Eiji had learned many things in his travels, not the least of which was how strangely life could treat a person. He had received a letter the other day from a high-school friend of his—they were opening a theme park soon, and wanted to invite him and anyone he felt like bringing to enjoy it privately. He only knew a couple people, and as Chiyoko said she was busy, he extended the offer to Hina and anyone she could think of. They rendezvoused at the Cous Coussier, and Eiji was mildly surprised that he recognized everyone, even if only as frequent customers at the cafe—Date, Gotou, Satonaka, and Ankh—all the people that knew about Greeed.
They took the train to the park—Gotou suggested ridevendors initially, but Ankh and Eiji vetoed the idea. The Greeed didn't want to waste his cell medals when he was already going to be wasting his time—Hina slapped him on the arm when he said as much. Eiji was worried about having an attack while driving; he claimed the park was too far out to take motorcycles instead, which everyone seemed to accept. It helped that it was true—the park was outside the city, and while it was close to a train station, it was otherwise a fair distance from their starting point.
The ride was relaxing, with plenty of chatter. Eiji took the opportunity to get to know Date and Satonaka better—in other words, the cafe frequenters—he had worked with Gotou. Date shamelessly informed him that the three of them were more or less paid to hang around Hina in case something happened. Gotou rolled his eyes at his coworker's attitude—he was one of the quieter ones on this trip, along with Ankh. Oddly, Satonaka had taken the day off for this, despite Hina being present. It might have been Eiji's imagination or deteriorating vision, but he could have sworn this tidbit snagged Gotou's attention.
Eiji couldn't remember the host until they met him at the park. His name was Yuichi Kitamura, and he had been a shut-in in the class next to Eiji's in high school. Yuichi left after a few rides, saying he had a few things to take care of, and that he'd return. It didn't stop the others from running the full course, though, from the ferris wheel to the roller coasters. When they got to the haunted house, Hina opted out—not because she was scared, but because she didn't want to risk breaking it if a surprise triggered her battle instincts. She practically forced everyone else to go, however, and said she'd meet them at the exit.
The attraction was pretty standard—dark and creepy, animatronics designed to suggest ghost action, eerie noises—but most of the visitors remained unphased. Strangely, Ankh was the jumpiest one on the ride, which they mocked him for when they exited to meet with Hina. Yuichi rejoined them, and they waited together for several minutes before they started to worry. Had a Yummy attacked? A Greeed? No, something told Eiji that wasn't the case—Ankh wasn't reacting, either. Figuring she was lost, they decided to search for her; Satonaka, Gotou, and Eiji would be in one party, while Date, Yuichi, and Ankh would be in the other.
Splitting up seemed a bit like overkill, but Gotou insisted it was for the best—if each group went around a different side of the building, they couldn't miss Hina, after all. As they parted ways, Eiji got a nagging feeling that something was coming, and he couldn't help scanning the skies. An abnormally large bird seemed to be heading their way—just to be safe, he grabbed the other man's attention.
"Hey, Gotou... are there bird Yummies?"
Gotou's expression went from horrified revelation to alarm as he turned to what Eiji was looking at.
"Satonaka!" He yelled. She turned and glanced at him, then the Yummy, and casually chewed her gum a few times.
"It's my day off."
Gotou swore loudly at her.
"Then at least give me the driver!" Satonaka sighed, pulled it from her purse, and lazily tossed it at her coworker.
"Good luck" she added dryly before walking off. Eiji was dumbfounded as Gotou began strapping the belt on.
"Is... Is she always like-"
"Yes." Gotou answered in a voice laced with a dozen stories. He dropped his backpack on the ground, inserted a cell medal in Birth's driver, and began the transformation. "There are candroids in the backpack—send one to Hina and use the rest to distract the Yummy if you can." He inserted several medals in rapid succession, a large cannon forming on his chest. "One last thing—run if it gets dangerous. You aren't involved in this, and none of us want to see you hurt." With that, Gotou launched a rather impressive energy beam at the Yummy. It missed, but it drew the creature's attention; Eiji took the opportunity to withdraw to a safer distance—Gotou seemed to have this under control.
—-
Hina came to in a cement tube with no idea where she was or how she got there. She briefly remembered getting caught in a net, but had been knocked out soon after—probably with drugs, if this lingering drowsiness meant anything. Looking around, she noted that both sides of the tube were blocked; she had to have been put here somehow, however, and the tiny window shining light on her face wasn't big enough to fit a dog through, let alone a human.
She stood as best she could manage—the space was too small, so she had to hunch over—shuffled to one end of the tube, and pushed tentatively against it. It moved a miniscule amount and returned back to its original position, but it was enough for Hina. She assaulted it with her full strength, and was rewarded with the sound of several heavy objects falling over and being pushed across the ground as the door opened. Able to properly examine her surroundings, she found that—
—she still had no idea where she was.
It seemed to be a battlefield for toy gun fights, like lasertag or paintball—the cement tube she had just come from was a bunker of sorts, and more projectile cover made of similar materials surrounded her. Odds were she was still in the theme park—that was a start, at least. Hina started for what seemed to be the entrance of the arena; moving an unconscious person took time, which meant that the others had to have noticed her disappearance by now.
The sound of mechanical wings caught her attention—a hawk candroid was headed her way. Hina braced herself—either Gotou had sent it out to look for her, or, "Is it a Yummy?" she asked as soon as the bird was close enough. It nodded, and she let out a sigh through her teeth. What awful timing. "Lead the way" she commanded, and ran after the candroid, reaching for her purse—and OOO—out of habit. Her stomach dropped when her hand hit air—her purse was gone; it could be where she was captured, or worse, with her kidnapper. Either way, she didn't have OOO, which meant she could no longer guard it from the opposing Greeed. Still, she chased the candroid—it would at least lead her to her friends.
—-
Some things in life need more than a manual to use, and Gotou quickly discovered that Birth was one of those things. Three requirements needed to be met in order to use Birth—the first was knowledge of its functions, a part that Date had failed miserably. His attitude of, "I'll just figure it out on the fly" resulted in a fail on the written part of the aptitude test as well as an unbelievably catastrophic practical; CLAWs were not interchangeable for accomplishing goals. During the test's mock retrieval of cell medals, an ill-timed breast cannon incinerating the dummy medals rather than the proper use of anything else, really, had resulted in Date's disqualification from becoming a potential Birth user. His disposition made him flexible relative to the unexpected, though, so he was used to test the prototype Birth while his coworkers moved forward in the qualification testing.
The second requirement was physical capability. Gotou possessed this, but Satonaka had beaten him in combat every time, so she had advanced to the third requirement—Birth-specific training. Gotou was discovering the hard way that getting a medal into a slot while being attacked was considerably harder than it initially seemed; worse, the suit itself was draining to move around in, seeming to fight him at every turn. It was all he could do to draw the Yummy's attention, and he couldn't shake the feeling that his opponent was toying with him.
Pretty much everything was contributing to Gotou's frustration at this point; Satonaka's abandonment, his own incompetence, and even Eiji—damn it all, the candroids were programmed to assist combatants and civilians against Yummies—but he kept trying to direct them, individually, to help. Spread out like that, attacking alone, they had no effect on the Yummy, who currently had the temporary Birth user pinned on the ground. Trying to wrestle his opponent off him, Gotou heard voices approaching—the other group had circled the building. He succeeded at shoving the Yummy away and made a disgusted face—the closest thing to a combatant in the group was Ankh, though Satonaka was present. Why the hell did she bring everyone back, when she knew it was dangerous?
"Eiji! Eiji, are you okay?" Yuichi ran to his friend's side. Really? Even the biggest moron could tell he wasn't involved in the fight. Gotou rolled his eyes and tried to sit up; his transformation ended abruptly, no longer supplementing his strength, and dropped him back on the ground. Was he really that exhausted? Apparently so. Struggling to roll over, he kept track of the Yummy, so he saw the moment it re-examined the party with its shifty little Yummy eyes and swooped in to attack. It wrapped Satonaka in a weird substance easily before carrying her off. Gotou gave up on moving and let himself collapse, eyes closed; he had just thought of bribing Satonaka to fight today, too.
"Hey, Gotou, are you hurt?" Date's sympathetic voice.
"Just tired."
Gotou sighed and opened his eyes—he couldn't lay on the ground all day. Date offered him a hand up.
"Yeah, it does that to ya'. The prototype is worse, if you can believe that."
Gotou grunted in response, began unfastening the driver from his waist, and held it out to Date. The latter frowned.
"Didn't you want that?"
"Yes, but—" Gotou forced himself to say it, "—I can't use it as I am right now." Date nodded understandingly and took the driver.
—-
Yuichi was the parent of a Yummy—Ankh had sensed that since they reunited after the haunted house. What his desire was was another matter; had Ankh been able to make Yummies, he'd know what it was at a glance. Normally, the Greeed could care less about the parent's desire, but the "food" the Yummy was carrying back to the "nest" was apparently them. If he was kidnapped next, he'd be at the mercy of his impostor, and Ankh knew well that Greeed had no concept of mercy. Uncovering the Yummy's motive and figuring out whether he was in danger, then, became an utmost priority.
As Eiji had sent a candroid to find Hina, Gotou had deemed it best for everyone to wait in the area; they could get word back from the robot faster if it didn't have to search for them, too. Yuichi had appeared almost downtrodden when the candroid was mentioned; a fact Shingo's groggy consciousness found suspicious. Ankh ignored him, as usual, and went willingly with Yuichi later when the latter wanted to talk privately; his desire was probably something he wanted kept a secret—extracting it would be easier without the others around.
As soon as no one could see or hear them, the park owner started speaking.
"What do you know about Eiji?"
Eiji? Ankh was blindsided by the question—what did anything have to do with Eiji?
"What are you talking about." The Greed began advancing toward the human—the conversation had already careened into a weird topic, and Ankh intended to intimidate it back to a useful one.
"If you think I'll let you use Eiji as you please-" Yuichi continued. He had begun stepping away—he felt instinctively cornered by the Greeed. Good—that's how it should be.
Yuichi smiled and Shingo projected a warning at the same time—a trap. Literally a trap, Ankh discovered too late, as a net appeared from under him; he had been played by this crazed human, and for what? Eiji? He had nothing to do with the current situation. Well—Ankh flinched—that statement wasn't exactly true anymore, but it was close enough. Shoving irrelevant thoughts away, he struggled against the mesh net as Yuichi walked off—even at this distance, the human's smugness was insufferable. Ankh would have his revenge for this—after all, Greeeds had no concept of mercy.
—-
It had been quite the jog, but at last Hina could make out her friends, seemingly waiting for her. The closest was Gotou, working on his phone at a picnic table; he didn't notice the OOO user until she called out to him. She caught her breath while he filled her in on everything that had happened and flagged down Date to let the others know she was back. Hina told him what little she could—she hadn't seen her attacker, and she currently didn't have the OOO driver. Gotou frowned at that, but quickly began arranging a search plan. With everyone gathered to talk, Hina finally noticed that someone was missing.
"Guys, where's Ankh?" A quick head-swivel verified his disappearance, but the sound of flapping wings interrupted any search parties; the Yummy was back. Date wasted no time in transforming, and Gotou pulled a Birth buster from his bag. Hina briefly wondered what he didn't have in there before taking off; a non-combatant was useless—at the least, she needed to find the OOO driver. Eiji grabbed Yuichi and ran after her; if her purse was where she was taken, they should find it faster with more people.
It took her a moment to find the spot to start at—the back of the building lacked a decent landmark. Yuichi found the purse, miraculously with the driver still inside. Ankh had taken to holding all the medals after his imposer was discovered, so she still couldn't transform, but Hina returned to the fight nonetheless. She was stunned to find no one engaged in combat—and Gotou missing. An annoyed Date was watching the Yummy's silhouette as it returned to its nest with their friend. Hina gritted her teeth—if Ankh was here, she could have used Tajador to pursue it. She turned, examining the surroundings again, as if to verify that the Greeed was still gone. As she did, she spotted him coming over a nearby slope, irate and with a leaf stuck in his hair. She ran to him and called his name, but he walked past her brusquely; Ankh was on the warpath, and his eyes indicated his victim was—Yuichi?
Hina blinked in surprise as she watched the Greeed advance toward his target. The latter rapidly became distressed when he spotted the monster, a fact Ankh exasperated by grabbing the human's chin with his clawed arm.
"What desire of yours in the Yummy operating on?" he hissed.
"What are you talking about? What do I have to do with that thing?" Yuichi protested; Hina didn't intervene—she trusted Ankh's senses.
"Fine, let's talk about things you do know, then, like trying to kidnap me and Hina." It was a shocking revelation, sure, but who else could have done it? Yuichi couldn't just own up to it, though, and stammered more protests while Ankh continued. "What I want to know is what any of this has to do with Eiji." He murmured. Pressuring Yuichi like this felt a bit cruel, but her brother's life was at stake, and Ankh could get results.
"I-I just wanted to help him... Like he helped me in high school-" Ankh sneered, at least until another voice cut Yuichi off.
"It was my idea." The bold proclamation came from Eiji, of all people. "I suggested we give the trip an adventure feel, but we went too far—I'm sorry!"
The last time Hina heard someone fib that badly was when she had claimed Ankh was an abandoned foreign child. Still, how many times had Eiji "fallen" for a shoddy story to help someone else? Hina, if not the world, owed him at least this. She glanced at Ankh; he had somehow been completely suckered. Hina tried to imitate his expression and say something believable; finally, she managed a weak, "Oh, I see." Satisfied, Eiji turned to his friend.
"Yuichi, does anything here remind you of our past?"
"What kind of question is that?" Ankh butted in.
"Well, the whole park can't be the nest. I figure the parent has some influence on the Yummy, right?" The Greeed just stared at him, so Eiji continued, "you asked about his desire just now, so you think so too." He turned back to his friend, "Is there somewhere you really liked?"
Slowly, Yuichi nodded, "the botanical gardens..." Eiji beamed at him.
"Lead the way."
—-
"So it got you, too."
Gotou couldn't have asked for a lousier day. A Yummy attack on Satonaka's precious day off, followed by him not only botching his opportunity to claim Birth from her and getting captured by the Yummy, but being stuck with her until Hina and Date could hopefully rescue them. That this bird Yummy had deposited them in a literal nest somehow made the situation worse—and Satonaka had the nerve to chat casually with him after everything. Gotou couldn't hold it back anymore.
"It's your fault we're like this, remember?" He snapped. Satonaka didn't respond immediately. When she did, her voice was tinged with something Gotou had never heard in it before.
"Do you have Birth on you?"
"Why, so you can refuse to use it again?" He quipped, then started trying to kick the nest. It was as therapeutic as it was futile—the nest could hold two adults; a few kicks wouldn't break it.
Still, Gotou persisted—with any luck, he could make the nest's supports snap. Satonaka had other ideas, and Gotou's efforts were irritating her.
"Would you cut that out?" Gotou paused to give her a look of disgust.
"Some of us are working today," he spelled out for her in his most patronizing tone. She raised her eyebrows at his snark before he resumed kicking.
"Well then, I'll be holding you responsible for any public indecency charges I incur." Gotou stopped kicking again.
"What?" He couldn't manage an angry tone; the topic change was too sudden. Satonaka glared at the glass roof—the Yummy—as she answered.
"My skirt caught on one of these sticks. Today's fight is off the clock."
Gotou felt his heart skip a beat—the tone he couldn't identify before was rage—emotion, in a work-related matter. A rip in her dress gave her a vendetta strong enough to make her fight on her off day; if she wasn't so clever, Gotou would have personally shredded her wardrobe and blamed the Greeed for it. He leaned back and allowed himself to revel in the moment. The shift in his position allowed him to notice a candroid under his hip—Pteranodon—one that could fly. Straining against his bonds, he managed to reach and activate it; they could contact the others. Gotou couldn't suppress a grin—this was actually turning into a good day.
—-
They were sprinting distance from the greenhouse when they heard the mechanical screeching of a candroid; this was the Yummy's nest. Hina led the charge, with a confused Yuichi bringing up the rear.
"Stay back, it's dangerous!" She heard his friend shout behind her. She turned her head enough to add to the commands.
"You too, Eiji!" Seriously, why was he charging the nest with them? His footsteps slowed as he dropped back, but he didn't avert his course. Their opponent was just the one Yummy, so he probably wouldn't be in danger, but it still made the OOO user uncomfortable. Their enemy seemed to be out, as they weren't attacked upon entry. Finding Gotou and Satonaka wasn't an issue, either, as a conspicuous nest was suspended from the ceiling by the black material the Yummy used. The captives were freed a few candroids later; Gotou was picking the last of his bindings off when they heard the telltale sound of giant wings. Hina pressed her driver to her waist, but Date was stopped by Satonaka.
"She wants to fight this time." Gotou chimed in, putting a friendly hand on Date's shoulder. The Prototype Birth tester relinquished the driver with a casual shrug. Hina briefly wondered what happened, then caught sight of Satonaka's skirt just before the other girl executed her transformation.
Gotou had assumed incorrectly that Satonaka's wrath stemmed from vanity. Hina, on the other hand, knew that the Birth user designed and made her entire wardrobe. The outfit she was wearing today was new, painstakingly crafted over the last month, and in the back of her elaborately-sewn skirt was a rip spanning half its length—the location in the design meant the whole thing was ruined, too. Hina shuddered as she caught Ankh's medal selection, Sauba; Satonaka was about to unleash destruction for the history books.
The two girls ganged up on the Yummy, chasing and stopping it when it fled outside. Satonaka readied a finisher—she was completely focused on the enemy, so Kazari's assault caught her unaware. How long had he been here? Worse, how many other Greeeds were nearby?
"What's this?" Kazari mocked as Birth struggled to pick herself up, "I thought it was your day off today?" Hina frowned—it seemed odd for him to know that—or care, for that matter. Stranger still, Satonaka justified herself to him, voice filled with venom.
"It ruined my skirt." Kazari shrugged.
"It doesn't really matter with today's agenda, anyway."
Before Hina could contemplate what he meant, the Greeed rushed OOO with no warning; she was at a disadvantage—trying to fight claws with whips was tricky. Kazari didn't leave her the chance to change medals, keeping the distance between them small. Satonaka couldn't lend support, either—with OOO no longer cornering the Yummy, Birth was having problems dealing with it. Kazari broke Hina's transformation, advancing to deal the finishing blow when Gotou's Birth buster interrupted him. Annoyed, the Greeed charged his assailant. Hina caught the look in Gotou's eyes as he brought the gun up to shoot instead of run; he didn't stand a chance and he knew it, but wanted to go down like his men.
Kazari's attack never landed, as a carnal screech resounded on the battlefield, its owner knocking the Greeed away in mid-air. Rampaging, the creature tore into Kazari, scattering cell medals wildly; as they grappled, Hina caught sight of this new combatant's face—Eiji. That name didn't suit this animal of unparalleled wrath, one that Kazari was now wary of; once he was upright again, he put some distance between himself and Eiji, showing no signs of starting round two with the human.
"Well, it's not like you guys were the target, anyway" Kazari tossed out, backing away from his opponent. The group realized what he meant too late; the Yummy had gotten the better of Satonaka and slipped away to grab Ankh. "And good luck with that," Kazari added with a gesture to his opponent before leaving.
Hina struggled to stand, evaluating Eiji as she did so; she couldn't tell if he was going to calm down or attack. She reactivated her transformation—at the very least, she could taze him with Sauba's eel whips. The noise snagged his attention, and he examined OOO with brilliantly violet eyes. Hina moved his status from "battle-drunk" to "feral animal" in her mind—she wouldn't go all-out, but she no longer considered trying to talk him out of it possible. He rushed her and Hina readied her attack. An invisible force yanked Eiji back violently, stopping him mid-charge; his expression switched from crazed bloodlust to shock and the purple faded from his eyes. An involuntary groan escaped him as he collapsed to the ground; writhing in pain, he didn't respond when they called his name, transitioning into unconsciousness soon after.
—-
They brought Eiji to the park's rest area—he hadn't woken since he collapsed, and no one knew what was wrong with him—and released a swarm of candroids to locate Ankh. Being separated from the Greeed was worrying, but without a clue where he had been taken, splitting up to search haphazardly could be worse. Waiting anxiously outside the building with Gotou, Hina struck up a conversation.
"About what happened with Eiji earlier... Do you think it has to do with the weird Yummies from before?" Gotou mulled his answer over.
"It's classified information, but," he paused, bit his lip, and continued, "Kougami found a complete set of ten medals a few years ago. I only learned about their existence recently, due to Dr. Maki stealing them." He took a deep breath and let it out as a sigh, "at the least, I'd say it's safe to assume a seventh Greeed has come into play." He examined Hina's expression before continuing, "whether they have something to do with Eiji's rampage or not is harder to answer. If the new Greeed was possessing him, perhaps, but he's been normal until now—unlike your brother, who's always controlled by Ankh."
"True..." Hina muttered. Glancing up, she spotted a candroid returning in the distance—sunlight didn't reflect off normal birds.
The door to the rest lodge opened behind them.
"Ah, you're out here" Gotou and Hina turned to the speaker.
"Eiji?"
"What are you doing up?"
"You should be resting." Eiji held his hands up to ward off their protests.
"I'm fine, I promise." He reassured them with his best smile.
"You collapsed earlier," Hina pressured.
"Eh? Ah, must have been heatstroke, I don't really remember."
Heatstroke doesn't make you bludgeon a monster into retreating. Hina bit her tongue; now wasn't the best time to tell him. Instead, she and Gotou alerted the others to the return of the candroid—it was time to save Ankh.
—-
It was an impressive chain of events that landed Ankh in his current predicament, to be sure. He didn't care to marvel at how many points he could have avoided this; laying on the ground, completely at the mercy of his impostor, Kazari, and Maki, he cursed his luck. He would have abandoned Shingo, but he was pinned against the human by the Yummy's bindings. His vantage point at least allowed him to see the candroid Hina's group had sent out, but would they arrive in time?
"How's it feel, knowing you'll be disappearing soon?"
Sneer all you like, Kazari, it's better for me. Ankh decided to stall—if he let the conversation go their way, he'd be destroyed in minutes. He turned his attention to the easiest target—Maki.
"I didn't expect to sense those medals from you."
"That's irrelevant," Maki addressed his doll, as usual, "you won't be around much longer." So much for stalling. Ankh's impostor chuckled, stood, and began calling for Ankh to return to his body. The Greeed's senses skewed all at once, a disorienting wave that left him unable to even function mentally. A sickening tug accompanied the second wave—he felt like he was going to hurl and he couldn't breathe—he was losing control of his cores. A third wave, and he couldn't think enough to think that he couldn't think.
Ankh. A voice gripped his rapidly shredding consciousness, pulling him back as a fourth wave struck. This voice came from a safe place, immune to core medals and Greeed—it tried to shield him as the attack turned into a bombardment. It couldn't save him, but it could help, giving Ankh everything it had; the sweet taste of ice-pops flooded his mouth, the scent of Hina's perfume—various senses lit up with their strongest memories, one after the other. The recalled input flooded Ankh's mind, dampening the effect of his impostor's assault. He would be absorbed, yes, but he had something to cling to, something to ground himself with now. When he went down, it would be as Ankh, and not the confused wreck the mental attacks would reduce him to.
Everything vanished suddenly, depositing Ankh back in the woods—the ice-pops were gone, Hina's perfume replaced with the smell of rotting leaves and dirt, but the mental onslaught had vanished as well. He gasped for air and tried to orient himself; he could feel his borrowed body trembling, the foreign emotion confusing. Dazed and vulnerable, he didn't question when Shingo gently directed his attention; Hina had arrived to save them. The other Ankh glared at the new arrivals—Maki was much grimmer, wary of Eiji. Ankh couldn't guess why he had come, or why Hina had let him, but it didn't matter as much as the fact he was present now.
Ankh grit his teeth and hooked his talons into his bindings—this was his only chance to escape, if things went sour—freeing himself as quickly as he could manage. He noticed Maki turn to leave—why wasn't he trying to take Eiji's medals? It was better for OOO, though—the last fight had been a wreck—they didn't need another opponent in the fray. The other Ankh followed the doctor as his Yummy went after Birth—he had no interest outside of absorbing his other self, apparently.
The fight wasn't any better than before, but Ankh made sure to keep a better eye on the Yummy, lest it fly away with him again. He gave OOO Tatoba instead of the Sauba he used earlier—Kazari no longer had the advantage of claws, but Hina was tired, and it showed. Satonaka was even worse off, the suit's fatigue exasperating her situation against her airborne opponent—Gotou's and Date's covering fire with their Birth busters held off the worst scenario, but it couldn't last much longer.
They needed something to turn the tide in their favor; Ankh's attention snapped to Eiji. The medals inside him were starting to flare up, but with most of the people present fighting, Ankh was the only one to notice. If the human went berserk again, he would certainly decimate their enemies, but the Greeed didn't know if he could differentiate between those and his friends. Eiji's face contorted with barely contained pain, and a silver glint in his skin caught Ankh's attention—cell medals. His body was fluctuating between human and Greeed, which meant that right now... Ankh crossed the short distance to Eiji, who was oblivious to the world and what the Greeed was about to do to him; putting his left hand on Eiji's shoulder, he plunged his right into the human's back. Sure enough, it slid in as though through a fellow Greeed. Ankh seized three of Eiji's cores—
—and tried not to scream. An unexpectedly cruel agony shot up from his hand—was this what Eiji had to endure every time his medals activated? Ankh grit his teeth and shoved Eiji away with his left arm; he didn't dare risk moving his right, for fear he would release the cores—they hurt too much. Separated from their host, the pain dulled to a much more manageable level.
"Hina!" He bellowed, throwing the new combo the moment she was open. Ankh would be explaining the medals later, sure, but right now he just hoped they wouldn't burn OOO and make Hina drop them.
Hina had all of a half-second to decide what to say about the medals Ankh had just thrown her; a dozen questions came to mind, but she settled on the shortest.
"Purple?!" She shrieked, already switching out Tatoba as she dodged Kazari's onslaught of slashes and whirlwinds. "Where did you get purple?!"
"Just fight!" Ankh hollered back. Hina twisted the OOO driver and ran the scanner over it; the belt called out the names of dinosaurs. Well, that was certainly a change of pace from the other medals' themes. Raw, unbridled energy flooded Hina as the combo embraced her. She noted that Kazari's movements had become cautious—he was scared, as he should be—she would destroy him. She could destroy anything she wanted, in fact; it was a completely euphoric feeling, and it promised even better pleasure if she were to use this power. She tackled Kazari and sent him flying—had he really been giving her problems before? He stood, clearly looking for an escape route; that wouldn't do at all—if he left, Hina couldn't destroy him.
The world seemed to have other plans, as the bird Yummy crashed to the ground between them. Kazari seized his opportunity to leap off into the brush. Hina turned to the monster that had so rudely interrupted her; she'd make sure it paid for what it had done. It took Birth and OOO little time to dispatch their remaining enemy, but they didn't have time to enjoy their victory; Hina's transformation broke unexpectedly, the purple medals ejecting themselves and whizzing behind her. She turned in time to watch them disappear into an unconscious Eiji's chest; surprisingly, Hina noted that Ankh was by his side. Eiji cringed a moment later—he was starting to wake up.
—-
The sky was grey, the ground was grey, the trees were grey, and all of it in low, noise-flooded resolution; for a moment, Eiji couldn't tell if he was face-up or sideways or possibly even face-down. He squinted—pain from the sunlight—that grey looked a bit bluer than the others. He was facing the sky, he decided; his condition had been terrifying a few days ago, but now it didn't seem to matter anymore. He had seen people worse-off than he, and aside from the acute attacks, he lived a comfortable life, didn't he? His senses may have dulled, but he still had them, at least.
A face blocked part of his view—who? Oh, it was Ankh. What was he so worried about? Oh, right, Eiji had collapsed. He managed a smile for the Greeed; he could claim heatstroke again, maybe. If he told them the truth, they'd never believe that he was fine; they wouldn't understand, and it was best not to worry them. Eiji sat up, a dull pain throbbing in his chest—he could ignore something of that level.
"Eiji..." Hina sounded so far away—then again, the whole world was like that. Satonaka and the others approached, putting away their weapons. Ankh spoke before anyone could tell Eiji anything stupid.
"If you were that badly off, why the hell did you follow these guys? The only thing you managed to do was faint again."
"Ah, sorry about that" Eiji smiled again. Ankh made an irritated noise and left in the direction of the rest house.
"...I didn't peg him for the worrying type." Gotou mused in the following quiet. Date chuckled and Hina managed a smile.
"I'll go talk to him." She added as she helped Eiji off the ground. the latter brushed himself off as she pursued the Greeed ahead of the others.
—-
With only a few minutes between her arrival and the rest of the group's, Hina didn't have time to squeeze an answer out of Ankh, despite her best efforts. The silent consensus on the purple medals was to not tell Eiji—at least, not until they knew what was going on. Hina didn't like it in the slightest, evident in her pointed stares at Kougami's employees—she had been unofficially outvoted, however, and it had been a long day. Not willing to let the topic slide, she cornered the one person that couldn't evade her—the one she lived with. However, the topic turned into a screaming match soon after walking through their apartment door.
"What do you mean you don't know what's wrong with him?!" Hina practically threw her purse onto a coathook. Ankh had been refusing to answer questions with anything except snark.
"What moron would put core medals in a human?!" he retaliated.
"You're the expert, aren't you?"
"Oh? Then why don't you tell me—in precise detail—how you were born." the Greeed first sneered, then regretted his words when Hina's eyes widened; Ankh wasn't just fighting her, but a rampant, sourceless theory of his that maybe, just maybe Greeeds were born from human hosts. A rampant theory that he had just managed to let slip. It shocked the human into a drastically lower volume, at least.
"How I… Eiji's becoming a Greeed?" she uttered softly. Ankh couldn't tell if she was going to cry or rage. The Greeed decided he had done enough damage for the day—he headed for Shingo's room, shut and locked the door.
A few moments later, Hina seemed to have recovered from the shock; she knocked on his door, asking him to come out, to explain. She had already set the anger aside—this was something they should talk about, it was important. Ankh tried to ignore her—what did he know about the technicalities, anyway? Half his answers were guesses and theories—and right or not, he didn't want to talk about them. Eventually, Hina asked a question he couldn't ignore.
"Ankh… Is there anything we can do to help Eiji?"
"No," Shingo's voice sounded hollow as he replied, "Nothing."
