"How're you feeling?" Komui asked as he had the four Exorcists who saw everything along with Eve who had awakened earlier than her sisters five days after the occurred. Kanda was standing leaning against the wall with Lavi beside him seating with a chair backwards as he leaned upon the back of the chair. Lenalee sat on the couch in front of the coffee table as Allen sat on another couch across of Komui's desk. Eve sat on the edge of Komui's desk as she lifted her feet from the ground barely.
"Like crap," she said traight forth popping her shoulder. "But I can't complain." She turned to the four bowing before them, "I apologize for implicating you in all this. Not only did your headquarters sustain damages but also did your fellow people and Exorcists."
"Wow," Lavi said surprised. "Never thought I'd see you say sorry for something."
"Take a picture," she said straight forth turning back to Komui. "Cause I won't be doing it again."
"Right," Kanda said as he asked. "So what exactly happened then? What exactly did Edelle take from those two?"
"Their Immortality," Eve said simply. "As you heard, we hid the fact that we were immortal beings to you and all the Order except for its higher ups. We can die but we would revive seven days laters."
"Which explains what happened when you killed yourself," Allen put out it the open.
"Yeah but what Edelle took was exactly that from those two," Eve continued. "They weren't descendents of the Synchros from Synchronicity like I am. They were once humans that faced the fear of death."
"Who gave them those Immortality then?" Lenalee asked.
"Their Innocence did," Eve answered. "Grandmother and Father gave them the chance to live forever after dying once with no soul."
"What do you mean with no soul?" Kanda asked.
"Both went through hardships that drove them to chose death over the decision to live. They wanted to die, but at the same time they wanted to die because they wanted to live," she explained and sighed. "It's hard to explain."
"It's hard to udnerstand," Lavi sighed. "Anything else?"
"Um," she thought out loud trying to upbring anything else. "Yes! That true. You saw how strong Edelle didn't you?" They all agreed, "Well there's something much worse in Shadowland. Something that could end this world as we know it."
"World extermination," Lavi chuckled. "Nothing new for me!"
"No one's asking, smartass," Eve called annoyed. She took a deep breath, "Then there's the case of how Synchronicity fell."
"I've heard that story," Lenalee interrupted. "It fell into a dark void and now resides in the darkest depths of oblivion."
"The oblivion part is true," Eve accepted. "But it didn't 'fall' per say. Edelle was at fault with all that."
"She seems to cause a whole trouble," Allen added.
"More than that," Eve continued. "You saw how cruel she was taking away Kotori's Immortality. She yearns to create despair and hatred. The same that they caused to her when her sister was murdered by the Asian Branch."
"Wait I thought you said her sister got taken by them?" Allen called.
"They took her away after Shadowland and all of Synchronicity fell to oblivion," Eve continued her explanation. "They didn't want to deal with a real pureblood like Edelle so they took her sister instead. But I'm pretty sure she died after a month or two. A very dreadful and painful death." She gazed at Komui from her peripherals. "Isn't that right Komui?"
"Brother?" Lenalee asked.
He sighed heavily, "The reports on the subject known as 'Gardenia' show that she died a month after adding her to the project in the Asian Branch. It was a gruesome death by an unknown illness."
"It wasn't an illness that took her life," Eve broke down more. "It was the filth in this air."
"Filth?" Allen inquired a bit confused.
"The air in Shadowland and Synchronocity, thanks to Grandmother Gaia's power, was purer than the air in this world. The toxicity of this air punctures our lungs making it harder and harder to breathe as we start choking on our own blood," she enlightened them with the mental image. "I know cause that happened to my mother when she was outcasted from Shadowland. Then when Synchronicity collapsed I too started to get sick. Then when I died that first time was when Mother and Son awoke and with the Innocence activated so did my genes as one of the purebloods."
"Does that mean you don't have one of those crystals like your sister?" Lenalee questioned.
"Yes and no," she stated nonchalantly.
"Elaborate, sweetcakes," Lavi said as Eve threw Komui's pen at him that jabbed his arm.
"I have no solid Immotality like Kotori or Cherry did because theirs was given, mine is inherited," she answered Lenalee's question.
"Then you don't," Allen concluded.
"That's the 'yes' part," she corrected him. "It's not that I don't have a crystal formed Immortality. It's just that my whole body has become my Immortality. If you want to destroy me that burn my body, bones and all. If not, if only a little bit of me is left, then I'll be able to revive from it."
"Destroying the Immortality, destroys the bearer of a pureblood or any made Synchro," Komui concluded. "Before this I did not have this information. Evangelique gave it to me voluntarily."
"Why?" Lavi asked not getting her point. "Why tell us how to kill such omnipotent beings when you and your only family are those beings?"
"Because..." she heaved a breath, long and heavy. "I'm afraid of what happening to me." Everybody was shocked at that comment. "I'm not going to elaborate on that term. Want to know, ask me later, alone. Anything else ya'll want to know about before I leave?"
"Yeah," Lavi stood from his place and stood in front of Eve glaring directly at her. "Who's Adamah?"
"Ada...mah?" she repeated, surprised. "H-How do you know that name?"
"You shouted it out when Loki and Edelle were leaving through that portal," Allen called.
"Don't you remember?" Lenalee asked in disbelief.
"A-are you serious?" she asked in completely incredulous.
"Ptf," Lavi scoffed walking back to his place. "What? When it's a personal question you suddenly get amnesia? How fucking convenient."
"Lavi!" Lenalee scolded him as he glanced some other way.
"You don't get it," Eve shouted a bit frustrated at herself. "It's because of Mother and Son. Ever since them and I became compatible they've taken chunks of my memory from me. Erased them completely. The time when I killed myself after the first mission together I remember Loki and her leaving with the key. But then a chunk is gone and by the time I know what's going on, my own hand had already pulled on the trigger by itself. Then the fight of a few days ago the last thing I remember is Edelle throwing me against Allen and then I fainted. After that I woke up in my bed five days later."
"Still say it's pretty damn convenient," Lavi said coldly.
"But it's true nonetheless," Cardigan caught all of their attention as she entered the room and stood next to Eve and ruffled her hair a bit.
"Hey!" she pouted like a little kid.
"It's true?" Lenalee asked shocked.
"Since I've met her she's always had that dilemma," Cardigan said. "It's been hard to find out what she remembers or not because when she's unconscious but still wakling and talking we didn't know if it's her or not."
"Who else could it be?" Kanda asked.
"Barathrum," Cardigan answered.
"Barathrum?" Lavi repeated confused in remembrance of his late dream. "Isn't that your middle name?"
"It's not a middle name," Eve said sullen. "It's another name."
"Another...?" Allen whispered. "Barathrum...that means Abyss doesn't it."
"That's who talks and acts through my body when those chunks disappear. They turn into 'her' memories. I don't know who she is or how we came to share a body. But we do," she said a bit enbarrased.
"We identified Barathrum one day while trying to force her second Innocence, Son, out. But the minute we began getting even close, Barathrum dominated her body and actions, and attacked all of us. It was for the shortest span before she fell to the ground unconscious," Cardigan finished. "So don't think she's lying when I've seen it happen before. Those are the memories that Roman told Supervisor Lee to look out for. Barathrum will try to kill anybody and anything that wants to appraoch those hidden recollections. Barathrum doesn't want us to know something about the person we know as Evangelique. Something not even the dominant being, Eve, knows about." She let her hand open as Pheonix came out.
"Pheonix," Eve muttered as Pheonix landed upon her head. Then his tail wipped away the tears that threatened to come down her cheeks. This small action made her giggle a bit. "Thanks."
"You should go visit your sisters," Cardigan suggested. "Cherry has woken up and demands to eat something. You better take it to her."
"Yeah," she said stopping just before the doorway. She opened her mouth then closed it as she pursed her lips and left quickly.
"Is she okay?" Allen asked Cardigan as she sighed out her stress.
"Not in the least," Cardigan said taking a seat on the couch with Lenalee. She blew away her hair as she leaned on the couch. "She's a whole mess of wrecked nerves. She's preoccupied with Cherry and Kotori's state. Besides that Roman left her the task of destroying the power that resides inside Shadowland too. I don't know how much more she's going to withstand."
"She's strong, she'll manage," Lavi simply said.
"She's strong alright," Cardigan agreed. "But I'm still worried. That little body has already taken so much burden and has been dragging it out for over two hundred years. I afraid that one day that burden will become so large that it'll shatter her completely."
~
"How're you feeling?" Eve asked warmly as Cherry devoured her food like she used to.
"Great actually~!" she said gulping down a whole mess. She then sulked a bit, "How's Kotori?"
"She's in intensive care," Eve told her taking the empty tray and bringing more food she'd brought with her from Jerry.
"She's alive," Cherry said calmly with a smile. "So am I."
"She needs a lot of rest," Eve kept on informing her. "Komui said that she'll probably need another couple of weeks before she wakes back up."
"Are you okay?" Cherry asked.
"Kotori will probably want to eat a lot too," she chuckled. "It'll be really against her facade to eat like you and I do wouldn't it?"
"I asked you, if you were okay!" Cherry yelled stopping her movements as both stared at eachother's eyes. "Don't make me repeat myself."
Eve smiled weakly as she lowered the tray in front of Cherry and leaned against bedside cabinet, "I'm not fine, Cherry. Actually I'm more than just 'not fine', I'm a complete disaster."
Cherry glanced at her for an instant and returned to her eating a bit slower, "Got that right. Wanna talk about it?"
"It's awful," Eve said trying to force a smile as she hid her eyes with her hand. "Because of my precariousness, you've lost your Immortality. If I'd been stronger, neither Kotori nor you would be in such state."
"Who cares?" Cherry called poking Eve's forehead with the fork she held in her hands.
"What do you mean who cares?"
"It's not like I wanted to live forever," Cherry said lowering her hand and gazing at her food. "And Kotori said that she hated not being able to control her own life. The fact that she couldn't die took away the one free choice she had in all her life, her own death. We actually felt sorry for you because you have been living this nightmare longer."
"It was a nightmare," Eve said sitting on the bed. "Until I found that I wasn't alone in this world. I found you two and that gave me the strength to go on. With you two, my little sisters, I had the power to overcome most of my fears and despairs of living forever."
"Now what then?" Cherry asked all of a sudden not hungry anymore. "We're no longer immortal. I can't hear Father's voice anymore when I try to activate my Innocence. Grandmother Gaia too has locked herself in that chest, Cardigan told me."
"Don't worry," Eve promised. "You're just a little weak, you'll hear your Innocence's voice again. And Grandmother Gaia is only trying to protect herself. If Hevlaska found out that during the battle Kotori's Innocence exited her body it would cause havoc. Grandmother Gaia just wants to make sure that when Kotori's ready to take her back, she'll be waiting there at the same place she lost her."
"I see," Cherry said with a comprehending smile. Her eyes return to her former gleam as she clapped her hands together, "Well, I can't be wasting food can I? Thanks for the food!"
Eve smiled warmly at her as she stood up, "Eat till your heart's content, Cherry. Then try to rest some more. I'll go check on Kotori and I'll be leaving for Snowpeak."
"Snowpeak?" Cherry said after a gulp. "That was out destination before the attack. Some relatives of mine live near there, so if you want some refuge from the weather tell them hi for me, okay?"
"Yeah," she said nodding and left as Cherry went back to her food. She trusts me, she thought with a smile, that's why she's letting me go alone.
"Pheonix," the golem's wings perked at the voice of its new master. "Do me a favor and to my room. In my bedstand there inside is a little pocket watch. Mind getting it for me?" Pheonix flew up and away from the opposite direction of the intensive care.
Reaching the area was not that hard. The head nurse was making her rounds on checking upon Kotori.
"Hey," Eve made herself knowned to the woman. "How's she looking today?"
"Oh, it's you Rasmusen," she said glancing at her then back at Kotori. "She's doing better today. She's on the road to a slow but sure recovery."
"I see," she ended. She looked around at the room. Kotori was hooked up to a whole lot of machines that helped her breathe. Her wounds were scratches on the outside but the inside was the problem. The problem was the severe damage to her psyche that had put her in such a state. "What about her mental status?"
"To tell you the truth with this much damage, it's a grand surprise that she didn't go crazy," the head nurse said. "You have five minutes." Then she headed out into the main hospital wing. It was quite empty, actually Kotori was the only one in the intensive care.
"You're getting better, Kotori," Eve said sitting on a chair next to her bed. "And don't worry I'll make sure that no one finds Grandmother Gaia until you're ready to go for her. Stay here, rest up. I'll be heading for Snowpeak tonight. I know you were the one who told Komui about not letting me out at night but this is urgent. We have to get those keys and open Synchronicity. I'll do it...for us." Pheonix came in carrying the gold pockey watch with the chain in his mouth. He dropped it right in her hand. "Thanks Pheonix." She placed it delicately and slightly under her pillow, beside her head. "Here you go. It's my promise that I'll do anything to help you. I'll start your time back up. I'll make those painful memories be bearable. I'll do something. I promise." She quickly left with Pheonix following behind her.
~
"This is it, Snowpeak?" Lavi asked as they stood on the small cliff where the blizzard persisted upon them. The four of them from their first mission gathered at the entrace of the area. All of them were dressed in appropriate attire: heavy coats and for the two girls no skirts but pants.
"Nope," Eve said talking over her hooded face, the hodd with warm white fur. She raised her hand towards another point, a faint gold light gleaming over the blizzard; her cuffs furred as well. "That's Snowpeak."