Early posting of chapter 8, both 'cause I had some extra time today, and 'cause, content-wise, it's pretty brief. Expect the plot to go utterly chaotic and pear-shaped by chapter 9!

In the meantime, enjoy an angsty confrontation between Haji and Saya! Oh, and review, pretty please!;)


Con forza: with force.


The room they solicit is in a boarding house east of Avenue A. The buildings are stumpy as rotted teeth, garbage overflowing from the empty lots and onto weed-cracked sidewalks. The smell in the air reminds Haji of an open-air toilet.

The room, comprising of a rickety bed and a tiny bathroom, is scented in years of dirt. Outside, traffic is an omnipresent hum. Haji can imbibe every sound and scent—his senses vibrate with the city's aura, so sharp.

But the rest of him: empty as Saya's gaze.

The room feels empty too, even though Saya is right there. Even though she has yet to put her mark on the space—which she never will. Duty presses them to constant travel. What use is there to notice your surroundings, when it doesn't matter where the sun rises or sets tomorrow?

It is futile, yet his photographic memory still keeps a record of each hotel room they check into.

An epitaph, almost, of the lives no one knows they've lived.

Saya lies in bed, covered head-to-toe in faded sheets. Haji wonders if she does so to separate herself from him, even in sleep. Her sword rests by the cardboard nightstand, hand loosely curled around the hilt. He watches her fingers tremble, spasmodic; she tics and twitches as if tangled in lightning.

Nightmares.

He knows her sleep is rived with them. So many nights, he's watched her thrash in bed as if drowning. Heard her cry familiar names; Joel's, Amshel's, Diva's. Each one ending on a single cry:

"Don't."

Sometimes, watching tears fall from her eyes, Haji thinks it's her unseen enemies she's speaking to.

Other times, watching her jerk awake with red eyes and an aching blood-thirst, he realizes it is to herself.

A superstitious man would recite incantations for every room they stay in. Symbolically banishing each evil spirit that pollutes Saya's sleep. But all such fancy bled out of Haji on the day of his death at the Zoo's cliffs.

The rooms they solicit are prayer-pristine. Its just Saya who is haunted.

She moans now, low and piteous, twisting beneath the sheets. The sleep-sound burns through his entire body. Other nights, it is a different moan that burns him. A nightmare is only a nightmare, but a dream is never just a dream. Often, he tastes a peculiar excitement scenting the air around her, like overbaked gingerbread.

It is those nights when Haji wants to shake her awake the most.

And not because hers is the only sanity he fears for.

Saya twists, breathing ragged, struggling with the sheets as if wrestling demons. Nervous, Haji maneuvers his eyes. Tonight seems a night for her Bad Dreams. They are all bad, but most are worse than others. The fact that he's begun to subcategorize them makes him wonder how much distress one can get used to, if one must.

There is no catastrophe in life that cannot worsen, Joel used to say. And no catastrophe that cannot become normal.

Haji assumed it meant adaptation to disaster was inevitable. But now, he wonders. Is adaptation really adaptation? Or just resignation?

Joel is no longer alive to answer.

"Saya." He isn't aware of saying her name. But when the sound slips past his lips, it seems to hang in the air—shimmery red.

Senseless, Saya tosses and turns.

Moving to the bed, Haji shakes her. "Saya—wake up."

She winces, head thrown back. Her eyes roll back and forth beneath closed eyes; skin clammy under a film of sweat. He feels her pulse racing beneath his fingertips.

"Saya—wake up."

One hard jolt does it. Abruptly, her eyes snap open, blind and shiny as a doll's. She jerks from his grasp, scrambling back against the headboard. A metallic hiss, and her sword is unsheathed. Reflected light from the blade catches in her wild eyes.

"What? What is it?"

Haji raises his hands. "Saya, calm down. You were having a nightmare."

She doesn't answer. Her breathing is ragged. Her eyes slide left to right, reaffirming her surroundings. Automatically, he leans over her as he always does when she wakes from bad dreams. Sweeps one pale hand across the air above her body, emblematically gathering night spirits, decimating them with a soft finger-snap.

The sound jerks and then slackens Saya like a sedative. All at once, she is still.

His mother used to do that, when he had nightmares as a child. She would blow cool air across his forehead, murmuring half-heard mantras to ward off fear. But Haji knows it isn't the gesture's spiritual significance that soothes Saya. It is the familiarity.

Which is, he suspects, what lures most people to superstition at all.

Swallowing, Saya leans on her drawn-up knees. Her eyes are open, fixed on the floorboards. Or at nothing. Haji wants to know what she dreamt of, but is afraid to ask. Her scent transmits the intensity of her inner-turmoil. And her hunger.

"Saya…"

Again, she jerks, sword upraised. "What?"

A bitter byproduct of the war. Each time he says her name, she expects him to prophesize doom.

Haji raises a hand. "It's nothing, Saya. There is no danger."

"What then?"

"Nothing. Just… you should eat something."

She stiffens, eyes going vague, inward. "I'm not hungry."

"Please. This regimen of yours has gone on too long. You cannot rest in this state, let alone fight."

"It isn't your concern. Leave me alone."

"But Saya—"

"I said leave me alone."

Haji stifles a sigh. This will kill her if she continues. Doesn't she realize that? He half-wants to slit his palm open and gargle the blood into his throat like medicine. Pin her to the sheets and force her to drink until the weakness leaves her.

Let her rip his head off afterwards. At least he'll die knowing she is no longer starving.

Instead, hands curling into loose fists, he murmurs, "At least… drink something."

"I did. Tea with Niklas. Don't you remember?"

Of course I do.

He convinced you to do what I haven't been able to in weeks.

And still can't.

His own resentment shames him. It seems reprehensible to feel that way—especially at a time like this. The bottom line is to keep Saya healthy, alive. The ways and means are unimportant.

But logic, like good sense, tends to dissipate in the face of love.

"Saya—that was hours ago. If you continue this way, you will fall ill. You have an important duty to accomplish. Sickness is the last thing you need."

"The last thing I need is for you to keep me reminding of my duty. I know what I have to do. If you think, like Red Shield, that I constantly need to be put in my place like a child—'

"Saya, you know that is not what I meant." Lately, she seems determined to take her problems with Red Shield out on him. As if his individuality has devolved into a faceless gender for her.

Just another man who talks down on her—makes her look weak.

"I know how you meant it. You think that without your constant hovering, I'll be helpless. That I won't be able to do anything by myself."

"Saya. You are twisting everything I say. But starving yourself will not solve anything. If you continue this way, you will only—" He breaks off. The sour words percolate in his throat.

"If I continue, I'll what?" Her voice is low, terse, deliberately copying his speech patterns. "I'll die? Keel over mid-battle like a powerless damsel and—"

"Saya. Don't." He exhales, looking away. "Please. Forget I spoke."

"Why? A minute ago you couldn't stop talking." She sits up straight, sheets pooled around her waist. The venetian blinds cast a silver stripe across her narrowed eyes.

"Please, Saya. Let it go. I have no wish to argue with—"

"Why not? You seem so determined to keep trying."

Haji raises his hands, conciliatory. "Saya, I know what you are trying to do. And it is not going to work. Please. Just—"

"What? What am I trying to do? Pick a fight with you? Antagonize you? Why would I bother? You're not worth it. Anything I dish out, you just lie there and take it. Where's the challenge in that?"

He barely winces. "I am only doing what you need me to do."

"And just what do I need you to do? Be a wet blanket around my shoulders? Someone who pretends his opinion even matters to me?"

"If it didn't matter to you, Saya, you would not be so angry right now."

Her eyes flash, and suddenly she's on her feet. Haji's shoulders tense without his realizing it. He knows that sere-eyed, thin-lipped look of hers. Her body holds the concentrated venom of a cobra.

"Don't think I haven't noticed the way you're talking to me lately," she hisses. "If you have something to say, just say it. Otherwise I've told you already. We should go our separate ways now."

"Saya, you know that is not what I want. And I doubt is what you want either."

"You sound so sure! You keep putting me on some—some stupid pedestal as if I stand for good and justice. But all you know about me is just wrong!"

"That may be so. But I have no intention of giving up on you."

"Giving up on me? Why do you keep acting like I'm the same girl I was at the Zoo? As if I'm still Saya? I'm not. All I am is—is this." She waves a hand, illustrating the red eyes and bared fangs. Which should unnerve, or at least repulse him—but instead hold his gaze with the chill fascination of a red-lipped succubus.

Halequined by moonlight… does she have any right to look that riveting?

His mind tells him no. But his body, infused with Chiropteran's blood, seems to have other ideas.

"We both know there is more to you than that, Saya. If you were a monster, you would not be starving yourself out of guilt. You would be the way Diva is. Remorseless. Uncaring of consequence. With human blood on your breath."

The last sentence is too much. Snarling, she hefts the lamp on the nightstand and flings it at him. Haji sidesteps in a swift economy of motion. Glass and porcelain shatter on the wall behind him.

Now they are squared off on either side of the bed, like an arena of challenge. It seems eerily symbolic.

"Shut up!" she snaps. "I am sick of you always handling me! That isn't what you're in this war with me for. I don't need your patronizing—"

"It is not patronizing. I only wish to help—"

"What makes you think I need your help? You think just because things are difficult I should lean on your shoulder? Because I'm weak and helpless and you're there—"

"Saya, I know you are angry. I will not pretend not to know why. Nor will I ask you not to be. But all I want is to console you—"

The moment her eyes blaze, he knows this is the wrong thing to say.

"Console? Do you think I care about being consoled? Especially at a time like this? Diva is still out there! There are Chiropterans prowling this city! People are all dying because of a mistake I made, and you—"

He hadn't wanted to fight dirty with her. But he cannot preserve fair play when she is yanking him from pillar to post so heartlessly. "—What good will it do to Diva's victims if you wall yourself off this way, Saya? You may think you are getting stronger, denying even your basic needs. But it will only make you more vulnerable to attack. Then your mission—all the sacrifices you've made—will amount to nothing."

She blanches, rigid. For a moment Haji thinks she will fly at him, tear him limb from limb. Instead, she sways, grabbing the bedpost. Under the ubiquitous hum of traffic, he can hear her heart hammering. But the sounds only heighten the silence.

She seems to be holding her breath.

Carefully, he steps around the bed. "Saya. I know you are upset with Red Shield. You have good reason to be. But all I ask is that you not drift away like this. I do not want to cosset you—I'd like to help you be stronger. We are in this battle for the same reasons. The last thing we need is to be at odds."

Saya's eyes slip from his. Where she was once positively aglow with rage, now she just seems diffused. Her expression—over the years, he has memorized thousands of them into a complex catalogue—is indecipherable.

"Haji…"

His breath catches before he can help himself. It's been six weeks since she's done something as personal as even say his name.

"I—I'm sorry. " Her throat works. "I just—I'm sorry, but I can't do this."

"What?"

Before he can step closer, she shakes her head, hand upraised. The droop of her shoulders belies a terrible shaking.

"I just can't do this anymore. All this blood. The duty and fighting. With every Awakening, it just gets harder and harder."

"You have faced bigger obstacles than this, Saya. You will find yourself again."

She shuts her eyes. "It's too late for that. This—this thing—its all I am anymore. There's no use in hoping I'll get better. But I have no reason to drag you down with me. I don't need you to fight my battles. You should go."

Her face, set in lines of resignation, chills him. Not because he knows himself well enough to realize that he'll have nothing left if Saya sends him away. But because he knows Saya well enough to realize that she actually would.

"Saya—how can you ask me that?"

She doesn't answer. Looking at her hands, the floor, anywhere but at him, she slumps into bed. Her bangs curve in dark lines toward her chin, trembling with her breath.

"I'm sorry, Haji. I just can't stand anyone else getting hurt because of me. I've made you go through enough at my expense. There is a limit to everything."

"We are in this battle to fight Diva. Not to keep score with one other."

She makes a tight noise that could be a cough, or a strangled sob. "That's easy for you to say. I already owe you so much. But I can't keep relying on you every step of the way. You should leave."

"Saya, is this about Red Shield? Are you sending me away to prove some theory about me—about them—to yourself? Or about men in general?"

She winces, but doesn't deny it. Her shoulders droop lower. "It's like Joel said at the meeting. Only trained dogs are faithful. Men… are not."

"Saya." He sinks to his knees before her. In the filtered moonlight, her face seems carved in marble—cold, somber. Incapable of laughter or even smiles. It makes him wonder if he ever truly saw her smile at all. Ever truly heard her laugh.

Perhaps their days at the Zoo were just a fantasy his mind conjured up, to ease this nightly despair?

"Saya—whether only dogs are faithful, and men are not, I cannot say. But before seeing me as a man or a dog, please remember: I am your friend. I always have been."

Her eyes squeeze shut, as if rejecting a sight too horrible to endure. "But that just makes it worse. I can't risk any more friends suffering for my sake. It's just too much. Every injury you take is on my head. And I don't just mean during the mission. I mean by my own hand."

So this is what it's about, Haji realizes. The blows she gave him earlier. All this time, her silences, her outbursts—where he'd seen them as signs of escalating temper, they were really misdirected offshoots of her own self-hatred.

And goading him to leave her now is just another way of confirming her own unworthiness.

Haji shakes his head. Sometimes he wonders if all women handle their pain so perversely—or if Saya is just the exception.

"It was only a handclap, Saya. It barely drew blood. I have received worse."

"It's no excuse, Haji. I shouldn't have done it at all."

"I am your Chevalier. It is what I am built to take." Unable to help it, he lifts a hand, wanting to smooth the hair from her face.

She swats it away. "Stop making justifications for me! No one is built to take this over and over, and we both know it! You keep forgiving everything I do as if I'm full of eternal goodness, or as if I'll get better. I won't. All I am now is this. This bitter, heartless husk."

"Saya—" He reaches for her, but she jerks away, burying her face in her hands. She doesn't cry. Her pain at this moment seems beyond simple tears. Tentatively, Haji touches her hands, prying them finger-by-finger off her face. And, when she doesn't hit out, can't resist drawing them into his own.

"Saya, the trauma of fighting has just numbed you. But you will not be this way forever. I refuse to believe that. Please have a little faith in yourself."

Her mouth twists, hair spilling in tangles around her face. "How can I? Everything's gone wrong because of a mistake I made. How can you even ask me to—"

Her wavering voice tightens his throat. Gently, he takes face in his hands. "Saya—if you truly wish for me to leave, I will. But only if I know you will be all right. Perhaps if you had someone else to help you fulfill your duties—another Chevalier, or—"

He watches her face as he speaks. The crepuscular moonlight makes her skin glow, an echo to the happy radiance that once filled her at the Zoo. But then her eyes snap open at his words—stark, frantic—and the fantasy dissipates to smoke.

"Another Chevalier—?" Her voice is raw. "Have you lost your mind?"

"Saya—"

Before he can blink, she's grabbed his lapels, dragging his face to level with hers. He feels her heated breath on his face; sees each glossy curl of eyelash. There are tears now. Thick and gelid, as if congealed from days of suppression. She shakes him so hard his bones rattle.

"I don't want another Chevalier! I'd never let another Chevalier touch me! Not out of duty—or—or anything else! Ohgod—how can you even imagine—"

Before he can calm her down, before the first apology can leave his lips, he hears an echoing crash, followed by a bloodcurdling human scream.

And then—a familiar roar.

As one, Saya and his heads snap to the door—a split-second before it flies off its hinges. Three massive shapes hurtle through in a rain of splinters and the stench of raw meat.

Haji knows what they are, even before Saya scrambles to her feet, shrieking that well-known command—a chord struck con forza.

"Haji—sword!"

At the same moment, the Chiropterans lunge.


Tsk, tsk.

Poor Haji. Right when it seems he might've gotten some, unexpected company dropped in XP

Anyhow, hope the chapter wasn't uber-emo, and just, er, plain emo. Hope you liked! Review, please!