Emblazoned, crinkled letters atop a layered t-shirt landed atop the bed spread.
Some time after, the back of Dina's head followed.
"Tea Girl." She sucked her teeth as she met the ceiling with a soft glare. "Not exactly a tremendous leap from Rock Bottom, no."
With a huff and a mini smirk, she lifted herself, sitting upright. "But I'm finally off my feet. 'Lright, Luna? I'm finally movin' again."
She got up and faced her new uniform tee, hands on hips. "... and I have already forgotten how to iron. Lovely."
In undertaking the harrowing labor of unwrinkling a shirt, Dina was sent back 43 times that day, the garment thrown back in her face with every miniscule crease in fabric; those that still held a grudge got a noticeable kick out of her misfortune, which even-more noticeably nicked at her composure each time.
But she maintained.
Each runback took longer and longer, with an ever-fluctuating degree of success. By the end of it, she'd turned her room into a rat's nest sprinkled with her infuriated tears, save the desk upon which she operated.
Yet she held onto the vow.
And at long last, nearly a full day later…
"Sure took your time with this one."
Nervously tugging at her arm, Dina said nothing.
Ord combed through the shirt with nothing less than an eagle's eye, in every place it could be searched.
"... hm. Hm…! Well then! Bloody-well starched the thing!"
Dina's head perked up. "Huh?"
The chief put down the shirt. "How'd you do it?"
"... I…" She slowly pushed her hands together. "Managed to hold it up with me ki powers, n'..." A ball of energy began generating, accompanied by waves of heat. "Still a tad woozy from all the nosebleeds…"
"(All I needed for mine was five hours, boiled utensils and a mattress…) Went the extra mile n' everything. Well, it paid off. Put it on."
She did as such. The shirt obscured her line of sight for an instant, and then…
"...! B-but-"
Ord winked as he held out what she once brandished as if it were a birthright. "Don't ever wear it, mind… but keep it. Think of it as a thank you."
Dina's reddened eyes scanned the badge in her grasp, thumb gliding over its rigid, metallic texture. Her trepid glance stabilized, morphing into a determined frown.
She packed it into the breast pocket on her left. "MH!"
Her father smacked her shoulder. "Now you go'n earn it, yeah?"
The young volunteer nodded fiercely. "Co… COUNT ON IT!"
An officer dove behind a wall, before the mystical gravel could make skin contact, as said gravel turned each and every brick into a bat-like fiend.
Another, who'd lost an arm after it flew away and tried tearing his throat out, felt needed to state the obvious. "SIR, WE'RE BEIN' OVERWHELMED!"
"LIKE HELL! OUR SHOTS ARE LANDING, THE PUNK'S ALL FLAIR! KEEP COMPOSURE!"
"SIR THAT WAS 5 MINUTES AGO 'N HE'S GOT A BLOODY ARMY NOW! HE TURNED SHRAP AN' NERU, WE WON'T LAST ANY LONGER!"
The lieutenant grimaced like he'd been shot, before biting the just-as-figurative bullet. He snatched up the radio.
"TEA TIME!"
It took ten more seconds of cover-hopping and desperate suppression.
Not a second later, a glowing mass slammed into the mystic rapscallion, like a bolt sent from Heaven. He bounced across the ground, every one of the hundreds of fiends returning to their original states.
"Hu—..."
With a cheery wave, a 16 year-old Spaurk Dina smiled back. "Sorry for the delay, n' all that. Algebra II really threw me for a loop."
"EYES FRONT, TEA GIRL!"
"Uh-" Dina did as such. "Right!"
The sorcerer managed to get back on their feet, woozy and livid all the while as magic coursed through the air round them.
"Alright…" The volunteer took a deep breath and formed focused fields of ki in her hands. " 'f I'm not even good enough for above-average twats like you, may's well hand the bloody city to the next foreigner who blows in, yeah?" she growled.
"An' then he was all like 'BLEUGH, I WON' BE HUMILIATED BY SUM BOAHTTAM-FEEDAH TRIPE! Next minute he's throwin' straight NOTHIN' at me! You shoulda seen the look on his face once he realized, mate, it was priceless!"
Dina smiled, hair still rife with soot beneath the late-afternoon blue. Luna merely smiled back, her tired eyes now similar to that of her girlfriend's.
"Really though. Less n' less cloud-huffers, there are folks out at night… things have actually gotten better! I've actually done some good, an' all it took was some time off my arse not moping!"
Luna's tired smile continued.
"I-I'm sorry, I get I'm soundin' like I'm gloatin', but I swear I'm not, I… I'm just, I…"
Dina gave up on words as their eyes locked, her dumb anxious smile calming into a warm frown. Her head fell onto the hoodie'd girl's shoulder. "I can't put it right, how… how glad I am that you woke up. That you woke me up. All this is 'cus'a you."
— she was strong enough to fight her own battles, now. Dina still had her own.
"Now I don't recall ever waking you up," Luna jabbed, burying her face into the scruffy mop occupying her shoulder. "Is the Dina Spaurk I know speaking in metaphor?"
"I had time to dabble," replied the supergirl. "Despair did some stuff t'me."
"Ever-interesting what it's capable of, hm? I haven't actually had that long to catch up on poetry since my release."
"You've had a whole three months now, mate!"
"Exactly, you lunk, tha's nothin'!" Luna snapped back with a giggle, pushing her. "Say… 'd you kindly walk me over to the library? I'd like to know the measure of text capable of holding your attention."
Lifting her head, Dina flashed another grin. "Just lead the way, love," she purred, entwining her fingers with her raven-haired partner's.
The door suddenly opened. Both heads darted toward it, and one shrank back.
"Ah, figured the two've you'd flock together." The boy turned his head and locked onto Dina. "Though at least one'a you's not a fuckin' murderer."
"The hell do you want?" hissed Luna.
"Oh, no, sleepyhead, let the broad bomber speak for herself," he smarmed. "You're still fresh off a coma yeah? Felt it due for an update on the freak extraordinaire's exploits from a proper perspective!"
She didn't have the chance to bite back before Dina shouted her retort.
"What the hell else do you want from me!?" she shakily yelled.
"What 'else'? Izzat all you care about? Makin' up your butcherin' hundreds to little ol' me?"
"It wasn' hundREDS, BINN YOU SHIT!"
"Oh, that's right. Wanna remind me the actual number, love? 'Course, it was smaller, I'm sure, so it's all fine. Make sure to put my aunt on 'at list too, yeah?"
Dina looked like she was drowning. Binn continued. " 'sides that, you know Spaurk n' I were an item once? Not too long after you went under, either. The little minx moves on like you wouldn't believe," he taunted, noticing the desperation in the girl's face. "An' God, I can see now why you're so eager to have her to yourself. The way she clings on when you shove your tongue down her th-"
"YOU MAKE ME FUCKING SICK!" Dina screamed, tearing up. "WHADDO YOU EVEN GAIN FROM THIS, YOU COCK!? NOTHING! JUST LEAVE ME ALONE ALREADY!" In her burst of rage, the power usually accompanying was absent.
"Oh no," went Binn as he raised his shaking hands. "Don't hurt me, Ms. Officer! Lord knows how well a job you do slaughterin' anyone who can't fight back!"
Luna's grip on the stifling girl's hand tightened, she herself starting to stand taller.
"You're one to talk."
Binn cocked a brow in surprise. "I… I, I beg your pardon?"
She sauntered toward the taller boy, softly releasing Dina's hand all the while. "You spot one open nerve and you pick at it until it pops. You're still the same filth from four years back. At this rate, it must kill you to even try growing up."
"... I really do fancy myself a gentleman, love, but you are far out of line right now-"
"I SWEAR TO GOD IF YOU TOUCH HER…!" Dina suddenly roared, before Luna's pale hand rose.
"No, no. I don't need any help for a pathetic waste of space like this."
"Listen heRE YOU-" Binn's grip shot toward her.
Another grip slammed him into the wall.
Dina's eyes shot open.
Luna's head tilted. "Hm? Speak up."
Dark lines began to course all around her, around her point of vexation, and in some abstract manner, they began to look like hands.
"What is there for me to listen to that I haven't already heard before?"
The boy's frantic eyes darted around for a way to answer what was happening to him as he felt something deeper than flesh be carved from him.
"W-w… Lu-…?"
"If there's anything of value from that stinking maw of yours, for once in your worthless life, then I'd love to hear it."
Binn's strained eyes finally darted to her. His expression turned to that of pleading.
"Luna, stop."
"What look is that? Hm? How many times have you stared into that very same look and paid it NO mind as you KEPT, GOING?"
"Luna, this isn't right."
"Is there something, ANYTHING that makes you better than anyone else who's ever given you that? Are you going to tell me?"
"LunA…!"
"Well? Are you going to spit it out before I TEAR THE LIFE OUT OF-"
"LUNA!"
Dina shook the raven-haired girl out of it, forcing her out of the trance and a good few feet forward at that. Her target dropped soon after.
Luna checked herself, the tight feeling around her brain dissipating as her good sense returned. "I… sorry, I must've…"
Dina ran over to Binn's crumpled body and checked his vitals. "... Christ, Luna…" She apprehensively turned her head toward her. "You…"
"I didn't mean to. I didn't-"
"No, he's alive, the bastard, but, still, you… you're a…?"
The two stared at each other.
"... I need… I gotta thin'..."
"WAIT, LET ME-"
Dina closed the school roof's door, too anxious to escape the situation and try to recall composure.
She heard hasty footsteps making their way down. Dread panged her face anew.
"Nh? Oh, that, er…"
Dina wound her wrist. "It's just that, er… not much of anything's happenin' 'round school as of late and, y'know, job here's way more important, innit?"
"CLOUD-HUFFIN' BITCH!"
Ord looked at her stupid. "... shadowing desk jockeys?"
"Computers at school are 740s gear, sir, who knows when I'll have to step up n' send a report!"
"SUCH A FREAK NOT EVEN THE CAELUM WANTS 'ER!"
"You'd tell me if somethin' at school was off, right?"
"No need to waste your time with kid stuff, sir."
"YOU PUT BINN IN THE LOONY BIN YOU WHORE!"
"Daddio couldn't be fucked to finish the job an' now what are we stuck with…!"
"... Dina, I'm your father right now."
"I know. Really. Nothin' out of my hands over there. I just need some time to focus on all this."
"ONE'A THESE DAYS YOU'RE GONNA BURN LIKE THE WITCH YOU ARE!"
"YOU'LL GET YOURS, PSYCHO! YOU AND THAT THING!"
44 hours awake and counting.
The fear holding back her conscience suffered one final fault too many, and gave way.
"... no."
She bolted out of her seat before the water could finish boiling.
Questions invaded her head as she sprinted with all the speed she could muster.
"(How do I look her in the eye after all that?)"
"(Could she ever even be next to me now that…?)"
Dina jumped at random intervals, trying to fly off, but lacked even the briefest moment of clarity. It was like she was in a loop of tripping and catching herself.
"(Was she hiding that from me? What more is she…?)"
"(There were… hands, why'd those hands look like, feel so…)"
So many questions leapt out at her, dividing her focus, they became fragmented thoughts sprouting like weeds. The very act of charging ahead was despite herself.
"(Can I even trust…?)"
"(How do I know she's…?)"
"Your pet tiger's not here to save you today, is she?"
"What are you on about? Get away from me."
"(Why…)"
"(But how…)"
"AH! WHAT-STOP IT!"
"STILL BLEED LIKE THE REST'VE US, HUH CLOUDHUFFER!?"
"(Since…)"
"ALL I DID WAS- AAH-HA!"
"EVERYONE GET A SWING IN! SHE'LL LEARN SHE CAN'T JUST SHIT ON LOWBOURNES!"
"(I can't…)"
"GET OFF!"
"(Am I…)"
"I SAID GET OFF!"
.
.
...!
"SHUT YOUR FUCKING YAP ALREADY!"
She sprang into the air and flew, escaping the sound barrier.
"SHUT UP! SHUT UP! SHUT. UP!"
It felt like her mind was in a pressure cooker, but it was working. Even at mach speeds, her thoughts zoomed by faster than her ki could tear her through the air.
Something was too off. Even in her self-induced stupor, she could tell, and her senses were shifting to meet the threat.
In the whirlpool of emotions, her hair began to flash between states of yellow. The familiar heat of savagery began to drive her mad, and threw her into a desperate attempt to calm herself, cyclically spiking her emotions even higher as she briefly went motionless — trapped within her own body as its senses outpaced its speed.
[ BGM: Cristobal Tapia de Veer – I Feel Separated ]
And then she saw it.
— it was too abnormal for a bomb. But nothing else could describe the destruction. Like it was torn from the inside out.
The school was empty. Not of presence, but of life.
She dropped to the devastated school's front door, the swaths and shattered windows giving glimpses of the bottomless horror that laid inside.
"(I need to be there.)"
She squeezed her eyes shut and kicked the doors down.
Her every other sense pried them open from sheer shock, forcing them to fall upon the indescribable.
18-Rated movies were petty imitations. Video games and comics under-exaggerated.
Snuff didn't compare.
In the middle of it all, on her knees and shaking, with a babbling noise streaming from her all the while,
Luna.
One girl's gaze slowly worked its way to the other's. "Di…"
Dina's mouth inched open, and she screamed without a voice.
"... I don't…"
A thousand emotions erupted within her head at once. Chief among them, but by a decibel at best, denial.
"... help…!"
Her rationale, thrown into overdrive, shut down completely.
The entrance blew apart. Dina transformed in a heartbeat and charged.
— Destroy the one responsible for this. The thought occurred for a moment, and she acted upon it for a moment. Distance was closed in a moment.
"AH-"
And the moment passed.
Luna, her rampant new oddity, acted faster than she could hope to think.
"... a… a…"
Dina burped blood. She looked down, witnessing her pinned state in a fit of panic for as long as her psyche could hold.
Luna was silent for an eternity. And then…
"... ah… ah-ha-ha-ha…!"
She keeled over in a fit of strained laughter. Her hands drifted to her hair and tugged. "All I did was wake up…!"
The plunk of dead weight checked her descent into delusion before she could pass the shallow end. She immediately crawled over to her, sunken indigo meeting a manic red. Dina was visibly losing her sanity as she passed.
"No, fix this…!" Her head met her lover's for a spell, before it rose in a rage. "WHATEVER THE HELL YOU ARE, FIX THIS!"
The walls only further collapsed in the midst of her outburst. Whatever power that had awakened, it served only one cruel purpose.
"... nooo—...!" she quietly sobbed. "Whaddo I…"
Luna's head once again fell upon Dina's, in the decrepit mass grave she'd now formed, as her weeping drifted throughout the death-ridden halls.
"..."
.
"... Dina?"
.
"Are you there?"
.
Her anchor was gone.
She was alone.
She pecked her on the forehead, one last time. Luna's head slowly rose.
She lifted her head to the ceiling. For a reason that was still coming together, her mind was growing clearer and clearer.
"... I… am… sick of it."
With dead eyes, a placid smile grew upon her bloodied lips.
She was now strong enough to have options.
There was no return from this. Yet there was nothing to return to, regardless.
Her anchor was gone.
She was free.
Luna stood, to the tune of police sirens and barking men, as she moseyed to the fluorescent entrance.
Above and below, there was much to be done.
The screen of white that clouded her hazed eyes slowly revealed itself as a lamp overhead.
Lucid once more, Dina stared at the ceiling.
The SRU had done its job, what minimal healing it needed to do.
She'd tried a hallucinogenic once, with her. It felt almost like being under one.
"(I'll never know, huh?)"
She'd never known so much clarity. But that moment, its details after she transformed, all were always patchy. Everything but the pain, and the agonizing brain-scrambling that followed.
But she remembered Luna crying over it. That was enough, in her eyes.
Dina sighed, and rolled herself off the sickbed. No alarm needed.
A Repose... Outstanding Arguments, Finally Settled.
Kora locked eyes with the gaming cabinet.
It was past hours, but her current license was good enough to get her through the door without foul play.
She scanned it and apparently found the limit of a junior patroller's license. "Shoot."
"Trouble?"
The saiyaness's eyes flashed for a moment. She turned to see the familiar tailless tiger-eye balayage in a bizarre cherry red-and-white jacket and pants.
"Seriously?" jived Kora, to Dina.
"You're one to talk, Ms. Super Saiyan," the latter retorted. "Can't imagine you havin' any interest in video games, mat-..." She caught her tongue. "... pal, I guess."
"Where'd you get that, anyway? You're the first besides that bastard on the Ginyu Force I've ever heard use 'mate' so liberally. I thought he said that to mock us…"
Dina shrugged. "Somethin' I get from home. Mate's jus' a friend, back there."
"... well I guess I don't mind you calling me that, then. I guess."
"ʸᵉᵃʰ ʸᵃ ˢᵃᶦᵈ ᵗʰᵃᵗ ᵇᵘᵗ Noted. Y'know…" Dina took out her own license. "This cabinet's rubbish at directions but, it's two-player. Needs two licenses to work, no matter time'a day."
"No, it's fine," Kora replied, to Dina's disappointment. "I don't actually wanna play. Just wanted to know if what's there was even ever that special."
"You're just bad at video games, aren't you?"
Kora smiled at Dina.
Dina smiled at Kora.
[ BGM: Yoko Binnno – Take a Little Hand ]
"I was right. Arcade games are just… disappointing."
The sweaty shorter girl thinly veiled her anger with a twitchy smirk. "So s'there a reason you're still walkin' by me?"
The taller tailed girl creased her brows. "I was gonna ask you the same thing."
After a stretch of silence, Dina exhaled deep. "We're just goin' the same direction, then."
"Yep…"
"..."
"I'm sorry about your eye."
"Wha? Oh, no, no, fair play as far as I'm concerned."
"... and your arm. And your leg. And your ribs. And your other le-"
"Schtoppit."
"But I am…!"
"Well don't be! We're two fighter's who had a year-long grudge against each other an' got to settle it in grand fashion wearin' our hearts on our sleeves! Who cares that we roughed each other up a bit?" Dina grinned. "We only hurt ourselves, yeah? 's how it should always be. The cruder stuff was just 'in the moment' things."
They passed a bench.
"... Dina? Why do you enjoy fighting?
After a silent moment spent in compounding frustration, Dina defeatedly puffed air. "If you were anyone else, I coulda just brushed it off as 'Saiyan Blood'. But I can't quite do that, yeah? Know it's a tad rude but, mind 'f I fire a question back?"
"Shoot."
"Why don't you?"
"..."
They passed apartments.
"Point taken."
"There wasn't any point. I am NOT clever enough for things like tha', mate."
"Of course you are. Maybe not wise enough, but you're not stupid. I'm sure you'd come up with something insightful if I stuffed you into a chair and held you at knifepoint."
"Oddly… specific… fantasy…"
"Uh…! What!?"
The half-saiyan snickered. "I kid. I dunno… maybe that's why I like fighting so much. It's straight-forward, it's dynamic, it's… pure. Throw me into the thick against someone far out of my league, and I leave all that's superfluous at the door. It's just movement and adrenaline, an' every thought afterward is figurin' out how to keep myself going. It's like going into freefall."
She felt jealous. So unbelievably jealous of the way her face seemingly glowed while explaining something so trivial, it panged her heart. She could never hope to explain battle in such a way. Except…
They passed the schoolyard.
"I saw battle as a chore for all of my life. It was like, I don't know… cutting grass. I couldn't see the horror in it that other species felt, and I couldn't see the joy, the glory that other Saiyans did, either. Win and live, lose and die. If not your life, then a piece of yourself. It was a binary path, if not for my father's training. Even then, a large enough gap in power made it null. The only possible joy there could be in that was crushing those weaker than you, to prove something exclusively to those weaker than you… the only aspect about it that I could understand, I hated."
"So it was a job, yeah? Never got the chance to enjoy yourself proper. Like an illustrator who goes full-time, sells their soul to corporate, n' eventually loses sight of what they loved about art."
"What in the actual hell are you saying?"
Dina shook her head. "No worries. I just know what you're sayin', 's all."
"Wish I could say the same, for once…"
The tiger eye-haired teen frowned for a second. "... but you could. Couldn' you?"
Kora's face scrunched in confusion.
"Yeah, told ya, not clever enough for that kinda question," Dina giggled nervously, nicking at her neck. She cooled. "I mean fighting. The girl I just fought didn't seem to see it as a chore — not without a lack of trying, mind."
"... that was because you were more than power."
Dina slowly turned her head back to Kora.
"You… you never stopped being more than power. Every time I thought of an answer for you, not a moment later, there you were with another problem. I even split the gap between us so wide, it would take you going Super Saiyan to bridge it, but you… you just closed your eyes and dove. And you made the jump." Kora sighed. "It was so frustrating, so desperate, yet I've never had so much fun in a fight before. You wouldn't let me overpower you, and you could never overpower me, you just kept thrashing against everything…!"
She looked into the pond, her reflection. "... I wish I'd've thrashed harder in my world."
As did she. "Right there with you."
They'd arrived at the fountain before they knew it.
"I was so powerless that I couldn't do anything."
"I could do anything, an' yet I was still powerless."
"... it's not fair." Kora's hand sank into the zeni-laden water. "None of it's fair."
Dina took a seat. " 'course it is. 's all circumstance. Same way bugs get eaten alive, just more dragged out."
"Then what? We're just bugs?"
"Bit rude to bugs, now, innit?" Dina forced a snicker that she herself didn't believe. "No one gets to pick their lot in life, just what to do with it once it's drawn. Sparkin' a chain reaction's the best hope we've got for genuine change, n' that goes for everyone. Even bugs can do that much. I think that's fair, just a bit."
"... is Spaurk Dina using metaphors?"
"I had time to dabble, at a point. Point's long passed now, but my retention works in mysterious ways."
Kora pulled her hand from the water, and drew her gaze to the sky as she slumped along the fountain wall, the day getting to her. "Think you pulled it off? A chain reaction?"
Dina held her own drooping eyes to the ever-shifting void above. "Sadly. If she even has the good will left. What about you?"
"If he's alive. Even then…"
"He did." Kora turned to Dina's somber, assured smile. "Count on it."
"... of course he did. He survived a gods-awful family like mine for as long as he did, he can do anything." Kora returned her gaze to the sky. "So can she. 'Yeah'?"
"... yeah. She's always been stronger than I am." Dina returned her gaze to the sky. "I can't even try doubtin' it."
The two nodded off as people passed, and the miraculous city began to slow.
.
.
.
.
"Dina?"
.
.
"Mh?"
.
.
.
.
.
"I'll never rue the day that I met you."
.
.
.
.
"I said that...?"
.
.
"Yep."
.
.
.
"I am... such a dork..."
.
.
"Yep."
.
.
.
.
Archi stared at Kazikum.
Kazikum stared at Archi.
Both let out a soft grunt, before picking up their respective love.
"Dumbass…" each boy muttered under his breath, taking the girls off to literally anywhere better than the street to sleep.
[ BGM: Linkin Park – Healing Foot ]
The sun's rays simmered out over the horizon, clashing against the cool indigoes of nightfall with its own fading scarlet flames.
Another flame died out as smoke on incense. Another scarlet danced against the coming indigo.
"Holy shit, you're here?"
Obscured from view, sullen amber eyes stared off.
"Dude that's the weirdest shit, of all the times I coulda found ya I do it the second I break to go 'n check out the sunset."
The same amber eyes rolled.
"You, um… ya weren't there durin' that dogpile after the match. Couldn' get you outta my mind on that hospital bed. I didn't make you mad or anything by… uh, losin' or… y'know I'm… answerin' my own question right now… yeah I'll just get outta your hair-"
"No!"
Neoru froze in place.
"That is…" She loosely folded her arms. "That is not the reason I don't face you."
"... Mei, you're throwin' me for a loop right now…"
Mei shifted uncomfortably. "Atop this hill, my acts weaved two fates in twine. Today, I saw that twine snap. I witnessed the man I love die, and the man I thought I hated show himself as just a boy. I… I am cruel. Your overcoming of trials was not something I deserved to celebrate… not trials of my own weaving."
Neo drew to her side. "If that's the way you float…"
"... even now, must you hold nothing against me?"
"Told ya before the tournament kicked off — whatever bet I was s'posed ta be part of, goin' out to fight was all my choice, all his choice. That ain't gonna just magically change just 'cause you kill me or de-will me or…"
He cut himself off. His coy half-smile hung frozen, and slowly melted down his face.
Neoru drew his hybrid weapon, and held it. Mei felt pangs of guilt, just staring at it.
"(That's right… he was right there, all this time… an' the second I find out…)"
He could feel his own words coming back to maul him.
He let them. "It all started here, y'know. My reason."
Mei folded her arms, despondent. " 'Strong enough to find a reason'."
A smirk quivered up his lip. "Thinkin' back on it, it really was a sorta placeholder, but hey. That was the point. I never wanted to stand there n' watch someone die in fronna me, 'cus I was too weak to save myself… but I didn' wanna live alone in some hole without anything to live for. I…" He held it closer to himself, feeling the warmth still emanating from the weapon. "I think this…"
It all came back to him in a single heartbeat. Every moment with him. Ante and Post.
"Know. I know." Nodding, he bit the corner of his lip, silencing himself just long enough to sheath his brother's hand-me-down. "This is what my brother woulda wanted. Right there, helpin' me keep on fighting 'till I find it. An' cus'a him I…" He laughed. "I found it…!"
"... I ran…" The girl spoke in a strain, as if holding in a scream. "After everything… instead of facing my doings, I ran from you…"
Neoru checked himself over in a snap. "No, no, it's fine," he swallowed. "Woulda felt weird then an' there. Look, you're here right now. That's all I care about, ever since I could stand up again."
Her inward anger began to wane. Mei looked into Neoru's swirling amethyst eyes. "Your reason…"
He took up her hand.
"Right now, it's you."
Her heart fluttered to the heavens. She felt she could die and be just as happy.
And then, for a split second, a terror seized her, that this perfect moment would be revealed as a dream.
That she'd wake back up on the hill, without her lover, or still missing her hand, or dying by her own hand, too addled with guilt to go on. Or on the grounds of her broken world, or perhaps not even something so grand. Perhaps the pathetic little orphan girl with childish fantasies of shadow assassins and massive spiders simply starved to death on a distant path somewhere.
"I get you think that's a dumb way to live an' all that, switchin' between stuff on the spot, but… it's what I feel. An' I don't need to convince myself." He tapped his heart. "Not a doubt in here. This one's gotta be mine."
In the moment, it felt too likely to be brushed off.
"Mei? WO-"
She suddenly clung onto the boy.
"I want this to be real…!" she screamed in a whisper, as if terrified too loud a scream would wake her from the dream. "Please…!"
His initial surprise evaporated. Neoru's arms sank to his side, letting Mei do what she would.
"OH, HEY NEO-"
"WE'RE HAVIN' A MOMENT YOU FUCKING MORON, BUZZ OFF!" Neoru howled in a fit, spoiling the moment.
The crassness snapped her out of it.
Kaza began to butt back.
"ALL I DID WAS SAY HI, YOU BIG JERK!"
She looked back in surprise. She didn't have to.
"YOU BLIND, DEAF AND STUPID!? DON' EVEN TRY TA SAY YOU COULDN' SENSE ANYONE UP HERE!" Neoru hissed, stepping to Zinco, fists stuffed in his pockets. "HELL'S YOUR PROBLEM!?"
Zinco physically stopped himself from folding his arms. "I just wanted to show Kaza the view from here, that's it…! I didn't know Mei was still using this place, though…"
"I am not."
Everyone turned to her, who'd grown an "annoyed" smile on her face. "As if I would force myself to live as a vagrant for the rest of my life. Do you take me for a moron?"
— The imperfection of the moment, of every moment before it, was enough to convince her.
"Oh…" The golden boy's head fell. "No, I… Sorry, I didn't mean to say anything like that."
"I kid," The dark redhead snickered lightly. "Kaza, he is clearly not teased enough."
"Wait, dude you've been livin' off my couch for like a week now, hell d'ya mean 'as i-"
With a teeny smirk,
"I."
Teeming with a reserved,
"Am Not."
Ladylike fury,
"A Dude."
Mei kicked Neo fourfold in a calf-bound pressure point. Each one brought him closer to the ground with an airy whimper.
Kaza stared. "Mei, I think you're hurting him."
Mei turned up her nose. "Nonsense. Teasing."
She just needed confirmation. Zinco's light mortification said more than she could.
The majin sighed, shifting to what she was really after. "This view… was it really worth dying for?"
Neoru sucked air through his teeth. "No…!" He tried quelling himself and failed, but he did enough to speak coherently. "Just two dumbasses who can't use people skills, tale old as time…!" he chuckled through the pain, before falling back onto his… back.
The as-stated two dumbasses with lacking people skills got antsy.
"I… broke Mei's shrine."
"I have already made my case…!"
Kaza breathed in deep. "... thanks."
[ BGM: Nujabes ft Shing02 – Luv(sic) Part 6 ]
Neo raised his writhing head again. "For WHAT?" he asked, confused.
Kaza huffed, really thinking about what she was prepared to say and, more importantly, if she REALLY wanted to say it.
She said it. "For beating them both up."
Zinco and Mei seemed to've been shot by the same bullet. An emotional collateral!
Neo gave her the most crooked look, before looking their way. "... dude what the fuck did you two do?"
"Well you'd know better than almost anyone, stupid!" Kaza chided, arms folded. "... there's only so much I can try, you know. You're the only jerk who can yell at them the way you can, who can make them yell the way you can."
"My 'Way' is gettin' thrashed until somethin' else happens somehow."
"Exactly," explained Kaza. "You show them their worst so that there's nowhere else to go but up!"
The pain, at long last, began to recede. Neo scooted onto his ass. "Back-handed mother-" He received two death-glares and proceeded to further Kaza's point. "WHAT!? DO SOMETHIN'!"
He shook his head and refocused. "But… you're sellin' yourself short for some reason. You're the one showin' them their best, right?"
The majin backed up. "But I-"
"yeEES YOU DID, DIPSHIT, JUST TAKE THE DAMN CREDIT," Neoru roared half-assedly. "If it weren't for you, neither'a them would still be here. That's somethin' I couldn't'a done. An'..." He groaned softly, not wanting to say any of it in front of Zinco.
He said it. "I wouldn't've been able to stomach that. Credit's all yours."
Her reserved frown lightened, as if Neo's words warmed her to the core. The girl choked back a giggle before heading back down, against the lingering sun's last rays. "Wanna split a red velvet, Mei?"
Mei's melancholic smile jumped and fell like a wavelength. She looked back at-
"Yeah, yeah." Neoru shooed her off. "Keep blowin' yourself away at all the cool shit reality's got for you. Know you're tired'a this crummy hilltop anyway."
The hazel-eyed girl grinned. She pecked him on the cheek before Kaza could whisk her away. Speaking of…
She was close enough for him to hear her snicker. An annoyed, petty frown spread across his face as he heard her revel in her minor victory.
"Will you really leave Zinco behind?" Mei asked, almost concerned for more reasons than one.
The fuchsia-toned girl stopped her snickers. "Yeah," Kaza replied, short and sweet. "I could tell by the look on his face. He wasn't ready to leave yet."
"Hell's she laughin' about?" he growled.
"Amazing…"
He looked over.
His head had wandered while his lover and rival talked, and the skyscape enraptured him.
"From here…" Zinco mentioned in a trance. "It's like a picture."
"We both got left behind, eh?" Neoru gave the, indeed, picture-esque scenery his full attention. "Least someone appreciates this sorta view…" His attitude seemed to dissolve in the cooling sky as he basked in it, the nostalgia killing his edge. "My brother used to take me to places like this, just before it got dark out. He could hop up a mountain like that… the piggyback rides, I swear…"
"There were sunsets when I lived at the temple with Samanko and Merona," Zinco responded, regardless of the present party's familiarity with either name. "But by the time we stopped training, it was already gone." He soaked up the sight, after living half his life deprived of such — smog tended to do that.
"No kiddin'?"
"Mh-mh."
"Damn, that sucks."
"... not really. I had a lot of fun."
"... that's great to hear, man."
"..."
"..."
"..."
"..."
"..."
"..."
"..."
"..."
"..."
"..."
"..."
"..."
"..."
"..."
"..."
"..."
"Neoru?"
"Uh-huh?"
"..."
"..."
"..."
"..."
"Thanks for telling me you'd be my friend, that day. I think everyone else thought I was creepy."
"..."
"..."
"..."
"I'm… yeah."
"..."
"..."
"..."
"..."
"You didn't really mean it, though, did you?"
"..."
"..."
"Yeah. I just didn't wanna see that sad face you were making."
"..."
"..."
"..."
"I do now, though."
"..."
"..."
"..."
"I know."
"..."
"..."
"..."
"..."
"This view, man."
"..."
"..."
"Definitely."
…
..
.
And the sun made way for the moon.
[ ED: BE:FIRST – Salvia ]
Yo. OP Here.
Yeah, 100's a chill chapter. Besides the beginning portion, of course.
I was gonna put a teaser for what I've got planned on the end, but I want this chapter to be capable of ending the story. It WON'T, as long as I've got a say in it - I ain't done yet, I'm cooking with my ideas for the Demon World now that Daima expanded my horizons - but I really want this one to be able to stand on its own.
NGL, this week took a lot outta me, but I surprised myself a ton. That's really all I wanna say about out-of-story shit.
... I really should have some grand closing statement here, but nah. Nah. I'm just happy that I could make this one. The next chapter wiiiiill most likely revolve around the Trapped and Betrayed Triad in the Demon Realm, and me finally intertwining the DR as a piece of the ongoing plot for whatever comes next. Don't worry, what comes next will be its own separate thing. Next chapter could ALSO be a quirky recap of the entire story so far. Just making jabs at myself, TFS style. Hey. I still like them.
That's about it. See ya.
:').