Um . . . hi?
*runs and hides behind a bush*
Okay, guys, I can completely accept that you want to bash my bloody face in for not posting for so long, but I've had camps, conventions, life, anime, manga, life, teachers, assignments, life, and Edward Elric.
Who's Edward Elric, you ask?
SHAME ON YOU!
Nah, he's an adorable character in the manga Fullmetal Alchemist, which I, consequently, got addicted to, and so the anime followed that, and the FMA: Brotherhood, and yeah. Then my career with anime began . . .
. . . my life is a piece of sh-
ANYWAY!
I shall tell you a story, young'uns:
There once was a fanfiction author, who one day, after knowing that she had made her readers wait for far too long, got off her fat little ass and posted a chapter. However, just as she was finished pouring her emotions and regret and remorse and begs for forgiveness into the A/N, and hit the 'Submit Document' button, the site crashed.
WHICH MEANS THAT I HAVE TO WRITE ALL OF THIS AGAIN. F #*!
So yeah. I'd do my review replies, but I did them all before and I really just don't have it in me to do them again. Except for this one:
Sephie: No. I would rather see One Direction burn in Dante's deepest circle of hell. Am I harsh? Yeah, I'm harsh. BECAUSE I HATE THEM. URGH.
Seriously, I get to school, Nat starts talking to me, starts going on about Niall, or whatever his name is, and how he's engaged and it's so cute but she still wishes it was her and I end up shattering by locker door into a million pieces in fury. Yeah, I'm harsh. It's not you that I don't like, it is very simply THOSE IDIOTS.
Okay. *Grin*
Disclaimer: No. I don't own anything. I don't see why people care about me saying this, since it makes no consequential difference to the world . . .
They were kids that I once knew,
They were kids that I once knew,
But now they're all dead hearts to you,
Now they're all dead hearts to you;
They were kids that I once knew,
They were kids that I once knew,
But now we're all dead hearts to you . . . - Dead Hearts, Stars
Chapter 26: Now we're All Dead Harts to You
It happens in slow motion. Horrible, slow motion. It feels like my mind is still working a million miles an hour, but the rest of the world is in semi-suspended animation.
The demon-woman, fangs bared, is bowing down to my neck, vice grip keeping me from struggling. The computer's voice calling out something I can't hear: my adrenaline is pumping and I can only hear the blood rushing past my ears.
No guards come past. No one moves.
I can see every tiny spec and molecule of dust on the demon as she slowly moves. Strands of her long black hair floating back as she moves downwards, eyelids lowering, lashes nearing her cheekbones; strands of saliva between her fangs.
And then, the shadow.
No, not the shadow. The boy, granted, but it was his shadow.
Tobias Eaton. Scraped and battered, scratched-up and red-faced, running towards me.
The words die in my throat. This is another hallucination. I can only stare, wide-eyed, as he comes. He looked so real, so real it hurts. But he isn't. He's dead.
He's dead.
He's dead.
He's dead.
He's dead
He's dead
He'sdeadhe'sdeadhe'sdeadhe'sdead—
There's a sharp, piercing pain, unlike anything I have ever felt. I have dealt with Peter, I have dealt with torture, but this I have never felt, nor come even close to feeling or dealing with.
I scream.
I can feel my throat burn as I scream, but I can't hear anything. There is my heartbeat, roaring in my ears, but that is all I can hear. It feels almost like a countdown, every heartbeat drawing nearer to my last, noticing something new.
Thud.
The horrible feeling of my blood being sucked out of me and possibly worse.
Thud.
Tobias so close I could touch him, his face alight with an expression I can't see with my dimming vision.
Thud.
Thud.
Thud.
Blackness. I can't feel anything. Please tell me this is death. I've gone through this horrible life and now I finally get to die. There are worse ways to die. At least I got to hallucinate Tobias.
Tobias . . . I can finally see him again, or so they say. They're probably lying, but . . .
Tris . . .
The voice is so familiar it startles me. The whole time I hallucinated him, I could barely hear him, it was like the way I remembered his voice, but this . . . this sounds like him.
"Tris, come on, don't be dead."
Don't be dead? Who does he think he's talking to? Captain Euphoria? I feel like screaming at him, but I can't do anything.
"Tris," he says again, gentler this time. My control snaps: it's him. My hallucination. "Tris, come on, wake up."
I clench my fists. I'm not going to be tormented by my own mind. I read somewhere once that a training method for dogs was to teach them who was the leader. I need to teach that to my mind. And my heart.
I'm not Tris Prior the Divergent anymore, am I?
Annabeth had expected many things, but not what she got.
"His true form is unknown," Alexis continued. "He appears in different forms, even his mortal form never remains the same more than once, mind you, not many people see him more than once."
Annabeth would've loved to be uninterested, snobby, unlikeable, but the story about this 'Daemon' drew her in more than she had ever heard. Some creature of some greater religion or of the universe or of something was this—this being an almost living personification of a black hole.
The legend said that he had once been mortal, that he had suffered a great pain, and at some point his soul had been crushed by the weight of the evil that he had nurtured within him. That somehow this lack of a soul had made him forever suspended in existence, drifting through time and space, appearing in seemingly random pockets of time.
And there were some—the Marked, the Hunted, and the Dead—that he had picked. He had chosen some to hunt down, and so by the hand of some force they had been marked, almost like a signature, that he was there first. The chain of scars around the right wrist, Alexis had told her.
The Hunted were those he sought. Alexis explained that her three sisters, Greta, the Silhouette of Death, Megan, the Flame of Life, and Felicia, the Utter of Sense.
Annabeth didn't understand that part—they appeared to be normal girls, normal women, with regular names . . . how did they end up like this?
Alexis seemed to sense her thoughts. "When the gods were fading, they confided in us each a power—a power created off our mortality and thus giving us immortality. There were five of us: five sisters. Elektra was the youngest of us, and I was the oldest. Felicia was a little younger than me, then Megan, and then Greta. The five sisters." Alexis placed her gnarled fingers on the edge of a tapestry. This one depicted space, full of rich blues and violets, with tiny white stars and swirling nebulas. "Now there's just two of us."
"What . . . what happened to the rest of you?" Annabeth asked hesitantly, secretly fearing the answer. She had not wanted to pry into the woman's mind, seeing as she had a feeling the past had many heavy things, and she wondered how the woman kept moving.
Alexis sighed and moved on. "The Daemon killed them. At first he went for Megan, you should have seen her—such a beautiful girl. Hair like yours, eyes so bright with life . . . when we found the Mark on her wrist, we nearly disowned her. Then we founded the Order, after studying the Daemon and his methods. If you know where to look, there's an awful lot about him. So we began to train Megan how to fight him."
Alexis straightened her short form and swallowed. "But he came earlier than we planned. Barely a day into training he smashed through the doors, crossed the ancient boundaries of this stronghold, seized Megan by the throat and then . . ." Alexis sighed again, pulling up a chair and letting her old frame fall into it. "And then he looked at her. Right in the eyes. Slowly, we watched her face peel away, and she faded into nothing. The thing about life is that you can always sense it. I only hope her soul got away."
Alexis reached into her sleeve and pulled out a small piece of parchment. She thumbed it gently, then continued. "Then he looked at the rest of us, and he saw Greta. Sweet little Greta. The thing about death is that she was forever weighed down by it, knowing things she shouldn't have to, walking in the space between life and dead man's land. Like a ghost, she was. But the Daemon left. I was the one to figure out why. He was looking for someone, and I think he still is. But he has to come at exactly the right moment. So, maybe three decades later, when Greta had not aged a day, we found the scars around her wrist and began to train her as well. This time, the Daemon waited, and came on time. This time, Greta was ready. For a while she kept him at bay, and for a moment I . . . I thought I saw a smile on his face."
Alexis gave a sigh, this time full of tremors like she was about to cry. "And then he disarmed her, held his sword to her throat, and when he looked at her, whatever smile he had vanished. Greta was a little girl. She only looked twelve. And then he just . . . then he just cut her in two and left."
Annabeth looked away. She expected no more. Sure, there was one more sister Alexis hadn't explained, but Annabeth felt, for the first time in what seemed like years, sympathy, for the woman.
The woman opened her piece of parchment. Annabeth kept her eyes locked on the floor.
"Felicia, she suffered the worst fate. The daemon, not foolish enough to duel his victim again, looked at her, and then . . . and then he destroyed her soul. With that went her mind, and that left her slowly-dying body behind. And that was the end of it."
Alexis straightened, got up off the chair. "Yet again I lie. He had come across numerous times in the past and killed young girls. That's how we figured out his Mark, and how to fight him, though I had assumed that maybe he would have moved on from humans after my sisters . . ." Alexis clasped her hands tightly, and started walking away.
Annabeth followed her. "Why . . . why do you think he picked me?"
"I don't know," Alexis said. "I just hope that you can defeat him."
"Tris," he said again. "Come on, wake up. Don't be dead. Please don't be dead."
He heard something shuffle, and he looked up.
Mistake.
He was tackled, from where he couldn't tell it was so fast. He couldn't tell any directions, because one moment he was looking at Tris's bruised and battered face, and the next he was thrown backwards. His head slammed against the concrete ground. He could taste blood in his mouth.
Something cold and sharp was against his throat. "Who are you?" the voice was harsh, feral.
Tris. He thought. TRIS!
"I'll ask again," the voice said, tighter this time. "Who are you?"
"Tobias," he struggled, feeling his throat move against the blade pressed against it. "Tobias Eaton."
"Wrong answer," the voice said. Tobias looked around, but he still couldn't see the person talking. He guessed they were sitting back on their heels, knife pressed against his throat, so one wrong move and they tip forward, and the knife kills him.
"What do you want me to say?" Tobias snapped. "That I'm God?"
The voice paused. "What's on your back?" it finally asked.
On my back? Nothing's on my back. Unless they mean . . .
"The tattoo," Tobias said. "I have a tattoo of the five factions' symbols on my back."
"Part of a tree," the voice growled. "Because you tried to be a bit like all of them."
Tobias couldn't think. There was just the push of the blade against his throat and the weight of the words on his head. They know, he thought. They know. How can they know? Clyde?
There was no answer. He was alone in this one.
"How . . . how do you know that?" Tobias's palms, he realized, where sweating, but he didn't dare move in case the person killed him. He felt the sweat behind his ears, on his neck. His face felt hot.
A rough hand grabbed him by the collar and yanked him too his knees with such a force it nearly winded him. Yet again he found himself dizzy and disorientated, and it took a few moments to process what was going on around him.
A pair of cold pale blue eyes stared right at him. Cold and hardened. He could see at the edges of his vision pale wisps of hair. The scarred gaze was unknown to him.
"How would I know that . . . ?" the person echoed, maybe even sadly, but the voice was too hoarse to tell.
Tobias was shoved backwards. He stumbled back, and his mysterious attacker's footsteps began to recede. Tobias got to his feet unsteadily, and looked around. The demon-woman he had tackled off Tris was gone, and so . . . was Tris.
He looked at the small form of his attacker—in loose clothing, fair hair tried back a bunch of ratty tails and knots. Bare feet. Knife still in hand. Curling scripted tattoos along their arms and feet. As they took another step, he saw more phrases on the soles of their feet. They were an almost childlike frame, but feminine.
Blood on the side of her neck.
But Tobias would have known her anywhere, whether she looked that horrible or not. Even though she had just held a knife to his throat, he knew who she was. She was so much thinner than he had last seen her, so much more broken and scarred and truly broken.
But it was still Tris.
Before he could think what to do, he started running. His words died in his throat. The last time he had seen her . . . the last time he had said her name to her . . .
He stretched out a hand to touch her arm—
She whipped around and landed a punch to his face. As he stumbled away she delivered a sharp kick to his ribs and then elbowed him in the back of the head. She was too fast for him to even touch her. He fell back on the ground, painfully pulling air back into his lungs and feeling the spout of blood on his scalp. He looked up, shocked at what she had done—
Tris stood, glaring down at him. Her scarred hand gripped the knife, and she looked like she was restraining herself from killing him right then and there. "Get lost." She growled.
"Tris?" he whispered. He couldn't make any other noise. Something inside him began to buckle. Tris had not just done that. She couldn't have.
"No," she snapped. Her eyes were deadly cold against his gaze. "Maybe when I last saw you die I was Tris. But you're just an image. Another stupid image my mind has created because I am going insane. Hell, I'm surprised I even lasted this long! Being a lab rat and punching bag isn't exactly pleasant! Where were you when I needed you, Tobias Eaton? Why do you come when I just survived?"
"What are you . . . ?" Tobias couldn't even finish the sentence. He realised now that she was speaking the truth. Her bones stood sharply out of her frame: too strongly defined collarbones, spiked shoulders, a distinct difference between the muscle and bone in her arms. She was just skin and bone. What had happened to her?
The captions on her arms were cursive, almost made of scars and lined with link, all saying some stupid gothic or sadistic message, almost like they had been burned in. Words on her knuckles looked like they had been physically carved into her skin and bone.
"What am I talking about?" she said, voice deadly cool. "Maybe I should ask you, mind," she bent down low and jabbed a finger in his face, sharp fingernail cutting the skin of his forehead. "I never thought I'd have to discipline my own head but I hadn't thought a lot of things would happen."
"Tris, what are you— I'm real! Can't you see I'm real!"
An icy backhand to his face, made him wince, breaking eye-contact.
"Tobias Eaton died. He was shot. I watched him die. How do you expect me to believe that you're the real Tobias—flesh and bone? It's all some horrible hallucination dreamt up by my stupid messed-up mind, isn't it? You, Piper, everything. Perfect insanity? When you think you're perfectly sane."
Tobias got to his feet again, and even though he was taller than Tris he had never felt smaller. She lorded over him, managing to look down at him like he was vermin even though she was two feet shorter. He reached out to touch her, but then dropped his hand, remembering what happened last time.
"Tris," he said again, gentler this time. Tris winced, but her eyes never lost their coldness. "It's me. Tobias. Look, I don't remember what happened to me—I don't even remember getting here! Something . . . something happened to me, and I don't know what. There was this guy in my head—Clyde, he called himself—and I was led here by this guy called Sha— C."
"Sure, we all meet people called 'chasse'."
Tobias bit his lip. Something inside him was screaming to pull her into his arms and act like a sorry idiot, and to kiss her until he lost oxygen and died, the other half didn't know who this girl was and was screaming in terror, a side that wanted to run and run and run.
"Your name is Beatrice Prior," he said. "You're sixteen—maybe seventeen soon, I'm not sure, I've lost track of time, since there's a huge fucking hole in my memory—born in Abnegation, and Divergent to three factions: Dauntless, Abnegation and Erudite."
He should have left out the Divergent part, because he had a feeling even here with nothing familiar being Divergent is bad.
He remembered the way the old Tris moved—fast, but still not fast enough for him. A bit sloppy with her feet. Not very flexible.
As she lashed out, he blocked her and went for her feet, but she managed to do a flip in mid-air with impossible agility, land on her hands and then push herself onto her feet again, this time she went for his legs, but where he thought she was going to go fast she pulled back and slowed at the last minute, so he, already in the air, had his ankles grabbed and he was thrown down onto the ground with bone-shattering force.
His vision blurred. He saw Tris's dark shape loom above him, almost like a spirit of death. He could feel something inside buckling, straining and trembling against the weight it was being forced against. He couldn't lose—he wouldn't lose. Tris was the one person he had managed to let in, and he wasn't about to lose her. Not again.
The knife flashed in her hand. She bent down. There was a cruel happiness in her eyes. A sense of control. It made sense, somehow. Tris thought she was insane. So killing him was eliminating something that would drive her to complete insanity.
Her face was inches away from his. Eyes bright with the light of energy. He could sense the knife being lifted in her hand, moving towards his throat . . .
He grabbed her wrist and twisted it so hard it hurt him probably more than Tris, but it did the job. The knife clattered to the floor, and he jumped to his feet, fighting against his dizziness. Tris had dived for the knife and grabbed it with her free hand, lunged for him—
Before he could think, he grabbed her head in his hands and pressed his lips to hers.
(A/N: Um . . . excuse me while I go vomit. I can do fluff, no make-out scenes. I no do da make-out. I mean, seriously. Hey, this is the end of his POV so I can have a rant. Mwahahahahahaha you all hate me now. *Evil grin* Anyway, just so you know, if you want to do the make-out scenes then by all means do, but I ain't writing things that are gonna make me spew up the dinner I so fondly ate, okay? Good. –Owl)
Clyde could hardly breathe when he made contact. It shouldn't have been that hard to find him, but the first thing Clyde sensed when he found Tobias's mind was the absence of memories. Something had happened to Tobias—Clyde had lost some of his memories, but he still remembered—but Tobias had had all of his memories of beyond the gates removed. There was nothing in his head past watching the end of the video with Amanda Ritter and hearing the starts of the shouting.
The emptiness in Tobias's head had been what gave it away.
"I found him," he said. "I found him. I have to go. Now."
Elektra was standing as if she was in her own little world—hands clasped in front of her, staring into the distance, pale eyes set. "Are you sure you want to see what happens?" she asked slowly.
Clyde didn't understand what she meant. What could be that bad? What could happen?
Elektra shook her head slowly. "I cannot shift your mind. Go then, and watch your world fall away."
I have been told once to keep your cool in situations. To act rashly, and not too quickly.
But it was my mind that was the enemy now, and nothing that this Tobias could say or do would make me think differently.
Until he kissed me.
He kissed me. My own mind created an entity that kissed me.
Enough.
The knife was still in my hand. In one fluid motion, I jabbed the knife up, right under his ribs. He pulls away, gasping from either shock or pain. I push him away from me and stagger back, dragging the back of my hand across my mouth.
"What do you think you're doing?" I scream. Tobias staggers and falls forward, onto his knees. His fist closes around the hilt of the knife and slowly pulls it out of him. The blood clots the fabric of his shirt, drips on the floor. Slowly he raises his eyes to mine.
They hurt.
"Tris?" he says, voice rasping. His dark eyes are open, exposed. I stabbed him. He was mine to stab, I remind myself. He was an entity in my own head. Nothing more. "Tris . . . what . . . what did you . . . ?"
"It was time for you to die, in my mind," I say. "You're dead, Tobias Eaton. You were shot by a Gaos assassin. Your last words I never heard. For weeks, maybe months after that, I was tortured in Gaos HQ where my fevered mind clung to the hope that you would come and save me."
Slowly I walk over to him and pick up the bloody knife he dropped on the floor. He doubles over. I nudge him with my bare foot, pushing on his shoulder enough for him to wince and roll onto his back. His face is tight with pain. Even though I know it's my own mind, I can't help but smile at it.
"Tris," he says. "I don't . . . I don't understand."
His blood is pooling around him, his face pale. I can tell he's maybe seconds away from death. Maybe a minute at most. So why is he still talking?
There are footsteps coming down the hall—running footsteps. "Tobias!" a voice calls.
What's going on?
A lanky, red-haired boy comes running around the corner. As he sees Tobias on the ground, he stops, and stares ahead with horror. "Tobias, what . . .?"
He looks up at me, and I see that his brown irises are rimmed with gold. "Tris? What happened? Did you . . . ?"
Tobias gives a horrible, bloody cough, spitting blood over himself. "She did."
The red-haired boy continues to look at me. Something is cold in his eyes. "No."
I throw down my knife so hard it impales itself in the ground, inches from Tobias's head. "I did."
I turn and run.
"Your training is not designed to be pretty," Alexis said as they walked down the corridor. "It is based off a religious order, and it is meant to work. Know that the Daemon to you is neither the god nor the devil: simply both in one entity that is a demon."
"What am I meant to do?" Annabeth asked again. "You said he's basically a god, so how do I—?"
"Gods are meant to fall. That is what happens," Alexis voice was brittle. "And any fighter can best a far greater opponent when they think."
Think.
Annabeth stopped dead. She'd had the same thing said to her before. It felt a million years ago, but she still remembered it . . .
Walls of fire, the smell of smoke, and the irony smell of blood. They had come so far, only to realize that of course all the monsters would be waiting for them at the Doors. She couldn't do it. There were monsters here that even gods feared. How did she have the strength to beat them.
"Annabeth," Percy said, his voice was firm. He gripped her shoulders and forced her to meet his eyes. "You have a chance. These are just monsters—they're all action and no think. You can beat any one of them if you just think. Don't ever let anyone tell you different."
She should have realized there was something else driving him to say that. Something lurking inside his own mind.
Annabeth shook her head and looked away. "You're not the first person to tell me that," she growled. "What makes you think I haven't already tried that and seen how it works?"
"I don't need to think if you've done it—I know you've done it. Two teenage demigods survive the wrath of Tartarus and still have enough sanity to seal the Doors? I believe you've heard of the detective Sherlock Holmes and his Science of Deduction—it was all very simple to figure out."
"One of us kept our sanity," Annabeth said. "The other one had someone steal it from them."
"Oh, the Wraith is a mere folktale compared to who you're destined to kill," Alexis said. Annabeth looked across at the squat old woman. "Sure, he killed your friend, took over his body, ruined the boy's image all across future and past, time and space—but the Daemon? Well, if you're thinking he can't be as bad as the Wraith then tell me how oblivion is."
"How do you do that?" Annabeth asked quietly. "Your mood, your way of talking. How can you keep changing it?"
"Different stages of the past," Alexis said simply. "And if you're wondering how we knew you're going to defeat him, Elektra saw it."
"How does she 'see'?"
"Occasionally she'll predict perfectly, she'll go into almost a trance, and start speaking. Other times she has a vangue idea, but it's predicted that you will defeat the Daemon."
Somehow, this sounded wrong to Annabeth. "By what means 'defeat'?"
Alexis shrugged. "You tell me. You're the one with the genius brain."
Annabeth bit the inside of her cheek. "The only thing it's been used for is revenge."
Alexis laughed then, an unfriendly, condemning laugh. "Revenge?" she cried. "Revenge is for suckers!"
"Well, thanks," Annabeth spat, venom in her words. "Maybe I should just walk out of here now if that's how it'll be—"
Alexis stopped laughing and grabbed her wrist as Annabeth turned. Her eyes were cold. "I won't apologise, because revenge is a sucker's game. It wins nothing of substance, it gets nothing back. What are you to gain from petty little revenge? Not much. Enemies."
Annabeth scowled, clenched her jaw. She snatched her hand away. She crossed her arms. "Just give me some knives and get it over with."
Alexis pressed her lips together and continued down the corridor at a brisk pace. At the end of the corridor was a door, with runes that Annabeth had never seen before engraved onto the wood. "Safety in Preparation," Alexis translated. "Long story."
"I'll bet," Annabeth muttered. She felt the all-too-familiar knot in her stomach as she walked in behind Alexis. What had she forgotten?
Be ready when I come for you.
Annabeth swallowed. Tris would probably be dead anyway.
But what if she isn't?
Annabeth scowled and followed Alexis past various training people. She hadn't realized there were so many. No one turned to look at her, all except one.
He was a boy; if Annabeth hadn't known better she may have labelled him as good-looking, but she knew better. There was no room for love in this goddamn life.
"Lady Alexis!" he called. He was dressed in a loose-fitting black t-shirt and black jeans, and bare-footed. Alexis's top lip twitched before she turned to him. "Geoff."
"This is—" he began, but Annabeth cut him off. There was something in his eyes that mad her want to kill him. The fact that they were on her was even worse.
"I'm Annabeth Chase, yeah, if that's what you're asking," she snapped. "Don't you have training to do?"
Annabeth whirled around and stalked off, Alexis had to jog to catch up to her. The lady glanced over her shoulder, then whispered to Annabeth, "Well thank God you're here."
Annabeth cracked a smile for a moment, feeling almost . . . happy? No. Peaceful. Not laden-down with guilt and anger and that crap. But still not happy.
She didn't remember what happy was.
But after that moment the knot in her stomach was back and the weight on her shoulders crashed down again. Her smile died.
At the end of the room where all the trainees were sparring and shooting and so on, there was another door, this one looked more . . . ceremonial.
"We haven't used this door," Alexis said. "In a long time."
The small creak the door made as Alexis opened it was enough to catch the attention of the entire room. Alexis looked back and yelled, "Get your fingers out of your ass and get back to work!"
The entire room burst into action again.
"Sheep," Alexis muttered to herself.
Tobias remembered having a conversation about death with Zeke. He suspected that he'd be killed by Jeanine or someone, Erudite or maybe even Marcus, but he never dreamed it would be Tris that killed him.
He could still feel it, the horrible dread of the cold knife piercing his skin, cutting through his diaphragm and embedding itself under his ribs. The feeling of his life dripping away with his blood. The sight of Tris looming over him, blood dripping from the corner of her mouth.
He remembered her pulling the knife out—slowly. If possible, it was even worse than going in. He felt the cold fingers of death prying at him, almost like a sleep, but there was something so much . . . deeper, and permanent about it.
He remembered some red-head, he'd spoken to him. Did he know him? What was with the guy's eyes?
And then Tris's cold, acidic words: "I did."
"Tobias." So, he was dead. That's nice. If this was death, why was it so bloody confusing? Was he alive, was he dead—did he ever end up getting to buy that cake?
He could remember it all . . . and it felt so long ago . . . and that made no sense to him.
At all.
"Tobias, get up, you lazy bastard."
His fist connected with something has he launched himself off . . . a bed?
The redhead stumbled back, clutching his nose. Blood was running through his fingers. "You . . . bastard!" His gold-rimmed eyes blazed, and he jumped forward, fist clipping Tobias's jaw.
Tobias would've liked to say that he was diplomatic.
In truth . . . he wasn't.
"Girls, girls," a voice said. "We can't be fighting over the dollies."
The redhead jumped back, and wiped the back of his hand across his face. Tobias looked towards the doorway, and saw a woman, maybe in her early twenties, with stark-white hair and pale eyes. However, her eyes were narrowed, glaring at the two of them. "By all means, kill each other—but later. At the moment we still have to track some people down. Not to mention train you guys."
Tobias rubbed his head, then his jaw, flinching away from the tenderness. The redhead cupped a hand over his nose, but there was too much blood for it to do much. He wiped the back of his hand obver his cheek, which only smeared the blood across his face.
"Clyde, you should've known better than that," the woman said casually turning away .
Tobias stared at the redhead in horror. "Clyde?"
Yeah, so . . . hurrah! Whoo. You see why I'm not happy with this chapter?
Meh. Anyway, I know I said I'd have Leo in this chapter, but every time I tried to think of a way to slot him in I ended up trying to gouge my eyes out, so next chapter. :D
Since I've delayed it so much, here's a spoiler:
He's back. He kicks ass. His mind still exists, among every other mind Gaos has collected. And he's adorable. *grin*
So, this week's playlist:
1. Dead Hearts - Stars
2. Undo - Cool Joke (Just gonna say now this is from Fullmetal Alchemist . . . which means its in Japanese . . .)
3. Again - Yui (Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood. Japanese.)
4. Golden Time Lover - Sukima Switch (Brotherhood. Japanese.)
5. Period - Chemistry (Yep. Brotherhood. Japanese.)
6. Fairy Tail Main Theme Piano (From the anime Fairy Tail. DO NOT WATCH IF YOU ARE WEAK OF WILL. IT CAN BE QUITE ECCHI AT TIMES.)
7. Dragon Force (Fairy Tail. Good music, though. Instrumental.)
8. Kanashiki Kako (Fairy Tail. Insrtumental.)
****EXTRA COOL AND AWESOME QUESTION****
Based off my writing, how old do you think I am? Just curious.
FIND OUT NEXT CHAPTER!
So yeah. HOPEFULLY IT WON'T TAKE AS LONG TO WRITE THAT ONE, BUT I CAN'T MAKE ANY PROMISES!
PEACE OUT!
-Owl