Two Infants in Her Arms

In all her life, Yuri Egin had never seen a sight as beautiful to her eyes as she cradled the two infants in her arms.

She was shut away from the outside world now as she listened to their cries. Even wrapped at opposite ends of the same blue scarf they were so cold. She quietly began to cry with them. "I'm so sorry..." She sniffles. "I'm so, so sorry..."

"Yuri? Yuri, we need to get you out of here."
A voice finally broke past her barrier, and she looked up with teary eyes at the very man who helped her birth her sons — Shiro.
"They're safe here, Shiro." She whispered. "If they find them they'll kill them."

"I won't let that happen." Shiro said firmly. "Yuri you're bleeding out. We need to get you to a hospital. You're ill, the babies, they'll catch cold, they—"

"No!" Yuri screamed before bursting into sobs. "I won't let them take their lives away. If we leave they'll find us, Shiro, we can't escape them.

Shiro couldn't bear the sight of Yuri suffering anymore. He moved forward and tries to take her newborns out of her arms, but unexpectedly she retaliated fiercely.

"NO!"

Suddenly, a blue light blinded them. Seconds later, their vision slowly returned in a haze, and Yuri looked down at her boys to see the child in the crook of her right arm glowing. No, not glowing — burning. Burning in the bluest flames. Yuri was thrown back into her past and her eyes widened in shock. "A rinka."

Shiro moved back in horror and his hand gripped onto the sheathed sword beside him. He had taken it to protect her, but in this moment he is too stunned. "Satan's blue flames!" He gasped. "Yuri, that child is dangerous!"

"They're warm, Shiro." Yuri's eyes were fixated on her eldest son. He wasn't in pain. In fact it was quite the opposite. The cries had stopped — not only his, but his younger brother's, who writhed slightly to be closer to the warmth, as if trying to gain strength and support from his elder brother.
Upon closer inspection Yuri realised that the boy in the crook of her left arm wasn't moving towards the other like she thought: he was moving away. It was as if his body was rejecting the warmth of the fire, preferring numbing comfort of the cold instead.
"Poor baby... he doesn't like the fire." Her voice cracks in sadness as she watches over the two boys; how they're separating from the very instance of their births. The boy of fire and the boy of snow.

A sharp pain hit Yuri in the gut and she cried out, her body shaking as she tried to stay strong for her children. Shiro reapproached her and places his hand on her forehead to check her vitals. "Your temperature is too low. You're losing blood too fast. Yuri, we need to get you to a hospital."

"I won't put their lives at risk."

The white-haired man scowled at her. "You would give up your life for them?"

Yuri shot him an angry look. "When you go through hell and back for your children maybe you will understand, Shiro."

A pang of sadness hit Shiro in the heart. So she was ready to accept her end. "Yuri, it doesn't have to be like this, I can protect you."

"I'm not the one who needs protecting." She sniffled. "I don't care what happens to me, Shiro. I know that I'm not leaving this cave. But my sons will. And when they do they need to be protected." She looked up at him with pleading eyes. "Please, take them somewhere safe."

Shiro was lost for words. He couldn't bear to seen her so vulnerable and helpless. She was supposed to come out of this alive. She was supposed to raise her children and teach them everything she knew. Shiro looked away in shame. He had failed her, as a friend and more. "You've always wanted to be a mother." He reminds her.

"Even if it's just in my last moments I'll be okay with that." She looked down at the babies in her arms and smiled weakly. She was feeling lightheaded but was reluctant to show it. "I always said you'd make a good father, and I meant it." She tells him.

A moment of silence passed between the two before Shiro replied. "Kids don't like me. They never did."

Yuri pursed her lips shortly before shuffling forward so that they were close, and she could lean against his body for support. He wraps her arms around hers to help her hold the children. "Here..." she whispers, "let me introduce them to you."

"This is my son, Rin." She looked over at the boy in her right arm. "He's trouble, but he has a pure soul. He knows right from wrong and listens only to the flame in his heart. He'll wake you up early in the morning and still want to play in the middle of the night, but he'll listen to your stories and let you rock him to sleep."

"And this is my son, Yukio." She looked over at the boy in her left arm. "My snowman. He's stubborn, but obedient. He can have his heart set on something and not stop until he's got it. He'll look up to you, adore you, and follow you wherever you go, but when he learns to stand on his own two feet he'll be even stronger than you. You'll see."

Yuri leans into her old friend and her eyelids grow heavier by the second. "Shiro... promise me that you'll take care of them." She says softly, her final tears rolling down her cheeks

The white-haired man leaned down to press a kiss to her forehead. "With my life, Yuri."

Seconds passed. Those seconds turned into minutes, and she still didn't reply. Shiro sat there, empty, her lifeless body against his and the infants in their arms. The Rinka and the Yukiotoko. The flame and the abominable snowman. The spawns of Satan and... himself.

And no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't bring himself to cry.