Dawn of a New World - Akatsuki no Yona

Chapter 11

Yona sat in silence staring at her hand that was covered in Hak's blood. "To protect me, you..." she mumbled to herself. I was about to try to comfort her in some way when we both heard someone nearby. "Where are the Princess's? Where did they disappear too?" Yona and I flinched and ducked to conceal ourselves more from them. However, we were met with the sight of Gang Tae-jun. He seemed very upset with our sudden disappearance. "Hak must have helped them escape." the man standing behind him said. "Find them!" Tae-jun ordered in an aggravated voice.

We could hear the sound of weapons clashing not too far away, it must be Hak. I went to stand up but quickly knelt back down when my arm started burning intensely. "Damn it..." Yona turned her attention to me when she heard my cry of pain. "Amaya! Are you alright?" she tried reaching for my arm but I pulled it out of her reach. "I'm fine, I promise." I smiled at her to the best of my abilities. "The Thunder Beast is human, too." we turned to see Tae-jun stand up whilst looking down supposedly at Hak. "He seems to be tiring." "The arrow that hit him was poisoned." the solider behind him explained. I heard Yona gasp and she quickly grabbed my arm to inspect it. There was yellow liquid that was leaking out and mixing with the blood. I cringed at the sight. I guess that explains why it hurts so much.

"What? You fired those at the princess's?" Tae-jun questions, "I knew Hak would shield the princess's with his body if we fired at her. However, it seemed one of the other archers also fired at the same time and ended up hitting Princess Amaya in the arm. An ordinary person wouldn't be able to move. Hak is a terrifying man." I glanced over at Yona who wasn't moving, it was like she was in shock. "Then, when he turns his back, fire at him." Tae-jun's words were enough for Yona to briskly lift her head and gasp. Yona then went to move out of our hiding spot when she halted in her movements.

The archer readied his arrow, about to fire at Hak. My breathing had become quite heavy at this stage, the small amount of poison that had entered my body was finally acting up. I felt incredibly weak. I heard the bushes rustle beside me and turned to see that Yona had stood up. I raised my eyebrow questionably at her before understanding what she intended to do. She glanced at me and we nodded at each other before running out towards the archer and Tae-jun. Yona rammed her body into the archer, causing him to go over the edge and down to the lower level. "Yona..." Tae-jun muttered in surprise. "Princess Yona... I never thought you'd come to me yourself. I wanted to speak with you." Yona was glaring at him hatefully, a look I had never seen before. I was attempting to try and sneak up behind him, my movements slow and stealthy.

"There's no need to be so cautious. I came to get you." Tae-jun tried 'reassuring' Yona. "Get me?" Yona asks in a void tone. "Tomorrow morning, Lord Soo-won will be crowned the new king." I flinched at what he had just said, so Soo-won was getting crowned tomorrow huh? That sure did happen quickly. "Poor princess... It must have been painful, losing the king and being chased from the castle. Come with me, and we'll make this known. We can drag the detestable Soo-won, who chased you from the castle, off the thrown and avenge the king." I was about a foot away from Tae-jun when I heard the sound of Hak's weapon. "Why did you move?" He demanded to know before one of the soldiers quickly attacked him again.

"So, Princess Yona, come with me-" Tae-jun began before Yona suddenly cut him off. "If you knew that, why did the Fire Tribe put pressure on the Wind Tribe?" "Huh? Those were my father's orders, it wasn't my will..." Yona's glare only seemed to get more menacing with each word that spilled out of Tae-jun's mouth. "Why did you attack the merchants? If you knew the truth, then instead of driving the Wind Tribe into a corner, instead if trying to kill the innocent Hak, there's something else you should be doing!" She exclaimed. I've never been more proud of Yona, she's grown so much in such a short time. I smirked at her new-found confidence. "I may be an ignorant princess, but I'm not desperate enough to listen to someone who doesn't understand reason!"

Hak managed to push he solider away from him for a moment. "Princess Yona!" he shouted out desperately. Hak was advancing up towards us in a desperate attempt to try an protect us. He eventually fell to the ground when his legs had weakened from the poison. Yona quickly turned to look at him in concern, "Hak!" The soldiers were quickly surrounding him so he tried taking them on in his extremely weakened state. His movements were less than coordinated and he was edging closer and closer to the edge of the mountain. He was bound to go over with just one little push. One of the soldiers took this opportunity to slash at him violently, causing Hak to get hit in the chest and all the way down to his torso. Blood poured out of his wound as he fell over the edge, just at the last moment he managed to hang on with his hands. "Hak!" Yona cried desperately, as much as I wanted too, I couldn't seeing as how close I was to Tae-jun.

Tae-jun was incredibly happy with this new development "Yes! There's an abyss below him! Throw the Thunder Beast down!" he commanded before trying to get a closer look. Just as I was about to reach for his sword I saw Yona quickly darting past Tae-jun. Tae-jun, in a panic, reached out to gab her "Princess!" he ended up with a handful of her crimson hair and Yona cried out in pain. My eyes widened, what do I do? "No, Princess. You mustn't go to him." I slowly reached down to grab my daggers that I had put back inside my boot with a murderous glare aimed straight at Tae-jun's back. "You're going to the castle with me!" Yona turned slightly before reaching out and grabbing his sword, pulling it out of it's sheath before slashing at her hair. Tae-jun fell to the ground in total shock at her actions. As I was about to run after her, I made sure to cut him at least a bit with my daggers as I ran past. "Princess Amaya?!" I smirked as he realized that I was there all along.

Yona descended down the side of the mountain and I was quick to follow after her. We hurriedly made our way over to where Hak had fallen. As we finally reached them, we saw that one of the soldiers had his sword raised above Hak's head, ready to pierce through his skull and end his life. Yona pointed the sword at them and I held my daggers up in a threatening way. "Get away!" We shouted in unison. They turned towards us in shock, "Get away from Hak." Yona demanded angrily. The solider only slightly put down his sword, "Princess's..." Seeing as he wasn't going to completely lower his sword, we took the initiative of attacking them. "Get away from him!" We yelled simultaneously, neither of us wanting any further harm to come to Hak.

Seeing as Yona had never had any training with a sword, she was only able to swing it around clumsily. "Stop, princess!" one of the men ordered. I heard the man behind me go to attack us from behind "A princess should keep quiet and..." "Don't!" Tae-jun shouted from above. "Don't hurt the Princess's!" As the man was distracted I swiftly spun around with my dagger out and successfully slashed his hand causing him to falter, moving backwards slightly whilst clutching his hand in pain. "But, sir..." the one who had tried killing Hak called out before looking back at us and halting his speech. The both of us appeared to have a fire in our eyes, I can only imagine how my own looked. Yona then slammed the sword into the ground before turning and attempting to help Hak up. After glaring at the men I quickly followed. "Princess's..."

"Hak, we'll save you." We latched our hands around his arm and desperately tugged. "You idiots! Run!" Hak exclaimed. "You can't do it! Run far away!" he demanded after seeing how much we were struggling. "No! Never!" We shouted angrily. Hak then gasped in shock as our tears that had built up in our eyes, fell down onto his cheeks. "Hak, I'd never forgive you for dying!" Yona was sobbing at this point "I'd never forgive you!" "Wh-What are you doing?" Tae-jun suddenly exclaimed. "Get the princess's away from Hak!" We heard them coming up behind us quickly so we let our guard down for a second as we turned to face them. In that short moment, our grip had loosened just enough for us to fall over the edge along with Hak.

We were falling. Plummeting. Straight to our deaths.

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