Path Built On Graves: Chapter Five: Likeness
AN: Tyki and Maria are so chaotic together and I love them so much; they've got dumb sibling vibes
Sheril Kamelot hadn't touched his father's things, just packaged them up after his funeral and that had been months ago, right before Tyki had left. He and their father had never gotten on particularly well, neither did Sheril, really, but Tyki was Sheril's half-brother and half-wanted. Their father had done little more than give him a home and Tyki had responded in kind, running off as soon as he could get away with it.
But Sheril could only avoid the elephant in the room for so long, so he'd heaved a heavy sigh and opened the door and began to sift through the boxes.
He'd made it through most of them when he came across something peculiar.
It was a file with a photograph clipped to it of a woman, slight with a deadly grin, dark eyes and hair. Sheril frowned; he'd never that picture before. He flipped open the file.
There was a name to go with the pretty face, Isabel Archer, but Sheril found he was more interested in the birth certificate that followed. Colette Archer was the name there with Isabel Archer being listed as mother and Markus Kamelot, Sheril's father, being listed as the father.
Sheril was no fool, he knew what kind of man his father had been. Tyki was proof of his father's infidelities, though, thankfully, Sheril's mother had been long dead by the time Markus Kamelot had dragged a confused and frightened Tyki back home with him, still calling for his mother. But this girl, Colette, she was Sheril's age…a few weeks off from him, but that was what hurt more, the fact that so soon after he'd gotten Sheril's mother pregnant, he'd gone off and impregnated some woman, just because he could.
Sheril had to take in a calming breath before continuing on. There was a death certificate almost immediately following the birth certificate. It looked like Isabel died from complications during the birth and her daughter was subsequently placed in an orphanage…who lost track of her until…
There was a new picture of a girl in her teens, brown hair pulled back and eyes clear and grey -more like their father in appearance than Sheril or Tyki, who both resembled their mothers-, wearing a dark uniform with a silver cross on it. Then her name was listed as 'Maria Walker'.
Maria Walker…his sister…Sheril wondered what kind of person she was, if she was the type of person who would enjoy some long-lost relative coming along and claiming to be her brother. Even without even knowing her, Sheril got the feeling that she'd never had much of a family to begin with.
Sheril had practically lost one sibling already for reasons he didn't even understand, only to find out he'd had another, one who was practically his twin in age…he didn't know quite how to deal with that…but he did want to find this Maria Walker, something he would only later realize was a goal that he'd shared with his brother.
Tyki's glove was painted with the Father's blood from how he'd squeezed his heart until it crushed under his hand.
"She had grey eyes and brown hair, she didn't look all that special, just that she chose to get married in a strange uniform…her husband looked like you, that's all I know...she was beginning to show that she was with child…"
The words echoed in Tyki's skull long after the body had fallen to the ground, and he thought of the woman, Colette. She'd been smart not to reveal her name then, but he knew it now.
No wonder she'd known so much about the Noah family, she'd married into it! Nea must've told her a great deal about the members of his awakened family. She was the one who'd said he'd looked like Musica, which, of course she would know, being married to him.
But the thing that hit him the most was the last thing the Father had revealed, about her being pregnant. It was laughable, the idea of a Noah and an Exorcist actually falling in love and creating a child together…Tyki had never heard of it happening before; Exorcists and Noah tended to avoid one another if they knew of each other at all.
The idea…it seemed so impossible.
And clearly, she didn't have the child anymore, it had to have been years since she'd given birth, and it couldn't have been that child that called her 'Master', though she had been much softer with him, there were no physically similarities between him and Maria or Nea. He was just the student to a master who knew everything Tyki needed to.
Tyki sighed, putting on a fresh pair of gloves. What he really needed was a smoke, preferably far enough that no one would question him about the murder he'd just committed, but close enough to still hear the startled screams.
Maria just needed to fucking breathe, okay? It was the middle of the night when she'd awoken in the midst of a panic attack. She couldn't do it, she couldn't take it. It was all she could do to throw on Nea's coat, shove her feet into boots and fall through a Gate and come out in small town in England, stumbling into an abandoned alley to collapse onto her side.
"I'm fine," she rasped out, "I'm fine, I'm fine, I'm fine…"
She didn't even know where this panic had come from, it just came out of nowhere; this is what it must've felt like to be hunted. Maria couldn't explain it, no one could get quite so panicked from simple dreams, could they?
At this rate, Maria was going to lose enough oxygen that she was going to pass out.
"Take a deep breath," Nea's voice advised and Maria's eyes shifted towards Mun, playing another recording of her husband. She wished his voice didn't calm her as well as it did, but that was neither here nor there. But still, it was a struggle.
A struggle to calm her breathing. A struggle to remember where she was. A struggle to remember who she was.
"Well…this is…surprising," came a sudden voice, vaguely startled and despite how much her chest hurt, Maria looked up to see Joyd in his fashionable clothing, looking painfully like Nea.
That did not help.
"Joyd," she managed to rasp out, and that was when it seemed to register that she was having trouble breathing.
She must've looked quite a state; hair falling haphazardly, one hand clenched to the ground and shaking hard, sinking into the coat that was too large for her, over where her heart was beating rapidly in her chest.
If it had been someone in the Order, some clergyman -and oh, how Maria had offended each and every one of them-, they would've let her struggle until she passed out, but it was perhaps more telling when the Noah were far kinder than the organization Maria had found herself a part of.
"Are you all right?" She could hear the concern.
That didn't help either.
"Panic attack," she forced out, "Gimme a- mo'—" Air hissed through her teeth and Joyd knelt down, reaching out to touch her shoulders, only for Maria to flinch back hard. He retracted.
"Put your head between your legs," he offered before moving slowly to assist her to do so. "That helps sometimes."
It sounded like he was speaking from experience.
Maria breathed in and out, feeling like her heart was going to leap out of her chest, like her lungs were burning, like the veins in her skull were constricting. Moments passed like hours before Maria finally regained her calm, her breathing slowing, and she leaned back to slide against the side of the alley, utterly exhausted.
She didn't comment on the Noah taking up residence beside her, waiting patiently, while Muncanpy perched on her knee in concern.
"What's your name?" she asked with an exhausted air.
Joyd seemed surprised by the question. She already knew his Noah name…what harm would it be to tell his somewhat sister-in-law his name?
A lot of harm, he thought.
"Tyki Mikk," he told her, holding out a hand to her.
She took it weakly. "Maria Walker," she returned.
"Oh, I know," Tyki said before he could help himself.
Maria looked to him sharply and in the light from the nearby lamps cast flickering shadows across her face. Her eyes were almost silver and made him think of his father's behind his severe spectacles. There were similarities between the two, he couldn't deny…the brown hair, the grey eyes…that expression she'd just given him had been a patented Markus Kamelot look.
"The Earl looking for me, then?" she asked tiredly. The church she'd been married in was nearby -if she was reading those street names right- and he must've gone there and probably killed the Father for good measure; that sounded like Noah.
"He just wants answers, he thinks you have them," Tyki offered simply and Maria sighed heavily, pressing a hand over her eyes. He didn't ask her about the most pertinent detail that the Father had revealed; that Maria had been pregnant. He wanted to, of course, but he didn't; she looked like she was having enough of a terrible day to add to it. Tyki might kill people, but at least he wasn't an ass.
"Answers?" Maria blinked and stared. "I thought he wanted me dead." That would've been simpler.
"Why would he want you dead?" Now Tyki was flummoxed as well.
Well, now they were both cycling the drain to the town of Confusion where Miscommunication reigned supreme.
"That's generally how it goes," Maria frowned. "Besides, my husband killed most of you…don't you want revenge for that?"
"Oh." Tyki blinked. "I don't really remember when that happened…to the last Joyd, I mean."
"You don't remember your previous incarnation? N—" Maria caught herself with a flinch. "My husband could remember all his previous incarnations." She considered Tyki. "It must've been too traumatic…sorry."
Tyki shrugged. "Don't really remember it, but thanks anyways."
He was lying. He remembered a blooming agony and looking down at a hand to see it covered in black blood and feeling as though he'd been ripped apart. But Tyki thought it best not to tell her that.
They both sat in companionable silence for the longest time.
"I don't suppose I could convince you to give me a head-start?" she asked finally.
Tyki weighed his options…how far could she get on her own? "Yeah, all right, ten minutes head start." Which would've been utterly ridiculous to agree to, because there were no trains running; she'd have nowhere to go.
"You might regret that," Maria warned, a slow, devilish smile spreading across her face and Tyki could see how a Noah had fallen for an Exorcist.
Then the ground beneath her glowed with a brilliant white light. Tyki leapt back instantly before recognizing the shard of light bearing a number. A gate? How did she have access to the Ark?
She waved her fingers before sinking right through, the Gate shattering behind her, leaving Tyki in the darkness, completely flummoxed and startled.
He wouldn't tell the Earl about her pregnancy, not yet, but the Ark was fair game.
"Let's not go wandering off again for a while," Maria told Mun who bobbed in agreement. She kicked off her boots and shook off Nea's coat, trying not to think, but it was hard work.
The familiar pain in her eyes returned, and she could feel whatever it was stabbing out of them, and she gritted her teeth together to keep from crying out in pain. It hurt to remember, it hurt to forget, and, personally, Maria was really tired of hurting.
Remember…remember…
She reached a hand up to her eyes and felt something that shouldn't even be there. Soft, like feathers, not the kind of thing that one would associate with stabbing pain in the eyes.
Maria, actually, had been hoping to dig something more concrete out of her eyes, like knives, for instance.
The feathers were as slippery as they were painful and Maria ground her teeth as she gave a sharp tug, one finally coming free with a whisper in her ear that made her skin crawl "It can't be helped, my dear, you brought an abomination into the world, now I must remove it."
Maria teetered over and passed out.
It could've been minutes or hours later when she awoke, but it was still dark outside, and the feather was still clutched tightly in her hand.
Abomination. Maria had never heard that word applied to her son, and she really didn't care for it, nor the voice she could still hear echoing in her ear. She shuddered hard, dropping a hand to her stomach where she'd felt Allen kick so long ago and she held back the tears that threatened to fall once more.
"Pull yourself together, Maria," she muttered. "You've got bigger problems."
That Noah, Tyki Mikk, he knew her name now, and that was going to cause some problems. He seemed…complicated and, for the most part, incredibly confused about her, which, Maria supposed, was fair. After all, she had married Musica despite being an Exorcist.
Desperate times had called for desperate measures. Tyki Mikk would've outrun her and overtaken her, and probably dragged her back to the Earl (she was honestly more surprised about him wanting answers and not wanting to kill her), otherwise, Maria wouldn't have used the Ark; she really hated people knowing all the cards she had up her sleeve, but, she supposed, better the Earl than the Order. (The irony, of which, did not escape her)
Well, Maria was fucked.
She might want to invest in testing if maintaining the activation of her innocence at all hours of the day was something she was actually capable of…
She looked down at the feather. It was pure white and felt faintly warm in her hand. It was more unnerving than anything else; it wasn't everyday that Maria pulled fucking feathers out of her eyeballs.
She wished stranger things had happened to her; strange was just about typical for Exorcists, they dealt in weird and unnatural.
But Hevlaska might know…the ethereal Keeper of the Cube might be able to give her a better idea of what it was made of so she could figure out who was behind the blocks on her memory.
Her eyes started to sting again with pain so she shook that thought off, climbing to her feet and brushing herself off and opening the door to make her way down the circular stairs until she reached the lift that Exorcists took to get to Hevlaska, to hand over collected Innocence.
She pressed the button to take it lower and the lift gave a low whirring sound before dropping slowly into the darkness below.
Maria never really liked coming down there, mostly because of the Great Generals. They were five shadowed figures that were the direct superiors to the Generals, though Maria preferred to interact with them as little as possible, like most people that worked for the Order. She'd never even seen their faces, which was disconcerting enough. They never seemed to move from the five chairs they were sitting in, overlooking Hevlaska, but the rumor was that those figures were actually puppets controlled by the real generals in Central.
…it was the most ridiculous thing Maria had ever heard, that was certain. But the chairs weren't illuminated currently, so maybe it was true.
"Maria," came a deep, echoing voice, "its been so…long since you've…been to see me." Hevlaska had a slow way in which she spoke that Maria had found far more reassuring as a child.
"Hello," Maria said simply. "I have something I'd like you to look at."
"Innocence?" Hevlaska queried, her great, luminescent, and monstrous form, bringing her massive head closer.
"Not sure," Maria held out the feather to her and Hevlaska brought up one of the many tendrils she used to interact with the world around her in the absence of hands. "I hoped you could tell me."
It glowed brightly with Hevlaska's touch. "I sense…innocence," she breathed in astonishment. "But not like…the innocence within me…it feels…sentient."
"Sentient?" Maria couldn't help but be startled. "I wasn't aware that Innocence could be sentient." Sure, Innocence could be hidden within a living thing and then affect it from the inside, but it couldn't be sentient by itself…at least, not as far as Maria knew.
"I had never seen…such a thing," Hevlaska admitted and they both stared as the feather shattered in her very light grip. "That's interesting."
"If you say so," Maria sighed. "Thanks, Hevlaska."
"Of course, Maria."
Maria saluted before taking the lift back up and frowning all the way back to her room. So…whatever was in her eyes was made of Innocence, that was…weird. It was probably a bad sign, but at least it wasn't Dark Matter, though, at this point, Maria wasn't entirely sure if that was worse than having feathers made of Innocence in her eyes.
She was so engrossed in her thoughts that she almost walked into the child that was standing outside her bedroom.
"Yu," she yawned widely, "shouldn't you be asleep?"
Kanda rubbed at his eyes, looking every bit as tired as he probably was, but there was probably a reason he was standing outside her door and not in his own room. He gave her no answers, probably too tired to do so.
"All right, then," Maria muttered, dropping a hand onto the top of his head. "Want some company tonight?"
She took the answer to be yes, since he shook off her hand and just headed into her room to flop down onto to bed.
Maria had to stifle her amusement at that. Clearly, she was raising her student to communicate effectively even when completely exhausted.
"Want to talk about it?" she asked, shutting the door behind them, despite knowing what the answer was going to be.
"No," he grumbled into the pillow.
"All right, then," Maria said with a shrug. "get some sleep, darling."
He might've closed his eyes, but Kanda didn't even come close to drifting off until Maria lay down beside him, the bed creaking slightly, and began to hum that lullaby that she loved so much.
It was the last thing Kanda heard before the darkness took him.
Maria was nearly outmatched, and that was completely and utterly exhausting. The boy, at least, appeared to be the same, mopping his grey-skinned brow over where the stigmata ringed his head, but he had paused to stare at Maria, singing a soft tune that made the air around her glow brightly and then solidify into a deadly-looking chain with pendulums at the end.
He had no way of knowing that the chain itself was a near-replica of her old master's technique.
But he lowered the broadsword slightly in surprise. Had she made that from her voice? Was that the power of her Innocence?
Nea Campbell was thrown and in awe; he'd never met an Exorcist that could use music as a weapon.
Her chains shot towards him, wrapping around the broadsword, but Nea was stronger and he used her power against her, swinging her bodily into a wall. She yelled in pain as she crumpled to the ground and Nea was on her, his broadsword at her throat.
"Don't move," he warned, though it was hardly terrifying to be threatened by a fifteen year old.
She glared up at him, her teeth gritted together, but his attention drifted down from the furious grey eyes to what looked like a tattoo on her throat, like music notes painted across her skin.
"Your Innocence…you can make things from music?"
"What of it?" she growled.
Nea shrugged. "It's pretty cool, that's all."
That made her blink in surprise.
"I'm the Noah's Musician, Nea," he offered helpfully, perhaps a bit too helpfully.
"Maria," she returned cautiously.
Her eyes were a pretty shade of grey, he realized, and her brown hair had long since lost its tie, pooling around her like a halo. Nea tried not to get distracted.
Apparently, Nea had taken too long, because she brought her head up to butt his forehead rather painfully, making him yelp and rear his head back, giving her the opportunity to throw his broadsword off her, bringing her legs up to kick him solidly in the chest.
Nea was still wheezing long after she'd gone.
"Maria, huh?" he muttered to himself with a grin, rubbing at his head where a bruise was sure to form.
Kanda awoke slowly to feverish murmuring.
"England is out for sure," Maria was muttering to Mun, a map spread on the floor in front of her, twirling a pen in her grip. She made a mark on the map. "And Asia…Asia is out too." She gave an involuntary shudder and Kanda remembered how tense she'd been traveling through Asia; she hadn't stopped twisting her wedding band around her finger the entire time they were in the country.
"Italy, maybe? There's been some strange rumors about Innocence down there…"
"Wazzgoing on?" Kanda asked with a wide yawn, rubbing at his eyes.
"Oh, good, you're awake," Maria said without looking up from her map. "We're leaving HQ after breakfast, so best eat your fill."
"Why? Where're we going?" They hadn't left HQ in three months, not since Maria had started training him in how to use Mugen, and, if Kanda was being perfectly honest, he'd been starting to feel a bit confined.
Maria hummed to herself. "Rome, I'm thinking…but not too fast, then people might think we're up to something…"
Kanda knew his master was paranoid, but after being an Exorcist for so long, he figured that she had a right to be, but this…she almost seemed delirious.
No, that wasn't right…
"Is it because of that guy on the train?" he asked, remembering what she'd said back then.
"What kinda name is Joyd?"
"The kind that you must never speak of, understand?"
"Tyki Mikk." Maria wrinkled her nose. "By now he's probably reported back to the Earl that he's found me, and lost me." She allowed herself a snort of amusement. "Good thing they don't have a way to track me yet or I'd really be in trouble."
Kanda was only half following what Maria was saying. "Huh?"
"Don't worry about it," she waved off his confusion.
"Why's the Earl after you?" he asked, flummoxed.
"Never you mind," she sang, the pitch of her voice increasing enough that it was almost painful. "I'm still not entirely sure he's worse than Central, but I'd rather not find out, either way."
Kanda was still lost.
"Besides, I've picked up an assignment for the both of us," Maria continued, skating completely over the whole 'the Earl's after me and I don't want him to get me' issue that she was refusing to elaborate on and Kanda actually wished she would. "We'll be heading to Rome, Italy. The finders there believe they've found some Innocence on the outskirts of the city."
"You said sometimes they get it wrong," Kanda frowned.
"Sometimes," Maria agreed. "Sometimes a rumor is just a rumor, but we still go and check them out in case they turn out to be true. Though, finders tend to be good at spotting when something's Innocence or not…but sometimes they're completely off the mark; it's a toss-up, really."
"Great," Kanda drawled out as she folded the map back up and stuck it into her coat pocket.
"Time to get up, darling," she said, patting the top of his head, which made him bat her hand away. "Time and tide wait for no woman."
Kanda was pretty sure that wasn't how the saying went, but he didn't question it.
AN: Got some fun stuff coming up ;)
As always: Please review!
