I'm going to purposefully keep relationships pretty vague in this one, so feel free to imagine all or none of the pairings you want. Go wild. I don't care.

My first taste of consciousness was pain and a deafening ringing, louder than I'd ever heard it before. But that was always the case. It was louder each time I woke up to find myself somewhere different than when I'd closed my eyes last.

For once, my surroundings were familiar: beige walls, hardwood, and a TV stand with no TV. Our living room should have been better than waking up face-down in a carpet of snow like usual. I was still fucking drenched, though. The cold had never been an issue for me, but that didn't mean I wanted to go rolling around in the snow. Fortuna winters were a bitch.

I needed to check how long I'd been out of it. Last I remembered was some time around 11:00. Through white curtains, I could see a wall of black outside. Unless a full day had gone by, I guessed it hadn't been too long. I needed to get off the couch, needed to make sure Kyrie was alright, needed to start breathing again.

All of that was going to hurt like hell. I could feel it with every pulse of my heart, my whole body answering with twinges of pain. My shoulder still ached from a wound I'd gotten days ago, just like the break in my foot. They were healing, but slowly.

When I gave in enough to suck in air, fireworks seemed to tear through my right side. I wouldn't have been surprised if my ribs had shattered, and all the shards were sinking into my lungs. Glancing down, I found blood staining the left leg of my pants and my left sleeve, but my stinging side was clean. Internal damage only, then. I would have bet cash on an ugly bruise hiding under my shirt, not that I could check when I had a roll of bandages in one hand and a whole bag of bread in the other.

"Great," I grumbled. "Sleepwalking, sleep getting-injured, and now sleep eating too. I'm the holy trinity of fucked up."

"Nero?" Kyrie called, crushing my hopes that she was sleeping. Her voice was small, uncertain. Peering in from the hallway, she hung on the corner. "Are you back?"

"I guess."

I'd planned on doing some patrols overnight, but unconscious me was a useless combatant, apparently. Looked like I was down for the night unless my healing decided to kick in like it was supposed to.

"What time is it?" I asked as I dropped the bandages and bread onto the couch and attempted to roll to my feet. My left leg threatened to buck out from under me until I used the back of the couch as a crutch. At least the blood wasn't spreading. The wounds had sealed, so I didn't need bandages.

Stupid, unconscious me.

"It's a little past midnight," Kyrie said, striding into the room on her tiptoes like a skittish doe.

That meant I'd been out for over an hour. Damn. That was longer than usual. As long as I didn't hurt anyone but myself, as long as I was just fighting the demons outside town, it was fine. It had to be fine. Just like sleepwalking.

But my bullshit excuses weren't cutting it anymore, especially not with the spark of fear in Kyrie's eyes as she looked at me. If only I'd had a clue what the hell was going on. At least the ringing in my right ear finally faded to silence, the same empty silence as always. I would never have thought I'd miss it.

"That is our bread, right?" I asked with a nod to the bag on the couch. I didn't want to add stealing to the list of my new weird habits.

"It is. You don't remember getting it, do you?"

"No." Lying to Kyrie was pointless. She sniffed out secrets like a bloodhound.

"Are your wounds healing okay?" she asked. "You were limping pretty bad when you came in."

My spine shot rigid. "You saw me come in? How long ago was that?"

But I didn't hurt her. That was good. That had to have been good.

Surely.

Her eyes wandered the room, and her hands clasped tight in front of her as she spoke. "Like ten minutes ago. You were being really weird. I thought you were mad at me. You wouldn't talk to me."

"Sorry to scare you," I said like that would fix anything. Apologies and arguments were all we'd had the past week. "Maybe I should go."

Her hands snapped to her hips. "Go where? You can't keep running away from this."

"I don't want you to be around me when I'm like…" My hands flailed. "Whatever this is!"

"I'm fine!"

Damn, I'd started another one. "You won't be if something goes wrong while I'm like that."

"You think something like that would happen?"

"No! But I don't want to take any chances."

Just like when she got fed up as a kid, she huffed and stomped her foot. "Then do something about it, Nero!"

And just like back then, I crossed my arms and leaned away from her. "I've been trying. You have no idea how many books and papers I've sifted through, but 'unconsciously wandering off to fight demons' doesn't come up often."

Neither did "waking up with a book you've never seen sitting open in front of you" or "waking up in Agnus's creepy abandoned lab." My unconscious self was more loaded with bad decisions than my conscious self.

"But you weren't unconscious," Kyrie said. "It wasn't like you were sleepwalking. You saw me. You didn't say anything, but you were aware of everything around you."

Even as I shook my head, I tried to find some sense in her words. "But I don't remember any of that. I wasn't aware."

She breathed a sigh that relaxed her tense stance. "Maybe it's not you, but maybe there's… someone else."

"What? Like a split personality?" My laugh came out as a bitter wheeze. "That's insane, Kyrie. It's nothing like that."

"Well, I don't know," she said, tossing her hands up. "But you get that weird spirit thing behind you when you go all… whatever that is. Maybe it's got it's own mindset. It's not like you were willing to ask the one person who would know, so I got all freaked out-"

"Wait, are you talking about my Trigger? It's not like its own being. And I'm not calling Dante about this. It's weird enough that you kept his number."

She hesitated for some reason, shifting her weight between her feet. "He might be able to help."

"He's an ass, and he'd just lord this over me somehow."

Or he'd try to kill me. I still wasn't sure which, but I wasn't going to chance it.

"Did you at least see a doctor?" she asked, too worn out to sound stern.

"Yeah, it's out of their hands." Like any doctor in the city would be willing to see me. When someone was eager to examine me, I took that as a sign to stay away. I didn't want to be around another Agnus. Besides, I hadn't gotten a serious illness in years. Kyrie got appendicitis once, and Credo had broken a bone every now and then, but I'd been hearty enough to avoid anything but the awkward physical exams the Order required.

That was fine with me. I hated hospitals. Hated the sickly clean smell, the buzzing fluorescent lights, and the drug-induced haze they kept patients in. The further I stayed from there, the better. I didn't need them to put me in some psych ward.

After some grumbling, Kyrie let me go when I said how desperately I needed a shower and a change of clothes. It was too late at night for either of us to keep fighting.

The white lights of the bathroom cast me in an ugly pallor that brought out every bruise and mending scab. Blues, purples, yellows, and reds - I looked like a fucked up watercolor. My only guess was that constantly getting injured had stunted my healing, stretching it thin between so many wounds. I could tell that it still worked, though, partially because the pain wasn't as bad as it should have been, and partially because I wasn't dead yet.

If that other me - and it was part of me, of course - would have stopped getting my ass kicked and hanging around in the snow banks, it wouldn't have been an issue. Well, no, the whole unconscious thing still would have been an issue. Just not as much of one. I was already having to deal with an irritating swell of demon activity, so having another problem on top of that was just my luck.

Worst of all, my clothes were all getting shredded. After my shower, I tossed yet another shirt, jacket, and pair of pants into the salvage pile. Kyrie and I had been putting all our home skills to the test, mixing concoctions to wash out blood and hauling out the old sewing machine. If this kept up, all my clothes would be patchwork soon enough. My old uniform still hung untouched in the back of my closet, but there was no way in hell I was wearing that.

Flopping face-first into my pillows, I wrestled with my thoughts in an effort to get to sleep. Lying there let my mind wander too much, until I was trying to think of a way that I could be restained if the other me started going after something other than demons.

Chains weren't enough to hold me. Not cell bars or concrete. The abandoned lab may have had something that could work, but trapping myself there alone would get me nothing but dead. Then again, maybe that was the answer.

If I became a danger to Fortuna, the only way any of them could stop me was by killing me.

And that was… fair. Logical. Just. Reasonable. Something.

Not right, but something.

I would trade my life for their safety, or Kyrie's at least.

But I'd be damned if I'd give up so easily. I was thinking in hypotheticals anyway. Through some miracle, the jumble in my head faded into background noise, and I was able to find sleep. The fierce aches from my wounds woke me sooner than I would have wanted, so I forced down some coffee while Kyrie skimmed the morning paper.

"Breakfast," she said without looking up.

"I'll grab something on the way out." Making food sounded like work, and while Kyrie had enough to share, she'd gotten herself a batch of the sweetest doughnuts in town, her favorites. The last thing I needed was a sugar rush along with caffeine.

"Where are you going today?" she asked around a mouthful of sugary pastry.

"Probably the Order's library again. There are still some files I haven't checked."

One brow raised, she glanced up from the paper. "How do you even get in there? It's wrecked."

"It's in pieces, but some of the rooms are still standing. Takes some climbing, but it's not too hard to get in." It was, however, much more difficult since my shoulder had gotten trashed. Still easier than getting to Fortuna Castle's library or the lab.

"Okay," she said, going back to some story about a high school fundraiser. "But you be careful."

Silence blanketed the room as I finished my coffee and she ate her way through three more doughnuts. I wasn't sure whether to be impressed or concerned, but before I could decide, her voice cut through my thoughts.

"Black," she said. "That's what I'll call him."

"Who?"

"The mean you. Saying all that stuff about you being unconscious takes too long. From now on, when you're weird, I'm calling that you Black."

Though her expression remained even, I smacked a hand to my face to hide a wince. "Don't give it a name, Kyrie." That made it sound too much like a pet. "And really? Black?"

I knew that there would be no winning when she nodded. "He's like you but not, so we'll call him a name like yours but not. And maybe if I give him a name and am nice to him, he won't glare at me."

She'd spent way too much time thinking this over. I didn't need her getting attached to me losing my mind, but arguing with Kyrie over anything was pointless. She was still at the table after I'd brushed my teeth and was heading for the door. "Not taking your sword?" she asked.

"I don't like… Black having access to my weapons, especially if he knows how to get back home." The name and pronouns felt odd on my tongue. "Maybe it'll dissuade him from getting into stupid fights." The Bringer was enough of a weapon for either of us, though my arm felt hollow without Yamato.

Referring to Black like we were friends sharing tools instead of my fucking body made me want to shoot myself just so I could give it some of the trouble it gave me for once. I didn't care how irrational that was. Nothing about the situation was rational.

Kyrie wished me good luck as I stormed out into the blinding morning sun. In truth, the Order's library, or what was left of it, didn't have anything left of interest. The dusty books were old records, reports, and manuals. Anything interesting that may have been hidden in the offices was buried under rubble. The most useful things I'd found were books on swordplay. Not helpful for my situation, but still interesting.

To get to the library, I had to scale a wall with the claws on my right hand and crawl my way under what I recalled being three doorways. The overhead weight crashing down had turned the whole place into a warped obstacle course. With every gale, the remaining structures groaned and crackled. Dusty bits of stone fell from overhead. The whole place was a deathtrap, but one I kept coming back to because of Black.

The first time my memory had gone blank to a noticeable degree was in the library, and it was the first place I'd woken up with no knowledge of how I'd gotten there.

Two of the tables were still intact, along with the chairs. After grabbing one of the old records, I flipped to a blank page in the back and dropped into my usual spot. A jar of pens lay scattered across the table, so I gave into the stupidest idea I'd ever had and took one. I was glad the place was destroyed so no one else could be there for my experiment.

It was Kyrie's fault, really, acting like Black was its own person or something. Stupid, impossible nonsense. But I was desperate enough to give it a shot. I wrote two simple questions on the paper in front of me - "Who are you?" and "What do you want?"

If Black didn't know how to keep me from injury against a demon, I doubted he had enough awareness to read or write. I had to keep reminding myself that the whole thing was a test and worth as much of a shot as anything else. Otherwise, I would have shredded that paper. The idea grew more and more tempting over the next few hours. Or several hours.

I didn't have a watch. Considering recent events, I needed to invest in one.

As far as I could tell, Black didn't have a trigger. He came out when he wanted to, so I wasted time by pacing and folding paper airplanes. The thought that I'd missed lunch occurred to me, making me realize I had never grabbed breakfast either. I wasn't hungry, so it didn't matter. I decided that when I went back home, I would eat. By then, I hoped food would sound appealing. My lack of appetite must have stemmed from the growing headache throbbing behind my eyes.

When the rays of light filtering in through the cracked ceiling tinged orange, I realized I'd wasted a whole day. The thought put me on edge, my Bringer itching as I thought of all the demons that would be rearing their ugly heads at nightfall. Daylight didn't stop them, but it thinned their numbers. Once night hit, all bets were off. I needed to get back to Fortuna for a patrol, and I had to get my weapons. Without them, I felt a static buzz of anxiety, and my bringer ached without Yamato.

Giving Black access to Yamato was almost the last thing I wanted, but I wanted to be without it even less. As much as I hated to use the devil arm as a crutch, I needed it to Trigger.

I sounded like a fucking addict.

After the Savior Incident, I'd kept Yamato in my arm unless I needed it. This was the first day I'd left it for any amount of time. As I set a brisk pace for home, I wondered if I should have been more hesitant to take the thing back. Then again, I reasoned, it wasn't like I could just quit cold turkey. Withdrawal sucked, my pulse rattling my head in a growing cacophony. The headache could have come from the lack of food, but my mind was set on getting my weapons back. When I reached the house, I darted to Yamato first.

I remembered grabbing it, my claws curling around the grip.

Then I was on the ground, an endless black sky and treetops hanging over me. The air smelled of blood, and the ringing- Fucking hell, the ringing was deafening. I couldn't tell if I was trembling from fear, pain, or the snow around me because the cold registered as an afterthought. The idea of moving was so unappealing that I considered falling asleep there. All that stopped me was the nauseating smell of blood. I had to make sure that all of it was mine.

Forcing myself to sit up, I found another set of cuts and ruined clothes. The blood looked to be mine, I guessed, the worst of it stemming from my forehead and coating my right eye to blindness. Even as I smeared the blood away, a fresh clot filled my eye socket like a puddle. And no matter how much scrubbed, I couldn't see out of that eye.

Nothing. Not my surroundings or my hand in front of my face.

"Black," I snarled, happy for the first time to have a name to blame. "You pain in my ass, if this doesn't heal-!"

Right, like there was a sane way to threaten a part of my head. Trying to stagger to my feet almost dropped me to my knees again. The pain was exhausting, wearing me too thin to even attempt to use my Trigger to heal.

Then again, I wasn't sure I wanted to do anything that involved Yamato. Black hadn't taken over until I'd gotten the sword back. The more I thought about it as I dragged myself home, the more I became convinced that I needed Yamato away for a while. Even if it wasn't the cause, Black seemed too eager to have it.

Damn, and now I was imagining him with emotions.

If he did feel, he must have been some kind of sadist because trying to summon Yamato turned into a trial that left my arm stinging like hundreds of needles had jammed beneath my skin. Fed up with the sword, I shoved it in the chest at the foot of my bed and clicked the lock I'd never used into place.

I had no idea where the key was, lost somewhere in the depths of my dresser or under my bed, but that was fine. If I didn't know, then he couldn't either.

Collapsing to my back on the carpet, I closed my eyes and focused on the slow, burning ache that signaled my wounds mending. Even without Yamato, I could heal fine. I didn't need the sword.

"Nero?" Kyrie called.

I cracked my working eye open just in time for her to flick on the lights. With a hiss, I shot my hand up to shield myself from the sudden flood of brightness.

"You look awful!" Kyrie cried. "Are you okay? Can you move?"

"I'm doing great," I said with an attempt at a smile. "I think, maybe, I'll give that old bastard a call tomorrow. Just to say hi and see if he'll come visit for an ass-kicking."

She said nothing, so I let my hand fall away to see her expression pinched with unrestrained worry. She must not have been sleeping well, the swaths under her eyes like bruises against too-pale skin.

"Was hoping you'd be asleep when I got here," I admitted, the first real truth I could offer. "But I guess it's for the best that you're not. Is there anyone you can go stay with for a while?"

I couldn't hold her gaze as tears welled up in her eyes. "I can't leave you like this," she said.

"I know it looks bad, but I'm healing. I'll feel much better if you're somewhere else right now." Though unsuccessful in hiding a wince, I sat up so I could put my hand on her shoulder. "I would never hurt you, but I think it's best that I avoid people right now."

"If you get weird, I can just stab you." She put on her best pout to try winning me over, but that trick hadn't worked in years.

"Again? You're getting awfully stab-happy. Maybe training you is another health hazard for me."

"That time was an accident!" she squeaked. As I laughed, she smacked my forehead with all the force of a cat batting at a toy. "You were supposed to move so you wouldn't get stabbed! Stop laughing!"

"Alright-alright." My smile fell away. "But only if you find somewhere to stay. Just for a while. Call it a favor."

"You owe me so many," she said with a sigh. "You'd better not forget."

"I won't."

For a few breaths, she fiddled with the hands clasped in her lap, her gaze down. "I'll go, but if you need me-"

"Don't tell me where you're going."

Her head jerked up, eyes wide.

"Please. Don't tell me. I'll find a way to get ahold of you if I have to." If I didn't know, neither did he. Maybe it didn't matter, but I wouldn't take any more chances.

"Okay," she said more as a whisper than a word. Bastard that I was, I couldn't help but flinch back when she reached out to hug me. That earned me a huff and a hug so tight that I learned just how many broken ribs I was sporting. "You don't get to be that reclusive," she grumbled. "I still get to come back and check on you sometimes. No buts."

"Alright, fine. Please let me breathe."

She stuck her tongue out at me when she pulled back and hopped to her feet. By the time she'd packed a suitcase, I'd dragged myself up on my bed, and she was still sticking her tongue out at me each time she walked by my room.

"You behave," she said as she passed by for the last time, her suitcase rolling behind her. "Make sure Black behaves too. And eat! You have to eat!"

Right, food. I wasn't sure how I kept forgetting about it. "I will," I said. "First I'm going to shower and sleep for the next decade."

"Eat!" she yelled, her voice echoing down the hall as she headed for the door. "I'm coming by tomorrow, and you better be here resting."

Any other time, I would have argued, but I needed her off my case. Besides, the idea of rest sounded too good to pass up. The other knights could handle the demons for another day. Maybe a good night's sleep would be enough to fix my eye.

As I waited for the shower to heat up, I stared myself down in the bathroom mirror, looking for any sign that my eye had been damaged. Other than some flakes of blood in the corners, I could find no difference from my other eye. When I closed my left, I was totally blind. If any demons were smart enough to figure that out, I was in for a hell of a time. My right side had already been troublesome enough with a lack of sound. A lack of sight alongside it meant that my bringer would be getting a workout. At least I still had something of use on my right.

After a shower that burned against my still-frosty skin, I forced down a slice of bread. Even when I smothered it in jam, I could taste nothing. Bites turned to doughy, flavorless rocks in my mouth, reminding me why food had grown so unappealing. Eating seemed to reawaken the gnawing in my Bringer too. The arm itched like I had a fire in my veins, calling for that damn sword again. While brushing my teeth, I shoved the arm under the faucet and let the water run down the scales and ridges and drip from my claws.

It did nothing to quell the irritation.

Neither that sword nor my arm owned me, but that didn't stop me from feeling like a complete moron when I plopped myself down on the couch just to sleep as far from Yamato as possible. "In my own house," I growled shoving a pillow over my ear to block out an obnoxious trill. "Sleeping on the couch in my own fucking house."

Well, Kyrie's house more than mine. I'd always just taken up space in it, but I had my own room.

The trill got louder, less like the phantom ringing from my busted ear and more like a scream or some twisted version of a song. I'd read that some devil arms could talk, but Yamato never made a sound, not until that night. Louder and louder, it kept on, the searing in my arm answering its call no matter how I tried to block it out.

I could have left, tried to get more space, but I would not be run out of my house by a fucking sword.

"Shut up!" I yelled so loud that my head ached. Any pretense of sanity was gone. I was arguing with a sword. "I've had a shitty enough day! Just let me sleep! I will deal with your issues in the morning!"

As much as I wanted for my desperate bargaining to work, I hadn't expected it to. Yet the singing stopped, and my arm became deadened as though stuffed. A laugh bubbled up from my throat, either from the exhaustion or relief. Or maybe I'd finally lost it because I kept laughing, tears pouring from my eye.

Only my left eye would cry.

My laughs turned to sobs.

Is it an unnecessary amount of trouble to give Nero? Absolutely.

Do I care? No.

Also, if you're like "Is this what I think it is?" then, yes. It's exactly what you think it is.