As it turned out, the answer to that was "at the break of dawn the next morning."

The sense of familiarity that washed over Crona when they stepped through the threshold into the castle that they had been raised in was comforting. It almost drowned out the chill that made the hairs on the back of their neck raise, and some trace of their black blood tingle in their veins. Eruka and Free were given directions to their room and then left to their own devices, and Crona expected to be given the same orders. They didn't think that they'd earned anything more, after a mission they'd apparently failed so badly they'd lost their memory of it, and the ache lingered in their muscles.

But this turned out to be one of the rare occasions in which they were rewarded upon their return. Medusa tugged on their sleeve, in the way that at her normal height she would grip their shoulder or jerk their wrist to make them follow her. She led them down the halls to the kitchen near the back, a room so tiny compared to the vastness of the rest of the castle, where she sets about dragging a step stool up to the counter and boiling a small pot of water on the stove. Crona sat down at the dark wood table, just then realizing that their stomach was empty and aching with hunger.

(Such a feeling was so familiar to them, that they barely noticed it until it dropped them flat on the ground, unable to get up without the world spinning in five different directions.)

Medusa started putting together dinner for two - pasta, meat sauce, pan-fried vegetables - and all the while explaining to Crona what was to happen from now on. She had been "damaged" on the same mission that had claimed Crona's memories, and had had to flee and inhabit the body of a human to survive. Their mission had succeeded regardless, however: Kishin Asura was free, and his madness was coating the Earth once more.

"No doubt you've felt that already, though."

"Yes, ma'am," Crona responded automatically, but the truth was that they hadn't noticed. The black fog, the static buzz that rattled the inside of their skull, those were still there, at the same intensity that they always had been. They did wonder idly whether everyone else felt the same as they did now, and whether it was easier or harder for them to deal with it. But they also supposed that they were so close to Kishin already, that it didn't affect their state of mind now whether madness reigned over the world or not.

...Close, but apparently not close enough for their mother to maintain her focus on cultivating their growth instead of reverting back to her backup plan. They...didn't quite know what was going on around them all of the time, so often did they go away inside themself, but they weren't stupid. They knew perfectly well only one full-fledged Kishin was required, so if Asura were revived, it would make they themself obsolete. But for some inscrutable reason, they were alive. They were home, even. So they must have another purpose that they weren't privy to before. Somehow they weren't looking forward to finding out what.

"Crona? Are you listening to me?"

"Huh? Oh, y-yes, ma'am."

Their mother went on. The next phase of their mission was to deal with an unintended side effect of the increased levels of madness: the revival of her elder sister.

"Arachne," Crona murmured without thinking about it. An image floated into their mind, unbidden, of a towering woman in a flowing black dress. Laughing delicately, at them...At them? But why? They had never known their aunt.

Medusa smirked. "You remember, then. What little I've said about her?"

"Yes, ma'am."

Medusa, Free, and Eruka had just about finalizing the plans for their next mission: the three of them would set out tomorrow morning, infiltrate Arachne's cult and kill her, and then return with whatever spoils they could find, to continue with the next phases of their goal and of Crona's training. They were surprised at the last words, but they did not speak. They supposed they would find out when they were meant to find out.

"When I come back home, I'll have a proper body again, if not one exactly like my original. And I'll have yanked out one nine-hundred-year-old thorn in my side once and for all."

"Yes, ma'am." This sort of clarification, they guessed, couldn't hurt. "What would you have me do, in the meantime?"

Medusa smiled, taking a plate of food and bringing it up to them. "You will rest and recover tonight. Then tomorrow morning, you'll go down to the second floor holding room. I trust you'll understand what to do from there."

Crona nodded, taking the fork stuck into the spaghetti and winding it around into a small bite. They have learned to eat carefully, even when all they wanted to do was desperately grab all the food they could get their hands on and cram it into their mouth, or risk being berated and having the plate swept away from under them. Besides, it seemed like they felt more full if they ate slowly, anyway.

Medusa brought her own plate over, but did not start in on it yet, watching Crona intently from across the table. They did not meet her eyes, but there was still some small part of them that wondered what was going on inside her head, when she looked at them like this: not with disappointment, but with interest, satisfaction, perhaps even a trace of pride. Usually, they stopped at wondering. But today seemed to be one of the rare occasions that their mother made her personal thoughts known.

"You know I have very high expectations for you, Crona. And you know that I have faith in you to meet them, don't you?"

"I do," Crona said, very much doubting that.

"Good boy. Build your strength back up, then we can pick right back up where we left off. Before the week is out, we'll both return to where we're supposed to be."

Crona lifted their head to look her in the eyes, against their better judgment. Their whole life, they had feared looking into those eyes, just as cold and flinty as any real snake's; in fourteen years - or was it fifteen? They were never sure exactly of their age - that fear had never abated. Even that praise, even such a rare and sought-after thing, sent a frisson of fear through their spindly body.

"Yes, Medusa-sama."

~0~

Every night, they went to their bed yearning for a deep and dreamless sleep. And every night, they got the exact opposite.

Their nightmares were not the standard fare, tonight. Instead of being lost in a smoggy sea of red and black, hunted by tiny shrieking monsters, with three eyes each and luridly colored bodies, it was as if they were floating through a world that was not their own. Faces that they had never seen but looked familiar, voices they had never heard but whose words they knew before they were said.

When they woke, sore and exhausted after a night full of tossing and turning, they were surprised to find themself in their own bedroom. The small, square area and the flat stone walls were the same, as was the window up near the ceiling. But they were brought up short by the placement of that window: wasn't it supposed to be on the other wall, and not have those bars on it? And their bed...Wasn't it - ?

They realized with a bad jolt what they were thinking, and couldn't fathom why. This was their room. This was their home. They had never known anything else.

Still, it took a long while of them lying on their back on that hard mattress, staring wearily up at the high ceiling, before they could summon the will to get up and shuffle out of the room, to go to the kitchen to get a small breakfast. They had no appetite - in fact, they felt vaguely nauseous - but they knew they had to force down what they were given; there was no guarantee of when more would come. The massive corridors were entirely silent as they trudged down them, without even a tiny snake to be seen; everyone seemed to have already departed. Whenever they were home alone, Medusa would leave them with exactly enough food to last them until she returned and no more, and it was their responsibility to figure out what that amount was and ration themself accordingly.

Crona neither hurried nor stalled in getting to their work, but it wasn't long at all before they made their way to the room Medusa had indicated. They weren't normally permitted to help with experiments, but they were every so often sent to fetch supplies from somewhere, and in any case, they knew their way around their own home.

This was one of the larger storage rooms in the place, and as they stopped for a moment in front of the heavy steel door, they thought they could hear muffled clinking and scratching noises. They gripped their elbow reflexively at the familiar ripple of pain over their shoulders and down their arm, as their sword materialized in their free hand.

Ragnarok was not the wide-bladed greatsword that they remembered it being, when the little weapon had been his normal size. Instead, it was a narrow longsword. They wondered why they weren't surprised at the new shape, then decided it didn't matter. A blade was a blade, its task did not change.

They pushed open the door, and the low scraping sound of it against the floor set off a din of hisses, screeches, and barks from inside. The smell of dander and waste stains hit their nostrils. Cages. The room was filled with nothing but cages of all different sizes, their wire doors opened, for the dogs, cats, rabbits, all manner of animals smaller than themself. They can see ribs sticking out, furless patches that showed off cracked skin, and bleeding gums.

"Gu-pi-pi...How lame," Ragnarok said sourly, lip curling and tongue hanging out anyway. "Animal souls are no good for eating."

"Don't complain, Ragnarok. At least you can eat them."

Crona barely saw the animals, either scampering or limping around them. They saw themself instead, lifting their sword, as if separate, floating from above. No thoughts, now, they reminded themself. As always. No thoughts. Just move, and cut, and soon they would be able to be still and retreat fully inside themself.

Go ahead, Crona. Of course they knew Medusa wasn't actually there to whisper in their ear, but it made no difference. Kill them. You will become the Kishin.

They moved, barely feeling their own legs, into the dark and the scent of blood. It was easier than stalking the streets of some city, especially when the door swung shut behind them. There was only the dark, and the motion of their arms, and the numb sensation of Ragnarok swinging through the air and his blade hitting home to cleave pelt and muscle and bone like melted butter. Their weapon slurped up each soul as they went, with the gaping lips between hilt and blade.

Eyes, yellow and red and iridescent, flashed before them.

There were screams. Of course there were, there always were, of so many kinds. But all they could hear was the static roaring in their ears.

~0~

Crona didn't know how long it was until they were finished. They crossed the room lethargically, the blood spattered and puddled on the floor sticking with every step. When they pulled open the door to leave, they did not look back to see their work illuminated in the bright white light.

(The sight would be familiar and uninteresting, they told themself. That was why they didn't look. Not that they didn't want to feel their heart twist, not again.)

It was easy to lose themself in the necessary tasks that came next. Walk back down the hall, to the tiny bathroom off of their bedroom. Peel off the thick clothes plastered to their skin with blood. Put themself under the weak, icy cold water of the shower until the blood and flesh and fur are all washed away, before they can start to dry into their skin and hair and become impossible to get out. And all the while that feeling of disconnect, of floating, never seemed to go away. They had thoughts, they knew they did, but their entire brain felt cloudy and blank.

It might have been minutes or hours before they were finished. They didn't know and didn't see how it mattered.

They would have gladly spent the rest of the time until their mother's return in this haze. Lying on their back on their unmade bed, staring at the ceiling, seeing nothing, thinking of nothing and wishing they truly were nothing.

But they came out of the shower to notice something on their nightstand - bare and empty except for a medicine bottle and a water glass - that they hadn't before. A note, in their mother's thin, winding handwriting.

Crona -

When you've finished in the holding room, you may return to a milder training regimen. Practice your swordplay and take your pills, morning and night. Remember the taste of blood. You will have a greater fill when I rejoin you, I promise. It shouldn't be long.

They stared at the note for a long time, reading and rereading it, until Ragnarok burst out to jar them out of their trance.

"What, are you dumb? Give me that!" he squealed, snatching it, reading it over, and then throwing it over his shoulder to the floor. "How stupid! Take us to the kitchen, I'm still hungry!"

"We can't do that. You can't eat all our food in one day," Crona heard themself say. They took the bottle, shook out one of the little red and white pills, and downed it dry. It was one of their more well-ingrained habits by now; they had been taking the black blood enhancements since meeting Ragnarok. "Besides, she said we have to train."

"Who cares? She's gone! She won't know if we don't!"

"She'll know." They didn't know how Medusa always knew when they were disobedient. But she did, all the same. "When has she ever not?"

"Tch. Fine. We'll do it your way."

Without further grumbling, Ragnarok flowed back into the sword in Crona's hand. For the rest of the day, they threw themself into their forms, from the basics learned in toddlerhood with a wooden toy, to the ducking and weaving they relied on now. It was all they were normally allowed, anyway - really, all they knew. They didn't mind, especially so long as the only thing the black blade cut through was stale air. It was something almost comforting, something they could so easily lose themself in. Block everything else out with. Whichever it turned out to be.

Gods only knew, they needed that.