Fall/Rental Magica/Martyr Syndrome Title: Fall Rating: PG-13 Prompt: Martyr Syndrome Fandom: Rental Magica Character(s): Adelicia, Itsuki Wordcount: 523 Disclaimer: Rental Magica is an anime produced by ZEXCS, based on the light novel by Makoto Sanda. Teaser/Summary/Synopsis, etc.: You always knew you were going to die in battle. Notes: Warnings for Character Death.
You always knew you were going to die in battle. You were never quite sure how - perhaps with wounds too great, perhaps a lucky (or unlucky) hit from an opponent, perhaps when your magic failed at a crucial moment - but it would, you were certain, involve a fight. After all, you were the current Master of Goetia, and an alarmingly large number of your predecessors (90% to be more precise) were killed in battle.
Dying in combat, depressingly, was simply one more Tradition for you to uphold.
But you had never dreamed it would be like this, a sneak attack by a weak, lumbering oni that you hadn't noticed until much too late, not even enough time to scream Forneus' name as you reflexively closed your eyes, a childish instinct, as though by not seeing the attack coming it wouldn't hit.
Moments passed. There was no pain. Bewildered, you open your eyes, and in the next second wished you could close them again, could perhaps unsee what was right in front of you.
For, standing in between the demon and yourself was Itsuki, brave, noble and foolish Itsuki, his back to you, arms held out at the sides as though shielding you.
And there were claws in his chest. No, through his chest, for the oni had attacked him from the front and you could see those dagger-like nails coming out his back, coated in so much blood (too much blood), there was no way this was simply an illusion or some sort of glancing blow. It was a fatal blow, the more clinical part of your brain pointed out but you shoved those thoughts aside because 'Itsuki' and 'fatal' didn't belong in the same sentence - couldn't belong in the same sentence, not without feeling sharp pains blossom in your chest like an explosion of a thousand needles as your heart broke into tiny shards.
In the next moment Itsuki was smiling at you, both eyes closed, and you were glad, glad that his eyes were closed. You didn't want to see pain in that single, beautiful black eye of his, didn't want to see that wretched, bulbous red eye of his, the eye cursed with Glam Sight, that had shown him all the variables in this fight and had presented him with the single option that would save her life: giving up his own.
Itsuki was saying something, asking something. Whatever it was your answer seemed to please him as he smiled wider. And then he was falling, sliding off the claws of his attacker as he hit the ground in a boneless heap, unnaturally still. And that oni, that demon, was laughing, licking the blood from his nails and purring like some kind of pleased, contented cat.
Something snapped inside you, then. Seeing red, you stand, clutching the fetish hanging off your neck so hard that your knuckles hurt, and a faint impression of a star was etched into your palm for days.
You don't remember much of the fight after that. (And, from the frightened looks you receive days afterward, you don't think you'll ever want to.)