill someone from the town; each of these swans were towns people. He had been tricked. He had a hundred of black swans in his midst, one of them Yin, and only a short time before the sun reached the horizon, the night stars already disappearing into the sky.

It truly was the blackest of nights.