Pain, pain, pain… what a strange word it is. What a strange thing it represents. When something harmful happens to the body, nerves tense and sense something is wrong. They send messages through the whole body in the form of electrical shocks straight to the brain, hoping for a solution. At least that is what Issei gleaned in science class, when he was listening.

Unfortunately, his brain does not perform as well as an animal would. An animal would try to survive. An animal wouldn't have touched the line. His grey matter thinks and offers one thing to fight off the pain; to scream.

Issei doesn't scream. Not anymore. Electricity shivers through his body. He doesn't really know if it is because he ruined his vocal chords or his transmission signals are just numbed to the extreme by his little adventure with a power line. He can only think, think, think, caged in an unmoving body. He remembers his grandfather teaching him how to touch the little electric fences surrounding the enclosure for chickens of the neighboring farms. Too many foxes trespassed a few years ago and the farmers put the thin threads of metal around the chicken house.

He remembers playing, trying to touch without touching, knowing he will get a jolt for his bravery. His grandfather saw him in the act and admonished him so severely… so severely…

("Put the back of your hands against the thread, Ise. Otherwise, your muscles will bundle up and they will close your hand around the line. And you won't be able to open it. Do you know what happens when you hold onto a power line? You get funky hair for your funerals. I'm the one who's going first young man, not you.")

You left too soon.

Muscles in his neck he didn't know existed spasm and he finds himself staring at the power line, his head flat against the ground, one unblinking eye shrouded by dead leaves and soil. He can make out forms and shapes around him. His gaze is unfocused, shrouded by shadows and spots of lights that blind him. Still, he recognizes a familiar shape lying by his feet.

The power line line lays on the ground, motionless, like an overgrown snake made of the knowledge of men and their mastery of all things fake and synthetic. It stares at Issei and the boy stares back. He cannot close his eyes. They're dry and hurting, but so is everything else.

[How long shall you wait before you demand its hand in marriage?]

Issei unclenches his jaw slowly. His muscles scream against the strength he uses to pry his cracked lips open. He gulps blood and his raw throat trembles. He produces a croak that may or may not have sounded like the Dragon's name.

Ddraig understands his gibberish nonetheless. [Who else?]

Issei tastes metal and humus. His Adam apple bobs up and down as his lungs greedily welcome oxygen.

"…It could," the effort and stuttering demanded to spit out two words force Issei into silence. As violating as the idea would be under normal circumstances, he hopes the Dragon can hear his thoughts outside of whatever they were in a few moments –minutes, hours? His conception of time is askew, like everything he sees. He might have burned his eyes into muddled pools. Another awesome thing to add to his evergrowing list of complaints he plans to slam dunk into whoever is watching his life and popping popcorn in their mouth. It could have been the goddess.

[She is in her pot.]

Apparently, Ddraig can hear his thoughts outside of their shared mind space thingie. Marvellous.

He twists his pained neck towards the slope, muscles unrestrainedly slamming his head against the ground. He is a noodle. A big limp noodle.

A white ball hops around his right arm. It has long floppy limbs sprouting from its head and Issei dearly hopes it is a normal bunny and not another supernatural creature.

The long cream colored ears twitch cutely. A little black dot moves in the higher part of the thing and it hops away from his arm to the river that gurgles a few meters away.

(Either it gurgles pretty loudly; either Issei also buzzed his eardrums so bad they bursted and he is actually deaf and imagining sounds. If people who lost a limb can still feel it, he is pretty sure a deaf person could imagine sounds.

Lame, deaf and barely seeing anything as it is. Nice.)

The white fluffy ball wiggles its little bum till it can sniff around- suddenly, Issei sees better. Well, no. He can only see one thing; the urn and the flowers surrounding it. The rest is still a blur of colors and shapes. The forest looms over him, but he is not scared. The trees have stopped whispering murderous songs.

The urn gleams brightly. His eyes squint and he sees it clearer than anything else, gleaming and beaming.

Ah… that's true.

Whoever she is, she is on his black list.

Issei blinks. Or rather, his eyelids move on their own, no longer coordinated or willing to listen to anything his little grey matter might want to say besides 'arghhhhhhhhh' and other expletives he could use to express his pain. If his mouth and vocal chords were kind enough to work.

Dots swim around his head. The fact that they probably belong in his eyes and nothing is hovering around him is a detail. The fact that he cannot breath properly is a detail. The fact that he cannot move is a detail. The fact that it is getting colder and colder is a detail. Details, details, details. As long as he thinks about them, he will not lose consciousness. Probably.

[You're going to die if this continues.]

T-thanks for your…comment. Issei twitches.

[I can heal your body.]

Issei sucks air in. He knows what is going to follow. The larges shapes he can see through the blanket of dots and lights covering his eyes loom. The trees are no longer an enemy of his, he can feel it. This instant, they seem to bend in warning.

[There is a price for such a service,] Ddraig continues. He sounds neither concerned for his dying jailer or the outcome of this exchange.

Issei struggles to stay awake. It's so, so cold. He feels so heavy.

The bunny reappears in his swimming sight, so close his little snout is huffing warm air against his cheek. He still cannot see the strands of white fur nor the real size of the little animal.

How much?

[One of your fingers should do.]

A tremor runs through his limbs. Issei tries to concentrate on the consequences of selling his body to his soul's guest, but he cannot. Another epileptic attack is building, it's building and he is going to die.

The bunny's humid nose nudges his cheek.

Do it.

[Good choice.]

The pain recedes, crawling from his fingertips and toes to his limbs and torso. Waves after waves, the pain moves sluggishly back to his heart. A headache drills his skull, and then slides to his throat with a vengeance for the loss of its home, clenching and throttling to finally end up slamming against his sternum. It surrounds his ribcage, strangling his lungs and pressuring his heart.

Issei feels alive. It might be his last moment alive.

You said the pain would go away!

[No.]

Issei curses- his body spasms. His heart shatters.

He breathes in.

He breathes out.

He gulps down, this time because he wants to. The flesh inside his throat constricts and moves and it's on bloody fire.

Issei laughs. He can breathe. He can see the naked branches of the trees surrounding him and the clouds, up above. He can move. He can. He's better than a minute ago. He will take it. And not argue with his scaled guest about the pain he still feels. He will take being alive over being dead.

The bunny nudges his cheek.

Issei sits with a hysterical chuckle. He regrets it. The pain coming from his abs takes his breath away. It feels like he did a marathon, swam across the Chinese sea and did the plank during several hours and then went to sleep without stretching. And all of that, he did with boulders chained to his ankles. All in one day.

The bunny-and it is a bunny! Issei is a bit relieved his vision is also coming back- makes cute sounds. It's like a sneeze, but infinitely cuter.

"Hello, there." Issei doesn't really know what should be said to a rabbit, but he will try to get the message across. He half bows awkwardly. "Thanks for helping me."

Would petting it make it run away?

[As much as I am amused by your obviousness, I think it is in your best interest to look down.]

Issei does. He still has two legs and two feet and two arm- oh.

A bright red thing covers his left arm. Bulks of matter that looks like metal cover his left arm, from round mounds protecting his elbow to a sharp divide over his wrist that leaves it uncovered and mobile. His fingers twitch and it moves in return, molding his arm. A scratch of his remaining uncracked nails later answers his unvoiced questions. It is warm to the touch. Smooth. It is all too organic in nature. It feels as if it was made of nothing but his flesh. It's not supposed to be there but it feels all too comfortable against his bones.

This is his Sacred Gear.

He raises it to his eyes, watching the way the surface reflects the sparse sunlight. It's not… The wielder squints. Up close, he can see under the surface, as if the Gear was made of- what's the name of that rock made of sap? Amber! He can see through it as if it were amber, a red and dark one in colour. Veins runs through the amber, dark streaks of crimson he sincerely hopes are not full of his blood.

As much as it pains him to do so, Issei sucks into air deeply. His lungs expand and it burns, but he has to voice his joy. "It worked," he mouths.

For the first time since he grasped the powerline, the bow makes his presence known in the back of his mind. The sound of a string being pulled and released echoes in his host's ears, without rhyme or rhythm, a lyrical mirror to the excitement Issei feels.

[If you're talking about the fact that you destroyed your brain, then yes.]

His pinky tingles. He clenches his fist. A wisp of his ragged hair obstructs his sight, but he can still see his finger gleaming in the dim light.

He brushes his hair out the way and finds himself looking at something definitely non-human.

The pinky on his left hand is not a pinky anymore. It's a claw. Half of its length is a black claw while the remaining flesh is scaled and crimson. Like the Gear, the scales feel smooth to the touch when Issei pokes at them. They also feel warm. Way too warm. He doesn't palpate the claw; it looks a bit too sharp to be handled without care.

Ddraig was no joking when he said he was taking it.

Issei winces. He admits it doesn't have much to do with the receding pains that clench his muscles together. What do I do now?

[Work hard so I do not stay stuck too long in this unbecoming appearance.]

What? Issei looks down and there's nothing but fascination in him as he feels the Sacred Gear attached to his soul and body. Even the claw is nothing but a small addition compared to it.

[This is Twice Critical, the name you humans gave to this failing form. It doubles your nonexistent power for a short amount of time. You must break through this form quickly, dimwit. No flesh jail of mine should use this for long and I should certainly not have to gaze at it for extended period of times.]

More power to hold when he has next to no idea on how to harness what he already possesses. "How do I do that?"

[Train hard.]

Issei blinks. That's as non-descriptive as it can get.

The Dragon sighs. [Say it. Say its godforsaken name.]

That's a bit better. Issei clenches his fist and flexes his wrist. The Gear moves with his wrist, following the movement in a comfortable manner, as if it had been there forever, just another limb to his body he never knew he had until today. A ray of light is caught by the green jewel and it gleams with sealed power.

Issei squares his jaw. He frowns. He raises his arm up in the air. "Twice Critical!"

Something builds up in his body, something that wants to let loose from its cage and fly everywhere in, from the tip of his eyelashes to the last of his toes. It blooms in his arm and seeks to travel through his veins. It's hot and it floods out- just to disappear. As quickly as it started, the sensations leave him panting on the ground.

[You're weaker than I thought.]

Issei tries to move his left arm. It is cold and abandoned. The jewel atop his forearm has turned a shade of grey. He shudders. "What do I do now?"

[Nothing. You do not possess a big enough reserve to cast a spell to keep it hidden nor do you know how to cast one. It will discharge itself into the air in a few hours.]

"A few hours," he repeats slowly. He cranes his neck and yes, yes, yes, the sun is high in the sky. How long has he been outside?

"What time is it?"

Nobody answers. The trees move with the wind, the urn gleams, the flowers bow, the bunny huffs and Ddraig chooses silence.

Issei trembles.

Mom. Grandma.

"They will think I left," the boy mutters. They will think I left and that I'm not coming back. "I need… I need to go home."

[You are forgetting the most important matter, you dimwit. There's a Goddess behind you.]

Issei drags himself to his knees. Everything hurts. Every muscles in his body want him to lie down and stay there forever. Everything hurts and the walk is long. "I gotta go home," he repeats.

Ddraig does not retort.

Issei crawls. His fingers dig into soil, into dead leaves, into rocks and into things that jab his hands and break his nails. His claw grates rocks. The sound hurts his ears.

The bunny hops ahead of him. It stands, front paws in the air, in front of Issei. It makes a small noise.

"I don't have time for you," Issei mutters. He drags himself further away. He knows there are a few big rocks littering the slope… he could use them to hoister himself up.

He bangs his head against a rock. The stars and dots he sees are definitely not in his eyes this time. He clenches his jaw. The taste of blood is starting to be familiar. Issei grasps the rock that so kindly banged up the rest of his brain (yeah, yeah, he was the one who didn't see it, but couldn't it have been somewhere else anyway? Why did it have to be on his way?) and hoisters himself to his knees. The effort takes his breath away.

The bunny sniffs. It nudges Issei's thigh.

"What?"

The teen pauses before whatever angry words he wanted to spout come out. By the feet of the standing rabbit, there's a branch. It seems sturdy enough. Issei tentatively slides his left hand around the peaked shape of the rock until the weight of his Sacred Gear anchors him in place. His pinky digs into the sturdy material and leaves a jagged mark. His right hand slides off and miracle of miracles, he doesn't slip off and faceplant again. His human limb grabs the stick.

He plants in the ground. He painfully drags his right leg until his foot is against the ground. One bounce of his jaunty knees later, he is standing.

The stick doesn't break, even though it shoulders more of his weight than his legs do.

Issei swallows. Okay. Okay. He can do this. Maybe. Where is going now? The world turns.

The bunny is still there.

"Do…" Issei pants. "Do you know the way?"

The bunny hops. Issei stumbles to follow. The little creature is merciful to hop ahead, stop and wiggle his way back when Issei's knees tremble or when his arms burn so bad he wants to sit down and never wake up. It nuzzles his legs and Issei thinks about his family and the fact that he has to go back home now.

So he marches on. His feet have long since lost all feelings and his fingers, gripping the staff in an iron and amber grip, are bloodless. A random thought comes, wondering why is he following a rabbit and what happens to people who follow such creatures down the rabbithole, but normalcy is for people whose name is not Issei.

He climbs the hill one step at the time. The world is turning, a headache wants to drill his skull open and nausea is clenching his throat, but he is on his way.

He is at his doorstep before he can think of all the way he probably caused a heart attack to one of his family members.

He almost cries then and there. He grips the doorknob with both hands. Mom. Home. Grandma. They're there.

"Thank you," he whispers.

The bunny's nose moves and iridescent eyes gleam in the light. It hops out of sight.

His claw grates the doorknob.

He looks down at it thoughtfully.

"What am I going to tell Mom and Grandma?"

Ddraig, the snarky little piece –calm down calm down, he can hear your thoughts- doesn't speak again and leaves Issei to his tortured visions of the future and the heart attack he might actually give to his grandmother.

But even the asinine thought leaves after a few flashes of ambulance coming and going and another corpse burnt into ashes.

He is so tired.

He puts his left arm behind his back. That will do. He turns the doorknob softly with his other hand.

His grandmother is at the end of the corridor, pacing back and forth in front of the landline. The curly wire swirls and stretches as she moves. "Tatsuya, my grandson is outside and he hasn't come back yet."

A pause. She stops pacing. Her wedding band gleams in the dim ambiance brought by the winter light.

Issei closes the door softly. He tries to shake off the mud and dirt stuck to his bruised feet. His parents always told him to act his best when he was at his grandparents. His efforts make a rather ugly slit of a wound on his big toe open again. He drops blood on the mat.

He looks up. His grandma is still talking. He can wait to ask for a rag.

"I will not wait. You bring your sons along. I already called the others; they're searching around the village. Put on your boots and search the river around your backyard, you're the only one who knows how to walk through that thing-" She stops, but this time, it's because she found the freezing boy waiting patiently by her door. Her mouth is making a round shape and wrinkles are accumulating at the corners of her eyes.

It's his time to shine. He waves with his right hand, the non draconic one. "Grandma."

The phone's static sound buzz in his ears. "Oi, Chiasa, no need to scream in my ears. I'll go search that damned river, but I assure you, your boy won't be in there," a rough voice grumbles.

Chiasa –Issei sometimes forgets her name. Her name, for him, has always been 'Grandma'- brings the phone to her lips. "No need to go. He is here."

Issei doesn't know what hurts more; the way she slams the phone down or the way his feet throb. He thinks, after another second, that it is the pained look she wears on her face.

Disappointed look.

"Where were you?" She runs to him. "I searched for you all morning. I called everyone –even that damned Shizuku- and their mother and nobody knew where you were. People are searching for you in the hills. They're searching for your… what were you thinking? We're in winter, it's minus 10 outside and I thought- I thought they had taken you." Her face scrunches there, like it did at her husband's funerals.

His legs weight a ton, but they still move as he wills it. The floor cracks and whispers sad stories. Her face, up close, is still sad and disappointed and frightened. "Grandma…"

Issei arches his neck and bends his back.

Her wool cardigan feels ragged and frayed against his open palms. He holds onto it like it's the only thing that makes sense anymore. It might very much be. His chin finds her shoulder and it ends its journey there, resting. Finally. "I'm home."

He feels her tense shoulders loosen up. Her hands travel to his back and one taps his shoulder soothingly. Issei has never felt so small. "It's okay, it's okay. You're home."

The wall he stares at glows orange thanks to the flickering light of the light bulb dying over their heads. The boy closes his eyes and basks in an old scent that feels a bit like home and safety.

His mind stays silent, woody creaks and grinding scales maintaining the peace he yearns for.

Finally, she breaks free from his hug. He covered her in the filth he collected during his deadly adventure. He opens his mouth to apologize, to say he is so damn sorry because he is ruining everything, everything-

His grandmother holds out her hands, hovering hesitantly over the part of him he gave away. He doesn't move; she brushes the Sacred Gear with her fingertips. Her cold fingers remind him that they always been cold, always held and cradled by his grandfather as if they were great treasures.

"What happened?" She asks. It sounds like a croak, but it's not right, his grandmother would never croak.

Issei doesn't know how to answer so he doesn't. "We need offerings for the goddess in the backyard," he blurts out.

"What?"

Issei blinks. He spoke clearly, didn't he? "What?"

"Repeat what you said."

"We need offerings for the goddess in the backyard." Issei bites his bottom lip, thinking long and hard. There's something else he wanted to say. Ah. "And a rag. I put blood on the carpet."

Her brow wrinkles her tired eyes. "I can't make sense of what you are saying, Issei."

"Me neither. Nothing really makes sense."

She cups his face. "Look at me, Issei. Do you remember what happened this morning?"

Issei wants to tell her he sold his soul and body to a Dragon and he doesn't know, maybe he should have died after all. He is making her so distressed and unhappy. His grandmother doesn't let him voice his thoughts. "I know one thing; I woke up this morning and you weren't in your room. You left your shoes and everything else inside. I thought… I thought you had left."

Issei covers her hands with his because they're cold, cold, cold. "I'm not my father."

Pools of dark chocolate lighten a bit. It might be a trick of the light or her soul lightening up. "I know."

Issei relaxes against her touch. Another thought trickles from the disaster his mind is producing. "Where is mom?"

"In her room."

Issei pivots. To her room he is going to, then. He wants to see her so bad. Maybe cuddle in her bed if she allows it and sleep till the next century.

"No, no." His grandmother grabs the hem of his tattered shirt. "Come to the kitchen. You're so cold. I'll make you a good tea and get you some warmer clothes."

Issei doesn't budge. He stares at the door leading to where his mother is. It's so close. Just a peek should be okay…?

His grandmother tugs his arm. "I'll get her for you, Issei. You need to get that mud off your face."

Issei relents. He must look dreadful now. Better to wash up before he scares his mother away. His eye catches the gleam of his amber Sacred Gear and he wonders if he could hide it under bandages. It would look bulky for sure, but it would only be for a few hours…

His grandmother drags him by the hand to the kitchen with a strength so big that it makes Issei wonder where she hides her muscles in her tiny body. His feet follow but his gaze falls on the phone and glues itself there. So much he has to turn his neck at an impossible angle to keep looking. Finally, he finds the thought that was tickling his mind. "Call them. Tell them I'm home."

The town people must be mad, searching someone lost out there when it's so cold outside.

His neck is righted back into a normal position when the little granny he thought of as weak pushes him into a chair. She shakes her head absently and her thumb slides over his cheek. Crumbles of dirt fall on the table. He's dirtying more stuff. He can't really bring himself to care anymore. He leans into the touch.

"Tatsuya will take care of that." Her hand combs his hair out of his face gently.

Issei hums. He sits back against his chair. His bones go soft and he goes back to being a big noodle. This time, it doesn't bother him. He is home. "Who's Tatsuya?"

Her hand leaves his hair. He mourns the loss of warmth her cold hands brought him. "Remember the bee charmer?" she asks.

He looks up. "There's a bee charmer here?"

She is putting water in the kettle now. She turns to smile weakly. It's the greatest thing he has seen today. "Yes."

"Oh." Issei doesn't remember hearing about a bee charmer. He doesn't remember a lot about his grandparents' hometown, to be honest. The rides to get there were always silent and tense and only happened once a year before his little family would go back to their usual grind.

"Don't move from this chair." His grandmother points her finger at him accusingly, as if he would leave again without notice. As if he had the strength to move at all.

"I will stay here," he promises anyway.

She disappears into the hallway, taking her perfume and her frayed cardigan out of his sight. His forehead hits the table without a sound. Like there's nothing inside. It might be true. The thought of lifting his eyelids seems to be a lost battle.

Wheels squeak. He wonders who's playing with toy cars in the house.

A hand touches his shoulder. "Ise."

He would recognize that voice anywhere in the world.

He cracks his eyes open with a force he hadn't a second before. "Mom."

She is as pale as ever. Her lovely red little tuque is still atop her head, covering her skull. She wears at least three sweaters that are not her size, but who cares. They're keeping her warm and her cheeks are the color of a rose. His grandmother is not by her side, which means she wheeled herself to his side and oh, he hasn't seen her this well in months.

"Ise." Her hand grasps his arm in a firmer grip. She simply calls him, as if he would disappear if she didn't devour him with her unblinking eyes.

That makes him feel worse than- than when he was dangling from a power line. He covers her hand with his, Sacred Gear and all, because she is his mother and she is sad because of her bad son. "Sorry. I didn't mean to go. I'm home."

She looks at his arm without a comment. She simply holds him tighter. "Welcome home."

His grandmother appears in the doorway, hidden behind a mountain of clothes. She twists her torso to see them. She squints. "Hikari, I told you to wait. He is not…"

His grandmother is kinda cute when she is so fretful. "It's okay, Grandma. I'm glad we're all here."

She dumps a dozen sweaters that are definitely not his onto his lap. They smell like his granny and they're a bit too small, but Issei puts one on because he is, he realizes with a blink, freezing. He thinks he makes a hole or a dozen with his claw when he pushes his Sacred Gear through the arm of the sweater.

"Drink your tea." His grandmother grumbles endearingly.

He raises his head slowly and sees a steaming cup of tea waiting for his lips.

"He is tired." Hikari soothes the aches in his back with a tender hand.

"One more reason to drink tea! He has to put something in his belly. When was the last time you drank, young man?"

Issei ducks his head. His Sacred Gear gleams through the fabric of the pink sweater and oh- his family is awesome. There's no other words to describe the feeling he feels when he sees humans who don't know about the Supernatural or so little take the weird thingie on his arm in stride, because why not.

A blanket is put on his shoulders. Warmth, blessed warmth envelops him.

He stares and yes, his mother let go of the blanket where he hid the Glorygold. It sits on his shoulders, bringing blood back to his abused feet and hands. The warmth stings his limbs back into life. He tucks it closer.

"Drink that and-" his favorite old person is rummaging in the fridge like there's no tomorrow. She raises a box full of orange liquid in the air. "Eat this! I made it a few days ago, but it should still be good."

She cracks it open and sniffs it. She nods with a nod and dumps it into a bowl. "Soup will warm you up alright, you will see."

One minute later, he has a warm bowl of orange soup in front of him and a spoon forced in his hand.

Issei devours the meal. It burns his tongue and the taste is unknown, but he has never had a soup so good before.

"To the bath you go, mister," Chiasa urges. She takes his bowl and spoon away.

Issei mourns the last drop of his meal left on the spoon he hadn't the time to lick.

He takes a sip of his tea. He lets the liquid warms his inside. "You don't want to know?" he whispers. He glances at his hand and the visible claw that is now his pinkie.

Chiasa shakes her head vigorously. "It can wait. You need food and a bath."

He turns to his mother only to get a similar answer. "Your health comes first, Ise."

"You heard your mother. Bath time, now!"

And that's the story of how Hayashi Issei found himself staring at the ceiling of the small bathroom in his grandparents' house, immersed in hot water. Feelings are comings back to his limbs and really, the silence Ddraig is exhuming would make him worry he lived through a realistic hallucinations because insanity finally settled in his rotten brain, but no. His Sacred Gear is still attached to his arm.

(Soap makes huge bubbles when it comes in contact with it. It's fun.)

The warm bath also makes his brain come alive. He is back to thinking about a lot of things that just popped out of his mind when he was crawling his way back home with the bunny.

(The animal was definitely a supernatural being. Issei is sure normal rabbits don't guide wounded humans to safety.)

He has to tell his grandmother and his mother something. He has to explain the concept of Sacred Gears, gods, goddesses (and the friendly one who almost killed him- yeah, he is going to cut that part off), Devils, Angels, Youkai. All that cool knowledge he doesn't know how to explain he acquired.

I have hallucinations of another me who is a pervert but also kinda cool. Sometimes.

That only sounds good in his head and he knows it.

And fudge it; he has to explain how he saved his mother.

Oh, Issei has written a pretty story in his notebook, something straight out of a fairy tale. Gore and darkness belong in the background as the protagonist advances merrily on the road to success. An easy tale, so filtered it could be drank and taste like water. To ease his mother's worries and the questions his grandmother would one day ask, he had put his best skills to work. Who would have thought his overthinking and lying tendencies would one day help him to write such a perfect story?

Not him.

The notebook is in his room and his mother and his grandmother are trusting him. He had neither time to perfect his act nor does he have the strength to go get the little book.

He walks out of the bathtub. A decision has been taken.

He grabs the Glorygold blanket he stole from his mother and opens it. The seal is still there. It feels warm against his touch. He grasps it. One fumbling around later (to put on clothes that are too big and a few decades old according to fashion), he is ready. He clenches his jaw and off he goes, marching through the house.

The Glorygold dances in his fist.

His family is where he left them, hands cupping cups filled with watered down tea.

He sits and sees their amazed expression when they glimpse at the fiery golden flower that saved his mother-

The truth spills out too easily.

He first focuses on his hands, on the pale scars his teeth left behind around his nails. He tears his gaze away from that wreck guiltily. He should look at his family. Their gazes meet. His mother is as pale as fresh snow, reminding him of worse, sicker times. She blinks slowly as she follows the stream of words Issei cannot control. His grandmother is the picture of stillness, her thumb being the only thing breaking it, caressing her wedding band anxiously. Issei bears their silence and continues with the flow of words and gore. Truth has to be given freely.

He talks about the Underworld. He talks about what happened in the Underworld. He talks about the Forest beyond the Wall and what happened there too. He talks, talks, talk.

When the words stop coming, his mother breathes. A shuddering breath that makes her entire body looks like a fallen leaf, subdued to the wind.

Issei dials the emergency number in his head. He wants to scram for the phone and call the doctors, because of course she wouldn't take this well. What was he thinking? Fried brain, fried brain, you're killing your mother, ahahahah.

"Ise." She raises her hands. Issei tenses for- for whatever bad he will have to hear. "Ise, my darling son."

She stands and Issei scrams to her side. He holds her up and she holds onto him. "Mom, sit down," he begs.

She does as he says, but her hold on him doesn't loosen the slightest bit. He pets her tuque and wonders how he can soothe her.

"You shouldn't have been forced to do all this," she gasps. Her face is crumpled and her eyes shine in a way Issei is familiar with. The tears will come soon.

"No one else would have done it," he says. He pats her shoulders soothingly. Don't cry. Don't cry, please.

She shakes her head. Her hands tug him closer. "It doesn't make it right."

Against all the odds, she doesn't start crying. Issei thanks the stars. However, she is staring at him as if the world is one big mess and she has to right it. He doesn't want her to have that kind of weight on her shoulders. He isn't that fucked up yet. He wants to tell her he will be just fine. He will be okay. They will be okay.

"Issei…" his grandmother starts.

He catches her nibbling on the inside of her bottom lip. With effort, he stops the motion of his jaw. He was doing the exact same gesture. His lip feels jagged and bumpy against his tongue. That's one thing they have in common, beside the morbid silence they adopt when they do not know what to say.

He sees the uncertainty weighting on his grandmother's brow. It wrinkles her eyes in a way that makes her look a decade older than she is.

Finally, something settles down in her gaze. "You suffered a lot."

"I didn't die."

Two hands cup his chin. He looks down and sees a resolute gaze he hasn't seen in months. "It doesn't make it any fairer to you, son."

Issei shrugs.

It's not fair to you either. The child you raised died. You're left with this mess. Sorry.

Issei, the Issei who left money in his coworker's backpocket to find peace, the Issei who worked two jobs to make ends meet happily or the Issei who dragged himself through the Underworld in a quest to find an extinct flower, all those Issei paled in comparison with the child she reared.

It was the version of Issei who hadn't given up on himself yet.

His mother grabs his attention and his nose with her fingers. She pinches his nose. He bends to offer her better access. She flicks him. "I will make sure you never have to do this again."

Issei wants to counter that with a lot of logic and reason and I would do it all over again for you but the mood has been lifted into something happier and they all want to enjoy it.

"And I want to have a serious conversation with the Dragon inside of you. What's his name? Durugu? I'm going to kick his scaled behind if he tells you anything weird."

Issei can't help it. He laughs.

The rest of the day is a blur. A happy blur. One where they spend hours watching old movies and baking cookies and joking and somewhere in there, his Sacred Gear fades into nothingness, sparkles of amber dancing in the air like the Glorygold does on the counter.

Issei will cherish the memory of that day until he dies, he just knows it.

A grumpy Dragon, not so much. [The Goddess is still waiting in her pot.]

I know.

They've been together, huddled under the Glorygold blanket who's bereft of the Glorygold, for a good hour now. Issei glances at the clock.

The credits of the movie roll on the old, bulky TV.

"I need to go see the goddess before sundown." No one will make Issei walk outside while it's dark. The forest might not want him dead anymore, but he isn't taking that kind of risks.

His mother lets her head fall on his shoulder. "Do you have to go?"

"…yes."

She looks up at his face. "Come here."

It's awkward. Full of sharp edges and bones. Issei puts his hands flat against the sofa, afraid his weight might crush her. The only thing he dares fit against her is his cheek. His nose is in her tuque and he smells lemon and childhood memories. She brings him closer with her small arms and she is the one crushing his waist.

It burns his eyes.

He swallows. He squares his jaw and suddenly, he can't do hold back anymore.

He hides his face in the nook of her neck and cries.

Her hands slide off his back. He rights himself slowly, so slowly his mother has the time to bump her forehead against his jaw.

"If you're not back by super time, I'll come get you, young man."

It feels strangely warm to be threatened with a curfew by his mother.

With a bento box full of rice balls and steamed vegetables in one hand and a bottle of sake in another, Issei strolls toward the glistening river he can see through the greeneries. He munches on a riceball his grandmother forcibly put in his mouth.

(His grandmother fretted herself into a cooking frenzy to make sure he had food in his belly and food to offer to the goddess. Apparently, knowing who she was would have helped make the right offerings. Bad offerings can bring a serious amount of mayhem. That sole thought made her froth at the mouth. Issei laughed at her. She slapped his Sacred Gear.)

This time, he's fully clothed. This time, he has a plan.

He licks lonely grain of rice stuck to his lip away absently. "Ddraig, could you help me if she tries anything funny?"

[Define help.] The Dragon answers too quickly to not be interested.

Issei grins. "Make sure she doesn't control my mind."

[It will cost you.]

Issei climbs over a gnarly root. "So it doesn't bother you if a random weak Goddess," he catches his breath, feeling something like shamelessness quirking his lips upward, "takes over my body and uses you?"

Issei feels Ddraig leave, slithering back to his abode. It feels like a weight has left his shoulder and he walks straighter.

Dragons are prideful creatures, eh.

He walks the rest of the way in silence. The river is farther then he remembered it to be. As he approaches his goal, the ground doesn't feel as hard under his boots. The ice that has taken over the soil recedes, leaving behind a mush of humid earth and humus. The air smells like rain and spring. Unnatural, it is. He marches on.

One last turn and he is standing by the hill and the power line. Neither of them moved. Which is great. He doesn't need a live Dragon hiding under the hills surrounding his house.

He stops mid-step. The sheer lushness of the greeneries around the urn, that's new. When he left, the tree where the urn sits was certainly not blooming. The urn was not sitting on a throne of roots, grey color almost completely hidden by the blooms and flowers surrounding it.

Issei observes the throne of roots quietly.

He does not bow nor claps his hands to pray. He sits on his heels, keeping himself away from the train of flowers. He tests the springiness of his knees, lightly bouncing up and down. He will be ready to run if he has to. The goddess, whoever she might be, almost killed him. She tried to "help" him, true, and maybe he would have had to resort to such a dumb technique anyway, but the fact remains. She almost killed him.

Issei plans to meet Hades later than sooner.

He places the bento box and sake bottle between the potentially murderous being and himself.

(Issei holds on the hope that the Goddess needs him for something. She has to, otherwise she wouldn't have let him take her with him on his mad dash at the crematorium. She wouldn't have led to this place.)

The flowers around the urn moves gently, so colorful that they attract Issei's gaze effortlessly. He unwillingly compares them to the dullness of winter that surrounds them. They clash with the décor. Too yellow, too orange, too crimson. Too supernatural in nature.

The sweet scent of spring feels heavy on his tongue.

Issei blinks. Something tickles his alarm, something he can't quite pinpoint.

The flowers are moving. There is no wind.

Issei licks his ragged lips. He struggles to swallow his heartbeat. "Who are you?"

It's dry, but it gets to the point. It looks like the beginning of a civil conversation, even if a part of him just wants to be anything but civilized. He concentrates on that, on that anger that boils in his guts. He could have died. His family would have never known why he chose death after all this time.

You led me to Ddraig. You also almost killed me. Don't play dumb now.

The flowers quiver. Delicate petals brush against it each other and wrinkle as friction between the flowers becomes more intense. "Exchange."

Issei shivers. A cold breeze creeps up his back. He is sure, however physically impossible it is, that it is not a mouth that produced that word. It is neither a sound that his mind heard –it doesn't feel like when the bow or the lizard speaks.

The flowers, akin to an unreal painting, move in sync back and forth. As if a breath was drawing them in and then out.

The flowers spoke.

[As much as I find your slow realization fascinating, I had the thought, unholy as it might seem, that your brain could perhaps work faster. Answer her. Now.]

Issei admits he might have taken a lot of time contemplating the source of the voice and not enough contemplating how his life might end if he is not quick enough. Thanks, Ddraig. "I-"

[Names have power. Do not give it away.] Ddraig rasps.

Issei starts a nod, catches the motion in making and awkwardly turns it into a stretch of his shoulders. He doesn't need to look weirder than he is, nodding in response to a voice he is the only one to hear. He remembers that lesson from the book on etiquette Bashir so kindly lent forever. Never give your name. Words have power; they bind things into existence. To name something is to give a part of you to it; to be named is to be bound into that name.

"I do not give you power over my name, I simply present it to you, goddess. My name is Hyoudou Issei and it is not yours."

The urn gleams. The flowers dance.

"I am called Persephone." A voice whispers raspily, as if it came from a mouth not made for human speech.

Issei is sure now; the voice is coming from the flowers.

Issei does his best, his very, very best to not jolt, jump and scream. The flowers, enchanting as they may be, are too freaking close to his booted feet. The little things might be magical (oh, who is he kidding, they are and he is not. Death by magic flowers seems a bit too fairy tales like and his life is anything but fairy tale.) and may hurt him if he doesn't control himself.

[Dimwit.]

What?

[She gave her name. Speak.]

Persephone... Persephone? Where did he hear that name before?

Issei purses his bottom lip. He knows there's a special way of speaking with faes, youkai and the likes. Does it apply to gods and goddesses?

Scales grind against each other. [Repeat after me.]

Issei cocks his head and listens as best as he can. The flowers are a bit of a distraction, especially since they now seem to tuck the soil around them to protect their feeble stems.

"Why is the wife of Hades-" fuck, fuck, fuck, she is his wife, "resting in these foreign lands?"

The flowers bend unnaturally back. "Do not speak of him in my presence."

The goddess seems to be having some sort of marital troubles with her husband, the freaking lord of the Realm of the Dead. Ahahah. Ddraig, if I die here, I'll blame you for the rest of eternity.

[Be a bit more imaginative in your threats. I've heard this one far too many times.]

Issei does not pout. Starting a book on insults and threats might be a good idea, just to find a way to piss off the Dragon as much as he pisses him off. He kicks away the amusing and horrifying thought that Ddraig has been threatened likewise before. He doesn't need to think about the consequences of listening to a probably insane big old winged lizard.

He decides, wisely, to not let the talking flowers and mad goddess wait more. "Miss, you led me to this place. I doubt you need only this. What do you want?"

He realizes a few seconds later, as the flowers turn and form a circle, that calling a goddess 'Miss' is probably not the right title. She doesn't want to be reminded of her husband, so calling her 'Madam' probably would have gotten him roasted or something, but still. There's nothing about the proper etiquette to use when mad gods stand in front of you. Most humans probably snivel and shrivel, but the wiggling flowers are not exactly that threatening –as long as Issei doesn't think about the fact that she almost led him to his death and her flowers are probably poisonous.

Damnit. Now he is thinking about it. Issei scouts farther away.

The corollas turn in sync and every damn leaves and flowers seem to be starring into his soul.

"What is the price of your help, human?"

Issei blinks.

He stares at the flowers. A goddess stuck in a pot of ashes, talking through small flowers, estranged with her husband, is asking for his help.

[If you dare offer it for free, I will make sure you choke on those flowers.]

Hello. It's been a while. Some of you thought I had disappeared, but no! I am back with more and we are getting to the fun parts of the story. ;)

I know. You thought you would finally know what transpired in the missing chapter beyond the wall thanks to mommy and grandma's asking questions. How did Issei find the Glorygolds? How did he survive? What happened?

And you got none of this. They know, you don't. You will get the truth of it soon, don't worry.

And finally, things don't go Issei's way. He couldn't tell pretty lies to his family about his dangerous and gory trip to the Underworld. He had to bare his soul. He had to be truthful. Truth can be useful too. A lot of things are about learning in this arc.

Also, one detail; don't you find weird he immediately saw his grandmother's wedding band in the dim light. You would need a very good eyesight to see something like that immediately, no?

Shoutout to Rosso Angelo for being an awesome beta reader and wholesome human in general. Check out his story (White Void)! Very well written and action packed!

15/12/2019