Blood Calls To Blood
Chapter 4
A wet plop broke the silence after the explosion; the thick preserving fluid had dripped out of the shattered tank, dropping Alicia's body onto the ground, her thin limbs sprawling outwards on the broken glass.
"Alicia-nee-san?" Fate whispered, horrified.
Vivio jerked as a terrible sound filled the air, then she realized that it was Precia screaming.
"YOOOOOOOOU!"
Something struck Vivio in the face, bolts of purple lightning erupting in her vision as Vivio tumbled out of the air and hit the ground hard. Groaning, Vivio rolled to her knees, trying to clear her vision.
"I didn't mea—"
"ALICIAAAAA!" Precia shrieked, her eyes bulging and bloodshot. "GO BACK, YOU CAN'T BE OUTSIDE—YOU'LL DIE! SHE KILLED YOU!"
Vivio screamed as a concentrated Photon Burst blew her backwards and smashing her into the wall. Even though Kris had transformed her Jacket to Contact Mode the attack had blown through Vivio's defenses, leaving her whimpering in the crater she had formed, black spots in her vision.
Dimly, Vivio saw Precia raise her hand again, dark purple magic gathering at her palm. She had to get a shield up…or some kind of defence…but she couldn't move fast enough, her arms weren't cooperating.
"Please…" Vivio gasped.
Coldly, Precia snarled, "Photon Bullet."
The burst of light from Precia's fingertips blinded Vivio. She waited for the agony of the high-speed bullet ripping through her torn Barrier Jacket…but the pain didn't come.
When her vision cleared, Vivio became aware of a golden glow in front of her, silhouetting a single straining figure.
"Fate-chan…" croaked Vivio, coughing up dust.
The clone Fate gritted her teeth, her left hand out-thrust and holding the centre of her shield in front of Vivio, absorbing Precia's attack. Precia howled and increased the intensity, sending another torrent of magic at them but Fate hunched her shoulders and dug in. Vivio saw Fate's black glove tear, then shred as flecks of blood sprayed onto Fate's arm.
But still, Fate held her shield up until Precia's attack cut out abruptly.
"YOU!" Precia staggered, barely staying upright by clinging onto her staff. A thin trickle of blood had escaped her mouth—her coughing brought up red-tinted spit. "YOU KILLED HER!"
"Mother, please!" Fate cried, cradling her injured hand against her chest. "You shouldn't be up, you're going to hurt yourself!"
"YOU KILLED MY ALICIA!" Precia's blooded eyes glared at Vivio, staring right past her way-ward daughter as if Fate wasn't even there. "I'LL HAVE YOU IN PIECES!"
"Mother, stop it!"
"ALICIA! YOU WERE THE ONLY ONE…TRAITORS, THE LOT OF THEM!" Precia screeched, rocking on her feet, a maddened gleam in her eyes. "You were the only daughter I had…the only one I could trust." Something crazy and yet very, very sane filled Precia's entire countenance. "We failed you, Alicia…we will pay for it, I promise you…"
And she reversed her staff, bringing it down onto the stone floor with enraged might.
"NO!" Fate yelled.
The gem at the end of Precia's staff shattered on the ground.
"I said it before," Precia whispered, grinning as blood oozed past her lips to drip down her chin, dropping dark red dots on her purple sweater. "I would give my life for you, Alicia…"
"MOM!" Fate made to run over, but had to jump back as one of the chandeliers broke from the ceiling, smashing on the floor. Vivio grunted as she heaved herself out of the hole in the wall, falling onto her side before climbing to her hands and knees.
"Alicia…" Precia said, her head angled back and a small smile on her lips. Then she choked and fell, crumpling and hitting the ground hard, her purple eyes blank as they stared at Alicia's still, pale body.
"Mother?" Fate asked, bewilderingly. "Mom?"
Not a breath was heard in the silence. The ground shook, thin crackling echoing through the walls. Vivio let out her held breath, jumping at the sudden sound she had made.
"Mom?" Fate called again, her red eyes full of fear. She flew over to Alicia and Precia's slumped forms, staring down at them.
In her gut, Vivio could feel the whole place shaking. Without that gem Precia had, this remnant of Al-Hazard was coming apart.
"Mom?" Fate sounded terribly lost.
Vivio pushed herself to her feet, stumbling a bit as the ground reverberated. She didn't know what to do. What was she supposed to do?
Vivio felt just as lost.
"Put Out."
Vivio's eyes widened as a Jewel Seed emerged from Bardiche's eye, hovering before Vivio.
"Bardiche," Fate whispered, her words slurred with unshed tears. "Transmit the coordinates out of Al-Hazard to Officer Takamachi's device."
"Affirmative."
Finally finding her voice, Vivio asked hesitantly, "What…"
"Take it."
One of Fate's gloved hands came up, pushing the Jewel towards Vivio's general direction. The other girl hadn't looked up from the tragic scene at her feet.
"Take it," Fate repeated emptily.
Vivio gently closed her fingers around the glittering Jewel. "Fate-chan, I—"
"Go."
Vivio stopped speaking.
"Please, just go." Bardiche fell to the ground with a clatter, its eye dimming. Fate slipped onto her knees in the broken glass beside Alicia's body. The tattered edge of Fate's cape made bloody streaks across the floor wherever the inside liner was face up, making the eerily unmarked Alicia appear more realistically dead.
But then again, she had been dead for a long time.
Nanoha-mama would have known what to say at this time. Vivio desperately tried to find the right words, but she couldn't. So all she could do was say, "Fate-chan…we have to go."
She received no answer. A nauseating sensation sparked over Vivio's skin, and she recognized the warning brushes of a dimensional anomaly. Al-Hazard was coming apart at its seams, and it was only a toss-up between whether or not the entire city-plane was going to go supernova or implode on itself.
"Fate-chan, this place is coming down." Vivio bit her lip, then reached out and brushed a hand on the lightning mage's shoulder. "We have to get out of here."
After a few seconds, Fate just shook her head.
"Fate-chan…"
"Please go."
Vivio swallowed, her eyes unmoving from Fate's slumped back. The Jewel Seed dug heavily into her hand as if impatiently demanding action from her.
Vivio wanted to go home.
She wanted to see her family.
But…there Fate knelt, sitting defeated beside the bodies of the only family members she knew. Occasionally one of Fate's gloved hands would twitch, as if wanting to touch one of them, but always halting before executing the motion.
The ground rumbled again, releasing another small shower of dust from the cracking murals.
This whole dimension was about to collapse.
Kris, do you have the coordinates processed?
Her device nodded his head.
She could just go.
Vivio could go home.
There was nothing she could do for the Testarossas. She could just…go home.
**O**
Fate could not find the tears for this.
Like a burn that seared so deeply the pain became numbing, Fate could just kneel there, staring at her sister's body, broken and sprawled on the shattered glass. Preserving fluid trickled in thick streams outwards from Alicia's body, the strong chemical smell hiding all other odours.
What was Fate supposed to do now?
She didn't want to leave her sister lying so…exposed and doll-like on the ground. But yet Fate couldn't muster the courage or energy to move.
Fate wished that her mother could tell her what to do now. Precia was staring at them, her purple eyes bloodshot and glassy, dribbles of thickened blood smeared down her chin and staining the collar of her favourite purple sweater. Fate pretended to herself that Mother was indeed looking at both Alicia and her. That look on her mother's still face could almost be peaceful, as if all the terrible weight she held around her heart could finally be let go. Maybe that hint of mocking disappointment was for herself, for failing to save Alicia-nee-san. Yes, that would be like Mother.
Or maybe Enforcer Fate had been right all along.
What a terrible daughter Fate was…to be doubting her mother's love when she was looking at Mother's corpse.
Fate…had failed.
Mother was dead.
Alicia-nee-san could never be saved now. Exposure to the air would have destroyed what fragile equilibrium between stasis and degeneration that her body had been struggling with for the last few years.
The hardness of the floor didn't matter to Fate, nor did she twitch at the glass cutting into her knees through her stockings.
She wished that she could cry.
"Fate-chan," Vivio's quiet voice by her shoulder made her flinch.
"Go," Fate whispered hollowly.
"I…" Vivio paused, and even though Fate couldn't see her face she imagined that she knew what kind of conflict must be flickering across the TSAB mage's face. Then in a half sighing, half solemn tone, Vivio said, "I'll stay with you."
Fate gave some kind of twitch—she wasn't sure what exactly that meant. But Vivio knelt down beside her, close enough for them to touch, but she didn't try to touch her.
In the distance, Fate could hear the whooshing booms of buildings collapsing, the entire earth vibrating constantly from the many falling towers.
"I'm…I'm sorry about Alicia-san."
Fate felt a hot trail score down her cheek, a line of warmth through her cold numbness. "You didn't mean to," she said emptily.
"I'm sorry." Vivio repeated anyway.
Even breathing seemed like an exhausting chore. Every breath was a jagged pant to Fate.
She had never touched Alicia-nee-san before. Fate kind of wanted to, but she couldn't make herself reach out. Somewhere between the thought and the desired motion her body failed her.
Her sister and her mother were dead.
"Why…" Fate stopped, waiting under her dry mouth was wet enough for her to continue. "Why didn't you leave?"
Out of the corner of her eye, Fate could see Vivio's shoulders rise then fall in a silent sigh. She could see only Vivio's profile and the clearness of her red eye through limp blond bangs as the other girl said, "Because…even if we've just met, you're still my family. Even if you don't think of me that way, I think of you like that. So I'm not going to leave you." Vivio turned to face Fate fully, her mismatched eyes mournful, although Fate still hadn't moved at all. A sad smile twitched into being on Vivio's lips, her features pale but with a determined blush. "Family…has to stick together."
"But—" Fate closed her eyes. "—you shouldn't have to."
"I want to." Yet still, despite Vivio's brave words, Fate could hear her tears. Vivio sniffed, then adopted a cheerier tone, trying to mask her terror. "Nobody out-stubborns a Takamachi when it comes to making new friends, people like to say."
The chandelier broke from the ceiling as another shudder shook the building, smashing the tiles in a tinkle of ceramic and metal.
"Vivio…"
The other girl had pulled her knees up to her chest, looking very vulnerable even though she was still in her full Barrier Jacket. Her odd coloured eyes turned to look at Fate. "Yeah?"
"That other Fate…she's your mother?"
Vivio's lip trembled, but she did a valiant job controlling her tremours to answer without crying. "Yes…she and Nanoha-mama. Both of them are my mothers."
"Vivio…what is she like? The other me."
Vivio's breath caught, the sharp intake like the beginning of a sob. "She's kind. Really…kind."
Fate felt tears running down her face, and she scrubbed them away with her hand, wincing at the sting of salt on the little cuts in her palm.
A draft blew into the room, making Fate's cape flutter. Pieces of the palace were collapsing and pushing the air outwards towards them and whooshing into the great hall.
"Does she love you?"
Vivio's expression twisted, but her voice came out worse, the sharp intake of breath like the beginning of a sob. "Yes. Fate-mama loves me a lot. Just as much as Nanoha-mama does."
"All mothers love their daughters, right?" Fate opened her eyes and let her attention shift over to Precia, her mother's corpse covered in golden dust from the crumbling ceiling. "All of them?"
Vivio didn't answer her—the heterochromatic girl was stifling her choking sobs in her Barrier Jacket sleeve.
All of them.
Fate reached over with her torn fingers and laid her hand on Vivio's gauntlet.
**O**
Vivio stared at the bloody fingers on the back of her hand, then looked up at Fate's timidly smiling face.
"Let's go."
"What?" Vivio breathed.
"You…" Fate looked down for a moment before raising her head again. "You still have a family who is going to miss you if you die. Just because I've…I've lost my family doesn't mean that you have to too." She squeezed Vivio's hand. "And I can see that you're not going to leave without—"
Rock grinding on rock made Vivio look up, then jerk back in shock. The entire wall was leaning inwards at them, the pillars cracking down the middle as tiles fell from the ceiling.
The spell came automatically to her lips. "DIVINE BUSTER!"
The wall and ceiling blew outwards, sending chunks of stone flying out onto the air. Now that there was no more roof above them, Vivio gaped at the sight of the crimson horizon folding inwards toward them as tall buildings collapsed in clouds of dust and scintillating glass in the distance. Dark clouds swirled overhead, some of them arching towards the ground in massive twisters that roared across the streets, picking up debris that added to their mass.
"Let's go!" Vivio yelled over the chaotic wind, getting to her feet while holding an arm up to protect her eyes from the dust. "Kris! Open a connection to the Claudia!" Now that she had the coordinates of Al-Hazard in dimensional spacetime, Kris could use their location as a set point to find the Claudia's location somewhere in another dimension. Actually, Kris was probably going to look for Bardiche—her mother's Bardiche—since the Devices have already linked identification codes before. But either way…
A screen opened up in front of Vivio, nearly making her cheer with relief.
"VIVIO!" That was her Fate-mama, with Uncle Chrono yelling orders in the background. "Are you alright!"
"I'm fine!" Vivio laughed back, shaky with relief. "I need the Claudia's coordinates, Al-Hazard is collapsing and we need to teleport out!"
"Zetec is sending them to your Device now!"
Vivio grimaced, steeling herself for starting the complicated dimensional teleport. Then Fate patted her shoulder, drawing her attention.
"Let me do it!" she said over the wind. "I've done it before, so it'll probably be faster…let Bardiche have the coordinates from your Device."
"Thanks!" Relieved, Vivio grinned at Fate, stroking Kris' head with a finger as her Device complied. He settled back on her shoulder, holding the Jewel Seed tightly. "Yeah, it's probably better for you to do it!"
Fate's yellow teleportation circle glowed under their feet, the lines hazy from dust raised by the heavily shaking ground. But with a rippling flash, the dimensional portal tore open in front of Vivio, the edges swirling madly in the wild winds.
Vivio turned, reaching a hand out.
"Fate-chan, take my—"
It was like Vivio's brain was working in reverse.
She was aware that she was off-balance and falling—then she realized that she had been pushed.
"I'm sorry."
Her outstretched hand clutched helplessly at the air as Vivio tumbled into the portal, staring horrified at the closing portal mouth and the shrinking image of Fate's sad red eyes as the clone turned and walked back towards the two corpses.
"FATE!" Vivio screamed, the sound lost in the abyss.
Space was collapsing around Vivio, folding inwards smaller and smaller as Vivio fell further away from the ruined city.
She had the coordinates—she could teleport them back, she had to go back…
But the teleport sucked her along, until Al-Hazard became nothing but a speck of light in the vast blackness.
A soundless blackness that ate up Vivio's desperate screaming.
**O**
Something hard slammed upwards at Vivio—or had she fallen down? The glowing surface of the teleport pad flooded Vivio's vision, making her stagger. Vivio didn't have a chance to figure it out before a pair of arms tackled her, yanking her close.
"Vivio!" Nanoha kissed her forehead urgently, then pulled back, scanning her daughter with worried eyes.
"Let me go!" Vivio cried, struggling, but her mother's grip was surprisingly firm. The white light from the teleport pad burned in Vivio's eyes, chasing away the darkness from the transfer. "I have to go back, Fate-chan is still there!" And that's when Vivio looked up and saw that the entire bridge was silently watching the screens—all of them transfixed helplessly by the scene of the entire landscape breaking apart around the ruins of the palace.
"Can't you send one of us there?" Fate cried out, watching the screen in horror.
"I can't—we just have the location, but all the paths to Al-Hazard are collapsing—"
They could see the images from the clone Fate's Device, the picture flickering in and out. Vivio struggled, tears pouring down her cheeks as Nanoha held her tightly. Fate was frozen, staring straight ahead in paralyzed shock.
They could do nothing but watch.
Black…Flickering, the clone Fate was next to Precia and Alicia's bodies, her head bowed.
Black, then a broken image of the three Testarossas, with shards of shattering buildings in the background.
Quick flashes, black, then back on the clone, raising a shaky hand that shook all over the place from the static-y image.
"Ten seconds before the entire dimension disappears," Zetec said quietly.
The clone Fate's raw fingers wobbled, drifting closer and closer to Alicia's still cheek.
Black.
Static.
"Five."
Her torn black glove hovered over her sister's face.
Flashes.
Black.
Vivio's tears burned down her cheeks as she watched.
Static.
Black.
A tranquil expression flashed across the clone's face just as her fingers brushed Alicia's face.
Then the transmission vanished to black.
Vivio's knees gave way, and she felt her mother hold her tighter, supporting Vivio's weight as Vivio sobbed, utterly limp. Nanoha supported her gently, murmuring wordless reassurances in Vivio's ear. Through her tears, Vivio saw Nanoha reach out one hand to Fate, pulling the other woman into her embrace as well.
Vivio and Fate cried, pressed against Nanoha's warm chest.
Here her Nanoha-mama was again, the hero for all of them. No matter the circumstance, Nanoha was a hero who could touch hearts and make a miracle out of tragedy.
A hero Vivio knew that she had failed to be.
"Al-Hazard…is gone."