Kaede Kanna wore white to the funeral of her classmate.
The sun had long set, but where the street outside had been bustling with Kuoh's customary nightlife, the Funeral Hall was still. Very few had turned up to see the unfortunate in her time of last goodbyes, so the hall was uncharacteristically devoid of crowds when Kanna entered. Her pale skin blended into a long white dress, and the white ribbons bobbed over a hall violently clashing with her presence, massive black tiles checkerboarding across the floor and ceiling, held under rows of empty seats.
It was heartbreakingly quiet inside, the mothers hands nearly bereft of black envelopes. Kanna's hands were similarly empty, she noted with some vestigial shame. She wasn't the only one. She doubted anyone would be eating either. No one wished to linger, to look at the body and pretend it had once been the girl they cared for. Even the school had made the announcement of her death a quiet affair. Not even the mother would dare say something with an atmosphere this heavy; she and everyone else was simply waiting for the painful reminders to end.
Thus, Kanna stuck out, an odd duck among the black swans parading past the open casket. The garishness of her attire would see her thrown out had it been any other circumstance, but no one had the heart to even look at one another. The sparse attendees stood in solemn lines at the side, pointedly looking away from the dead girl, and by extension, her visitors. It spoke to the withering hope the mother held that it was a pathetically grateful look that greeted her entrance.
It made Kanna anxious, but she couldn't back down. It was important that she be here. Kanna strode through the hall, chin up but eyes darting. She wondered, did she look confident? Cool? Could people see her expression? The eyes seemed to follow her. They trailed up her body, and paused at her hands and throat. She felt it like a soothing heat, a balm to her fearful heart even as it stoked her worries.
Kanna was unwatched, but felt terribly in focus.
The casket itself was no damper; the notoriety of the body had not made the family less generous, indeed perhaps they intended to use paper to mop up the stain. It was a magnificent arrangement, flowers piled to a meter high around the casket and it's accoutrements. It was lit as though to approach was to step into some other world; pale, watery light shining down, a deceptively harsh glare. The casket alone was dark, a wood so amber it seemed to turn the lights to a warm honey. It was the warmest point in the whole room.
There, Aoba Tomiko lay, clothes draped limply about her broken shoulders. The mother was kind indeed, to preserve the body as found. Just the way Aoba's last note requested.
The white dress swayed, clinging to the slim lines of Kanna's body, and she noted distantly that sweat had drenched her clothes. She felt herself step faster, leaning forwards slightly, the casket a pull she couldn't fight.
But a pair of smooth leather shoes over a long stockings stood in the way.
"Kiryuu."
The words were low, deceptively harsh for how mild Kanna's voice, and came out something like a curse. Indeed, Aika Kiryuu stood between her and Aoba, hands on her hips and somber expression at odds with the almost reflexive curl to her lip.
"Kanna."
Kanna felt herself grow tense at the thinly veiled anger buried under the word. Kiryuu had an ugly sort of voice, Kanna thought absently. High pitched and demanding. It grated. It felt wrong that it was here, in this place that was so distant from mortal concerns, like oil blossoming out onto the surface of the ocean. It stained the world around Kanna into ugly colors, ones she didn't want to acknowledge here.
"What are you doing here?" Kanna whispered lowly, trying to avoid drawing undue attention. The few visitors continued to flow sparsely around them, pushing past with that casual rudeness associated with mourners and businessmen. Kanna found that it was just too awkward to meet Kiryuu's eyes. Those opinionated eyes, always dancing, always prying peoples thoughts open and dangling them like bait before the whole school. She couldn't stand them. While Kanna's were an almost beautiful mellow brown, Kiryuu's far lighter eyes looked like they'd been drowned in pond scum. Diseased, poisoned by her thoughts.
"Look, I don't have time for this, okay?" Kanna muttered instead, trying to push past, but found there was no leeway. She tried again, but Kiryuu's hand snaked out and seized her bicep with an iron grip. Kanna nearly cried out in shock, biting back the small tears that sprung up as she jerked her head up to finally look at the girl.
Kiryuu's hair had loosened from its usual side-braids, the cascading brown hair blocking the light and framing her face even more strongly. The light in her eyes was intense. And angry.
"What happened." Kiryuu hissed, pulling Kanna closer. Kanna leaned back and grunted, trying fruitlessly to pull herself from Kiryuu's grasp. Her hands were clammy and cold on Kanna's bare upper arms, but only continued to tighten, turning red and shaking a little from her tension. Kanna tried again to step back but Kiryuu followed her, keeping close and pressuring her back.
"What the f-"
"Shut up." Kiryuu spat, tightening her grip until Kanna's words choked themselves off. She blinked past the reflexive spray of tears, catching Kiryuu shooting someone a tight smile as they passed. But she needn't have bothered - their eyes slid right off.
The smile dripped off Kiryuu's face like egg, leaving tired stains lingering about the corners of her mouth and under her eyes. Kanna took a sharp breath as her grip briefly slacked, and only squeaked a little when her grip redoubled.
"Answer me." Kiryuu muttered lowly.
"I don't know anything, I'm here because Toko-sensei told us to!" Kanna squirmed a little, eyeing the people around the Wake. There were only a few adults loitering, but no one seemed to notice or step in. Relieved, she allowed her struggles to slow a little, to avoid drawing attention from the security, and almost missed the snarl of disgust from the taller girl.
Kiryuu shoved Kanna, making her stumble as her arm was suddenly freed, and continued applying force as she quickly shuffled Kanna towards the wall. Kanna let the momentum carry her into the surface, catching herself on it and whirling around, palms stinging and burning needles running down her arm. Kiryuu was standing there. She stood tall and confident, secure in her own actions, the ugly scent of her hypocrisy mantling her shoulders.
The upwelling of resentful disgust was as expected as the urge to lash out. Kanna desperately fought back ugly words, fearing that Kiryuu would actually get violent. It was an important funeral, after all. Kanna had even worn white. She didn't want to risk being kicked out before approaching the body. It galled her, but she continued keeping her gaze low, dreaming of a better day.
Her shoulders pulled inwards as Kiryuu leaned forwards. "I know." She breathed.
The words were a jolt to her system, panic and fear coursing down her limbs and making them shake. Kanna's head snapped up, but she tried to pass it off as a twitch. She leaned back, letting her head loll against the wall as she tried her damndest to look down at Kiryuu from her nose.
"I know you did something." Kiryuu's eyes never left hers, darting from ear to ear, scanning her motion and tells. Kanna held herself still, and tried to present a feeling of innocent bewilderment, telling herself over and over that Kiryuu hadn't sensed her panic. There was no way.
"What the hell are you talking about?" Kanna said quietly, blood pounding in her veins. The frustration was literally making her shake. "Are you crazy, pulling this kind of thing at a funeral?"
Kiryuu leaned in with a grim expression. "I saw you follow Aoba the day she died. I know you were with her."
Fear made Kanna's knees weak. It made her heart pound and her vision swim.
It made her angry.
"Hey Kanna." Kiryuu whispered in her ear. "Aoba's hair was blonde. Why's your hair blonde?"
"I dyed it." Kanna grunted, forcefully nudging the redhead aside to push past. Her sleeve tore a bit as it caught on a protruding bit of wood, but Kanna's haste to move past Kiryuu made it a trivial concern.
"Funny." Kiryuu said, leaning back and letting Kanna pass. "Odd time to dye your hair, on the eve of a death."
"Don't be an idiot. You know why people haven't come to see the body, right?" Kanna met her eyes at last. "She was scalped, Kiryuu. I dyed my hair in respect."
Kiryuu was the first to look away, and the ugly grimace flashing across her face was Kanna's victory. The irritation was in every line of Kiryuu's body, and she faltered in her stance, enough that Kanna could brush her entirely aside. Striding away quickly, Kanna wanted to crow her victory, but something in her whispered that this hadn't ended. Kiryuu wasn't done with her. It was the same instinct that pressured her to turn around, and stop walking unconsciously.
Kiryuu stood there for a long moment, expression shaded behind hair curtaining her face, and fists tightly clenched.
Kanna blinked and the moment was gone. And so was Kiryuu, already moving out of the way with her head hung low.
Kanna wasn't one to waste time now that Kiryuu was properly distracted, and a glance back only revealed the girl finally stalking to a seat. She had the pick of the litter; the grieving had moved on to greener pastures, and it didn't seem like Kanna had any other classmates paying an impromptu and very inconvenient visit. And yet, even Kiryuu couldn't take the pressure, choosing to sit far, far back where a few mourners lingered out of the harsh light cast on the coffin.
Kanna was finally alone with the body, attention slowly drawn back to the cool wood shining slickly in the light.
She approached slowly now, attention fully absorbed. She clapped her hands as she approached, three times, and silently prayed; something like anticipation was curling in her gut. She looked around carefully one more time; no one was looking. The dead girl was misfortune incarnate, so no one wanted to look too closely. Not even the grieving mother, who carried out her dead daughter's postmortem wishes regardless.
And if their own parents couldn't stand them, what did it mean that Kanna hated her classmates? It was a fact, like rain or shine. Kanna found herself utterly blameless in her emotions, and it freed her. Freed her to act.
Kanna went to Kuoh Academy, where being a girl was a real challenge; it wasn't easy going to a school renowned for its beautiful young women. Her classmates, even at their ugliest, could grace a magazine or two. Himari looked like she'd never heard of acne, or even visible pores. Even Hikari had a chin like a snowbank, gentle and smooth, forming shapely arcs that trailed down her long neck to her exposed collarbone.
Kanna was merely an almost-lovely young girl. She'd had brownish locks curling about a practically heart shaped face, flawed clear tawny eyes that nearly pierced your soul, and a barely misshapen neck, the kind you almost wanted to kiss.
Aoba was lovelier still. A slim face with high cheekbones, she was the sort of girl that looked like she was born to the casual authority she'd held among her playmates. Her hair and features made her exotic, a draw wherever she went. When they were open, Aoba's eyes were limpid and doelike, bluer than the sky after a good rain.
But the body was neither. It was pale and still and cold in ways that made its elastic skin look rubber and its long lashes wilt. The arms bent oddly and the clothes sat ill-fitting on a chest that caved too far into the abdomen. Long cuts ran up the arms, burst flesh lovingly sown together. It was a solemn, disgraceful death, and not even the hastily applied makeup could hide the raw red flesh stretching across her skull, bereft of ornamentation or regard.
But there was more to it than that. The body-that-was-Aoba was still beautiful, because it, or rather she still had so much to offer. For the first time in her life, Aoba was doing her a kindness. An honest-to-god favor. Kanna had fought tears the entire time she'd done up her now-blonde hair, the gratefulness bubbling up, and now she was giving the rest of her away. She'd saved Kanna from herself - or so she felt.
Aoba...perhaps hadn't been so bad. Even Kanna's edits to her 'last will' had been kindly accepted. To the end, she'd been simply no trouble at all, and Kanna had gained so much in exchange!
Kanna was grateful. She wished Aoba could hear it. She whispered a thank you into the coffin, allowing a tear to roll down her face, while her hand quietly snaked inside.
She hoped Aoba would hear it, wherever she was now. She found her steps light and her heart clear.
Kaede Kanna wore white to the funeral of her classmate and quietly stole her trophy away.
Kaede Kanna sat in the back of class. She looked at no one and spoke to nobody. She sat on the side nearer the door and kept her head down in her books at lunch.
But her eyes were always moving, darting from face to face, person to person. There was so much to look at, so much to take in. She was captivated, day after day. Look at enough people, Kanna learned, and the idea of what a 'human' looked like started to break down. They fell apart, like shambles, into independent, often dissonant pieces. A mouth that jawed warmly beneath cold eyes that darted about shiftily. Each told their own story, and once you learned to see them, it was hard to stop. You stopped taking in a person as a whole, and started taking in their features. A nose started to grow prominent in your vision when you looked at Taro-san, for example, something that was always there but your mind started to filter out. He simply became 'Taro-san', and his face was as much a part of his identity as his thumb. It always surprised Kanna, when she looked at Taro-san long enough. How easily you grew used to his face.
It was impressive, considering how ugly the boy was.
His eyes were subtly off balance, and the mole under his eye really was just that large. And his nose must dominate an entire quarter of his vision! She wondered, what did Taro-san see, when he looked in the mirror? Did he realize? Did he know?
She was like that once. Unknowing.
Then one day, she woke up with eyes of the deepest blue, that curved like the moon, double lidded and tapered off into the loveliest little point, set high on her face. They were perfect eyes. She went to school that day, head held high and eyes wide so that everyone could appreciate her defining feature. She'd walked proudly, finally comfortable doing so, but found herself occupied with unexpected thoughts upon arriving to school. She'd wished she could help him then, which startled her rather badly. She'd wished she could help those unfortunate, and for the briefest moment gave it true consideration. Poor Taro-san, she'd thought!
How unutterably shocking! That she would be a humanitarian at heart!
Then she remembered that holding her head up revealed her relatively squashed neck, the one a little too squat and short to be pretty. It didn't match her eyes at all. They were too pretty to be in such a flawed frame. She was hardly complete enough to be doing something as stupid as helping someone else yet. She shuddered, and resumed firmly staring at the dirt. She kept her eyes wide open though, in case someone shorter wandered by.
"Interesting. She'll start casing the next one soon." Vali muttered, gently wiping his fingers off. Some trash stray had wandered by, and he had time to kill. He chalked it up to his good deed for the day; it also had the side benefit of removing the chance that the Gremory Princess would notice the mutt, and in the process of hunting it down pick up on him. Oh, how he cursed a dragon's propensity for misfortune. It would be just his luck.
He wasn't scared of her, mind you, but he needed more time. He hadn't found him yet, his target. But there was a chance his new lead would lead him there. Dragons always got involved in such things; this one was strong enough that Red might be pulled in, like it or not. All Vali had to do was wait and watch.
And how. He'd ended up chancing across something interesting, hadn't he? He hadn't been able to help it when the request had come to him, he'd followed the target outlined and ended up seeing something interesting.
Yes, his new lead was all kinds of strange.
Sacred Gears were a fairly exotic topic of research, but he'd heard enough of Azazel's drunken lectures to recognize a subspecies when he saw it. A wholly unique fork off a formerly rather subpar gear. Either her will was mediocre, or the gear itself possessed ego enough to influence the shape. But from what he'd seen, it was some melding of both. A wholly symbiotic sort of growth, like toxic vines tangling, poisoning each other into a pleasurable stupor, all the while feeding off their victim in harmony.
Really, it was somewhat saccharine. Vali nearly shed a tear.
"Really?" Le Fay peered over his shoulder, and for one brief, misbegotten moment he nearly wished it was Kuroka. Because when Le Fay leaned over, her bright goddamn blue cloak whirled around so strongly it could've been interpreted in semaphore. He might as well have signalled the pedestrians with a whistle.
Vali carefully breathed in, out, and gently nudged her back from the edge.
Le Fay peered at him curiously, blinking guilelessly, but continued anyway. "She seemed happy to me sir. She was showing off, you know? Would she really want to commit another crime?"
Vali squinted a bit. "You're missing the point. Look at her." He reached back, and gently placed his hand on her head, exerted the slightest pressure until she got the idea and ducked down. Peering over the parapet, she looked down at the girl named Kaede brush past someone without noticing. A startling difference from not a week prior, when she'd apologized for getting dust on someone's shoe.
"It's not that she's avoiding them." Morgan said, the difference dawning. "It's not about showing off. Heck, it has nothing to do with other people at all."
"The victims don't register." Vali murmured. "She hasn't realized. She thinks her goal fuels her need. But every time, she'll grow more unsatisfied with the result. She'll want more. It's about the act itself."
"You're saying this isn't a robbery investigation."
"She's the most literal example of a gain killer I've ever seen. We have a budding little serial killer in our hands."
"But her victims are..."
"Not to her. Even if they're still walking around afterwards, well, they aren't even the same person anymore are they? She's done with them, and in a sense, the gear just ensures there's no body afterwards."
Morgan hesitated. Had Vali turned to look, he'd have seen the hesitance, the disgust in her blue eyes, before she swallowed it down. "How can we tell?"
Vali's eyes narrowed, still peering over the edge. "Her first. The gears respond to desire; she couldn't have known what she really wanted until she had the chance to try. She couldn't have even known it was possible."
"What do you mean?"
"This started with a body. At the root of this, there is definitely a dead body." Vali slowly stood. "That's what'll tell us how useful she really is. That'll tell us if she's any use at all."
Kanna loved crowds.
Wandering into odd tea shops was an odd way to express this, but then Kanna reserved the right to indulge herself even in the pursuit of greater things.
And how.
"See something you like?" The girl offered with a wry grin, her throat flashing itself seductively.
"Not really." Kanna said honestly. She didn't really pay much attention to the poor girl's words. Her voice was a little too pitchy for Kanna's taste, and she'd opened with an aside about Boba allergies. Kanna, a girl of class, had never even heard of Boba, and why this simply seemed to offend the young woman Kanna would never understand.
But Kanna played along, because she enjoyed this. Kanna was a little shy, you see. She didn't really ever strike up conversations with strangers. This one even seemed nice; and that put Kanna at ease. She was offering so much of herself to Kanna too. That had to mean something. It had to be something special.
Kanna wanted it to mean something special.
She was the only one that would remember, of the two. It was a sad thing. The other would go off on their life, leaving the best of them with Kanna. She would become something more and the girl would become something less, and this girl deserved thanks for that sacrifice. So Kanna played along, a little smile dancing about her lips as she tried to take in everything about this girl that would culminate in the short time they spent together.
"My eyes are up here, you know."
Kanna hummed in understanding.
"I suppose."
Her neck the next day arched like a swan, and Kanna preened proudly, making sure her weak chin and low cheekbones were accentuated by her makeup.
Someone bumped into Kanna. She scanned their face and dismissed it in a matter of seconds, whispering an apology and pushing past.
She continued on her way after a second, only pausing for a second when what she'd done computed.
Why hadn't she been polite? How strange. Normally, Kanna would just mutter under her breath and step aside. This was positively aggressive of her.
She half-turned back to look at the boy who'd bumped into her.
He looked...small, from this distance. She watched his back recede, and found it wasn't as unpalatable a sight as she might've found it not a few days past.
She slowly turned back to the front, and offered someone a toothy grin as they passed.
They looked back, slightly uncomfortable, and offered her a tremulous smile. Kanna felt oddly warmed by this.
Kanna stared down at the football field. People were running reps, dribbling back and forth. Most had eyes only for Yuuto Kiba, who managed to make sweating look desireable.
Kanna had eyes only for the boy beside him, a long-haired thin-lipped specimen who looked positively gangly in comparison. His name was Tooru.
He looked up and saw her looking at him, and offered her an awkward wave. She waved back, slightly more energetically. Kanna bit at her lips a little.
She'd approached him a few days prior and he'd been...receptive. It wasn't the first time she'd spoken to a boy, but it was certainly the first time any had shown interest. She found herself adopting some of Aoba's mannerisms in the process, smiling and even laughing a little, and he'd looked happy.
She hadn't realized.
Tooru was waiting for her when she made it down the embankment, holding his hand out. She approached, hands twisting behind her back, but he reached across and gently took her hands into his own, stroking the backs with his thumbs.
She watched the way they played across her hands, rubbing circles into her skin, raising ridges and grooves into the pale white flesh. They stopped looking like hands at some point, more like ornaments, thinly veiled in the sheerest satin, that he continued to play with.
He quietly asked her if she would like to get lunch, and perhaps afterwards spend some time together, in the library since she enjoyed that.
She asked, did he not have practice?
He assured her that Kiba had taken care of any concerns, and besides, he quite thought that he might like to spend a little more time with a girl he liked speaking to.
She blushed prettily, and offered him a rare smile, and waited hungrily for him to smile back.
This boy had simply the most attractive philtrum she'd ever seen. Warmed her heart every time she saw it. It would look good under blue eyes. Perhaps a thinner nose too.
"It's beginning. She hasn't figured out the need yet, but she's starting to devolve." Vali murmured, peering down from the opposing rooftop. "She's still restraining herself." Too-large eyes glanced away, in the face of a young woman with otherwise negligibly pretty features. The skin about her eyes were disproportionately tight, wrinkled about the corners in ways that clashed with the spotted pores and redness on her cheeks.
"Who'll hold her culpable?" Kuroka grinned, sweeping her long hair back. She leaned against the railing, but she seemed fairly uninterested in the girl Vali was looking at. Vali himself was only here on a lark, tempting fate as they said. His hair was ruffling in the breeze, the thick white locks clashing with his open black collared shirt. His legs dangled casually off the ledge, and he wondered if anyone would notice?
"You're keeping an eye out for the Sitri princess, right?" He murmured.
Kuroka flicked her tail into his shoulder dismissively. Vali turned to look at her, but only saw a mangy black alley catalleycat curled up in the warm sunlight. She turned to him, golden eyes glittering behind her matty black fur, and he scowled back.
"Don't you give me that look." His eyes narrowed. "You know Azazel didn't want us here. God knows what you thought, leaving Le Fay to run interference with that bitch in the church. She's gonna find out eventually, and who's gonna buy time then? Bikou?"
The cat meowed.
"Not yet." He hissed. "I haven't found him yet - it's too soon."
The cat blinked heavily, and raised one paw to sweep its ears back.
"No point - if Rias hasn't seen us yet, she won't."
In fact, more than either the Gremory or Sitri princesses, the girl below them had the greatest chance of finding them.
She might actually blow their cover, Vali mused. He had something she wanted, after all. She'd find her way to him eventually. Dragons were inconvenient that way.
"Look." He murmured, eyes glimmering with the barest interest as he continued watching the girl below. "She's making eye contact with a few of her peers. It's not that she doesn't understand her actions - she doesn't realize what's happening to begin with. She barely knows what she's doing."
"Oh?" Kuroka hummed, once again fleshy. Her robes were pooled around her, a fact that didn't seem to bother her untowardly. "It's funny - she doesn't even seem to realize that she scares them."
Vali awkwardly turned away.
She seemed displeased. He should do something about that. "Hey Kuroka." He started, still looking pointedly away. "Would you like to hear a joke?"
A stunned moment passed, as Kuroka turned to him with her brows raised.
"Vali, you've never told a joke in your life."
Vali rolled his eyes. "That doesn't make me incapable."
Kuroka had a grin playing about her lips. "Go on then."
"What crimes can be called guiltless?"
She played along, humming for a moment. "Dunno."
"Murder and tax evasion. Because the victim isn't around to complain about it."
There was a slight intake of breath, and a long pause.
"That was a pretty good one, nya. Keep practicing and you might actually be funny someday."
Vali swore quietly under his breath. He didn't know why he even tried.
Kanna rose with the sun. She'd found herself spending longer and longer in the bathroom. Sleep had become sparse. She was woken constantly, irritation had become a norm. She'd lost the ability to lie down in comfort. Everything ached, things were constantly falling apart around her, and she could never seem to find her keys.
Sometimes, Kanna wondered if she was losing her mind. It would be just like her to misplace it, she thought irritably, stumbling her way to the sink after a too-short shower.
A lash lay gently on her porcelain cheek.
Starled from her internal monologue, Kanna paused in the mirror. Her bathrobe swirled about her, and she impatiently reached over the sink to wipe the steam quickly obscuring her features.
She leaned in, gently presenting her left side. A lone eyelash rested there. More concerningly, it was only half as long as it should be. She eyed the mascara by the sink, before she rolled her eyes and swept it aside entirely, sending it clattering across the surface and into a wall. Ignoring the little glass phial, she reached across and opened the mirror cabinet, reaching for her more heavy-duty backup. The curler was slightly heavy in her grasp, and she grimaced as she raised it to her eyes. She'd told mother that the one with tapered edges was hers, the long one pinched.
Grimacing, she gently grasped her lashes - then slipped. It clattered from her hands, falling loudly into the sink, a black stain gently drifting from its pinched edge. Kanna didn't notice, looking more carefully at where it had fallen from.
The eyelash had come off.
She gently pried the lashes up, feeling at the undersides and pinching. Brittle.
Had she - Kanna thought furiously. Had she - yes, she had. She'd been tempted by that bonus.
Her hands were trembling as she lifted them to her face, tracing the shorter hairs. Were they as long as they'd been last week? Aoba had strutted by, and they'd looked so lush, curly and natural. But these stubs - they weren't what she'd seen.
Aoba had duped her? Lied? To her?
She rubbed at the lashes. They stayed stubbornly in place, short bristles rasping against her finger. She rubbed harder, trying to get at the little hairs closer to the lid, failing to grasp them and pinching the eyelid so it would hold still while she reached for i-ah!
She snapped her hands away, peering cautiously at her hands.
Blood. On a fingernail.
Her stinging eyelid seemed to redouble in pain. She glanced at her reflection in the mirror, only distantly startled at how pale she looked. She was breathing hard, panting. Was that sweat or water running down the side of her head? She couldn't affect to damage - damage her other parts.
Oh god. Her parts. She was flawed. What had she taken?
She didn't - she couldn't have - how could she have known that Aoba used false lashes?! That Aoba would lie to her like that! How could she?!
Kanna trembled. What was she going to do? She wasn't just where she began, she was worse off. She looked ridiculous. Alien. She couldn't go outside like this. She couldn't go anywhere like this. She had to - she had to -
She had to find new ones. There was no helping it. Nothing to be done.
"Kanna!" Her mother called. "Please hurry, you're getting late!"
Kanna's head snapped up, and then tilted down in sudden consideration.
Aika Kiryuu wasn't pretty enough to bother with, Kanna thought. She often wondered why Kiryuu got up every day at all. She was stocky, ugly, in bad shape, and had terrible hair.
It made it all the more irritating that she forced herself into Kanna's line of sight.
"Stop."
"I'm clearly not moving." Kanna muttered, turning her head slightly away.
Kiryuu clicked her tongue in irritation and rolled her eyes. "Not what I meant." She sounded light hearted, but Kanna was close enough to hear the gentle creak of her pencil in her grasp. "You need to stop what you're doing. I saw you. You were following my friends. I-" Kiryuu lowered her voice to an undertone. "I warned you." Kiryuu was frightfully tense, her grip turning her hands pale. Kanna shuffled away a bit. People like Kiryuu were always on the edge, and she didn't want to risk Kiryuu snapping for some asinine reason and trying to attack her.
"I didn't hear a warning." Kanna muttered, shuffling her feet. Kanna felt too good to let this shit get her down.
"You think I didn't notice, Kanna?" Kiryuu hissed. "I've seen you eyeing them. Following them places. What the hell did you do? What are you planning?"
She briefly met Kiryuu's eyes and smirked before turning away. Her eyes were still that same ugly color. How sad. Her eyes darted back reflexively, again, but realized that this time, Kiryuu's eyes were wide, and staring right into hers with no small degree of shock.
"What was that."
Kiryuu sounded startled. Kanna felt her pulse speed up a bit. What was going on. What had she noticed? Was there something wrong with Kanna's face? Had she picked bad parts for the second time?
Kiryuu reached for Kanna's arm, but Kanna snatched her hand back and leaned away.
"Your eyes." Kiryuu's stare was boring into the side of her head. "They were different somehow. Let me see again."
Kanna felt herself tremble slightly. She felt her pulse beat a staccato rhythm as her limbs went cold.
She'd noticed?
People had been treating her differently of course. More respectfully, taking notice of her, speaking to her. They likely didn't realize why, only that speaking to her had become a more pleasurable experience. But of all those people, Aika Kiryuu had been the one to notice that something was actually different?
Kanna felt the coldness of fear grip her limbs. Her eyes tingled in a way that made Kanna want to scratch at them. They were burning.
Did Kiryuu...recognize them?
Impossible. No one could. She was bluffing. Aika Kiryuu was a well-known liar. She didn't know.
You made no mistakes Kanna whispered to herself, and knew that it was the truth.
"Were they green?"
And suddenly sound rushed back in, color flooding back along with the roar of conversation. She felt more confident. She'd overcome Kiryuu's paltry intimidation and felt stronger for it. She lifted her chin, and allowed herself to suck down a deep breath, taking in the sound of conversation.
And then she noticed something.
People walked by, spoke, touched each other and communicated.
Except Kanna. No one spoke to Kanna. They deferred to her, got out of her way, noticed her existence. But no one sought her out. No one wanted to speak to her.
No, but she was aware of who they did look to.
They saw the conversation going on between the two girls, the tenseness and perhaps even the threat of violence. But they didn't see Kanna. If they looked, it was at Kiryuu. She was the one they spoke to, asked if something was going on. She was the one people actually cared about.
Kanna felt her happiness begin falling away. The buoyant giddiness circled the drain, and she was left feeling cold and frightfully aware of the people around her. She has something you don't something whispered in her mind.
Kanna saw red. She hated that voice, throttled it and strangled it. She flayed that voice, tore great gory strips off it, and fed it all into the roiling cauldron of her gut, where self-loathing and envy warred to bring her to nausea.
And stepped back. Kiryuu was saying something, but she didn't matter. She had nothing, and couldn't prove anything.
Kanna shouldn't be distracted from her path.
Kanna had torn sheet after sheet out of its binding. She emptied her slim notebooks and binders, accumulated as many pages as she could.
And on every page she could get her hands on, she drew an eye.
Her vision was limited, Kanna had realized. Kiryuu's ugly eyes could still bear to meet anothers. Kanna had taken the wrong eyes. Green was an ugly color. It was as brittle as ice and as fleeting as mist. It was the color of a weak person. Kanna felt eyestrain just going outside.
She needed to plan. She couldn't be opportunistic, she had to know what she was looking for.
She took the pages and papered the walls with them, covered every surface with them that she could tape. It only covered 2 walls, and not even to the ceiling, but it was enough. She began from the top right, and colored a gradient down. White to black across, yellow to red to blue down. The darkening gradient of colored eyes took shape after a day or two's work, and when she was done, she shut her eyes and stepped back. She turned around, got ready, then widened her eyes and spun on her heels.
The sea of seething eyes stared back in the twilight, the setting sun casting a deep pall on her efforts. In the light, they seemed to flicker, all of them facing her, looking at her. Kanna felt the shiver run up her spine.
So many eyes.
But only one stood out. Reaching up, she tore it from the wall, the weight of the other eyes on her skin warming her. She held it up to the light. When she'd spun, this eye among the rest had stood out.
She needed it. Then people would notice.
Eyes continued following Kanna. They hadn't stopped since last evening.
She'd began noticing them everywhere, now. The feeling of being watched. Her neck prickled and shivers ran down her spine. She was alone now, hiding in the closet, and still the hairs on the back of her neck rose. Was it her imagination, the pitter-patter behind her head? Did the light really flicker on its own? The dripping water that had begun falling onto her head couldn't have been from a pipe, could it?
And yet, she looked up and saw bare wires and a corroded pipe above her.
And yet.
They crawled around her, a hive of guilt, stinging her consciousness with barbed reminders of her loneliness. She lowered her head, and took a small bite of her sandwich. Was the sand she felt in her head, or did the grit truly cling to the inside of her mouth?
She could hardly tell anymore. It all tasted like ash anyway.
Kanna ran a finger along a loose lock of hair, and swept it back with one long fingernail, tucking it behind one ear, allowing her finger to linger on the warm skin. The woman she was leaning over blushed slightly, jerking away and lifting her hand absently to the side of her head.
"Pardon?" The woman squeaked, but it was distant. Her voice had a liquid quality to it, a faint sense of unimportance that let it slide languidly through Kanna's mind and pour right out into a puddle on the floor. It dripped like the rainwater off her hair, and Kanna reflexively smoothed out her soaked jacket. Her rubber-soled sandals squeaked maddeningly against the floor tiles, and she felt the noise drill into her skull, casting the woman's voice entirely out every - time - it - squeaked - like - thunder - in- her - head! It was impossible for this woman's smooth voice to enter her mind at all! Frustrating, how frustrating!
Kicking her feet, Kanna impulsively kicked her sandals entirely off, sending them flying, end over end, into a shelf. The impact made some boxes near the top wobble as the slippers bounced off, and the woman hastily rose to hold them back and straighten them. She cast Kanna a complex look, one Kanna failed to interpret, preferring instead to reply with a lingering look of the utmost avarice.
"Boots, please." She politely purred, eyes caught on the saleswoman's trailing locks. "Sturdy ones."
Lips thinned, but she scurried off to obey. Her black hair continued to fall out of its tight bun, falling about her features in ways that highlighted her ears as she moved about. She didn't try to speak to Kanna again, but that was fine. Kanna much preferred she simply listen and highlight her ears some more. They were round and the shell was nicely pointed and had no moles or discolorations. They were slightly paler than her face, and most importantly they were tight to her skull. When she'd seen them behind the womans hair, she'd reflexively checked her own reflection and nearly moaned in dejection; her ears stuck out. She hadn't even noticed how ungaily they looked, sticking out the side of her head like jug handles. Her reflection took on an apelike quality, big lips, eyes and those horrid ears. She could hardly recognize herself!
Really, how could anyone else be expected to do so?!
Reaching out, she trailed a finger along the outer shell, ignoring the owner's squawking. Possessively. The flesh was firm, and grew warm under her fingers. It moved away a little, and her hands darted out, tightly clasping it. She wasn't done! She continued rubbing it, watching it change color.
She did eventually notice, however, a rather portly man tapping her politely on the shoulder.
"Miss." He said firmly, without meeting her eyes. "You need to go."
Kanna inhaled deeply, allowing sound and sight to rush back into focus, and immediately realized she was the center of a hundred appalled glares.
Kanna huddled in on herself a little. Had they noticed her ears? They were ugly. If people noticed them, then it was no wonder they were looking at her.
Kanna felt uncomfortable. She wanted to hide. She wanted them to look away. She was a filthy, ugly, wretched thing and she didn't wish to be seen like this.
But.
They were there, those ears. If she had them, would they look away? Her eyes darted, the pale flesh shining slightly in the afternoon sun, a watery light bouncing off of them.
She could take them.
She could take them and keep them and she would look fine. She'd look normal. She hadn't realized how revolting her appearance could be!
She considered it. The saleswoman trembled a bit as Kanna watched, and Kanna was slightly startled to see the fear in her eyes.
How?
How did she know that Kanna wanted her?!
Kanna was slightly upset by this. She shouldn't have known so soon. It wasn't right.
She settled down, closing her eyes a little, and obligingly stood. She didn't open her eyes or look at the woman again - fearful that the temptation would grow too strong.
She could wait. Kanna had time. This woman would be going nowhere soon.
Kuroka was bored. When she was bored, she messed with people. It blew off enough time for her to either grow hungry or fall asleep.
But Vali was busy.
No one else was free. Not even Gogmagog.
So she followed his pet project around instead. She was an ugly little trollop, this one. A real piece of work. Kuroka was disgusted.
Disgusted!
She made this disgust known. As was right and proper. Vali disliked that she did this, but he didn't get an opinion. He kept blowing her off or kicking her out of his bed. He didn't deserve an opinion.
"Kuroka, stop leaving dead rats on her doorstep." Vali ground out, holding her by the scruff of the neck. She struggled vainly, trying to get the rotting little thing just across the street. The patchwork girl was going to be waking soon, Kuroka couldn't miss her chance! She was tempted to go fleshy, but then Vali might just toss her in the river.
Kuroka hated water.
He knew better than to drop her fuzzy form in the water. She'd dry herself in his sock drawer. He was such a dweeb, he organized them by color. If he wasn't pretty, he'd be irredeemable.
Kuroka's smugness somehow came across, and Vali began growling deep in his chest. This was dangerous, Kuroka realized. He had the key to the liquor cabinet. She'd forgotten.
Oh no! She couldn't risk irritating him after all.
She mimed digging.
"You can't dig in her backyard."
She mimed scooping.
"You can't bury the rats, Kuroka! First of all, I said no holes!"
He said holes. Kuroka shivered with laughter. A young man with his looks, screaming about holes in the middle of the street. How shameful.
Vali reddened as people stopped to look at him, and shot her a venomous look.
Oh dear. She'd irritated him after all. She couldn't help it, you know. He made it sooooo easy.
He put her under his arm like a sack of potatoes. Kuroka promptly went limp and tried to slide out of his grip.
He seized her and began shaking her like a bottle of soda. Kuroka was dizzy now. Gross!
She made sure to vomit onto his sleeve.
They got home and Vali began screaming and flinging his clothes about. Kuroka curled up as a person again, properly nude in case he got tempted and finally slept with her. It seemed unlikely with how angry he was and how tiny he was from anger down there, but hope sprung eternal.
"Why?!"
Kuroka shrugged.
Vali's eyes narrowed to slits.
"She smells bad." Kuroka lied.
"Not her, I meant me - oh, whatever." He threw his hands up and ran them through his limp hair, sweeping it back. "Why are you messing with her."
"She's ugly." Kuroka offered again.
He raised a brow. Seriously?
Kuroka rolled comfortably onto her back. "The pieces are good, but put together they look bad. Rather unpleasant as a whole, isn't it? It's gross."
Vali grunted. "She's an uncreative one. Her subspecies caters to her inflexibility. It's fitting - gears typically like the straightforward kind."
"Is that respect?"
"It's disgust." His lips thinned. "Gears prefer the simpleminded kind because it's easier to get them to think in similar lines or carry their wills. Anyone with enough strength can still beat that power out of them. It's a shortcut, nothing more."
Kuroka rolled around a bit; the sofa was vinyl. "So what now?"
Vali rolled his shoulders. "I've been thinking; if she can can take pieces, why not the whole thing? Faces are the next logical step. There's enough potential in the idea to make use of her."
"The girl is near feral Vali."
Vali shrugged. "Then we'll just have Azazel rip the gear out entirely and give it to someone better. The primary user is preferable, subspecies are rare enough that we don't even know how it'll take to a new user. Azazel's been itching to get his hands on one to test."
Kuroka smirked. "See Vali - I'm onto you."
He raised a brow. Kuroka replied smugly. "You want me to think that, by implying that giving up on her is what Azazel might like, your choice to save this girl is a product of your idiocy and youthful rebellion against your infinitely generous benefactor."
Vali started frowning.
"And!" Kuroka raised a lazy finger. "While that is true!" Vali was now frowning deeply. "I know your real intentions! The reason you're pushing her modular appearance!" She rolled onto her back and crossed her hands against her chest. "You want to make her look like your crush, don't you nya."
"I swear to fucking god Kuroka, don't you dare try and push that as your-"Vali snapped angrilym but Kuroka cut him off by snapping her flip phone open.
Vali broke down into sulphurous curses and slapped her phone away as she began dialling Bikou's number.
Rubbing her stinging hand, she pouted.
"Sounds like guilt, nya."
The last days of Kanna's life began at the alley beside her regular corner store. Kiryuu waited there, patiently leaning against the wall. She would've ignored her, but she didn't actually seem to care whether or not Kanna actually joined her. Since that was the case, she simply had to force her presence on Kiryuu. She'd leave the second it seemed like Kiryuu wanted her there. So she stepped quietly behind, mindful of where her feet lay. The alleyways were nominally dry, but the school didn't really bother with cleaning up farther than the train station.
Kiryuu waited there, eyes shut and chest slowly rising, red hair tied into a messy bun that pushed against the mold-stained walls. Puddles congealed slapped gently underfoot.
"You came." She murmured.
"I couldn't help myself." Kanna crossed her arms. "Well?"
Kiryuu shrugged. "I know what you did."
"Second time you've said that." Kanna leaned against the wall of the building. Kiryuu leaned against the wall beside her, tired, not meeting her eyes. Kanna slowly shut her eyes, eyes slitted, and watched Kiryuu carefully through them,
"Why?"
"You said she was scalped." Kiryuu looked at her feet, and slowly kicked at a bit of dirt on her shoe. "Like it was intentional. But you were the only one who said that. The police said it was like she'd just been in an accident that tore it off. But you were the only one who said it like it had nothing to do with how Aoba died."
Fuck.
"You don't seem very broken up about it. Not going to accuse me of anything?"
"Did you do it?" Kiryuu slowly asked.
"That's not much of an accusation. Whoy cares, anyway." Kanna shrugged. "But what - no how? Isn't that what most people want to know?"
"It doesn't really matter, does it? It was nothing but a means to you. Making a big deal of it would probably just make you happy."
She wasn't wrong. But she wasn't done.
"But I'm glad." Kiryuu said slowly. "I was worried - I threw up a couple of times, you know? I was terrified I had it wrong. But I'm happy - I'm glad you're beyond that kind of concern. Please-" She hesitated. "-please, stay like that." She pleaded. Kanna had a sinking feeling.
"Why?"
"Because, the way you are now, I don't have to feel guilty at all." Kiryuu said blankly.
Kiryuu, what did you do.
Kanna lay silently in her bed. She'd been staring at her ceiling for what felt like hours. Perhaps her phone could have told her otherwise, but Kanna didn't really feel like looking. She stared at the same square patch, feeling time while away.
At some point, she'd stopped wanting to fall asleep. At some point, it felt as though the world ended when she closed her eyes.
She felt the minutes drip by like a physical thing. In the dark of night, she felt their passage most keenly. She understood now, more than any other time of day: she had no need to regret what she'd done, only how long she'd waited.
Kanna held flowers. She wondered, what should she say? Grief came in five stages, they said, but she had no way of telling. Was she depressed? Should she feel depressed? Or guilty she didn't? She didn't think it hadn't sunk in yet, but she wasn't sure how long she should be waiting for something to happen. Perhaps she would round a corner and expect to see Aoba there?
Aoba, with her lovely eyes and porcelain skin, laughter dancing in the lines of her face, skipping down the street.
Ignoring Kanna, as she always did.
No, Kanna didn't think she'd be expecting anything of the sort. Perhaps it had been simply too long. She squinted, and looked up. It was noon; Kanna had left school at lunch. No one had followed her, not even so much as a Disciplinary Officer. The alleyway she'd walked to undisturbed was narrow, behind a soba joint and several apartment complexes. It was dirty, and several days of burnable trash had been left, softly rotting beside a scuffed streetlight. Only one door opened into the alley for several meters, which meant so long as she kept an eye out for the rush of noise from the Soba store owner drawing back the curtains to his kitchen and letting someone through to the back, she was undisturbed.
Aoba Tomiko had died here.
She hadn't been alone either. No one else really knew that. It was difficult to say what Kanna thought, but the parallel was...pleasing in some way. Both of them had been haunted, and now both were accompanied by something less than a person, but more than a memory.
Aoba was special to Kanna. She hadn't been before, Kanna reflected, but how things changed. There were so many things Kanna wished she could have spoken.
Joys she wished she could have shared. Now, only Kanna could feel them. It wasn't the first time she'd come here, and it wouldn't be the last. But every time, she regretted.
Alas.
Kanna gently left the orange Poppy blossom on the concrete, slightly off to the side where someone couldn't step on it.
Kanna passed Kiryuu by the gate the next day. They didn't make eye contact. Something in Kanna's gut twisted painfully as they crossed, but no words were exchanged.
Dinner was as quiet an affair as it ever was in the Kanna House. Father said words, Kanna mimed responding, and Mother spoke not at all.
They ate. Handmade of course. Father spoke. Personal topics, naturally. He enjoyed spending time with them, speaking and waiting for response or banter. Mother tried, but her golden lips were too heavy, and the words too picturesque. They could gain no air no matter how hard they were cast, and fluttered back into her mouth. Father laughed, and patted Mother on her breast. Both seemed pleased.
Kanna was not. It wasn't that she didn't want to, she'd cupped her cauliflower ears and begged him to speak up.
Alas! She couldn't hear him! What Father said went unnoticed and uncommented upon. He moved his mouth but the words dripped from his lips like water off a bank. He tried catching them in a glass, but he had too much to say and nowhere to lay it. They splashed onto his plate and food was simply everywhere.
Wasted! Both words and wealth squandered!
Simply typical. Kanna screamed at him to clean up, and Mother burst into diamond tears. She tried looking at Kanna to perhaps serve her another slice of solid advice, perhaps so she might at least eat her fill, but Mother's rhinestone eyes were continuously drawn to the lamp by her side and it fell. Kanna felt as though she'd accomplished all she could at the table and offered to deal with the fallout.
Mother insisted that it could handle itself.
Kanna sat down and primly finished her steak, mind a-whirl and a-wash and a-gog with all sorts of thoughts. Father picked at the kibble he was permitted in his plastic bowl. Mother peeled a second grape and took a generous nibble.
And Kanna was briefly happy.
Kiryuu had ducked Kanna's wandering eye for a full week after their last talk, and it was getting to her. She had no idea what Kiryuu had been threatening, and the tension was frankly too much to bear. Kiryuu was quick for a pissant bitch, but Kanna was on the edge, and it drove her to extremes, like paying people to keep an eye out.
Somehow it worked out, and a satisfied young man wandered away from the back of school where Kanna cornered Kiryuu.
Unfortunately, her attempts to shake Kiryuu down were about as successful as her attempts to find the girl in the first place.
"I got nothing." Kiryuu shrugged. "It's out of my hands."
Kanna stared at her. "What? No. Nono." She slammed her hand roughly against the brick wall they leaned against. "You tell me. You tell me what you did. You can't leave this. Take responsibility."
"I don't care anymore." She folded her arms across her chest, looking away from Kanna's accusatory glare.
Kanna's eyes narrowed. "Liar."
Kiryuu burst into a brief laugh, shockingly genuine. "Maybe. I think my problem is that I cared too much, you know? I cared." She shrugged carelessly, but pointedly didn't look at Kanna. "About her. And you."
Kanna snickered a little. Politely. She pressed her lips together, but the urge to break manners and taunt the girl a little was overwhelming. For some godforsaken reason, Kiryuu was pretending that she gave a shit, and Kanna wasn't particularly comfortable with that. It smacked of hypocrisy and self-apologism. "What the hell did you want? What were you looking for?"
Kiryuu sighed tiredly, then threw her a curveball.
"Are you sorry?"
Kanna frowned, the ridge between her eyes wrinkling harshly. "I've never been sorry my whole life."
Kiryuu slowly shut her eyes. "Then no, no I didn't find a damn thing. There's no point past that." Kiryuu slowly rolled her head back and forth. "I'm tired." She admitted. "Aoba's friends and family already gave up. And frankly, Hyoudou followed Aoba around more than you. Blonde isn't even that rare in the school, half the boys bleached themselves after Yuuto joined, and half the girls after Aoba passed. I have no proof, and the police can't go off that."
Kanna finally put some of the picture together. "You're not involved?" A horrible sinking feeling began weighing her gut down. "That can't be all. You're just...giving up?" The knot of anxiety didn't dissolve like she thought it would. No, somehow it was even heavier. It was leaden now, sinking through her guts.
Was it a bluff?
Funny. Kanna actually felt worse now.
"Aoba's gone." Kiryuu sighed. "She's dead and all the anger in the world won't keep me going."
"You could tell the police I did it, at least." Kanna tried weakly.
"I told someone. They've known for a few days, now."
Kanna felt the outrage building in her chest, washing away that lingering, traitorous stab of relief. "And you're warning me? That some junkie with a needle's gonna stumble out of some alley and gut me? So I can - what, run?"
Kiryuu shrugged. "You won't run."
Kanna's lips twisted into a bitter sneer. "Oh? Why's that? Life's not worth living without you looking over my shoulder?"
"Because that would mean admitting you did something wrong to a stranger." Kiryuu slowly raised herself off the side of the school. "And if you were capable of restraining yourself like that, we wouldn't be speaking like this."
"That doesn't work in real life, idiot." Kanna snarled. "You think I'm gonna stick around and wait for whatever freakshow you hired to show up?"
"You won't be waiting long." Kiryuu turned to her, and the look on her face was a melancholy one. Kanna felt her pulse slow to nothing. There was something final about that look.
"Goodbye, Kanna. You'll be fine. I'll have someone look after your family for you."
No, Kanna thought savagely. She wouldn't.
"What am I even doing here?" Kanna wondered aloud. She picked her way through the rubble, wobbling a bit as the pieces of wood wobbled underfoot. Hastily hopping off, she winced as some protruding splinters caught her bare shin, pinpricks of blood welling up as she stumbled back. The ground continued to give beneath her, and she found herself collapsing to the ground hopelessly. Her ankle twisted harshly underneath her, the careless movement sending shocks of pain up her leg, and she tilted too far, landing entirely on her side in a cloud of dust.
She waved her hand, coughing, eyes watering, chest shaking as she lay, twisted half off her back.
She lay there, staring at that sky high above her.
"It's not my fault." Kanna whispered to the uncaring heavens.. "It's unfair. I wasn't looking to harm anyone. All I did was look, and I was branded a suspect before I had a chance to protest." Her head lolled on the floor, powder coating her loose locks, turning them ashy grey. "I was cornered for being suspicious, and I was told to stay away from the people I most wanted to be like. Without harming a single person, I became a criminal, I became unwanted without a shred of proof. They ran about, collecting proof that I enjoyed watching them, thoughtless to my feelings. They raided my pictures, my drawings, my dreams, and decided I was a threat." She looked at heaven. "Is that fair?"
But God didn't answer her. Another voice did.
"I found you." Said a man named Death.
Death was a boy with white hair and a wry smile and more force of presence coiled about his shoulders than any wild animal she'd ever seen. He wore it like a mantle, and it draped across him thicker than any coat. He strode carelessly over the fallen rubble, approaching her with reckless threat in every movement.
Perhaps he might've protested his appellation had he known. But at some point certain details became negligible. Death was he and Death was named he. Kanna had no desire to speak as he approached, only hope he made it fast.
Death had worn black to her final moments.
Death was also, incidentally, pimping out of control as well. No mere man could wear leather pants and look that good. Kanna had a brief moment to wish she could stop and have a go with those legs. She might actually make a skirt look good.
Sadly, it seemed that he wasn't the patient sort.
"Not going to run?"
"Would there be a point?" Kanna asked plaintively. "I know you've been following me for days now." This had to be it. Kiryuu had hinted as much. No one else would ever come looking for her now.
The boy paused and cursed lightly under his breath before meeting her eyes with his impassive lenses. She wondered what his eyes said behind those frames. What did they see?
"Was it the girl - I knew she wasn't trustworthy - no, couldn't be, she hates you, no way it was her. Freed?" He shook his head a bit. "No, that would be silly, you still have all your fingers. No, I got it." He confidently snapped his fingers. "What did the cat tell you."
A stranger world than hers, apparently. Briefly she wondered if he was sane. He was here to kill her, or worse, after all.
"Tell me what the cat told you." He insisted gravely.
Kanna shuddered. Mad or no, best not to dally. "She wanted fish?" She offered, leaning away.
Death muttered something naughty under his breath, before turning away. "That's just like her." He muttered, seemingly irritated.
"That seems unfair." Kanna slowly lowered herself to get comfortable, brushing her pants down so they didn't bunch up under her ass. "You can't really blame a cat for being a cat."
That pulled his attention, he looked intrigued as he turned to her. "You think?" He asked, as though she'd said something novel.
"Well...sure?"
"Good thinking. A cat is a cat, after all. And how about you?"
Breath caught in her chest.
"It's an interesting perspective to take. Go on, tell me. Can I say the same for you, Kanna?" Death asked mildly. "Can I really blame you for being who you are?"
"But I didn't do anything." She'd unconsciously lowered her eyes at some point. He stepped closer, and she stepped back.
"Nothing?" He stepped forwards again. "You've never taken an action in your life? "
"I've never done anything wrong." She said hoarsely.
"But a girl died, didn't she?"
He knew. There was an entire rush involved with acknowledging the words. The admission that an action she regretted taking had occurred was one thing, but for someone to know - well, they'd have to understand.
And no one could understand.
"It's complicated."
His lips quirked in a way that said he saw a joke she didn't. "But was it wrong?"
Kanna's lips trembled.
"No. I-she-" Kanna stumbled over her words. "I didn't kill her! She just..."
"Lost something."
The words were a whisper, but they chilled her.
"You took something, didn't you Kanna." The boy named Death said calmly. "Something important, and then she just died."
"It wasn't what I wanted!" She cried desperately. "It's not how it was supposed to be!"
"Then what did you WANT, Kanna." He hissed, and the pressure of his words threatened to buckle her knees.. "What did you intend?!"
"I wanted to kill her."
The boy seemed startled.
"I wanted to kill her!" The words were pouring out now, a rush, the weight of her secret vomiting forth. "But I couldn't finish - she just fell over, and the p-power...it was just there taking it all!" The tears were flowing freely now. "I thought she'd saved me from myself, but all I feel is regret!"
"And what's so wrong with that?"
Kanna blinked the tears away, sniffling slightly as she dabbed at the tears with the hem of her filthy coat. The boy stood in front of her, but now a powerful satisfaction seemed to pour from him. His earsplitting grin was all for her.
"There is nothing wrong with what you did." He paced a little, back and forth, excitement showing in how he raked back his hair and waved his hands. "You weren't wrong! To take those actions was brave, and your gea-your power responded to those honest desires!"
Kanna felt her jaw slacken, something deep in her coming undone.
The boy whirled back to her and spread his arms widely. "But you're already a sinner Kanna. You've committed a crime beyond redemption, because you failed to take that girls life, and then took everything else."
"She didn't need it." Kanna weakly argued.
The boy pointed a finger at her nose, and she went crosseyed following it. "That's true, but also not the point. You need to take responsibility. You've already come this far, haven't you? Take responsibility, because you can't let it be for nothing."
"Who are you?!" She finally managed to ask, her breath coming in shallow. This was too much to handle. All this...acceptance, she couldn't handle it. She was crying again. Was she allowed to be this happy?
He pointed a solemn thumb at his chest. "I'm Vali." He was still grinning, and Kanna finally noticed how satisfied it was. "And I want to be a sinner like you someday."
"It's..." She was red, she was certain. She was blushing, and oh my she was a mess. "It's not that special..."
Vali dismissed her words with a wave of his hand. "Nonsense - abandoning the trappings and logic of modern society, casting aside your chances of being loved, growing up, becoming a responsible and reasonable human being and ever looking at yourself with any degree of pride and self worth - this is certainly something to be respected." He looked her dead in the eyes. "You're the kind of person I could use working for me."
"You want me?"
"Of course." He said smoothly. "After all - you haven't any choices."
"That's true." She admitted.
He cocked his head, as though her quick acceptance was unexpected. "What about your family?"
Kanna blushed shyly, lacing her hands. In closer inspection, it had a furrow about the fourth finger of both hands, one both alien and deeply familiar to her.
"They're with me."
Vali stroked his chin thoughtfully. "Efficient." He admitted. "I'm disgusted, but it doesn't really contradict my view of you, so I'm not surprised or anything."
Kanna smiled a silly little smile. It was more than she'd ever hoped for.
"And what about me?" Her blood began rushing, faster and faster, her whole body heating up until it felt like she'd caught flame from toetip to temple. She finally felt excited. "What...can I get?"
Vali's smile finally dropped, and his expression became something far more focused. "You get a chance. One, single chance."
"At what." She whispered throatily. Her body felt like it moved free of her control, as though it knew what was to come. As though it could sense it.
"At something you want." Vali replied smoothly. He raised his hands to his head, and slowly slid off his sunglasses.
Kanna felt something fall from her eyes, slide down her cheek and pool next to her head.
It reflected in the crystalline eyes revealed when the man named Vali took off his sunglasses. Blue so frozen they were ice. She could see the drool on her face reflected in them.
"Beautiful." She whispered. She wanted them. She needed them. Those chips of tundra, the thought of them rolling around in her skull were enough to boil her blood. The iciness chilling her skull, seeping into her mind, would be the most pleasurable feeling on earth.
She reached for them, fingers trembling, but they were so high.
And then he obligingly kneeled down.
"Let's wager." He whispered, a wild light shining in those chips of ice. It spread, she could see it, it flowed from eye to shoulder to hand and pooled in his palm. The ice spread like a virus, up his fingers to his wrist, where a white gauntlet began to form on his arm. The last to form were blue shards of eternity, swirling into existence with a wink.
The Gauntlet was beautiful. And powerful.
He gently seized Kanna's quivering hand with that hand, and placed it on his cheek, before lowering his gauntlet once more and placing it palm-down on her forehead.
"Go."
Kanna's hand jerked like a hummingbird and dove for his eye. She could almost touch it. She bet it would be cold, like ice. Like winter. It would chill her hand and freeze her bones and cool her blood.
DIVIDE
Kanna wheezed out a breath. Her blood was suddenly thundering in her veins, her heart pounding, darkness creeping into her vision. She suddenly felt as though her limbs were iron and a beast sat on her chest.
But her need was stronger. Her hand had a mind of its own, sliding down his cheekbones to where she felt his canthus, beneath where his eye was pulsing.
Her finger slid onto his eye. It was cold. And hard. It felt like no flesh she'd ever known, she couldn't mar it if she tried. It was like a marble.
Pleasure rushed through her veins and left her deadened limbs tingling.
DIVIDE
Visceral agony replaced pleasure. Kanna's chest pulsed, and bile rose in her throat. Her head was pounding. Light had become intolerable, a stabbing pain that drilled into her skull. Odd places had begun sharply aching; her inner eye, her left arm, her lower back and her inner thighs.
Her finger violently dug in.
It was cold. Like ice.
DIVIDE
Kanna vomited, body twitching. She couldn't see him anymore, but she could feel his eyes.
DIVIDE
Her finger twisted into his socket. She'd follow these eyes anywhere.
DIVIDE
She'd follow these eyes anywhere.
DIVIDE
Kanna's eyes rolled back into her skull. She was shaking violently, so hard she felt her hand fall out of his skull and flop to the side.
Regret. She'd wanted to feel them against her palm for even a moment longer.
DIVIDE
Black.
"That was entirely unnecessary." Kuroka sounded reproving as she walked up behind him.
"But I looked cool, right?" Vali murmured. "That's important. That's what'll stick. You gotta beat it into their heads, it's the only way to make them listen. Make sure to remind her how cool I was."
"Entirely pointless." She muttered, coming up to stand beside him.
Vali shrugged heavily. "There was definitely a point. Did you hear what she said before she went out?"
"'I'll follow those eyes anywhere.''" She quoted, looking thoughtful. "Was there something more to that?"
Vali snickered. "You thought that was her answering?"
Kuroka's eyes widened. "That was the gear?" She turned analytical eyes on the fallen girl, still twitching and heaving on the floor. "I didn't realize it had an ego that strong..." She turned to Vali, hair sweeping around to curtain around her right shoulder. "You want her to join?" Vali's reddened eye tingled, and a tear rolled down his cheek. He wiped it off brusquely. "Her?" He laughed shortly. "I couldn't care less about her."
"The gear then."
"What else?"
"Poor girl." Kuroka observed, sighing heavily. For a moment she allowed herself to feel sympathy. "Hardly anything must be left of her."
"Her mind is in pieces." Vali grunted. "The gear's ego is patching everything up. Their wills are hitting synchronicity." He eyed her coldly. "It would be impressive if it weren't so pathetic."
"The gear's eating her mind?" Morgan stepped around Vali, twirling her staff. "Does that happen?"
Kuroka yowled in amusement. "Of course. Fearless leader here-" A flick of her tail caught Vali behind his ear, leaving him scratching at it roughly. "-is one of the most at risk of anyone."
"Of the gear, taking over?"
"He doesn't speak about it much-"
"Once upon a time." Vali roughly cut in. The two women fell silent, turning to him in muted surprise. Vali refused to turn, though the tips of his ears pinked a bit. "Once upon a time, God in his Heaven looked upon the earth, and created the Sacred Gear System to even the playing field. He measured the worth of a man-"
A whipcrack to his ear, and Vali hurriedly amended himself. "-male or female, it's a turn of phrase woman!" He glared over his shoulder, before turning back and continuing to stride away. "He measured someone's worth and if they had the potential to be great, gifted them a gear to allow them to break the threshold." He looked silently at his fist, before he clenched it. "The gears went to the worthy."
Morgan jogged a bit to catch up to Vali's hastening stride. "You said once upon a time?"
"Who knows what He's doing anymore." Vali muttered. "Heaven's a broken wheel, and it's spinning out of control. It's anyone's game now. The gears are a power surpassing imagination, and a lot of them have the ego to match; that girl was never meant for that kind of power. She never even saw its shadow, and it ate her whole."
"So she's worthless."
"No." Vali's wolfish grin finally tore it's way across his face. "Didn't you hear? Her only regret was not killing the girl first. She's fighting it. She's nothing but fodder, but she can be used."
"You're trying to beat out God's plan?" Kuroka was definitely amused now.
Vali rolled his eyes. She didn't know. "Sure. It's him doing things I'm worried about." He fought back a snicker.
Kuroka pouted. "You're certainly rebelling against something."
"Aren't we all."
"Do you resent it?"
Did he resent it?
No. No, he was grateful. He was eternally thankful that Sirzechs and Azazel were as powerful as they were, because Vali would sooner tear his arm off than grow so strong that he'd come to hate fighting.
So they could stay there, on their thrones, and Vali would gladly march up to them again and again to tear them off, confident they'd make a hell of a game of it.
Vali loved fighting. But people were so, so weak. So weak that half their power made them nothing at all. More opponents than anyone on earth, and his greatest fear was running out. Any stronger and there would be no challenge at all. He was so, so very careful for so long, to never exert himself, to never grow or explore, to stay caged in Azazel's gilded cage.
He was tired.
He was tired of being tired.
He just wanted to go all out and tear Hell a new one and it was so close to happening he could taste the ashes on his tongue.
"Yeah. Fucking 'course I resent it."
"Is that why you want her?"
Vali cast an eye down.
"I doubt anyone is left in this world that even remembers her name. They don't need her."
"What about you?" Morgan cut in innocently.
Vali rolled one shoulder in anticipation. "I can use her. And unlike her, I can beat my gear, and I can teach her to as well. I even know how; it's the easiest thing in the world." Vali said calmly. He felt the skin on his knuckles begin to prickle. "Go to the root of desire. I'll find Red and I'll kill him. And finally shut Albion up once and for all."
Don't disappoint me Red. I'll never forgive you.
He turned to them, away from the fallen girl, and shrugged. "Easy as that."