There was a moment of blankness. He reached for Beatrice, his hand outstretched, his fingers straining to grasp onto something. Her pigtails, her sleeves pink as cotton candy, even her toes would do. But it was too far, too late.
She screamed a soundless cry in an empty void. He couldn't hear the words, but he could see the fear in her eyes. It made something cold and bitter twist in his chest as the void consumed him.
The butterflies in her eyes fluttered once twice, faster and faster. He called to her, but he didn't think she heard him as they were whipped apart. Gale force winds pushing them away from each other, throwing them to the ends of worlds.
They tumbled through the darkness, the void clawing at them—showing them an infinite space between breaths. He didn't know what was up or down. He didn't know where he was, but he knew who did this to him. He tried not to think of Al as he swam forward, reaching for Beatrice with everything he had, but she was still so far away. He wanted to cry. He didn't cry. He swam harder instead.
For a moment, he met her eyes, and all he wanted to say was that he was sorry. He broke his promise.
There was a flash of light then a pulling sensation in kaleidoscope of colors. The pink butterflies burst from her eyes like something out of a dream. The shifting expanse around them screeched in a hunger that sounded fowl to the ears. He had to force his eyes from closing as the sound pounded against his mind. There was a tearing sound like the end and the beginning all at once. Like the very fabric of reality had been wrenched apart for the petty whims of a god.
He heard a laugh, he didn't know whose, but it sounded like Echidna. A scream unholy in its vibrations he knew all too well. The voice of Satella hurt to hear. No more than that, it felt almost wrong, the sound felt like tar on his staining him.
She sounded like she was in pain. It made his skin crawl.
A god wasn't meant to be in pain.
Beatrice cried out; it was the last thing he heard before the blankness lashed out again, a leaving creature pulsing around them. She was so far away.
Only a pinprick in the distance it felt like they had oceans between them. The only thing he could see was the shape of the little pink butterflies trying to fly toward him. Flapping hopelessly as they struggled toward him, they looked like children's night lights in the distance.
They fluttered once, twice, toward him and then twisting arms of tar snapped them from the air. Beatrice golden head bobbing away, a flash of color in a realm of black.
No, he thought, no, she couldn't be…
He could see a fuzzy shape of a little body that floated like a marionette with its strings cut. Lifeless.
Subaru threw himself through the monster around them, reaching for her. He screamed despite knowing it was hopeless. He could barely see her now as they were carried further and further apart.
If she died here, he knew with bone deep certainty, he would burn this thing, even if he had to kill a god.
"No!" he screamed with a bellow of grief to old, too familiar.
Beatrice was gone.
A cutting sound, a clap of something beyond words. As her last panicked spell tore through their prison with the vengeful fury of a greater spirit. He could feel the thing surrounding them, screamed as the light cut into it, his bounds loosing.
He strained his arms and tried to move. Tried to go to her. To shake her like a madman and scream in her face that she wasn't allowed to do this. She wasn't allowed to disappear.
She wasn't allowed to die.
He saw her again just for a moment, his hand straining for purchase. Straining to touch her pale skin.
Then the void lashed out with a howl of magic that shattered reality, a battle between things indescribable, spells too old to name. Too powerful to cast tangling in their threads of the cosmos that made his mind shudder.
A titanic clash of souls and their wills battling for dominion as reality took the brunt of their thunderous war.
Like two oceans crashing into each other all at once, wave after wave of sound, light and magic threading together. Breaking on each other's backs.
For just a moment, he saw something. A realm he thought existed only in his mind—now breaking apart before him. A realm of madness.
He was sliding between worlds; he was falling into something beyond.
He was falling.
The darkness with an unholy scream swallowed him whole.
He couldn't see, he couldn't hear, he couldn't make a sound as he was pulled with shuddering might through reality. A mortal helpless caught up in a battle between things almost divine.
For seconds that thread into eternity, he was pulled apart and put back together again. Every atom seemed to crystallize in an experience of almost orgasmic agony until he was shattered once more. His mind unable to comprehend the unending deluge of reality slamming into his fragile soul.
He felt, for the tiniest moment, the witch.
Shielding him, her touch on his cheek, soft like a lover's caresses, his soul placed in a garden of shadow. There is sweet relief, the kind of balm that only an unconscious mind can bring.
He slams into the ground, breath punched out of him, the force snapping him to life once more.
He wakes to the smell of blood and ash.
He gasps for air and chokes on it. Coughing violently, his whole chest aching as it heaves up and down. He tries to move but can't, a single long groan leaving him as he lies his eyes adjusting to the low light. Black spots coating his vision, making it hard to focus.
His whole body one big aching wound, he feels like he was pounded apart and put back together again.
He tries to move again, his fingers barely twitching. He opens his mouth and tries to call her name.
"Beatrice." He wheezes a mere murmur of sound, leaving his dry, cracked lips.
"Beatrice." He gasps again, trying to force the word out. Feeling slowly returning to his fingers in a kind of long bleed. A thousand nerve endings pinging at once.
His arm twitches as he tries to move. Falling against the cold hard surface under him. For a moment he thinks about just laying there, not getting up. Dying like some street dog. He always was a pathetic bastard, but then he thinks of her pouting face. Of her little scowl and her bright smile in those rare moments when their alone. She is his little sister in all the ways that matter.
He won't let her be alone again.
He forces his shaking arms to move. It feels like lifting a thousand pounds of concrete he he places it under him. He tries to roll over on his front. His shoulder barely lifts.
He tries again, slumping to the ground a moment later. He is breathing hard, and he bites his lip to stop himself from crying. His fingers finally dig in, crawling at the grates under him as he uses his hand to prop himself up. He flops forward, breathing in dust and rot, blood rushing to his head as he sits up. His fingers clenching around the rusted metal under him.
He tries not to think of the fact that he was in a desert before this. He tries to get to his feet.
He is somewhat successful at getting his quivering legs under him, his feet planted on the ground in a crouch. He heaves himself to his feet wobbling where he stands.
Oh god he thinks, it hurts. Pain lancing up his legs to his spine as he lifts his head.
He tastes blood as his breathing falls under control and the black dots dancing in his eyes fade. He finally gets a good look at the ground under him. Old metal grating, not fine sand.
His heart starts to pound as he considers the reality he may have gone back to Japan.
He finally manages to start walking forward, swaying slightly as he leans on the wall for support. Something sticky coating his fingers. He glances up, and his breath catches.
At least his first guess is wrong because he is certainly isn't in Japan.
It's dark, metal walls around him like a ships service tunnel. Wire overhead sparking from places its coating has worn away. The ground is covered in such filth that it looks almost like a coat of paint.
A flickering strip of light overhead is the only illumination. Allowing him to see ahead of him into a blown out section of the tunnel. As if a bomb had gone off only meters away.
Out of the hole is something that stops him dead.
It's the biggest city he has ever seen, it's more than a city, it's a monster in the skin of a city. An endless expanse of metal and towering spires of glass so tall he doesn't know where it ends, if it ever ends. The air is so thick with smog that he can't see the sun, if there even is one, and a flickering shield, like something out of a movie, is overhead.
A doom of energy that shimmers in the polluted air. Impacts slam into with what must be incredible force in volleys that pound away every few minutes.
Rockets? He doesn't know.
He glances down at the slope of ruined concrete and metal below him.
It doesn't matter where he is; it doesn't matter what has happened to him. If he even still has return by death. All that matters is one thing. He needs to find Beatrice.
He forces himself to move one leg in front of the other.
The polluted air, thick and disgusting on his tongue as he stumbles forward his foot catching on a jutting piece of pipping. He tumbles almost over the edge of the hole only catching himself at the last second on a sharp corner of the wall.
His skin opens like a ripe fruit his palm warming with blood. He barely notice as he opens his mouth and screams.
"Beatrice!"
His voice echoes out, the endless towers bouncing the sound off each other, making his voice carry for miles.
He gets no repones. He screams again and again. He screams until his throat is raw and his voice is gone. He screams until all he can hear is that one word, that one name, echoing in his head.
"Beatrice." he whispers in a broken voice. "Beatrice, please don't worry, I'm coming."
He can't stop himself from falling to his knees. No, he thinks you're stronger than this. Get up, move, find her. His legs don't twitch as he stares at the endless hive; it's the only word he can think to use.
A megacity of humanity, only humanity could build something so ugly.
It was as if someone had staked all of human ambition in too, to little of a space, and someone else had choked on it.
A single tear fell down his cheek, and then the floodgates open. He can't stop himself this time, he can't stop himself from crying.
As he calms down his head aches something furious, and his throat still burns. It wasn't the wisest idea to scream like a lost child but it was cathartic, a release of his voice into a city of steel.
He is almost desperately thirsty. He sniffles one more time, whipping his face with the green sleeve of his coat. It goes dark with snot and tears, but he is already so filthy he doesn't think she will mind when he finds her. He will find her.
He gets to his feet, his muscles no longer aching in quite the same way as before. He takes a deep breath, filling his lungs existing in this moment, reminding himself he is alive, this is real, he needs to keep moving.
First, people, then he can figure out where she is. He slaps himself with both palms, a sharp sting against his cheeks as he let the pain ground him.
First, he checks himself for injuries, making sure the adrenaline hadn't hidden anything life-threatening from him. Clint had taught him how adrenaline could make it so even with something that could kill you. You didn't even fully feel it. He noted the cut on his palm and hoped it wouldn't get infected, but there was little else he could do right now.
He nodded to himself; he was in a better condition than he thought; he couldn't let himself fall to self-pity; he needed to move, or else he was dead. He looked down carefully, making sure he wouldn't fall, searching for any indication of a way down when he saw something; he paused, squinting his eyes toward the main spire of the hive. A flash of something, a shift of shadows. It didn't matter; it was his best bet.
He leaned back, making sure he wasn't to close to the edge, and turned back to the dark tunnel. For a moment, he debated his options, but he knew how easily he could get lost in the dark tunnels. Something telling him he would be stuck in a maze of steal and rust if he went that way. He glanced down again at the gap before him and gulped, the slope of rubble and jutting steal climbable but dangerous.
Better the death you know then the one you don't he supposed.
He took a breath in and then moved, taking hold of a steel beams jutting out of the edge of the cliff. If he made a single mistake, he was dead, he knew that. He placed his foot on a crevice of the wall.
It was slow work; he was fitter than he used to be, but even still, it was strenuous holding his body weight by his legs and arms. He had to stop multiple times just to catch his breath, resting on jutting pipes or metalwork. His hands got so bloody from all the sharp edges of the things he was grabbing that he worried about slipping.
He had to take off his coat and wrap his hands in the fabric because they had more grip then his sleeked fingers.
He was sweating. It wasn't warm, but heaving himself slowly down made him pant in the smog-filled air. He just knew all the toxic things filling his lungs were probably doing hell to his trachea. But that was a concern for later right now all that mattered was reaching the ground.
He got lucky he supposed. It was only about three stories to what looked like a courtyard. It was still a deadly fall, but from the look of the place, it could have been far worse. Still he didn't feel luckily as his arms protested as he let himself hang for a moment to place his foot on what looks like the edge of a support beam.
His thirst grew worse; he was half-rasping as he tried to breathe. The workout doing hell to his already wrecked body.
He almost fell twice.
Once as he reached too far with his foot to a jutting piece of grating below, not knowing it was unsecured. It flipped when he put his weight on it. The only reason he wasn't paste on the ground was that he had made an impoverished harness with his shirt. Tying it to the stable, to handholds he knew could hold his weight above.
The breath had been punched out of him as he fell caught by the fabric which held strong the knot snapping tight as it took his full weight.
A childish scream left his mouth before he was caught.
He hung there for a moment, fabric cutting into his arms and chest, just breathing hard. His heart was jackrabbiting as he tested another piece of what must have been pipping not trusting the clothe to hold him forever.
He glanced down and gulped, at what would have been certain death. He doubted metal grating would have been a soft landing.
His arms shook as he heaved himself up, his muscles straining to pull his weight. He managed to drag himself on the pipe laying there panting as his whole body shook from the demands he had placed upon it.
He glanced at the city below him. It reminded him of those photos he used to see of the aftermath of World War Two. Bombed out rubble of what had once been someone's home.
His head still ached, and he really started to regret his little crying fit as he licked his lips. It was horrid. The air was so humid it clung to him like a second skin, but there was no moisture, just grime. Just ash that made him rasp with each breath. He wondered if that could kill him he remembered reading something about how ash storms could suffocate someone to death.
He shook his head his heart starting to slow; it felt like he had run across all of Lugunica. Warping his green clock around his hands once more, he made sure they were tied tight. Already dark with leaking blood, he began his climb again.
The second time he almost fell, it was as he lost his footing on an oil-slicked piece of slopped concrete. His feet slipped as he shifted his weight. He fell, this time not screaming, but that wasn't because he didn't want to. No, this time, the scream was knocked out of him as he slammed into the perch he was reaching for.
Pain-like fire raced up his arm as the metal acted like a club, and his own body crushed the tender joint under its weight. He gasped out a moan of pain but managed to land across the thing. Like a floppy piece of meat over a roller trying to get his breath back.
The loose green shirt warped as a harness around his middle made it worse, pulling tight around his middle, making it even harder to breathe. He just lay there for a while, staring at the rusty ground, trying to ease the weight on his bruised ribs.
He shifted reaching up to untie the slip-end knot he had made above him before tying it below him; his fingers struggled to move. Too much blood, sweat, strain made them weak and shaky.
Finally, after what felt like an hour of him just sitting there exhausted, he moved again. The ground just under his feet. He jumped down his knees protesting as they jolted when he touched the ground rolling with his momentum.
He sighed, slumping to his knees as he just breathed, resting his head against the chemical-stained metal.
He untied his improvised harness putting his shirt back on but he kept the rags of his coat as bandages around his hands; they still hadn't stopped bleeding, and he was starting to feel lightheaded.
Everything in him just wanted to crumble to the ground and sleep, but he forced himself to move. He knew if he laid down, he wouldn't be getting back up.
He was in a courtyard that would have been pretty if it weren't for the sheen of filth that seemed to cover everything in this city. A statue of a young girl, a shepherd staff in hand raised as if toward a hidden sun. A fierce look of determination on her face. It made him think of Beatrice, his chest clenching.
He would find her; he had to.
He turned away again and breathed in, heading in the direction of movement he had seen hours before. He knew he might get lost, but this was his best bet. This was his only bet. He kept moving. Well, stumbling, but he knew as long as he was putting one foot in front of the other, it was good enough.
It felt like hours, maybe more as he walked. Dragging himself forward on throbbing exhausted limbs before finally stumbling through streets that weren't Vollachia, nor was it Lugunica. It looked more like what Tokyo might become in a hundred years of mass industrialization. A hellish world of winding streets and chemical air.
He turned into an alleyway and saw movement ahead in the corner of his eyes. He breathed out, seeing something person-shaped ahead.
"Hello." His voice a rasp from thirst.
He could see the person jolt back as if startled a gun raised at him, a red beam in his eyes. He blinked once, opening his mouth to speak. To call out a second time when the person yelled something in a frightened male voice.
"Contact!"
He frowned confused. Then Subura's heart stopped, and he suddenly knew what the red dot on his head meant.
"Wa-!" he tried to scream. He heard, for just a second, something like a whistle through the air as he throw himself out of the way.
There was a brief flash of blinding pain as something shot him threw the mouth, and then everything was black.
He blinked his eyes open a second time, his hands shaking as his whole body turned pale, and he grasped at his head. Curling in on himself as he breathed through the panicking racing through his body. Sweating and shaking as he tried to calm down his blood pounding. Adrenaline pumping through his veins giving him a rush of awareness.
Well, he thought shakily; at least that answers that. He felt the brush of the witch by his ear before her voice retreated. He tried not to throw up as he got to his feet.
Blinking a few times he wanted to curse he still had the bloody headache.
He looked down and winced he needed to redo his climb. This sucked he thought as he moved to climb down once more.
He headed in the same direction as before; he had died once, but it was people, and he needed people right now. Even if it meant he had to find a way not to get shot. He had triumphed over more complex challenges, but staring up at the pile of rubble he had just climbed, he knew that if he had to heave himself down it one more time, he would lose his mind.
He shook the thought away and kept moving.
He knew he couldn't time it precisely, but he tried to pick up his pace a little from last time. To get there first before whoever had shot him rounded the corner. He needed to be there to make sure his plan actually worked. His body ached from the labor he had already forced it under, but he pushed that aside.
It helped to have a goal, motivating him to break out in a half-jogged through the ruined streets of the city; it made it easier to focus and push himself harder. He rounded the corner, panting as he did, trying to keep his breath down before turning a corner and looking frantically around the alleyway.
He hoped it was the alley as before, he had followed his exact steps from his last loop here, but in the low light, it was impossible to tell.
He ducked behind a pile of rotting garbage with items he did not want to know the names of; still, the sludge concealed his body, and he crouched, waiting. First, he would try the friendly approach that always was the best bet. If that didn't succeed things could get ugly fast.
For a moment, he thought he had made a mistake and that this wasn't the right rust pile he had been in before, but then he heard soft footsteps on the metal ground and gulped. Tucking himself away further, he was near the entrance, so if he needed to leap out and tackle the person, he could. He shifted, making sure his legs weren't asleep as he waited. The footsteps were getting closer and closer. Until it sounded like they were almost right on top of him.
That's when he moved to speak; he had noted the walls of the alley would make his voice echo, making it harder to track where he was. He was banking on that to not give him away.
"Hello!" He called just as the footsteps sounded like they were right next to him. The person turned, letting out a little gasp. That's when he moved, launching himself forward and tackling them.
Well, trying, he didn't count on the fact that he wasn't an action hero from some flick back home, but just plain old Subaru, he managed to get the gun away from the other person. His shoulder hitting their front hard the metal digging into his side but crushing the gun to their chests.
He moved his arms, reaching for the shape. Clind's training kicked in as he wrenched their gun away, but not before their finger twitched and something went wide. A beam of light, he thought in the back of his head. His shoulder, he realized he had been hit. How bad? He didn't know and didn't have time to find out either. Their bodies rolling on the ground in the trash, hitting one of the bins and shaking it as they kicked, punched and bite each other.
The force seems to jar them both. He moved, trying clumsily to get them into a chokehold, but then their fists meet his face. His head snapped back as white bursts exploded behind his eyes, tasting blood on his lips. He tried to bring his head forward into theirs. But that just made the ringing worse.
Something yellow flashed, and he screamed as teeth sunk into his shoulder. Exposed by his loose shirt, he wrenched himself back. The sound of flesh tearing before he felt arms around him. He knew this hold twisting to try to get out of it, but the teeth sunk deeper, and the pain made him unfocused.
His ears ringing as their teeth finally left his shoulder. Only to be slammed down in a chokehold, a forearm on his neck only seconds away from crushing his throat choking him. He breathed hard against it, blinking the white spots from his eyes.
His hands caught under their bodies as he was laid out on the ground, trapped by its combined weight.
Subaru glanced up meeting the eyes of a man in his thirties, bloodshot and panicked. Glasses askew on his face, and one lens was cracked. Blood dripped from his nose. He had brown hair dark and curly but unwashed, with wide blue eyes and pale, almost sickly skin. Soft features, with an oval face the mans teeth were bared like a wild animal. Dirt-stained rags on him.
They both panted, the adrenaline draining out of them slowly as the man above him put the slightest pressure on his throat.
"Who the throne are you?" The man snaps, his voice soft but rasping.
"Subaru. My name is Subaru Natsuki, and I need your help."
The man blinks once, long lashes fluttering down. Before meeting his eyes, "god-emperors balls." he says, leaning back, taking the pressure slightly off Subaru's throat, allowing him to take in a full breath.
"You're just a kid." He seems almost shocked by this, as if the sight of a youth alarmed him. "What the hell were you doing?" He snaps. His voice turning hard.
"The refugee camps are west from here."
Subaru meets his eyes, "Do you have water?"
The man shifted on his heals, "You some hab-ganger? Sink a knife in my throat? That's the idea?" he pressed down with his arm, putting pressure on his throat once more.
"No!" Subaru choked out, "No, what? I don't even know what that is?"
Confusion flickered across the man's face. "I don't know your accent." His voice turned hard as he pressed down a little more. The pressure almost painful now on Subarus's neck.
"I'm not from around here." Subaru managed to whimper out. "I don't even know where here is!"
The man studied him for a long, hard moment and then breathed out, taking his arm off Subarus's neck. "Throne, you have an earnest face, kid."
He got off and stumbled over to his weapon, leaving Subaru to pant on the ground, trying to finally get his wind back. The crushing weight of the man's body off his chest. The man kneeled down, reaching out a hand. Subaru took it; it was calloused.
He pulled Subaru up with a heave as Subaru stumbled to his feet. His arm still burning, he glanced down to his sholder and breathed out a sigh of relief. It was a glancing shot. Whatever hit him had lifted a line on his arm but hadn't gone through. He looked wearily at the man.
Once the gun was secure, he turned back to Subaru, studying him just as weary.
"Vamberfeld." He nodded, and Subaru took it as his name. "You're an off, worlder, aren't you?" the man asked, and Subaru blinked, opening his mouth to ask what he meant, but the Vamerfled continued a little nervously.
"What are you doing all the way out here? Are you some kind of camp follower?" He shook his head, seeming to clear his thoughts. "Well, it doesn't matter now; come on, it's a warzone around here. The boss will want to speak with you."
He turned and started walking, seeming to expect Sabura to follow. He stumbled forward after a moment and caught up to Vamberfled. Making sure he walked on the other side of his gun.
"The boss?"
Vamberfeld looked at him, nodding. "Old coal miner is in charge of us now; he'll sort you out."
Subaru paused for a second at the wording but kept moving; it was his best chance.
They walked for what felt like hours. Subaru's feet now ached along with the rest of his body. His nose was a little tender, but it didn't feel broken, and Vamberfeld even let him have a sip of water when his breathing became too painful.
Finally, Vamberfeld stopped him, holding up his hand and brought it to his mouth, whistling out a few times in succession before, in the rafters above, a whistle matched his one. He nodded at Subaru and waved him forward through the ruined streets and rubble that Sabura quickly realized were makeshift barricades.
He gulped but kept moving until, almost like a mirage, they turned a street, and people appeared. He blinked; he hadn't heard them. Vamberfeld seemed to relax a little now, and he got a few other odd looks, but not too many. There were every type of person, most of them men in uniform who resembled coal miners from Japan, but there were also others. Men and women with strange tattoos, spiked hair, and piercings.
They reached a big man, a stern face turning to them. He was almost a giant towering over both of him, but his eyes softened at Vamberfeld and him.
"Who?" he asked, his voice like a rumble from his chest. He turned to Subaru, studying him intently.
"Some off-worlder, a camp follower, is my guess," Vamberfeld answered, holstering his gun fully now.
"Do you know how to fight, boy?" His eyes, this big man's eyes piercing into his. He straightened his shoulders, having met far more intimidating figures.
"Yes." his voice was steady, and the big man nodded, holding out his hand. His eyes didn't dismiss Subarus' claim but accepted it as if it were a simple fact. That somehow made Subaru relax for some reason he couldn't explain.
Subaru took it in his rough, calloused, big, strong fingers wrapping around his own. "Name?" the big man asked.
"Subaru Natsuki." He nodded.
"Gol Kolea, welcome to Vervunhive."