If she looks them in the eye and shows the broken things inside, will they run away?
Karma's bitter. Also, remember what I said about her developing a bad habit of jumping to conclusions?
(On a somewhat related note, Sh*t and Fan are getting to know each other real well, huh.)
Side note, I meant to post this chapter sooner XD School got in the way T.T I never have time to edit when I want time, and I always have time when I don't feel like editing XD
And wow, I just realized I've been working on this for over a year now! :D I posted the first chapter of Retribution in April 2020, but I've had this idea of Karma and I've been working on it since last January (I think even before that, actually, when this whole fic was just a few bullet points in my notebook that I jotted down when I probably should've been paying attention in class :P), so this is super cool :)
(On the other hand, holy crap it's already been that long where does the time go O.o)
if I looked you in the eye and showed the broken things inside, would you run away? - Lonely (Nathan Wagner)
o0o0o
"Looks like everyone's getting into gear for Christmas, huh?" Karma points out cheerfully, looking around at all the decorations.
She knew something was up when Megu invited her out for tea and coffee out of nowhere, because they haven't really talked in what can be considered a while for them. Still, she had a feeling it might be suspicious if she declined, and she would rather have Megu acting suspicious where Karma can see her.
The question what is wrong with me just keeps playing on a loop constantly in the back of her head these days. She's learned to drown it out.
"Your best friend doesn't think you love her anymore."
It's fine. It's...fine. Clover was probably bending the truth anyways, right?
Megu just 'hmm's in response, deep in thought, and Karma drags her back before she can walk into traffic.
"Jeez, now who's the airheaded one?" she remarks dryly, and gestures with one hand at Megu's beanie. "Is that hat making your hearing as bad as your eyeballs?" She never wears a hat for that reason. Even though it realistically doesn't impact her hearing much, she always feels like it does, and it makes her uneasy. It's a similar reason to why she hates scarves; no matter how she tries to ignore it, she can never stop thinking about how they feel like hands lightly wrapped around her neck.
What's wrong with me what's wrong with me what's-
Megu half-heartedly swats her hand away and readjusts her glasses. "Let's just hurry up. It's cold out," she says with none of her usual bite.
Karma has a feeling she's not going to enjoy whatever today is going to be like.
They get their drinks at their favorite shop and sit down. Karma keeps scanning the streets repeatedly; it's more out of habit now than anything. The paranoia is even more exhausting than it was before, now that she doesn't even know what she's looking for anymore, but she doesn't think she'll ever be able to stop.
If this is what the rest of her life is going to be like, she doesn't even want to think about it.
Megu, who usually can't wait for a chance to rant or gossip, gives one sentence responses each time Karma tries to make small talk about her classes or her roommate's love pentagon or whatever it is. The silence stretches out between them uncomfortably, and Karma stifles a sigh; her coffee is starting to get lukewarm. At this point in her 'therapy', she'd be getting impatient, but still more than willing to let the silence drag on. Doing this with Megu is just weird, though.
"What?" she finally asks bluntly, making the other girl jump. "You have something to confront me on, so just get on with it, will you?" Probably not the best start, but, well, the ball's rolling now.
Megu hasn't even touched her tea. "I-I'm not going to confront you."
"Confront, interrogate, whatever. I'm here, aren't I?" she asks, tipping her head back to drain the last of her coffee.
The other girl huffs quietly and adjusts her glasses; she's annoyed, and it shows.
"Look," she says, clearly forcing a conciliatory tone, which is honestly more irritating than if she was simply open, "I get that you're under a lot of stress-"
"Who told you that?" Karma asks sardonically. "'Cause I know you didn't figure it out yourself. Spit it out, Megu."
"Fine," she bites out, clearly making an effort to restrain herself. "Your parents told me what happened last night."
Realization dawns on her, and she rolls her eyes in a long-suffering manner, irritated that her coffee is all gone now. "And they think I'm still traumatized from it even though I've told them I'm fine, so they want you to try and make me 'better'?"
It shouldn't be a surprise at this point, that they trust Megu enough to go behind Karma's back and give her this information, but they don't trust their own daughter enough to just leave well enough alone when she says so.
I see how it is.
Megu opens her mouth indignantly to deny it, then hesitates. "Th-that's not-"
Karma raises her eyebrows, unsurprised. "Yeah, I thought so. Never mind the fact that me and the police told them not to go spreading it around…"
"You're acting too normal about this!" Megu protests, as if she knows anything about 'properly' reacting to threats upon one's life.
"I'm sorry, would you like me to burst into tears hysterically every half hour or so?" Karma asks sarcastically, feeling a vaguely amused smirk tug at her lips. "Or would a different schedule work better for you?" Out of necessity, she's not a terrible actress, but even she can't cry on command.
It would probably make them feel better if they thought they could 'comfort her' or something, but she's far past caring about how they feel about this whole situation when they didn't care for weeks. It was always her problem, not theirs, so why not leave it at that? They didn't want a problem, so they refused to see one, and now that she's taken care of it herself, suddenly they want to help?
The small rational part of her that's left begs her to just stop and think, but she drowns the voice out; it doesn't feel right but it feels better, having someone other than herself to blame.
"What—no, I just-" Megu huffs in frustration, looking away. "Someone tried to kill you! You're not taking this seriously enough."
Karma almost wants to laugh. As if Megu has any right to tell her how to feel.
"I've taken it more seriously than you have," she retorts levelly. "And don't tell me that you would've believed me for a second if I tried to tell you."
"You could've told me what you were doing when you ran off that night. I could've helped-"
"You've never seen a fight in your life."
"I-I could've called the police."
It's getting harder and harder to keep the irritation out of her voice and expression. "They already did that. Tried to frame me and everything. Look, I'm just fine, so just drop it, will you?"
Megu has always liked to stick her nose into everything; it was usually useful and amusing because she could never keep her mouth shut about the most interesting new gossip going around their high school. Now it's just annoying, and costs more energy to deal with than Karma cares to expend.
"We're worried about you," Megu says plaintively, and past the irritation starting to match Karma's, she sees, of all things, pity.
It makes her furious.
And deep inside, past the anger, some part of her laughs, because yeah, at this point, maybe she is someone to be looked down upon, especially after what she did to Clover, and from within the bottomless pit she's fallen so far into, she'll be the first to admit it. But right now, none of it matters, because what gives Megu the right-
"It's not your place to worry about me," she says, not caring how cold it sounds anymore. "There's nothing you can do-"
"So there is something-"
"It's none of your business," she continues sharply, and her voice unconsciously pitches into the dangerous tone she used in Aincrad to get what she wanted, making Megu flinch; at this point, if it makes her leave Karma alone, she'll take it.
Megu opens and closes her mouth several times; her voice is weak as she puts up a flimsy argument.
"I'm your best friend," she mumbles at her drink. "We told each other everything."
"Yeah, well, that was two years ago."
"I-I tell you everything," she protests, sounding betrayed, and Karma snorts quietly. What does Megu know about being stabbed in the back?
"Right," she says flatly, "because I definitely wanted to know all about your roommate's love pentagon or whatever. I'm not obliged to give you every detail on my life, especially when I never asked that of you."
Megu shrinks further into her coat. "You know you can still tell me anything-"
"I don't want to," she says, short and curt. "You're pushing me because you think it's the right thing to do, but you're not doing anyone a favor except yourself."
Her eyes flash indignantly. "I-I'm not—why would you say—we're just trying to help!"
"It's not your business," she repeats deliberately, wishing Megu, who can soak up new information like a sponge on her first time hearing it and memorize hundreds of digits of pi, who is the most book smart person Karma knows, would just listen, wishing Megu, who's used to being right about everything, would just accept that she can in fact be dead wrong for once in her life. "And it's not theirs either."
"They're your parents…"
They're not him; no one ever will be him.
And if they won't trust her, then they have no right to be surprised when she acts in kind.
Ignoring Megu, she forces a conversational tone. "I'm glad it happened, actually. She's been threatening me for weeks. Now it's over, and I walked away with this-" She waves her hand in a brace. "-and hardly anything else, and they're in jail. Happy endings all around. Well, except for them, but they deserved it."
Whether or not Clover deserved everything she got is irrelevant. It does not matter.
I don't care. I don't care.
Megu gapes at her. "Weeks?"
"Oh, my parents didn't tell you about that?" she snaps, not caring how cutting her tone is. "Funny, considering they told you about literally everything else they were told not to. Guess they didn't want to look worse than they already do, but as they say, truth will out."
Her voice cracks briefly on the last word, but Megu doesn't seem to notice.
"What are you-"
"Did you think Kotori just snapped out of nowhere?" she asks sarcastically. "It doesn't work like it does in bad thriller movies, you know. Aren't you taking some sort of basic psych class? People don't just go insane and try and kill someone for no reason. Most murder victims are people that the killer knew personally in some way, actually."
"But—she—I've talked to her-"
"I know." She rolls her eyes with a little curl of her lip. "She told me about it every chance she got. At first, I thought she was just lying to get under my skin, but no. None of you ever even stopped to think once about it, let alone twice—she played you all like fools, and you wonder why I didn't tell you." Come to think of it, her parents' attempts to 'fix' things, to fix her, are probably just them trying to make up for their blatant blindness.
I know I'm broken, she wants to scream. But he always let her choose to let him close to help her, embracing her and the blood on her hands, and she's sick and tired of people trying to force their way in when they'll only abandon her at the first sight of red.
"But—but that's crazy," Megu splutters, hands waving a little as if she can pull the answers from the air—not that she has to; Karma is telling her all the answers, and she just won't believe them.
"And the idea that someone locked ten thousand people inside a video game for two years and killed four thousand of them is also crazy, but it still happened," Karma agrees flatly, but all she's been thinking about is how crazy that all along it was him-
"Why didn't you say anything?" she asks, looking so pitifully wounded.
Karma struggles to keep a sneer from twisting her face. "As if you would've believed me." She stands up. "I'm getting more coffee. I think I'll need it."
She returns with a steaming cup, and Megu immediately jumps right back in.
"But why would she want to k-kill you? Did something happen in SAO? You—you met each other in SAO, didn't you?"
At least Karma doesn't have to explain every little thing. "Yeah. She and Haruhi were both part of a player-killer guild."
"But—y-you said you never saw each other, and she never mentioned-"
Karma lets out an explosive sigh. "Leave it to you to focus on the fact that I lied to you rather than how they murdered innocent people," she mutters, and Megu swallows visibly, her gaze drifting away as she shifts guiltily.
"W-well, I was just...So—you were one of the players she attacked?" she finally asks, wringing her hands together uncomfortably. "Was—was that how he died?"
With a colossal effort, Karma restrains herself from dumping her coffee over herself or over Megu (if only for the fact that it would be a waste of good coffee). Is it really that hard to believe that she was anything but a victim in SAO?
"How about we go somewhere else?" she suggests. "In case you lose it and start yelling." Or in case Karma herself loses it, which is a very real possibility at the rate this is going.
When they reach a public park, full of kids screaming and throwing snowballs in the background, Karma finally resumes talking. It's the same park that they went to after visiting her ex's grave, which, in hindsight, probably doesn't bode well.
"I wasn't one of the players she attacked," she says evenly. "And it was months after he was killed. I was the one that sent them all to jail."
At least Megu doesn't laugh.
"Wait...S-so...you were…"
"A fighter? Yeah, I was," she agrees, keeping a flat, steady tone. "Front lines, highest levelled player in the game."
"And," Megu manages, her expression slack and gormless, "that's why she wanted to kill you? Because you put her and her friends in jail?"
Well… "Pretty much."
Megu blinks. "...Oh," she says faintly, clutching the ends of her scarf.
And suddenly, Karma is seized with an indescribable urge to look her in the eye, and just tell the ugly, bloody truth for once.
Let's see what'll happen, she thinks distantly to herself, opening her mouth. Let's see if she still accepts me.
Karma can't bring herself to care anymore about the consequences.
"I just...wanted to feel something again."
Is this how he felt like, once upon a time? Completely and totally unable to give a damn about the world that didn't want him?
She thinks she's finally starting to understand, a little at a time.
"Actually, I killed her friend in the fight and threatened some of the other girls from the studio, so that probably has something to do with it," she adds, casually dropping that bomb.
If this was anything else, she would've burst out laughing at the way Megu's eyes go so wide. But she doesn't tend to laugh about murder, and she doesn't think she has really laughed since she left Aincrad (if she has, she can't remember what it feels like), so she stays silent, and waits for judgement.
"Y-you...you…" Megu stutters helplessly. "Y-you're joking, right?"
The truth doesn't feel as liberating as she thought it might, and Karma sighs. God, she's so tired. "I really wish I was."
"B-but...I-I don't get it…"
"Come on, I thought you were the smart one between the two of us. What part of that do you not get?" she asks, plain and simple, and Megu throws her hands up in the air with a little high-pitched noise.
"I don't know! None of it! All of it!" She buries her face in her hands briefly before tearing them away with a groan. "You—I never—I-I thought you were-"
"'Better?'" Karma finishes quietly for her, stepping closer with a slight tilt of her head; at this point, it hurts, but she is thoroughly unsurprised when Megu steps back, pale and frightened. Shows how much she knows—Karma would never raise a hand to her but apparently that doesn't even matter.
You don't get to judge me.
So knowing that, why does it still hurt?
This is what she hates so much about the real world, this feeling. And it's not even really the shame or the guilt or the fear or any of that, because none of that is unfamiliar. She can't remember what it feels like to not be constantly plagued by guilt—in her waking hours, in her dreams, in the forefront of her mind as she tries to struggle through the days or as a tiny background thought shadowing every step she takes. Her heart is still beating because others aren't and it's her fault, and every day she wakes up to see the sun is another reminder.
And plenty of people, more than she cares to count, have tried to get inside her head, to make her a victim of her own demons—including ones that were supposed to be on the same side as her. They've told her that she's a terrible person for what she's done, that she had no right to make the choices she's had to make—fine. They have no right to judge her, but fine; it's all more or less true anyways.
(She never thought it would come from someone she thought was, at the very least, an ally, but it's fine.)
And it didn't matter in the first place; she knew she was never proud of herself for the terrible things she did and hoped she never would be (so much for that), but it was okay; someone always was (and in hindsight, maybe that wasn't a good thing, but she didn't think to care then). Besides him, the only thing that saved her was the fact that you think I don't already know that I'm a monster?
No, what's different is the resentment, born of nothing but selfishness and for once directed outward instead of inward, and it's the kind that runs deeper than a simple clash of morals or goals. Even in Aincrad, she never truly resented anyone for her own sake, and never anyone that she didn't know personally—she couldn't, because she didn't know them.
Malice is an ugly feeling, one that she unfortunately knows. It should be a blaring alarm to her, and she should know better by now than to let her heart lead instead of her head, but she suspects it's too late and has been for a while now.
"I did what I had to do to survive," she states, meeting Megu's stricken gaze squarely. "To keep other people I cared about safe. I know it comes as a surprise to you that I was not in fact helpless and weak, but I thrived, and you just have to accept that-"
"Don't you feel guilty for it?" Megu demands indignantly, and that is like fireworks right in Karma's face; the sheer audacity of that question stuns her so much that she can't even respond before Megu is talking again, her voice growing and growing in volume.
"I just—you talk about things like they don't even bother you! Him dying, you threatening and killing people, why would you—how can you think this is okay?!"
Blood roaring in her ears, Karma opens her mouth to say that no, it's not okay! She is not okay, and she hasn't been ever since she lost the person that mattered most to her, was everything to her, and with him, almost all of herself.
She wants to say that yes, she feels so guilty for all of the blood on her hands. That she can't even sleep anymore because the nightmares got so bad, that it does bother her; the fact that she's alive because they're not bothers her, it bothers her every second of every minute of every hour of every day-
And then she realizes that it doesn't even matter.
No one is going to listen when she talks. They will always condemn her without even bothering to learn a thing as soon as they see the red on her hands.
So she's going to go somewhere where someone will listen.
And she's going to stay there.
Her voice is perfectly still and flat, devoid of emotion, as she puts on that blank mask again and says, "There is no such thing as black and white," before she turns on her heel and walks away.
o0o0o
As her bedroom door gently clicks shut behind her, Karma wants to scream, to hit something, to hurt something, anything-
But she's so tired.
Sinking bonelessly to the floor with her back to the wall, she fumbles to pull out her phone.
No new missed messages. It feels hard to breathe; the air weighs heavy in her lungs like poison.
Suddenly, her phone buzzes in her hand; the caller ID reads Uzala. Her thumb hovers over the 'accept call' as she trembles; every beat of her heart aches to hear the voice of someone familiar, someone safe-
"Don't you feel guilty for it?"
With a flick of her wrist, the phone whizzes across the wooden floor like a hockey puck; it flies under the bed, striking the wall with a muffled, disjointed crack and falling silent. She trusted him with her secrets and he used them as a knife to put in her back; she tried to trust Megu with them twice and both times, she rejected them without a second thought.
They've always told her she was a good person, but they don't know what she willfully did to Clover. They'll ask what's wrong, so concerned for her well-being, and she wouldn't be able to bear keeping it a secret; she can't—won't risk it again. She's made the same mistake too many times already.
Karma misses hearing her voice of reason, but the paranoia has burrowed deep like a parasite, drowning the voice out with its own, ever since she left the virtual world; she can't hear anything but the paranoia anymore.
"Make it stop," she begs, but what's the point? No one's ever going to get close enough to try, and he's the only one who could ever get inside her head; there's no one else who can make it stop except the person it all started with.
The room is growing darker. She still can't breathe, but she doesn't mind. This world is killing her more than the other one ever did, simply for the fact that she cannot find the desire to live here. Why did he think she could live here?
"I thought things were supposed to be better," she snarls in anguish. "Everyone says things are better, r-right?"
But then, why did she think she could trust them when she couldn't trust him?
Her hand drifts to her sternum by habit, clutching at the tiny piece of metal that should be there-
Except it isn't, and she pulls hard at one of her braids instead, squeezing her eyes shut, breathing hard. Trembling, she stumbles to her desk, reaching for her chair and nearly falling when it rolls away from her, and she clutches at the edge of the desk; the floor tilts under her feet as she realizes the harsh, ragged noise she's hearing is her own breathing; her lungs that never needed oxygen in the virtual world are rebelling.
Her shaking hands encounter the hardback copy of Wuthering Heights on her desk, and she drags it close as she falls to her knees, holding the book to her chest like a toddler would a teddy bear after waking up from a bad dream.
Because that's all this is now. Just a bad dream. She'll wake up from it soon.
She has to wake up from it soon.
This isn't living.
"Heathcliff," she sobs. Her back hits the side of her bed.
Why did I think I could do this without you?
The things she thought he could never take from her—her friends, her family, her morality—he didn't take them, but somehow, they've slipped away from her out of her reach anyways. From the moment he left her behind, everything that made her strong became another knife to cut her down instead—Asuna is a world away and her absence bleeds, she doesn't think she can bear to look any of the KoB in the eye, Megu is disgusted by her and her parents would be too if they knew. Just like how every rumor grows from fact, there's a grain of truth in their ignorant judgement, and she wishes the part of her that still cares would just die already.
At least in Aincrad, she was a monster but she could use that to defend her family, but here, there's no one to protect and no one who would want her protection if they knew the truth. She wouldn't even trust herself with anyone she cares about anymore, now that she's seen for herself the kind of depths she's capable of sinking to.
Is this what she becomes without him? A mess, doomed to fail as her strengths become useless burdens, or worse, crippling weaknesses? Would it have been better, if she had nothing before, so that she would have had nothing to lose, nothing that could turn against her like he did?
But then she would've just been like him instead, so unalive that nothing could touch him, not pain nor love; she doesn't want to live like that either.
"I don't know what to do," she pleads.
Asuna would know what to do, wouldn't she? She was always the smarter one, the one with clearer vision and an even clearer conscience. When Karma's battle-worn cynicism and his cool logic, tarnished copper and rusted steel, couldn't protect her, it was Asuna's golden heart that found a way.
But she's so far away, in a place Karma would go to in an instant if only she had directions and a destination.
There's no end in sight, no way to know when Asuna will come back, and-
And Karma's done waiting. She's always been the hunter, the survivor, and she went out and fought for those things, and she's done waiting for something so nebulous as hope to appear, for salvation to fall into her hands; it's not going to happen here.
Grasping a fistful of the sheets, she pulls herself up onto her bed, reaching for the shelf. Without error, her hands find the pockmarked surface of the NerveGear, and her tears trace their way down the surface, seeping into the cracks and dents along the way. She pulls it close, curling her body around it in an attempt to fill the hole in her heart.
Where someone will listen…
She knows a place.
In the back of her head, she realizes she'd forgotten what hope felt like. Or perhaps what she's feeling is desperation, but right now, they might as well be one and the same. It doesn't matter anymore. It doesn't have to matter anymore.
It's so simple. It wouldn't have mattered whether or not Clover tried to murder her. It wouldn't have mattered whether or not Megu stood by her or left her. It wouldn't have mattered whether or not she had a future here, wouldn't have mattered how much she loved or hated the real world. It wouldn't have mattered whether or not she had the KoB, or how far away Asuna was.
At the end of the day, even Asuna will never be able to replace him.
Breathing out one last time, expelling the real oxygen in her lungs, she rests her forehead against that of the device.
She can do it. With two words, she'll be there.
She'll wake up from this nightmare, and she'll be alive again.
"Link start."
It's not even a question.
I'm coming home.
o0o0o
By some coincidence, Eugene bumps into her in the market. "Catherine." He tried calling her Cathy once as a joke, but she'd corrected him very vehemently, stating that they were two very different people. He had no idea what that meant and just dropped it.
She glances up from where she's inspecting a weapons merchant's stock and blinks up at him. "Hey, General." Her eyes look glassy, yet also too bright, and he finds her gaze disconcerting. It has to be a trick of the light.
He has no idea how or why, but he knows she's no ordinary player. She became a master of voluntary flight within seconds of starting the game when most people are still trying to get used to the sensation of a virtual body. She's made several trips to and from Arun, a dangerous journey to make alone for a rookie, but so far, she hasn't died a single time, according to her. People know her name.
"You're not usually logged in at this time, are you?" he asks, frowning. He'll usually see her online if he's playing late, around midnight or so, before he has to log out to sleep. It makes him wonder what her life is like, because she's said before that she also lives in Japan, so they have to be in the same time zone.
Catherine's expression is distant, as if her mind is far away, but she responds promptly, "No, I usually play in the early mornings. But I'll, ah, be online more now these days."
"...Do you not sleep?" he asks flatly.
The smile she gives him is not a reassuring one. "Oh, I do. I've been living inside of a nightmare for a long time now. Quite frankly, I'm tired of being asleep."
He's left staring at her in abject confusion while she stretches like a cat, as if waking up from a long sleep like she said.
"Anyways, I'm gonna get going," she says, turning to go with a little wave. "I think my connection is about to be cut soon, so I gotta get somewhere safe to pass out."
Over the shimmery sound effect of her wings, he asks, "Why don't you just log out?"
Every time this girl smiles, it makes him feel worse and worse.
"Because I don't want to fall back asleep."
o0o0o
She rents a room at an inn and sits down in the chair, leaning on the windowsill. Her parents said they'd be home by now, so she's expecting her internet to cut out for a little while as they move her to the hospital, like it did in the beginning of SAO.
What will they think? What will the world think? Surely they won't be able to keep this secret. Even though the government tried to keep it hushed up, every SAO player knows that she was the one who defeated the GM in the end, even if Kirito was the one who unmasked him, and most of the SAO players know she worked closely with him.
Some of them even think she's still working with him. Kikuoka seemed to. Maybe they'll think he's somehow roped her into his evil plots, like some cheesy movie plotline where the bad guy makes his big bad return in the sequel with his traitor sidekick. People will probably start freaking out again. It was bad enough that SAO happened, forcing thousands of unsuspecting gamers into a two-year-long game of death. Now someone is doing it again, but voluntarily? Oh, the horror.
Alfheim will probably be fine, though. Some people will stop playing it, definitely, but too many people already play it for whatever company running it to shut it down. There's no way for them to know that she's here, at least not right away—she threw out the disc case before logging in the first time.
If someone follows her in here, she can deal with it. She's strong in this world, after all. But if she's ever forced back into the real world...She shivers, bowing her head to rest it on the windowsill in her arms. There will be consequences, she's sure of it.
But she's made her choice. Her parents have surely discovered her state by now. There's no going back.
No regrets.
Her mind buzzes in a way that it never did in real life, categorizing everything she needs to do, sticking little flags on the map inside of her brain, calculating flight times, plus killing monsters and rest stops, and the cost and eventual benefits of various quests and jobs.
People may still not understand her in here, but there's no need for them to. That's the whole point of Catherine—in here, she can be anything. She can be powerful, and that means that people need her in here, and they can do that without having to know everything about her. In here, people know better than to ask about your real life. To Karma, it's one and the same, but still, it doesn't hurt. And knowing that people need her and value her skills...it's a nice feeling.
And in here, she can't hurt anyone the way she did before.
She had no value in the real world. A girl too old for high school and too directionless for college. A child with too much baggage and with it, the need to carry it all herself. She didn't want anyone 'helping' her, didn't want anyone knowing, and people didn't like that; people liked being 'helpful', they liked living in their own world of false assumptions.
And they didn't like it when she told them the truth, bared herself to them, because it meant they were wrong about her; it's a very human thing to refuse to admit to being wrong.
o0o0o
As her internet connection fades in and out, her consciousness does too. She catches glimpses of the window as daylight fades to night. The sunset looks just as beautiful as it did in Aincrad. The replication doesn't sit quite right with her.
She closes her eyes.
She ends up on the floor somehow. She must've fallen out of her chair. The floorboards are rough in a way that they never are in real life. It's not the smooth stone brick floors of Granzam, but it'll do. It's not the real world, at least, and that's enough.
She closes her eyes.
It's Aincrad again, she thinks faintly the next time she drifts back down. Warmth surrounds her, gently scooping her up off the floor, cradling her in familiar arms.
It doesn't even occur to her to be alarmed, and she purrs softly, melting. Her hand curls over her sternum, and she doesn't have time to think about the missing weight around her neck before she's cocooned by something soft.
She closes her eyes.
The world is gray and silver. Bright eyes, like molten steel. Long, slender fingers, brushing hair from her face with a tenderness she missed with all of what's left of her heart.
She closes her eyes.
And when she opens them, she realizes that she hasn't been awake since leaving Aincrad—not truly awake, and alive.
Until now.
Waking up to see him there is relaxing in a way that it shouldn't be. It feels normal, like if they were in the field, he was simply on the last watch and it's morning now, time to press on to the next town. God, that was so long ago that they would've done anything like that, but it doesn't feel like it's been even a day.
Karma yawns widely and stretches, slowly propping herself up into a sitting position at a leisurely pace; he's seen her in much worse states than 'barely awake'. She rubs the sleep out of her eyes and blinks at the silhouette sitting in the chair next to her bed. Her eyes trace the sharp line of his jaw, proud cheekbones, thin silver eyebrows, his hairline, his broad shoulders and slender fingers knitted together in the lap of his long red robes.
Without thinking, she scoots closer, swinging her legs over the side of the bed, and reaches out to touch his face. He's warm. And he's close, in a way that she hasn't let anyone else be. She traces her thumb under his eye, and a smile cracks through her own expression, a smile that feels more real than it has for a while. A broken little laugh that's more breath than laughter escapes.
I should hate you, she thinks to herself, with a smile on her face.
"Something funny on your mind?" he murmurs dryly, raising his eyebrows at her.
God. His voice. She thought she knew longing, but that was before she knew how much she missed hearing that voice, the same one that would tell her it would be okay, the same one that instilled such courage and resolve and strength in her, the same one that was used to take it all away.
She tips her head forward and lets her eyes slide shut, gently bumping their foreheads together affectionately, and wraps her arms around him, her hands curling into his robes between his shoulder blades where she put a knife in his back.
All of the memories they've shared, they're all back now. She didn't realize the colors were muted until they became so bright again. And that includes those memories.
"Just thinking about how I always imagined bags under your eyes when you were being a sleep-deprived idiot," she snickers, moving to snuggle her face against his shoulder.
He's close enough that she can feel him chuckle before hearing it; it tapers off into a soft hum as he shifts. His arms reach up to encircle her in return, tentatively at first, then with more confidence when he realizes she won't pull away. She can't bring herself to, even knowing that she should, that she absolutely should be pushing him as far away as she can.
"How did you know I was here?"
With a little shrug, she mumbles, "Just knew, I guess."
He sighs. "You shouldn't be here," he says with the voice of someone who knows better than to argue.
"And what are you going to do about it?" she retorts, letting out a soft snort. "I said I'd follow you anywhere."
She promised. She promised, and he forced her to break her promise-
Well, she doesn't break her word so easily. This time, he'll stay.
In response, he holds her a little tighter. "You're sure?"
He doesn't ask like he's going to try and talk her into or out of something, just asks with that same outwardly neutral tone as always, giving her one last chance to think it through as well as his unspoken support regardless of her decision.
I missed you.
All she says is, "I'm here, and so are you, right?" Her hands clutch at the back of his robes, clenching into fists. "We're staying together this time."
You're never leaving me again.
One hand gently cups the back of her head as he mumbles, "I'd like that," and a sob wells in her throat for reasons she can't quite pin down.
In the real world, they hurt her without even understanding a single thing, without even wanting to understand it. He hurt her in many ways, and he may do it again, but if she's going to get hurt regardless, she would rather it come from someone who understands her better than she understands herself; then at least the scars can mean something more than ignorance and judgement. He has never judged her, never condemned her, and she knows he never will—how can he, when he's just as much of a monster as she is?
They don't even want her in the real world; they think she's too broken as she is, and they don't like it when she doesn't want them trying to 'fix' her.
He wants her here, just as she is.
"Are you real?" she whispers, still keeping her eyes shut.
He hums, as if thinking about it. "As real as you want me to be."
"Good. You're mine," she murmurs, echoing the words that she once spat at him with all the poisonous hatred she felt. Part of her wants to feel it again, to feel the urge to scream at him and hurt him and push him away, but she hasn't the heart for it.
I've been without you all this time. Whether this lasts a day or a year, I will have this.
He laughs softly, as if she said something funny, and draws back, fingertips brushing her cheek, a low hum rumbling in his chest. "I always was, Karma."
And when he says her name, the mask finally breaks; even as he gently cups her face in his hands to catch her tears, his expression is a perfect poker face that she learned to read along time ago, but in his steel gray eyes is uncertainty.
She's not sure about much anymore either, but the one thing that she knows, even now, is that the spaces between his fingers are right where hers fit perfectly.
o0o0o
they say that life will pass me by if I don't open up my eyes; well, that's fine by me - Wake Me Up (Avicii)
and I hear voices screaming to run away, yet I see not black and white but silver and gray - The Dark (Beth Crowley)
That last little bit about 'the spaces between his fingers are right where hers fit perfectly' was also from the song 'Vanilla Twilight', just not word for word.
Remember how she fell apart in the second-to-last chapter of Retribution? Basically, it's been that again, spread over ten chapters :D
So I've been building up her and Megu's breakdown for a while :D They were childhood best friends, but that's part of the problem in itself with how different Karma is from the person Megu knew for so long. Ironically, what tore Karma and Heathcliff apart (secrets and lies) was what tore her and Megu apart too, along with the spectacular trust issues that Karma now has after Heathcliff's betrayal. And yes, Karma is being a huge hypocrite, and she probably knows it, but unfortunately, she's also way past caring. And Megu does have a much more black-white world view, which can be a good thing at times, just not then. Still, she's not the only one who jumped to conclusions, and sadly, Karma's not going to give either of them the opportunity to think things through.
As for Heathcliff, well, I had to bring him back XD His and Karma's bond was one of the focal points of Retribution. Without something or someone that can fill the void he left, Karma can't let go of that, and honestly, neither can I. Is he an illusion? Is he a hallucination? Is he real? You can decide ;)
So yeah. Just gonna...leave all that here. Wouldn't want to get in the way of Quality Bonding Time between Sh*t and Fan :)