Knives couldn't tell if he was dying, or dead. It was loud, intense, maybe it was pain. Physical pain or emotional pain – frankly, it was difficult to distinguish between the two. He couldn't find his heartbeat or make himself breathe. His physical body didn't respond – as if it no longer existed.
Attempts to solve such questions were quickly abandoned as the flood of memories rushed upon him, crushing his ability to think. His mind was helpless to shove the things away, to keep her years from suffocating him completely. Try as he may've, the flood enveloped him completely and he became her. Rushing at him in no logical order, everything became his own memory; everything of hers, and everything that Vash had given her, and all that she'd stolen from Knives. Coded separately by feelings discernible almost by color, each of the three beings' memories coexisted, swapping back and forth in a fury of yelling, crying, whispering. Everyone was talking at once, nobody stopped moving. He felt everything at once, and couldn't pull away. As if it was someone else's memory, he saw his hundred-years-ago self's memories play, so different than he felt he remembered them, and he saw Vash's take on many of those things. Then Vanessa's memories lent her perspective, so odd still. And like punches to his gut, he met with memories older still, memories of her when she knew not what she was, and so many hideous humans around her had their own theories. Their theories of her existence, witch, demon, devil, half-animal, gave them excuse to do things to her that…Knives wondered if any human had ever endured so much. At his worst, Knives would never have subjected Vash to some of these things.
He saw episodes in which she became what they called her, she placed curses upon them, using her knowledge of medicine against them. Again and again came attacks upon her, mirrored by the attacks upon Vash, mirrored by the attacks Knives lashed upon others. Vash's body was torn open, again and again, while Vanessa endured surface wounds, mostly. Surface wounds and the desolation of being violated. She screamed, she cried, and – in the worst of them – she made no sound at all. Physical pain was minor to her; it was the emotion that tore her open, that stung worse than the bruises and came back when attacks repeated. Vanessa had been rebuilt from ruin many times. She hadn't forgotten a single detail of the pain, or the beauty, and she made no attempts to distance herself from the truth. Her feelings were a sickeningly bright pink, like fresh scar tissue, layers upon layers, exposed and pink.
Flesh itched. Disgusting. Tainted, get it off of me!
If he felt himself in skin ever again, he wondered in a flicker of thought whether he'd be able to accept it? Skin that had touched her, her skin that had been touched, that she'd accepted long ago would never be washed clean.
For a moment that, unlike the other memories, slid through him far too slowly, he saw his brother through her eyes. He saw poor Vash, poor Vash, she thought of him, how hard it was to comfort him, how his harsh scars, his missing limb, the chunks of him missing, how these had made him better. Somehow he'd been wrong to taunt him about healing – if Vash could have known how to heal himself, he wouldn't have done it. In her eyes, his soul was of far less mass than a soul could be, it was lighter and lighter for each of the drips of blood, the bits of flesh that he was missing. But she, no, she was less a woman while he was more a man. She could touch him, but she didn't know where he was, and she eventually gave up finding him.
Knives watched bright blips of happiness, blurry, it could have been himself or his twin. Blurry and distant memories of her daughter, so distant, Tessla, walking away with Vash, with the humans, and Vanessa forced herself to see that distance. She forced herself to remember everything, the cold of the cave, the pain of a slap in the face, the pressure of handshakes, the reek of men's sweat when they were blinded by rage and power, the colors of a forest, the texture of the skin on Vash's chest, the taste of raw fish, the pattern of paint to make Knives' face, the dry heat of the desert, the dreadful abandon of plant childbirth, the nausea of extreme hunger, the titter of human babies, the sour sweet of fresh strawberries, the click of a trigger. If she'd known how to kill the memories, to get amnesia like Vash had, she wouldn't have done it.
Recollected screams pierced him, blending, swirling, louder, louder. His ears rang and his throat was sore from the screaming until the screaming stopped that the lungs may breathe.
Knives fell back onto the sand, steadied by his folded legs, eyes clamped shut, mouth hanging open, panting for breath, gasping, whimpering. His body hunched over limp. He shuddered with each breath, cold wet with a sweat.
If he'd tasted anything, it would have been a mix of salt and vomit and blood. Twin trails of blood ran from either side of his gaping mouth to drip from his chin, evidence of him having bitten his tongue, but there was no other blood.
Vanessa was walking away, dragging her boots in the sand as if they were leaden. She paused at the cart, digging around in its contents. Moments later, her dragging footsteps neared his body again, and she sat a foot back from where she'd been kneeling, breathing only half as heavy as Knives. Resting her sore back gently upon the backpack, she propped herself up and eased the laser gun's sight to Knives' tensed temple.