A/N: Hihi! I'm here with the second chapter…which was initially stubborn but then ran away from me. Whoops? This time the prompt is reason. Enjoy!
2. Spider Saving
Kanade took a deep breath and her body shuddered. It couldn't keep up with her. It never could. But she didn't regret the choice she'd made: the monster in human skin she'd become –
Heck, as far as she was concerned, she was no monster at all. And as far as everyone who mattered was concerned as well because they were protecting people and they were cute and they cared…
Not that most people knew the truth. Their fans, flocking like moths to a flame: their flame. She had all sorts of jokes, black humour that caused Tsubasa to frown with her lips twitching and the Commander to just shake his head… But everyone had their way of coping with things and black humour was hers. Like those fans, those moths, coming to monsters like them. If they were cannibals, they'd all be gobbled up. Finite. No fans. Which was actually rather depressing once that clicked...
The spider on the other hand was kind of true. They were bait, drawing in the fans, using them – even to fuel themselves, which wasn't a bad thing at all because humans did much worse to other humans every day. It wasn't even an unfair exchange. They sung harder because the fans were there, watching and cheering, and the fans watched and cheered to hear them sing harder. It was a fair trade, an equivalent trade.
Their lives revolved around innumerable such trades.
And the trade she made to burst out her song was the shuddering of her body: was the life slowly sloughed off each time.
And they all knew it. Tsubasa knew it, and there was a part of her who fretted because of it. Kanade's forced grin relaxed into a smoother smile. Somehow, Tsubasa fretting always managed to relax her, or distract her.
It was a trade but it was also a battle, and Amou Kanade did not lose.
She took another deep breath. The light fell on them. She grabbed Tsubasa's fingers. Their fingers intertwined.
The song began.
They appeared on the stage: Zwei Wing, dressed in their pale dresses and looking even more beautiful in life than they did in the posters. For a moment, Hibiki forgot to breathe – and then she scolded herself. It was silly; she'd seen Zwei Wing before, though not in person. They were the staples of their school: their pride and joy. No student at Lydian Private Music Academy could not know who Zwei Wing was…
And, sitting in the stands with strangers and clutching the glowing glow stick in her lap, she could kind of see the mystique the encircled the pair. That sort of image that made people come to watch them, instead of just listening to their voices on CDs and the radio. It really did give a different view: not like seeing them glossy on a poster at all.
And when they started singing, it wasn't like listening to them over the inaudible scratches from the CD. There was something pure. Something unadulterated. Something breathtaking.
And it certainly did steal her breath when the beauty became, instead, unadulterated terror.
It was easy to lose themselves. So easy, that they almost forgot their ulterior motive.
But the Noise hadn't forgotten. They swarmed: mindless husks following the glow of light, and it was they, singing, that emitted the light. Alarms blared: alarms disguised as show lights so it was only Tsubasa and Kanade who realised, who looked up –
But the subterfuge was unnecessary. The show fell apart before they could even grasp it. Tsubasa narrowed her eyes. Kanade bared her fangs. Both of them saw the first fan disappear.
They exchanged glances, and at once reached for the stone that marred their core.
No more.
Their song changed. Their tones reached a sharp pitch almost seamlessly. The recording continued. The screams began to spread like a ripple – a ripple in a sea of screaming people. This was Zwei Wing's true concert. A concert of death and screams until their voices cut through, until their weapons cut through…
Numerous people fell, vanished. Tsubasa's sword cut through the Noise. Kanade hefted her lance.
She was angry. She was burning with anger. Like always she sung her loudest, her fiercest and it was even more important today because of what they sung for. But the Noise had smelt the prize as well. Smelt the souls rising. Greedy bastards.
Her song turned into almost a scream as she swung the lance.
The Noise crumbled. Take that! But the crowd thinned as well and it didn't take Kanade long to fell the stings of her fading song, and that fading crowd.
That was a time she could accept she was a monster. Only monsters failed to save.
She would save at least one of them.