Loyal Riptide

Part 2 Chapter 6

       Taura stood in front of an upside down Asa tied up by her vines and gave her a swift glance at her with her narrow eyes like a viper. "I honestly never expected you to still be alive, but I always have my doubts even within myself." Taura cooed, taking a quick glance at Asa's tied up friends beside her. "I also realize that some of my doubts lie within my own kingdom." She turned herself around to face the leftover citizens that still lingered in hushed ballroom, all eyes on her.

"It is true, Asa Shin is in fact alive and was to be your queen three years ago. But who really wants a queen that abandoned her own kingdom, her own birth right when things didn't go her way?" Taura announced to the room, her voice bouncing off the cold stone walls. "I believe you all dodged a bullet when it came to having this little girl running your kingdom." She said, patting Asa gently on the cheek.

"Leaving was a mistake," Asa piped in, her voice full of rage, "but I guess you of all people would know my reasoning why I did leave. Why don't you tell your 'subjects' what happened to your predecessor? Tell them why they had to live in fear all these years under you." Taura's shoulders raised and then fell slowly as she turned to face the crowd once more. "None of this wouldn't have happened if you accepted your birth right instead of abandoning it along with your friends, so don't try to cloud over your own mistakes." She rebutted, swiping the air with her finger. 

The vines around Hizashi grew tighter and a rasped gasp fell past her lips as the vines constricted around her like a python. "Stop! Don't hurt her!" Asa shrieked. "Then why don't YOU explain how you watched the queen die and did nothing to stop it?" Taura snapped, loosening the vines around Hizashi who let out a slowly exhale.

Asa opened her mouth but immediately closed it, what Taura was saying was right. Asa was capable of saving her mother that day but she stayed on the ground, scared to move as her own trident ended her mother's reign. "Everything said was true, I won't deny it." She began, her voice hushed and blood rushing to her head. "But I'm just sorry that I let her murderer be her successor." Murmurs fell over the crowds as she said that and Taura tightened the vines on everyone that was in the binds.

It felt as if all her bones and veins trembled as the vines tightened around her and that her head felt as if it would pop off like a plastic doll being played with too harshly. The room started to become dark and her head felt dizzy and foggy as her tired eyes fell to the bloodied floor. She wondered what will happen after this ended, what will happen to everyone in that room after their only hope died away.

Her head pounded against something hard and it took a moment for the world to get back into focus to see what was going on and why she wasn't dead under Taura's heeled foot. She felt cold hands grip her shoulders and heave her off the floor and start dragging her away. She regained focus on her surroundings and glanced to the corner of her eye to see lime green hair behind her. "Kaiyu..." She breathed, "where's Dorian? Is he-"

"He's okay just a little beaten up but he's walking." Kaiyu replied as he set Asa on her feet and they started in a run out of the ballroom. She glanced around her to see her friends are all with her, even Yoko which she only assumed was the one to cut them out of the vines. She guesses Yoko can explain everything herself once they got the hell out of here.

They made their way to the courtyard where most of the plants were dying or unkempt to see Kohsaku stepping out from under the willow tree where Asa first met Taura. In his hands he held out his coral sword with his eyes laid on his two daughters. "I'll handle him, you get out of here." Yoko ordered, her voice sounding deep as she willed her arms to become crystal and block and attack head on from her father's sword. "But, Yoko what-" Kaiyu started, but was interrupted when Yoko used her free leg to kick them all off the edge of the courtyard and into the lake that surrounded the palace.

Yoko brought her attention back to her father and leaped back to dodge from getting her stomach sliced open. A hand gripped the edge of the cliff and Hizashi raised from the ledge and joined her sister at her side with her own sword. "You should have escaped, I could handle him." Yoko said through gritted teeth. "This is our father we're talking about, despite you being the most powerful militant you can't be what you are against him. You need me."

Kohsaku stared between his daughters before sighing and saying, "I don't know whether or not I raised you both right."

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       Asa heaved herself onto the sanding shores that flowed out of the lake and slowly got herself to her feet. She found everyone else not too far from her, but she couldn't find Hizashi anywhere. "She must still be up there, we have to go-" She began but was cut off by Gordy, "we can't go back practically Taura's entire army is probably up there with them."

"So you're saying that we're just gonna leave them with her ENTIRE army?"

"No, what I am saying is that Yoko is up there, too. Also that pray she has mercy on the army."

They started back up in a run down towards the main lagoon where they planned on going onto Dorian's ship if things were to go south, which it did and escape the kingdom to plan out their next attack. But what awaited them must've been at least twenty soldiers positioned at the port with the ship in flames. Once one of them caught sight of them they were already making their way towards them.

Kaiyu blocked his friends and held out his pistols towards the soldiers. "You get out of here, I'll handle this." He said taking a shot at a front line soldier and they fell to the ground with a thud. "Kaiyu there's too many of them, you can't possibly-" 

"Asa," Kaiyu muttered softly, "I am not the scared little boy I was years ago; the one that got flung off a third story window to escape the wrath of your seamstress and mom." He smiled, "trust me I have a plan." Asa huffed before turning herself around and following Gordy and Shiro towards the other ships that were hopefully still docked in the ports. But once they turned a corner out of the flaming ships view their hearts sank.

No other ship was left in the ports and they were only greeted with more soldiers with their guns pointed at their heads, there was too many to fight. One of the soldiers ordered them to place their hands behind their head and surrender quietly with another tightening restraints around Gordy and Shiro's wrists. When they made it to her with Gordy and Shiro already being hauled off by the majority of the soldiers and blast sent most of them flying.

Asa turned around to see Kaiyu with his coral pistols in hand with one of them having it's end blasted off. All that fire power couldn't be handled by a small pistol. She quickly swirled around to untie her friends but they were gone along with the soldiers that hauled them away. Her heart started to race about which way they could have gone and she decided to go to the underground passage that took her to the academy as it was the closest escape route from where she was.

Once she stepped foot in the passage she heard a loud gun shot and a scream. She hid in the shadows and checked out the source of the noise and hear heart sunk. Kaiyu faced her direction with blood staining his sleek black uniform and some dribbling from his mouth. Her heart wanted her to scream, to run out to him and hug him tightly but that would sacrifice the time Kaiyu bought for her, bought for them all. His body fell limply into the main lagoon and from where she was she saw no air bubbles popping atop the surface.

Kaiyu was... Kaiyu was gone...

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       She found herself at the academy where nothing seemed to have changed much about it as if it was left untouched for many months. But on the inside it felt as if a tornado blew through it with classroom doors and windows being ripped from their frames, desks and tables blown to splinters in the hallways and stained carpets with only she could imagine.

She found herself in the auditorium where the Coral Reapings occurred at the end of every year where a lucky academy graduate got to get their coral weapon. Except that now the glowing water that usually was present in the pool around the pedestal was dried clean. She stepped up to the top of the pedestal with the imagination of her name being announced with all those prying eyes upon her as her twelve year old self got to be the lucky girl to get her weapon that day.

Once she reached the top she only surveyed the room at its emptiness with its lack of excited children among the benches and the fact that it was her fault. Gordy and Shiro were taken, Hizashi and Yoko fighting against an army and Kaiyu... was dead.

She only sat down on the pedestal and cried.