Once again, Crona was floating in the darkness.

It was a familiar feeling, by now. As familiar as home.

How many times...They'd lost count. How many times, over the turbulent course of their short life, have they sunk down into this place? A little different at the moment, to be sure. In that room, even as their head spun and faded lighter by the second, even as they lost sensation in their body, from their fingertips and toes right up into their heart, the feeling of the room around them was the most overwhelming thing in the world. Everything was too cold and too hard, and they couldn't see but could still see how the walls pressed in on them and pushed back out again, over and over. Dizzying, suffocating, barely alleviated by the faint and feverish sleep they passed in and out of, with no way to tell whether it was day or night, or how many of each had gone by.

How long has it been...?

Now, however...They couldn't feel anything solid around them, or hear anything at all. Their skull was filled with roiling fog, and there was a sickly-sweet taste in their mouth. All of these put together could only mean being drugged, medication, experiments. And the fact that they could put these things together, even with their thoughts slowed to a crawl and running together like this, could in turn only mean that they were waking up from whatever they'd been injected with or forced to inhale now.

"Wake up."

I don't remember...What is she...?

She. The word, unusually, caused a snarl of confusion in the middle of their brain. There was only one person in their life, isn't there? Only one pair of eyes, narrowed serpentine slits of gold, that locked onto them and bored inside them, never letting go?

So why...Why was there this lingering image, wavy and faint like a photograph under dingy water, of another pair? Wide green eyes, bright, so bright, they couldn't -

"Wake up."

Wake up. They wondered whether that was something they wanted to do. It was a regular question for them, in the passing through wakefulness and sleep. The frisson of fear - older and more familiar a companion than even Ragnarok - that ran over their skin, as awareness started to creep back into them like frost, was the final indicator of which darkness holds them here.

I want to stay...It doesn't hurt...

Darkness...It was getting lighter, on and around their body, like deep night into cold dawn. As always, it was about now that they felt their stomach start to churn.

They were floating. Disconnected, from both body and self.

It's better this way...Can't I...?

"Crona."

A name, their name...Darkness as well.

It was not a call, no mother's gentle coax into wakefulness. It was a command. The thought of blocking it out or wriggling away did not cross their mind; even if it did, they would not be capable of that anyway. Even so, it still felt like a hook piercing and ensnaring their heart.

Can't I stay...?

"Crona. I know you can hear me."

Louder, clearer...Or was it just that they could hear a little better? It didn't matter. They must answer, obey. Somehow.

They tried to move - just to twitch, even, if nothing else. Their body, which they still couldn't feel fully, did not respond.

They tried to speak. They felt themself swallow, but couldn't find their lips or mouth.

Their eyes, then. Eyelids, just. They supposed those were the last option left to them. They turned out to be easy enough to manage, though their brain hadn't fully caught up with them yet. They squeezed them shut tighter, just for a second, before trying to push them open. They turned out to flutter open, instead; it seemed that they were still more dazed than they thought.

They could not see the room, only its colors and vague ideas of shapes. Distant grays and blacks and spots of white that whirled and spiraled like whatever was in their head: in and out, in and out. The air around them was icy cold, and seemed almost to vibrate. They were breathing, they could feel it, and that cold was raw and tingling on their throat and in their nose -

"Look at me, Crona."

It took them longer than it should have to obey the command. They turned their neck and their head flopped to the side, as if their neck is broken. And waiting there...Yes, there they were. The golden eyes, and their familiar burn. In a different form, perhaps, one that was tiny and soft where she had once been tall, sharp, and steely. The change was something that they knew, logically, should be startling to them, but somehow was not.

Medusa laughed, light and self-satisfied, and the sound made something clench tight in their gut. Her voice, at least, was exactly as they remembered it was supposed to be. "Good boy. You look a little confused. Do I look different to you?"

They nodded, slowly and dumbly. How did it happen? I know I know how...But why don't I remember it?

"Do you know why?"

At that? They could only stare. They tried to reach back for the memory...But it was no good, that was all darkness as well. It hurt.

They whimpered, and Medusa snickered again. She wasn't paying attention to them any more, not really, instead focusing on taking the IV tubes out of their wrists. They made no noise at this, anymore, though they wondered vaguely what was in the near-empty bags. Nor were they surprised that they're currently laid out on a metal operating table. It seemed that they'd been there so long that the steel had turned warm under their body.

"That's a no, then?" she said casually. "I expected that. You were badly damaged on your last assignment. Nearly broken. Don't worry about it, though; this new serum I've been testing on you seems to have you just about back to normal."

"Oh..." The sound came out of their mouth without thinking, and they had to focus very hard on the tiny movements of lips, tongue, and throat to get any more out. "I...d-don't remember be...being hurt."

"Of course you don't. No need to dwell on it. That would only make it worse for you."

She was taking off...straps, now? Around their arms and legs and waist. Now that was strange; why would she need to do that? They hadn't struggled enough to need things like that since they were little. Finishing that, Medusa hopped off the table, looking up at them expectantly.

"Now. We're done with that, why don't you get off there and go say hello to Free and Eruka? They've been rather worried about the progress of this experiment, and in any case, we'll all be preparing for a new mission soon, anyway."

Crona stared for a moment, as the words and their meaning sunk in. They didn't quite get it: what would those two have to be concerned about?

("It's time to come back, Crona!")

Back...from where? What had they been doing? And why would they need to be told so insistently? They knew better. A simple order would -

Right. A simple order, like the one they were staring slack-jawed at Medusa instead of following. They squirmed like a bug on its back on the table, taking a minute to wake up all their limbs. Even after they were able to make their way down onto the ground, they still had to grab on to the edge of the table with one hand to steady themself. Something in their chest trembled, and their legs felt like spaghetti as they tried to stay standing. The shakiness passed after a moment of stillness, as they tensed their muscles from shoulders to feet.

It was something they were used to doing, after a long time spent confined or under examination. Or both, as the case often was.

Seeing that her child was, more or less, fit to be put back into action, Medusa started across the flat stone floor and back up the stairs.

"Come, then," she said, absently jerking a hand over her shoulder to beckon them along.

Unnecessarily, really. Crona was already following listlessly at her heels, up the winding staircase. As the two of them near the top few stairs, they felt their heart start to beat faster, and wonder why that could be. They'd never seen this hideout before, have they? Nothing could have happened here, not like the lab in their mother's castle, their true home -

("They'll let you move out of there soon. You'll have a real home with us before you know - !")

Crona blinked.

Who was that? A girl? But I don't know any girls...I don't know how to deal with talking to girls -

"Crona!"

They jumped, almost tripping back down the stairs. Their head snapped around to see who was talking, and were more surprised than they think they really should be to see Eruka standing there. Blue hair instead of ashy blonde, an orange dress instead of black -

...What? Who is - ?

"Uh, uh...A-Are you feeling okay, Crona?" Eruka ventured, her head twitching nervously up and down, between Crona and Medusa. Free was towering behind her like a bodyguard, arms crossed tight. There was a look on the werewolf's face that Crona had never seen on him before, and that they could not quite put a name to.

Nor could they quite understand the odd twist to their mother's smile as she turned to look and see their response. "You can answer her, Crona. It's all right."

Oh. In that case...They didn't think they felt any different than they normally did, right? They swallowed, but couldn't quite make their mouth work; they didn't know how to deal with talking right now, with three pairs of eyes staring, piercing straight through their chest. In the maybe half a second between their deciding to just nod and hope that would be deemed acceptable, and their actually performing the action, there was the familiar burst of pain down their spine.

"Who cares about you?!" Ragnarok squealed, batting at Crona's head and shoulders with his...tiny puff hands? What happened to those giant wrecking ball fists? "You're just the same as always, why did you even need to think about it? What you should be thinking about is, what about me?!"

"Ah...Are you okay, Ragnarok?" Crona echoed obediently, trying to turn their head around enough to get a good look. "What happened to you? I don't know if I can deal with you being small all the time - Ouch!"

"You don't think you can deal with it?!"

"That's enough, Ragnarok." Medusa's command was soft and unruffled. "You have nothing to worry about. Once you're back on a steady diet, you should grow back to your normal size in due time."

"But what happened to you?" Crona asked again. They determinedly looked only at Ragnarok, though it bared their face for more of his outraged tugging and punching; no way could they look into their mother's face instead. "How did you get like that?"

"I'll tell you! It was all your fault - !"

"Ragnarok." The new edge in Medusa's tone made both of them freeze, automatically turning to look at her. "It doesn't matter now. It will all be fixed. But I do find myself curious...Crona, what is the last thing you remember?"

"Um..."

Their heart beat even faster, and the ache in the back of their skull became even more pronounced. They had been asked a direct question and to not provide a clear answer was absolutely grounds for punishment. Even so, the fact remained that no matter how they racked their brain, they simply could not remember a thing. Darkness, of course, still so much of that. But a black haze rather than something solid and crushing...the sensation of their body moving, of being in many different places, and of everything seeming very fast and very slow all at once. That made their stomach curl up uncomfortably tight; it certainly didn't feel like anything good had happened, whatever all that was. That didn't matter. If they were being asked for a concrete image...

"I-I think...We were in a basement somewhere."

"Is that so?" Medusa's eyes narrowed, in the way that betrayed deep concentration rather than anger. "Do you remember where?"

"N-No...No, I don't think so. It was big...A-and it wasn't too dark, but it wasn't bright either...And you, I think you told me to wait down there, because people would be coming that I needed to kill."

They felt as though there must have been something else to that. But that couldn't be right - or, at the very least, it didn't matter - because their mother was smiling, so something in there must have been a correct answer.

"Yes, that was the site of your last mission. When your opponents arrived, you were yet again defeated in battle. I've had to spent months helping you recover from your injuries, but no matter. You will make up for the time you've wasted during your training. We will need to pick back up where you left off rather than beginning the new set I had had in mind just yet, but that may be for the best anyhow."

"Yes, ma'am. Thank you."

They weren't sure why their usual tone made Medusa snicker like that, but they supposed if they had managed to put her in a good mood, it didn't matter. "Very good. Incidentally, Crona, how are you feeling?"

Crona blinked. The last time Medusa had seriously asked that of them, it had been close to ten years ago, when they had woken up to find Ragnarok sticking out of their back for the first time. Had something that big actually happened?

Well...I guess it doesn't matter, if I don't even remember it.

"I feel fine. When are we going home, ma'am?"