A chilling voice came from behind her, making the hairs on her neck stand on end.
*It's over!*
She whipped her head around in panic, trying to raise her hands to defend herself, but it was too late. The Kirigakure ninja behind her drove his knee viciously into her abdomen.
Coughing up a torrent of blood, Touye's body flew backward and collapsed limply on the ground. The few remaining water dragons in the sky howled as they dove down, slamming into the spot where she lay...
***
"Huff... huff..." Las gasped for breath. Though he'd had the upper hand, the constant use of his Water Dragon Jutsu had taken a tremendous toll on his chakra and stamina. "But," he smirked, "I still won!"
He walked slowly toward the motionless girl on the ground, a ferocious smile on his face. "Don't you die on me yet, little kitten. This is just the beginning..."
Touye lay quietly, looking up at the last of the ice crystals still drifting from the sky, her breathing faint.
She parted her lips and said something, but her voice was too quiet for Las to hear. He moved closer, confident that after that beating, she was completely helpless.
"So many snowflakes... have fallen on you... How many are there? A hundred, maybe?" the girl whispered.
Las looked down at himself in confusion. His body was indeed covered in shimmering ice crystals, remnants of the ice clones, walls, and mirrors she had created.
"When the hundredth flower blooms, the snows shall fall, and all things shall find eternal sleep in the embrace of the snow country..." the girl chanted softly. A small break appeared in the dark clouds above, and a single beam of light shone down on them.
Las looked around in a panic, a sense of dread washing over him.
The girl continued to murmur, her voice so soft it seemed the wind might carry it away. "This wind... shall carry away all passion; this snow... shall purify all sin... Ice Release Secret Art: Heavenly Hundred Flower Burial..."
As she finished, an ice flower suddenly bloomed on Las's body where a snowflake had landed. It was beautiful, cold, and deadly.
"Ahhh!" Las shrieked, realizing too late that he had walked into a trap from the very beginning. These insignificant snowflakes were now dragging him to hell at the moment of his victory.
The ice flowers bloomed with terrifying speed. In an instant, half of Las's body was frozen solid. He screamed in terror, flailing his arms to wipe the ice flowers away, but as soon as one was gone, another took its place. His body was freezing, bit by bit.
His eyes bloodshot, he glared at the girl on the ground. "You bitch! This is all your fault!"
He raised his hands to form a seal, but an ice flower landed on his arm and bloomed instantly. Both his hands were encased in ice, which then shattered, falling to the ground in a thousand pieces.
Las stared dumbly at the ice shards, then, as if his mind had broken, he turned and ran. "No! I don't want to die! I don't want to die!"
The girl on the ground slowly closed her eyes, unwilling to watch. In a voice like a dream, she said, "At the peak of this magnificent bloom, all that follows... is decay."
As her words faded, dozens of ice flowers bloomed all at once on the fleeing ninja's body. Then, like real flowers, their petals slowly withered and fell away. And with them, the ninja fell silent. A cold wind blew, and he shattered into a cloud of glittering ice dust...
After lying on the ground for a long time, the girl raised a hand to her chest to check her injuries. *Broken ribs, internal organs have taken a beating... I'm hurt pretty bad... But that's not the worst of it...*
Feeling the life force draining from her body, she stared up at the sky with listless eyes. The hole in the clouds that her secret art had created had closed again, leaving the sky dark and gloomy, like an angry face.
A small smile touched her lips.
She was dying.
She was already out of strength and suffering from fatal injuries, and on top of that, she had used a forbidden secret art. It was a miracle she was still breathing.
*Do I regret it?* A little. Not because she was about to die, but because of Haku. And Chun.
*I promised... I promised I'd save Haku. I promised I'd make them happy. I promised we'd be together forever. But now...*
*I'm sorry. I'm so... sorry...*
She was smiling, but inside, she was crying. Were all those promises just going to fade away on the wind?
Something landed on her face. She opened her eyes slightly. What was that, drifting down from the sky?
Snow? It was snowing?
Her unfocused eyes gazed at the heavens. The first time she met Haku, the weather had been just like this, dark and overcast, though it hadn't been snowing then...
Hadn't it snowed just like this on Haku's birthday? Was it in a light snow like this that she and Haku had promised to be together for life? It was almost like a secret wedding vow... heh...
She accidentally chuckled, which aggravated the injuries in her chest, making her frown in pain.
She remembered the first time she saw Chun. The silly girl seemed clever, but she'd been so hungry she'd followed a group of bandits... What an idiot. The first time she saw her... she was locked in a cage in a tent, looking so pitiful. It was funny just thinking about it.
The reason she always slept in so late was because she trained late into the night, thinking she didn't know...
She laughed again, which led to a fit of coughing that felt like it would tear her organs out. The violent movement tore at her chest, an agony beyond words.
*I really am dying, aren't I? Why else would I be remembering all these old things?*
*I'm sorry. I broke my promise. I'm sorry.*
The pain in her chest began to fade. Not because she was healing, but because her senses were growing numb. Her mind was a chaotic mess.
*If I could, I really don't want to die...*
Through the haze, she thought she heard footsteps approaching from a distance.