Title: The Tenth Arrow

Genre: Horror/Tragedy

Rating: M

Warning: Potential trigger warning. Gratuitous character death(s), psychological drama, suicide, dark themes, graphic violence and gore. About the furthest thing imaginable from fluff. Consider yourself forewarned.

A/N: My first attempt at a horror story. Five years ago, I stumbled across this story prompt at, of all places, the ffxiii kink memes on livejournal. Although the prompt had already been filled by another author, the resulting story lacked enough detail and intensity for my taste, so I decided to expand on the idea myself.

Plot Summary: Their Cie'th countdown finally approaches its end. They have run out of time. In-game AU. Ensemble cast, Lightning-centric.

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Part I – Onset

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It began as voices in her head.

When it first happened, she was too busy to take notice. She and Hope were locked in battle against a Feral Behemoth in the Gapra Whitewood – a battle, she knew from experience, that few escaped alive. As blood pounded a desperate staccato in her ears, she caught snatches of murmuring, faint and indistinct. They lasted for a second and were forgotten in the next; the Behemoth had just aimed two hundred pounds of paw at her torso, forcing her to leap out of the way or else face disembowelment. By some stroke of fortune, the move brought her underneath the beast's unprotected flank. She wasted no time, thrusting her gunblade into the soft flesh and spraying the ground with crimson.

The second time, she passed off as an auditory hallucination. Psychotic breaks were not uncommon when sleep-deprived. Between keeping watch at night and relentless marching in the day, she had gotten no more than four hours rest since the events of the Purge. No sooner had they crossed the threshold of Hope's home in Palumpolum that the voices erupted, a cacophony of rage and despair that so closely matched her own seething, neglected feelings. Her stagger – a momentary give of the knee – earned no suspicion; the others simply thought her fatigued from hauling Snow's dead weight, and helped her up.

When it occurred for the third time, she could no longer deny that it was happening. She and the others – they comprised a ragtag team of six, now – were onboard the death trap better known as the Fifth Ark, strength and patience worn thin by the endless tide of monsters. The voices rose as a mournful chorus this time, their low, tuneless wails echoing through her body in waves of white-hot pain. She supposed she had blacked out then. When awareness returned, she was lying on the ground, Hope's clammy hands grasping her own. The inevitable questions were headed off with a terse "tired"; how could she admit to this new madness when she had yet to acknowledge it herself?

For madness it was indeed – the Cie'th madness. As each day – hour, minute, second – that passed while her Focus remained incomplete, she would descend further into it. Thoughts devolved, losing the blade edge of higher cognition and sublimating into raw, primal instinct. Battles became near-uncontrollable frenzies of bloodlust, and nightmares consumed what little sleep she had. Still the voices came, mutters and blood-curdling shrieks that sank deeper and deeper into her subconscious until she could no longer tell where they ended and she began.

She spoke nothing of it to anyone. Mental instability was a difficult topic to discuss under normal circumstances, let alone theirs. However likely it was that her comrades suffered the same plight – their l'Cie brands were advancing at the same rate, after all – she could not bring herself to breach the silence that their natural aversion to the subject caused. Already she could see the fear in their eyes, fear that they were hurtling all too fast down the path of imminent doom. To declare that she, their fierce, unshakable leader, was becoming insane – becoming Cie'th – would surely snap the thread that held their fragile morale together.

No, better that she suffered in silence.

Her resolve lasted all of three days. Then it shattered against the edge of a quiet, whispered admission.

Night had just fallen upon the Vallis Media, prompting the group to ditch exploration in favour of setting up camp. After dinner (a sorry affair of leftover rations and unripe fruit) and conversation (a sorrier attempt at humour), they huddled around the campfire in various states of repose. She, who had volunteered first watch, was sitting on a boulder, her hand mechanically running a whetting stone against her gunblade. On the ground, Vanille had curled into Fang's side, with the older woman's arm thrown protectively over her. Sazh had settled between two ferns, a smooth slab of rock as his makeshift pillow, and Snow was slumped against a tree trunk, his fingers wrapped tight around Serah's crystal tear even as he snored away.

And Hope—

Unlike the others, the teenager was wide-awake. He seemed to be deep in thought, his gaze fixed on the crackling hearth. Arms wrapped around knees in the fetal position, he looked every bit the vulnerable child, scrawny limbs and fragile sensibilities and all. The image was further reinforced when he shuddered and hugged himself still tighter, his thoughts having taken a turn for the worse.

Seeing him like this caused an ache to flare up behind her breastbone. In the midst of their troubles, it was easy to forget just how young he was. She had not been gentle with him in the beginning of their journey together – not that their situation could afford coddling – and still wouldn't be otherwise, given a repeat. Nevertheless, she regretted what he'd endured at her hands. It was like raising Serah all over again – too much practicality, too little affection.

Serah…

Sighing, she set aside her gunblade and crossed the small distance between her protégé and herself. He startled when she laid a hand on his shoulder. Had he not sensed her approach?

Wintergreen eyes caught her own, lighting up in recognition. "Oh, it's just you, Light." The tension in his shoulders dissipated.

Who else could he expecting? "It's late," she murmured. "You should get some rest."

"Yeah. I will, in a bit."

Satisfied with his response, she withdrew her hand and turned around, intending to resume her seat. She managed all but two steps before she heard his voice again, meek and hesitant.

"Umm Light, can I… tell you something?"

She turned back. "What is it?"

"I…" he started, but caught himself, seeming to think better of his words. "Oh, never mind. You're not gonna believe me anyway."

She returned to his side, crouching before him. "Hope." His name came out in a gentle plea. "You can trust me."

"I know." He looked up at her, eyes equally pleading – for her to understand. "I trust you – more than anything. But that doesn't make it any easier to say."

"Because I won't believe you?" she echoed his words from several seconds ago.

He sighed, a world-weary sound that did not belong on a fourteen-year-old. "I don't want to believe it myself."

She sat down beside him, her knee bumping against his. "Hope, whatever it is, we'll face it together. You and I, we're partners."

Hearing the proclamation she made to him a week – only a week? It seemed like an eternity – ago in the Gapra Whitewood had a calming effect on him. "Alright," he relented. "But please Light, promise me you won't tell the others—"

"I won't."

"Okay. Okay." He took a deep breath to steady himself. "The thing is… I think I'm going mad." He spoke the last word in an almost inaudible whisper.

She made no reply to that, causing him to fix wild eyes onto her, searching her expression as though expecting judgment. Only when she gave him an encouraging nod did he continue, the words sounding like they were dragged out of him against his will.

"I keep… hearing these voices. They're not my thoughts, I can tell. They're more like cries than words, and there's always some kind of emotion behind them, like anger or sadness. Or violence. Sometimes, in battle, they get really loud and—" He cut himself off and faced away from her, a ragged noise escaping his throat. "Just listen to what I'm saying!" He clutched his face in his hands. "I really am going mad, aren't I?"

Having subsided to a dull throb, the earlier ache in her heart now blazed fire-bright. Although admitting to madness would mean defeat – that she no longer fought against, but rather accepted this horrifying fact as reality – it could not be worse than seeing this boy so torn, so wretched.

"Hope," she spoke in as gentle a tone as she could muster, drawing one of his hands from his face into the cradle of her own. "If you are—" she could not help but hesitate over the words, "—going mad as you say, then I'm no different. I can hear the voices too."

He snapped back towards her. "You – you can?" Relief was evident in the wet shimmer of his eyes. "I thought I was the only one."

He sounded so small and young that she wanted to fold him into her embrace, whispering tender nothings in his ear until his worries dissolved into mist. Reigning in the impulse, she contended herself with a squeeze of his palm instead. He squeezed back.

They passed the next minute in silence, both drawing comfort from their united suffering. Then Hope piped up, "Do you think the others can hear them, too? That it's part of being l'Cie?"

She nodded rather than spoke the affirmative. It wouldn't do any good to verbalise her fear – that hearing voices wasn't about being l'Cie so much as their progress into the stage beyond. Her flimsy attempt at prevarication was subverted, however. Smart kid that he was, Hope came to that realisation in the next instant.

"We're already… changing, aren't we? Into Cie'th?"

The sound of the night insects' chirping was the only reply.

A/N: Let me say that I did not set out with the intention of exploring relationships in a romantic capacity in this story. My predilection for a certain pairing may exhibit itself every now and then, but the interpretation is up to you. Oh, and please leave a review ;-)