Ch. 10: Once Again, a Murderer

My hand is propped up against the headboard of my bed when I wake. It's the first thing I see when my eyes peel open. With the memory of RR behind my eyelids, I almost fool myself into thinking I never graduated—escaped would be a more suitable word—until I subconsciously touch the long, bulgy scar just above my hip. So, I run my other hand over the mattress, enjoying the lack of boundaries, but frightened by such freedom. Relief washes over my fear soon enough when I realize I haven't gone anywhere in my slumber. For safety and habitual reasons, I usually cuff myself every night. But I'm not in my room and I doubt the nurses would understand if I asked for a pair of handcuffs. I close my eyes and sink back in the mattress and blankets, blissfully stuck in a morning daze. Sleep reaches towards me with cradling arms and tempting hands when—

"Good morning." I rip my eyes open to see blond hair and a barrage of pink. When I sit upright, she jumps with a start and holds both hands out at me. "Whoa! Easy! It's me."

"What're you doing here?" I ask, respectfully searching her body for wrapping. If Kagura saw me doing this, I'd be in for a night of listening to her yelling and dodging sharp objects. "How're you feeling?"

Lucy gathers her hair to one side. "I'm okay. I should be asking you that question."

"That's relieving," I say, wincing as I lean against the headboard. "I hope the travel here wasn't straining."

"It wasn't so bad. I took the train." She stands and places the bouquet of flowers in the empty vase on the nightstand, spreading the individual stems for presentation. Thank God she's moving normally now. If I wasn't the one who hurt her, I would never have guessed she'd been hurt only a week ago. When she chuckles, I dart my attention to her face. "It's pretty funny, isn't it?"

"What?" I ask.

"This time, you're the one in the hospital and I'm visiting your guild."

"Where do you get your sense of humor?" I mutter. "You're here for Sting or Yukino?"

Turning to me, Lucy smiles softly. "Well, everyone. It's been awhile since I've seen everyone here, and you being in the hospital gave me more of a reason to hurry over."

"Sorry for the trouble." Frosch moans and stirs in his sleep on my left. Tucking him in, I scratch behind his ear. "How is everyone?"

"Good, good. We've been repairing the town, working hard on jobs, worried about you…"

"Is Levy still mad at me?"

"Livid." Lucy chuckles. "She's always been protective of me, though. By the way, what happened to you?"

"I'm fine."

"You look awful."

"Nothing serious."

"Liar, liar."

I groan when she crosses her arms, teasingly. "Internal bleeding, fractured arm and ribs…"

"How?"

"A fight."

"And the black eye?"

I pleat the blankets on my lap. "Well, you can ask Gajeel about that."

"Freaking Gajeel," she sighs.

"Freaking Gajeel," I repeat.

"Can I touch it?" I shrug. Her hands are gentle, but in an assertive way. Cool fingers tap gingerly on the swelling as she brings her face closer to mine. I switch my eyes to the right to make it less awkward. "Does it hurt?" I shake my head. "Jesus…I remember Gray had a black eye that was like this, but he was still able to open his eye. You and Gajeel must have some beef for him to pounding your face like this."

"We were just arguing a bit." Arguing about something too important to be disregarded with a fist to the face.

Lucy's brown eyes slide down to meet mine as she backs up and sits back down in the chair. "Is it…like, spewing pus?"

I touch my good hand to my bad eye automatically. "I sure hope not. I don't think it's that messed up." She watches me cautiously when I slowly roll out the shoulder of my injured arm. "I think my elbow hurts worse than my eye. My eye just looks ghastly."

"Rogue?" I meet her sorrowful gaze. "I'm sorry." I frown. "Had I known you were brought to court—"

"Luce, no. Stop—"

"—I would have come to defend you. I mean it with my whole heart. I'm sorry you had to fend for yourself."

"Don't apologize." An apology can't erase the fact that I attacked her in the dark of the night. An apology won't stop the suffocating guilt. An apology will never excuse my ledger. Everyone's only heard about a fifth of it, and I was hauled off to execution before I knew it. "It's not your fault at all. Didn't you hear? Sting cleared it all up for me. Everything worked out fine, so there's nothing for you to be sorry for."

I can't tell if she believes me because all she does is mask her thoughts with a half-hearted grin. I want to make her believe me, but if I say too much, I might do the exact opposite. I might make her feel worse. "You're too kind to be treated that way."

"Life's funny," I disregard. If only she knew…

We're quiet for a moment, each of us taking interest in something mundane in the room until she gathers enough gumption to speak again. "Just out of curiosity, I heard you and Sting can heal yourselves. Is that right?" I nod slowly. "So, why aren't you healing yourself now?"

"It…tires me out. I don't have the stamina."

"You were drained?"

"Yeah. But I'm fine." The adamantium coating my bones saved me yet again from certain death, but that doesn't mean I should be this reckless again while I'm not healing. I'm not healing because of my magic that taints me. The more I fight against my shadow, the stronger it becomes, the less I heal. I can't die because it won't let me. I'm its host, so it can torture me, disallow me from making this stab wound or that searing burn go away; but it won't let me snap off my own head. Reversing this curse is easy, but it comes with a price too significant. I haven't gone berserk in months, and I'd like to keep it that way. "I'm fine. Please don't worry."

She smiles at me, wider, brighter than before. "You're so confusing, but in a refreshing way."

"If it's kindness you're searching for, you're looking in the wrong place." I smile back at her. "I've hurt a lot of people on accident before, and not many treat me like you have following it," I admit. "I'm not blaming them, of course. You're the one who is kind…too kind, it seems."

"Rogue Cheney, you flirt."

"What?!"

She breaks out laughing, holding a hand to her forehead. For a moment, I see Sting there in her expression. They are family, after all. "I'm joking! Calm down before you hurt yourself!" My face spikes the temperature of the sun, so I avert my eyes to the hallway through the open door. "It's good to see you smile," she says, voice bubbly. "I don't think I've really seen it before."

"Thanks."

"Like a cinnamon roll."

"Great. Thanks."

Lucy quickly glances hurriedly at the clock over my head and then starts gathering her purse. "I'm sorry, I have to leave now. Master needs me back in a few hours for a job."

"Don't even worry about it." I wave with my good hand. "Thanks for stopping by."

She stops at the threshold, hand on the wall. "Oh, I forgot to mention it. Next time, we should share our writing with each other. It'll be fun!"

My face flushes again in a way that sends dull pain to my bruised eye. But because she's being nice and trying to get me to be social, I put on a smile and nod slowly. "All right."

"Feel better soon, okay?"

With that, she's gone and I rest my head back to stare at the ceiling to sigh in relief. Without Wendy, surely Lucy would have died the night I attacked her. My magic is a coward and a fool, and it's obvious in the way it lurks in the shadows before lashing out. That being the case, what of the person who fears that coward? The room falls silent—no, silent would be an understatement. Silence would suggest the presence of sound or that I would be able to distinguish it upon arrival. But I'm tragically deaf. It becomes desolate, the room, even though Frosch is a warm lump under the white blankets. This unsettling nausea is similar to the suffocating air at RR, where unremitting solitude stimulates the nerves to react to nonexistent danger. It's where noises residing only between your eardrums echoes as loudly as a dragon's roar. Where chills rise on your skin without a breeze.

Why, I wonder, when I'm perfectly safe at home? Everyone's chattering and laughter reaches my ears. The sun's never shone as bright as it is now. So why am I so anxious? Could it be my knowledge of Arian's work? Could it be how more of his prisoners' blood seems to be dripping from my hands the more time I waste in bed? To fend off this strange paranoia, I stare out the window and decide to blame the margarita of painkillers the nurses pumped me with. My stomach protests against this. Heading to the kitchen sounds as appeasing as having another tooth pulled, so I settle for a nap and snuggle Frosch to my chest.

##

It's midnight when I wake, and ten hours since I closed them.

I sit upright in a stupor, ignoring the pain in my core and face. Frosch is once again fast asleep, given the hour, so I place the blanket over him. A flinch thrusts my attention to the creaking door that was left ajar. "Hello?" My voice echoes through the halls, reducing to a faint hush and left unanswered. I slowly throw my legs over the mattress and force my legs to stand, eyes planted meticulously on the darkness leaking from the half-lit hallway. "Anyone there?"

No response.

Clutching my slung arm to my body, I slip my head out the door and look into either ways of the hall. The entire area is stark and dull, but I venture to the right. When I turn the closest corner, a guildmate whose face is concealed by shadows bounces away from me in shock. "Sorry," I say, equally startled. He nods quickly before hurrying off to the end of the hall and vanishing behind a slamming door. Strange. I should have been able to sniff him out before I left the room. I stumble a few clumsy steps and slam my injured arm against the wall. There's no time to wince when a voice—his voice—lurks in the hollow air.

[ Rogue Cheney… ]

"Hello?" I call out again, checking every direction. It's not my shadow. Consternation speeds down my spine in place of reassurance. Who else has access to my mind? "Sh-show yourself."

[ That looks quite painful, boy. ] Like all those years ago, I can't move, breathe, or think. That's all it takes to recognize him…a single whiff of his scent, one glance at his face. He may not be here, but his presence is threatening enough. Dehumanizing enough. [ You've found a guild a serve? How nice. You've always wanted to have close friends. ]

I frown, but can't seem to formulate the words to say.

[ Shame about the girl. ]

My heart skips a beat. Is he talking about Lucy? No, for some reason that doesn't add up. "What?" I say. "What're you talking about?" I'm answered by taunting laughter. Laughter that penetrates my soul, stains the concealed, most precious fragments, and splatters it on the floor, letting it fall through the cracks. Never had I heard laughter as violating and bone-chilling as his. With a shaking voice, I demand, "Arian, answer me! What did you do?!"

Nothing.

-a day later; midnight-

It's been a day since I've seen Yukino. Her scent began to fade the night I heard Arian's voice, the slightest whiff in the harshest wind; by daybreak, it was masked by bleach and ammonia. Sting, I assume, was probably on a cleaning spree again like any other Virgo. Aside from the fact that we've hardly spoken since I've returned, Yukino going rogue is out of the ordinary. Orga mentioned she'd taken up a solo mission in Bosco while I was asleep, and that Sting gave himself a migraine worrying about my injuries and her absence. She's considerably strong, so why is she taking so long to return?

Lady Minerva urged me to stop being so suspicious of every little thing, but she agreed with the fact that the whole thing doesn't bode well. If there was an issue with navigation or extra time was needed to complete the mission, Yukino would send a message to the guild. Not a single memo was received, according to Rufus. I know I'm not the only one who's worried. But I know for a fact that I'm the only one fearful of Arian snatching her. Bosco is infamous for its slave trade, and he's a devoted slaver.

Not only that, he must know that Yukino's home is mine as well. Realization swallows me, and I lash forward from the pillow. Pain surges through my center in shocking torrents. If something were to happen to her, if Arian is responsible for the smallest scratch across her skin, I don't know what I'd do. Yukino's too important to get mixed up in this mess. I roll away the covers and try out my arm, slipping the scratchy sling away. It's sore and has a few kinks to stretch out, but it works. My ribs are a different story, but I'm mobile. Careful not to wake Frosch, I stand and gather my clothes. The hardest part is getting my arms in my shirt and slinging my bag across my chest. It takes ten minutes. The door shuts quietly behind me and I scan the hallway and dining area, sniffing the air for anyone insane enough to be awake at this hour. My first concern is Sting, the lightest sleeper in the world. But he's stagnant for now.

When I make it to the meeting room, just before the exit, I stop at the decorated throne. There's a shade over the polished arches and jeweled cushion, a certain dignified air that complements the porcelain marble tile beneath it. I force my body to face it in salute, and then painfully bow my head, keeping my eyes on it. "I'll bring her back, T."

##

I thrust a summer photograph of Yukino at a middle-aged man. He recoils back as if expecting a fist to the nose. I barely laid a finger on him. "I'll ask you again. Tell me where you've seen this girl," I say, seated comfortably on a stone surrounded by alfalfa sprouts.

He's been dangling by the ankles from a tree branch for three minutes. "I told you already!" I frown, and he exclaims in a pitch reaching space. "Please don't hurt me!"

"You told me to go to hell and take her with me," I say, simply. "And frankly, I don't appreciate that. Speak now, and I won't leave you here for the bears for stealing my wallet." I maintain a stoic countenance and cross my arms. "Give me the answer I need."

The lump in his throat springs up and down as he gulps, sweat trailing to his brow. The wintry sun only grazes against his skin, but I'm certain it's not the cause. "I only got a brief glance of her yesterday morning! I swear!"

"Where did you see her?" He screams out when I get to my feet and slowly approach him.

"I don't—! By the farmer's market!"

"Where was she heading?" I cross my arms and narrow my glare.

As if the truth is locked away, he licks his lips before pinching them. "I-I'm not quite sure if I—"

Shamefully, I allow my past self to emerge from my altered, pacifist façade and harden my heart, sharpening my tone and slitting my eyes in a menacing glare. "If you wish to keep all your fingers, I suggest you stop lying to me." For extra persuasion, I get right in his face and hold a single claw between us. The blade pokes the flesh of his cheek. "Now, before my hand slips, tell me where she was heading. Surely the only bartender in town would know."

By the twinge of absolute terror and the coat of perspiration on his skin, it's obvious he's about to give. He whimpers quietly, staring into my eyes, so I replace the knife with a small sack of money I was planning on offering him. Before he stole my wallet and tried to run from me. "She grabbed a bite to eat at the restaurant," he swallows hard, "and she said she was heading northeast, near the forest. Said she was on her way to Bosco."

"Is that all she told you?" I take a step back and drop my scowl.

"Yes, I swear!" If what this man's saying is true, and if Yukino's keeping such a slow pace, I can still catch her before she reaches Boscan borders. Perhaps she was held up, but I'm sure I would be able to smell her magic energy. I toss a knife at the rope and watch the man collapse to the ground, right on his neck. He groans and rubs it out. "Ow…" I stare over him at the misty mountains waiting for me. "You're…" he points with a shaking finger at me, "those eyes…! Eyes the color of blood, a lethal glare that maims the soul of its victim, metal claws emerging from blood-caked knuckles…You're Scarlet D—!"

"I am no one of your concern. And this," I snatch my wallet from his rear pocket, "is mine."

"I'm sorry…!"

"Why a bartender decided to rob me is beyond my knowledge," I sigh, opening the sack and adding a few more bills and coins.

He starts groveling on his knees with hands clawing at my leg. Sunlight sparkles in two white beams in his eyes. "Please don't kill me!"

"I won't. I'm sorry about the knife." I place the sack of money between his clapped hands and pat them. Then, I snatch his collar and bring my face close to his, scowling. "I never came through your town." He stares at me, surprised at how heavy a load it is, and nods quickly. "Thank you for your help." With that, I stand and take my leave in the direction Yukino was said to have traveled.

##

"Have you seen this young lady?"

A man with a rancid scent and hairy arms squints at the picture closely. "Nice pink bow, man."

"Shut up. Have you seen her or not?"

He takes his cigar from between his teeth as he studies the picture of Sting, Yukino, Milady, and me on a lazy Sunday afternoon. Yukino was bringing us snacks while I sewed Frosch's suit—very slowly, might I add, since Sting kept bugging me. The TV was switched to some real-time program. And yes, my hair was pulled back by a single pink ribbon tied into a neat bow on the top of my head. Look, it was a gift from Frosch; and during the summer, it gets too hot to have my hair in my face all the time, and—

I don't have to explain myself.

"Well?" I push, losing not only patience, but daylight. "Her name is Yukino."

He scratches the stubbles of white hair on his chin in thought, the smoking butt of the cigar almost making contact with his skin, and then points heavily at Yuki's face. "Yeah. I've seen her around here before."

"Did she tell you where she was heading?"

"No, I didn't talk to the li'l lady. She stayed for an hour to rest and grabbed a bite before taking off towards the forest." With a chapped finger, he points towards screening trees and dirt roads twisting in mazes.

"Where does that forest lead? To Bosco?"

"Pretty much. Lot of folks get lost in there and end up in Stella or somewhere in between, faced with nothing but sea."

"Huh…" I squint at the trees.

"But I have to warn ya, sir." He sticks the cigar back in his mouth when I turn back to him. "Earlier today, I saw another young man…Well, a big fellow about six feet go walking around in there, and—…"

His words become muted by this submerged interference as my magic starts churning. My eyebrows draw down as I strain to listen to his words, watching his lips move, but not quite understanding what is being said. As if a bubble has been inflated around my eardrums. I close my eyes to try and fend it off to no avail and instead am greeted by my own voice, devoid of my soul. Lacking terribly in human fluctuations.

~You're trembling again.~ I raise my hand to my face to find it clenched into a tight fist, white at the knuckles. When I release my hold, there are four white crescent moons imprinted in my white and red palm. My hand jitters uncomfortably like it's reaching for something so far-fetched with faltering strength. ~Difficult, isn't it?~

I look up from my hand and throw a quick glance over my shoulder to see…me. Standing there, ten feet away, snarling in my Dragon Force. "I…I don't understand. Where's…?" The man I was talking to has vanished, but I can still smell the cigar smoke.

He—or I—break out in a malicious cackle that decreases the temperature, that steals all the oxygen from the air, and that snakes up my spine. I'm instantly frozen, suffocating, and terrified. Is this what I look like? Is this how Sting and the others feel when I wear that haunting grin? ~How long do you plan to keep up this good-boy façade? Can't you see where it's gotten you? Magnolia's court demanded your death, Fairy Tail resents you, and now Arian's after you, too. What more is it going to take?~ Magic energy pulsates ponderously against my skull, an invisible onslaught on the backs of my eyes and temples. Pain sears through my veins, making me grip my hair at the scalp. My teeth bare and clench as he goes on, mocking me. ~Ooo…~ He kneels down to my eye level when I collapse to my knees. ~It aches, doesn't it? The agony you're experiencing is but a fragment of what is to come if you continue on this way. Stubborn and resistant when, really, you must know your resistance is futile.~

"N-no! You're wrong…!" I glare at him through my hair, struggling to breathe. Sweat stings my eye, but I keep my grimace set. "You're lying to me…!"

He chuckles in amusement and offers me a hand, shadows emitting from the palm. ~Take my hand. Don't make me use force again.~ I breathlessly shake my head. I can't afford to let this overtake me again. Not now, especially. With impatience sprinkling his tone, his taunting smirk drops to a frightening grimace. ~Take. My. Hand.~

"No." Another jolt of agony strikes through my head again. The force knocks me to the side, and seeing as there's no way I can fight this thing, my next and only option is to run. My legs refuse to stand, so I scramble in a desperate crawl away from him. He laughs loudly with the sound formulating in his chest. A cackle leaving him nearly breathless. Two subzero hands snatch my ankles and drag me back hastily with an arm strength too significant to fight. My heart rate spikes drastically over healthy and I kick out at him, missing, but enough to weaken his grip.

~Why are you hesitating, Rogue? Why do you deny our bond?~ A blast of shadows crashes into the floor to my left, dangerously close to my head. The ignition knocks me to the side, compromised in a stupor. His grip awakens me; I stumble to regain my footing before sprinting as fast as my legs will carry me. Checking to see if he's chasing me or how far I'm getting would be foolish. All I'm concerned about is getting the hell away. My legs kick, my arms pump, but my destination provides nothing more than an endless tundra of oozing black, no guiding star or distant light. I duck my head, uncaring, and swing my arms harder, faster.

~You'll be back.~

"You okay?"

I come to in a sharp gasp, dripping with sweat, heart pounding against my chest, and staring into the eyes of the same man from before. I avert my eyes to the sun to see it in the same place. A brief wind brushes over the two of us. He cocks his eyebrows, now holding the picture. "You need to sit down, sir?"

I answer quickly, "No."

"Ain't smart to go wandering around when you're all pale like that. You sure you—"

"Yeah. Yes." I take the picture and stuff it in my bag, slinging it back over my neck with the strap across my chest. "Sorry, it's been a long day. Thank you for your help." With that, I dangle a small bag of gold up to my eye level. "That will be all." Eagerly, like a kid being presented with a sack of candy, he swipes the bag and goes to counting.
The forest has this sort of…eerie vibe about it. Sure, it's just a fiasco of trees and shrubs and dirt, but as I'm gazing through the keyhole of light in the distance between the lanes of trees, the unsettling nausea in my stomach never ceases. There are eyes hiding behind the leaves, ears around the stubs, and whispers in the wind. This amid feeling only increases as I approach it.

No. I don't have time for this. I shake the paranoia from my mind and collect myself. Yukino needs help. What justice would I do her if I can't even help myself? I start towards that keyhole, one foot at a time. Counting every step.

half an hour later—

A familiar scent reaches my nose in the next brushing wind. I whip around and scan the stark area, head jerking left, then right, and left again. "Come out, Finn." It takes another few seconds before my guildmate comes out, shuffling his step in his usual manner. We met through Sting back when Jiemma was master. He was one of the rare ones that tolerated us enough not to pick on us. "Hey, man," I say, disarming my frown and approaching him. He doesn't smile, strangely. "Are you searching for Yuki, too?"

"I've been looking for you, Rogue." His fists ball.

I watch them closely, danger spelled out broadly across his white knuckles. I position my feet, left before the right, in preparation for his first move. "Me?" I ask, slipping my right arm behind my back out of habit. "You came all this way for me? Did Sting send you?" His jaw tightens the more I speak. Left eye twitches, right nostril flares, right shoulder rolls. His eyes, I mark, have this dullness to their usual brown hue. A chalky nonchalance deeming as unrecognizable and contrasting his routine upbeat spark. The Finn I know would never let his hair have a strand out of place. But a scent never lies. It's him. As expected, he lunges towards me with a charge so strong to pick up dirt around his feet. I shield my face with my arms and repel his attack by redirecting his weight and shoving him a great distance. "What are you doing?!" I call out. He plucks out a knife and comes at me full force again. Seeing as there's no need for magic use, I'll have to resort to hand-to-hand. He's my guildmate, so I'd rather not risk hurting him too bad. My knife stays in its holster on my boot, and I take an offensive stance—my left hand before the right, my weight shifted in a back stance. My elbow aches in anticipation—it's not a hundred percent yet, but it's good enough.

Finn's knife zips right over my head when I dodge, slicing the tips of my hair. He brings his knee up to jam into my nose, but I evade quickly and return with a foot to the head. While he's disoriented, I disappear into one of the trees hovering over the opening. "Cheney!" He screams in every direction. "Hiding, as usual! Come out!" All right.

I smack my heel to his jaw when he spins around, sending him face first to the ground. "Finn, what the hell is wrong with you?" I growl. As if my voice is a trigger, an unlatching snap catches my attention, tossing it to the left at a fishnet flying towards me, sprawled open like the gape of a monster aspiring to catch its prey. I dodge in a flip and the trap falls limp between the two of us. "Finn, talk. What's going on?"

He gives no explanation.

Without warning, he comes to me with the brawn of a bull and rams his knife for my eyes. I move my head, grab his wrist to keep the weapon still between my twisted arms, and flip him over my back onto the floor. He snatches a fistful of my hair and yanks my head back, leaving my neck open and welcoming to his knife. To trap me under his monstrous weight, he lifts and slams me into the dirt. His weight nearly reaches Orga's; and no amount of struggle and pushing grants me relief of his 300-pound ass. This is the first time in a while that I've truthfully been trapped under someone in a fight. "Not so intimidating now, Cheney, are you?" With the knife, he traces the crescent-curved bone along the outside of my eye, nicking the skin with the tip to draw blood. I flinch. My arms shake the more I try to shove his arm away to no avail. No smile breaks on his face, instead he stares coldly at me. My blood shines brilliantly on the blade, reflecting a spark of sunlight directly in my eye. "You think you can save everyone. You think you can make a difference here. You're wrong." He jams his knee into my healing elbow, my sudden outbreak of pain his ecstasy. "You should've stayed at the guild."

"Get off me," I bare my teeth at him, snapping out of a dazed stupor.

His voice is this unrecognizable tone, a tone of malice and mockery, devoid of the lightheartedness that makes him Finn. "Did that hurt?" With the butt of his knife, he slams his fist down into my ribs, right on the bruises. I bite my teeth down hard on my lip to muffle a scream. To retaliate, I crane my neck back and ram my head into his nose. He wipes away blood and punches me squarely. The blade pushes my hair from my face. "There," he says as I continue to struggle under him. "I'd like to see your face as I kill you."

When his arm extends high, knife ready, I grasp the tiniest opportunity to trap him on the floor, tangling him in my legs and flipping him over with my shin, holding his chest to the floor. In the midst of our rough transition, I disarm him and hold his weapon to his throat. "Have you lost your mind?! I'm not your enemy." His eyes…what is that? They're different—the same faded brown color tarnished by these translucent pinwheels drawn in the corneas. He makes a grab for my neck, so I move back. "Don't make me do this." But even I know I would never be able to kill him. But if I knock him unconscious, maybe—

"Rogue." I wipe the vicious expression from my face, and so does he. His eyes are glassy with tears, full of the emotion that had been locked away in the duration of our fight. A total alteration from five seconds ago. Out-muscling me yet again, he grips my wrist tightly. "Please." He jolts in pain, throwing his head back. "End this."

"What?" My heart sinks. "Finn?" Against my liking, my words do reach his open ears, but not his stubborn body. He starts bringing the knife down towards his chest, his large hand swallowing mine, guiding it to pierce his neck. I fight back, willing the knife to my body. "N-no, no! Stop!"

"Rogue, he's going to kill me if you don't," Finn pleads, gruff voice distorted with heavy tears.

"No one's going to kill you!" I scramble. "We'll go home and we'll all protect you. Just stop!"

"Please, man. I want you to do it." My hands tremble as I keep combating his pull, struggling to yank the knife away from his throat, but his hand stays mine.

I choke, "Finn, no—"

"Rogue, do it."

"Let go. Let go of my hand right now! I'm not—"

"Don't let that monster kill me!"

"Who's going to kill you?" I ask after a long silence. "Who, Finn?"

He whispers the name; I pause. "Please, Rogue. I can't… He's in my head. I can't…keep living like this. I need you…to save me from him. Please."

The darker part of me howls in hysterical ecstasy at such a request. It sends this prickly itch to my scalp that makes tearing off my skin sound appeasing. I clutch my head when a thick throb proceeds the tingling. Every part of me is shakes, devoid of the idea of actually killing. "Finn, listen to me," I say, gripping his shoulder. "We're going to help you. This is going to stop, but I need you to keep fighting until we get home. Okay? I'm taking you home, buddy—" Every muscle in his body contracts painfully under me with the bite of the possession. The pinwheels in his eyes spin viciously. He starts frothing in the mouth, screaming in agony I can only imagine. Blood leaks through his eyes, his ears, and he begs me between the liquid that's drowning him… So, slamming shut my eyes, I jam a retractable claw through his sternum, and he stops with a choppy gasp.

Finn mumbles in a stifled whisper of gratitude with his closing breath. "You're…a good man, Rogue." He coughs with a throat full of blood. "Thank you."

I squeeze my eyes hard to fend off tears of anger and sorrow as the smell of his cooling blood enters the air. I slide the metal out and take my fist from his chest so that I don't have to feel his heart stop. I wish…for once, I wish I could lend my body over to my shadow so that I can wake up somewhere else. Somewhere else with no memory of what I'd done, no memory that I had killed. Again. His grip on my arm loosens. A thousand thoughts invade my head as I drop my eyes from his pale face to his lifeless hand. Rage soon replaces sorrow—I snatch the knife stained with both of our blood in a crushing fist and launch it as far as my arm will allow. And by the echoes of the forest, I screamed with it. My hands grip my hair at the scalp and I press my forehead to the wound in his chest. Releasing the reigns of self-control, letting my emotions seep into his stayed blood flow. Another five minutes drag by before I realize I can't stay here forever.
Lethargically, I stand, eyes planted on his limp body. The sun is starting to set. The bruise left under his eye is like a powdered purple in the orange dimmed light. I look at him, at his guild mark peeking out from his shirt's collar, and understand exactly why he was targeted. He is not a traitor or an enemy. He is my guildmate. If there should be bitterness, it should be towards me. I brought Arian into this. He wants me, not them—but they're paying for it. Footsteps approach us, by scent, I know it's Lady Minerva and Orga. Quickly, I unlatch the silver cross from my neck and leave it around Finn's, giving his hand a final squeeze. "I swear," his blood oozes down my arm, "I will have his head. He will die by my hand for the pain he's caused you." I gently close his eyes with my other hand. "I'm so sorry, Finn." It burns that I can't bring him home to bury.

But…

I have to find Yukino. I can't afford to lose another day. I can't lose more family.