| Fan Fiction |
by Aelk
Amidst the warmth from an embrace, he could feel a chill on his cheeks caused by the presence of moisture on his skin.
“She is crying for me…”
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Anzu rests her head on his chest and was oblivious to the fatal threat behind her.
”Anzu, he is coming, you gotta run!!!!”
“Big sister!!”
Helke and Hanna tried to pull her away from the corpse of their brother, but they were helpless against her adamant will.
Though their screams were deafening, she could not hear them as her heart was shut from everything. Yet, a small throbbing sound caused her to awaken from her dazed senses.
Unmistakably, it was the beating of a heart, his heart is---
“ANZU!”
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Marduk sends the same Mu he used to kill off Shamash towards the woman who was once the priestess of their revered temple. With this, he thought confidently, no one would know the truth behind the death of the previous king, Nannar.
“Carry my crimes to your grave, lady Anzu.”
The small materialized projectiles aimed for her vital points and darted towards them with much acceleration. She knew her fate, and closed her eyes to accept it.
The throbbing of his heart could not have been more than her imagination…
The children could not hinder on time.
Just one more centimeter, and she will join him in the afterlife.
“BIG SISTER!!!!!”
Hanna screamed at the top of her delicate voice.
----
And yet, after a few long seconds of complete silence, Anzu could not feel the pain she had expected to gush into her whole body once she was impaled by Marduk’s Mu.
“?”
The palpating sound she has heard was louder and more rhythmic than before. So it was not her imagination?
The priestess opened her eyes swiftly and turned around to look at the false king. Alarmed and surprise expressions were overshadowing his confidence from before. What had shocked him, as she realized, was not the fact that she did not die, but that the dead had come to life once more.
“Marduk, it’s time that you pay.”
This voice… Anzu covered her widened mouth with both of her hands, and could not believe the sight she was seeing now.
The man with a beautiful head of sky-blue mane, whom stole her from the temple by accident, and one whom she gave up the deities for; has once again opened his eyes.
Though it was not shown actually, Marduk could tell that it was him who deflected his powers with his.
“I’ve slayed you, so how did you… And that power…”
The false king’s voice was abnormally calm. It is known that he is a man who tolerates no defeat, and thus he did not acknowledge Shamash to having a superior power than his.
“I will not die before I see you to your grave, Marduk!”
Shamash understood that the deity now resides in his heart, and that he has free access to her energy. While shielding a muted Anzu with his other arm, he concentrated his powers into a single blow aimed at the man who killed him.
Marduk instinctively grabbed one of his warriors forcefully to protect him while continued firing his Mu towards the resurrected man, albeit to no avail.
“A Human shield… How low can you go…?” Shamash asked, “Do you see life of others being less worthy than yours?”
Shamash got up from where he lay previously while holding Anzu down, as if telling her that he will be fine.
”I will tell you everything once this is over.”
An enchanted circle of azure appeared beneath each step he took towards the terrified king. The air currents around him were stirred along violently by his emotions, causing the grass nearby to be sliced into pieces.
The energy which shone brightly at his palm has now materialized fully into a huge avian figure, which was in fact the manifestation of the deity Ishtar’s soul. From Helke and Hanna’s point of view at the side, it looked like a gigantic blue sparrow.
Marduk had no where to run, and could only haul his shield closer.
Then, like an animal that is no longer restrained, the sparrow was released from Shamash’s grasps and rushed towards its target like an arrow. It seemed to the others that he was intending to kill the innocent warrior in the king’s arms as well.
And yet, the sparrow penetrated through the warrior like a ghost and took less than a second to reach its true destination, sparing the latter’s life in the process.
“It will only take the lives of those that deserved,” Shamash assured him that the human shield was useless.
Marduk has absorbed the blow at its full force from the front, but there were no visible injuries as the powers disappear. He threw up blood all of a sudden, and yet he felt no pain.
“What have you done, Shadow?!”
Shamash turned his back on the king, and began walking back towards Anzu as he explained coldly,
“Marduk, it is unfortunate that the god Anu’s blood and a fragment of his soul have fused with the corrupted ones of yours. We have to remove you from this world entirely, and that is, to scatter your soul.”
Anzu listened to him in horror. If a person’s soul is dissipated, he would never be able to reincarnate. As she watched on, she noticed how Shamash was using the pronoun ‘we’ in his sentences instead of ‘I’.
It was then she knew that the new individual was responsible for bringing him back to life and giving him the new power, and only one entity is able to perform such a miracle, and that is the solitary deity Ishtar.
Marduk dropped to the earth all of a sudden and cringed, even though he no longer felt anything.
”You won…. Shadow.”
Even when facing death, the phony sovereign never showed a visage of fear. While he does not have the royal heritage in him, Shamash thought, his talent and dignity were immensely regal.
“Had you treated your people well, we would have acknowledged you as the true king.” the thief answered.
“What a joke” the dying man laughed hysterically, “Bloodlines are the key to getting acknowledged; I’ve come to know that long ago.”
And his consciousness faded slowly away.
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”Eek! What a filthy child!!”
“Let’s keep clear of him!! He is that illegitimate bastard of the king!!”
”Shhh!! He can hear us!!”
Such comments amongst the court ladies were too common and repetitive that he grew numb of them. Ever since he was brought back to the empire, he has been hearing such words every single day.
At that same time, there was a famous rumor on how a vain village girl managed to bewitch the king to fall head over heels for her in order to enjoy a life of luxury. It was then he became the center of all sorts of stories.
“I have never regretted so much in my life for giving birth to you,” his mother told him just before the night she was secretly poisoned and died, “The only thing that prevented me from strangling you as a baby was the blood in you… the royal blood that enables you to fight for the throne.”
The one truth unknown to all others in the world is that the king had soiled her. Unlike what the rumors spoke, it caused her to become what she is today, and was the cause of her current obsession with lavishness.
Though so, he has no interests in ruling over the humans.
The plump Prince Nannar has already settled his eyes for that tall chair placed at the center of the audience chamber, and he did not object at all; until ---
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“I never regretted the assassination of Nannar, I never will.”
Marduk spoke with an extreme weariness as images of his mother, whose beauty has invited only disasters in her life, ebbed away from his mind.
He closed his eyes for the last time, keeping the untold stories of this short-lived king with him as his mortal body and soul shattered into a million specks of golden dust.
Shamash and Anzu witnessed the passing of him, and left with the two children without a further word.
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“You frightened me.”
Anzu revealed her thoughts as she recalled how he destroyed a person’s soul with a single palm.
“…I had no other choice, once a soul is corrupted; the evil is eternal in the cycle of life.” Shamash replied helplessly.
“I understand. For that is Ishtar’s will too… no?”
Her mentioning of the deity’s name did not surprise him.
“You are not good at hiding your own thoughts,” she explained, “But thank the deity, that you are back…”
Anzu grabbed the sleeves of Shamash like a little child while they return to the shack.
So many things have happened. Though it was only a few hours, their fates have been changed.
She was grateful to the deity, but not entirely.
”Ea and Rhea… Jhero…”
The children whom Shamash adopted and treated as his own as grown on her; and for them to leave her all of a sudden was too…
“?”
She hugged Shamash from behind abruptly and the two stopped in their path.
“Sorry, I wasn’t of any help.”
“It’s not your fault…I was helpless too.”
”Let’s… bury them properly.”
”Yes.”
”I’ll send them with my song of prayer.”
“…”
“And can we… stay like this for a little while longer?”
She wants to confirm again that he is real.
“A-anything with me.”
Shamash’s answer was abrupt, but to her, it was more than enough.
Although he was happy that he was finally back with Anzu and the children, the contract he made with the deity has not been forgotten.
[I want you to review the world once more…and a few thousand years of waiting could be in order]
Ishtar’s words stung him painfully, as he wondered how he would reveal it.
“Anzu…”
After a moment of indecisiveness, he finally made up his mind.
”?”
”I am leaving with the deity.”
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A/N
Mild bad language there, *apologizes*
but it was the best word to use XD
(or at least within my limited vocab)
this story might turn into something
more mature-themed D:
(Actually that scares me)
i'll see how it goes with the next chapter
(which could be done by tomorrow, or next week)
so.. the small revelation about Marduk,
he is, in case you are confused, the previous king's
(name's Nannar)
half brother, though llegitimate.
Nannar felt that he was a threat, and ordered
for the secret poisoning of Marduk's mother.
Marduk was never being acknowledged as an official prince,
so the orphan can only stay by proving his worth.
(in this case, the military arsenal and developement deparment, something like this.)
alright, enough of my long-windedness.
though i think it's highly unlikely,
are there any silent readers here?