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(Penny PoV)
Cloud was all orthogonal.
His attacks moved in horizontal and vertical aspects with rare diagonal transitions which only served to take one by surprise when they did occur. They were oblique and he moved swiftly from one thing to the next.
That was how he fought me.
That was how he fought Cinder and shoved her onto my swords.
I had killed her. A life quenched by my own hands.
Cloud didn't get it.
I had killed someone. Didn't he know how that made me feel? I had always thought it would be him that would kill Cinder and not I. He was, after all, stronger than me. He was stronger than anyone. He was the most powerful person on the planet. It should have been him. It couldn't have been me. It was so orthogonal that I should be the one to kill her.
I had just reacted on instinct. I'd put up those blades to be ready, not to kill her. I thought her aura would shield her anyways. I guess it had just been too much. It was all so much. It hurt so bad. I felt as though I had been the one stabbed through the chest thrice.
I knew that she was a bad person. I knew that the plan was for her to die, as well. I wasn't a fool. But believe it or not it didn't make me feel much better to know those things. It hurt. It burned. Now I was a maiden. Now I was two maidens. I should have been strong. This was what I was made for. But that didn't make me feel much better either. I stayed where Cloud had left me. I just rested with my hands on my knees and what remained of my floating array left fallen around me in the hallway.
I felt like I was going to throw up. But I didn't need to eat. How was that possible? Explain that.
I felt nauseous. I felt a sort of existential dread rile up from inside me at my murder like bile in my throat. Sure it could be argued that Cloud had killed her as much as I did. But I wouldn't. I couldn't argue that. It had been I. It wasn't his blades that had done the deed. He had only pushed her. I had been the one to stab her. My swords covered in bright crimson, I rested with my hands on my knees.
I shuddered. It was uncontrollable. I shuddered. It was irreconcilable. I was a killer now.
For the first time my name joined some enormous list. And on that list were the names of everyone that had ever killed somebody. Cloud's name was on that list. Now, mine was too.
I had set out for blood and by the gods, I had found it. If only I had known before hand that it would be like this. If only I had known that it would be so nauseating. The vertigo struck me like a hammer. It spun me away to distant shores soaked in red and leaking from the chilling body before me.
The speed of it was dizzying as I rested still.
I had felt her life fade and become a part of me. This murderous witch who probably deserved to die was now inside of me. She was a part of me. I was part her. In my truest self. In the most inner sense.
I felt violated. Despite that I had been the violator. My blades had been the tools to penetrate Cinder's body. My body was wracked with chills. A deep bone crushing cold. It wreathed my body and though it filled my entirety, there was no room for it inside me. I felt simultaneously crushed and expanded.
Was this what it meant to kill and do one's duty? Was this what I was for? I didn't want to be for this, then. I despised my own destiny. I wanted to rebel and rage.
All I did was wait shuddering on the floor for Cloud to return.
I had sworn at him. It was the first time I had ever sworn. It was so vulgar. But that thing he had told me was so horrible, it was too terrible. I didn't want it to get easier. Murder should never become trivial, this thing that I had done deserved to make me nauseous. The vulgarity matched me at that moment. I felt disgusted with reality. It was all wrong. It was all so sideways, it was all so horrible.
What did it mean to be a murderer? I wanted to know now that I was one. Perhaps I was just a hair too late with that worry. Maybe I should have wondered before now. Would that have changed things, though? Probably not. But I would have liked to feel better about myself.
For so long I had wondered what it meant to be a person? To be real. But that mattered little to me now. I was a killer. If only I was as stone cold as Cloud was. If only I was as strong as him.
Even with everything stacked against him, his birth, his father, his mother, his sisters, he still managed to overcome. He managed to be a hero and what we needed him to be. I wanted to be what I needed to be. I wanted to be as strong as he was. I wanted to not feel this hideous vortex in my heart.
It felt like I was on the throes of a nightmare. Unknowable forces spun me over the tops of strange dead cities as I sat still. I was going to be sick. I wanted to scream. It felt like it would be a relief to shriek wildly and with abandon. I wanted to throw myself voluntarily along into that horrendous maelstrom of dream doom. Like Cloud had and did and was.
Instead I huddled my arms in on myself, hugging my chest tightly and I rocked back and forth with low murmurs. It was all too much. I just wanted it to stop. I wanted to get off this ride. Vertigo hit me again in a dizzying spell that seemed to go on and on forever. I felt like I was riding in on a spiral.
I embraced my desire to embrace my desire to not feel this way anymore. I wanted to weep like a widow and I did. How could such beautiful lights from the maiden transfer burn my soul like this? I swung on that spiral, ever downwards, ever inwards.
"Penny…" Cloud's voice came to me like a distant dream. I could smell the marijuana on him even over the iron of the blood I knelt in. I reached up with a blood soaked porcelain hand and he hauled me to my feet with a firm hand.
"Did you get Emerald?" I asked.
"No. She escaped. She used her illusions again. Come on, let's keep going."
He led me by the hand to the stairs and we walked slowly down like I was a frail old woman. His guiding hand on my back the whole time.
I was unsteady on my feet. I had no blood to rush to my head but I imagined that this was what that was like. I had no adrenaline to die down in my system to leave me at a loss so I remained steady as a rock in that regard. Black spells came rushing into my vision as Cloud led me downstairs and out of the apartment complex. Overthinking, overanalyzing left me paralyzed.
"You're alright Penny. You'll be okay. I know how much it hurts now."
"I don't want it to ever stop hurting. It's what I deserve."
"I know. I know. Believe me, I know. It's something that doesn't fade. I still have the psychic scars of when I first killed someone. It'll heal but it doesn't fade. Eventually you grow to live with the pain," he explained ever so gently. Like the wrong word or phrase would set me to shatter.
"I think I'm going to faint but my body doesn't know how," I murmured distantly. The words took forever to reach my lips from my throat. They came from so deep within myself that they echoed for miles and miles before they finally left me. And by that time I hardly felt the same.
"Everybody responds to it differently. The important thing is that you're still standing."
"How can that be the important thing? I killed someone."
"We killed someone," he corrected me softly. "And the important thing is to keep moving forward and not let it hold you down. You can put yourself through hell if you really feel like it. Don't let yourself. You know that Cinder had to die."
I flinched.
"It had to be one of the two of us to end her," he continued. "And we're still marching forward. Come on, let's get you back to the academy."
"I want to see my father." I hiccuped. "I mean I need to see him. I don't want to talk about it." I didn't hiccup.
"Talking about it is healthy. I do know what you're going through."
He continued to lead me with a hand on mine and the other wrapped around the small of my back. "You're a killer," I accused him.
He said nothing. He grimaced. He was a killer.
"I don't want to be like that. I want to do my duty but I don't want to be a killer. But it's too late for that. I already killed."
"I… sometimes the world robs us of our choice. It takes our free will from us and forces us to do things. I've probably killed more than I could have helped," he confessed to me.
"But this wasn't one of those times you could have done less. You came to kill her," I was still accusing him. Why was I doing that?
"I did," he said, like a grievous sin.
"Was it everything you hoped for?" I didn't mean to ask sardonically but it came out that way. I wasn't sure how someone could have wanted this and I judged him harshly for it at that moment.
He scowled up his face. "No. Her death brought me no peace. None of the relief I expected to receive came when she died. Instead my teeth are still set on edge. It's like my friend said. Hatred is like swallowing poison and expecting the other person to die. Now I'm left wondering what do I do now?"
"You spend time with Ruby and Weiss. You get what you wanted," I replied stoic.
"I want…" he trailed. "I want her to die again. I want more. More vindication. I feel lackluster with what I actually got out of this. I want to kill her all over again. But I can't. And that wouldn't make me happy anyways."
"What would make you happy, Cloud?" I really wanted to know. He had tried drugs and murder.
"I don't know. I think nothing will make me happy. This was a bad mood I was in but it's been a year so I think this is just my personality now. I think I'm about to have a panic attack to be completely honest with you. I don't know what to do with myself. For so long I was devoted to avenging Pyrrha and now that that's done… now that that's done I have no idea what I'm going to do now."
"Your mother is still out there. And your sisters. The successful models."
"You're right of course. I still have to deal with them. One way or another. Saphron and her gang I want to save but I don't know if that's possible. And I don't know of that would make me happy either."
"You may have to kill them," I said it like a threat.
"Yes…" he whispered.
"That bothers you."
"It… it does. They're my family. I have so many memories of being with them even if I know that they're fake. It hurts me to think about hurting them. But you're right. I may have to."
I walked in silence beside him for a long moment towards the academy, away from where police lines were forming. Atlas Sec was setting up around the building pretty fast. One look at me and they let us through their lines and rushed into the building past us.
"They're minds are hacked. You know that don't you? Your sisters."
"I know. But so was mine. Is mine?" He wondered. "Something is wrong with me. In my brain. Just lucky my soul isn't also fucked. Or maybe it is. I'm not sure. Can't be sure."
When he swore it just reminded me of when I swore at him. I didn't regret it. What he said to me was horrible. He deserved it. He didn't seem to mind or take offense. Even though to some degree I wanted him to. I wanted to offend him after what he said to me. It was spiteful. But it wasn't uncalled for. What he told me was one of the worst things anybody had ever said to me.
'It gets easier.'
How else could I have responded? What else was I supposed to do to react? What did he think I was going to say? Should he be surprised that I responded with venom?
Did he really think that would make me feel better? How could it? I looked at the light blood on my hands. It was turning crusty and hard and a darker shade of crimson, almost black.
When we made it back to the academy he let me go and race ahead. I had to find my father. I needed to talk to him. I found him on the lower levels.
"Father…" I trailed off.
"Penny, my sweet girl!" His chair turned so that he could face me. "Penny! You've got blood on your face! And your hands and clothes!"
"I killed someone Pa. They were bad and evil and maybe they deserved it but I killed someone!"
"Oh Penny…" he held out his hands to me and I ran and embraced him. I squeezed him tight and I started to cry. He didn't seem to mind the blood I got on his clothes and he wiped my face where tears ran crimson.
"You're alright," he whispered. "My precious little girl, you're alright. You're not hurt are you?"
"I am uninjured. Your aura protected me."
"Your aura, Penny. My darling girl. All parents give up a part of themselves. That's what it takes to be a parent," je told me gently.
"I don't think all of my… all of my friends would say the same about their parents."
"I'll keep you safe my sweet child. You're alright. What friends are these?"
"Cloud. And Weiss. I can't imagine having to fight you the way that they struggle against their own parents. It breaks my heart. I need you Pa."
"Shshsh." He hushed me. "I'm not going anywhere. And neither are you. And we'll do what we can for your friends. How are you doing? What happened?"
"Cloud he… shoved Cinder Fall all the way back and I put up my weapons and they went right through her. She bled all over me. I was the last thing she thought of when she died. She was looking me right in the eyes. I watched her slip away. The light just sort of went out of her. It was horrible. I don't know how Cloud does it."
"Has your friend Cloud killed people before?"
"A lot of people. He doesn't even know how many himself. That's how many. I don't want to be like that. I can't be like that. I won't. I'd rather die."
"Oh my darling. You don't mean that do you? You won't hurt yourself will you?"
I wiped a tear. "No. I want to live. And I want to be able to live with myself. Is it difficult to do both?" I wondered
"Yes. So difficult," my Pa answered.
"I can't live like this. Like Cloud does. Killing people is too much to ask of me. I won't do it."
"Your path ahead isn't an easy one, my baby. You said that you're the maiden now?"
I shuddered. Cinder Fall was inside of me now. Deeper than my bones. In my soul.
I nodded at my father.
"When I die will you dig me up and resurrect me again?" I asked. The question made him flinch.
"I told you I don't have the aura left for us both."
"So would you die and bring me back if I died again? Tell me Pa. I remember dying. The light slowly fading and my grasp on the world releasing. I don't want to come back again. Let me stay dead."
"You're not going to die again, my baby."
"Answer me!" I shouted at him. "Promise me that you won't bring me back again!"
"I… I can't, cute girl. No parent should outlive their children."
"No child should outlive their parent either. The world isn't fair. Do you love me?"
"Of course I do, my sweet summer child."
"Then when I die again, and I will. Being the maiden will kill me. And when I do then don't resurrect me. Promise me!"
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-WG