DISCLAIMER: Believe me, if we owned PJatO or HoO, we'd be involved with the movies. Therefore we don't own PJatO or HoO.

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Sydy – Nyx: Thanks so much for hanging in there with us! And I hope you do like the Nico picture. I usually do his eyes a little different – rarely will you see his iris not completely visible, as seeing all of it gives him his intense look – but overall I liked it. The picture was primarily for practice drawing hair. I'm trying to work my way out of anime, actually…

oOo

"Ethan."

"Stop. I've a right to wish for their well-being."

"That you do. But there's little else you're capable of."

"I live on in them. There's a connection to the living world still."

"And that connection is all there ever will be, until it fades, and you are wholly here with them. Believe me, I know how it feels. Nico's thoughts invade mine all the time without him ever being aware. Please, leave this place. Come back to Elysium. You and I can wait there together until they leave."

"We don't even know if they'll make it in."

"If they do, what action shall they take? And if they don't?"

"I… I…"

"Yeah. So I thought. Remember, there is reason you cut yourself off from Bree."

"…Right. Right. I'm coming."

oOo

"Bob knows Nico!" Bob exclaimed happily, clapping his hands together so quickly it sounded like one long buzz. "Nico plays with Bob all the time! Nico is Bob's friend. Bob's brother."

I looked at Nico, imagining him entertaining this eccentric Titan, and the thought came easily. It was simple to think of him walking through the Underworld, conversing with ghosts, learning what they had to teach him, all while tossing a ball back and forth with Bob and nodding at all the right moments to convince him he was listening. Not realizing until later that he really had heard all the Titan said.

The image was fondly accepted. Nico, of course, was staring anywhere but Bob and pretended not to hear.

"Nico's a good brother," I agreed, aching as I said it. Bob nodded enthusiastically, letting his wiry silver hair commence in a ceremony of flurry dancing. But thank the gods, my contribution worked – satisfied, he shrank into a little silver beetle tinged with red and gold and blue, scuttling down the stairs ahead of us.

"He looks like sun-death," Moon noted.

"Titan of mortality and the west," Hunter provided.

Brook was silent. What scared me was that it wasn't an angry silence; it was cold, forgotten, sour.

Gangrene.

My gaze lifted to the low ceiling. I wanted to say something, something about her powers failing that morning and the dream where she was trapped underground with a reptile, but couldn't find the words.

I couldn't find the words for a lot of things.

Each step felt like it was forced, like I was tied to gossamer, a poisoned string, and was being dragged bit by bit. Gods, how I'd wanted to see this place.

Yet amazing how strong the survival instinct is. Had Pluto called us here under any other circumstances, I would have bounded down the steps and to the banks of the Styx. But now that one inch of me overrode all the rest.

I tried to think of other things, but that was hard. I'd dreamed of falling again during the meager five hours of sleep in a NYC alleyway.

Falling and of the silver on my hand. And I knew what it meant now.

I knew I had to tell Hunter at least. But whether or not I wanted to tell her with Nico in earshot was another thing. I knew very well he had every right to know. That he should know. And that they'd hidden Prophyrion's goals from me just as much as he had. They were just as worthy of my anger.

He'd just wound up the face of it. And to be honest I was terrified of speaking the horrors out loud.

I'd called Natalie when we'd woken. She'd been so happy to hear from me, happy like Moon could get when she saw Brook. She was frustrated to learn that I still listened to screamo. She was proud and very full of egomania when I thanked her for sending my rosin.

I couldn't thank her enough for that now. The instrument was slung over my back as it had been since I'd had to open Orpheus's door with a song. And now we tread down the same tunnel he had all those years ago, heading towards very different fates.

I wondered if he'd heard my song, and if he'd liked it. If he'd hear it if, by some stroke of luck, I got to play it again before Pluto got around to his punishment.

We'd also IMed Granny and Grandpa. Told them we'd discovered that, since Orpheus's death, his tunnel had been reopened and we were going to march in. Our grandfather urged us on and even gave us a salute I recognized from his time in the Air Force. He'd been the guy that held the luminous flags and waving the planes towards their destinations. Our grandmother's strong front nearly broke.

She was terrified of us, marching off to him, marching into war over Greece. She had to draw a line somewhere. Grandpa soothed her.

And so here we were, being dragged down the tunnel.

Bob, who had once been Isthmus, who'd come here with Ethan what seemed like just a moment and a million years ago, was now free of his Titan memories and happy to aid our father in his border patrols. He'd come to pick us up as the Door opened. He was leading us down the tunnel and to Erebos.

Didn't recognize Hunter, didn't recognize me or Brook. Something told me he wouldn't even if he'd avoided the Lethe.

"Are you feeling okay?"

I jumped. Nico and I had, coincidentally, both fallen slow for the sake of brooding. The others had left us. Ahead, Brook's feet dragged, and Bob had returned to chattering happily.

The sound of his voice hurt. Don't even ask me why, it just did.

"Fine."

"No, really. Say something if you feel sick."

"I'm not sick," I sighed. Then I caught sight of the silver ring on his right hand and suddenly I wasn't scared of telling him. I was scared of not getting to.

"It's you," I burst. "You're the one who falls."

He blinked. "What?"

"My dream. Even the Wolf House. I always saw something silver on my right hand. Never knew what it meant until earlier, when I woke up and you were there next to me and the sun was gleaming on it…"

He held up his right hand. "So…"

"So the dreams, even maybe the Wolf House… It was a warning. My dream doesn't end in the agony from the Wolf House." The memory made me shudder. "I never feel it end. It just does. You're going to die like Ethan."

He contemplated that for a moment.

"How are you so calm?"

He shrugged and held out his hand. "Touch those calluses. Time works on you and me. It wears us down. It ends us eventually. The dead? The worst they'll ever suffer is memory loss, and that can be atoned to where and who they are rather than age. They're immortal. Time exists beyond them. They can turn and look in on it like you can turn and see that wall behind you. I'd have gone crazy a long time ago if I believed everything I've seen literally."

"But…"

"Sis," he said, and his voice was strained. "Don't tell me it might end badly. I know that. I know it well."

And I fell quiet, because I knew it. Knew I had no right to ask him anything else.

Stupid questions…

His hand, callused in the places his sword set, tightened on mine. "Sis, whatever happens, it's not gonna happen to you. You've got all of us here, and it's more than I've ever had. You're going to be okay eventually."

"Don't say that. It's not okay if I lose someone." I stared down the corridor, at sullen Brook and downtrodden Moon. "This whole quest, I… I've been scared. I still am. I don't want to die." Didn't want the gangrene, didn't want to grieve, didn't want to die.

There. I'd said it. It was out.

"I don't want to die. And that means you guys can't die, either. I just wish there was something we could do about all this."

And he said nothing, because what was it he was so afraid of? What scared him so badly?

The same damn thing.

We walked on down the tunnel, silent. Stoic and stolid. Yet there, fingers touching. The sound of our sisters up ahead – Hunter's loud mouth running to please Bob, Brook's quiet shuffles, Moon's soft yips.

"While we're sane," he said slowly, "I…"

But he trailed off, and couldn't remember what mattered while we were sane.

oOo

I have no words at all for how the Styx smells.

It's sweet but not death and it's water but not water and yeah, if you're close enough, you can smell all the things it's sweeping away as well. But I'd never call it a bad smell. And it's not what most would think when one says nature, but nature is one of the things you'd think when you smell it.

It seems fresh amid the volcanic ash.

The tunnel widened abruptly, the way a hallway does when you exit the whole building and are suddenly outside. It was a relief to me. For a moment, Sis's worries and my own and Brook's nightmares and Hunter's quiet struggles all vanished, and I relished in it.

Just walking into the cavern. Nothing more, a private stolen moment, one more secret sin.

That's all I dared.

I felt the pressure lower itself onto me again, slowly at first but then dropping like it'd slipped from some evanescent fingers overhead, and the moment was gone.

But some of the pressure was, too. If only because I now stood on familiar ground.

Bob morphed out of his beetle-form and resembled Junior High Janitor Genius once again. He pointed proudly at the glassy black volcanic rock padded with obsidian sand at our feet, then to the river roaring a hundred feet to the left. "Welcome to Bob's Tour. Bob is happy to see you here! Your afterlife is important to us here at-"

"We're not tourists, sweetie," Hunter said fondly. "Unless you give ice cream."

"Bad idea," Bree muttered.

Bob did not hear her. "But Bob wishes to show you the Styx! Please? Pleeease?"

"Show us the Styx, Bob," I said. The longer we took to get to Erebos, the longer I had to prepare myself before facing my father.

Which was difficult even on normal circumstances.

Bob grinned ear to ear, grabbed Sis eagerly, and charged for the rocky shore. She yelped but ran alongside him on a balanced stride. Moon let loose a flurry of barks and took half-hearted chase. Brook, looking very out of her element, rushed to stay close to her friend.

Hunter glanced at me. "What's wrong with Bree?"

"Huh? Oh – you can ask her."

"I know that. But I was taught to take advantage of everything I can." She squinted after the others carefully. "Psh. Look at Moon. Laugh with me when she falls in. Anyway – taking advantage. I don't think she'd ever lie to me unless she had a very, very good reason. In which case I'd know not to ask. But you – she doesn't have to please you, or live up to expectations. Never once have you doubted her judgment to the extent I have. That's the version of the story I want to hear."

I shrugged and told her on auto-pilot, brain still moving. We reached the River's edge. The soft slithering of sand and crunchy rocks was a comfort beneath my shoes. Downstream, Bob had stopped and was gesturing widely to the river. Brook peered in with guarded sort of pained horror, and Bree's face was just as expressionless as it ever is, but in this case it really felt that way, because I was too far to see her eyes or body language precisely.

Hunter nodded slowly. "…Well. You're not the kind of person I can reassure."

"No."

"We'll fight for you, though. Know that."

"Whatever."

She sighed. "Oh, and Shay gave us her little vacuum sweeper thing. Bob, she'd called it last. Didn't know which bag she put it in. If you see it crawling around let me know." And off she went.

I took off my bag and carried it by hand as I caught up.

"It's so sad," Brook was saying softly, staring at the river. The black water was swarming with shiny things – toys, torn official documents, pictures of families that'd been splotched with burn marks. Moldy novels never published. Shattered CDs. A few de-petal-ized flowers. Complex diagrams. Maps with nonexistent countries.

"They're dreams," Bree explained. "Things people didn't accomplish before they died."

"But… Can you imagine throwing them away like that? Giving up?"

"Can you imagine not?" I challenged. She fell quiet.

We stood there for a moment, watching things that only the living could see value in swirling away into the depths of the Styx. It hummed and pulsed with a simple disdain.

Beside me, Sis began to hum a familiar song. I couldn't name it until I saw the pattern of her tapping fingers on her leg. Green Day's "Boulevard of Broken Dreams."

I turned, looking at the great wall behind us, what'd been to the right of Orpheus's tunnel. A soaring structure of ash-marble and Stygian iron that stretched as far as one could see in both directions. As if the cavern wall and tunnel hadn't existed at all.

"The main gate is that way," I said, sensing the tight knot of ghosts just beyond it. They were anxious and a little worried upon the return of memories and the receiving of judgment, so it set my throat tickling and my head to an annoying throb. "Stay close to me and Bob. Cerberus might eat you."

"Moon is not scared of guard dog," Moon huffed. Her nose had returned to a slobbery black triangle.

I held my tongue. Cerberus could speak for himself. If only that'd work for Father.

Come on, Nico. You don't know him at all but you know him better than anyone. Save Persephone. Remember to read her for hints. Just like cheating on a test.

But there's so much against us. Making him see truth may be the only other way to worm out of this, and that'll take too long. And I don't know if he's warmed to us a bit, or if he's colder, or if he's pleased or angry with our dealing with Orpheus, or…

My gaze landed on Brook. I kept thinking.

oOo

Cerberus. Always had been my favorite creature in the myths. He was big enough to squash Mrs. O'Leary under one paw.

Three Rottweiler heads, faded, high above us, planted firmly in the great gates in the stone walls. Then I saw a great pavilion lined with shimmering ghosts, bright flames amid the green mist that vanished when looked at directly and always out of reach. Then a vast, vast field of dead trees and packed with others. Then fire burning everywhere. Then the sensation of being choked with barbed wire, its pieces coiled around my throat, barbs licked with poison. Another bit of the field, so vast and blank and dull I lost the ability to see it but knew it was there. Then out of nowhere I was beside Nico again, staring up at the transparent guard dog.

Around us, dozens and dozens of minds existed. They were heavy and loud and beating as one, all breathing in the Underworld's black-and-green fog, yet on their own paths all the same. And infuriatingly good at it. Me, no – I could feel one hand in water and the other in fire and tasted a dozen different things, and heard screams and sighs and the shadows, felt the mist and the shades and the dazzling streaks of the freshly dead, so strongly I couldn't recall which one I really was. The one in line, the one standing beneath a dead tree? I didn't know. Did it matter? What were the other things I felt moving around like snakes through grass?

I felt like I was drowning.

But holy harpies, did I love it.

"Easy. Remember the cabin," Nico suggested. His voice was one of many. "No, not that – remember Ethan." Quite suddenly, my right side was alight with flame.

I jumped. It was not on fire. Nico had stepped into the forbidden place. His worried gaze met mine and he quickly retreated, but kept one careful hand on my shoulder.

"How?" I rasped, focusing on Cerberus. How high up he was. How Ethan had fallen from even higher. "You – you're supposed to hear it even more-"

"Practice. B-Bianca, Mama. Cose prepotentemente reali, cose che io non sono in grado di ignorare. Try the Wolf House, maybe."

I gulped and looked up at Cerberus, the unpleasant memories swirling in my head. But they were in fact mine; as I slid hopelessly from place to place and sensation to sensation, at least I knew what marked home.

The dog also helped. As I looked, the middle head twitched. The right one loomed overhead and bore down on us with such alarming size and speed that for a moment I thought the cavern was collapsing.

I heard that echo across the dazzling field of thought before news I was mistaken followed through.

The dog took one great sniff at us, and I nearly flew forward into a rather unpleasant nostril. One of the snakes, a great Burmese python, slithered forward and draped itself across my shoulders. A rumbling voice spoke. "Nico. You left me."

"I'm back, big guy," Nico answered, and tapped his chin affectionately.

"Brought food," Cerberus snorted, which knocked us back on our rear ends. Save Bob, who was a beetle again. Red dog eyes locked on me.

That transparent dog didn't seem so transparent anymore. As solid and sure as the pile of drool he was standing in. At his gaze, two other thoughts jabbed at mine – two skeletal soldiers standing to either side, dressed in red coats and carrying muskets. Green light oozed from their eye sockets.

"Not food," Nico said. "We're in a hurry."

Cerberus growled and lifted his head again. The sheer size of it made following the movement dizzying. "Die soon. Then stay with me."

Don't want to die, I thought. But at that I felt barbed wires pressing on my mind, and quickly decided it was best not to upset the guards.

"Moon is not scared of big dog," Moon said. "Cerberus is gentle, Nico."

"Cerberus eat Moon," Cerberus growled. "Nature spirits can go to Tartarus with the rest of the mother f-"

"Cerberus eats many things," Nico agreed. "C'mon. Let's go."

oOo

Sis stuck close to me for the rest of the trip.

The staggering weight of so many dead was obvious on her. No doubt, the shadows were thick here, too, slinking along with the green and grey mists. Once inside the walls ("You must have epic depth perception," Hunter had told Cerberus approvingly) Bob led us along the black dirt-and-stone path through Asphodel. Brook was looking very, very scared by that point, so Hunter held her close. We weaved between the dead and approached the rising spires of Father's palace.

"Ghost King. Living," spirits said as we passed. Fleeting images shot past us, tinted red and yellow. Feelings and crisp tastes. I rode atop the wave of noise as I usually did.

"They don't sound happy," Bree whispered.

"I know," I told her. "I've told you how I feel about them. Here's how they feel about us."

"Ghost King. Ghost King."

"Leave, breathers! This is our place!"

"Don't we have any peace? Get out!"

"Quiet! The Ghost King will burn you!"

"You never did say it was a forgiving job," Bree whispered.

"No, I didn't." We kept walking. The demons we passed grew in numbers the closer we got to our destination.

Once inside Persephone's gardens, the noise died down significantly.

Sis breathed long and deep. She didn't speak.

"I know," I said. "My first time, I got myself confused with a nearby ghost and went around asking guards if they could tell me what year it was and if my husband had died yet."

Then Hunter laughed that loud, thundering laugh. "So! This is your idea of a party, Nico? So… lively."

"You can't tell the half of it," Bree muttered.

"I see dead people," Brook monotoned.

We turned, looking for Bob. But he'd ditched us at the entrance and was vanishing among the shimmering turquoise lights.

I closed my eyes, tasting the energy that radiated so strongly. Greeting the guards. Searching for my father, but he'd shrouded himself in the Helm of Darkness.

Four soldiers came to greet us. Touched minds briefly to show their intent and framed us, one at each corner, and began to march. We paraded through the garden.

"Do we have a game plan?" Brook asked.

I opened my eyes. Beneath the clamor of the posthumous crowd, through my feet on the black crystal soil, through the mist and the walls and the stalactites manically reaching down from above, there was a deep hum, a gentle pulse, more like a steady ripple. Yes, a small ripple that kept gliding through the world, unbreakable and thriving.

I looked at Brook, who couldn't sense it. At Bree, who was hardly beginning to for the roar in her head. And unreadable Hunter, who studied the glistening trees as we walked past.

"The guards smell your fear," I told Brook. "Try not to anger them."

"Tell them wolves like to eating bones," Moon countered in a shaky voice.

"They understand."

They said nothing, though. Not even of my churning mind. They marched us past the garden and into the palace, and the door shut silently behind us.

oOo

Nyx: Cerberus. Is. Awesome.

Nic: Being late isn't.

Nyx: I'm so sorry, guys. This literally was missing just half a page last night, but I was still exhausted from cumulative sleep loss, and I knew I'd be getting up even earlier than usual this morning, so I called it. But this is finished now. Hope you like it!

Nic: *narrows eyes* …Hm…

Nyx: Eh? You like Nico?

Nic: …I like the picture, not the boy…

Nyx: *smacks Nic*

Nic: *shoves Nyx out the window* And that, my loves, is why I win every argument.

Nyx: *from outside* Gah! Slender Man!

TO ALL ANIME FANS:

Attack on Titan. Official English dub. June third. Levi sounds… very weird. Armin is awesome. The end.