I actually meant to update a long time ago, but one bout of procrastination turned into another and here we are, just short of a month later. Sorry about that. Thanks very much to my reviewers. You guys are so regular that I probably don't even have to say your names, which is honestly a really lovely thing to have. To you guys, thank you very much again for the compliments (they're quite helpful), and feel free to give criticism where you think it's due.
This chapter was born out of a) a pun and b) embarrassment at not having a firm grip on characters that are not Kanda or Daisya, so it might be a bit odd. Anyhow, read, enjoy, review!
The blood-red moon circled overhead, flashing across the sky at an impossibly quick pace. Sometimes it felt as if the sky had broken into shards reflecting the light, sometimes it looked like a maelstrom had begin to spin with the moon as its eye.
As time went on, the images coalesced. The clouds appeared and shifted, stony and jagged and yet swirling, stirred by the lightning. Somehow, the moon was beneath them, staring down at him like some bloodshot eye.
There was never any sun.
And yet, against all logic, the red glow illuminated a thin copse of trees in perfect detail.
"You really shouldn't have brought them out here, you know?"
The apparition perched in the fork of one of the sturdier trees, swinging its legs back and forth. Tiedoll knew what it was. An ages-old, superhuman creature, hellbent on the destruction of mankind.
In one hand, it gestured vaguely with an umbrella, which squeaked in protest.
"Poor Kanda."
He could feel his chest convulse, as if his body was desperately trying to keep him breathing.
"He's fighting so hard this time around."
The apparition pouted, with the face of a preteen denied a later bedtime.
In front of Tiedoll, Kanda — no, just an image of Kanda, no matter how realistic — was panting, stars beginning to form on his skin. Beside him, Marie sat slumped, playing his Innocence with five fingers split between both hands.
The forest around them was full of splintered trunks and fallen bullets. Daisya was already a deflated cloak and a bell sitting atop a pile of dust.
"Help me!"
The image still standing screamed the words with a vehemence as his fingers started to crumble.
A few seconds later, the images in front of him were only those of akuma and dust.
"Shall we try again?"
The apparition swung the umbrella around again, and the moon spun.
Tiedoll said nothing, allowing his fists to clench just enough for the change to be perceptible, then bowing his head, as if in agony. This was the Noah of dreams. The girl sitting in the tree was her form, but she would never present so obvious a target if she didn't expect him to go for it.
No, someone, something else here was the one he had to kill.
The images flashed into being again. This time it was just Kanda and Daisya and what could have been a body, could have been a corpse. He'd seen this tens of times before, if not hundreds.
A bullet caught Daisya in the shin. A spray of blood blocked his vision as Mugen sliced through flesh and bone, and Daisya screamed. Now he was crumpled up, with the shattered stump of a tibia instead of a foot.
"O-old man..."
Daisya held his gaze for a moment, looking like a lost child for the moment before his expression changed.
"Why didn't you help us?"
The last thing he saw before Daisya crumpled to dust was a mask of hatred. Kanda didn't even bother to look at him before he fell. Marie gained consciousness just in time to see it.
The image of Kanda. The illusion. Nothing more. He wished he felt nothing more.
Until he figured out where the Noah was hiding, he couldn't make a move. She would keep him in these visions so long as he seemed affected.
That was easy. It was remaining unaffected that was difficult.
The moon rose beneath the sky, and circled again. Lightning, in jagged handwriting, spelled a name he could not read. The sun remained a shadow.
The scenes were different, lit in grey and red like the edge of exhaustion, but the dramatis personae remained constant in their deaths.
Marie was last again, this time. Unlike the other two, he cast no accusations. In fact, the sound that echoed in Tiedoll's ear was a weary chuckle. As if the end he expected had finally come.
His heart hammered a tattoo on the inside of his ribs. There was no time. He had to get out of here quickly. But who was she? Who was she?
Dead.
Daisya always died first. He rushed in, took a bullet (sometimes for someone, he recalled uneasily), and promptly turned to dust. Marie would let his guard drop for a moment, visibly dismayed, then have to somehow sever the flesh and bone infected by the bullets that hit him.
Kanda would remain standing until the end, even as his healing ran out and stars crawled ever so slowly along him. Whether he or Marie died first, it didn't matter. He was the last one standing.
Most times Daisya would be long gone by the time Marie bled out, and Kanda would collapse soon after.
But, every time, he looked up and screamed for help. Kanda, who would never do such a thing.
That was deliberate.
The moon flashed overhead.
Who was it? The apparition, whose form was the Noah, would not be the Noah. He'd already thought it was too obvious. It wouldn't be the akuma, because that would be too boring. This one wasn't sent to kill him — she was playing.
So one of the three images remaining was a real being.
But which one? She would take the one he wouldn't guess. But how would she know? If he could figure out which one he could guess, he could choose the one he wouldn't. But then he would have guessed it.
It was a conundrum. An enigma.
She would see how he felt about each of the three in detail free of self-delusion. And if he were to take the quick way out, he would have to do the same.
He was unwilling to try and choose favourites at any time, let alone a time like this. And if she found he had one, then would she even choose that one? Or have it not be them, and make the others turn to him in resentment.
It was the parent's nightmare, he thought with a sense of grim humour. She would have known it — it would produce the most difficult obstacle, and thus the most amusing result.
He let himself drop, feeling a bitter condensation in his eyes. It wasn't hard to do.
"Please-"
It was half whine, half sob. The most pathetic sound he could formulate.
"Why are you doing this?"
The apparition stopped twirling the umbrella, which sighed gratefully.
"Hmm. Why am I doing this, you ask?"
It paused.
"I guess now's the time I give you all the juicy details of my mission," it said, drawing out the last word. He supposed he should keep calling it 'she', but it was an apparition. 'She' would be one of the images in front of him. But they were her words.
"Too bad for you, I don't have much time for that yet. So how about you just get to deciding which one of these is real, hey? Just pick your favourite," it — she — said, smiling pleasantly.
The image that looked so like Daisya cried bitter tears as it crumbled. There were almost cliches in the series of scenes and storylines.
Who was it?
He had already decided why each of them could be the image, but which theory held true?
Daisya was the innocent. To kill him would be a crime beyond all comprehension. That was because he wouldn't mind too much.
And there was little that spoke more to the unfairness of the world than a child who already found so little in life to love that an adrenaline-filled death was preferable to a continued life without it.
So killing Daisya would be like killing a mangled flower with the misfortune to be in the middle of a highway. He would die anyway. Probably soon.
But his death would be a testament to the cruelty of fate. He was born to die young.
Kanda…
Kanda would die in despair, not joy. Well, maybe a perverse satisfaction at it all being over.
Kanda was an anomaly, in every way. He had heard little of what had happened before, but that had been enough. Just enough.
Killing Kanda would make sense.
But he could never do it. Kanda was a child. Kanda was his child. And Kanda was still searching.
He could never kill him, because his eyes would always resemble the ones stained with tears one night. One night out of hundreds.
And only ever once.
Marie would not want to die. Marie would accept death. He had expected it when Tiedoll had found him.
Marie would die as any person would, with a measure of regret and fear. Kanda and Daisya were fairly simple. Kanda searched, and saved. There was nothing else that mattered to him. Daisya's sole goal was to be amused.
Marie was normal; Marie was complicated. His motivations, his personality would not have any effect on his death. He could take care of himself. He did take care of himself. He was quiet, he obeyed orders, and he was kind. Marie, forever and always the ideal student, the ideal son. Not like the prodigals, whose graves were littered with the shreds of sketches.
Marie was the one person besides him who could coax Kanda into some semblance of humanity.
Killing him would be a pity. He shouldn't die, because he was better than so many and so much and he was the last living child. He never asked for anything.
He had never asked for anything.
The apparition whistled a tune.
Even when blood was pooling about its feet, the image still played the strings. It clung to the fight. Only — only so long as there was something left to fight for.
The Noah knew him too well.
He had asked for nothing.
Tiedoll got up, and made his pace a stagger, heading towards the three images.
He had asked for nothing, and he had been given it.
A wave of guilt washed over him, strong enough to make him gag, and he brought his Innocence down between the eyes that looked at him as they had for years, with neither expectation nor excitement but a sort of disbelieving contentment.
The Noah screamed.