Hiro smiled. "Do you have control now?" he asked her. She could remember their running joke of his moniker, so that must have meant she was alright, right?
She laughed, shaking her head. "You're an idiot, Nakamura-san." she said simply. "Once I go into Darkness, I can no longer fight my desires, and no talking will be able to convince me otherwise."
Hiro's expression dropped. "Then how do I stop you?" he asked. She sounded reasonable, maybe she would be able to help him, because while his brain was running on overtime trying to think of a way to fix this before it got out of hand, nothing was coming up.
Yami grinned, before two feathered wings sprouted from her back, black as night. He had seen her using her wings before to travel around, but they had always been white. Now, she truly looked like an "angel of darkness".
"I don't want to be stopped!" she exclaimed, before her wings spread out and pumped downward, forcing her into the air through the hole formed in the roof by her transformation.
Without thinking, Hiro grabbed onto her leg with one hand when she went up, and was consequently lifted as well.
Let it never be said that a Trans as potent as Yami couldn't hold up a single extra person's weight, even at such an odd angle. She held up well, practically completely unaffected by the added weight. Well, physically unaffected, at least.
"Get off me!" she shouted, looking down at him, kicking her free leg at him.
Hiro grabbed onto that leg with his free hand, frozen in place. He had no idea what had happened or why he had grabbed her, but he was paying the price now, high above the ground holding on for dear life to the legs of a girl who really doesn't look the part of "insane out of control planet-destroyer".
How did I manage to do this? he thought to himself. Didn't I say I would do my best NOT to do the things a cliche anime protagonist would? Yet here I am in midair trying to get the out-of-control girl under control. I bet next I'm going to try to talk her out of it, and she'll magically understand. Maybe she'll even do the wide-eyed sudden realization thing they always do.
He chuckled at the thought. Yeah, right, Yami's not the kind of person to do that. Well, screw it, I've been pretty cliche recently anyway, why not add more?
He looked up at her, and immediately looked back down after realizing that he had a perfect view below the hem of her dress. Oh, well, he'd have to do this without looking up.
"So, your Darkness works by taking your most primal desire and making it your singular goal, right?" he asked.
Yami hesitated, a small vibration going through her body as she shifted on the air current. "Yes…" she said hesitantly. "Why does that matter? My goal now is exactly the same as it was before. It is the same as your goal. I want to kill Tsubaki."
Hiro blinked. "Yami..That was not Tsubaki. I would know if it was Tsubaki. That was someone else, claiming to be Camellia."
"That was not Camellia." Yami stressed. "Right from the first time I saw her, I knew there was something very wrong with that girl. I don't think Camellia ever existed at all. That was Tsubaki taking a new host."
That got Hiro thinking. He would have slapped his forehead in realization if he wasn't gripping onto her legs. He'd been going about his plan as if Tsubaki was still using the same host as she had the last time he'd seen her.
Of freaking course she had changed! He knew for a fact that her last host was long dead, obviously she would be in a new form!
He didn't know much about her other than what he'd seen, but he had a feeling it was entirely possible that she'd chosen a completely different new body than the one she'd had before.
He did think Camellia was unnaturally mature for her age, and when he thought about it, he realized something else.
She hadn't spoken Japanese to him, either when she'd attacked or when he first saved her life. She had spoken in fluent English, and he hadn't realized it because he was also a native speaker.
But that didn't explain how Momo and the others had understood her when she and her 'mother' visited. Unless…
Of course they knew English too! And even her name, Camellia, was not Japanese in origin.
It wasn't much evidence, but he had a feeling it was true. Camellia was Tsubaki.
Camellia and Tsubaki were one and the same. Hiro had no idea how to respond to this new information. The little girl who acted as if hugging him was a completely normal thing to do to a stranger was the same lunatic who'd murdered who knows how many dozens of people of who knows how many worlds. The child who always acted so innocent, as if nothing in the world was bad, was the same as the alien who saw no moral wrong with killing.
He almost questioned why she'd attacked Mea first before him, but the more he thought about it, the more he understood that that was Tsubaki in a nutshell. She liked to play with her prey before going in for the kill.
She hadn't exactly been hesitant to save him for last when she wiped out his family.
And he thought Darkness was nuts. This just took the cake.
He shouted out as he felt himself slip down Darkness's legs, and gripped tighter, realizing that she'd sped up. He shook his head to clear his thoughts. The revelation could wait, right now, he had a more immediate issue to deal with.
Namely, how to stop Darkness from fighting Camellia and destroying the planet in the process.
He pushed back all thoughts of Camellia and Tsubaki and Mea and focused on the problem at hand. He tried to think about the factors he could use to stop Darkness.
It was difficult to do so without actually looking up at her, and it didn't help that the wind was constantly slapping the hem of her battle dress into his face.
What did he already know about Darkness? Well, for one, she's not sane. She's driven by a singular desire, and nothing else matters. Right now, her desire is to kill Camellia, or Tsubaki, or whatever I can call her now.
He bit his lip. I can't fight her directly, that's suicide for anyone but Lala, and she's probably still unconscious back at the house. And I probably can't reason with her, since she said herself that I can't get through to her…
He glanced up at her, before looking down quickly after realizing his mistake. Wait...hold on. I forgot to analyze her normally. What does she usually do? Anything can help…
He blinked, and his mouth opened in an O. "If this works, I'm a genius." he said quietly, too quietly to hear over the wind.
"Yami!" he yelled over the wind.
"Get off me!" Darkness replied, flapping her wings again to create a small speed boost, but he held on. He was NOT going to die now, crushed to death hitting the ground. What a stupid end for someone who had a goal as lofty as his.
"Your current desire is to kill Tsubaki, right?" he asked, ignoring her irritation.
"Of course it is! That's what you want, isn't it? I'm going to end her, and fulfill the game you set in motion!" she shouted, with a clear tone of pride in her voice, and he didn't have to be looking at her to be certain that she was grinning.
"And then what? You'll try to destroy the world like you did the times before?" he asked her, forcing himself to remain calm. He couldn't do this if he let his emotion run wild, he knew.
Darkness growled. "Why does everyone think that just because I have a LITTLE problem with my inhibition, that I suddenly am some kind of maniac?" she whined, proving her own comment in her tone. "I just want to destroy a planet or two, is that so bad?"
Well, that was disturbing, but he had to press on if this was going to work. "I know you, Yami." he said in a low voice, though he couldn't go too low or the wind would blow it away. "That isn't your greatest desire, isn't it?"
Darkness scoffed. "You think you know me, but I'll indulge you. What do you think my 'true' desire is?" she asked, laughing after she'd done so.
Hiro smiled, looking down at the rapidly moving ground. Where the heck was she going anyway?
"It's obvious, if you've ever paid attention to your own actions." he said.
"Just tell me, don't act like I should know!" Darkness yelled in annoyance, and Hiro felt a shift in the air current. They were dropping. Was her resolve starting to waver? It couldn't possibly be that easy, could it? He was expecting to have needed a lot more time than this.
"Look into yourself and see if you can find it. I would prefer not to have to be the kind of protagonist who has to tell everybody some inspirational speech."
"I don't know, all of my thoughts from before I transform are always hidden!" Darkness shouted. "Just tell me directly, you stupid hero!"