Chapter Sixteen: Mysteries Aren't Appreciated; Will Kid Find Out Kai's Big Secret?
The need for my anti-madness pills was the only thing strong enough to get me off of my knees after the pain hit again. I stumbled weakly towards our settlement, the route already instilled in my mind from years of walking it. I was met with stern words and angry frowns but all I could do was smile sheepishly and fumbled for my pills inside my bag. The twitching, now that I was aware of the madness swirling around me, was getting worse. The only hope for me was to not lose my cool.
Finally I grasped the bottle and shakily tipped one into my palm before popping it into my mouth. After a moment the shakes stopped and I relaxed, crisis averted. This, of course, was when I felt the true extent of my pain. The black blood instantaneously quit taking the edge off of my misery and it hit me full-force as the medication began working in my bloodstream. I grunted, barely catching myself before I collapsed.
"Kai?"
"Sorry, I just need a second." I waved Brie and Black*Star away, my vision swimming as I tried to raise myself to my feet.
"Dammit Kai," Black*Star growled, "You're bleeding again!"
A pair of arms swept my feet out from under me and I fell into a pair of muscular arms that, despite their feeling rather tense and angry, gently deposited me on the couch. I huffed moodily, frowning up at the bluenette who was scowling right back down at me. Without asking, he moved to the end of the couch and sprawled by my feet. Brie appeared with more bandages, ignoring my groans of pain and protest as she wrapped up my wound again. If she noticed the heat my skin was giving off, she didn't noticed, but I could feel the war raging between the meds and the black blood. At this point I didn't even know which I wanted winning. It was almost pathetic.
"What was that all about, huh?" Black*Star inquired, raising an eyebrow at me while propping himself up on one arm. "You shouldn't go running off like that without any backup, Kai. We don't know whose here with us."
I closed my eyes, repressing a sigh. "There's nothing here except for old houses and stagnant beach water. Believe me, we're not going to run into any monsters here."
"How do you know?" Brie appeared, shoving a bottle of water into my hands and sitting next to the couch. "It's not as if you've been here before, Kai. You don't know what could be out there!"
"Well-"
"Yes, Kai," Kid walked through the doorway from outside flanked by Nikolai and a silent, morose Liz. "Why don't you tell us how you know so much about this place?"
My eyes flicked to Kid sharply, assessing his expression and posture. Did he suspect something? The way his golden eyes narrowed at my scrutiny led me to believe he did. The simple idea of him having a reason to go digging into my past made me feel uneasy and exposed. There were stories about what a dedicated sleuth Death the Kid was. I forced myself to relax, taking a deep breath before I spoke so that my voice wouldn't tremble. "Because I've been here before."
Brie leaned away slightly, frowning at my confession. Even Black*Star looked slightly confused for a few seconds before his face returned to the same neutral expression as before. I would have loved to be able to talk to him about this before I had to say it in front of everyone, but the look on Kid's face said he was on a roll. He wanted to pull these secrets out of me and, honestly, I was too tired to keep them from him. Coming back from the dead does that to a girl.
"When were you here before?" Kid asked.
"This is my hometown," I shrugged, blushing slightly. "This is actually my childhood home we're in."
"What happened here?"
Even though I had been expecting the question I still shied away from it. My heart began pounding harshly in my ribcage, fear driving me into a fight-or-flight mode that the madness in the air fed on hungrily. I felt the black blood begin overpowering the suppressants that had, for so long, kept me sane.
"Everyone died." I choked out simply, pressing my fingernails into the palm of my hand. "There was a kishin and it killed everyone."
Kid looked surprised, ceasing his questions when he saw my reaction. Tears gathered in my eyes as memories began to assail my brain but I stubbornly wiped them away with the back of my hand. It was overwhelming, being here and being faced with my past after years of believing I would never have to see it again. It brought back a sick feeling in my stomach that wasn't caused by the madness: guilt.
"It's hard for me to talk about." I sighed, plastering my gaze to the ceiling.
"My past is that way too."
Everyone's attention snapped to Liz in shock. The comatose girl had just responded? She blinked blearily, her posture straightening as she gained a bit of life. "Patty and I grew up on the streets. We did a lot of things that we won't talk about, because they're so bad." The older Thompson trembled slightly, her face crumpling as she mentioned her sister. Nikolai moved to comfort her as Kid watched with a concerned yet uncomfortable expression. In fact, other than Nikolai, both males in the room looked supremely uncomfortable with the tearful girl. I could help but find their reactions mildly amusing even if it wasn't the time to be laughing, and a slight sniggered escaped my lips.
"Alright!" I interrupted Liz's hysterics with a sharp yet cheerful bark. "It feels too gloomy around here! I expect a funny story from each of you!"
The looks I received ranged from baffled to irritated, but all the same Black*Star jumped to his feet. "Yeah! Let the great Black*Star steal the show!"
"As long as it's not a ghost story…" Liz sniffled, lowering herself beside my place on the couch. She seemed slightly cheered by the prospect of hearing something other than the doom-and-gloom that we had experienced in the last twenty-four hours. Having lost her sister, I was surprised that she had held herself together this long, though I did expect her to be a tad angrier about the whole thing. I must have been staring at her because she looked at me and gave me a small, shaky smile.
"Why don't we all share stories about our time in the Exchange Program?" Brie suggested timidly, biting her lip. "That way we can get a bit of our fight back in us, by remembering what we're surviving for!"
I jumped in on the idea quickly before anyone could shoot it down: "That sounds like fun! Who wants to go first?
Black*Star, of course, jumped up and began talking excitedly. As soon as I realized what story he was telling my face turned bright red, embarrassed simply at the mentioning of the situation he was telling our friends about. Immediately I buried my face in my hands, groaning slightly as his monologue was interrupted by short bursts of laughter when he couldn't get over the hilarity.
"Kai… got stuck… in the toilet!" Cue obnoxious laughter, couples with belly-holding and backwards tilting of the head. "We were trying to take out a kishin that was screwing up the pipes in this house and she's reaching in to get it and," he pauses, tears in his eyes, "WHAM! She was up to her elbow and she couldn't get out! It was the best! She was stuck in there for over two hours!"
"Because you left me there!" I growled, pouting. And he had: standing by and laughing for two. Hours. Straight.
Who does that?
"It was nasty!" I pouted, crossing my arms while the rest of the room laughed at my expression of disgust. Black*Star punched my shoulder softly (which was actually pretty hard, compared to other people). We shared a look, something that made my stomach flip inside of me while I quickly averted my gaze. It didn't go unnoticed, however, because Brie giggled at me and nudge Liz. The two girls had quickly bonded over my 'feelings' for my meister, constantly teasing me while they watched our interactions.
Yawning, I hunched over and rested my face on the armrest. We had been telling stories for hours, and it finally seemed like everyone's spirits were lifting. Black*Star was being rambunctious and loud, as obnoxious as ever. Liz seemed to finally getting some of her color back while we were laughing and playing. Even Soul had appeared and was, at least, sitting in on the conversation. He had the same grim look as before but I figured that his simple appearance counted for something at least.
"It's getting late, huh?" Brie sighed, blinking wearily and leaning on the older blonde beside her. Liz nodded in agreement, nervously looking out at the dark shadows stretching over the buildings.
"They look like ghosts!" She shivered. I sweat-dropped and frowned, snickering slightly as I noticed Kid's exasperated expression. I was fairly relaxed anymore, my feet settled in my meister's lap and my head propped up on a spare pillow. My stomach wound still ached when I moved, but I could almost forget in the light of the present company. I would be lying if I said that I was content with the situation we were in but, for the moment, it was bearable. Our hope was being regained and I was optimistic about our chances of getting of the island. As to what we were going to do afterwards, I wasn't sure, but I knew that we had to stop Calypso from her end goal. I still didn't understand what she wanted to gain out of all this.
All of this thinking turned my aura dark as I considered the possibilities. There was no end to what a witch could do, given the right power and opportunity. We had too few of us, and the air of the town was sucking what little will they had left. That was the power of where we were. It took the energy and happiness of a person and turned it into a twisted sort of depressed madness. In some ways, it was stronger than madness made from fear. It was definitely more potent in an everyday setting considering everyone had their own bits of depression.
I closed my eyes, repressing a sigh as my mind dwelled on the destruction of the place I once called home. It was still difficult for me to come to terms with what had happened here, and much of it I had blocked from my mind. Without major concentration I only knew a minimal amount about the time before I had awoken at the DWMA when I was twelve.
"Alright, time for bed everyone!" Kid surged to his feet unsteadily, a show of his own weariness. This was punctuated by a yawn on Brie's account, one so monstrous that it caused her to hiccup. Giggling, I pointed at her misery. She promptly flipped me off and, while holding her breath, she too rose to her feet to find a resting place. Liz and Nikolai followed their Shinigami meister into another room and I saw Brie follow a dark shadow down the hallway that I figured was Soul. I hadn't even seen him move. I was glad that Maka's two weapons were bonding.
"I wonder if they would be able to achieve resonance," I thought aloud, my brow furrowing slightly. It would be nice to have one more pair to fight alongside us, and with Tsubaki still unresponsive in her weapon form, I was unable to shake the uneasy feeling of doubt from my mind.
A slight movement under my legs surprised me. "Hey, don't worry too much!" Black*Star shifted so that he could punch me lightly in the bicep. "We've been through worse."
The way that the usually obnoxious meister smiled right then was enough to make my heart hiccup a bit. A strange fuzzy feeling dominated my intestines as he picked up my legs gently and laid them back on the couch after he had moved out from under them. I couldn't help but inspect the small bit of stomach that showed through a rip in his usual black shirt. A small groan thrummed from his throat as his back popped in a few places.
A bit of panic shot through my appreciation as I realized he was moving away from me. "Where are you going?" I asked, semi-frantically. I couldn't explain the adrenaline and fear that appeared in my chest at the thought of him out of arm's reach but nevertheless, it was there. Ignoring all the warning bells that were telling me that I was overstepping not only my own protective boundaries, but the usual rules of meister/weapon relationships, I reached for Black*Star with a hand. Nearly tumbling off the bed, I inwardly cursed at my pitiful nature but did nothing to change the image. Black*Star stopped, shocked, and simply stared until my cheeks felt about as hot as a bonfire on the Fourth of July. Slowly, my hand dropped and I struggled not to deflate in front of him. I rolled over quickly, burying my face in the musty couch cushions and trying to forget my embarrassment.
I ignored the footsteps until Black*Star's voice urged me to move. My eyes stared up at my meister as I scooted towards the edge of the couch. He crawled over me and settled in behind me, an arm tentatively settling on my waist. My aforementioned heart was just about explode out of my chest when I felt his warm breath on my neck.
"Goodnight, Kai."
I could feel the vibrations in his chest as he spoke. It sent a shiver up my spine that I desperately tried to control.
"Goodnight, Black*Star."
(Author's Note: Soo... it's been a while and I apologize, my little ducks. Let's just say physics has NOT been a fun thing to be dealing with recently... anyways, please don't throw any potatoes at me! I hope you enjoyed the fluff, because this will be one of the last light-hearted chapters until the end.. very sad.)