AKITO!

No matter how loud he called, how many times he switched that eye patch over, calling Akito from inside of his head, Agito couldn't find him, couldn't get the other to come out, couldn't feel him anymore. It scared him, the complete silence inside of his head, the lack of that familiar nudging, the emptiness he felt without the other around.

Weeks went by, and it was still the same thing; there hadn't been a peep from Akito, not the slightest hint that he was still 'alive' inside of him.

I killed him.

I killed Akito. It's all my fault, I shouldn't exist.

He wanted to die, didn't want to have to live in a world without the person who had called him into existence. Akito was what he lived for, why he existed, why he kept on going on his path, why he tried to reach the sky. Yet no matter how much he wanted to just die, to cease to exist, he couldn't bring harm to this body, couldn't deliver the final blow- it was Akito's body, Akito needed a place to come back to, when he came back. If he could come back, at least.

That entire day had gone by blurrily for Agito, of whom had been forced into the back of their head while Akito confronted their enemy on his own, said this was business he had to deal with, even if he completely despised hurting others. By the time Agito had the ability to take control once more, the fight was over, their body had been cut up pretty badly, and was clinging onto the fallen opponent, tears streaming down their face. Akito had already been gone, the place he had occupied inside their mind had been emptied, and even Lind wouldn't tell him what had happened, just kept in the back of their head, completely silent despite all the curses and threats Agito had given him.

Akito is gone. This body belongs to you now.

No, he wouldn't accept that. Not even coming from Lind, who was their body's first person, their 'mother' by all technical terms, really.

He would have wanted you to keep on going, to reach the sky.

His sky was gone, without Akito; there was no reason to exist anymore, without the other around to protect, to keep away from painful things.

You still have that girl, Yayoi.

He didn't care about Yayoi, not without Akito around- she was a well enough tuner, could tune their fang to it's best potential- but why have a fang without his special person, his other half?

Stop being such a ba-

FUCKING SHUT UP. I DON'T GIVE A SHIT ABOUT YOUR OPINION, GET THE HELL OUT OF MY HEAD.

His head. It had never been his before, it had been Lind's, and he had just been a tiny little piece of it, a ripple in the water, just like Akito had been. Perhaps he should have been a little more respectful to Lind- no, Gazelle- but this was their world now, Lind had no place in it. Their world, his and Akito's.

Akito's gone. You can't feel him either, can you?

Akito's not gone! He'll come back, he has to come back, fuck!

He's not going to come back.

Months had passed, and still, no matter how much nudging he had given to that corner of mind, there was no response. Agito had gone through it quietly, doing whatever the crow needed, but keeping to himself whenever the battles were finished. Even Ikki was starting to notice, had tried to shove food down his throat multiple times, and, dazed and exhausted, Agito had let him, figured this body at least deserved the nutrition to go on. Still, he waited, waited, and waited, needed to hear Akito's cheery tone at least once more, needed to have him back.

When it became more and more obvious Akito wasn't there, Agito had started to withdraw entirely, leaving his seat in Kogarasumaru to one of the noobies that had come into their team, shrugged off any attempts to get him back into the fighting spirit, and just withdrew entirely, only keeping to Ikki, because fuck, if someone could get Akito back, it was the damned crow. It didn't help in the end, and Ikki had eventually moved on to bigger and better places, even if he kept dragging Agito around with him.

Stop sulking. You'll never be able to reach the sky like this.

I don't care anymore. I don't want a sky that doesn't have him in it.

Six months, and Agito felt completely, and utterly inadequate. There was nothing left, no reason to go on anymore, not without Akito. Still, he tried. Gave those small nudges, called out to him, only to find nothing. Eventually, he had come crawling back to Kaito, didn't want to be so near the sky Ikki made anymore, it was far too cheery, wasn't something he could enjoy anymore. Kaito had taken him back, although not without shooting quite a few rubber bullets at him, growling about how stupid he was, to come back here, to lose his precious person. Agito took it all without so much as a rude comment back, and it was then that Kaito had stopped, noticed how broken he was. Still, he gave him jobs, put him up with Akira, who wouldn't stop with the useless attempts to get something out of him.

The jobs were easy enough, A-T riders were starting to get stronger, sure, but he was still the Fang King, even if he didn't feel like one anymore. Sometimes, when the opponents were particularly hard to defeat, Lind would step in, would tell him to sit back and watch, because broken riders weren't good enough to fight anymore.

A year without Akito, and Agito couldn't even bring himself to fight anymore, left it all up to Lind, who was slowly starting to put a little pressure on their body, instead of just using up his own energy; he didn't have enough to keep at that for very long, after all.

There were quite a few times after hard fights that Agito couldn't even move, his muscles having all been strained horridly from the way Lind fought. He laid there in Kaito's trailer, keening and giving tearless sobs from both the body pains, and everything else that would go through his head at the time.

"Agito."

Turning his head, Agito eyed Akira, having lost the eye patch long ago, didn't need it anymore, after all; Lind surely didn't need it, and since Akito was gone, there was no need to wear it. "'the fuck do you want?"

".. you've got to take better care of yourself." Akira spoke in a soft tone, knew that now, Agito wouldn't think twice about taken off from the Wind G-men again, if he felt even the slightest bit uncomfortable. Raising up his hand, the brunette placed a warm, damp towel against the curve of Agito's back, which had the younger teen giving a loud hiss; there was a new scrape there, and his back was aching like crazy from all those fights, knew Lind wouldn't be coming out for a while after those last few, and figured Kaito would be considerate enough to give him a long enough break to recover.

"Fuck, I know what I'm doing." Turning his head away from Akira, Agito looked out the window of the trailer, looking at the landmarks they were passing to try and figure out where they were headed now- not that it mattered much at all, really.

"Akit-"

"SHUT UP ABOUT IT." Giving a loud growl, he struggled around on the bed, until finally, Agito fell off the side of it, and immediately went to get up onto his hands and knees, crawling away as best as he could with the way his thighs were trembling and throbbing. "I'm not going to listen to your shit anymore!" Because it hurt, to hear all those things, to hear how it wasn't his fault, when he knew it was, he should have protected Akito better, shouldn't have let him go up against that man.

"You're not a baby anymore, Agito! There was nothing you could have done, so just get the hell over it already!"