A/N: Apparently Soul has the coolest head in this situation, hence most of the chapter being from his point of view. Who knew? Anyway, enjoy the end of the Tournament Arc. We'll have a bit of an aftermath/wrap-up next chapter and then on to the next thing.
Review Responses:
falcongod145, yep, he's getting there! Both with fighting and with Ayame.
mercer heller, thanks! I'm glad you liked it! Those two are adorable!
OfAllTheShizz, I'm glad you liked Soul's line, and the Soul x Maka interaction! I've been meaning to get them more involved in the plot, or at least to show them more.
AmyNChan, as usual, no replies to anything spoilery~ Glad you liked Soul's impression of Lord Death. Sadly, he probably said it in a very flat tone, but that's Soul. Vayne is so on board with Rei x Ayame. A group of ravens is actually called an 'unkindness' I think, although that's a very old name for it. 'Murder' is crows, although it can be used for ravens too (I personally like unkindness, but either works). Yep, sorry about the line that Rei never said, didn't realize that until the chapter was published, but good catch! I guess he was kinda telling Grayson to back off? Non-verbally lol? Don't worry, the team is on it, and as always thanks so much for the review!
fanficlove2014, thanks! Glad you liked Soul's line and yeah, I wanted to make sure I didn't leave the older cast out of the story. The manga/anime did a good job focusing on people other than the kids once in a while, so I wanted Soul and co. to fill those old roles. As for Black Star and Tsubaki, soon! But Black Star can't come too early, for reasons. Glad you liked the star, and Morgan will be explained soon. Thanks for reviewing!
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Death Fest Pt. 4; Stars Shining Like the Sun!
Maka ran down the street at full-tilt, Soul following close behind her, her heart pounding and her mind still racing with the memory of what she had felt. They were standing just outside the DWMA, and Soul was talking about Rei, so she had tried, just idly, just out of curiosity, to see if she could find him in the tangle of souls that made up Death City, to see if she could find the Soul Response that was uniquely his.
And then suddenly she had, and it made her abandon everything and run.
Rei's Soul Response had always been difficult to find, a flicker of bright light that seemed to shrink back and try to hide if you looked directly at it, but it was weaker than she had ever felt it now, weaker than it had ever been. She tried to keep her mind clear and her breath steady as she ran, but her imagination was getting ahead of her, her mind feeding her horrible images of what could have happened to Rei, to her little boy, and fueling her onwards.
She ran as fast as she could and only stopped when she reached him, lying unconscious and sprawled beneath a streetlight, his hand outstretched and ravens perched on the ground around him.
"Rei," she said breathlessly, dropping to her knees beside her son. Her heart seized up as she turned him over—oh please, oh please, oh please—and then relaxed ever so slightly as she caught the slow rise and fall of his chest, the flicker of his soul still attached to his body. Soul came to a stop beside her as she found her son's hand and tried to get a feel for his pulse, and she could feel his own soul, flaring up now in quietly restrained fury. He placed a hand on her shoulder.
"Maka, I've got him," he said. "Come on. We have to get him back."
Maka nodded numbly, allowing Soul to pull her hand off of Rei's, slowly getting to her feet.
The hours that followed were, if not the longest hours in Maka and Soul's life, the longest that they could remember in recent history. Soul carried Rei on his back, as gently as he could as they made their way back to the DWMA. From there, they found Stein, pulled him away from Jonas, and set Rei down on the examination table in the dispensary. Stein went to work, his expression grave, and Maka pulled up a chair and took Rei's hand between both of her own, unmoving.
Soul wanted to hit something, but he knew that wouldn't help, so instead he turned around, knowing that nothing short of the end of the world would move Maka right now, and pulled out his phone.
The first person he called was Spirit, and it was a testament to the gravity of the situation that Spirit didn't attempt to crack a joke or say anything stupid to get Soul riled up. Instead, he went silent on the other end of the line for a very long time, before asking Soul if he needed him to come over.
"No," Soul said, his voice sounding steadier than it had any right to be. "Stay with the girls. Don't wake them up." He glanced behind him at Maka, still terrified and worried, and at Stein, still working. "There's nothing for them to see here right now."
"Alright," Spirit said. "I'll do that."
"Thanks," Soul said, and he couldn't help but feel a little relieved that at least the twins were safe in bed and someone else was taking care of them tonight. He exhaled. "There's food in the fridge if you want it. You can bring them over tomorrow when they wake up."
"…Hang in there," was all Spirit said, and then the line went dead.
The next person to call was Kid, but he didn't call Kid immediately, remembering the state the Shinigami had been in. Instead, he sent Liz a text, explaining the situation and telling her to share it with Kid whenever she felt Kid was ready to hear it. That done, there was only one other person left to call.
He scrolled through his contacts, finding Ayame.
Ayame didn't answer her phone. Soul called her four more times, before giving up and leaving a message. A little less than an hour later, she burst in through the doors to the dispensary, eyes wide with worry.
"I'm sorry," she said, before Soul could say anything. "I was out with the others. I wasn't looking at my phone. I didn't know you called—oh God, Rei."
He stopped her before she could run forward, grabbing her by the shoulder to keep her in place. Stein looked up from where he was working, shooting them a dirty look. "If you can't be quiet, go outside," he said. "I'm busy."
Ayame opened her mouth to protest then quickly closed it, looking helplessly from Stein to Rei. The boy was still unconscious, his breathing labored, and Soul looked from Ayame, staring at Rei with wide eyes, to Maka, still seated unmoving by Rei's side. He tightened his grip on Ayame's shoulder, squeezing slightly to draw her attention.
"Come on," he said, inclining his head towards the hallway. "Let's wait outside."
"I should have been there," Ayame said, pacing back and forth in the darkened hallway outside the dispensary, her eyes wide. She occasionally stopped to shake out her hands, like she didn't know what to do with them. "I shouldn't have left him alone. I knew Grayson and Richard were out to get him. Dammit! How could I leave?"
"You couldn't have known," Soul said, from where he was leaning against the wall, his arms folded. He felt suddenly, profoundly tired, but he still felt like he had to say something to Ayame, because he knew what it was like. "You had no reason to think they'd do anything like this."
"I'm going to kill them," said Ayame, turning on her heel and beginning to march for the door.
"No," said Soul. "You're not."
"Why not?" Ayame asked, looking back at him. "You saw what they did to—to—." Her voice faltered, her breath hitching like she was close to tears. Her hands were clenched into fists at her side.
"We don't know what happened yet—," Soul began.
"—We know what happened!" Ayame interrupted, slamming the side of her fist into the wall so hard that the building shook, a crater forming in the stone around her hand from the impact. He stared at her and she sucked in a breath, her fist beginning to shake as she dropped her eyes to the ground. "We know what happened. We know who did it."
"At least wait for Ki—Shinigami to make a decision before you go after them," said Soul, stuffing his hands into his pockets. "Otherwise, what do you think is going to happen? You're just gonna get in trouble too."
Ayame looked up at him through a curtain of her hair, her violet eyes wide and gleaming. "I—," she began, but she never got to finish because the door of the dispensary opened and Maka stumbled out of it, looking very small. She had hands wrapped tight around herself, her eyes lowered.
He turned towards her and she collapsed against him before he could ask her anything, as if her feet could no longer bear her weight. Soul stared down at her, wide-eyed, his arm going up around her back automatically to support her as she leaned against his chest and let out a long, ragged exhale.
"Professor Stein asked me to leave," Maka said softly, in answer to a question he hadn't yet asked. "…He says he needs to do some surgery."
Soul looked across the room from him at Ayame, whose eyes had gone wide at those words. All the air seemed to leave her in a rush and she slumped down to the ground, sitting against the wall with her arms wrapped tightly around her legs. She rested her face on her knees, turning her head away from him. He thought she might be crying, but he couldn't be sure.
Maka didn't cry, but her shoulders shook as she closed her eyes and leaned into him. He sighed and leaned against the wall in the sudden silence of the hallway, his lips brushing the top of her head as he pulled her close.
They waited.
In the morning, Ayame slept curled up in an armchair in the corner of the dispensary, Soul's plaster-covered jacket draped over her. Soul and Maka sat at a small table set up by the window, watching Rei sleep. Stein had finished up a few hours earlier and had finally pronounced Rei stable, giving them instructions to let him wake up on his own and to call him when Rei was awake before packing up and leaving the dispensary. Marie had come by a little while ago with breakfast and coffee, and Soul and Maka had picked half-heartedly at the food as they ate. Kid was there now, leaning against the wall with his arms folded, his expression grave as he waited for the latest investigation to wrap up.
The worst was over now, but neither Maka nor Soul could bring themselves to leave, so they remained seated at the table, watching from the window as the sun rose over Death City and waiting.
At 7:45 in the morning, the door to the infirmary burst open, admitting Vayne. Ayame sat up, pushing Soul's jacket away and rubbing sleep out of her eyes as Morgan, Clark and Cassie filed in behind Vayne, looks of concern across all of their faces.
Morgan took one look at Rei, lying in the bed with his eyes closed and the blanket pulled up to his neck. Her eyes narrowed dangerously and she turned, striding out of the room. Cassie's eyes widened as she whipped around, moving to follow her partner.
"Wait!" Soul heard her say. "Morgan—!"
Their voices and footsteps faded down the hallway. He thought about going after her, to make sure that she wouldn't do anything drastic like Ayame, but it had been a long night and he was too tired. Instead he just watched, taking a sip of actually decent coffee, as Vayne stared at Rei in disbelief and then turned to face Kid.
"What are you going to do about this?" he asked.
Kid looked over at Vayne, his expression grave. "Unfortunately, the investigation didn't turn up any evidence. The security camera outside of the convenience store across the street was broken, and the only clerk on duty was listening to music and didn't hear anything."
"So we're not going to do anything?" Vayne asked. "We know who did it. It was that scumbag Grayson."
Kid looked pained. "We don't have any evidence for that—," he began.
"That's bullshit and you know it!" said Vayne.
Silence. Clark and Ayame stared at Vayne like he had grown a second head, Clark looking more than a little terrified as he looked between Vayne and Kid. Vayne stared at Kid and slowly the realization of what he had said and who he had said it to seemed to dawn on him. He drew in a deep breath, clenching his fists tightly and looking away.
"I apologize, Shinigami-sama," he said, offering Kid a deep bow before turning on his heel. "I'm going for a walk."
He stopped in front of Ayame's chair to squeeze her shoulder tightly, his eyes narrowed, then brushed past Clark, heading out the door while the other boy stood there, stunned. In the silence that followed, Soul swore he could have heard a pin drop. Then Kid sighed, letting out a deep breath and slumping against the wall.
"He's right, but we have rules for a reason," said Kid. "Until Rei wakes up and confirms who attacked him, there's nothing I can do except have them watched." He straightened up from the wall, adjusting his suit. "I'm going to go cancel the fight."
"No," said a small voice from the corner of the room. Soul looked over to see Ayame getting to her feet, her eyes shadowed by her hair.
Kid blinked. "No?" he repeated.
"No," said Ayame. She raised one hand to her shoulder where Vayne had touched her, her eyes narrowed as if she had come to a decision.
"Don't cancel the fight. Leave them to me."
Clark followed her out the door.
"You shouldn't be alone for this," he said in the hallway, keeping pace with her as they walked towards the colosseum. "I'm coming with you."
"I appreciate the thought, but our wavelengths don't match," Ayame said, shooting him a glance without breaking stride.
"I know," said Clark, "and that's not what I meant. A queen should have a witness, shouldn't she?"
Ayame let out a breath as they turned onto the path that led to the arena, feeling some of the weight on her shoulders lift at Clark's words. "You know, four-eyes, you're not actually that bad," she said.
"Thanks, Ayame. I'll take that as a compliment."
At precisely 8:00 in the morning, three people walked out of the tunnels into the center of the arena. Two of them were third-year E.A.T. students, weapon and meister pair Grayson Knight and Richard Sturm. The third was Ayame Star.
"What is she doing here?" Grayson asked loudly, his eyes widening as he pointed at Ayame across the distance between them. From where he stood preparing to officiate the match, Mifune wondered whether Grayson knew how scared he sounded in that moment, none of his usual bravado in his voice. He wore an exercise band today, and Mifune thought he saw the hint of a bandage beneath it. He thought of the broken bottle they had found Rei Evans with, but said nothing.
Ayame said nothing as well, her eyes hard as she looked across the tiles at Grayson. She reminded Mifune of her father in that moment. And also not.
"She can't be here!" Grayson said, turning towards Mifune, a note of pleading in his voice somewhere under all the affected outrage. He was still pointing at her. "Her team's disqualified! She doesn't even have a meister!"
Ayame said nothing in her defense. She continued to stand there, watching Grayson with that violet-eyed glare. Behind Grayson, his partner seemed to shrink back, all the color draining from his face as he watched Ayame. When she turned her eyes on him, Richard actually took a step back, as if her glare had been a physical blow.
Mifune glanced at Grayson, who was practically foaming at the mouth with rage and terror. "The tournament only has one rule. No outside interference is allowed. Do you believe this rule to have been broken today, Grayson?"
Eyes widening. A step back and then a return to blind rage. Rage, Mifune thought, could have its uses sometimes, but applied like this it was so clearly the barking of a dog that knew it was beaten. "She can't be here!" he tried again. "She can't—she's just a weapon! She doesn't have a meister!"
"Weapons can compete autonomously if they so choose," Mifune said. "They have, in fact, operated autonomously in the past, purely by choice. There is no rule that states that both members of a weapon-meister pair must be present to compete in the tournament."
"But—!" Grayson began.
"The fight is legal," Mifune said. "Unless you're telling me you would rather forfeit."
Grayson looked from Mifune to Ayame, his jaw clenched and his face contorted in a rictus of rage. Mifune could almost map out his thoughts. He had seen countless faces like that in the past, heard countless similar stories. He wanted to be strong. Forfeiting to Ayame would make him seem weak. But he was scared of her, for the sole reason that she showed no fear of him.
Pride won out in the end. He saw it in the moment Grayson raised his hand towards his weapon.
"Richard."
Richard looked at him uneasily, but transformed in a flash of light, forming a mailed gauntlet. Ayame didn't move. Mifune looked between the two of them and the crowd seemed to hold its breath.
"Begin."
Ayame surged forward like a rocket, and at the same time, on the other side of Death City, something happened, a brief momentary pulse of power that almost no one felt but a handful of people, those strong enough to feel it.
In the dispensary, Maka looked up from her seat and glanced at the window, but the feeling passed before she could get a handle on it, leaving only a troubling unease. Soul looked over at her from where he was working to while away the time, putting away the sheet of paper that he had been rereading for the past thirty minutes and frowning at her expression.
"Something wrong?" he asked.
Maybe, she thought, but she couldn't feel anything anymore, so what she said was "No."
Elsewhere, in a darkened classroom, Stein opened his eyes from where he had laid down to sleep on a desk, his lab coat covering him. He stared up at the ceiling, blinking his eyes slowly and wondering if it had been a dream.
"Everything alright?" Marie asked from one of the seats, looking up from what she was doing. She had recently started taking up knitting, but seemed to be cursed with the inability to follow a pattern properly, leading to a collection of well-intentioned but misshapen lumps. Stein glanced at her, one arm pillowed behind his head, then looked up at the ceiling again.
"Fine," he decided. "Probably a dream."
From his seat in the stands, in the private balcony overlooking the arena shared only by the Shinigami and his entourage, Kid looked up, frowning as the feeling passed over him.
A witch?, he thought, but the feeling was gone before he could fully pinpoint where it came from. He looked across at the stands, saw Angela seated next to her partner, and decided that it had to have been her, that she had probably cast some small spell that he couldn't see.
Except for a moment, he could have sworn there had been two witch souls in the city. Imagining things? Maybe.
He turned his attention back to the fight, as in the stands, Shelley Marie Stein turned towards her partner.
"Did you just do something?" she asked.
"No," said Angela, frowning in genuine confusion. "Why?"
Shelley shrugged, a frown on her face as she watched the fight. "For a moment, I thought I felt another witch presence," she said. "But maybe I was just imagining things. It's gone now."
Angela frowned, but said nothing, grabbing a handful of popcorn and popping it into her mouth as she watched the fight.
In the back of her mind, she reached for Pascal.
Ayame darted across the length of the arena towards Grayson and Richard, crossing the distance between them in a blink. Grayson's eyes widened as she leaped into the air, her foot aiming for his head, and he raised his gauntleted hand, her foot slamming down onto the armored plating surrounding his forearm. Ayame kicked off of it in one fluid motion, landing on the ground. She dropped quickly into a crouch and supported herself on her arms, sweeping her legs out at his ankles. Grayson jumped back, avoiding the sweep, and skidded backwards as he landed on the ground, his mailed fist clenching.
He let out a shout of rage, running towards her and raising his gauntlet. Ayame stepped nimbly out of the way as he brought it down, the impact strong enough to form a crater on the ground. She stepped on the side of his gauntlet with one foot, twisting around with the other and kicking at the side of Grayson's head.
He went flying, flipping over in the air and landing back on his feet. Ayame landed at the edge of the crater he had formed in the ground, looking down at the depression in the earth, at the small pieces of stone and tile still settling onto the ground. She looked up at Grayson, who looked up at her, rubbing at his cheek with a look of hatred on his face.
"You hit my partner with that?" she asked, her voice deathly soft. It picked up in volume as she glared over at him, her hands clenching into fists. "You hit my unarmed partner with that?"
"I don't know what you're talking about, you crazy bitch," Grayson muttered, glaring at her.
Ayame stared at Grayson, feeling anger and rage well up somewhere inside of her. Her fists tightened, her knuckles going white. And then at once they transformed, her hands up to her elbows becoming straight black blades. Grayson sank down into a stance, raising his gauntlet in the ready position.
Ayame charged, opening with a relentless assault. She swept her blades at Grayson, one after the other, swiping high and ducking low, reaching for any exposed skin that she could find. Grayson moved with her and stepped back, blocking her blows with the armored mail of his gauntlet. He stared at her from behind the arm he was using as a shield, beads of sweat forming on his forehead. Whatever he had expected from her, he hadn't been prepared for this onslaught. And he wasn't, Ayame thought, as good at reading her as Clark.
And then he surprised her. He moved his fist, an apparent opening in his defense, and she slid the blade of her right arm through the opening, stabbing at him. She felt resistance, her blade cutting a shallow line across his side as he twisted his body out of the way, but then his fist filled up the entirety of her vision, striking her so hard that she flew backwards, wind rippling around her as she crashed into the arena wall with enough force to rattle it. A cloud of dust rose up around her as she crashed, the impact cracking the stone of the arena wall.
The crowd held its breath.
The dust cleared to reveal her crouched against the wall, her feet braced against it and her eyes narrowed at Grayson. A trickle of blood dripped down from a cut on her head where he had struck her, cutting a line through the dust in her skin. She bent her knees, then kicked off the wall with enough force to widen the cracks, the wind rippling around her again.
Grayson thrust his fist at her as she flew towards him, a straight punch, but she simply placed her now human hand on his arm and pushed off of it, twisting her body around. Her right foot shifted form in the air as she spun, becoming the hooked blade of her kusarigama form. Grayson's eyes widened and he ducked just in time, her blade shearing through strands of hair.
She completed her spin and jumped off of his arm, landing on the ground, but not before transforming her free hand into a weighted chain, the chain wrapping around Grayson's neck. He let out a choked cry as she pulled, dragging him to the ground with enough force to crack the tiles in his wake.
Grayson snarled, looking up from the ground, and tightened his fist. "Sonic Blow!" he intoned, slamming it into the ground in front of him.
The wind kicked up in its wake, cracking the tiles in a line between Grayson and Ayame. Ayame's eyes widened and she quickly released him, jumping out of the way of a sudden blast of energy as Grayson surged forward, slamming his fist at her torso. She felt something crack at the blow, the impact knocking the wind out of her, but grabbed onto his exercise band with her free hand to keep from being thrown back, gritting her teeth and slamming her fist at his face. She heard a satisfying crunch in return and knew she had broken his nose.
Ayame threw her weight into the blow, moving her body so that her shoulder slammed into him and pushed him to the ground, Ayame on top of him. The movement dislodged his exercise band, still clasped in her hand, and Ayame could see now the bandage it was hiding, a piece of gauze taped to the side of Grayson's temple. Her eyes narrowed in fury, her hand going down to clutch at Grayson's shirt.
"Rei did that to you, huh?" she asked, sitting on top of his chest. She brought her hand up and down in one quick motion, slamming Grayson's head back against the tiles. "The kid you picked on fought back, and you hurt him for it. You're scum, Grayson. I'm gonna make you pay."
"Shut…up…" Grayson snarled at her, glaring at her from over the ruin of his nose. He twisted his body, throwing her off of him with surprising force, and slammed his gauntleted hand into the ground, pushing off of it with enough force to launch himself at her, his foot slamming into the center of her chest. The blow forced her back and made the ribs he had cracked earlier let out stabs of pain. Ayame tried not to let it show as she slid backwards at the ground, her breathing coming in shallow pants as she glared at him.
"He was weak," Grayson said, his voice too soft for Mifune and the crowd to hear. "So are you."
"He was strong enough to hurt you," Ayame said, her eyes flicking to the bandage on Grayson's head as she sank down close to the ground. "I'm going to finish the job."
She launched herself at Grayson again, her arms transforming into blades.
Mifune watched from a distance as Grayson and Ayame fought, watched as Ayame stabbed at Grayson with her right hand, forming a short blade that resembled her ninjato form. Grayson dodged the blow, twisting to the side, and slammed his fist at her left side. Her left arm transformed in a flash, becoming a shuriken that covered most of the left side of her body and blocking Grayson's punch. It struck the shuriken with a ringing sound, making Ayame stumble to the right, but she corrected herself quickly, aiming a knee at his gut.
The knee strike connected, making Grayson double over with a pained grunt, and she twisted around, flipping over while at the same time slamming her foot into the space behind his ear. Grayson stumbled forward and Mifune watched the ongoing battle with some concern, his eyes on Ayame as she moved. Her movements were beginning to remind him of another battle, much more savage, but with more or less the same feeling of intent. A battle from long ago.
He watched Ayame carefully, his right hand going to one of the many swords he had carried into the arena with him that day. It didn't matter what he thought about this fight, what he thought about Grayson and Richard and Ayame. His responsibility was to stop the fight if it looked like it was going too far, if he thought one of the combatants couldn't restrain themselves.
If he thought Ayame Star couldn't restrain herself.
She flew out of a cloud of dust that Grayson had formed by punching the ground, her eyes narrowed as she slammed her fist at him, and for a half-second Mifune wasn't seeing her, he was seeing someone else, someone with the same colored hair, roughly the same age, and, at the time, the same height. Someone who at that time had been very close to stepping onto the path of the demon.
He saw Ayame land crouched on the ground as Grayson snapped back, saw the opening Grayson had left, the way that his fist would never be able to reach Ayame in time. He saw her right arm form the long blade of her katana form, felt the wave of killing intent emanating from her in that instant as she stabbed at Grayson, her bladed arm sailing right past his guard and towards his head. Mifune's hand twitched towards his nearest sword, holding his breath for a moment.
At the last instant, Ayame turned her arm, striking Grayson across the face with the flat of the blade. The killing intent vanished like a breath, replaced only by the same cold rage he had felt earlier as she spun around, slamming the back of her foot into Richard's back instead. He flew forwards, flipping over in the air and landing on his feet before he could slam into the ground.
Mifune exhaled, returning his sword to its sheath.
A noise filled the air as Ayame landed on the ground as well, reverberating through the stands, a deafening roar. Mifune looked up, realizing what it was, although Ayame didn't seem to notice.
The crowd was cheering.
Something clattered to the ground in the wake of that last blow, something that caught Ayame's eye as it fell from Grayson's pocket, landing in the space between them. A star pin, glittering gold and covered in dust. It made her breath catch as it landed on the ground, a small ringing sound in its wake. And then it made her angrier.
"That was Rei's," she said, looking at the space between them at Grayson, at his broken nose and the thin cut across his cheek where she hadn't entirely been able to stop her blade from cutting him. Grayson glared at her, incoherent now with rage, and Ayame's hand closed into a fist. "You had no right to take that from him," she said. "No right."
Grayson charged at her, letting out a bellow of rage. Ayame's eyes narrowed dangerously, and she ran to meet him.
He moved too quickly for her to dodge his blow, but she twisted her body to the side, managing to take a glancing hit as the force behind the blow sent her flying. Pain bloomed across her side like a flower, but she ignored it, flipping over in the air and landing lightly on her feet as she ran towards him again.
She thought about Rei facing Grayson and Richard last night, alone in the alley, thought of him, who had only just started fighting seriously a few months ago, confronted suddenly with a third-year meister and weapon, with a weapon who could make sonic blasts with his fists. She thought of Rei standing up anyway, finding the courage to fight back in spite of that, thought of all of that and felt her throat close up with pride and anger and rage and all the guilt she felt at not being there with him. And then she thought of Grayson seeing all of that and not seeing the brave boy she saw in her mind now. She thought of Grayson seeing an opportunity. She thought of Grayson beating her partner so badly that he had been knocked unconscious, that he had needed surgery. She thought of Grayson beating her partner that badly and then leaving him alone on some street corner in the middle of nowhere, to be found or to die.
It disgusted her. It disgusted her enough to make her scream, to make her run towards him as fast as she could, pouring all of her anger and her rage and her guilt into one last blow. She planted her foot on the ground in front of her, her hand tightening into a fist as she swung around, as she put all that anger and rage and disgust into one punch. She threw all of her weight and force behind the blow, the stone beneath her cracking as she braced herself against it, a crater of her own forming around her as she swung her fist at his face.
He raised his own fist, his gauntlet moving towards her, but it was too slow. It hovered in the air uselessly as her blow struck him in the side of the head, time seeming to freeze as her punch connected. And then he went flying as she turned her body, her blow throwing him back through the air.
He hit the wall of the arena, stone cracking in his wake, and kept going, stone collapsing in his wake as he landed in a heap on the ground in the tunnels beneath the stands. Dust rose up in his wake, a cloud of dust so thick that it hung ankle-deep over the arena. The world seemed strangely silent and still after that, neither Richard nor Grayson getting up. Ayame walked slowly over to the star, her heart pounding and her ears ringing.
It was only when she picked it up and stood up again that hearing returned, that she realized the crowd was cheering.
The roar was deafening, applause and whistles and people screaming her name. They were cheering for her, Ayame realized as she blinked up at them, listening to the cheering and applause and being blinded by the camera flashes.
After three months of her being beneath their notice, they were finally, finally, cheering for her.
She sucked in a breath, feeling suddenly overwhelmed by emotions she couldn't name, and because crying in front of a crowd like this would look lame, tightened her hand into a fist around the star she had brought Rei and raised it into the air, facing the crowd as Mifune called the fight and the screens on either side of the arena declared her and Rei the winners.
And then the blows Grayson had struck finally got to her and she swayed unsteadily on her feet, her vision blurring as she fell to the ground.
The aftermath of the tournament was chaos, the DWMA's medical team quickly swarming the field after the fight. Kid watched from his position on the balcony as they bundled Ayame up and set her on a stretcher, a separate team already working to dig Richard and Grayson out of the rubble. He turned away, about to deliver the closing remarks to the crowd when he heard a voice from the entrance to the tunnels behind him, a blond girl in ripped jeans and a pink overcoat running towards him with her hand extended.
"Shinigami-sama!" Cassandra Crane said, sounding out of breath as she skidded to a stop in front of him. She rested both hands on her knees, gulping down air before holding up her phone. "Shinigami-sama—look at this! Someone had their phone out last night. They took a video of the attack!"
Kid's eyes widened, and he looked at her screen. Sure enough, Grayson and Richard were cornering Rei, Grayson holding him against the wall with his other arm as he slammed the gauntlet into Rei's chest. The video had an odd vantage point, like it was being taken from above, but it was convincing nonetheless. His eyes narrowed.
"What do you want to do, Kid?" Liz asked from behind him, looking over his shoulder and seeing the same video. Kid looked back down at the field, where the medical team was still extracting Grayson and Richard, loading them onto stretchers as well.
"Have them see me when they wake up," he said, turning away.
For Rei, the hours passed in a confusing tangle of images, sounds and sensations, so mixed with dreams that it was difficult to tell one from the other. There was pain, and then the sensation of being carried, the sight of his dad's white hair from over his shoulder and a familiar smell that sent Rei right back into his own childhood. And then there was pain and voices, Professor Stein's, his dad's, maybe even Ayame, someone poking roughly at him while someone else held his hand. Then, blessedly, nothing.
He came out of the nothing to the sound of angry voices gathered around him, to the comforting haze of painkillers and knowledge that pain existed but that he couldn't feel it yet, that waking would be an unpleasant task for which he didn't yet have the energy. He didn't fight it, letting unconsciousness take him again as he slipped back into the black.
When the darkness faded a third time, it was to a sudden flurry of activity, a door banging open as excited voices rang out around him. Someone was wheeled into a bed next to his—Rei opened his eyes a crack just to see and saw a head of blue hair over the gap between them. His mind fought to understand what he was seeing as he closed his eyes again, his thoughts as sluggish as if they were made of molasses.
Ayame, he thought, but he couldn't figure out why she was here or where here was, or why he had been here to begin with. Then he remembered Grayson and Richard, remembered the beating he had taken in the alley, remembered the tournament. That was right, he thought, he and Ayame were supposed to fight in the tournament.
But if that was so, then why was she sleeping in a bed next to his?
He felt something touch his hand, realized it was dangling from over the side of the bed, and realized that the thing touching his hand was her hand, recognized it from the callouses on her fingertips. She slipped something into his hand and he cracked open his eyes at the sensation, meeting hers. His vision still swam unsteadily, but he could make out the deep violet of her eyes, the brilliant white of her grin. He closed his eyes again as her hand pulled away, his fingers closing around the object she had left there.
A pin, he realized, feeling its weight and shape. A star, small, five points. A pin that he had last seen in Grayson's hands as the other boy walked away. And then he understood why Ayame was smiling, understood why he was holding the pin, how she had gotten it.
Oh, he thought, understanding breaking through the mire as he settled back into bed, managing to draw his hand back up onto the bed as he closed his eyes again. We won.
A smile came to his face in spite of himself as he drifted back into sleep, the star still cradled in his hand.
Crazy girl…
On the other side of Death City, Cassandra Crane walked quietly into her apartment, the shades drawn over the windows and casting a premature darkness over the place despite the fact that it was barely mid-morning outside. She stripped off her shoes and padded quietly over to her partner's bedroom, where Morgan was lying on her side on the bed, unmoving. A large stone basin sat on her bedside table, filled with water.
"Morgan?" Cassie asked, concern in her voice as she watched her partner. "I'm back, Morgan. Shinigami-sama saw the video. We did it."
Morgan didn't respond, although Cassie knew she wasn't asleep. Cassie frowned at her and turned to leave, shooting a glance at the oversized raven that perched on the lip of the stone basin, cawing at her.
"Shut up, Quoth," she said, her eyes narrowing as she closed the door behind her.
Elsewhere in Death City, Angela Leon, Deputy Ambassador to the Witch Assembly, chameleon witch and three-star meister, bent down to the ground as Pascal darted towards her, reaching out a hand for the chameleon to scamper up.
"What is it?" she asked. "What did you find?"
Pascal looked up at her, his tail flicking as he met her eyes, images flashing in front of her own eyes from everything the chameleon had seen in the past twenty-four hours.
Angela stared.
A/N: Ayame's theme song from the fight is the Japanese version of Twister from The World Ends With You (although the Kingdom Mix is mostly appropriate, since I used that to write most of the fight and only switched to the Japanese version for the very last scene).
Omake
"Vayne…" Kid said after a few moments of silence, staring at the ruin that now stood in place of the training forest. "…Did you cut down my trees?"
"Y-Yeah…" said Vayne, looking down at the ground and nudging a loose stone with his foot. He rubbed at the back of his neck, looking as though he was preparing to be yelled at. "S-Sorry about that. I was really mad about Rei, and I…"
"Did you cut them down symmetrically?" Kid asked, looking now at the lone tree left standing in this swath of the field, matching cuts on its left and right side.
"Um...yeah?" said Vayne. "I mean…uh…force of habit, I guess, from, uh, Shibuko..."
Kid stared at the destruction for a moment more before placing a hand on Vayne's shoulder, turning to walk away. Vayne blinked at him, eyes wide as he passed.
"Uh—so does this mean we're good?" he asked.
"Replant the trees."
"O-Okay…"
