The Black Swan and the Duck (Princess Tutu FanFic)

Chapter 21: The Magic of Love

Fakir didn't wait a moment for Ahiru to respond.

He took his chance and kissed her.

Ahiru was stunned, and in the midst of her pain, she finally felt at ease. Everything was clear now. What she had to do, with whatever power she had left. She embraced his kiss.

She knew it too. She didn't know for how long, but she too had loved Fakir, somewhere inside. He was just the first to admit it. It was never really Mytho was it?

Fakir prayed in his mind. Her lips on his. He couldn't loose her now. Would Drosselmeyer really get his tragedy? Not when they were this close to happiness.

Suddenly a bright light engulfed them. The white light caused Fakir to open his eyes.

He looked down and saw that it seemed that he was the only one who's eyes had opened. His fist met the ground with force.

Suddenly a hysterical laughter flew through the air, and Fakir turned sharply to see Kuro holding what looked like an orb of bright sparkling white light inside a black aura.

"Her spirit. Give it back!" He demanded. Ahiru's limp body in his arms made his heart tremble. His voice shook.

"Ah, ah! It really was a trade. Even you admitted you never meant to kill my son! It was your selfish feelings was it not?"

"And you are being more selfish by stealing a life that isn't yours to take."

"Ah, but like I said, was the life you took really yours to take? You had your moment with her, be thankful you got that." Kuro's smile, his evil smile, made Fakir's stomach turn and his heart burn. "Now let me awaken my son."

Fakir watched as suddenly Ahiru's spirit was enwrapped in a black twisting aura; like a pod that grew, as if a person was forming beneath it. He had to act fast! He couldn't loose what last hope he had of getting Ahiru back!

He reached down to his sword. Thats when he realized something had changed. His sword...it had an emblem on it. Between the two swans was a crystal heart. Did his power really awaken again? But how? Had it just been their love? Or was it more than that? Something about the jewel seemed...familiar...or ...

"Ah, and the Knight is powerless! My son and I will watch you die and when the darkness looms again, all of the people of this world and then next will be ours to conquer! My son is awakening!"

"Not for long." Fakir's back was towards Kuro, but at once he took his sword and set it out in front of him, yielding it for battle.

"Ah, what? A sword that had been shattered and I only so kindly returned! A sword without power why that's -"

Suddenly Fakir lept up and sliced past him, cutting Kuro's arm.

Kuro's eyes widened at the pain and slight of the cut, as his blood spilled. "BUT HOW?"

"Ahiru didn't leave me to do this on my own. You were also wrong about magic. You don't need to trade anything for real magic. Dark magic controlled Ahiru's curse, and that is why she had to trade heart shards to be released from it...but Mytho's power...his ability to stop the Raven was his own love for Rue. This time, the real magic is in the love that people share."

Kuro spotted the glistening jewel that glowed with power. "Adorable speech, but you still can't win!"

"Return her soul and I won't have to use my sword." Fakir bargained.

"Not when I am this close! I would never!"

"It won't really be your son. It will be black magic. It isn't real. You'll have to keep trading things. Its all a lie."

"And I will trade how many lives I must to have my power! To have my revenge! To win over this world!" Kuro directed his power at Fakir, in a whirlwind of dark energy.

But Fakir's sword sliced through it. He struggled but the sword's power remained true. He would not give up, would there be any chance he could return Ahiru's spirit to her. He jumped, a grande jete, through the dark energy.

Kuro pushed on. His meek little powers of love could not match the dark energy he'd accumulated through the dark yins of the town's people.

"You don't even have love, your Princess is dead!"

"I still stand by her, and I still love her. She is not yet gone, you only took her." Fakir wasn't about to deny that much. He'd worked up to admitting his feelings to himself this whole time, and now, on the verge of it being too late, he would not deny this. Ahiru had sacrificed herself too many times, too selflessly, and now even if it was his last action, he too would fight until he returned her spirit to where it belonged.

He pushed through in one last urge, through the harsh pain of the dark magic, slicing his clothes to his skin, and his sword found the Sorcerer.

Suddenly as if his sword had broken some kind of magic, the Sorcerer's appearance changed. His grey hair was about the only thing really true; he was years past the day he should have died, only alive by the trading of other's misfortunes to his youth through dark magic. And so he disappeared.

In a yell of agony, the Sorcerer Kuro became nothing but black magic and so too the body that was forming behind the black twisting aura disappeared and her spirit floated down to Fakir on the ground.

He wondered.

Was it really that easy...or was Ahiru really gone?

He felt the warm glow in his hands and knelt down beside Ahiru. The sun was already appearing in the sky, the dark clouds of Kuro's power gone. He prayed that it wasn't too late. That death could be reversed if the soul was returned.

And so he returned it.

He held his breath.

He swore he saw color appear on her cheeks. But something was wrong...for when she breathed out once, her eyes fluttered he saw no life in them, and just as quickly her breath slowed, and her empty blue eyes closed.

Was it her injury? He looked to her knee, but with Kuro gone, his magic seemed to have disappear and so his curse. She wasn't injured, but a small scar that seemed already healed.

Then what was wrong? Why couldn't he just get Ahiru back?

He felt an overwhelming feeling of angst and pain.

" I hope you're happy Drosselmeyer. You got you're tragedy didn't you?" He felt tears form and wracked his brain for what else he could possibly do to undo the damge that had had been done to Ahiru.