A/N: I must confess that I know Rénee didn't get much happy time but like, things are going to go very wrong for her soon. It almost makes me want to change this chapter with something fluffier and nicer before I ruin poor Rénee's life entirely. But eh, I like how this chapter came out too much for me to change it again.
To AFC: This is where I write an actual plot, kinda, instead of just introspective prose lolol.
The day they appeared, the gears of Fate began to turn.
Inside the arching church cathedral, the townspeople sang along to the choir music that chimed clear and high. Maria Elena swayed to the tune and twirled her giggling granddaughter, passing her squirming form to Sophia, one of Teresa's friends from early childhood. Perhaps this kind of rambunctious behavior from the church attendees would be frowned upon in other places, but here in Ayamonte, everyone knew each other. They weren't strangers that would judge each other for having fun as they worshiped.
Today, despite the sorrow that they all felt for the loss of Teresa's life. The people were rejoicing a new beginning. They were celebrating the betrothal between Sofia Camila and Ernesto Guerra and cheering for Rénee's three years.
Even Inez had come out of her self-imposed exile for the occasion. She looked much frailer than Rénee remembered but at least she was smiling and not weeping like the last image Rénee had of the woman that day weeks ago.
"Abuela, mira!" ("Grandma, look!") Rénee cried and twisted the chain of the necklace Sofia had placed around her neck. The gold glistened under the sunlight streaming through the church windows and Maria Elena stepped closer to examine the glistening amulet sitting just below her collarbones. "No es bonito?" ("Isn't it pretty?")
Maria Elena blinked and looked at Sofia with surprised eyes. "No sabia que todavia tenias esto," ("I didn't know you still had this,") she murmured as she ran careful fingers along the crystal, "Pense que Teresa se lo dio a su hermana la ultima vez que la miro." ("I thought Teresa gave it to her sister the last time she saw her.")
" Se le olvidó llevarselo a Catalina. Lo encontre en un rincón del cuarto donde se quedó en aquel tiempo." ("Catalina forgot to take it. I found it in a corner of the room she stayed in back then.") Sofia smiled but her eyes were sad. "Se lo iba a dar cuando llegara otra vez pero…" ("I was going to give it to her when she came back again but…")
Rénee followed the conversation in confusion. She was sure that her grandmother had read her a letter from her aunt, Catalina, not so long ago. Rénee knew that Catalina lived in Portugal with her husband Tomas but beyond that, she only had stories and pictures to get to know her aunt with. Her aunt had never visited in the time that Rénee had been alive.
She couldn't help but wonder why that was.
"Rénee," her grandmother called and brought the girl's attention back to the celebration in the church. "Cuida esto, okay? A estado en la familia por mucho tiempo." ("Take care of this, okay? It's been in the family for a long time.")
"No dejare al algo le pase," She promised. ("I won't let anything happen to it.")
Rénee curled small fingers around the necklace.
It felt odd in her grasp, almost as if it throbbed in time with her heartbeat.
Rénee should have known that such happiness would not last. Years later, she would look back and know that it started then- when the Finders of the Black Order first found their way to the small town of Ayamonte, Spain.
June 6th, 1872.
Her third birthday.
The beginning of the end.
The sun was setting; only a few people remained inside the church, either to help clean up or to make arrangements for the upcoming wedding.
It was then that they slipped into the church like wraiths cloaked in white. Strapped to their backs were clunky machines, clanging with every step and glinting under the gas lights lined along the church wall.
Rénee recognized them the moment they came into her line of sight. Nausea surged. The ground dropped out from beneath her feet. Her clockwork heart stuttered in its beating. They looked nothing like she imagined they would. A part of her thought that they would appear in front of her with the same cloud of dark cloying terror she felt when they crossed her mind.
The villagers that still hung around gawked shamelessly at the two strangers making their way to Father Antonio. Rénee had curled a hand around the necklace at her throat and was in the middle of trying to remember how to breathe when they spoke.
"Los Buscadores de La Orden Negra piden refugio en su iglesia." The tallest of the two solemnly said and respectfully bowed his head at the openly gaping priest. ("The Finders of the Black Order seek refuge in your church.")
"La Orden Negra." Rénee mouthed soundlessly. ("The Black Order.")
Her eyes were glued to the duo of men cloaked in white, whose hard eyes and stiff spines make her scamper for Maria Elena's hand with the fear of being torn away from her grandmother pressing on her bones.
Maria Elena glanced down at Rénee curiously and frowned at the expression she saw on Rénee's face. Her grandmother carefully crouched in front of her and brushed the hair away from her face. There was only genuine concern and slight fear; as if her grandmother could sense that anything that scared her- the child with eyes of death- was something to truly be wary of.
"Porque le tienes miedo a esos hombres?" ("Why are you scared of those men?") Maria Elena asked in a whisper, keeping gray eyes locked onto Rénee's own and flickering back to glance at the pale figures of the Finders talking in low voices with Father Antonio.
Words built up inside her chest until it felt like she would drown in them; explanations of what she was, of the things she wished she didn't still remember, of the war that would claim more lives than it would save- it all burned in her throat.
But Rénee choked it all down.
"Se miran como fantasmas," ("They look like ghosts,") she whimpered and buried her face into Maria Elena's shirt. The lie tasted bitter as it slipped from her tongue.
Rénee felt the tension drain from her grandmother almost immediately.
"Tu abuelita no dejara que los fantasmas se te acerquen." The woman told her with an relieved twinkle in her grey eyes. ("Your grandma won't let the ghosts get close to you.")
She called a farewell to Father Antonio and to the loitering villagers and walked away with Rénee's hand in her own. Right before they pushed the church doors open, Rénee turned her head and accidentally locked eyes with the tallest Finder beside the altar.
His eyes were a pale blue and they seemed to see right through the living girl to the corpse underneath. Rénee drew a jagged breath and turned her head away, feeling those eyes bore into her back as she left the church.
That night, when darkness came and Rénee lay awake as the moon took to the sky; instead of her usual nightmares, of those memories of the first night, other images surged up in their place.
It was as if the dreams had needed a trigger in order to break down a wall she hadn't even known was in her mind- the Finders proved to be the perfect catalyst.
Yuu was born in a hole deep underground, in a place where there was no such thing as sky; and ghosts, promises, and flowers haunted him.
In the testing rooms, there were only crows without wings and pillars of Innocence wrapped around corpses. There were only the two screaming boys and then two silent bodies, and after they were glued back together by a power that went against the laws nature had set in place- they were back to being the screaming boys.
"Once more," someone ordered and on their chest- a Rose Cross gleamed a shiny silver. "A war cannot be fought without soldiers."
But the soldiers fell apart outside of rooms of forced synchronizations. Limbs dropped to the cold ground as blood dripped from reopened wounds. Childish laughter chimed in a cavernous chamber; the sleeping soldier boys and girls did not stir at the sound from their holes in the ground.
Yuu dreamed of his hand stretched out to the vast, blue sky; an "I love you," bubbling from his lips like the blood did as his ribs punctured his lungs, and of a smile like the curve of a lotus petal twining around his heart.
He woke to Alma trying to save his life.
He fell unconscious again after dragging himself from the water and collapsing in arms that smelled like blood. As he dreamt, he remembered.
"Before the petals fall…" The ghost whispered.
(He had seen the sky in another life.)
"I'll wait for you, Yuu." She said and when he opened his eyes once more, he looked at the ones that had done this to him- youliarswhatdidyoudotouswhatdidyoudo- and laughed.
He laughed and laughed then screamed and screamed; while the boy with the endless smiles- with the ghost hanging over his head- burned alive.
Alma's charred, blackened, crumbling hands reached for Innocence- the same that had cut him down again and again and again at the whim of an uncaring God- and…
Feathers of crystal bloomed, blossomed, grew, like lotuses under blue skies.
"Do you promise to find me?" Alma asked once in another lifetime as pink petals reached up towards that vast, blue sky. "I'll be waiting forever."
The sword was swung. The boy with the bright smile saw corpses. The ghost chained to his body covered her eyes and wept.
Hatred festered. Innocence was corrupted.
Birds without wings, crows without feathers, lay bloodied on the cold, hard ground. Scientist soon joined them, and then, so did the sleeping soldier boys and girls in their watery wombs. Screaming. Blood dripped like wax from tilted candles onto water slicked floors.
Red. Red. Red.
"Yuu, let's die together okay?" Alma told the boy who had come back from the dead to find (the ghost) him.
The boy cursed to see flowers fought. "I can't die here with you."
A sword, a cry, tears scalding as they fell.
"I want to live!"
Hacking. Slashing.
And so Yuu cut him up into little pieces until the pieces stopped coming back together and his best friend- his only friend- was like every other broken thing that couldn't save itself.
Vomit washed over bloody feet.
A Rose Cross was visible among the puddles of blood, peeking out like pale pink petals did as they struggled upwards towards blue skies.
He dragged his battered body outside.
Then, Yuu saw the sky for the first time.
Rénee woke up with her mouth open in a scream that had no sound. Her shoulders shook as massive sobs wracked her body and she tried to muffle the wails that tore out of her throat.
Yuu Kanda and Alma Karma were things just like her. They had died once and had woken up in another body, with them knowing there was something wrong about the fact that they existed but not learning why until it was too late.
If things had been different, would Rénee have woken up in a watery hole deep underground as well? Would she have been forced to bond with an Innocence that served a God she wasn't sure she could bring herself to love, even if it rejected her over and over again?
It was this reverberating idea, of a possibility she had not envisioned possible until she had Yuu Kanda's memories replaying in her brain, that made her stop amidst trying to ease her weeping and lurch to the bathroom to vomit.
The Black Order wasn't a monster in the sense of the world- not like the Earl with his too-wide grin, akuma pretending they were human, or the living Innocence that destroyed all the things in its path. But if Rénee looked at the things that the Order had done, had sanctioned, in the name of God, then the lines between black and white blurred much more than she liked.
The question that she was forced to ask herself whenever she contemplated the Black Order was: Did the ends justify the means?
Once in another life, she would have answered that without hesitation. Yes.
If a war is won then do the casualties truly matter? Wouldn't it be worse if they had died for nothing at all? What were a few sacrifices if there were thousands of other's lives at stake?
Now as Rénee, as she shuddered awake with a silent scream on her lips and tears dripping down her chin night after night. She wasn't sure of her answer.
She thought of the screaming of children that existed beyond pages of black and white, beyond television screens, beyond the realm of make-believe. Everything was much more real now, given a depth that she had only felt when she realized that her parents had become both the parasites and the host of monsters with metal skeletons.
She felt as if the blood had frozen in her veins despite the hot tears burning her eyes. Rénee trembled as she knelt before the toilet.
Did the end justify the means?
She didn't know anymore.
The memories were never pleasant.
She knew they were dreams of things she already knew, but they felt like memories in the way they presented themselves to her. They uncurled from where they had been buried deep in her mind and played through the events as if she had lived through them herself; rather than having simply retained the knowledge of the plot and its characters from a manga she read a lifetime ago.
Every night, Maria Elena hugged her close after Rénee's screams woke her.
"Las pesadillas no pueden durar para mucho mas. Se iran pronto, veras." Maria Elena assured her, even as her grey eyes looked troubled in the dim lighting and it was the fifth day that Rénee had woke her up with her cries. ("The nightmares can't last for much longer. They'll be gone soon, you'll see.")
Rénee wanted desperately to believe her.
But the dreams did not stop coming.
(Not even years later.)
Rénee did not see the Finders again until the day they left Ayamonte.
She didn't have to see them in the time of their stay for their presences to become an itch on her skin, for her to feel like a hunted animal that the Black Order would not let go of if the truth of what she was came to light. Deep down she knew that her unwillingness to go back to the church until they were gone was nothing but a red-flag for anyone that knew her.
Despite the fact that her soul was much older than her physical body, Rénee couldn't help but succumb to the instincts of childhood when they arose. Especially on the occasions they rose up with enough force to push through the 'timid' and reserved girl she presented herself as to anyone but her grandmother; like when she chased after the birds congregating in the plaza, or picked up rocks she deemed pretty so she could give it to the people in church the next day.
That's what made her sudden avoidance of the marketplace and church odd. Everyone in Ayamonte had, at some point, lent a hand in the watching and raising of the Bruja's granddaughter. They, despite how much the grumpier of the villagers argued against it, were all attached to the tiny freckled girl. Rénee never vocally admitted it either, but she was attached too.
That's why she couldn't wait for things to go back to normal once the Finders left.
And when Rénee received news that the Finders were finally leaving, she felt more at ease than she had since the members of the Order had set foot into her life.Rénee nearly wept with relief as she watched the men robed in white set off toward the train station.
Even the fact that the tallest of the duo had paused as he walked away and turned his frigid blue eyes in her direction- where she had hidden in one of the of bushes that framed the church so that she could confirm the Finder's departure with her own eyes- did not stop her joy.
It felt like she could breathe again.
Before June had a chance to fade into July, the Finders came back to Ayamonte.
Except this time they were not alone.
A/N: I'd like to thank everyone that took the time to favorite and follow this story! Don't forget to tell me what you think about this chapter! See you next time! C: