Author's Note: I was working on this as fast as I could when I got the idea. God knows I would have forgotten it if I didn't write it down as soon as had it in my head. I did as little research as I could so I wouldn't spoil it with too much data and whatever. But I think I did a good job on it. And I have to say that I did cry at the end of the story as I was writing it. Mostly because I was tired (it was 2 in the morning) and easily affected by sad moods.

Well, the song I was listening to was Adiemus and I highly suggest you listen to it over and over as you read the story. There is a link to a YouTube video with the song on it in my profile. It's up to you if you want to listen to it, but I think it would bring out the story a little more.

Okay... enough of my babble. Read on and please please PLEASE review at the end of it. Thanks and HAPPY READING!

-- W.o.r.t.h - D.y.i.n.g - F.o.r --

By: ShimoAneue

x--SA--x

Atisa never thought she’d find herself in the Death Room. She never knew she’d go so far as trust with the result of finding herself in this horrifying situation. She’s never felt so dishonored, so betrayed. He had promised her never to tell – she had made him promise - and look where it got her. He held true to his promise, yes, but his brother betrayed her much the way Judas betrayed Christ, except they paid him thirty pieces of gold and whatever they found in her belongings.

She was a valuable bounty, and now the lucky bastard was swimming in luxury while she waited for her inevitable death sentence. She thought of all the possible ways she would be executed, many of them were quick and painless.

Sure, that was a laugh. On the contrary, she was going to die slowly with as much pain as the executioner can possibly inflict. She was the most dangerous hunter of her time: she received special treatment. She killed for sport, played with her victims, and robbed them dry of all their money and riches. As for the men she seduced, she’d cut off their diamonds before giving them the ultimate kiss of death.

And she was only seventeen; so young, and just making it in the rapidly changing world.

She berated herself immensely for allowing her guard down. If she never left him and went home, she wouldn’t be in this situation. But she shouldn’t blame him – Toma loved her deeply. No, the one she blamed was that selfless bastard Andro, Toma’s twin brother.

She closed her eyes and thought back to the day she met Toma. She smiled. It was quite pleasant and she enjoyed thinking about it…

--Several Weeks Before--

It was dark out; nightfall had been drawn across the sky for hours when she had made her way out of the latest mansion with a bag of valuables from her latest job. Dressed in a black ninja-like outfit, she hopped from tree to tree until she was safely on the ground. She had to get on the other side of the stone wall to really be safe, but that was easier said than done.

But not in her reality - She was already home free from the moment she stepped on the land inside the wall.

She moved with killer speed and flexibility, blending with the shadows and eluding the scurrying guards when they were just notified of their master’s murder. Her two trusty daggers were in her hands, both ready and willing to cut anyone’s throat for their deadly friend.

She waited in the darkness for the opportune moment. If she moved too fast, she’ll get careless and she’ll be caught. Move too slow and death waits to claim you. Stealth requires patience and cunning, both of which she had plenty in her ten years of this business. Assassinations were her life force, her only chance of living. Her employers gave her stiff targets, but they paid her whatever she could get off the target plus what the employer paid for her services.

It was a good living, and she was good at it. Much too good at it, in fact, that she hasn’t been caught or seen. She’ll walk in pure daylight and the officials wouldn’t know it was her. She outdid the Samurai and the Ninjas. She was an ultimate weapon, and there was a large fat and juicy bounty on her because of it.

An unsuspecting guard came dangerously close to her hiding place, but she didn’t wait. She struck with a blinding movement and ended the poor soul’s life with a quick slash across the man’s neck. To keep his body from making any noise, she gently placed him on the ground and closed his eyes in respect. She looked around her surroundings once before creeping away towards the westward wall.

She made it without much of a problem. Scaling the wall and making it safely over the top and down to the ground, she ran with the wind and disappeared out of sight of the mansion. She had met her employer in the small camp not even five miles from her target with her bounty. Only trading a few things with her employer, he paid her in full and she went on her way without another word. She did what she could to keep herself in the dark. Any one of her employers threatened the silent possibility of betrayal. That’s why she never used the same name.

She returned to her home in the woods. It was a simple ancient Japanese styled hut, but it suited her well. It kept her warm in the winter and cool in the summer. It had a kitchenette area, two bedrooms and a sitting room. The land was adequate for lounging or training and the waterfall half a mile away provided her with fish and fresh water so she didn’t have to go to town for too much. As far as she’s concerned, she was the only one who lived in that part, and she was the only one who probably knew of her presence there.

One week after her last job, two teenaged boys stumbled across her land on their way to pay respects to their dead uncle, who was the very man she had recently assassinated. They stopped at her hut to ask for water for their horses, and possibly a place to stay for one night while they rested. They even offered to pay her for the accommodations, but she kindly refused and let them stay as long as they needed.

It came natural for her, this sudden change of personality. She’ll be a deadly shadow and with the flash of a lightning strike, she’d be a normal teenaged girl living on her own and just barely making ends meet.

She had learned that the two boys were twins, though they looked nothing alike. The eldest of the two, Andro, had fluffy dirty blonde hair which he kept tied back in a braid along his spine with tanned skin and brown eyes. He was built and very strong, the result of many hours of training for the army, most likely. He always wore emerald green silk with golden embroidery. A heavy silver sword, fashioned from the western world, hung at his waist at all times. The boy even slept with it. He treated this man-made sword with more respect than his God-given one.

His personality wasn’t something she cares for either. Much too arrogant for her taste, and too demanding of his younger brother. It was evident to her that he was the unpleasant child of the family, and most likely the heir to whatever family he came from. She’s never had her patience tested as harshly before, and she did all she could from stabbing the bastard with a fork or drowning him in the lake.

It was true; they had decided to stay long past their expectancy. Andro just didn’t want to leave. Atisa was ready to move out if necessary. And she would have if she didn’t feel the need to be near the younger of the twins.

Toma was a dainty one for a boy of eighteen. He was slender and almost white-skinned compared to his brother. He had short straight black hair that looked like silk and shined in the sunlight, his eyes were dark pools of deep blue and his angular features made him look fragile rather than intimidating. This one wore a majestic combination of purple silk with silver embroidery.

While he may look weak, he certainly was not. Atisa spied him many times out by the lake practicing moves with an assortment of weapons, both eastern and western. But he seemed to favor the Bo Staff and showed superb and deadly talent with its use.

Many a time she had come in and challenged him to a duel, and it was found their talents were equally matched. Never once have they won over the other, and somehow that intrigued them both.

Andro was repulsed by it, however. He would watch them from the animal barn and scoffed at them both.

“Brother,” he said. “Fighting with a girl is a waste of your time and energy. They are worthless beings only placed on this land to birth our kind. You could only think badly of one who can fight with the precision of a trained killer.”

Atisa was getting upset.

“Then if I am so repulsing,” she countered, “Perhaps you would like to show me my place and take your leave?”

“Desecrating my masculinity on you is not something I have my mind set on.”

Cracking the bones in her neck, she only growled her displeasure and stalked off into the surrounding woods. The further she could get from him, the better she’ll feel. But Toma followed her. He had grown close to her in the week they had stayed there, and his general concern for her was too great for him to ignore.

“Disregard my brother,” he said while sitting next to her on the log she had placed herself. “He knows not of what he says. ‘Tis the way he’s always been. Growing up, he learned from my father, who all and raped my mother in their marriage.”

“I’m remorseful towards your mother,” she said. Toma only grinned gently at her pity.

“But she taught me to respect them,” he said soothingly. Atisa looked into his eyes and knew what he was saying was truth. “I train to fight for their safety. Without women, neither you, nor I, nor even my brother would be here now. It takes two to make a family. Woman: without her, man is nothing.”

“And a woman is nothing when she can’t love or be loved,” she said. She instantly thought of her family; her mother and father and her brother. She was too young to know how they died. All she knew was when she came home after playing in the creek by their hut; all three of them were headless in the yard. The grass was an unnatural red color, a color she became all too familiar with since then.

A soft hand gently stroking her cheek brought her back from the horribly upsetting memory and she fixed her newly dampened emerald eyes into pools of nearly violet-blue eyes. She was only slightly aware of how close he had come to her side now, but she welcomed it. They exchanged silent words between their gazes before Toma closed the space between them and took her lips with his.

The kiss was gentle at first, but it rapidly turned passionate as their arms encircled each other. Atisa only vaguely thought about how warm his body was and how sweet his lips tasted. She’s known nothing but a chronic chill in her skin the day she killed her first target, but all of that melted away with the tears that fell through the cracks in her eyes.

Toma broke away from the wonderful taste of her lips to kiss her cheeks where the salty streams began to burn her skin. He gently kissed them away before reconnecting their lips in another heated kiss. His hands traveled the length of her back, down to pull her a little closer to him and up to pull the tie from her dark red hair. He tangled his hand into the satin-softness, massaging her neck and eliciting pleasure inducing moans from deep within her throat.

Atisa’s hands grabbed at his loose shirt, wrenching him as close as she could get him. Intense wanton desires burned deep within them both. It wasn’t long before they found themselves twisting together on a mossy patch behind the log, out of sight of the eldest twin and far from hearing range.

Once all traces of irritating clothing had been successfully removed, Toma wasted no time in pushing himself deep within Atisa’s warm and welcoming body. She arched her hips into him, covering his member with as much of her own body as possible. He moved slowly at first, but his natural dexterity soon took over his motions and he was moving at a rapid pace, in and out of her.

She marveled is the sensations he created for her. She had seduced her share of men in the past, but that was for the job. She refused to feel anything from her targets when she pleasured them. It was strictly tactics to divert their minds before she went in for the kill, the way a cat would play with the mouse before pouncing and ending its insignificant life.

But this was completely and utterly different from a job. This was just her and Toma pleasuring each other with touches, kisses and intense grinding motions of their hips. This was something she never experienced before, and something deep within her subconscious mind told her this was the only chance she’d ever have of experiencing it.

So she enjoyed every moment of the bliss Toma was making for her. She took it all in from the soft grunts of Toma’s exertion to the gentle caresses he made on her slick skin, the feel of his body moving against hers in a natural rhythm to the moment of release when the muscles in her groin contracted, bringing with it Toma’s own release of his essence into her feminine cavern.

She even enjoyed the gentle decline of the high as they laid against each other, still intimately connected, catching their breath and regaining some lost energy. Toma slowly disconnected himself from her, but her body didn’t like the sudden loss of the pressure and her groin muscles cramped painfully. Toma laid beside her, his hand just above her mound and gently massaging the knots to relieve her discomfort, all the while humming a gentle tune in her ear.

Once they had rested, they took the short journey to the lake to wash themselves and be rid of any evidence to their love making. They had both agreed to keep that action secret from Andro, seeing as he held power over Toma and wouldn’t think twice before possibly striking Atisa.

But little did either of them know that Andro had witnessed the entire ordeal. He had seen his brother wander off after her and he had a feeling it was going to happen. He followed them to confirm his suspicion, and left just as repulsed as he followed. Back at the hut, he made it known to himself that he needed to know exactly who this woman was. If she was a whore, he wanted to know so he could personally run her through for so much as looking at his brother, much less than defiling him the way she did.

As he searched through her belongings in the hut, he stumbled upon a secret door in the floor of the sitting area. Removing the straw mat that was obscuring the door, he opened it and descended into the cavity to see what it was he found.

His breath hitched in his lungs when he placed eyes upon the grandest treasure he’s ever seen. Gold and silver, precious gems and silks adorned tables, shelves and walls. On the far side was a large oak cabinet with crystal doors. Inside was a black suit, much like that of the Ninja from further east. But he recognized the two daggers that were leaning up against the suit.

He had just realized that he was in the midst of the highly sought assassin the entire country was after. He knew for a fact that anyone would pay handsomely for her capture, and any treasure she’d have would be the reward. The room he was now standing in would be enough to make him the Emperor. Actually, there was enough treasure to make the Emperor look like a peasant.

After another week of planning, Andro was prepared to turn her in to the palace officials. He went to the city palace and bargained on thirty pieces of gold and whatever treasure she had in stock for her bounty. After much debate and frustration, the Magistrate agreed to the terms and dispatched three troops to the residence under his care. He thought nothing of the result of this, the only thought was his saving his brother from possible heartbreak if he were to find the truth later.

Atisa and Toma were sparring in the yard near the animal barn when they heard a sound like thunder. They stopped to watch Andro ride up to them followed by at least two hundred soldiers. While Toma was in utter confusion, Atisa was in utter despair. Before she could act, the men surrounded them, disabling her from escape.

“What is the meaning of all this, Brother?” Toma asked with disbelief. Andro only smirked towards Atisa.

“Query the elusive assassin,” he responded.

Toma turned his head to Atisa and looked at her with deep blue eyes full of concern and questioning. Atisa only held his gaze for so long before she fell to her knees in unreserved defeat. She did her best to quell the grief that threatened to overtake her, but even she could not do that. Not with the only one she ever really found love in was watching her be sliced open to observe the atrocious truth about who she really was. Two soldiers chained her wrists behind her back and placed her in a caged wagon as she did nothing to stop them but wept for her own shattered soul. She was too broken to fight back; she didn’t want to show Toma exactly how deadly she was. Two hundred soldiers was and easy challenge for her.

Toma stared in silent and complete disbelief as he tried desperately to make sense of all this. He had gone into shock, thus he didn’t feel his heart shatter as he watched the soldiers haul his only love away towards the palace. His brother rode up beside him.

“She would have killed us in our sleep,” he said to the dark haired teen. “I was only looking out for your safety when I acquired the truth.”

Toma wasn’t angry. Not at Atisa at least, but his brother. If he hadn’t found that room, this wouldn’t have happened. Unfortunately for Toma, though, he had recently learned of her other side not too long before Andro and the soldiers arrived. He had known her for a while and she had trusted him with that sinful secret, knowing in her heart he would never betray her. It was that moment they decided to make plans to go away and be together.

But he never knew the extent of her talent to require two hundred armed men for her capture.

Oh, the irony!

--Present--

Atisa opened her eyes at the sound of the iron door opening. She turned her stiff neck in the direction of the door and waited for the appearance of the executioner. But three pairs of shoes were heard, and one of them was lighter than the others.

Fresh tears she never knew she had streamed down her face when she saw Toma’s familiar face. She disregarded the executioner and Andro as she watched Toma try to rush over to her, only to be grabbed by Andro and pulled back as not to have him get dirty.

Toma wasn’t going to have it though. He pulled free of his brother’s grip and rushed to her side, quickly removing his purple silk cloak and covering her naked body with it. He smiled down at her, nuzzling her feverish face his cheek in a loving way, letting her know she wasn’t alone and that he wasn’t at all infuriated with her. She smiled weakly at him in gratitude as he gently placed a peck on her lips.

“How dismal,” Andro scorned, twisting his face into an ugly knot. “You disgust me Brother.”

“I am known to disappoint,” Toma growled back. “I’m surprised you’re not acquainted with it yet.”

Andro never heard his brother speak like that, and was slightly thrown off balance by the retort. There was nothing to say and he felt like a jest. He drew his sword and forcedly drew his brother away from Atisa and threw him up against a wall.

“No!” Atisa found her voice after three days of being silent. She tried desperately to do something, but she cried in pain when she moved. Her shoulders and muscles were cramped and stuck in that position from being like that for so long. It hurt to move.

Andro disregarded his brother and the whore and motioned for the executioner to start his business. With an affirmed nod, he retrieved an iron hook from the pit fire and brought it close to her face. She closed her eyes and whimpered as she felt the heat against her skin. She braced herself for the inevitable.

The fabric of the cloak was removed from her upper body and the sizzling sound of burning flesh and agonized pain rippled through the air. Atisa couldn’t think of anything but the pain, and her throat was sore already. Toma’s own pain mixed with hers as she’s slowly defiled and murdered.

The executioner scalded her four more times, her screams becoming more and more hoarse and quiet. Andro loved every moment of it.

“Isn’t that an enlightening sound, Brother?” he asked in pure masochist glee. “The begging of a whore and murderer, suffering from her sins and crimes? She deserved this. After all, she killed our dear Uncle and defiled his God-given diamonds, as well as kill seventy-three others before him.”

“BASTARD!” Toma screamed it just as the executioner plunged the iron hook into her thigh. Toma cringed at the sound Atisa made, a shrill cry of pain mixed with a gurgling choke to get a breath into her lungs when they stopped working from the jolt of pain. But Andro only laughed in mock happiness, a laugh evil and dark in its own right.

Unable to stand it anymore, Toma acted out of rage and dashed for Andro’s blade. Before his elder brother could compute the actions being made, he was looking up at his brother from the flat of his back, blood trickling down his chin, and seeing Toma gut the executioner.

Seeing that his brother was still alive, Toma raised the blade above his head and glared a hellish curse upon the man on the ground.

“Rot in Hell, O Brother of mine.” The blade came down, twisted to the left, and Andro’s head no longer connected to his body.

Toma dropped the sword and went over to Atisa’s weak body. He unlocked her arms from the chains and slowly helped her move. She was alive, but barely, and he couldn’t help but cry for everything that had happened to her. He hugged her tightly, hoping and praying to God that she lives. The feel of her own arms wrapping around his neck made him look down into dulled green eyes.

“Finish… me…” she said in a voice he hardly recognized. He shook his head, tears streaming down his own cheeks.

“I can’t…” he attempted. “I won’t…”

“Please…” she said. She wasn’t begging, she was asking. “If you… truly love me… you’ll st-stop the pain…please…”

With all the strength she could muster, she reached down to Toma’s belt and removed the small knife that was there. She placed the hilt in his hand and guided his hand to place the tip of the blade to her heart.

Utterly sobbing now, Toma couldn’t keep his hand from shaking. She was right, though. The extent of the wounds were too bad for medicine to heal, and while it would help a little, she could still die from infection. He knew what she was asking was for the best of both of them, as much as he tried not to admit it. He was optimistic. But it would shatter him on a different level if he believed she would get well and then die suddenly later. It was better to end it now, quickly, painlessly, and with as much love he could possibly put into the final action.

Kissing her hardly on the lips, they both put their love into the motion of the dagger. He could feel Atisa’s tension against his lips as well as sense the rush her body made from the intruder. The speed of her heart raced in her breast, and he felt it gradually fade away until it stopped completely.

Breaking away from the kiss long after the life had lifted from her body, he looked down into her serene face. He never felt this much at peace in his entire life, and he relished in it before removing the dagger from his love’s heart and placing the tip to his own.

He knew someone would come down sooner or later, and seeing him the only one alive with his brother dead would gain him the title of murderer and tyrant to the land. He would end up dying in execution, so it really didn’t matter. He leaned down close to Atisa’s ear and whispered his final words to her.

“I don’t care about your past,” he said. “Nothing would have stopped me from loving you, not even your darker side. Whether you’re in Heaven or Hell, I’ll be by your side. Being with you completes me…”

He buried the blade deep into his breast, feeling the ripping of his flesh and the severing of his muscles for the blade to reach its destination. With all the strength he had, he made one large swipe of the blade across his chest and discarded it with a clank on the stony floor. He leaned forward to kiss his love’s lips once more in dwindling life.

“… and th-that’s worth d-dying f-for…”

--Fin--