A/N: Sorry this one took awhile. Writers' block hit like a truck for about a week there, and I've been more focused on moving than anything creative as of late. Next chapters might take a little bit too since I have a few important bits I want to work out before writing it.
But I've noticed a few new favorites/follows since the last chapter so thank you! Not sure if you're all coming from somewhere or found me yourselves, but welcome.
Last note: This chapter does touch on some darker themes of self-harm (& further). Not the first time I've mentioned it, and it's not overly intense, but it's slightly more direct this chapter so thought I'd warn you.
The next week or so was a blur. Lazula was pretty sure she made it to a few of her classes, and worked out a couple of times, but she couldn't remember which classes or what days. She was incessantly preoccupied, every disembodied voice reminding her exactly why she heard them. She had gone for a walk to get her mind off of it. But the walk turned into a run, and she was almost out of the city before she realized it did nothing for her. The reason she could run so far, so fast, was because of the souls. Because almost five hundred people were murdered thirty years ago, and their souls were trapped inside of her.
She didn't want anyone to see her returning to her dorm. The voices were enough company. But of course, as the door opened to her cluster, Snow was just a few feet inside, facing her in the middle of the L-shaped hall.
"Hello," she greeted. "Our team is scheduled for a training exercise at 1pm today. The time is currently 12:20. Are you aware?"
Lazula continued past her. "Yep."
"I see. I've noticed it takes you a while to put on your armor. I'm asking because it doesn't seem as though you will be ready in forty minutes."
Lazula's hand was already on her door. "You're right. I won't be."
"Saturday training exercises are mandatory for all–"
"I don't care!" Lazula snapped. "Gods, you're dense sometimes." She opened the door to her room before she could say anything else she regretted. "...I'm not going. Don't want to kill anyone."
More than a year, dozens of training exercises, and a handful of Grimm attacks later, being in Sentinel's training island still reminded Caspian of his first fight against real Grimm. He hoped back then he'd never have to fight them again. Now, as the Headmaster strode into place where he fought the Bullfiend all that time ago, he only hoped things wouldn't get any worse.
"First, as always, I'd like to thank you all," the Headmaster began from his place between the stands. "Some of you began your education here in a peaceful world, and have remained here to become true huntsmen. Others joined only after the Creatures of Grimm returned, willingly putting their lives on the line to defend our city, our world. At no point have we forced you to stay. You aren't here because you have to be. You're here because you want to be. You want to do the right thing, despite the danger. Despite the horror of it all. So thank you."
The Headmaster let his words hang in the cold, still air.
"Many of you have yet to fight in a battle that may decide your life, or decide the lives of others. And it is my belief there is a difference between those who have, and those who have not. Not in skill, but experience. So I think those of you who are yet to fight for your lives can benefit with some direct combat with those who have."
A pair of blank Holoscreens spread in the air above him, one to face each section of stands.
"Most of you will be fighting as teams. However, several second year teams– and some of the most important players in our game– are currently down a member." To little surprise, the portraits of Caspian's own team and Team LSLI displayed on the Holoscreen above his father. Noxis and Lazula's greyed-out portraits disappeared, and the remaining members shuffled into pairs. "The members of Teams CRLN and LSLI present today will break off into partner pairs. Some of you with teammates, others not. But I know you all tend to work fairly well together."
"Lazula Skye isn't here today? That's weird..." a girl noted from a row behind CRLN.
"Good. You hear what she did to that one girl? They probably don't want her to kill someone."
Lilly wrung a fist on her lap. The muscle to the side of her jaw bulged under the weight of the response she bit back.
"Our training island can easily accommodate up to eight pairs at once in combat. I've sent information regarding your opponents, and in which area you will be fighting. Those of you in the first round, please make your way to the location specified by your Holoband."
Ten or fifteen minutes later, Caspian and Rowan lined up opposite a couple of familiar faces. Ashe Lorcan, the first year from Sparring Team with Energy to match Moka's, and her partner Noriko. Her hair was tied into a bundle of spikes high behind her head, the color pairing with a lightly-armored, knee-length kimono that partially covered a sleeve of tattoos and the pine forest behind her. Her eyes were dark, and Caspian couldn't decide if they looked as sharp as her blade, or were filled with intense boredom.
"Whoa," Rowan mumbled.
"What's up?"
"Oh, uh, nothing."
The countdown started from twenty. For the first time, Caspian looked forward to a fight. Just a friendly 2-on-2 with a couple of first-years. Safety parameters at twenty-five percent. He wondered if his time at Sparring Practice had already begun to help. Then of course, the fact nobody's life was on the line.
Ashe pointed ahead with a charcoal-grey and red cutlass. "New guy! You're mine!"
Caspian pulled Undertow from his back, cocking his head aside and raising a brow. "Aren't you a freshman?"
Half of Ashe's cutlass twisted past the hilt, and a steel cord pinged into place to mark the end of its transformation. ASHN was one of Sentinel's top first-year teams, so despite the difference in experience, Caspian knew it wouldn't be simple. Neither he nor Rowan held any particular advantage over their opponents. Nevermind the fact they fought in a forest– perfect for the girl who could control plants, and dangerous for the one who shot explosive arrows.
"So, do you have her?" Rowan asked.
"Yeah. Let's go one on one at first," Caspian assessed. "Can you handle Noriko?"
Rowan looked at his opponent. She pulled a kama from her belt and flipped it to a reverse grip in one hand, the other spinning a weighted knife on a chain connected to its grip. Rowan decided on an uneasy nod. "Let's hope so."
As soon as the buzzer sounded, Ashe pulled her bow to a full draw and let fly an arrow tipped with a pulsing crimson dart. Time seemed to slow during the half-second it took for the bolt to arrive at the armguard Caspian borrowed from the Sparring Team. He felt the impact, but it didn't pierce through. The tip exploded, encasing his arm, chest, and head in a flash of searing heat. He heard a crackling sound somewhere near his right ear, and patted an ember from his hair before looking back up at the huntress who knocked another arrow.
Dodging them was the right approach. Caspian took off in an arc toward Rowan and Noriko but not close enough to risk a sneak attack by their other foe. He stayed in motion with each shot. He was less accurate than normal but the faster he moved, the harder he was to hit, the better.
Noriko closed in on Rowan immediately at the buzzer. At a couple of paces, just as Rowan pulled his blade from behind, a root burst from the dirt to trip him into a net of chain. Noriko tore twice across his chest before twirling her kama around the hilt of his blade to disarm him, and vaulting off his back to free him from her steel web and kick him to the dirt.
She landed behind him, eyeing him over the shoulder with a smirk and twirling her chain.
The twang of a bowstring and bursts of flame filled the forest as Caspian continued his zig-zag through the woods. Ashe's quiver still looked full. She'd probably gone through a quarter of her ammo, if that. The goal was to whittle down her stock until he could force a fight up close, but at this rate he knew he'd be slow on his feet and heaving for breath before the fight even began.
He ducked behind a thick pine trunk to catch his breath and hope his cover didn't ignite. His position gave him an eye on Rowan, and it looked like Noriko had the upper hand on him. She was much faster, and could slow him down further with roots and chain. Not exactly a fight that played to his strengths. They could switch, but Caspian wasn't sure he could take the first-year alone either. He could keep chipping away at Ashe's aura– he had taken twenty percent with a handful of dust bullets. But it wasn't easy. She was stronger than him at range, and though he could rattle off two or three shots in the time it took her to aim one, he had to keep a close eye on the draw of her bow. Watching out for explosive arrows made aiming just a bit harder. Noriko would probably beat Rowan before he beat Ashe, and that wasn't a two-on-one he was keen on taking.
He had to force a fight up close as soon as possible. He let out a breath, and peeked around the edge of his tree.
The streak of crimson that greeted him threatened to take his nose off.
"Dammit!" Noriko shouted from a rising cloud of smoke.
"Sorry!" Ashe called back.
About forty feet away, she began to reload. Caspian slid his thumb across the groove in Undertow's hilt until the weapon glowed golden from within. He aimed, fired, and the paralyzing bolt of lightning dust lodged in her shoulder. With a final glance at Rowan, who had used Ashe's miss to free himself from a thicket of vines, Caspian closed in on Ashe. She regained control of her arm before his arrival, but he knew she wouldn't have enough time to reload.
Her weapon finished transforming just as Undertow came to meet it above her head. He twisted his blade free and stepped into her, driving the cutlass into her gut and slashing down her chest before she could parry his next attack. He leapt aside and let the blade swing wide to his left before following up with another pair of strikes.
"Rowan, with me!" Caspian commanded. "She's weak up close!"
"Rude!" Ashe protested.
Heaving his knee past his waist and hacking at the roots that came to replace those that burned away, Rowan regained full motion. He waved Noriko off with a swing of his blade, tucked it into the sheath behind his hip, and joined the attack on ASHN's leader.
Caspian lunged forward, letting his jab get swatted aside and holding Ashe's response above her head and shoulders. He held her off with just enough force to keep her engaged before skipping aside and pushing her toward a slash from Sanguine Storm. She blocked some of it with her steel, but Rowan's massive blade caught the side of her leg and a bit of shoulder as it passed. Two of Caspian's strikes met her blade, and he got a chance to slash between her shoulder blades as she turned to hold off Rowan.
From behind her, Rowan forced out some kind of odd, guttural gulp or gasp. Noriko's chain wrung his waist, and he flung backward into a slash from shoulder to hip that took enough aura to leave him close to elimination. She had an interesting weapon, Caspian considered, as Ashe's cutlass met his crossguard. The kama and weighted chain worked together as a perfect disruptor of most fighters' typical combat style, throwing off their balance and creating openings for the hooked blade. He could imagine using something similar– not exactly the same, as Noriko's fighting style was far, far removed from his. But something involving cable and a blade. A grappling hook, maybe?
Ashe's push at his wrists brought him back into the fight.
Physically, she wasn't all that strong. He knew he had that on her. Blades still locked, Caspian grabbed his opponent's wrist, pulled Undertow free, and transformed it into a gun.
His shot forced a pained squawk as it sunk into her stomach and she dropped to her knees, eliminated. With a quick apology and a check to make sure he hadn't hurt her, he joined the fight against Noriko.
She was fast– faster than either of them. And skilled enough with weapon and semblance that they could only land a spare few hits. Luckily, her aura was fragile enough that a few hits was all they needed.
A jingle from their Holobands let them know they had defeated the pair of first-years.
"Wait, we won?" Caspian reflected.
"Yeah! Dude, you're on it today!" Rowan commended.
"Well it is a little easier to come up with a strategy when you're not fighting for your life."
As the four combatants sheathed their weapons and began the trek back to the entrance, Rowan shuffled in next to Noriko. "Hey, uh… you're really good," he said. "You really haven't fought Grimm before?"
"Nope." She looked aside and scoffed. "Not yet, at least. Hunting runs in the family, though. My parents met at Haven. And my brother's there now."
"Waaait a minute. Can he control plants too?"
"Yep. That also runs in the family."
"I think I fought him during the Vytal Tournament!"
"So that's why you're so familiar," she recognized. A smirk drew across her lips, and she prodded him in the ribs. "I remember him kicking your ass. Gave my whole family a good laugh."
Rowan's sheepish chuckle faded out into a sigh. "...Oh gods, that was embarrassing."
"Hey! Good fight!" Ashe commended from behind Caspian, oblivious to the fact she gave him half a heart attack.
"Thanks. You two are good!" Caspian returned. "Curious, have you ever tried burning Noriko's plants on purpose?"
"Huh? No, usually it's because I miss and she gets mad at me."
"Well I was thinking, controlling smoke is your semblance, right?"
"Mm-hm!"
"As long as she doesn't breathe it in, you can use it as kind of a smokescreen for Noriko," Caspian suggested. "She's fast. If it was harder to see her in the first place, she'd be dangerous."
Ashe's eyes floated up toward the stands they approached as she pondered his words. "Huh. That's not a bad idea!" she recognized. "Lazula's right, you are clever!"
Caspian fiddled with the strap of his stand-in armguard. "She said that?"
"Yeah! She said it helps make up for all of your weaknesses."
"Right. Not sure I needed that second part."
But, as he reflected on the battle, he did feel like something was different. Maybe it was just because the threat of imminent death wasn't weighing him down. That definitely helped. But he felt so much more confident than before. And for the first time, he had fun fighting. He looked down at the stock armguard he had borrowed in place of his ruined steel, and the image of Noriko's chain and the draw of Ashe's bow returned to his mind.
Meanwhile, Ichigo, Laurel, Lilly, and Snow awaited their turn. As Caspian and Rowan took their position in the forest, a man in a cardigan buttoned over his blue dress shirt walked into the half-empty stands. He clutched the open collar shut, brown hair flailing in the cold breeze he ducked into.
Snow rose from her seat and a smile lit up her face. "Dad!"
"Hey, Snow. Didn't want to miss this," Douglas returned, matching her hug with an arm. He glanced into the stands. "Lazula isn't here?"
Snow shook her head. "No. She was saying things very unlike her. I don't know why, but she seems upset about something."
Douglas nodded, biting his lip inside his mouth. "I see. I hope she's alright."
"Hey. Mr. Doug. I've been wanting to bring up something I've been wondering about Snow," Ichigo said once Douglas and Snow made it back to their row.
"Alright, go ahead," Douglas allowed. "But keep it quiet."
"Well, we've established she's the only one like her– with thoughts and emotions, I mean. And a computer can't just come up with that on its own, can it?"
Douglas's glance swept the area for a second, and he leaned in. "Not as far as we know."
"Exactly. So there has to be some kind of bug in her code, an errant string somewhere in her cognitive processes that makes her… well, her," Ichigo figured. "It's like, she's not an android. She's one of us, you know? And of course I think that's fascinating."
"Yeah, I... I agree," Douglas responded absently, watching Caspian and Rowan's fight onscreen.
"Caspian and I were talking about it the other day. He called it the 'Cingulate Code,' after some brain region that deals with emotion and stuff like that. Do you think that might be the case?"
"It's a possibility."
"Have you run a comparison between her coding and the standard?" Ichigo pried. "Can you?"
"I assume it was done during her initial tests, but I don't have access to that information," Douglas replied. He fiddled with his tie. "And I can't exactly pry into her coding without breaking company regulations."
"But–"
"Can we not discuss this now?" Douglas cut in. "Or here? Way too many ears around."
"Oh. R-Right. Sorry."
Strands of deep blue cascaded between the fingers that covered Lazula's face. She lifted it– red, splotched, and painted with dried tears and smudged eyeliner. Her eyes found the trophies lining her shelf. Shining gold, imposed upon a background of her smirking from the top of the podium. It felt like her innocence was taunting her. She blinked and lunged at the shelf. When she came to, she slouched to one side of her chair, surrounded by a mess of medals, crumpled photographs, and shattered awards.
None of it mattered anymore.
None of it could she be proud of anymore.
She tried to remember her life before tournaments, winning tournaments. Before the "Indomitable Girl." She couldn't remember much.
She had nothing.
Her Holoband rattled the table, coasting closer to her hand on its vibration. She muttered how much she wanted to be left alone, but saw Lilly's name onscreen. It was the first she'd heard from her in almost a week, so she decided she may as well answer.
"Lazula!" she greeted, surprise in her voice at the fact Lazula answered. "I noticed you weren't at the training exercise today, so I wanted to check in, see how you're doing?"
Lazula's breath clouded the input system. "...I found out what's wrong with me."
"Do you want to talk about it?" Lilly asked. "Can I come by?"
Lazula mumbled a curse under her breath as she looked at the damage. "Yeah. Sure. Give me a few minutes."
She smoothed out the crumpled pictures on the edge of her desk and propped them back up behind whichever trophies were still presentable. The Vale regional trophies were pretty sturdy. She'd have to superglue a few of the others, if she ever felt like it. As she hung four gold medals around the newest regional trophy she choked back a sudden burst of emotion. She swallowed hard, wiped her cheek, and kept cleaning. She didn't want Lilly to see. That violence– even against objects– disgusted her.
"Snow and I won today," Lilly offered. A bit of smalltalk before a conversation both knew wouldn't be easy. She forced a chuckle. "Honestly, she's a bit scary when she fights. 'Ruthlessly efficient' is a good way to put it. She practically carried me."
Half a breath of laughter was all the response Lazula could give.
Lilly took in a breath. "Alright, well... what did you find out?"
"Before I tell you, I need you to promise me something. What I'm going to tell you is the truth. I wouldn't lie about this, I'm not going insane, and as much as I wish it was, this isn't some sick joke," Lazula warned. "I need you to promise me you'll believe me."
Lilly swallowed before nodding with uneasy eyes. "Okay."
"I have the souls of four hundred and sixty people inside of me."
"What?"
"You promised me."
"I did. And I believe you." She wrung her hands and looked to the light peeking out each side of the shuttered window. "It's just… how?"
"They were in my mom first. They transferred to her during their last fight against the Church of Awakening. Then, when I was born, they transferred into me. There's no way to get rid of them either, unless I die. Or give birth, but I'm not even considering that an option."
"I'm… I'm sorry," Lilly offered. "I don't know what else to say. And I'm sorry I've gone silent on you the last few days. I should have been around for you, I just– I shouldn't have– yeah."
"...I just don't know what to do anymore. The only reason I've won all these tournaments, become the person I am, it's all a lie." She could feel the tears coming back, so she turned her shoulder and sunk her face back into her hands. "I don't even know if "I" have a soul. If "I" exist. My body… it might just be a shell."
"I know 'you' exist," Lilly assured. "Your ambition, drive, and honesty. Your genuine care for other people, even when you don't know how to show it." A giggle managed to escape. "Even all your stubbornness, and pride, that's you. This doesn't change the way I see you."
"I… I don't know anymore," Lazula answered. She lifted glassy eyes from her hands, wide open and staring at something a thousand feet past her wall. Her words barely broke above the cracking of her voice. "Sometimes, I wonder if I would be better off freeing them."
"Wh-What do you…"
"What's my life against four hundred and sixty?" Lazula questioned. "They're trapped, Lilly."
"Please don't say things like this," Lilly pleaded. "Oh, gods, I can't even think about that..."
"I couldn't, even if I wanted to," Lazula croaked, her head shaking in her palms. "My aura's too strong."
The room was quiet for a few seconds, until a sniffle from beside her broke the stagnant air.
"...Sorry."
Lilly wiped her own tears off her cheek, and her hand came to rest on her shoulder until Lazula turned to face her. "No, I'm glad you can tell me this. But please, I need you to promise me. If the thought ever crosses your mind again, you'll call me."
Lazula let air free through her stuffed nose. "Alright."
The doors to Headmaster Skye's office slid open in waves as its owner presented his Holoband, and Mr. Hudson followed him inside. The darkness of the room lifted with the black fog across the windows, and the birth of a dozen holographic screens across his huge silver half-moon of a desk. No sooner did the doors close behind the two did the Headmaster begin to speak.
"So, Douglas. You told me you wanted to talk?"
"Yeah," Mr. Hudson confirmed, his nod as abrupt as the word. "Mostly, a standard check-in. But… I've been wondering. I know we've been planning Operation Ark for years now, but is there any way we can start exploring other options?"
"Other options?" the Headmaster muttered. "The Apoptosis Project will likely happen in a matter of months. Less than a year, I'm sure. It's far too late to consider 'other options.'"
"I know. And I figured you'd say that," Douglas acknowledged. "It's just… cruel, if you will. What we'll have to do. I can't imagine the toll it'll take on the kids."
"We've known it was the case from the beginning, and we all agreed on it. All of us," Headmaster Skye insisted. He looked out the window to the view of Empyrean Tower across the bay, dwarfing all it surrounded. "I understand how difficult it is for you, too. But I have to remind you how much is at stake. We can't afford to jeopardize our success based on our feelings."