A/N: I'm going to start writing this with the presumption that people will want longer chapters less frequently, but I suppose we'll see after I post the previous chapter. But either way, I'll start at this.

Disclaimer: Even if there's more words below about them, I still don't own them.

It Bends and Bleeds

Katherine was not anticipating her vision to blur and to shift like when shifting to the Dream when she'd touched the corpse. However, she should not have been surprised, everything in this nightmarish town did strange things, touching the mummified corpse probably had not been the best idea. When she opened her eyes she was standing in a strange building that she'd never seen before. There was a lantern not far from where she stood, unlit and dark in the dim room. She knelt, lighting the lantern as a safe haven and the messengers reached up in awe at her from the base, tiny hands arcing in the direction she stood and walked away in. What were they and why did they think so highly of the Hunters that graced them with their presence? It was a question that she was certain would never be answered but persisted in her mind all the same. She wondered briefly if she should wait for Nero, or how to get back to where she'd been before; would the devil hunter be able to follow her at all? Would he think to touch the creepy corpse that had just taken his partner? She could always go through the dream and back to the place in which they'd fought that monstrous pile of bodies. But what if he'd already touched the corpse and been transported here while she'd been shifting from realm to realm? She knew it took some time for the shift to happen, but not how long it took in actuality. The best course of action was to wait here and hope.

The problem with waiting and hoping that the partial devil would be foolish enough to touch the mummy as she had was that it was boring. Extremely so. She had no clock, nor watch, nor any method of telling how long had passed but after an estimated twenty minutes or so Katherine had had enough and stood, ready for something to happen; she'd heard movement in other parts of the building and figured that there'd be a fight at least. She was right on that front at least, she realized, ducking behind a pillar as yet another slimy creature hurled a vial filled with some foul concoction at her. The Hunter sighed, waited for the sound of another vial hitting the pillar she'd ducked behind and then darted out, hefting her cleaver and slashing through the gooey body of the creature that had oh so kindly thrown things at her. It appeared to have been some sort of student at one point but clearly no longer kept up its studious activities. Regardless they weren't difficult to take down, just obnoxious when tossing vials of unknown substances at anything moving that they could see. She glanced over the railing, it was dark down below as well and she could see the movement of some things that moved and slid in motions that were suspiciously similar to the creatures that she'd just been fighting. However the drop was a bit more than she was comfortable taking without good cause, besides this building seemed logically built, there had to be a method down to the first floor somewhere…

She was certain that she'd found one such method when she heard the clinking of chains behind her and turned just in time to see a scrawny giant lifting a massive flaming fist to strike her. He may have been bean-pole skinny but Katherine was certain that she'd felt ribs crack from the blow as it hurtled her into the wall with a loud crash. She wheezed but her blood started to pound excitedly in her veins and the added adrenalin allowed her to roll out of the next strike without too much extra pain. There was barely enough time to jab a blood vial into her thigh and clamber back into the fight, she dodged several times before coming to the horrible realization that her cleaver had been knocked from her hands with the unexpected blow. She cursed heavily before reaching frantically into her coat, there had to be something in there that would work. Cool glass met her fingers and she yanked out a molotov. Well it wasn't what she'd been expecting but it certainly worked to buy her some time. She touched flame to the fabric and hurled, striking the giant right in the body, earning a shrieking cry from it as her hands delved into the many pockets of her coat once again. This time returned a more fruitful result, she came away with the weapon that she'd seen Eileen using what felt like a lifetime ago, the bath messengers had offered it to her when she'd shared some of her knowledge with them. She grinned, split it in two and darted back into the fray, taking advantage of the giant's distraction, slicing through thin tendons and straight to bone, the weapon was far sharper than she'd anticipated. The giant swiftly fell to the dual weapons, shaking the floor beneath them and the Hunter found herself suddenly concerned for the structural integrity of the building when boards cracked and wheezed but thankfully remained sturdy. She heaved a sigh of relief, tucking the weapon back into her coat for safekeeping, located the cleaver she'd grown so attached to and looked back at the ladder that had originally garnered her attention. The room beneath was full of other vials and glasses and… she tensed suddenly when she saw the body of a massive spider clung to the walls and most of the door. A spider with the head of a man… It must've heard her too as it spun, looking just as startled as she felt. It's creepy forearms twitched, twisting in front of it as though it didn't know what to do; Katherine felt her hand unconsciously grip her cleaver tighter.

"Huh! Oh, this cannot be, you cannot be... No, you didn't... Lord Amygdala... ...How did this come to pass? Hmph! Now, wait just a moment... Do you think ill of me, me?" it did the last thing that the Hunter thought it would and spoke, the words rushed and soft, like shuffling paper. Katherine wasn't sure how to respond, this… creature didn't seem to immediately mean her harm… but the things she'd met that didn't mean to kill her were few and far between. Her silence must've been taken for an answer as the creature began lamenting."Oh, it pains me to hear it. You've made yourself a misreckoning. I shared with you a thing most secret. Now you're witness to a miracle, and all the stronger for it! It's plain as a pikestaff. Now, say in my heart, you were as a lamb to my god. Well, you weren't to know, and it wasn't for you to know. All's well that ends well, I say. Heh heh heh!" The snickering laughter was probably the most unsettling thing about this whole situation. Katherine shivered and finally found her words again.

"I don't recall speaking with you before. How can you have shared a secret if we've never met?" she asked, her eyes narrowing slightly at the monster before her.

"Surely one such as you has many things on their mind." the spider said eagerly, shuffling slightly on the desk it was partially perched on. "No matter. Such details are trifling. We're fast friends by now. Let this express what words cannot. Oh, doubt me not, sweet compeer. What is

friendship, but a chance encounter?" It giggled again and Katherine suppressed a shiver, trying not to think about what being 'friends' with such a thing might mean. She realized that it was frantically scrabbling something on the desk, it was… it was a rune. Where did this thing learn that?

"If we are fair friends, then please tell me, how does one get to and from this place?" she asked, relaxing slightly. If nothing else she wasn't in immediate danger with this creature. It laughed again and the Hunter was finding herself more and more sure that it was unhinged.

"Through the blessing of the god of course!" he said, nodding as though this were the most basic of information. She just blinked, not sure of what that meant. Before she could think of a response there was a knock at the door. The pair stopped, staring at the door before Katherine stepped forward to look at who was on the other side; most beasts didn't bother with knocking. To her surprise and relief Nero stood on the other side, looking a bit covered in gunk but no worse for wear. She opened the door and allowed the partial devil inside. If it's reaction to her was strange, then the man-spider's reaction to Nero was even stranger though she put a stop to the devil hunter making a trade with the thing before it could be settled and she pushed for them to leave swiftly. Friendly or no, there was something about that creature that she didn't trust.

"Took you long enough." she told the partial devil, he frowned at her response, saying

"I touched the creepy mummy right after you. You didn't exactly make it easy to find you." the frustration of this place was clearly getting to both of them as Katherine found her own patience thinning.

"Well you have succeeded. Have you found a route to leave this place?" she asked. He nodded and pointed in the direction of the big door.

"Yeah, there's some doors over there, probably go outside, oh! Right. I found these, they mean anything to you?" He pulled some crumpled paper out of his pocket and offered it to her. She accepted them and smoothed them out, eyes scanning the scant words before looking up at the partial devil in confusion.

"I wish I knew what this one meant." she said, gesturing with the longer one "But this one…" she knew what it was referencing, and for the second time in far too short a time frame, dug around in her pockets before finding what she'd been looking for and offering it to the partial devil. Nero wrinkled his nose, the poor smells of most of the things she picked up no longer truly bothered her, but he took it from her anyway.

"It's an umbilical cord from-" she started to explain but trailed off when the devil hunter's arm began to glow, a brief flash later and it was gone, as though it'd never been there to begin with. "an infant Great One…" Katherine finished slowly, still staring at where it had been. Nero swallowed thickly, his stomach roiling, and paused before asking

"It's… from a what?" his face had turned a tad green when she said it, so she said slowly.

"The Great Ones… they're fated to lose their children, but doesn't mean that there aren't fragments left behind, like part of the umbilical cord from the infant."

"I heard you the first time…" he said, a look of focus coming over his face. He removed the mechanical arm and flesh and bone materialized where metal had just been. He continued to focus, looking at his arm like he expected something.

"Where did it go?" Katherine asked, her own curiosity peaked.

"I… my arm used to absorb things, powerful stuff, it didn't used to look like this." he said, waving his pristine arm vaguely, it looked out of place when the rest of him was covered in grime. Katherine felt her hand go back into the pocket that had had the cord in it, she had two others, one from a rather disturbing creature she'd found at the foot of a hysterical woman who had forgotten to lock her door and the other from that mad doctor she'd put down, it'd been wiggling stubbornly in her womb even after her body had died. She couldn't help the small gasp that escaped her when it wiggled once more, as though the cord itself were a living thing, not just a piece of a half-formed creature that was never meant to be. Katherine let go of the thing but it had already wrapped around her hand and was squirming its way up her arm under her shirt, she yelped and started to try to get it off. Nero looked up at her, a worried expression on his face and his hands hovering over her but unsure how to help.

"What…?"

"Just! Get it off!" she shouted, yanking her coat followed by her vest off, buttons flying as the threads tore in her haste. She could feel the damn thing squirming across her ribs, sticking to her skin like a massive, slimy slug. The formerly white undershirt was yanked up just in time to see the thing latch onto her belly button, going from her outsides to her insides in the blink of an eye.

"No, nonono!" She scrambled at the smooth skin of her abdomen, as though she could tear it back out of her body but her flesh looked no different that it ever did. And then she understood. Everything started to click into place, she could hear them. The Hunter hadn't heard them since the beginning of this nightmare, that first moment, after the messengers had reached for her face. Now the voices whispered once again, not continuously, not loudly, but she could hear them speak every once in a while, revealing the secrets of the universe. She looked back at Nero who was watching her in horror and confusion.

"Are… are you okay?" he asked slowly, all she could do it nod at him. He raised an eyebrow at her skeptically

"You sure? You just had a creepy squirmy thing crawl inside of you." he said, Katherine just laughed, perhaps it sounded a bit unhinged but it felt good to release the tension. He just continued to watch her with concern.

"So did you." she said, gesturing vaguely at his arm.

"Yeah, but I've had that happen before? I certainly wasn't happy about it, and very creeped out about it but… I don't know, watching that thing worm its way into your body gives me the creeps, more than this whole place already does. You seemed pretty unsettled when it was happening." He was looking into her eyes like he was going to see all the way through to her soul there. Who knows, perhaps he could…

"Are you not able to hear them?" she asked, matching his worried gaze with an excited one of her own.

"Hear what?" he looked around them like she was speaking of the pathetic beasts that were wandering these halls.

"The voices. Their voices." she said excitedly. Nero paused, his face scrunching up for a moment before he looked at her cautiously.

"You mean between the worlds? The… the things that live there? I don't… I don't really hear them here, but sometimes I can almost see them, their voices, they sort of… bend? And bleed? It doesn't really make any sense but that's what I've noticed, if that's what you're asking?" he said. She nodded, still trying to adapt to the additional sensory input.

"So you understand. They whisper the secrets." she took a deep breath "Wait… have you always been able to hear them?" The partial devil paused for a moment and then nodded.

"Ever since I've come here I've heard them whenever we travel between the dream and the nightmare or this place…" he shivered "It's… unsettling to put it mildly."

"It's enlightening." she whispered, blood practically trilling in her veins as she pondered the possibilities of the things that may be revealed to her. She could tell that Nero was still watching her with concern, but she couldn't find it in herself to care as she reached into her coat pocket and grabbed the last cord. By the time he'd realized what she'd done, surging forward as if to stop her, it was too late. The last cord disappeared beneath flesh to join the first and Katherine grinned as the secrets of the world became clearer still.

"What the hell? Why the fuck did you do that?!" Nero shouted at her, shaking her shoulders as though it may just rattle the cords out of her. She just smiled beneath her mask at him

"I understand now." she said, and she did, but how to explain it to him, how to get him to understand.

"Great, fantastic," he threw up his hands and looked at the ceiling of the building "she understands!" the heavy sarcasm in his voice was not appreciated, they were in an insane world, sometimes they needed to do insane things to make sense of it… The Hunter gave him a sour look and he sighed heavily.

"Now that's a look that makes sense." he said "At least you've stopped giggling like you've lost your goddamn mind."

"I wouldn't pass judgement yet. I understand so much more now, but I may cease making sense to you." she said, pulling her undershirt and vest back on and buttoning the remaining buttons before sliding back into her coat, shivering lightly as the voices whispered louder for a moment before fading back into the background.

"You going to be okay?" the partial devil asked, handing her her cleaver that she'd dropped in her earlier panic.

"At least for the moment." she said, gratefully accepting the weapon.

"Fantastic, now let's get the fuck out of this creepy ass building." Nero said gesturing toward the large double doors. Katherine nodded in agreement and settled her weight, pushing them open with a heavy groan. The swirling cosmos that greeted them halted them both in their tracks.

"Y'know what? This building isn't so bad." Nero said. Katherine rolled her eyes and grabbed his hand, pulling them both through the rift in space.

A/N: Alrighty, well I hope everyone's satisfied now with the chapter length, I'm going to go do some DMing work now! Hope everyone has had a great memorial day!

Till next time,

-Winged Element