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By Jessica Orr

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The world was in chaos. Dimly, Chuei could hear the others screaming, their plaintive cries, rich with fear and pain, digging into his skull, urging him awake. He had to wake up! A groan split his lips, wrenching up from his gut, making his pounding head hurt even more. His fingers dug into the floor, pushing him up...

... and stared in horror at the chaos around him.

There was blood. Blood was everywhere, thick in his nostrils, making him want to retch. He almost did anyway. Only an arm’s reach away, a small figure lay facedown in a puddle of crimson, dark brown hair pulled back into twin familiar hair-knots... Realization slammed into him like a sword through the back.

"Gyo... Gyokulen…?"

Chuei crawled over, cradling the small body in his arms, shaking her gently then progressively more and more violently as nothing elicited a response. "Gyokulen? Gyokulen! Gyokulen!"

The only movement his little sister gave was to let her head fall limply, like a rag doll’s, against his warm. Bloodless lips parted, a thin line of red darting out of a corner, whispering towards her cheek. Horrified, Chuei’s arms went limp, dropping her.

Gyokulen’s head hit the ground with a weighted thunk, bouncing once before going still. She didn’t move, though her eyes seemed to open partially, starring blindly into nothingness.

"I… Iie…" His arms dead weights at his sides, Chuei slowly tore his gaze from his little sister’s corpse, letting his aquamarine eyes take in the scene, bile rising in his throat, filling his mouth with a horrid, raw taste. Only yards away from him and Gyokulen was another body, his brother Shunkei, and beyond that…

He choked.

"Otousan!"

It wasn’t fair. He had tried so hard, had taken such good care of him while he was sick. With Oniisan gone, he had tried so hard to take care of him! He couldn’t be… he couldn’t be... Chuei’s fingers curled into shaking fists, tears smarting his eyes, grief and horror giving away to a mind-soothing numbness. "Iie," he whispered again, harshly. "Iie!"

Squeezing his eyes shut, Chuei struggled to remember what had happened before everything had gone black. A prickling against the back of his neck... laughter... pain... and Yuiren. Yuiren? She had been crying... he had felt... seen... heard... balls flying through the air, so fast that he could hear them slicing through the air itself… Yuiren…

"HELP ME!"

Her voice... her voice! She was alive! Chuei couldn’t decide whether he was overjoyed or frightened. Scrambling to his feet, almost slipping on the blood-slicked floor, he darted forward, towards the source of her scream. But a nearby glint of metal drew him up short, tightening the knot in his chest further with determination. A knife, the one they used to butcher meat...

He had tried so hard. Oniisan had been gone so long, but he had tried as hard as he could.

He wouldn’t fail his family.

The blade was in his hand; heart pounding in his ears, Chuei ran to rescue his sister.

Suboshi listened to the girl’s screaming in a distant, abstract sort of way, his lips curled back from his teeth in an odd half-snarl. Her eyes were bright with tears, her face a maze of blood as it trickled down a welling wound on the back of her head. The darkness was an odd contrast against her face, a face that had gone almost completely white with fear and draining strength. His ryuuseisui danced in the air around him and the girl, the whistle of movement the only other sound in the deathly silence besides the girl’s keening cries for help.

Aniki..., he thought quietly, studying the girl’s tear-streaked face. Aniki, why did you let them kill you? I should have... I should have…

It was empty now. The presence in the back of his mind, the quiet smile only a thought’s away, the soft, wistful melodies weaving in and out of his ears, no matter if his brother was at his side or not… gone. All gone. Suboshi moistened his lips, scratching absently at his arm.

"Watashi... kirenai…?" he whispered to the empty air, his eyes half-lidded and distracted. He felt his throat tighten as he reached out again, in vain, to find that other half, the other part of himself that had been taken away from him. But there was nothing. Nothing.

"Aniki!"

The cry was filled with longing, fear, and hope. It took Suboshi a moment to realize that it was not him who had said it.

The little girl stared at a place behind him, her painful eyes wide and bright with recognition. A small, delicate hand reached forward, towards the place behind him, and again she said it, her melodic voice shrill with hope: "Aniki!"

Building grief mixing with rage, reflected in the intensified screaming of his ryuuseisui, Suboshi turned, half-expecting to see the warrior of Suzaku, Tamahome, the eldest son of the family that he had just slaughtered. But instead his eyes fell upon a boy, only a few years younger than himself, with bright aquamarine eyes and a tight grimace set upon a face too young for it to fit properly.

And... he remembered...

"Don’t worry, Yuiren!" the boy shouted, his voice quavering, the butcher knife clutched in one hand shaking erratically in the air. "Don’t worry, I’ll protect you!"

As any older brother should...

Aniki...

"Sou," Suboshi hissed hoarsely. "He was my brother."

The boy drew up short, having advanced only a few steps, blinking at him rapidly. Confusion scrawled across his face, smudging out some of the frightened courage. "N-Nani?"

A moment of uncertainty hung in the air, as the two youths stared at each other, weapons wielded, but held at uneasy angles, not knowing whether to strike. But then the girl – Yuiren – cried out again, and the boy’s face contorted with determination. "You killed them!" he yelled at the top of his lungs, shaking. "You killed them all! My father, my brother, my sister-! Bastard! Bastard!"

Before either knew what was going on, the boy threw himself at the Seiryuu seishi, the knife coming around in a sweeping arch, slicing across his arm. Hissing again, Suboshi recoiled, and his ryuuseisui lashed forward, throwing the boy away from him.

Yuiren cried out that hateful word again as her brother collided with the wall: "ANIKI!!"

It startled the boy enough to make him pause for a moment. It spurred Suboshi forward, rubbing his nose in what he had lost, his anger, his grief, and what he had come here for. To make them pay. To make them know.

"Aniki!"

Yuiren was crying again. As he felt one of the bones in his left arm shatter, Chuei blinked blearily, slumping to the floor, hearing her. His right hand still clutched the knife, the mind-dizzying pain enough to make him want to pass out. But he couldn’t… he couldn’t! He had to save Yuiren! Yuiren! The whistle of ryuuseisui by his ear brought him back to his senses just as he relived everything in one final burst.

Chuei flailed with the knife, everything passing by in slow motion, seen in shades of red and black. He tasted blood and bile in his mouth. He heard the boy, the attacker, shout out something, but he didn’t know what it was. He could only hear Yuiren’s screams, and the whispers of his own promises in the back of his head.

Oniisan… you said you would come home soon… where are you?… I’ve tried so hard… I’ve taken care of everyone, just like I said I would... Otousan was almost well again... but I’m tired of being the older brother, Oniisan... I miss you... please come home... come home… I’m scared…

As he somehow got past the ryuuseisui for a brief moment, the realization hit Chuei like a cartload of bricks. He wasn’t scared anymore. He could feel Death’s whisper only inches from his ears, but he wasn’t scared. He was going to die. Kishuku-niisan wasn’t coming home. He was going to die, along with everyone else, but he wasn’t scared. He was the older brother. He had to take care of everyone.

He had to save his sister.

"Yuiren!" Chuei dived forward, heels digging into the ground, stabbing forward with the knife. "Yuiren!" He was so close, so close... he would kill the bastard that had killed his family, hurt his sister, and he would die with honor… he would make Oniisan proud of him…

And then...

And then...

The ryuuseisui exploded out of his chest, whipping out from behind. Numbness overwhelmed him, not pain like he would expect, and he fell forward, never dropping the knife, his body still propelled a few steps by the force of his own movements. There was no mocking laughter, nothing to taunt him as the blackness engulfed him. Only the voices of his younger siblings, of his mother and father, welcoming him, pulling him into their warm, open arms.

Oniisan…?