Warning: There is some self-harm in this chapter. Don't read if you don't like that thing or if you think/know it will trigger you.


First Person: Lucy

"Onesan?"

"Ototo?" I said on instinct. I'm not even sure when I opened my mouth, and I only processed that I'd actually said something at least five seconds after the fact.

"Onesan!" Kaze charged in for a hug, and suddenly I snapped out of my daze. I backed away from his touch, and nearly lost my footing. I recovered by turning it into a back-handspring and landed ten feet away, drawing my sword.

"Zy, what are you-?"

"Go away!" I shouted, ignoring Veon. I charged Kaze and he quickly pulled out Veon's sword to block. Kaze was strong and he pushed me back, though he didn't retaliate. I'd dreamt of seeing my brother again, I'd seen too many illusions of him, too many tricks. Sometimes he had the same face of that nine-year-old I'd seen last, and sometimes he was a bit older, scaled to what he would have been had he never died. Sometimes he would blame me for what happened, sometimes he'd try and make me do things for him. I didn't believe him anymore for those reasons. I had to accept that he was gone, for better or worse. Now, only anger came from seeing his face. I wouldn't fall for more illusions. I'd kill anyone who dared to think my brother's image could be used against me.

"Zy, stop!" Veon shouted, but I ignored him. I charged at Kaze again, swinging my sword with all the rage I'd built up from my brother's memory. Kaze blocked again, a lot stronger than he looked and skilled with a sword. He twisted his sword in an attempt to disarm me, but I was gripping the sword tightly with white knuckles and kept my grip on it easily. I shoved him with my entire body weight behind it and he lost his footing, falling on his side with a shout of surprise. Veon's sword clattered beside him, and I stepped on his wrist to make sure he couldn't reach for it.

"Who do you work for?" I asked, my sword put to his neck.

"Onesan! Please, it's me! Fight it! Don't let her control you again!"

"What do you mean?!" I asked, switching to Japanese since he was insistent on playing my brother.

"Don't let her force you into anything! No one controls you! I know you didn't want to kill me last time! You don't have to let her make you do this!"

"Who?!"

"That goddess!"

"She's not in control of me."

"Then prove it! Don't let her make you kill me again!"

"I do this of my own free will. I won't let anyonetake my brother's form again! You all think that I'd bow down to you if he asked me to, but I know he's dead, and it's something I can neverforget!"

"Onesan…?" He actually looked surprised. Humph. Good for him. Only four previous versions have ever tried to keep up the act once I revealed I knew he was a fake.

"Zy it is the real him!" Veon shouted. "He came back when Thanatos was captured!"

"Why would Hades allow him to stay?"

"He let Gwen stay. He let all those good people have their second chance at life."

"It'd be a perfect cover story. Too perfect. I've seen my brother at least twenty times in the last five years, Veon. You can't be fooled by the first one you see."

"Onesan?" Kaze asked calmly, almost hesitantly. "Do you still have it?"

"Have what?" He turned his head so that his face was on the ground, and his black hair parted to reveal the back of his neck. On it were marks that I hadn't seen in a long time. In Japanese, burnt onto his skin, were the letters S.C.W.X - 0012 - GRGR KZ along with a barcode.

"What does it stand for?" I asked, my voice barely coming out a whisper.

"What?"

"What does it stand for?!" I demanded.

"Special Case. Ward X. Number 12. Kaze Grigora. Yours says S.C.W.X - 0013 - FNG R. Special Case. Ward X. Number 13. Rei Fang." I shifted my weight to crush his fingers further.

"Never call me that again." I then lifted my foot and stepped back, sheathing my sword. Kaze sat up, rubbing his fingers before looking up to me.

"Onesan?" I stared at him for a long moment. His eyes were the same brown color I remembered; he still had that scar on his forehead from when I first hit him with lightning; he had a callous on each of his middle fingers from being an ambidextrous writer. In all the previous versions of Kaze that I'd encountered, little details like this wouldn't be so perfect. I kneeled down and got a closer look at his face. He blinked innocently, wondering what I was doing. He looked slightly tan, and his body seemed to be physically fit, though he tried to hide it under his jacket and jeans. He had a slight case of acne, something that the fake Kaze's never had. I'd seen dozens of fakes, so many that this one shouldn't be any different. And yet he was.

But I didn't want him to be. As much as I missed my brother, I didn't want to ever see him again. I couldn't stand seeing his face every single day knowing what I'd done. I want to just leave him behind in my past. Because even now, when I look at his innocently confused face, I want to cry. My mind takes me back to that final day I saw him, the day I killed him. And that fills me with anger. I go through the same trail of thoughts I always do. I could've stopped, I could've said no. I could have saved him. But I went forward because of what was at risk. And in the end, it wasn't even worth it.

"Here." I pulled a bag of ambrosia out of my bag and tossed it to Veon before I stood and teleported back to the ship. I hurried below deck and into my room, locking the door and power-proofing the room so that no one could get in. I snapped the room to be sound-proof as well, before I slipped off my jacket and took the knife I keep on my nightstand into my left hand. When I pushed the knife onto my right upper arm, it stung with a numbing pain. But even though I hissed slightly at the wound, I moved the knife to make a cut about an inch long.

I could've stopped myself all those years ago. When my brother shouted for me, begged me to stop, I just told him to shut up and punched him. He was nine years old. Just nine years old! He didn't have any other family that me, he put all his trust in me, told me everything about himself, secrets he barely admitted to himself. All those years we had together, every smile we shared, every tear, all those nights I held him and told him it would be all right. The long days of surviving on our own with barely a meal per day, the cold nights of winter when we huddled together for warmth. All those times he made me miss my target when I was shooting my bow and laughed, all the times I yelled at him for stealing something of mine, and the times he cried afterwards because I'd gone too far. Everything that we'd done together, all the moments we shared, were thrown away that day.

I was sobbing now. I made another cut, and another, each one becoming deeper and adding to the pain that distracted me from that hole in my heart.

On my birthday, we'd gone out on a trip to steal a feast and had to split up. While we were going through a forest to meet up, a goddess came to me and begged for my help. When I accepted, I threw away my future, and my brother's. The next day, I turned on my brother as though nothing we'd ever had in the past meant anything. I shouted how I hated him. I shouted how he was just an annoying brat that had forced me into taking him in. I hit him. I beat him. I attacked him until he bled and was screaming for mercy. Then I gave him darkness. I let the trials take him, left him to face that pain that I'd left in his heart. After that, he screamed, consumed by some black mist. His eyes had turned pure black, yet I could tell he could still see me. And I could see the hate he held for me within them. He was just a little boy who'd lost everything, and then was betrayed by the only person he trusted.

"Why…?" That final word came back to me a million times. The worst part was, I couldn't give an answer. I could've stopped. It wasn't even worth it. He didn't make it past the trials. And now I was going to do it again to my best friend. Why don't I stop this time, you may ask. If the goddess dies everyone will suffer the same fate. No one will be able to escape it, harmless creatures to deadly gods. Everyone and everything will be destroyed. Percy Jackson's fatal flaw is that he would sacrifice the world to save a friend. What would my fatal flaw be? I would sacrifice a friend to save the world. Is that evil? Does it make me a monster? It doesn't matter. I'm the one who has to make this decision, I'm the one who will accept the blame for what happens in the future. I would take this responsibility if it means that someone else doesn't have to. I didn't ask for it, but I don't wish for anything to have been different. Nothing but my brother. He didn't survive the trials. Now that I've found Veon, it means that he shouldn't have had to go through the trials in the first place.

I dropped the knife. It was unfair, but I had no right to complain. So I just cry. I feel this pain from the cutting and somehow it eases the pain from my mind. I know I'm losing a lot of blood. Something in me just wants to let myself die, let the world burn if it means that I can be free of this pain right now. But something else within me forces me to get up and grab my medical kit that I keep under the bed. I have to keep going, I have to keep living. I have to see this through to the end, and know that whether I succeed or fail, I tried.

I grabbed some cloth and wiped away the blood before spraying the larger cuts with some herbal spray I'd made. It closed the wounds enough that they stopped bleeding, but after that, I always let them heal on their own. I wrapped a bandage around my entire upper arm, only now realizing how many cuts I'd made. There were scars from previous cutting sessions that showed because they had been made at different angles. Usually I cut without even thinking about it, only knowing the pain that numbed my mind and stung in a way that somehow satisfied me. I stuck myself in the forearm with a needle (not for self-harm, just for medical reasons) and attached a bag of blood in it to replace the large amount that I'd lost. I was on the verge of passing out from blood loss, but my hands worked on their own without me even thinking so they didn't shake or anything.

I sat on my bed now, waiting for the blood to pump into my system again. I stared at the ceiling of my cabin, feeling as my tears dried and my breathing evened out once more. I'd need to drink some water, I knew. Finally I sensed that I had enough blood and unhooked myself from the blood bag. I healed the hole in my forearm and then replaced the bloody bandages that had taken a small amount of blood when the new blood was pumped in. I slipped on my jacket again before going to my bathroom and washing my face. Good as new.

Out of curiosity, I took a hand mirror and then moved my hair to the side. On the back of my neck there was nothing, but that was because I didn't want people to see what I was, where I'd been. I cloaked it like I had my Roman brand, and I exhaled before I let it show once more. Just as Kaze had said, there was the brand that I'd been given at the orphanage. It was more like a jail. Special cases, my arse. As far as they were concerned, we were animals. I guess Kaze and I escaping might have made things worse for the others that were there. I was number 13. Kaze had been there since he was two and was number 12. Not a lot of new kids come in, and only 13 had ever been there in the first place, at least four years ago anyway. When I can, perhaps I could go and free those kids. A lot of them were demigods. I could bring them to Camp Half-Blood. The few kids that weren't, I might take to some other organization here in the U.S. where they won't be treated like prisoners on lockdown.

A knock on my door brought me back to reality, and I let my hair fall into place and cover the tattoo before I went to unlock the door. Before I could though, I heard the lock click with my enhanced hearing. No one should've been able to unlock the door from the outside. It didn't have a keyhole to even pick. I grabbed my gun and aimed it at the side of the door that opened. The moment it did, something came zooming into the room faster than I expected and ran around me. It grabbed my gun on a rotation before continuing to circle me. I locked onto it with my telekinetics and then with effort, brought it to a stop.

"Onesan! I'm sorry! I was just trying to see you! Please don't hurt me!" I kicked the door closed and then locked it again before dropping Kaze. He walked over to me and produced my gun from his hoodie's pocket.

"Infinite jacket pockets?" I asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Maybe…" I sighed. I reached inside his jacket pockets despite his protests and produced two rings made of Stygian iron with silver skulls carved into them.

"Kaze-kun, these were important to Veon-san, that man you met before? They're the only thing he has from his parents."

"Who is he? I mean, who's his parent?"

"He's a son of Hades, and a powerful one at that."

"Does he hurt you?"

"What? No, of course not. He's a sweetheart."

"Is anyone here bad to you?"

"No, Kaze. I don't need your protection. I can handle myself. I promise, all these people are my friends."

"But Rei-chan…"

"Why are you asking? Who put that thought in your head?"

"My step-mother."

"You got adopted?" He nodded.

"She says you were forced into what you did before, that I shouldn't blame you for it. And I don't. It was some kind of goddess, right? Mother said there were people working for her that would hurt you." I sighed, but smiled.

"Ototo, I know you're worried, but I'll be fine."

"But-!"

"My friends will protect me, and now I have you, right?" He nodded and stood straight. Gods, he was nearly as tall as me.

"Hai!" I smiled. Doing a test, I poked the scar on his forehead.

"Remember how I threw that brick at your forehead? You were out like a light for days. I was scared that I'd killed you." He tilted his head to the right in confusion.

"Huh? I got that when you zapped me with that lightning bolt when I was seven." I took his right hand and looked to his palm. Near the base of his thumb was a scar about an inch long.

"And this?"

"You and I made a blood bond. You said it would keep us connected forever." He took my right hand and opened it to reveal a matching scar on my palm in the same place. He placed his right hand in mine, lining up the scars, slipping his thumb in the space between mine and my index finger, and wrapping his fingers around my thumb. "We each cut our hands and then did this so that the blood mixed. After that, you sealed them both up and made sure they'd leave a scar to signify what we'd done." I drew circles on the back of his hand with my index finger like I'd always done before.

"Are you sure you're real?"

"Um…I think so. Am I?"

"Are you sure you forgive me?"

"Of course!" He put his other hand on the one he was holding, sandwiching mine between both of his. "You were threatened, and I saw that the entire time you hated it."

"But I still did it. I could've stopped but I…"

"I'm here. I'm okay. I'll help you now." Kaze acted like he didn't even remember the event. How could someone possibly be so forgiving? Then again, neither of us wanted to break the bond we have, and I didn't want him to be angry at me. If Kaze can forgive me so easily, did that mean I'd soon be able to forgive myself?

"Fine. I'll introduce you to the others when they get back. Until then, tell me about yourself. How'd you gain that kind of speed?" I moved to sit down on my bed and he followed before shrugging.

"I don't know. I just unlocked it. Maybe in the Underworld, maybe once I came back. I'm not sure."

"How fast can you go?"

"When I'm just running around, pretty fast, though I don't exactly measure it. I've been told that I could probably breach the speed of light if I push myself, but I'd need to be able to run around the entire world to get up to that speed, and it would probably kill me after a few moments of it."

"Where did you come back? That forest where you died?" He nodded.

"I walked to this light, and suddenly I was lying in the forest. That's where I was found by-"

"Has anyone seen my tool belt?!" Leo called from outside. I walked to the door and opened it to see Leo walking into the mess hall and searching around.

"Do you remember taking it off?" Annabeth asked. The others walked in, some helping with the search and some thinking about where Leo might have placed it.

"No! I practically sleep in that thing. I never take it off! I was working on the ship and I suddenly realized it was gone." There was suddenly a clanging behind us as things were dropped on the floor, and we turned to see Kaze holding Leo's tool belt upside down and shaking things out of the pockets. A bunch of screws, nuts and bolts, wires, tape, scissors and even that fortune cookie that Leo had gotten from Nemesis fell out and onto the floor. Luckily it didn't break open, but when Leo's three-pound hammer came out, the tool belt was burnt out and stopped producing things. Kaze looked up to us, giving an innocent look when he realized everyone was staring at him.

"Who is that?" Jason asked.

"Kon'nichiwa…" Kaze said nervously, raising his hand.