........“Damn you!” he cried, fury banishing the terror in his voice and making it crack. “Damn you to the deepest Hell, LEAVE HER ALONE! If you have to kill one of us, it’s not going to be her, Mazoku!”
........The thing that had been Xelloss considered for a moment.
........Very well, Zelgadis. I will accept your life in her place.
........Zelgadis’s own words struck him like a Dragon Slave, as did the realization, brought sharply home by Xelloss’s acceptance, that he meant them with his whole heart and soul. He would die, without fear or regret, if it would keep her safe. He, who had never known what love felt like, had never had a single soul who had honestly ever cared for him. He suddenly knew the answer to the question he had always asked himself, half in joking, half in seriousness. He knew now why he remained with his friends.
........He felt appreciated. He felt.....loved.
........And now he knew what it was like to love another human being as well, an unspoken ache he had felt for many a long month of staying with Lina’s party, never fully understood or acknowledged. He loved Amelia, and she loved him, and she was everything to him.
........He gazed at her still face, brushed away an errant strand of dark violet hair from her smudged face, and hesitantly, tenderly placed a soft kiss on her lips.
........Zelgadis lowered her body gently onto the rocky ground and stood to face the fate he willingly accepted. He steeled himself for the end, reconciled himself to it, and waited.
........A dark, sick-looking green light, nearly black yet still light, came forth from the Mazoku-that-was, to envelope him, smother him—and he embraced it. Behind him, Amelia woke, blinking her eyes open and taking in what lay before them. She sat up, too fast, reeled, and fell forward onto the ground, raising herself up with her palms.
........“M....Mr. Zelgadis!” she cried, her voice slurred from the blow to her head. “Mr. Zelgadis, what’s happening?”
........He smiled, a soft, sad smile. “You can go, Amelia. He’s letting you go free. Leave, go back to Lina and Gourry. They need you.”
........She stared at him, at Xelloss, at the light that was not light, tears starting from her soulful eyes as she began to comprehend. “Mr. Zelgadis, you can’t! You can’t do this!” Desperation gave her the strength she needed to stagger to her feet. “I need you!”
........As the insidious glow obscured Zelgadis from her sight, he gave his tiny smile once more, and said, “I love you, Amelia Wil Telsa Seirun. Never forget that, ever.”
........And it swallowed him up, closing over him like a crushing hand.
........Amelia stared, tears pouring down her face, too stricken to do anything more. Until the sickly light began to spread towards her.
........“Y-You already—” She choked. “I—I thought I could go free!”
........Now why would I give up the original object of my mission just because the chimera had a death wish? Xelloss said reasonably. I have no use for his death, and much use for yours.
........Her face twisted in fury, she who could never truly bring herself to hate anyone or anything, until now. “T-Then you—you just took him? And he thought he would be s-saving me? You just did that?”
........Yes. Have you some quarrel with this?
........She stared at what had once been someone she considered a friend. “There’s no JUSTICE!” she shrieked at him, putting all her grief and pain into her words, as if it would somehow wound him.
........The Mazoku laughed that familiar, grating laugh that even under normal circumstances could set her teeth on edge.
........What, he said, is justice to me?
........And those were the last words she heard before the light took her.
........Lina woke.
........Her head was throbbing and muzzy, and her limbs moved sluggishly or not at all despite her best efforts. She gave up trying to move and directed her energy towards opening her eyes, which seemed glued shut with a damn strong glue.
........She managed to pry up her lids, first one, then the other, but her orbs refused to focus clearly on anything. She blearily considered shutting them again, but it would have rendered her strain a wasted effort and a moot point, so she declined her headache’s urging and kept them semi-open.
........She was lying on rubble, sharp and uncomfortable, presumably what was left of the temple Xelloss had destroyed.
........Xelloss!
........Lina’s eyes went wide, her body going through an involuntary spasm as she remembered. Zel and Amelia! She fought with reluctant muscles, a battle she was not prepared to lose. And, as so often was the case, her ass-stubborn will prevailed in the end and she staggered to her feet, wobbling a little.
........She was some distance from where she had last fought, thrown several hundred yards by the blast. But a strange green-black glow told her she had not lost Xelloss, not yet.
........Lina began a painful and slow journey in the direction of her friend-turned-enemy, dragging feet as heavy as lead, pain stabbing her between the eyes with every step. As she gradually neared the source, she heard voices. Zelgadis! Relief flooded her and almost made her fall.
........Until she heard what was being said.
........“If you have to kill one of us, it’s not going to be her, Mazoku!”
........No. Oh, no!
........She tried to cry out to Zel not to do it, she was on her way to help him, but her throat was locked in an iron grip and she could not.
........Very well, Zelgadis. I will accept your life in her place.
........Lina hurried as fast as she was able, but it wasn’t enough. She was going to be too late. Gods, Zel, why did you have to get involved in this at all? I can’t do anything to help you now.....
........“Mr. Zelgadis!”
........Amelia’s cry stabbed Lina through. The princess was hopelessly in love with the taciturn chimera, and he with her, and it showed even though they had never said it. And now one of them would die, and one would be left behind to pick up the pieces of a tortured existence and try to move on.
........It was too much for Lina to bear to sit aside and do nothing. She had to help. She redoubled her efforts, but still could plainly see she wasn’t going to get there in time. But at least, she reflected, at least she could say she had tried.
........What she heard next froze her soul to the bone.
........“I love you, Amelia.....”
........The light made a sudden flash. Lina knew he was gone now. Then Amelia cried out, “I—I thought I could go free!”
........Lina stopped in her tracks involuntarily as she realized that Xelloss was going to kill Amelia anyway. He was going to waste Zelgadis’s life without a qualm. It was too much for her to handle. She made a sudden decision. I'm sorry, Xelloss. I hope you forgive me, for the sake of who you used to be.
........“Darkness beyond blackest pitch, deeper than the deepest night!”
........“There’s no JUSTICE!” Amelia shrieked. Her voice was lost through he roaring of Lina’s ears as she summoned the power she had only cast twice before in her life.
........“Lord of Darkness, shining like gold upon the Sea of Chaos, I call upon thee, pledge myself to thee!”
........What is justice to me? And the light flashed once more. Now I wait, for the human through whom I will truly live again.
........“Let the fools who stand before us be destroyed by the power you and I possess!” She readied herself and let the energy loose. “GIGA SLAVE!”
........The power crashed down upon Xelloss, and answering blackness crashed down upon the redheaded sorceress. She remembered nothing.
Epilogue
........The evening was heady and thick, full of night sounds of crickets and owls. A loon voices her mournful cry somewhere off in the distance. The little town near the lake was quieting down for the night; shutters closed, lanterns were snuffed, children were snuggled into their beds and rocked to sleep with sweet lullabies.
........Lina and Gourry were leaving the tiny village. The forest seemed dark and forbidding to them both, though it never had in times past. Lina was quiet, as was her sole remaining companion. She could not have spoken even if she had wanted to talk. She felt horribly that it was her fault, that she had caused it to happen because she hadn’t cared enough. She had lost the fire in her soul, and it would be a long and terrible time before her former spirit would be restored.
........Gourry was older now, somehow, a little piece of his blissful innocence shattered beyond redemption. He had understood, and all too well, and was even a little jaded by the experience of losing two close friends.
........The darkness claimed more and more of the sky, the color of dusky roses in the east, and closed over the pair as they walked into the desolate woods.
........The song of the wind mimicked the voices of silence.
The End