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amberskywrites · 11 days ago

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Eternal

Chapter 26 - The King's Protection

Chapter 1 | Chapter 25 | Chapter 27 || Masterpost | AO3 Link | FF.net Link

Fandom / Genre: Nanatsu no Taizai (Seven Deadly Sins) / Canon-Divergent and Hurt/Comfort

Pairings: Meliodas/Elizabeth, Zeldris/Gelda, Meliodas & Zeldris & Elizabeth & Gelda

Overall Story Warnings: Angst with a happy ending, Canon-typical violence, Canonical character death, Canon temporary character death, Cursed characters, Lmk if I need to add anything else!

Chapter Warnings: None, lmk if there’s anything I need to add!

Story Summary:

Eternal…

life.

reincarnation.

silence.

and chains.

For 3,000 long and painful years, these four have been doing all they can to lift their curses. They have failed, again and again and again. With only a sliver of hope left, they try once more.

Or, what if Zeldris accepted Meliodas’ offer to go with him 3,000 years ago?

The blast didn’t hit them.

The blast didn’t hit Diane, either.

The air stilled, with the blast colliding with something but not someone. Smoke billowed around just in front of him, but Zeldris could not touch the smoke, the black air swirling against a near invisible surface.

Said surface glimmered slightly, shimmering a faint green and turquoise, and the power settling around him and in his bones felt like climbing into bed with Gelda after a long evening in the kitchen, curling under the covers and drifting into a rare, easy sleep. Zeldris blinked and took a step back, but the power didn’t fade from over him, under his feet just as much as it was in front of him.

Looking up, the source was obvious, floating in the air and glaring down beyond the barrier as though looking upon a particularly disgusting and diseased rat. Hand outstretched, but reclined slightly, and wrist with no tension in it, as though creating the barrier had been nothing but a second thought.

The smoke settled beyond the barrier, revealing Guila, soot clinging to her armor and a clear pattern across her face where she blocked the residual blast that ended up being far closer than she anticipated.

“Sloth Sin,” Guila said, her brows scrunching ever so slightly in possible annoyance, before smoothing over. “You dare betray the Holy Knights again?”

King ignores her, floating down enough to hover around Diane’s face, turning just enough to look at the injured giant without completely taking his eyes off Guila.

“Are you alright, Diane?” he asks, and Zeldris watches him take in the way Diane favors her forearm instead of sitting upright, the way her other hand lingers but does not yet press against her side, the fact that she has not gotten up yet, all he absorbs within moments, enough for his expression to darken even more.

Zeldris can hear the inhale he forces through a clenched jaw, immediately followed by a forced relaxation of his face, into something almost bored, impassive. The concern lingers, though, and always would where Diane was concerned if memory of ten years ago serves Zeldris correct, but it’s hidden enough that Guila will - hopefully - not be able to use it entirely against him.

“For now,” is the answer Diane gives, and it doesn’t appease King - doesn’t appease Zeldris, either, and he will help in checking her over once they’re out of here - but he accepts it, focusing back entirely on Guila.

“Diane’s not the only one hurt, ya’know!” Ban calls out, hauling himself up from some rubble.

King ignores him more intensely than he initially did Guila.

“I suppose with your betrayal, I’ll just have to end you as well,” Guila says over Ban. “Which is a shame - you would have made a great asset to our cause.”

King raises an unimpressed brow. “I think I’ve seen enough of your ‘cause’,” he says, “and you’ve done enough damage.” He drifts higher and back, and looks down at them all. King signs instead of speaking now.

“Hang back, and let me handle her?”

Zeldris looks to Gelda first, still recovering from the sudden fall - and his hearts hammer against his ribs, because why is she taking so long to recover? What did she realize up there? - and looking instead at Meliodas. She nods once, and he looks to Ban then Diane next, a longer silent conversation before he shrugs in feigned aloofness.

“All yours, King!”

Meliodas fell back to sit in front of Diane, followed by Ban taking post in front of her as well. Zeldris looked to Gelda once more, finally getting up. She stares at Guila for a long moment, and Zeldris can feel the others’ eyes on them, can feel King practically boring a hole into his skull, but he waits. Eventually Gelda returns his gaze, and she nods and steps back, away from the wall of King’s barrier. “Later,” she signs, “I’ll explain later.”

Only then does Zeldris move, following her back but keeping himself between her and Guila. Focus on King be damned, if it takes Gelda minutes to recover from something that she should have recovered from in seconds, he is not going to risk anything.

“You’re going to fight me all by yourself?” Guila tilts her head as she asks, and her voice, mostly keeping a bland tone, takes on the slightest of taunting. “Surely you’d want the aid of your fellow Sins, at least.”

King spares one last glance down at the rest of them, and that is the only warning they get before the barrier around them all dissolves, and instead Chastiefol’s spear form appears beside King.

“No. I can defeat you myself.”

Almost as soon as the words leave his mouth, Guila moves, faster than any Apprentice Holy Knight should be able to. King dodges the rapier easily and blocks the following blast with Chastiefol, forcing distance between himself and Guila.

The blast is strong, and King had ‘trained’ with Guila before, testing her abilities and her limits. Her power now feels too much like a Holy Knight’s, when not even two weeks ago they were half as much. But it is familiar all the same, the power she exudes. She jabs and sends explosions his way, over and over again, and it is an easy pattern to follow, once he learns it.

She creates distance, sends a distracting blast, then gets close. If he gets too close to her, she forces distance again and repeats.

King remembers she was calculating, before. Whatever happened to increase her power, to make it feel so much more overwhelming, she’s gotten too comfortable using the brute force of it. As King dodges yet another one of her patterned attacks, still not yet on the offensive, just learning, he can’t help but feel a little disappointed in her for seemingly abandoning her cleverness in favor of raw power.

It becomes almost a dance, with the way he dodges her attacks and she lunges after him. He stays in the air, but she utilizes the Necropolis’ crystal columns to leap from with each new attack.

The seconds tick by, and Guila’s attacks grow quicker, the pattern breaking ever so slightly as she tries to actually land a hit. And then a perfect opening -

Guila raises her rapier high, and King’s eyes are on her but he can feel the heat of the emerging explosions behind him, far enough they don’t instantly hit him but close enough that the moment she detonates them King knows he’d be hit hard. The power appearing is subtle, as she also creates an explosion at the tip of her blade, a distraction to the onslaught appearing behind him.

King snaps his fingers, and Chastiefol transforms just as Guila swings her rapier down, commanding the balls of fire down with it.

The explosion is deafening, even for King, but the thousands of daggers Chastiefol manifested into protect him well. And still, enough to spare -

Because Guila launches herself up, right into his space, but he’s prepared and defense is no longer necessary. Daggers block her attempt to stab him, and she’s forced to spin away, but still King sees she’s sliced by some of them. He brings more of the daggers close, and as one rains them down on Guila.

She runs and dodges the best she can, some of the daggers getting lodged within her armor despite her efforts. He pulls them all back once more and flies higher, ensuring there is distance still between him and Guila, and Chastiefol transforms once more into its spear form.

She’s breathing heavier, but not yet exhausted, and she keeps up with Chastiefol as King commands it with easy turns of his wrist. It forces her back further, though, clashing again and again with her rapier as she is forced to block strike after strike (he could break the rapier - could easily shatter it and stab right through Guila’s armor and truly make her a part of the Necropolis, or perhaps send her soul to Purgatory - but he cannot bring himself to do so, even knowing what she is supporting in Liones. Not with his captain watching, and knowing how he actually feels about killing their opponents; he could stand the aftermath of killing Ban, because the justification would be stronger, but there is no true justification to murdering Guila, not yet).

He lands a strong enough hit that it knocks Guila into a crystal pillar, and there is a loud crack and she doesn’t immediately get up. King finally takes his eyes off her, because as strong as she might be now all so suddenly, even she shouldn’t be able to recover that quickly. He looks instead to the others still on the ground, to Diane watching him with an encouraging smile; to Zeldris and Gelda each a moment away from jumping in still, always ready to back their plays even now, to Ban’s wounds closing, slower than they usually do - even King’s wounds did not last nearly so long, only one person’s ever took so long to heal, why… - and even to the princess and the pig, on the crystal wall behind Diane and out of range of the fight, so the captain would make no fuss about her being in danger again.

All he took in within moments, and just as it processed where everyone else was, did he feel the incoming heat of a gathering explosion behind him. He was not fast enough to whip around, and Chastiefol would take too long to transform again to protect him properly, but when he turned he saw-

The Captain, and the broken sword out, Full Countering Guila’s explosion. King was close enough to see, even through the flames, Guila’s eyes widen and the grimace as she braced for the impact she knew she couldn’t avoid. The explosion flung her back once more, further than before, and she crashed into the ground hard.

When Guila was knocked down this time, Zeldris was by her, his sword aimed to her neck just in case she got back up.

She did not.

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