AN: Yes! The end is here! I’m so happy! Please read and review! Much thanks to all those who reviewed. One thing though, don’t be appalled at my skills for writing action. I suck at it. I’m sorry.

What else? There is a few paragraphs in italics, well that means it's a flashback, k?

Warning: This chapter is dark. Not too much but still enough to warrant a warning and an R rating.

Disclaimer: Duo and Hilde are not mine. But the old, dirty, perverted, Lord Dushuku and his psycho daughter, Natasha are... does that seem fair to you?

The Gift of Cursed Blood

Chapter 10: The Dawn

Duo was frozen in his spot. He couldn’t move from where he stood. His heart ached, literally. It churned and twisted painfully in his chest at the site of his children covered in blood and at the site of Hilde tearing into Natasha and the soldiers like a wild animal. Rage burned inside his heart along with despair. Tears formed and threatened to spill from his eyes. He sensed more than heard hurried steps coming up the steps behind him. They got closer and their shouts were heard clearly.

Three more soldiers burst in along with Dushuku, who gasped at the site of his daughter lying on the ground in a pool of blood. His eyes going wide at the carnage and bloodlust radiating from the small, pixie-like woman stabbing his daughter’s remaining soldiers. “What have you done to my daughter?” he whispered.

Duo turned around to face them and unsheathed his sword, his eyes clouded over with anger and despair. He would not let any of them get away; he would not let any of them live.

Dushuku physically shuddered at the murderous rage in the young king’s eyes and motioned for his soldiers to charge. “What are you waiting for you imbeciles? You want him to kill me?” he shouted at the hesitant soldiers. He backed away from Duo, who by this time was almost upon them.

One of the soldiers fearfully unsheathed his sword, holding it in front of him more in protection than in a fighting stance.

Duo glared at the men standing before him. His only thought was of revenge. He didn’t care anymore that Hilde was still slaughtering what was left of the poor defenseless soldiers that had once been holding them. There had been five of them and she had all but annihilated them. Her visible skin and her hair were covered in blood, but she didn’t stop, and she would not until they were all unrecognizable pieces of flesh.

Duo could almost hear the pounding of his victims’ hearts as he came closer. He stepped closer and closer with little steps enjoying their fear far too much to let his pleasure end too soon. Each step he took forward would make the young soldier all but stumble back to try to keep as much distance between himself and the God of Death, the most feared legend in the surrounding countries at only twenty-three years of age.

With a quick swing, Duo knocked the sword from the soldier’s hands making it land with a clatter on the blood covered ground underneath their feet. The soldier uttered a high-pitched squeal and looked behind him, realizing, for the first time, that his comrades were not behind him and neither one had drawn his sword. His breath quickened, sweat ran down his temples and the little droplets would hang for a second on his chin before letting themselves fall victim to gravity.

Duo took another step towards him, both his hands gripping the hilt of his sword. He saw the young soldier’s mouth move but he did not register the words that came out of his mouth. It might have been a curse, a prayer or a plea. With a well-practiced swing and a forward thrust, Duo buried his sword into the soldier’s stomach, reveling at the sickening plop the blood-slicked sword made when he pulled it out.

He could feel the fear radiating from the other men in the room, and he was drawn to it like a moth to a flame. The could almost hear their hearts beat faster as he turned his deadly, violet gaze towards them. It was their turn. He made quick work of them, their fear paralyzing them and making them victims. Soon, the only one left was Dushuku. He wanted him to suffer, he wanted to torture him and prolong his death, but a quick glance at Hilde behind him told him that he did not have time for that.

“You will die today,” he said to Dushuku. “And I will make your death is fast, but I won’t promise it will not be painful.”

Dushuku made a whimpering sound and tried to run, but Duo, being much younger and agile, beat him to the exit. Dushuku was visibly shaking. He could not summon enough courage to draw his own sword. It did not matter. He knew Duo would kill him even before he could try.

He closed his eyes when he saw Duo grip the hilt of his sword tighter, he could see the wheels in his head turning as he gauged the distance between the two of them and how much force he would have to use to kill him.

With practiced ease, and a well-executed swing, Duo decapitated Lord Dushuku. He kneeled on the floor and started at the lifeless face of the one of the people who had caused all of this.

His eyes returned to Hilde, they hardened; he clenched his jaw and stood from his place on the floor.

His knees threatened to give out from under him but he stood his ground. With a determined step, he walked over to her. When he finally reached her he halted her hand in midair, as she was about to embed the dagger one more time into the dead man’s body. She was almost completely covered in blood and the savage look in her eyes almost scared him. He almost took a step back as she turned her furious eyes on him.

“Stop,” he whispered. “Please stop.”

She wrenched her hand from his and moved away from him snarling.

But her eyes quickly cleared as she looked at him. In seconds, they no longer held the animalistic blood lust, the savagery they’d had but moments before. At once they filled with tears and she let out a strangled cry. Her eyes turned away from his and they settled on Claire. With a sob, she crawled over to her and cradled her head against her chest.

The child’s body had already gone cold. Too much blood had been lost too fast, and too much time had elapsed. There was nothing she could do for her. “My baby,” she whispered brokenly as she stroked the child’s once lively, red cheeks.

The grief he now felt was as great as the happiness and amazement he’d felt when Claire and Lucas were born. Knowing he had helped create two little perfect people had elated him to no end. And now, with his heart in pain, knowing they were dead caused a deep ache in his heart. He walked over to his fallen son and he couldn’t help but weep. He might as well be dead now too. He took one of the soldier’s cloaks and began the heartbreaking task of wrapping his son’s body for their journey home. After he’d persuaded Hilde to let go of Claire, he did the same thing to her. They each picked up one child and made their way down the long stairway.

Outside, the rain beat down on the bodies of the fallen soldiers. The battle raged no more, and all was calm.

*~*~*~*

It had been six weeks since the murder of his children and Duo was no closer to getting Hilde to talk to him. He would not allow her to go back to her cabin in the woods for two reasons.

One, he knew that there were too many memories of their children there. And two because he himself was lonely. He didn’t want to be alone anymore. Not after all of these years, and especially not after the events of the last few weeks.

He sighed. More than once he’d caught Hilde talking to herself. She said she was talking to Claire and Lucas. It was getting bad. He didn’t know what to do. It was more and more rare the times he could speak to Hilde, a lucid Hilde. Most of the time she was lost within her own mind, and she wouldn’t let him in. She would not eat for days on end; she would not speak to him. She barely acknowledged his presence anymore. It broke his heart to see her like this. And it was all his fault. He remembered the last time her mind had been clear enough to allow her to talk to him. It was two weeks ago.

Flashback

“You have to eat something, Hilde. It’s not good for you to skip so many meals,” he pleaded with her. But she still refused to eat. “Hilde don’t make me force-feed you again!” he said, slamming the place down on the table. He clenched his fists at his sides in frustration.

She turned angry blue eyes at him. “How can I eat when my children can’t eat anymore, Duo? How can I enjoy anything in life when they’re not here to enjoy it? What is left for me, Duo?”

Tears burned in his eyes. “Me,” he whispered softly. “I’m here with you, Hilde. Can’t you do this for me?” he asked miserably.

She wiped the tears from her eyes but they fell down her cheeks nonetheless. “I don’t want to hurt you, Duo, but I haven’t had you for a long time. And during all that time I only had them. They were my reason for doing anything. And if I don’t have them, then I don’t know what to do with myself. I don’t know what to do with my life anymore.”

He sighed. She was right.

“Why was Fate so cruel to us, Duo? What did we ever do? All we did was love each other. All I did was love you and lover our children. And she took them away! They didn’t even get a real chance at life, Duo. They were five years old. No mother should have to see her children’s throats be slit! Why couldn’t we be happy? The four of us. Just the four of us.”

Duo held her as she cried. He didn’t have any answers to her questions. How could he have any answers when he wondered the same thing?

End flashback

But nothing of what had transpired the last few weeks could have prepared Duo for what happened next.

He was taking Hilde her dinner, as he did every evening. She wouldn’t eat unless he was with her almost forcing it down her throat. He was so tired. Tired of everything. Of life, of death. He was just tired.

He called her name when he entered her bedroom. She wasn’t sitting in her usual spot and that made him wonder where she was. “Hilde?” he called once more. He walked further into the bedroom and set the tray with her food down on the small table. Suddenly a smell assaulted his nose. It was a strange smell, yet very familiar. One he’d smelled many times before.

He followed his hi nose to where the smell got stronger and what he saw made his heart stop.

There was his wife, on the floor on the other side of the bed, laying in a pool of blood. Her blood. With red, longwise cuts on her wrists, which were no longer bleeding. He crawled on the bed and reached the other side. He kneeled at her side and touched her face gently, afraid to feel death on her skin. He was too late. Again. Her skin was cold; she’d been dead for hours.

After they buried their children, Hilde had told him that there was nothing that could possibly cause more grief than the death of their children. She’d been wrong. “Not you, Hilde. You were the only one left for me, Hilde. What’s left for me now?” he whispered sadly. He didn’t bother to wipe his tears away this time. There was no reason to pretend it didn’t hurt him. There was no reason to pretend to be strong anymore. He wondered briefly if the grief he felt in his heart would ever subside. If it would ever just turn into a deep sadness within him. As he was about to take her lifeless hand in his, he noticed the dagger she still held in her grip. It was the same dagger Natasha had used to kill their children.

He took the dagger from her hand and stared at it through his tears for a long time. This dagger had taken everything from him. His children, and his wife. How very fitting that it should take his life too.

The End

AN: I feel the need to say that there will be an alternate ending posted sometime tomorrow… >__<