"My Master ordered me to protect you." A lie, Master had ordered her to drive the blade into his chest and then escape. "Everyone wants to kill you now, and they're too powerful, soon I wont…" She hadn't finished the truth, distracted when she'd turned and found him sleeping besides her. A sheen of perspiration covered his features, tightly drawn in pain he couldn't escape even in sleep, unable to rest, suffering because of what she'd…
Despite it all, he'd still trusted her to tend to the wounds she'd caused him, with medicine he'd brought for her, for no other reason that he was concerned for her well being. Despite it all, here he lay, deeply asleep besides the one who'd used his good heart against him. The trusting idiot, as if she weren't an enemy more dangerous than the thousands of assassins closing in on him.
'So talk to me, to distract me from the pain?' All he'd asked of her.
Whatever he'd been when Master had know him, it couldn't have been any clearer that the man he was now didn't belong in Xuanwu. He belonged on the island he'd been willing to give anything to protect, was giving so much just to remember. In the sun near the sparkling seas and bright colors, among people who adored him for the very traits that had let her hurt him.
He deserved to make it home.
"I know someone who can help you," She told him regardless of, or perhaps because he couldn't hear her, "but I really don't want to ask him."
Later, she'd come to regret the words of that last conversation, the lie she told - that she didn't care about him - the truth she'd admitted to - she was too weak to protect him. She'd regret the fruit of her pride, her hesitance in bringing him to someone who could.
Later, she'd wonder how much of that he might have actually heard. If things might have been different had she not lied, had she not told the truth.
Later, but now, at the very moment when she should have been the most vigilant, she'd let herself fall asleep.
She woke with tears in her eyes and the feel of her mother's grave dirt under her fingernails.
When the bright thrum of his insanely powerful qi suddenly vanished, she should have known. She did know. Turbulent and violent as it was after the dark ice had begun it's work, it would have been impossible to miss. Still she'd hoped, had let hope delude her into thinking it wasn't true.
He'd escaped her in the night, she'd admitted her weakness, that she couldn't protect him, her betrayal, that all the suffering he was being forced to endure was her fault, and so he'd made the right choice for once and gotten to safety. On his way back to his island, where he'd recover and… and…
And even if it had been an impossibility from the start, it was that hope that made what she saw next the second most painful thing she'd experienced in her life.
His blood should have been redder… How strange, for that to be the first thought to run through her frozen mind. He'd been so loud, so vibrant, his blood, the proof of that life, why shouldn't it have been just as vivid? The hilt of the Thousand Demon Dagger lay discarded in his lap, it's glittering pieces scattered about his form like confetti. If she were to check, she knew she'd find more of those pieces packing up the wound at the center of the dull, rusted bloom staining his white hoody. The rain that drowned out any sound but the rushing of her own arteries in her ears diluting the color as it washed the precious liquid from his body in rivulets to feed the earth beneath them.
"S, Seven?" She dared to reach for him with the very hand that had caused this, dared, in her toxic denial to wedge in that sliver of hope, the chill of his body beneath her touch was such that it seemed to spear her lungs with ice, she didn't need to wait for the absence of his heartbeat to have the horror confirmed . "You idiot, you can't be…"
A strike of lightning illuminated the scene again, later, she'd be both grateful and not for her blurry vision in this moment, preventing the finer details of the scene from being burned into her mind. What she did see, was the glint of the pair of scissors - the very one she'd had commissioned for him, he noted absently - stabbed into the tree he'd taken his final rest besides, pinned beneath them a neatly folded square of paper. With shaking hands, she pried them from the bark, catching the paper before it could touch the soaked ground. It was the packaging of the food he'd tried to share with her at Eagle Plaza, her name scrawled over it's front in large, bold characters.
Thirteen had seen more than enough death in her life to know what she was looking at, it had been so long since since it had felt this wrong.
Seven spent his days in the warmth of the sun, he shouldn't have been so pale, so cold. His features, drawn tight when last she saw him, shouldn't have gone slack, not when they'd always before had some stupid expression splashed over them. He should haven been so quiet, he shouldn't have been so still, she should have been able to feel his qi. His blood should have been more red, why wasn't he more red! "How dare you!"
Thirteen fell to the ground, clutching the crumpled note to her chest in both hands as her knees sunk into the blood and the mud surrounding him, the sound that clawed it's way out of Thirteen's throat such that a passerby might have thought she were dying too, was she dying? Was this what he had felt when… No, dying might have hurt less, her heart painfully slammed against her ribcage like a prisoner trying to shatter the bars of it's cage, her breath stuttered, the air refusing to reach her lungs as her eyes burned like the coals of the fire she should have been awake to keep going, her tears doing nothing to calm them, instead burning their own trails down her cheeks.
"My what have you gotten into now, my love."
Thirteen didn't sense the presence at all, even now it was close enough that Thirteen could feel the owner's breath against her neck. Ominous as rumbling of the thunder overhead, sickeningly sweet, the only thing that kept those words from igniting Thirteen's fight or flight response was her unwillingness to leave Seven's side. The voice continued, it's tone growing tighter, encouraged maybe, by Thirteens instinctual tensing, then the hand reached over her shoulder, it's slender fingers brushing against the tie keeping his hair up.
"Don't you touch him." Thirteen's voice raised barely above a whisper as, sluggishly, like she was moving against the flow of a torrential river, she grabbed the offenders wrist, shoving it's owner back.
A chuckle sounded out, high and eerie. "He did this to protect you, how sweet of him." It practically purred at Thirteen's ear, daring to reach for Seven yet again.
In retaliation, Thirteen drew her daggers, slicing through the air where the woman had been a second ago. Worn out and stiff from her position kneeling in the rain for what might have been hours, that was as far as she got.
"Blue Phoenix's student." A scoff, and in the next instant, Thirteen's throat was in a bruising grip, pressed into the tree so that she could hardly breath, her nails clawed at the rope binding her in place, but it might as well have been made of stone.
"What a waste." In contrast with the swift brutality of her actions, the expression on the face of the woman who gazed now at Thirteen was calm, the only emotion in her voice disappointment. "I always liked him, but he treated other woman so much better." Her crimson eyes narrowed as she caressed Seven's pale cheek, her thumb cracking the line of dried blood that trailed from his blue lips. "It makes me sad."
Thirteen knew this woman, Spiderlily, a Shadowkiller. For all she might have spoken about 'liking' Seven, there was little doubt that her intentions for him were twisted, far removed from what any normal person would consider caring. Behind her, in his hands the end of the whip squeezing at Thirteen's throat, stood Blackbird, another of Xuanwu's most deadly assassins. With both of them here, Thirteen, she really wouldn't have stood a chance would she?
Her path open, Spiderlily knelt in Thirteen's place besides Seven, again she reached for him, and again despite their differences in power, Thirteen's inexplicable desperation to keep the woman from laying a finger on him had fighting to put a stop to it, to protect him even now it was too late. Her inability to do so felt like a failure on her part, a betrayal of the little trust he had given her the night before. Thirteen tried to scream, to demand the woman leave him be. It made no difference.
For all her work, all the hardship she had put herself through, Thirteen might as well have been the child had been able to do nothing but struggle helplessly while the one she wanted to protect most in the world lay dead on the ground. This time, there wasn't even anyone she could blame.
Spiderlily was talking still, exchanging words with Blackbird that might have been important, but Thirteen couldn't hear it, her ears deafened by the sound of her own violent pulse as her dark spots encroached on her vision.
Ha, maybe, she thought, she would die after all.
She didn't.
Between one moment and the next, time itself seemed to stop, the rain, the Shadowkillers even the strained choking breaths Thirteen was hoping to pull into her lungs
'No, this… isn't what I wanted...' The voice cut clearly through any other sound that might have competed for Thirteens attention, the rest of the forest falling silent before it. Soft, sorrowful and filled with regret a match for her own. It came from no discernable direction, but an impression of white in the back of her mind. For all it's nebulous origins by all rights should have made it ominous, and in stark contrast to Spiderlilys presence, this one was almost warm, pleasant even.
This wasn't supposed to happen...'
Superimposed over the black of Thirteen's eyelids, a figure materialized, wispy, as though held together by thought alone, it turned it's gaze on Thirteen. 'You wanted to protect him too, didn't you...'
It wasn't a question, and so required no response.
'Maybe…' A touch, featherlight against Thirteen's chest. 'The dead can't save the dead, but the living…' The touch went further passed through skin and bone as if they were but a shallow pool of water, it punched every remaining morsel of air from her lungs as it penetrated her heart. 'You there's a price… but I can give you back some time…'
Burning fingers closed around something deep within Thirteen, something essential, something, it seemed, should have never been touched, no matter how gentle the offender. Still, Thirteen refused to give into the pain, she latched on to the voice, to the offer that couldn't possibly be what it sounded like. Hope, brilliant and horrible as nothing else in this world gripped at her tighter and more painful than even the phantom hand in her soul.
'Will you pay the price to try again…'
"Yes." Thirteen spoke the word without hesitation, with no thought as to what that price might be, it didn't matter. In that one, stalled moment if it meant a even the unlikeliest of chance to bring Seven home, to see that bright red on his whitened cheeks and hear his singing, nothing else mattered.
'Thank you…' The voice whispered and the gentle touch became a strangle hold, it tugged, ripping and tearing at Thirteen's being. The pain was indescribable, so overwhelming it went past the physical, it broke her apart piece by brutal piece, then shattered each of those pieces into a million more that were flung around to break against each other; a flurry of sharp edges cutting away at everything they so much as brushed against.
Then all at once, it's sudden absence paradoxically as horrible as it's onset, the pain was gone, and Thirteen was gasping for air alone on a hard, rough surface, that scraped at her hands, one of which still clutched Seven's last note to her.
It took her some time to adjust, time in which her other senses slowly crept back to her. She felt the late afternoon sun gently falling down on her tense form, heard heard shouting off in the distance. So different from where she had come from. Thirteen groaned and rolled over, pushing herself to her knees.
How much time had passed? It had felt like an instant, and yet… Thirteen pried her eyelids apart, wincing at the bright sting that came with the light passing them, she raised a hand to shield them as she peered up at the clear, ruddy skies. No trees, no rain, no… Where was Seven?
With a curse Thirteen leapt to her feet, daggers at the ready, she cast her eyes about, but there were no enemies to aim them at. She was on a rooftop, the scenery around her… She was back on Chicken Island.
But she'd been promised… "Seven?" She called, leaping from one rooftop to next, looking desperately for any sign of him, she slipped the note into her pocket.
It didn't take long for her to zero in on where the shouting she'd noticed earlier was coming from, a mob charging down the street a block away, hot on the heels of… He was alive, running down the street, his cheeks flushed with exertion, an a goofy expression on his face even as he was chased by dozens of enemies. "That idiot!"
In trouble already just as soon as he was brought back. Thirteen made quick work of the distance between them and, just as they turned a corner, she put herself between Seven and the mob.
"Plumb Blossom Defense." She called out, the shield breaking their ranks, she didn't waste time seeing if they were going to recover, instead grabbing Seven by his Hoody, clean and white, no trace of that horrible stain marring the fabric. She had her whistle to her lips, and her mount carrying them off to safety in record time.
She touched down, lowering him to the ground carefully in denser part of this Islands forest, plenty of cover that the open residential areas of this didn't provide.
As soon as they were stable with no danger nearby, she pulled off her mask and rounded on him, grabbing him by the front of his hoody and pulling him close - not so she could feel his warmth, his heartbeat, the wisp of his breath, or see his shoulders rise and fall with each inhale and exhale he took.
"What were you thinking?" She demanded, moving her hands to his shoulders, just to feel more of him. "You're not allowed to die, I don't care who you think you're protecting, do you understand me?"
"Uuuuh…" He droned on his eyes locked to hers, his face gone the deep red she'd wished so fervently to see what felt like only minutes ago. "D, die?" He tilted his head quizzically, his eyes narrowing to a squint as his brows furrowed deep in thought. "I just cut that couples hair, were they really gonna kill me?" His hands gripped at his own neck as he grimaced. "I know it's there special day, but talk about an overreaction, and who are you?" What? Before she could even think of an answer, he threw up his hands. "Wait, wait, lemme guess, you got a look at my mad skills and now you wanna hire me right?" He grinned. "A babe like you, I could give a serious discount, just gotta check in with Dai B…"
"Seven." Thirteen cut him off, an odd sensation pooling in the pit of her stomach, "You idiot, don't you dare pretend you don't know what I'm talking about!"
"Huh?" If anything he only seemed more confused, "What are you talking about?" Here he jabbed an accusing finger at her. "And how do you know my name?"
Because he'd told it to her, while proudly proclaiming his rank of seventeen thousand three hundred sixty-nine, right before asking her out, yet now he was looking at her like he's never seen her before in his life. But… slipping a hand into her pocket, Thirteen felt the crumpled edges on the note, still tucked safely inside.
While Thirteen struggled to find a response, Seven's seem to come to his own conclusion, his eyes lighting up when he asked, a hint of reverence in his tone, "Do you… know me?" Thirteen's voice caught in her throat, even as his excitement grew. "I don't remember my past, but I have this token, see…" He pulled the aforementioned token from his hoody pocket, holding it up for her inspection. "I don't know what it means, but it's the only link I have to whoever I was before, unless you know, and you can tell me."
"I…." Thirteen released him from her hold, her eyes darting between the token and Seven's expectant features. She thought of where she was, where she'd first found herself when she'd come to, the time of day, the lack of recognition from Seven, who'd never before now hesitated to try and get closer to her. Even that mob from before, months ago she'd been appreciative of it, a distraction to make her sneak attack on a Stanian Survey Drone easier. The day when she'd first met Seven, lying in a crater made by his own one-sided battle with the droid. "I've never met you before now," she said, as much to him as to herself.
"Oh," his posture slumped, her reply casting out the hope he'd drawn in. "Then, why did you swoop in an save me there?"
"Because," Thirteen felt again for his note, she thought back to their conversation as she ran her finger's along it's edges and latched onto one of the path's he'd offered her, "I want to hire you."
'I can give you back some time…' The voice had promised. Thirteen wouldn't have guessed that this was what it had meant. Literal time time enough that everything she'd put him through hadn't even happened.
No, Thirteen's hand closed around the note, it had happened, if only to her, and then there was the price. Whatever this time was going to cost her, down the line, it would have to be immense to match this chance she'd been given. It would be worth it, she swore, watching as seven rambled on, excitable, and free from pain and alive, whatever this cost, she would pay it gleefully.
Soon, much too soon, she'd come to reevaluate the optimism of that oath; when for the second time, she found herself standing over Seven's corpse.