Author's Note: As always, thanks to my reviewers; hope you continue to enjoy reading this fic as much as I do writing it. To Xen Kenshin, thank you for the support and encouragement; I'll keep forging ahead and good luck to you with your fic as well. To rydia3791, I agree, 'tactically aggressive' is a pretty good phrase to use to describe Alisa's initial fighting style. Now, on with the chapter, and boy is it a rough one.
The City of Mercy is quiet when they arrive - too quiet for her liking, Alisa thinks uneasily as brings up the rear, Gatling Lore gripped tightly in her hands. Her headache isn't helping matters either, beating an almost... hypnotic rhythm in her skull with every passing second.
Lindow likely shares her unease, if she's reading the tension in his frame right. "Hey, this is really getting fishy," he mutters in a suspicious and accusatory tone, although who there is here to accuse is beyond her. As if in response to his statement, the distant roar of an Aragami echoes from somewhere deeper in the city, and the sound seems to reverberate in her head-
-the firm grip of a large hand on her shoulder, and THOSE EYES-
She doesn't realise she's stopped in her tracks until she sees that Lindow has stopped as well to look at her worriedly. "Is something wrong?" he asks, his concern evident both on his face and in his body language. Instead of being irritated, she takes some small measure of comfort from this, for some reason, and chalks it up to the situation affecting her more than she expected.
"N-no! Nothing's wrong," she stutters, wincing inwardly at how unconvincing she sounds. "You're all clear from the side and back," she continues in a clumsy attempt to distract him from noticing that anything is amiss. His frown, however, proves that it was a futile attempt on her part, but he thankfully does not push the matter. "Right..." he answers in a tone that fully conveys his doubt, "Let's move on."
She breathes a small sigh of relief as the topic is dropped and they resume their careful foray deeper into the city - if only her headache could go away just as easily, she thinks, although at least it's more like an irritating hum instead of an all-out pounding in her skull. It is not long before they hear faint sounds of activity ahead of them and they wordlessly move towards the direction they are coming from, only to turn the corner and run into, of all things, the rest of the 1st Unit.
"What?" Soma is the first one among them all to react, although with very little eloquence. Lindow does no better, responding with a confused "You guys?" Of course, Kota just has to chip in as well. "Huh? What are you doing here, Lindow?" he asks in a dumbfounded manner, and Alisa barely resists the urge to roll her eyes at how he has to be the one to ask the most inane question possible. Yuu just keeps quiet like her, although he's throwing everyone glances while frowning faintly.
"Why would they send two teams to the same location?" It's Sakuya who voices the question that undoubtedly must be occupying all their minds. "What does this mean?" she continues, stepping towards them only to be halted in her tracks at the sight of Lindow's raised hand, palm held outwards in a stopping gesture.
"Let's worry about that later," he says, already slipping into his more serious leader mood - one she wishes he would adopt more often. "We need to wrap this up and head back. We'll take the inside. You guys check the outside. Got that?" He doesn't wait for a response and is already stepping towards the hole in the side of the church the moment he finishes giving his orders. Alisa falls in line quietly, only sparing one more glance back at the four they are leaving behind before redirecting her gaze to Lindow's back once more.
Their footsteps echo in the silence of the empty church and something like dread crawls over her skin, causing her to grip her God Arc so tightly that if she were to look at her hands she would see that her knuckles were white as bone.
A sound from the outside causes her and Lindow to turn their gazes in unison towards the large hole where the stained glass window should be, and it seems as if time itself slows down as a hulking shape on four legs leaps in to stare down at them from the makeshift ledge the hole forms. It is almost beautiful in a grotesque manner, the way its face appears to be that of a wrathful goddess' sculpture - as if the Aragami had been trying to live up in some manner to its namesake of being a rampaging god, a detached voice at the back of her head muses. She barely hears it under the cacophony that is the... noise pervading her head right now.
"Get back!" Lindow's voice, while sharp, fails to fully penetrate the fog. "Keep me covered from the rear!" He sounds so far away, everything seems so far away, and nothing... nothing feels real.
The Aragami lets out a loud roar before leaping down, and suddenly everything feels too painfully, familiarly real. She's seen this before, she's felt this before, she knows sheknowssheknows-
She remembers.
"Daddy! Mommy! Stop it! Don't eat them!" It's here, it's here, she has to run (there's nowhere to run), they're not safe (no one is), they're all going to DIE and she can't do anything (againagainagain)-
"Alisa!" Lindow... Lindow's fighting, calling her name but she can't... she can't do anything and there's something - someone else - in her head. "What's going on?!" She's only dimly aware of her hands raising Gatling Lore and pointing it at the conflict before her, her mind having been dragged back to- The machine has her arm in a vice and her wrist hurts so much it hurtsithurtsITHURTS why won't it STOP HURTING?
"That's right!" the voice tells her. "Fight it! Rise above it!"
The battle before her rages on, but she has no control and Gatling Lore feels like a dead weight in her hands as the barrel hovers and is aimed intermittently between both parties.
Oguruma's hand is heavy on her shoulder as she stares at the screen before her depicting various Aragami. "This is what you should say as you pull that trigger," he tells her, "один два три!"
"один... два... три..." she repeats mechanically, her present murmurs an echo of her memory's actions.
"That's right," he urges her, his voice gripping her mind the way his hand is gripping her shoulder. "That's the chant that will turn you into a strong little girl."
"один... два... три..." Yes... she wanted to be strong, didn't she? To never feel weak ever again...
"These are your enemies... the Aragami!" he tells her, and the pictures shift, alternating between the many types of Aragami only to linger on... Lindow.
She shudders and the finger on the trigger spasms-
Lindow is grinning at her, and out of the corner of her eye she can see Yuu looking on silently at the exchange, a small smile on his face. "When things get chaotic, look up at the sky," he tells her.
"NO!" she screams out loud, dispelling the memories. "Stop it!" It seems to take all of her remaining strength to yank Gatling Lore upwards just as she pulls on the trigger. The shots go wide, hitting the ceiling and causing chunks to crumble and fall, sealing the entrance. The shockwave coupled with her actions are enough to cause her to fall clear of the cave-in, but as the consequences of her actions finally penetrate the fog clouding her mind the horror settles in and she wishes she'd died instead.
The sound of approaching footsteps barely register as she stares without seeing at the now blocked entrance, her world centred around it and the muffled sounds of combat beyond it. "Alisa!" Sakuya's voice is so close yet so far away, for some reason. "What have you done?!"
"No... no..." she mumbles, unable to look anywhere but ahead - Lindow's fighting but he's going to die he's going to die and it's all her fault - "Daddy... Mommy... I... I didn't mean it..."
Sakuya lets out a noise of frustration which is followed by the sound of her deploying her God Arc and firing at the rubble. There are more roars now, outside, and a male voice - Kota's? - screams in pain as its owner gets knocked inside. Sakuya stops firing on the rubble and turns her gun on the attacking Aragami as the sounds of someone running and a blade slicing through Aragami flesh register. "Hurry the hell up, or we'll be surrounded!" yet another voice yells, but it's pointless, isn't it? They're all going to die now, and it'll be her fault all her fault againagainagain
Lindow's voice, muffled by the wall of stone, cuts through the noise. "Take Alisa back to the Den with you. That's an order!" he commands.
"But..." Sakuya starts to protest, and if she could Alisa would object too - she caused this, so she should be punished, should be left here to die just like she should have years ago
"Didn't you hear me?!" he retorts harshly. "Take Alisa and head back to the Den, damn you! Sakuya! Take charge of the others! Soma, find a way out of here!"
"Daddy... Mommy..." she pleads; for forgiveness or to be left here to die, she can't tell anymore. "I didn't mean it..."
Footsteps again; a familiar voice - Yuu's - calls to her. "Alisa? Are you okay? Can you stand?" She wants to tell him no, no she'll never be okay never never never
"Hurry, Lindow!" Sakuya's voice again. "Come with us!"
"I'd like to," he responds, "but I think I'll mess with these guys first... Save some rationed beer for me!" Some part of her is screaming at him, calling him an idiot for fighting when he should run, but not a single sound makes it past her throat. Her body is betraying her again and she can't-
Yuu's presence feels closer now. "Alisa, can you hear me?" he murmurs as he turns her head to look at him; he's knelt down to match her eye level, and she can see the worry and fear in his eyes. "I'm going to have to carry you," he tells her gently and quietly, "but I can't touch your God Arc so I need you to keep your grip on it real tight for me, okay? Can you do that?" She doesn't know how she can muster the energy to nod, but she does and he responds with a strained smile. "That's good, thank you," he murmurs before turning around and angling his body as as to carry her piggy-back style, his arms looping under her legs in an awkward fashion due to his carrying his own God Arc - now in its gun form - with one hand.
Throughout this, Sakuya continues to protest their abandonment of Lindow. "No! Then I'll stay and fight, too!" she yells back, although now everything sounds even more distant than before and the world is blurring into an indistinct mass of shapes and colours. "Sakuya..." Is that Lindow? She can't really tell anymore. "I'm ordering you! Make sure you get everyone home alive!"
"No!" a woman screams. Then there's another voice. "Sakuya, come on! If we stay, we'll all end up dead!" it says, but the woman's response is only to scream once more. "I won't go! Lindow!"
"Goddamnit!" Another voice, rougher than the rest. "Kota, drag her if you have to! You're on rear guard! I'll cut us a path to the truck! Yuu, back us up with healing bullets!" A pause. "You better not die, Lindow! You hear me?!"
Everything from that point on is distorted and makes no sense. Roars. Guns firing. Blue streaks around cruel faces. A blade biting into flesh. Bursts of green glowing light. Unintelligible yelling. The sounds of a large vehicle and someone calling her name repeatedly. The only constant is a warmth she doesn't know but craves if only because it's something safe to cling to. Then that too is ripped away. "Please take care of her," the voice that had been calling her earlier says to someone else before it too vanishes.
"You did well, Alisa." The new voice is familiar in a different way - a bad way. She knows it - it made her do bad things, and now more than ever she wishes that warmth - that other voice - would come back but her body is no longer hers to control. "Now," it continues, and fear grips her, robs her of the last vestiges of strength she did have left, "it's time for good girls to go to sleep."
"No..." she croaks and tries to fight, but her body is so heavy and she has no energy left. Her mind registers a sharp prick on her arm and she manages a final whimper of "Please..." before the abyss claims her.
-xXx-
She is not alone in the abyss.
She knows instinctively who the two people before her are even though their faces and very forms are out of focus like a photograph that has been exposed to the elements for a hundred years. Their clothes are stained red with blood and the smiles that adorn their blurred faces are macabre as they reach for her and grasp her arms, preventing her from running away.
"Remember us, Alisa?" they ask in unison, their voices like metal scraping on metal. "Of course you do, don't you? You're the reason we're dead, after all."
"NO!" she screams as she tries to claw their hands off, but her fingers grasp nothing and her nails scratch at her own skin. She still tries. "You're not them... you're not real! YOU'RE NOT REAL!"
"But we are, Alisa," her mother and father chime as they bring their featureless faces closer. "Saying such things about the people who raised you... such a bad girl you are..."
"And then you caused them to die," a third voice speaks, causing her to look up and see Lindow. "Just like me," he accuses, his usual grin twisted into a cruel smirk.
"It's your fault, Alisa!" Sakuya screams as she steps out of the darkness followed by the rest of the 1st Unit, her gaze full of loathing. "All your fault," Soma echoes, glaring at her hatefully. "Acting like you were better than me and then pulling a stunt like that... you really are something!" Kota sneers, his every word coated in contempt.
It is Yuu, however, who approaches her first, his usual smile replaced with a look of disdain. "I knew you'd screw up the moment I met you," he intones flatly, his voice devoid of its trademark warmth. "I thought that if I helped you out it would fix you, but a lost cause is a lost cause. I see it now... and with this it's clear to see for everyone else too."
It's too much, too much to bear and she tries harder to fight them off. "Don't look at me..." she pleads as she struggles against the clutches of her dead parents and the others move closer. "Just leave me alone... Stay away... Leave me alone... Leave me alone!" she screams.
"Give her a tranquilliser..." There are other voices coming from somewhere in the abyss. "...and change the padding..."
They're surrounding her now, chorusing "You did this" as they close in and and where is this? Why can't she get away? Why won't they leave her alone?
"Oh..." she whimpers as they all grab her and pin her in place, all the while repeating those three words over and over again. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry..." she apologises to no avail as they ignore her. "Sorry isn't going to change the fact that you hurt everyone who gets close to you, Alisa," her father admonishes as he tightens his grip.
"Daddy... Mommy... it's not... it's not what you think!" she pleads, tears streaming down her face. A hand cups her cheek and turns her to face her mother. "It's me," she asks in a voice different from her memories. "Do you recognise me, Alisa?" she continues, and the question doesn't make sense - nothing makes sense anymore and please would everyone just LEAVE HER ALONE
"You know we can't, Alisa," Yuu answers. "You've killed three people already and you have to be punished."
"I didn't! I didn't mean to do it! You're wrong! It wasn't me! It wasn't my fault!" she protests, renewing her struggle against the hands that are keeping her restrained, keeping her here when all she wants to do is run away, run where they can't see her, can't accuse her with their words and their eyes- but she can't, not with them trapping her with their hands that she can't shake off no matter what she does.
"You have to accept your punishment, Alisa," Yuu continues, his every word cutting deep into her heart. "It's your fault, and you can't run away from that fact."
"Leave me alone!" she begs one more time, trashing futilely as he continues to look on impassively. "You should've just left me alone!" Left her there, left her to die, anywhere but HERE
"But we can't leave you alone, Alisa." This time, they all speak in unison and the hands tighten their grip once more. "You hurt people, and that's unforgivable. People died because of you and now you have to pay the price."
There is the sensation of a sharp prick on her arm and she knows - she feels herself losing focus, losing control. "No!" she screams and tries to struggle even as her strength leaves her once again and the hands drag her even deeper into the abyss, all the while as their eyes condemn her.
-xXx-
She doesn't know how long she's been here - it's an endless cycle of them and memories she doesn't want to remember but is forced to relive again and again until everything bleeds together into a mass of guilt and self-loathing as they watch from the sidelines and she wants to escape please just leave me alone already somebody SAVE ME PLEASE
Suddenly there is a warm presence, familiar yet not, as if in answer to her pleas, and the accusations, the condemnations just stop. She doesn't understand how or why but she doesn't care and just reaches for it-
-xXx-
Her eyelids are impossibly heavy and it feels like it's been forever since she opened them. The light is blinding, further disorientating her and making it impossible for her to figure out where she is. "What?" she rasps, her voice hoarse - from screaming or lack of use, she can't tell. The only thing anchoring her is the feel of a warm hand holding hers, and it takes all of her strength to turn towards the hand's owner.
Yuu - the real one, she realises, not the fake that has been tormenting her - stares back at her, his expression a mixture of relief, surprise and lingering worry even as he continues to grip her hand tightly in his. "Where am I?" she asks, forcing the words past her dry throat regardless of the pain. "Why am I...?"
"S-she actually regained consciousness?" a voice somewhere in the room utters incredulously, causing Yuu to break eye contact to stare at that person and withdraw his hand much to her regret. "Impossible! E-excuse me!" the man says - she should know that voice, but her mind is foggy and she's already losing consciousness - before his departure is marked by the sound of a door sliding open and shut.
Yuu turns back to look at her, concern still visible in his eyes, and she summons the last scraps of her energy to speak to him. "Just now..." she manages to get out, "you..." That is the last word she can say before her strength fails her and she feels herself slipping into the darkness once more.
However, this time the ghosts keep their distance as the lingering warmth of a hand holding hers keeps them at bay.
I'll admit, this chapter did not turn out the way I thought it would, but then I'm not entirely sure how exactly I expected it to turn out considering the subject matter. Writing it was like walking a tightrope of trying to balance coherency so readers would be able to understand what was going on and the chaos taking place in Alisa's head as her own mind betrayed her. I sincerely hope I did a good enough job, although being so mean to my favourite character in the game is something I don't think I want to repeat ever again.