It had been months since he'd had the strength to move; months since he had set foot out of doors voluntarily. Flick's usual dose of fresh air was combined with the fact that he was tossed and bound outside naked and soaked in freezing water. There he'd stay for many nights until his Mistress sought fit to feed him and administer other punishments. As the colder weather came, this became a harsher choice of torture.

Nothing broke the emotionless mask of his face, but it was next to agony forcing clothes onto his wounded body. Slowly, the tender, angry marks from gunshots, incisions, metal whips, manacles, claws and teeth were shrouded in the softest silk he could find, then a pair of heavy leather boots and a duster of the same material. He ran his hands through his hair, clean for once, and tied it tightly to the base of his neck with a leather cord. He didn't afford himself a glance at his reflection as he vacated his chambers and made his way out to the snow dusted courtyard of Chai's estate.

Snow crunched beneath his feet, the only sound in the cotton-like silence. The sakura trees were frosted and the fountain had frozen mid-water dance. Flick settled his hand on the ice crusted knocker and pulled the large black gate open. There on his left was Lain's bike, shining navy blue and silver even without the sun, the only tangible thing he had left of her.

Pressure began to build in his chest with every step he took towards it to the point that when he reached it, brushed the seat free of snow, and threw his leg over it he could hardly breathe. His throat closed and refused to obey his commands to swallow. His eyes stung with the threat of tears and the cruel wind. But somehow, he found within himself the strength to grasp the handlebars and kick the engine on. It sputtered and choked at the first two attempts, but roared to life at the third. A spray of snow and slush was kicked up against the gate as he sped away.

Chai's estate was surrounded by trees and directly before him, the space between a few of these trees tore open with the sound of ripping cloth. Through it, coming closer every second, was a cut scene of a Bordertown street. He could see the neon red letters of his brother's music store, flickering like they always had. A wave of nostalgia overtook him. He remembered that Lain had said she and Flint had fought the last time they had seen each other. That would make it directly before she had come and met him at the Lucky Lotus.

Flick's hands tightened on the handlebars and he gunned it through the portal. Snowy grass soon gave way to cobblestones and pavement, and the bike screeched to a halt at the Emporium's curb. He cut the engine, kicked the stand down and dismounted. When he pushed through the door, a tinkling bell sounded. Flick glanced up at it, a brow arching over his red eye. That was something new.

The interior looked the same as it always did. The floor was a mess of miles of thin and fat black cords. Tee shirts and guitars lined the walls all the way up to the ceiling. The eastern wall, really the side of the staircase that led to the flats above, was lined with memorabilia and pictures of himself, Flint, and some of Lain. Flick strode forward, intent on ignoring ones that showed her.

He stopped at the glass case that they'd called the Treasure Chest. Nothing in it was for sale. It was all just for boast's sake. He touched the bell there gently, then again with more vigor when nothing happened. Some seconds later he heard a thud from upstairs and sloppy footfalls.

"Yo, yo, yo, keep yer shirt on dude'r dudette, I'm like totally comin' down, I swear!!" Flick crossed his arms over his chest, the leather of his duster creaking in protest. Flint sounded exactly the same as he remembered. Just as he thought this, his brother's legs and bare feet came thundering down the stairs. The old things groaned so much he figured they were the main food source of at least a thousand termites. Flint jumped the last five stairs and ran his hands through his shaggy black hair. A five o'clock shadow shaded his jaw and against all that dark backdrop, his icy eyes stood out all the more. Indeed, sans the lines on his face, Flint was like looking into the past. He didn't seem to notice Flick until he was behind the counter, and that's when his smile froze, then died in recognition. His eyes grew wide and Flick knew he had stopped breathing. He tried to smile at Flint, but his face wouldn't form the motions.

"Long time, no see.. brother."

Flick backpedaled, his thick arms uncoiling to catch his brother, who had clambered over the glass counter, fallen on his face, and crawled up him like some fleshy tree. Flint wound his spindly arms around his neck and held on tight. Flick had frozen, but wasn't because any contact was excruciating. He was astonished. He hadn't been expecting anything this emotional, or civil for that matter. It was a long moment before he could even think of embracing his brother back. He did so with a nervous chuckle.

"I take it you missed me, then?"

"Goddamn, man, what in tha Hell'd ya think?!" Flint's voice bounced off the walls. At this close proximity, Flick's ears began to ring. As his brother released him, he forced a pinky into one of his pointy ears. "Ya frackin' disappear fer, man, like sixty ass years, an' all a sudden ya show up outta tha blue!! Man, man..? Yanno?"

It was like he'd never left. He slapped his twin on the back with one of his broad palms. Flint, however, refused to let him go and stood before him, holding him by the shoulders and staring straight into his eyes. Flick knew what most people knew - his brother was a serious junkie. But one couldn't very well tell it by his eyes. They were the perfect shade of near colorless blue, ringed in navy, and they were sharp as needles. Indeed, against the backdrop of his hair, scruff, and the incredibly harsh angles and shadows of his face, they seemed to shine and draw all light into them. His stare would have been menacing had it not been for the fact that he was trying and failing to blink back tears.

"Good frackin' god, Flick, what in tha Hell've ya been doin' with yerself, huh? Ya dunno all tha crap that's been floatin' through muh head, man.. ya either died or got kidnapped or were lost, in a coma, in some kind of paralyzed state where ya couldn't move, dismembered, braindead, in another realm all together.. did I mention lost..?"

"Twice," Flick said, holding up two fingers, a half smile tugging up the right side of his mouth.

"Yer eyes are red too, what in tha Hell happened there?"

"It's a long story."

"Man, I've been frackin' waitin' fer sixty years, I think I can wait 'bout fifteen minutes fer ya ta tell me what I've been wantin' ta hear."

Flick's red eyes narrowed, and his eyebrows drew together over them. He met his brother's sharp gaze and he could just about feel the tension in the room skyrocket. In that moment, he realized he had no idea why he had decided to visit. It was easier to just stay away and have Flint go about his, obviously fulfilling, life. His story was long, twisted, and he wasn't sure he wanted to get into the extent of it. He could end it all now, he could murder his brother too.. but he knew that was something that she wouldn't want.

After several moments of quiet contemplation, Flick finally surrendered with a sigh, and peeled himself from his leather duster with care. He tossed it over the glass case and it landed with a heavy SLAP.

"You got any good booze?"

Flint grinned toothily. "What do ya take me for anyhow, bro?"

Sitting across from his brother, each atop a cardboard box that somehow didn't crush under either of their weight with a beer in their hands, Flick felt extremely overdressed. Where he had the most expensive silks and leathers, Flint was in a wife beater and boxer shorts with at least fifteen visible holes. After Flick's brief recount of the last sixty years, an uncomfortable silence grew, and during it, he studied his twin.

They were half elven from their father's side, and as such possessed nearly all the ageless grace that was inherent in the race. Unlike Lain, who looked nearly the same as the day he had met her, Flint had obviously aged. Crows feet, smile lines, a slight discoloration of his skin - although that could be from the drugs - were but a few clues.

The most jarring evidence was how deathly quiet and controlled he was able to keep himself. Long ago, that was hardly the case. That was maybe, he pondered, why Flint and Lain got along so well together. They had more in common than he could have ever dreamed, Flint understood her. He never did, never could even when he tried. She made no sense to him. Even the reason why he was in love with such a careless, hairbrained, dimwitted, idiotic girl made no sense to him. The beer bottle shook as Flick brought it to his mouth, finding it dry from anger. Thinking about the last day he was in this place did little for his mood. Ever.

"I can't frackin' believe it, man..? She found you.. Heh. Schway actually found you.." Flint's stuttering, shocked ramble trailed off and he dragged a hand through his loose hair. It was the umpteenth time he had done it and Flick realized that he'd forgone any sort of grooming and cleanliness ritual. That wasn't any bit abnormal, however.

His gaze lifted from the floor to Flint, but he couldn't look him in the eyes. He had specifically avoided any topic that involved Lain for fear that he wouldn?t be able to control himself if he was allowed to think about her for too long. Her defiant figure standing before him, before the dragons of fire he himself summoned, her crystal blue eyes burning with hatred, anger and betrayal was what he saw every time he closed his eyes. She hadn?t even moved, hadn?t even tried to dodge or defend herself in any way. She?d just stood up to him without fear. It was the first time he remembered her having done so. Now that he thought back on it, a dangerous thing considering how tightly he was gripping his bottle of beer, there was always a spark of fear in her eyes when she looked at him. He knew that she would have never admitted it, and throughout the years that he trained her that spark diminished, never fully gone.

But now he knew. She had always been afraid of him. Until that moment. When she should have been, and wasn?t. And why? Because she had nothing left to lose. Her lover, Alexander or whatever the bloody hell his name was, was gone. The world meant absolutely nothing to her.

Suddenly, the bottle shattered in his hand, beer flecking the two of them and dripping on the floor. Flick clenched his fist around the remnants of it, trapping the shards of glass against his palm and forcing them into the flesh. He felt the sting of incision and the warm rush of flowing blood, and still he clenched.

"Yo, yo, yo, what tha hell?s wrong wi?choo, man..? Goddamn, ya ain?t changed a frackin? bit, yanno? Freakin? out at random crap, blowin? things ta smithereens, frackin? breakin? beer bottles with yer damned HAND." Flint had jumped up and disappeared behind the display case, appearing a second later with a grey tee shirt, probably the only thing he could find, and whipped it at him. It fell on top of his feet, but Flick did nothing to pick it up. Pain was a distraction. He couldn?t keep the subject on her, he couldn?t. He was already having problems keeping his breathing under control.

"Schway?s always been a touchy subject ta ya, ain?t she, bro?" Flint asked in jest, but there was something off about his tone.

The morning conversation with Lain in the Lucky Lotus came back to him full force. That?s it. He remembered.

"?she said that you two.. do not get along that well anymore." His voice as he spoke was shaking, just about as much as his bleeding hand was.

The cardboard box across from him crunched as Flint took up his perch once more, lifting his own un-destroyed beer bottle to his lips for a long swig. His spindly shoulders rolled, sounds of swallowing filled the silence.

"T?would be more er less true if"n she ever came back here." Flick watched his brother?s chilling gaze dart over to the opposite side of the room. He had stiffened, began to scowl.

Before his brain could stop his mouth, Flick asked, "What happened between the two of you?"

Flint shot to his feet immediately, cursing in several more languages than Flick thought he would have known. He ran his free hand through his hair then waved it around, swatting at some unseen bug. "She frackin? had a note.. A NOTE from you. An? din? tell me about it. She knew. She always frackin? knew about where tha hell ya frackin? went and she din? do SQUAT about it. I know ya two had a frackin? fallin? out, but goddamn, dude, she KNEW!! S?not like I ain?t pissed at?choo fer not givin? two shits about me and, yanno, tellin? ME where?n tha hell ya were goin?." He sighed forcefully, and it deflated him. His gusto was gone, short lived. He ran his hand through his hair again and this time the strands stuck to each other with their own grime. ?I told her ta find ya and send ya back here.. an? that after she did that, I din? wanna ever see her again.?

Flick swallowed. His adam?s apple bobbed uncomfortably in his dry throat, hindering his voice. As if there could have been anything to say. His heart wrenched for his dead sister. He imagined her listening to those words from Flint, imagined tears filling her eyes, disbelief written on her face. She would have never thought Flint capable of saying anything like that to her, he knew that for certain. The fact that his brother had done so also shocked him to his very core. He had no idea that Flint had cared about him that much. True, they were related, but they weren?t what anyone would call a close-kint family. They had run on tension and booze most of the time, but somehow it worked.

"Answer me this, bro, 'kay?"

Still not in total control of his vocal chords, Flick merely nodded.

"Why din' ya tell me where ya was goin'?"

It was several moments before he could say anything. There were so many factors that had led to that decision, and he wasn?t sure if he even wanted to begin trying to explain. "It?s complicated, Flint."

"Then UN-complicate it." Flick blinked. It was one of the shortest, most discernible sentences, he had ever heard his brother say.

Flick?s mouth opened, but he shut it quickly. He felt the weight of his brother?s stare as he waited, again, for answers. He decided to jump on the easiest reason. "Because I hated you."

"Oh, come tha fuck ON, Flick!! Ya ain?t still frackin? flippin? out over a KISS, are you?!"

"IT WAS MORE THAN A KISS!" Flick roared, surging to his feet. His muscles clenched with adrenaline, readying for a fight. He felt the need to dent his brother?s face in with his bare hands until he was barely recognizable. The anger and the rage that he was trying to bottle up and capture was leaking out like a genie, smoky, forcing its way through the spider web thin cracks in the mental defenses he had spent years building. "IT WAS EVERYTHING! SHE CARED ABOUT YOU, SHE WANTED YOU, I SAW IT IN HER FACE! EVERY TIME I SAW THE BOTH OF YOU TOGETHER, I SAW IT! I SAW EVERYTHING! YOU TOOK HER AWAY FROM ME!"

"I DIN? EVEN FRACKIN? HAVE HER TO BEGIN WITH, YOU MADE SURE O? THAT, REMEMBER?! ALTHOUGH WHO COULD?A BLAMED HER FER NOT WANTIN? YOU, YA FRACKIN? BEAT THA CRAP OUTTA HER MORE THAN ONCE!! YA ACTED LIKE YOU HATED HER NINE TIMES OUTTA TEN, MAYBE SHE WAS JUST A LIL? CONFUSED!!"

Their voices rattled the walls. They were both shaking. Flick?s mind was reverted back to sixty years ago, to the day where everything had changed. Where he had attacked them both, like he was attacking his brother now. Lain had jumped in front of Flint and had hit Flick in the groin as hard as she could.

Although, there was no Lain to defend him this time.

Flick?s hands, bloody and clean alike, closed around his brother?s neck and the whole interior of the store rattled as he slammed Flint into a wall. A couple hanging guitars fell to the floor, loosed by the impact, their strings reacting with metallic TWANGS.

Flick was bordering on hysterics, choking Flint, slamming him over and over into the wall. Flint?s eyes rolled drastically with each impact, the anger in them being slowly replaced by fear. His brother?s spindly hands clawed at his own, trying to get a hold to pry him off. They were about as useless as an ice cube in a heat wave.

Suddenly, a blinding, stinging pain caused him to groan and falter. It exploded between his legs and the burn spread down his thighs, to his toes. Flint had shoved his knee into Flick?s groin just as Lain had. Free from his larger twin, Flint shoved him back with one hand, curling the other into a fist and sending it right into Flick?s mouth, then his cheekbone, relishing in the sound and feel of bone crunching beneath his knuckles.

They staggered apart from each other, Flint?s face red as the trapped blood returned to the rest of his body, Flick with blood streaming from his lips and a violent shiner becoming known with each passing second on his left cheekbone.

To Flint?s utter surprise, Flick started laughing. The red of his feline eyes seemed to stand out all the more because of the blood on his face. He gave his twin a gruesome, maroon tinted smile.

"This is how it?s supposed to be.." he began, still struggling with the pain of Flint?s cheap shot. "When someone attacks you, you are supposed to defend yourself.. not stand there and take it like an idiot."

Flint narrowed his eyes at Flick. His brother deserved so much for what he?d inflicted on both him and Lain, but he couldn?t bring himself to keep his fists up. Flick had been gone for sixty years, and now he had returned, different yes, but it was still him. Lain kept her promise.. For some reason, thoughts of her paired with what his brother was saying began to make him extremely uneasy.

"Flick, man.. where IS Lain.." He wasn?t sure that he wanted to know the answer, but it was unavoidable. Sure, he had told her that he didn?t want to see her again, but that was spoken out of anger.. he didn?t really mean it anymore. Not when he saw that she not only set out to try to find their brother, but actually accomplished it.

More laughter from Flick, but this time the sound chilled him to the bone. There was no emotion in his brother?s face. His red smile seemed amused, but his equally red eyes were dead. Flick shuffled back until he hit the wall, feeling suddenly claustrophobic. There wasn?t enough space in the world to put between him and his twin now. He regretted thinking that his brother was any bit like himself. Chai, whoever she was, was a sick and twisted woman. Flick had died, and she brought him back a monster.

As he thought this, Flick held out his right hand, palm upwards. Flint heard the fire before he saw it, angry orange and flickering above Flick?s bloody palm. It threw Flick?s face into menacingly moving shadows that promised all sorts of pain should he even think about running.

"She?s nothing, nowhere. There was nothing left of her body after I torched it.. and there will be nothing left of yours, either."

He threw himself out of the way at the last minute. Really, there wasn't any time between when Flick threw the ball of flame and Flint moved. The piece of wall he had been standing in front of was engulfed with a heavy WHOOSH and a portion of Flint's ass felt definitely warmer than was natural. He hit the floor on his side, rolled over, trying to claw to his feet, wheezing with fear.

It made sense, in a warped way. To evoke a reaction like this from his normally statuesque twin would have to mean that something had happened to Lain.

Lain..

"If'n anyone could bring m'brother back, it'd be you, Lain ... You bring him back ... And then I don't EVER wanna see your face again."

He shook his head, trying to clear the sound of his voice from his mind, the look on her face. It was different than he would have expected from her. Her eyes spoke the truth, she had known what he was going to say. But the rest of her face remained still, controlled. Like she didn't want him to know that she knew. But it was different NOW. He knew that she knew that he knew. And that was all that mattered.

"DAMN IT!!" he roared, punching the ground and throwing himself into the air at the exact same moment the floorboards he'd been occupying crackled and burst into fire and ash. Flint whirled around, his back to the display case.

The case.

He kept everything in there.

And by the way this was going, Flick was going to make sure there was nothing left.

Funny how, moments from losing his life, he was thinking about how to keep a few snotrags, spit globules, sweaty underwear and ABC gum safe. It even made him laugh. Flick had no idea what he had to do to get some of that stuff. How he had to bow, beg, scrape, streak, take photos in compromising positions with equally compromising things..

His life was in that case, in that store, and he was NOT going to let his brother ruin it all. So he did what any sane person would have done the very moment they saw their brother make a ball of fire materialize in their palm.

He ran for his life.

"YOU FUCKING BASTARD!! YOU KILLED YOUR OWN SISTER, WHAT THA HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU?!" Flint shrieked as he ran, feigning left so that Flick would have to turn to follow him, making him think he was bolting up the stairs. But instead, he spun on the balls of his bare feet with speed that impressed even him and launched himself into his twin, right under the arms, and kept pushing. He wouldn't fall. He refused to fall until he had shoved Flick out of the store. And it had to be now. He doubted that he could catch him off guard again.

A scream erupted from his throat a full two seconds before he even realized he was screaming. His body was forced to endure a multitude of sensations. His shoulderblades and the flesh between them felt like they were being raked with sandpaper, but instead of sand, it was miniature knives, and instead of paper, it was miniature knives, and suddenly, all that touched his back was made of blades. A miniscule part of his brain registered that Flick was laughing and crushing him with the tree trunks he called arms.

They both splashed onto the cobblestones outside the half burning Emporium in wails, laughter and fire.

Flint couldn't breathe. Tears squeezed out of the corners of his eyes, but not entirely from the fact that he couldn't breathe.

Lain was dead. That just couldn't be possible.. But if anyone ever had the ability to kill her it would have been Flick. That or her boyfriend/fianc?/whatever she was choosing to call him and their extremely messed up, in his mind, relationship. And, having never met the latter, he figured that Flick had enough pent up rage and insanity in him to pull it off.

Dark spots were beginning to take over his vision. His ribs felt like twigs underfoot, giving and giving and giving until that foot inevitably crushed them. It was this last burning sensation in his chest that made him fall unconscious with one final kick of his feet.

Flesh and charred cotton bubbled under Flick's hands, slicking them with blood and still he laughed. He heard the excited shouts of onlookers, screams from somewhere he couldn't discern..

Laughter trickled away to heaving breaths which soon turned to pained sobs. Flint wanted to know what was wrong with him. The truth was that he himself had no clue. What happened, this was not how it was supposed to go. But he had to bring her up.. he had to say her name..

As if moving through molasses, Flick rolled onto his side, letting go of the burned body of his brother, who flopped onto the street like a sack of meat, dark blood dribbling from his lips, his grimy hair fluttering before his closed eyes.

This was wrong. Flick hadn't meant for this to happen, he hadn't meant for his brother to get ensnared within his own tangled web of rage and unrequited love. But he had.

And he could not even force himself to feel remorse.

He turned his head from his brother to the sky. It was white, covered in clouds. Cold pinches of sensation touched his brow and cheeks. Snowflakes.

Flick reached one hand up towards the heavens and crimson rivers ran back over his knuckles. He watched them intently, so fascinated by the shine of his brother's blood. He attributed the tugging pressure on his chest to grief and guilt that he should consciously feel, but that had been lost to his waking mind.

Beneath both their bodies, a vivid orange symbol burned and sizzled into existence.

She was alive..

The bone tipped whips ate into his flesh. Again. Again. And again.

She's alive..

Flick gasped for air, crawled on his hands and knees across the uneven stone floor. Flickering torches sent light and shadow into intricate dances. When he saw himself, he saw blood.

Lain was..

He cried out and fell forward, landing with a meaty thud. His eyes were wide, his mouth hung open. The pain jarred him. He'd felt numb for the last few hours. In a way, it was a relief. He wasn't dead. He couldn't be dead when she was alive.

I didn't kill her..

"That will be enough, Bai." Chai's lilting voice cut smoothly through the sounds of his own heaving breath. There was a gruff mutter then the opening and closing of a heavy iron door.

"Ahh, my dear.. what am I to do with you."

But what happened to her..

He smelled her perfume, a mixture of several flowers and spices, puzzling but soothing to the senses. Chai's cool hands carressed his broken body, sweeping blood, sweat and tears from it.

"You must know that I do not enjoy hurting you thus.. but you leave me no choice. Those of my employ must not stray, even a hair. For in straying lies the notion of a weak mind, and where one is weak in mind, one is weak in body. And if you are weak in mind and body, Flick, then you are of no further use to me and I must dispose of you.

"I have told you once before that I was giving you one last chance. And, as you can see, you have blown it."

His insides ran cold, fear pooled in his chest and spread to his limbs, numbing them. He forced himself to swallow, his dry throat humming with his rapid heart rate.

He wouldn't give in. He would fight for his life. Against his Mistress, if need be.

He could not die. Not yet.

That lone thought circled his mind and allowed him to move. At the last moment, Flick rolled away, wincing as the stone floor pressed into his wounds. He saw the flash of sparks from a metal blade. A dagger. Chai clutched it in her ivory hand, glaring down at the spot he once lay with murder in her blood red eyes.

Then, her head lifted. Locks of her ebon hair framed her murderous expression. Her skin looked whiter against it. Torchlight flickered in her eyes as they slowly changed to an angry red, pus yellow pupils splicing vertically from one end of the socket to the other.

"You love her still.. after all she has done to you, all the pain she has caused you? You bleed because of her, have bled for her sake. And she is none the wiser. Why?!"

She spat at him, coming at him fast. He couldn't muster another quick escape, not without being able to reserve his strength for a few more precious moments.

Flick staggered, catching Chai's dagger weilding hand in his own iron grip, and squeezed, digging his fingers in to find the correct pressure points.

He never found them.

Chai headbutted him in the chin and was able to wrench her wrist free during his daze. He felt the hardness of her knee, then fist in his chest, and finally the heel of her boot in his jaw. All in the expanse of two seconds.

Flick found himself on the floor once more, blood spraying and hitting the walls with nasty splats. He groaned, tried to push up to his knees, but received a bootheel directly in the center of his spine. The breath was forced from his lungs and he found that he couldn't draw another. In this position, he couldn't aim a fireball with one-hundred percent accuracy. He had no strength to summon his dragons..

He needed to move.

Chai's laughter sounded like small bells. She continued to push her heel into his back until there was a loud CRUNCH, the sound of smashing eggshells magnified. He wailed when she angled her foot. He clawed and kicked at the ground.

His legs didn't move.

He wouldn't be able to get away from her.

His grunts of exertion soon turned to whimpers and mewls of panic. He continued to slap the stone floor, tried to hook his nails into the grooves to give him something to hold onto. The nail from his right middle finger tore free and he screamed.

Fear flooded through him again, making him shiver. He couldn't die now! Not after this long! Not after he knew that she was under the same roof as he!

Again, bell-like laughter echoed. He felt Chai kneel, her boot heel snagging on his spinal column. He was regretfully thankful that he could no longer feel his legs. He didn't think he could endure this agony if he was able to feel his whole body.

Chai's cool fingers brushed aside the loose hair at the nape of his neck. A simple touch from one of her claws revealed the perverted copy of the symbol of eight trigrams. Instead of the standard bars, the trigrams themselves were bright red flames, and they circled an open eye with a yellow slit for a pupil. She pressed her palm against it and Flick immediately felt the burn of her touch, as if she held an open candle to the tattoo.

Then, his world began to fade. The edges of his vision, already blurry from disorientation and pain, turned black and fuzzy, and started to creep over his sideways view of the flickering dungeon.

The sensation was.. calming. Tears sprang to his eyes as he felt the pain leave his back, his arms, his head. He sobbed at the instant relief, even as Chai stole his life, the life she had given to him when she resurrected him under her service.

"That's it, my dear. Release yourself to me. You were not meant to walk this world again. It was my fault for inflicting this upon you."

Her sickly sweet tone didn't fool him. Anger and the need to fight roared and combated the fear in his chest. The fuzzy edges of black encompassing his vision paused and began to recede.

"I.. w-won't.. let you.. do this.." He could barely hear his own voice. It sounded like it was coming from far away.

"You misunderstand me, Flick. I wasn't intending on giving you a choice."

Her claws pierced the flesh of his neck, pushing through to muscle. He gurgled and spasmed, pushing every last ounce of fight he had into trying to create a sphere of flame in his right palm. Smoke wafted from his skin, then a tiny fire burst into being. He cringed, trying to get away from Chai's digging fingers.

He knew what she was doing. She was trying to take the seal from him. Without it, he would..

The fire grew, it was the size of a torch now, flickering wildly, then dying down again. He had just one shot.

Just one..

His arm slowly raised, inches by inches, his elbow curling. He wanted to grasp her wrist and burn her off of him. He grit his teeth, willing the fuzzy blackness to stay where it was. All he could see of the dungeon now was a tunnel about the width of a dinner plate.

I can't die. Not yet. Not when she's still here. Not when I can still do something!

"You are too late, my dear.. you are too late."

Flick heaved a deep sigh, relaxing against his will. It felt so good.. the tension left his muscles. His head lowered to rest on the stone floor. His arm thudded down and bounced, the flames still licking at his fingers.

He just needed to rest. Just a moment. Just..

Lain..

Chai stood to her full height and tore her heel from Flick's body. Her bloodied fingers curled, claws gouging new holes into the piece of flesh in her palm. At once, wisps of gray smoke escaped her hold and floated off into the air. She dusted her hand on her leather slacks, flicking blood from her fingers.

"It's a shame, Flick. For you really were the best."

She couldn't help but smile as she reached the dungeon door and pulled it open. True, she was missing her favorite. She had not lied when she told Tilda that she would rather him not killed. However, the presentation of disgusting emotions and all over lax performance had changed her mind. Perhaps she had overlooked some of those others bound to her.

When this was over, she would have a new favorite. She would make sure of it.

She was greeted by a tiny meow and looked down to find Wang, the white cat with red eyes, staring up at her. She glided out of the way, letting it pass, then continued down the corridor that led to the main level.

Wang sniffed at Flick's body, then bent to lick spilled blood from before his lifeless eyes.

Author's Note - This post comes with a song!! Listen to it HERE!!! ]

Two days.

She had been asleep for almost two whole stinking days.

Tilda's favorite thing about Chai's estate, although she didn't want to admit it, was her bed. It was on the ground and so flat it could hardly be called a bed. But she found that when she tossed and turned, she didn't fall a foot to the floor and wind up with bruises for the next couple of days.

It was how she woke up. On her stomach, on the floor, her 'bed' a couple feet away. Lifting her head, Tilda eyed the tipped over oil lamp which - luckily - hadn't burnt the whole place down, and the lump of blankets and sheets that had wrapped themselves around her feet and ankles, anchoring her to the wreckage. Or something.

She glanced around her small room. It was one of those haphazard things, thrown together at the last minute. It couldn't have been more than a nine by nine foot square made of fusuma and wood. She called it her closet.

She didn't complain though. Tilda had lived in worse. And she was here because she had given Lain's old body her old room. It even had a real bed. One that was off the floor and everything.

Her heart skipped and she shoved up to her feet quickly, kicking the bedclothes into the far wall. She should check on Lain. Not that a soulless body would just suddenly get up and wander somewhere or anything, but she didn't trust Chai, or this place at all. She didn't doubt that Chai wanted to get rid of her or Lain. She was biding her time for something, though. So the faster Tilda got this done, the faster she could hightail it and prepare for when Chai did whatever she was inevitably going to do.

And she should probably check on what's-his-name and his injuries. She was half dead when she dressed them and, vaguely, she hoped she did a good job.

Tilda ran her hands through her hair, wincing at the grime, and stretched. She caught a whiff of herself in the process and winced again.

They'd both forgive her if she took care of the basic necessities first.

*~*~*~*~*~*

Two hours later, freshly, if not awkwardly, washed in the ofuro (she didn't so much mind that she had probably broken about eight-six bathing rules), fed and clothed, Tilda threw open the fusuma door that separated Lain from the rest of the estate and froze.

What's-his-name was standing next to Lain's bed, staring down at her. Tilda found his eyes instantly creepy. They were too cold a blue for the sad expression he had on. The ring of navy blue or black around the icy iris only served to make them pop out all the more. The lines on his face seemed deeper. He had grown how many day's worth of stubble. His torso was swathed in white gauze and his left arm was in a sling.

But when he smoothed his hair back from his face, Tilda recognized him.

"It's you. Yer the guy who played with her on stage."

He looked up, his cold eyes widening, dark brows lifting. Light caught wet lines on his cheeks and he used his good hand, although heavily bandaged, to wipe at them. Tilda looked from him to Lain, then back again, her initial wariness of what's-his-name fleeing from her like smoke out a window. This guy seemed harmless, absolutely harmless. Althought it could be a front, she seemed more inclined to believe it wasn't thanks to her how many hours of rest and recuperation.

"It's true isn't it..?"

"What's your name?"

They spoke at the same time, blinked at the same time, and looked back down at Lain at the same time. She was white, still, and looked completely relaxed. If there ever was a halfway mark between sleeping and dead, Lain would be it.

"What do you mean 'it's true'," Tilda asked after she realized it was completely useless to try and pretend Lain was even alive. Still, it wasn't like she was totally dead either. Tilda folded her arms and stared at him.

"That.. that.. that she's freakin' dead an' Flick freakin' killed her!"

Tilda wasn't expecting that. What's-his-name's voice cracked and broke and he finally flattened his running nose into the palm of his good hand. The blatant display of emotion took Tilda by even further surprise. Slowly, her eyes found Lain's face. She could see her right ear and its bitemark scar through her fall of silver hair. Lain had always said there really wasn't anyone that cared for her, and Tilda always knew that was a lie. But until now, she didn't think she'd ever seen proof. Of course, it wasn't like she'd seriously looked.

"What's yer name?" Tilda asked again during a lull in what's-his-name's crying. He gripped his temples and rubbed them, like he was trying to remember himself. She was tired of this, tired of waiting. From where she stood, she thrust herself mentally into what's-his-name's mind and was met with such a strongly felt wall of guilt that she grunted. His guilt became her own, his tears her own. Tilda's throat closed and she wrapped her hands around it, closing her eyes hard.

Flint. McGreggor. His name was Flint McGreggor. He was 87 years old. Halfbreed. Flick's twin.

Tilda had to fight to get that information because the only thing running through Flint's head was his last conversation with Lain. He'd hit her. He told her he never wanted to see her again.

Then Flick coming to see him. They fought. Flick told him he killed her.

Guilty. So guilty. Couldn't even get mad at Flick anymore.

His fault. He wanted her to find him. Did this for him.

Now she was here. Dead. Killed.

Tilda hadn't known she'd staggered until the nightstand with the large bowl of water and small towels toppled over and she followed it with a loud CRASH. She held her head with both hands, pressing her eyeballs with her palms until she saw stars instead of the leftovers from Flint's mind.

Flint limped over to her and nudged her with his bare foot. "Hey.. ya like alright er somethin'?" His voice was husky with tears. She couldn't look up at him.

"...Flint," her own voice was hoarse, "this isn't your fault.."

"What tha hell er ya talkin' 'bout..?" Now he was starting to sound angry. Tilda chanced pulling her hands away from her face and found that they didn't tear up. She pushed herself into a seated position, then heaved up to her feet. Standing face to face, she found she was a good few inches taller than him. He looked up at her with iced eyes red from crying. He was like a kid who'd just lost his dog.

"Nothin'," Tilda said after another long pause. He took it like she thought he would. With an owlish expression. He was a walking advertisement for drugs, just about to go into withdrawal. Everything took too long to sink in. Tilda pushed past him, waving her hand behind her. The nightstand, bowl and towels rattled and righted themselves. A look at the fusuma door sent it sliding open. Tilda walked to the threshhold and stopped, looking over her shoulder. She couldn't quite lay her eyes on him again yet.

"You gonna stay with her?"

"'Course but.. but like, man, ain't she like.. dead..?" He whispered the word, like he didn't want to say it. It would be true if he said it with conviction. Tilda smiled. She understood that.

"No. She ain't dead yet."

She slammed the sliding door behind her, cutting off his yells, his questions. She didn't have time for them. Yeah, she pitied him and felt his guilt, now added to her own, weighing her down like bricks on a paddle boat, but she had bigger fish to fry.

She had to fix this.

Because, unlike Flint thought, this wasn't his fault.

It was hers.

"How's sir-whines-a-lot?" Tilda asked Chai when she reached the workroom where they had locked the thing away. Its head swiveled when It heard Tilda's voice and tore handfuls of hair out of Its head. It was hissing, spitting and growling. Tilda smiled at It.

"Restless." The Demoness couldn't have sounded any more bored if she tried.

Tilda sighed, then cracked her neck, rolled her shoulders and smirked.

"Alright, let's get this show on the road."

Author's Note - This post comes with a song!! Listen to it HERE!!! ]

Tilda stepped over the threshold and all hell broke loose.

Her body was yanked over to the creature's until she was standing within the circle's barrier. She gulped and coughed, clutching her stomach. She felt like she'd left half her inner organs behind. The smell was worse here. Blood, garbage and, if she wasn't mistaken, human wastes.

"I learned something.. Tilda.. while watching you two.."

Tilda's blood ran cold.

It had power here. It wasn't supposed to have power here.

"You can cross.. but I cannot.." Pressure built against Tilda's throat and inside her chest, to the point that she could feel indentations on her body. But the Thing wasn't touching her. It was all Its magic.

It stood from the pile of splintered wood It was sitting on, dragging it out, making her wait, anticipate. Its sneer told her that she could read Its mind, just daring her to get a glimpse of what It had planned.

"Who the fuck do you think yer dealin' with?!" Tilda upnodded and Its body skidded back against the barrier of the circle, causing the orange bars of lightning to block It from crossing. It grunted, Its skinny body gyrating with the pulses of electricity running through It. Its hair dripped over Its dark face, splicing Its smile that was only getting worse.

Tilda's eyes widened a fraction of a second before she was pulled forward again, closing the distance between them immediately. Its fist was waiting for her, smacking directly into her cheekbone and sending her sailing across the small room and through the fusuma wall. She was thankful it was just paper, otherwise...

That didn't change anything. Tilda rolled over onto her stomach, cradling her face, feeling her heartbeat in her cheekbone as blood pooled beneath the skin. It wasn't supposed to have power here. Why...

"Aw, damnit.."

"Get up, Tilda.. I want to see this with my own eyes.. want to watch your expression as you realize your failure.. your miscalculation.."

Tilda's body lifted off of the ground of its own accord. Or rather, Its. She grit her teeth. She wasn't going to lose to this thing. She wasn't going to give in.

She was not her sister.

"Alright. I'm up. Show me!" She directed telekinetic energy straight at It, and forced It back once again. But this time...

"Oh please.. Tilda.. Tiiildaaa.. henhenh.. give me something mooore.." The shards from beneath It rose and spun in the air, all the sharp points turning end over end until every single one faced her. It slowly lifted Its hands, pulling out all the dramatic stops she figured, and they all surged forward like a great, sharp wave. Tilda waited until the last possible moment before she inclined her head. All at once, the skewers broke apart into first halves, then fourths, on down until they were mere dust, in a matter of milliseconds.

She didn't waste time launching another offensive. She imagined a white knife, shining from hilt to tip, glowing ivory and pulsing. It spun in her mind, letting her study it, inspect it. Then she sent it straight for the creature's mind, the point shining in her mind's eye, inching closer and closer to Its scalp until...

The creature shrieked and crumpled, grabbing the left side of Its head, covering Its black eye, fisting fingers in Its hair. Tilda had been on the receiving end of a mental shanking and she knew it was no walk in the park. Like a brain freeze on steroids. But she couldn't spare the bastard any bit of sympathy.

She launched off the ground, her long legs scissoring the air. The distance between them was only about twenty feet. She could do it in two strides.

"HAH!" she cried out, the air rushing from her lungs as she slammed into the floor. She hadn't tripped..

No. No, the damned Thing was still able to function.

She tried lifting her head, but the pressure on her neck, on her whole body, forced her muscles to either submit or explode. She breathed in short bursts, trying to keep her lungs as full as possible. She needed to concentrate to aim another blow on It, but she couldn't rightly do that when she knew she was going to be smothered.

"You thought you had me.." Tilda scowled. There was no pain in Its voice. She scolded herself for hoping there would be. She knew that any pain Entity was supposed to feel was forced onto Lain.

But there was still that little glimmer of possibility.

"You are pathetic.. you had hoped to imprison me within a magical cage.. perhaps you were half asleep when you thought this up.. drowsy, in pain.." Tilda watched It kneel down. It laid Its cheek down on the floor so It could look her in the eyes. The pressure on her body came down hard on her left hand, specifically where she was missing a finger. Pain shot into her wrist, elbow and shoulder, and her breathing hitched, finally leaving her in a great WHOOSH.

"It?s really quite adorable that you think you?re more powerful than you are.. you can?t back your ego up.. dwell upon that as you die.."

"Chai..!" she tried to yell, but only managed a squawk. She heard glass breaking, then fluid leak into the pocket of her jeans. The syringe.. Her serum was in there. Fat lot of good it was now.

She wasn?t done here, her mind screamed at her. Get up, think of a way out of this. That thing isn?t the only one with power.

Her eyelids started to droop. She felt sleepy. From lack of oxygen? The burning in her chest and head told her that much. But she also felt.. powerless.

"Heh.." Now she remembered. Way to go, brain.. kicking in when she was just about to kick the bucket.

Lain?s ability to manipulate gravity came from the sole fact that she had the power to do so already within her. She didn?t need to thrust it out like Tilda did to have an effect on the world. Gravity was always there, and would always be there.

Just like her stupid ability to suck the life right out of people.

Trying to cause It pain was useless. Everything was useless. She..

"I have witnessed enough." Chai's voice was like fog, drifting into her already cloudy mind. It didn't seem real. Blood pounded in her ears, dancing around the sounds of screams and wheezes.

The wheezing, she found, was coming from her.

She could breathe. Until Chai kicked her over.

"Get up, you excuse of an exorcist."

Tilda covered her eyes with her good hand, relishing the age old feeling of air flooding her body.

"Or would you prefer I do it for you."

She gingerly touched the bruise on her face, chuckling under her hand. Chai stood over her, her arms folded. Her right foot tapped out an erratic beat that Tilda figured was because Chai really wanted to kick her again. Sloppily, she pulled herself to a seated position, then stood, teasing her short hair and eying the now silent creature.

It sat on top of the pile of wood-that-used-to-be-a-chair, head slightly canted, jaw slack, Its mouth a slash of dirty teeth and cracked lips. Its limbs were all relaxed, bent at awkward angles.

"Cripes, what did you do to It?"

Chai's response was the brandishing of a tiny metal throwing star, its sharp tips stained an emerald green that was too shiny to be normal laquor. Tilda felt a scowl pull onto her face.

"You poisoned It? Who the hell told ya you could poison It?"

Both of Chai's sculpted eyebrows arched in an expression of surprise. "Should I have not intervened? I had no idea you wished to be a stain on my floor so badly. Perhaps I shall remedy that." Her crimson eyes flashed and she danced the throwing star over the backs of her thin fingers like it was a coin. Tilda looked between it and her face several times, then scoffed.

"Whatever. It's not like it really matters. I ain't after her body at all. Poison the bastard as many times as ya want. Oh, I also need a new chair." Tilda waved the Oriental off, deciding not to do a close scrutiny of her face. She doubted that Chai liked being ordered around, but, honestly, she couldn't be bothered to give a shit. If Chai's stupid little assassin hadn't screwed up and thought too much with his long dead 'downstairs brain', they wouldn't have been in this mess, and Tilda wouldn't have had to resort to such measures.

Forcing Entity back into Lain had been her last resort if all else failed. She couldn't believe that she'd gone through all her options so fast.

"Thank you, Chiyama," Chai's lilting voice broke through Tilda's reverie and she heard wood scrape against the tatami. The back of the new chair hit Tilda in the side of her right thigh. She grabbed it and settled down right on the outside edge of the circle's barrier.

Tilda touched her damp pocket. Piece of glasses puckered against the denim and poked her leg. The poison was probably better than her serum in the long run. Last time, it hardly had any effect. Even though she had been working on it lately, she had serious worries about actually using it on someone that had been possessed as long and to such an extent that Lain had.

She sighed, studying the creature's blank, sagging face. She reached out and touched Its head, smoothing back Its grungy hair. She pursed her lips whenever she felt Its skin. Bone dead, cold. To anyone else, It would probably be the weirdest looking vampire around.

"I need ya to keep watch while I do this. It's gonna take a while and I'm probably gonna see some stuff I ain't gonna like. But whatever I do or you see, don't pull me outta her head under any circumstance, ya got me?"

"As you wish." Leather creaked as Chai crossed her arms and reassumed her vantage point at the doorway. Tilda glanced at her and gave her a nod.

"This is it, Lain. Just hang on for a little while longer if you can.." Tilda muttered, moving her hand over It's blank, black gaze, gripping Its temples. She sighed, stretching and extending her mind from behind her eyes, down her arm to her elbow, her hand. It spread over her fingers and hung on the precipices of her nails before it broke into the creature's head.

She was merely a ghost in Lain's head now, plunged into total darkness, completely unaware of her own physical body on the other side.

She stumbled and fell, becoming more disoriented by the second. She couldn't see anything, couldn't hear. The silence hummed and pressed on her head. It was like being under water.

Speaking of water, she seemed to be on her hands and knees in ankle deep in it. She splashed herself, flecks of water hitting her face, neck and arms, just to make sure what she was feeling was real.

Tilda struggled to her feet, flexing her hands to coax feeling into them. She had worked with the possessed and had studied first and second hand accounts of others' experiences. They all told her mostly the same thing. It was frustrating to not be in control of yourself. Scary to watch from a bird's eye view your own hands abusing others, hurt at their reactions to you, depressed, helpless, forsaken. She had always thought she knew what it would be like.

Tilda rubbed her arms in the cold silence. Lain was somewhere in here..? If she hadn't done this to Lain herself, she wouldn't have believed it.

Where the hell did she even start?

She leaned forward, her ears pricking, straining to the point of pain. Was it a breath? Wind..? She didn't feel anything.

Her shoulders sagged. She probably just heard herself..

Then she heard it again.

" .. get.. out.."

"Lain..? LAIN?! Hold on okay? I'm coming to get you!"

Tilda's voice echoed all around her in the emptiness, erasing all traces of the voice she'd just heard. Cursing, she picked out a direction and broke into a sprint, resigning herself to do nothing but run straight and listen. She wouldn't turn, she wouldn't backtrack, she wouldn't whip around like an idiot. She would just run.

The last thing she needed was to get lost in her sister's mind.

Author's Note - This post comes with a song!! Listen to it HERE!!! ]

Tilda didn't know how long she'd been running. The scenery was still the same: a darkness so thick and tangible it was almost alive, pressing on her eyes, ears and body.. and not much else. Her legs were soaked up to the knee and ached from the repeated pumping of her feet, twice as heavy now that they were wet. Her throat burned. Her heart was beating in her head.

And the moment she started thinking about all of that, she lost her rhythm and her foot clipped the ground, kicking up a wave of invisible water that splashed loudly in the silence. She panicked and stumbled to a stop like a drunken horse.

She could only hear dripping water and her own heavy breathing. No sign of the voice. If she had even heard the damned thing in the first place.

Hands on her knees, panting, Tilda tried to calm the burning in her chest, gulping mouthful after mouthful of stale air. She was too aware of the water she was standing in. She squatted down and dipped her hands beneath the surface, letting it cool and soothe the bandaged knuckle where her left ring finger used to be. Her tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth and it was tough to swallow.

Maybe if she just took a sip..

"Ah!" she yelled, pressing her fingers into her eyes. Which made her see explosions of stars, but hell, it was something different. At least she knew her eyes still worked. "I'm not gonna drink Lain's possessed mind water."

She had to think, had to clear her head. Especially if she was going to have any bit of luck navigating Lain's.

Which, she realized, she should have done in the first place. Found out where Lain was trapped instead of just charging right in like an idiot. She just didn't want to the take the chance of Entity waking up first.

It made her wonder what exactly Chai had poisoned It with if she was able to knock Him out of commission completely even after he had been in control of Lain for so long. Tilda had to nearly split Lain's head open with a bat to get Him to back down for only a few hours.

And now Chai was running around, unchecked, with Tilda's unconscious body and Lain's empty shell.

She needed to haul some ass.

"What are you.. doing here.."

Tilda lifted her head when she heard the voice again, fully expecting someone to be standing in front of her, it was so close.

"Lain? Where the hell are you?"

"Get out.. of my head..!"

The water around Tilda exploded into the air, frigid droplets raining down on her. She yelled and tried to push into a run, but something grabbed her ankles and she fell onto her hands and knees instead.

It felt like hands..

Cold, slimy fingers from adversaries she couldn't see tore at her, slid off of her arms, scratched her face. Tilda lashed out, her hands curled like claws and swiping the darkness in front of and all around. She hit target after target, feeling gooey flesh tear under her nails. But the more she hit, the more they seemed to keep growing out of nowhere.

Tilda fell on those fingers that were cutting off the circulation to her feet, digging beneath the joints and snapping them into uselessness. She scrambled the instant she was free, thrashing against the new hands that were looking for a hold on her and with a leap, she hit the ground running.

"This isn't funny!"

"You shouldn't have come.."

A pair of bright yellow eyes opened right in front of her and Tilda bellowed incoherently. She veered to her left, loping as fast as she could, away from that familiar stare.

But another set of eyes flared to life before her. She cursed and turned to her right this time.

And was met with another lemon yellow gaze. She spun on her heel, ready to run, and they kept appearing in rapid succession, blotting out the darkness, reflecting in the water all around her feet.

She stared at its rippling surface, noting its now distinct red sheen. Guttural laughter shook the air all around her and she swallowed, unable to take her eyes away from the water, not wanting to look at herself.

She didn't want it to be what she thought it was.

Tilda swallowed, looked down.

And retched.

"Why.. why are you here.."

"You're not supposed to be here.."

"I know you.."

"It was you.."

"This.. is all your fault.."

Tilda's dry heaves and yells drowned out the whispers and continuous laughter. He was laughing at her.. Maybe Entity had already woken up and was just screwing with her. She couldn't believe that Lain could be in here, with this.

She couldn't believe she had even thought about drinking it..

She was covered in blood. It was congealing in her hair, half running down her face and arms. Her clothes looked like a murder victim's. She couldn't stop staring at her shaking hands, watching drop after drop fall and rejoin its fellows.

That started to fizz. All around her was the sudden sound of fresh soda, small bubbles popping all over the place in unison. She felt it through her shoes.

A haunting groan vibrated the ground beneath the blood, shaking her to her core. She stiffened, turning in circles. The infinite pairs of yellow demon eyes reflected off of small mounds, the size of basketballs, that were starting to pucker the blood's surface. White lines spliced them all right down the center. They were, she thought, several different colors: gold, white, black, maybe brown or red. Crimson continued to run off of them, getting caught in what she now saw as hairlines, eyebrows and bloodshot, hollow eyes. Smaller mounds started appearing between the crowns of all the heads, piercing the blood's surface resulting in skeletal fingers and hands.

So these things were what grabbed her and tried to drag her down, although she'd be damned if she knew where they were coming from. She could feel a hard, flat surface underneath her. She had been running on it. But they were all popping out of nowhere like flowers in about five inches of blood.

Tilda twisted her neck, looking all around her. There were crowns of heads as far as she could see, which wasn't too far to begin with. The sets of yellow eyes were blinking all around her, constantly disturbing the minimal light. They were all staring at her.

She felt like she had to say something to them, explain why she was there.

"Who the hell are you?" But it didn't come out that way. Several voices echoed at once to the point that she couldn't tell who was saying what, when and from where. "Alright, alright, alright, one at a time," she ordered. The part-heads turned to look at each other, eyes straining in their bone white, bloody faces.

"We are who we are," said one.

"It's not important," answered another.

"What is is you."

"And who you are."

"And what you're doing here."

The voices were all husky and weak, but some were higher pitched, others rumbling, and one, she thought sadly, sounded like a kid's.

"Well, yer not answerin' my questions at all, and I know how I got here, so.." Tilda shook herself off. Semi-dried blood cracked and gave from her skin and it made her stomach churn again. "So yeah. You're right. It's not important." She had hardly gotten her left foot off the ground when their bony, rotting hands latched onto her legs, wrapping around them, climbed to her waist and started pulling her down. Tilda growled and curled her fingers, swiping at everything that held her. She connected again and again, saw limbs fly off into the distance and land in the blood with splashes. There were no cries of pain, though, and just like before, twice as many hands shot up to take their place.

She grunted when several fists slammed into the backs of her knees. They gave out and she crashed down with a great upheaval of blood and was held down in seconds. Tilda rocked back and forth, but the more she moved, the tighter they held on.

"I don't have time for this!" she yelled, straining against their hands and wriggling. It did little good.

Fine, she thought, that's not all I can do. Tilda focused momentarily, stopping all movement in her body. Make them think that she gave up. Then, she squinted her eyes, aiming all her will, all the telekinetic energy she had stored up, at every single one of those hands that were grabbing her, pawing her.. getting to bases with her. The blood around her body whipped up around her like she was in the center of a blender. The red spray hit her in the face, blocking out her surroundings, making it so that she could see the floor on which she was forced to kneel. See the hands, heads and faces looking up at her, unperturbed, like she WASN'T blasting them with enough force to send an elephant trumpeting off into the distance.

"Your powers don't work here, Tilda Estelle."

All at once, Tilda let the blood fall back down in a great wash the created ripples all the way to the black horizon. And she thought she looked bad before..

"Who the fuck are you and why the fuck do you know me?!" she called out to no one. She couldn't see the speaker, couldn't see anything. The yellow eyes had all blinked out, leaving her in the dark, grappled by several slippery hands.

"We are who we are, and I am what I am."

"And what the fuck am I supposed to do with that?"

"You will take it as an acceptable answer to your question. Who we are is not relevant. We have been here longer than you and we know this one's mind better than you. Beyond glimpses and simple pryng."

Tilda shivered, despising the voice, these people. She hated when her enemy knew more about her than she did it. She rolled her shoulders. The hands closed tighter.

"Some of us know you, some have seen you come in here before, looking for answers. You have noticed that her mind is now a conjunction of two, one of whom has lived for several millenia. There are holes and voids in their combined memeories that you won't be able to get out of if you fall into them. You're not just reading this mind now, you are living in it. This is her head, not yours, you can't do anything here, and you will be trapped."

"What, like you?" she ventured snarkily. But she was curious too.

There was silence from the voice, but she started to hear footsteps, the blood sloshing and creating waves that she felt.

Then, someone grabbed her face. Their hand was wet and large. Calluses covered every finger. Her first instinct were to yank away and then try to bite, but, like all the other invisible hands in this place, they held on tight.

"Do you want to see us?" asked the voice from very close by. She didn't say anything.

Suddenly, her surroundings were blazing with light. Tilda's eyes snapped shut too late to fully block out all the pain. They must have realized it or seen her scrunched up expression, because a hand was gently placed over the tops of her eyelids.

They stayed that way for several seconds, until the pain had subsided enough to where she was opening her eyes on her own. Her eyelashes brushed their palm. The way they were holding her face now was light and caring. Her cheeks were burning.

"Are you ready?"

She nodded. When they took their hand away, Tilda found herself face to face with a young man. He was too pale, his eyes too glassy. There were three holes in his chest that seeped gore all over his clothes. His auburn hair was stringy and clung to his features.

Behind him, the sky of this place was beet red, orange at the horizon line. Like a sun had just set. The naked limbs of trees pierced the redness and she saw large stones jutting up at odd angles with crosses atop them. She shuddered, not really liking cemeteries in the first place.

"What do you seek?" he asked. He stood immobile, looking down at her expectantly. It was the voice, the one that had been speaking to her this whole time. It was different than it used to be.

Recognition smacked her with its open palm and she stared up at him like a deer caught in the headlights. "I know you.." she muttered, "I know you, I remember seein' ya outside my shop the day that Lain showed up.. Oh my god, holy CRAP!! Ernie! You mean you.. all of you..?" Tilda looked down at the plethora of hands and arms looped around her.

"I thought you said you didn't have time for all of this. You know you're only stalling," he said, sounding a little irritated.

"Ernie, what the hell?! I saw you die, I saw Lain kill you! It was right outside my shop! Are you freakin' telling me that all these people are people that.. people that she killed?!"

Ernie didn't answer her, but she felt the arms and hands on her stiffen and then retract ever so slightly. Like they were ashamed or something. Tilda looked down at them all again. What eyes she did meet averted themselves.

She craned her neck back up at Ernie. "You really ARE all trapped here, aren't you..?" They met each other's eyes. Tilda felt for him. Sure, he was an ass the last time they had physically conversed, but there was no denying the guilt that pinched her gut. She saw nothing behind his eyes, but she couldn't really shake the feeling that he was sad. And why shouldn't he be? They were all stuck here, stuck in Lain's memories. And with Entity in control, there was no way for her to gradually forget about them or to let them move on. Which was probably his exact plan.

They were right.

She really didn't have time. And she was cursing herself for wasting that much of it.

"Lain's soul. I gotta find her soul. Like immediately if not yesterday," Tilda said up to Ernie, who nodded and snapped his fingers. The hands holding her in place started to tug her down towards the floor and she found her knees sinking through it. Ernie's dead image put his hands in his pockets and watched her impartially. As she got nearer to the blood, the smell of it filled her sinuses. Salt and copper. Like coins in sea water. It wasn't just blood, she figured.

"Take a deep breath," Ernie said.

Tilda gulped and obeyed. And with a last great tug, her head and body were completely submerged. The freezing blood tingled her scalp and delved into her ears. She wrenched one of her hands free from the memory-people's grasp and plugged her nose.

Now she just had to hope they got her there before her breath ran out.

Author's Note - This post comes with a song!! Listen to it HERE!!! ]

Tilda exploded out of the ankle deep blood gasping for breath. Sometime during her 'journey' she must have tried to inhale cuz her sinuses were on fire. All of the hands on her had taken a firm, strangling grip, then unceremoniously pitched her into the air. She arced like a dolphin and landed on the magical hard floor with a loud splash and a zinging pain in her funny bone.

"Nice courier service," she panted, voice shaking with weak laughs of pain. She was expecting an answer and when she didn't get one, Tilda hauled herself to her feet and started shaking off as much blood as she could. If she didn't try to do something, the reality of the situation would definitely paralyze her.

Droplets flew and splashed in the distance and even though she could barely see anything, she was getting dizzy. Two seconds from giving herself whiplash she realized the 'room' she was in wasn't as dark as she first thought. She could just make out the outline of her own body, a black mass against the fuzzy darkness. Tilda rubbed her eyes to clear them and glanced around quickly, not sure what else she'd find or even if she wanted to find something.

Too soon, she glimpsed what she thought was a perfectly square piece of wall, about ten by ten, jutting up like a lonely tooth. A rough sound came from it, halfway between a wheeze and a growl, and extremely weak at that. It matched the voice that came next.

"What.. are you doing here.."

They couldn't be more than twenty feet from each other. Tilda lunged forward, shivering violently. A gentle wind hit her in the face as soon as she moved, stinking of garbage and making her face collapse in revulsion. She covered her mouth and nose with one hand and used the other to feel around. The force that Lain was trying to throw at her wasn't anything but a breeze and Tilda almost immediately crunched her knuckles against the wall. It felt like bricks.

"Alright, I know that's you so don't dick around with me," she said, squinting her eyes and groping the wall before her. Her fingers found dirty hair, dry skin and bone protrusions that felt too awkward to be real.

"You don't know.. anything.."

"Still angry as hell with nothin' to take it out on, aren't ya?" She chuckled weakly in the silence. She hadn't expected Lain to be in good shape, but still.. "Why haven't you fought back?"

Lain snorted. "What does it matter?"

"I'm serious here!"

"...so am I."

Tilda punched her. She had a vague idea where Lain's head was and it felt like she'd hit her temple. She'd wanted to get her jaw. Lain cried out hoarsely and they were surrounded by her gasps of pain and the clanking of irons.

"I'm sick and tired of your fucking pity party attitude, Lain. So your boyfriend broke up with you, boo hoo. So he found six other babes to boink, boo hoo. So he-!" She got cut off by the wad of spit that just narrowly missed getting in her mouth.

"DON'T TALK ABOUT HIM!!" Lain lunged forward, but didn't go anywhere. Another hard blast of telekinetic energy wrapped around Tilda and was probably meant to toss her backwards. She only stumbled, then wrapped her fingers around Lain's twiggy throat and squeezed. Vertebrae bubbled under flesh that caved in like crusty snow.

Despite the choke hold, Lain wasn't fazed. "Don't. Talk. About Alex. Ever."

"What the hell is the matter with you, Lain?!" Tilda screamed, shaking her. She felt Lain swallow, her breath hitch, under her palm. "He's been dead for over a year, do you get that?! A YEAR!! And you've been in here, locked inside yer own head, not doin' a damn thing about it for-!"

"Because of you!!"

"What?!"

"It's yer own damn fault, I din' ask fer JACK here. If yer pissed about where I am, what I'm doin'.. ya need ta blame yerself."

Tilda threw herself from Lain and smeared her palm on her jeans. She was glad it was dark. She didn't want her face being seen. Cuz then Lain would know how right she was. Tilda swallowed and covered her eyes with one hand, working to get her temper and voice back under her control. "There's more to life than Alex, Lain."

"Prove it.."

Tilda growled. "I'm disgusted with you. Absolutely disgusted. Yanno that?" She combed her fingers through her close cropped hair, her legs moving of their own accord. Before she knew it, she was pacing heavily, kicking up waves of blood as she did. "I don't know why I'm even bothering. I dunno why I'm even HERE!! I mean, nothing's changed. Nothing's sunk in, Lain. At all."

Wheezing laughter came from Lain's general direction, so low and menacing that Tilda froze, thinking the worst. Entity couldn't be awake already.. She hadn't had the time to let Lain out. Well, technically, she had. But most of it had been wasted.

"So why are you here.." Lain hissed as Tilda tried to force her body to relax. It didn't work. "Why are you tryin' so hard ta help me.. Why don't you just leave me here. Ya fricken should. I know you want to. And so do you."

"Lain, that's not-"

"Can it. I dun' wanna hear any more of yer bullshit. All you've been screamin' at me is how I don't get it, nothin's sunk in.. If you really believed that.. you wouldn't fricken be here.."

"Lain.."

"GET OUT!! GET OUT NOW!! GET OUT!!"

Tilda found herself in the air and flying backwards before she knew what happened. Lain's voice had reached screeching proportions and the air vibrated with her cries. The floor came up hard and Tilda slid back in the blood, the wind knocked from her body. She grit her teeth, holding her stomach and flopping over.

Lain had never stopped yelling. She was like a child throwing a tantrum. Tilda heard the pain in her screams and it grated on her. The blood she was crouched in rippled with energy and, staring down at it, Tilda realized the room was becoming lighter. Slowly, but surely.

"We haven't heard her this upset in a long time." Ernie's voice was pretty much cut out by Lain, but she heard bits and pieces, as well as saw the outline of his white hand extended down to her. Tilda swallowed, coughed and took it. He hauled her to her feet. "When she fights, she pushes Him back."

"Help me," Tilda muttered, her throat croaking around the words. "You have to help me get her out.."

"We can't help you."

His reply hung in the fresh silence, punctuated only by labored, shaky breathing. Tilda tossed a glance over to Lain, blinking until his words hit her.

"What do you mean you can't help me. All you've done up 'til this point is, like, freak out if I didn't accept yer help. What's changed."

"Not much."

"Other than everything."

"And anything."

"What kind of exorcist are you-"

"-that you don't know how Soul Release works?"

Tilda whirled around, gnashing her teeth at the chorus of voices. She could just make out the outlines of about six people hiding in the shadows. One of them was half the height of the others and peeked out warily from behind one of the figures. She swallowed, jerking her attention back to Ernie where it belonged.

"I ain't gonna take any lectures on what I know and what I do from dead people trapped in Lain's head." She narrowed her eyes, hooking a fistful of Ernie's shirt collar in one hand and lifting him clear off the ground, bringing his nose to hers. Her voice dropped several decibels, into the tone she used with people that she was two seconds away from killing, icy and soft. "You. Talk. Now."

He regarded her coolly, opaque eyes blinking before he sighed. "We thought that you would figure it out in due time."

Her voice didn't change. "And I thought that you knew I was runnin' out of time."

"A-are you going to help her..?" a gentle, timid voice asked from around Tilda's left thigh. She jumped and set Ernie back on his feet, her muscles burning from the effort. She took her time looking down.

From what she could see of the little girl, besides her too-white skin and glassy eyes, was that her hair was scraggly and red, a pale dress soaking wet and clinging to her childish body. Tilda's chest constricted and whatever she was going to say died in her throat. "She's very sad. Really really sad. We've all seen her crying when she thought no one was looking.. She misses the big man with the pretty hair and the man with the spinning eyes."

"This situation is exactly the same as the last, Tilda," Ernie said. Tilda couldn't take her eyes off the child. She reminded her of her own daughter. "When she was possessed before, she was locked in here, but you were able to reach her and pull her free because.." He started to trail off, but Tilda quirked an eyebrow at him and he continued. "...because Soul Release is voluntary. The only reason you were able to pull her out before was because she wanted to be free. Your acts of incapacitating Entity and the potions did absolutely nothing in terms of that goal, save making it easier to achieve."

Tilda's mind jump-started out of blankness, and she stared at Ernie who lifted his chin slowly, realizing that she had caught on.

"I see that you've noted your dilemma."

It pissed her off, though. Why couldn't he have thought to divulge this, like, before? Back when she first got here. She shot Ernie a seething look that made him step back.

"So. You're telling me. That I can't get her the hell out of here without her consent?!"

"Yes." It was such a quick response, it jarred her. She grit her teeth, flicking her gaze off to Lain, her arms folding tightly across her chest.

"And the problem is.. that she still doesn't think there's anything left for her. She wants to stay like this."

Tilda had run her hands through her hair so many times, she was surprised she still had any left. What blood had dried in it, she had forced free with her constant swiping and the close cropped silver locks were now fluffy and stuck out all over her head. She imagined it looking like some sort of dandelion with a buzz cut.

Not that it mattered.

She couldn't see a damned thing.

She hadn't remembered it being this dark when she first got here. In fact, she was almost certain of it. When she first got dragged here, she knew she could see things. Not drastically clear, or anything close to it. More like splotchy outlines and vague shapes, like someone had turned out the lights and let her give her eyes time to adjust. But now..

Now she couldn't even see Lain.

"Your argument, not to mention your presence, has weakened her," Ernie said from her left, his dry, dead voice loud in the cotton-like silence. Tilda grit her teeth and glared in his general direction, if only because he had made her jump. She ran her hand through her hair again.

"Weakened her. Tch, that's just spiffy."

"She wasn't very happy with you in the first place, Tilda Estelle. And so far, you've done nothing but inflame her temper."

"I noticed." Silence fell between them all. She couldn't see them, but she had a distinct feeling that the chorus of dead shades that paraded around Ernie were still there with them. Almost like she had the feeling that Ernie was arching an eyebrow at her.

"Your time is getting shorter," he said in a tone that matched her instincts. Tilda had to reign in a growl, but it didn't work, and her chest burned fiercely afterward.

"And what do you suggest I do about that. Huh? Any bright ideas? Cuz I certainly don't have any." Which, she knew, was stupid. She should have had a plan. Or at least some sort of back-up to the burst-into-Lain's-head-invisible-guns-blazing-and-try-to-get-her-out course of action she had taken. "For people who are flipping out about how I'm runnin' out of time, you ain't extremely helpful to the contrary. Yer like an annoying kid who keeps askin' me 'why' and I'm THIS close to killing you."

More silence.. and this time it had finality to it. She was no longer physically aware of several presences around her anymore. "Ernie," she ventured, scolding. And got nothing back. She cussed, slapping herself in the forehead with her left hand, her fingerless joint sending pain zinging straight up to her elbow. It only made her cuss again. She let out an exasperated sigh, wishing that she was about a century younger so her attitude would seem somewhat plausible. At least then she could be accused of being a temperamental chick and pissed about not getting her way than just plain lazy and not willing to finish what she started.

It had been an empty threat anyway and she was sure everyone knew that. It wasn't like she could do anything to them. Her powers didn't work here. It must have something to do with Soul Release, she thought. Lain didn't want to leave. So nothing that she did or tried to do to get to that point would work at all.

Not, at least, until she found a way to beat some sense into her. And considering that over the past year, Lain had pretty much gone through everything that Tilda would be able to think of.. it wasn't going to be easy.

In the dead quiet, Tilda could make out shallow, labored breathing.. with a random hitch thrown in for flavor. She squared her shoulders, clenched her jaw and tried to make her way back.

Tiptoeing through blood proved louder than she first thought. After she'd traveled a few feet, she had to stop to listen for the breathing again. What she heard was a low sound that wanted to be a growl, but it was all dry throat and effort. It was still dead ahead though, so she took that as a good sign.

"What. Are you. Still doing here."

"I already told you. I ain't gonna say it again."

"And I already told you. Get out."

"I'm not leaving without you, Lain," Tilda said, folding her arms across her chest, leaving no room for opposition.

"Then yer gonna be stuck here. For a really. Long. Time."

"Really? Just a really long time? Not like.. forever, or an eternity, or somethin' stupid like that?"

Lain scoffed. "You'll die first."

Something cold dropped down into Tilda's stomach and exploded. Lain was serious. Not like she didn't already know that, but Tilda had been thinking that there was at least some kind of hope left. That Lain didn't really want to be left here.. like this. A tortured prisoner in a body that wasn't even hers.

The way she'd said it too.. That simple conviction, the truth of it.. it scared Tilda. For the first time in a long time, she was scared of her little sister. And scared for her.

"You don't mean that," Tilda said finally, the words weak and way too damned late.

Lain scoffed again. "Ya dunno jack about me, bitch."

Anger boiled in Tilda's core next and she strode forward, her right hand already tightened into a fist and prepared to swing when she realized she had no idea where Lain's face actually was and just barely stopped herself from hauling off and smacking around thin air. Or, more likely, the wall that Lain was chained to. Tilda halted and let out a breath, long and low, trying to exhale some of the anger out of her. Whatever she came up with, it sure as hell couldn't involve orders.. or force. Lain would dig her heels in and tell her to go fuck herself.

Instead, Tilda stared into the darkness, thinking about the last time they were in this situation.

Lain had come to Bordertown looking for a way to get free of Entity. And there had to be a reason.. beyond the simple get-my-body-back one that everyone else tended to use. Cuz Lain was at that point right now and she wasn't doing anything about it...

Then it hit her. Harder than if she'd run into a solid wall. The only variable that was different in this equation. And one that was sure to provoke a nasty reaction. Tilda allowed herself a few seconds of self-praise for figuring it out, then scolding for not doing it sooner.

"Lain," she began in a measured tone, like she was trying to explain something to a very dimwitted six year old. "Do you think.. that Tenzo would want you here? Do you think he'd wanna see you like this?"

She heard a gasp and a rattle of chains. Tilda let that sink in for a while, then plowed on, having a hard time making her tongue form the words:

"What about Alex.."