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A heavy sigh pours from Kiya's lips as the group meanders out of the Mirror Dungeon. To say that today's attempt was far from perfect would be apt, although he would find it to be most of an understatement. Those high risk strategies that always hurt more than they gained left most Sinners weary and battered for the rest of the day, and today was unlike any other.
“Ahhh… I don't know if my bones can handle much more of that kind of fighting.”
“I know what you mean. Those enemies just keep getting worse and worse.”
“But they'll always start much easier. Do you not take the time to properly warm up at all then?”
Kiya lingers a step or two behind everyone else, shorter stride aside, part of him didn't feel like getting caught up in everyone else's post-Dungeon casual debrief.
“Foul villainy need no warm up to vanquish! It need only yon heart of pure intent!”
Ah, right. Most Sinners would be weary. Not all.
Kiya closes his eyes to the noise of the corridor as they all head back to the bus cabin. From here on, today, he could shut out the world. For today, that would be the best choice for him as he sorts himself out after that showing in the Dungeon.
It was common practice by now for them to never quite be told where they were off to next, and it'll never cease to be any less tortuous for it. The bus's heading was something that weighed heavy on his mind as the scenery outside of the bus became all too familiar to him once more.
He lets out a heavy breath as he starts to recall all the past events in hopes it'll tell him even a hint about where they're going now.
From the south end of the city to the north, then back again to the east, Kiya feels an ever-pressing pressure as he thinks upon the concerns the other Sinner have had to face. Their pasts have all come back to them, some in worse ways than others. Deep down, he knows he can't just avoid his turn, but he would really like to never have to see anything from his history ever again.
An uncertainty lingers in his mind as he thinks back to all the encounters they've faced. How long in the past half a year have they been fated to face those that make up the home of his compatriots. To be forced to fight one's family. The idea makes Kiya's face twist.
It wasn't like he was against the idea of fighting one's family, no, far from that. In their months out, it'd never been a secret that Kiya would be all too ready to greet someone's, anyone's, face with the ground should there be even the most minor of reasons to do so. It was just the kind of person he was after all.
Rather, it was just that he would rather drop dead before he ever had to see his own family again, if he were still able. He sighs under his breath.
The sound of heavy footsteps slowing from the so far constant pace perks up his ears and, as he's opening his eyes, gets jostled by the arm coming to rest on his shoulder. He had been tuned out from the chatter of the rest of the group, unaware of the topic he'd clearly just been dragged into.
“Speaking of the most effective fighter, you did quite a number on everyone today, mate!” Heathcliff jostles the smaller Sinner with a near bragging tone.
‘Great. Just great .’
Kiya feels a wave of something between irritation and bitterness wash over him. More than just that, he feels a strong gnawing in his chest.
His face remains neutral and he doesn't even spare Heathcliff a look. He honestly didn't want to.
These past few months, everything about him made Kiya hurt in a way he wasn't able to describe. At first, he didn't think it was some kind of hurt, he thought it was just something else going on. Maybe he was stressed from work or all these new combats that had been going on, but the longer it went on the more he had to wonder.
Long before then, he had been forced to come to terms with a growing affection towards Heathcliff, perhaps a misguided wish for simple companionship more than anything else. But with nothing else to rationalize it with, that was all that Kiya could draw a conclusion of in regards to the sensation. With all the coming turmoil, all he could do was keep quiet.
He remembers this emptiness in his memories after leaving that mansion, and all these little different feelings whispering in the back of his head. He remembers, in his haze of memories from then, some promise or another that he made to swallow his own feelings.
Yes, that was the root of it all he remembers. But he never understood why.
In all this time since, he knew in his heart that he had to stay strong to that conviction to bury it all. But without knowing to whom or for what reason, it was hard to look at it logically.
And without logic, it was quite easy for something to worm its way into Kiya's heart. He didn't know when exactly, or how fast, but these friendly interactions he'd been enjoying with the man quickly became something Kiya wished to avoid. As if pricked by a thorn, their once peaceful goofing around had become something that stung Kiya.
An echoing reminder that no matter what Kiya had felt, he cannot act on it. An all too stinging way of telling him to maintain his professionalism. An all too familiar teaching he had already long since had drilled into his heart.
It makes his chest hurt, and he grits his teeth just to keep himself from lashing out. After all, that would be rude.
“Yeah, yeah! Those claws of yours are real nasty! Real slaughterhouse suspect when you're like that!” The praise, of sorts, continues.
Kiya feels his shoulders tense up, his teeth grit together more until he hears it squeak in his head. His eyes, now open and facing forward with the annoyance eking its way into his expression as his eye twitches.
What was there for him to be proud of? He corroded and killed one of their team, even if he had just before also killed one of those Dungeon made simulations. Why should he be proud of that?!
He shrugs the elbow off of his shoulder and carries on through the corridor doorway back into the bus cabin, leaving a momentarily confused Heathcliff lagging behind.
It wasn't so uncommon now, but some months ago, Kiya wouldn't just go quiet like that and it had been weighing on Heathcliff's mind. Just what caused him to flip like that? At the very least he always tried to keep professional, even if nothing else.
He catches up and throws an arm around Kiya's shoulder, chummy grin at the ready. There was always one thing that usually got him to buck up.
“Oi, wanna get some nosh later? HamHamPangPang had some specialty sandwiches last time we passed by one.”
He does not respond in any of the ways Heathcliff might have imagined he would've. Rather, the response he got was something crueler.
Kiya, Kaemon in hand, slaps Heathcliff's arm off of his shoulder and turns back to glare at him.
“ Hands off. ”
The look is filled with bitterness and anger. It's not a look that Kiya has ever given to anyone on the bus, not one like that at least. Fear, exasperation, pride and the like. Those weren't emotions that were foreign to him. But this…
He stands there, taken aback, before it all turns into a retaliatory rage.
“What the hells gotten into you?!”
“Me?” Kiya steps forward, any timidness that is typical for him shed away, “What the fuck is wrong with you ?! Saying how ‘awesome’ it is that I had a mental break, corroded, and then killed one of you?!?!”
“Oi, I was saying that you've gotten stronger! It's a compliment!!” Heathcliff points a finger at Kiya's face, his grip on Remember tightening.
“What the fuck kind of compliment is that?! ‘Oh, it's cool that you're super violent when in immense distress. ” Kiya mimes Heathcliff's normal composure, before throwing his arm down and whipping the cord of Kaemon, “What's wrong with you?!”
The tension in the cabin snaps as all hell breaks loose between the two, other Sinners utterly powerless to stop the quarrel. Heathcliff swings his bat directly for Kiya's head.
Casually, effortlessly, he steps to the side and retaliates with a forward jab, but not even enough to hurt. The fan presses against Heathcliff but deals no pain. It pisses him off.
“<Guys!!!>” Dante toots. The strike draws their attention, no longer just a squabble that would die down on its own like so many others. But rushing blindly into it now… there's no way it seems like it'd resolve the issue. Not with these two.
Outis rushes in front of their Manager, hand over her kopis to be drawn at a moment's notice.
“You two are acting unreasonably and risk bringing endangerment to the Executive Manager!”
“Beat it.” Kiya's response is sharp and hissed through his teeth, a clear rebelliousness and threat aimed at those he addresses. Even Outis is taken off guard by such an uncharacteristic response. He may have been dismissive of her commands in the past, as many have, but this was a threat, and one that he meant.
Another swing. Once more, it is effortlessly dodged. The bat impacts the frame of the Corridor door with a loud metallic ringing. Kiya's eyes, as much as they are filled with anger, hold apathy or dullness that makes the situation worse. How can he still be so… casual, for lack of better words, about this!?
It isn't all too hard, Kiya thinks about his movements. Each swing is telegraphed more than what he needs to see, and all he needs to do is move with each swing. It's not like anyone can stop that momentum once it's sent, for better or for worse. He should stop soon and leave. All he's doing after all is dodging and being an annoyance. Poking the hornet's nest if one would.
The metal passes mere inches from his face, and he looks on, staring down Heathcliff. There's so much anger and hate on his face, even a hint of…distress, is it? His chest aches the slightest bit, but he does not find himself deterred from it. He knows it's cruel, but he finds a catharsis in this dance of sorts. A control over himself that he felt he had been deprived of.
Heathcliff can't stand this. Anger wells in his chest and into every strike of his, every miss causing the metal to ring out louder amongst the shouting of the other Sinners, trying and failing to pull the quarrel apart. Each half-hearted jab just proves to piss him off more, in turn each swing becomes more powerful but never to meet its target.
Betrayal.
That was surely the correct word to describe his feelings. In the span of moments, he and one of his closest friends, one who's always gone to bat for him, had gone from an albeit one-sided banter to this. There is nothing about this fight that he relishes.
He grits his teeth with another swing. How had it come to this? Instinct overriding all other sense of logic, all because it felt like everything okay that he'd been having on this bus was fragmenting. Was he an idiot for thinking Kiya would've been any different from the way everyone else treated him?
Look at him now! Cold and callous and numb, each attack made with what seemed like no other reason than to provoke. Was his fate now also to be ridiculed by someone he thought of as a close friend? Someone he felt a comfort with? Someone he cared for to the point that he'd be willing to put himself in harm's way for? That he'd, before this, refuse to let be hurt?
The mere idea of it drives something in him over the edge. Hate towards the person in front of him? Because of this possibility that he was once more, abandoned by another he cared for?
Metal clatters against the wall as Remember is thrown away from the scuffle, impacting and then bouncing along the ground and rolling to a stop only when it hits the leg of one of the seats. Kiya's eyes follow the weapon and his focus on everything around him is shattered for the moment.
‘Why? Why throw away your weapon?’ His face seems to ask as he watches it hit the wall.
A hand reaches out in the corner of his vision. The glint of silver pulls Kiya's eyes back to Heathcliff, only for him to be unable to recall what happened next. He guesses that his fan was knocked to the side, he doesn't remember feeling the cord on his arm anymore. He guesses that he got slammed into one of the seats, he can feel his back stinging.
What he knows for sure is that the next time he could clearly process the situation, he had been pinned to the ground, a hand grabbed at the collar of his shirt with a fist raised above him. And then it hits him. The occupants of the bus fall silent.
He's not sure if he should be stunned or properly angry in this situation. Heathcliff who had rarely raised a hand against him in the last few months, now pinning him to the floor and just laying into him. He figures, ultimately, he deserved this given his earlier display.
But still his chest hurts. More than just the pain of every punch he can barely protect himself from with raised hands, it's that same tearing ache that has begun to rapidly worsen by the second.
It hurts in a way he can't begin to describe, worse than anything he'd felt while with this job and it twists and pulls and feels like he'd just been stabbed with a knife. The stinging in his face and heart twists his face into a snarl as he continues to just try protecting himself, to little success.
Retaliation or no, Heathcliff knows this action will not go unpunished. Be it in the guilt he will surely feel later, or perhaps the mourning he will experience at the loss of one he felt so trustworthy, or even in one of the Guide's so called Consultations. He remembers one for something so remarkably similar to today, that one on the shore of U Corp.'s Backstreets at the Molar Boatworks.
And just like then, all he had wanted to do was to ease the mood with everyone to their norm. All he received was that wish thrown right back into his face. All he managed to do was prove that in the end, he was always going to be right. That, yeah, everyone's the same type of cruel beast down underneath their pretentions.
Everything was playing out with the same plot beats all over again, so it seemed.
The smaller Sinner, pinned to the ground, takes a deep inhale. Heathcliff, knowing the Guide was not yet here else he would've forcibly pulled the two apart, can only imagine what would occur should he find a scuffle like this. He needed to stop whatever would happen next.
He reaches down to grab Kiya's face and—
A sharp pain runs up his arm, pulling it away from the other's face as quickly as he tried to shut them up. Blood drips down his hand, not just from the knuckles where his fists impacted skin many times over, but in the fold on his hand.
Teeth marks, bright and burning red with blood, are clearly visible as well as the blood staining Kiya's snarled teeth. Both men, seething at this point, find a moment of silence in all of this violence. Heathcliff, too stunned from the finally harmful attack upon him, stares at the blood running out of the bite mark.
“I hate you.” Kiya's voice is hoarse. His words are so deeply full of venom.
But yet his eyes are filled with tears. They stream down his cheek as he bites the inside of his mouth and grits his teeth so hard they can be heard in the silence.
“Do you hear me?!” He screams. “I said I HATE you!!! I hate you, I hate you, I hate you! Everything you do and say makes me hate you all the more, all this hate causes actual physical pain!”
The facade of calm and impartiality is broken within him and horrible emotions spill from his chest. Behavior so expected from a scenario like this, but so deeply unusual from someone like him forces everyone to take pause. Even his assailant.
Yes, he knew this must've been true already, but hearing the words straight from the mouth of the person will always be another situation altogether. Stunned, Heathcliff can only stare at the smaller man, body trembling with both anger and some small amount of restored restraint.
Kiya points an accusatory finger at Heathcliff.
“ You are responsible for the worst of my misfortunes with this Company. You are the catalyst for the bastard who wants me dead with extreme prejudice!” His hand shakes, before clenching it into a fist. “Everything I have given for you, to be welcoming to you and to treat you as well as I could have to make you any less miserable than you are! All of it has done nothing but hurt me in the end! You, you who I hate. Hate, hate, hate, hate, hate!”
Before long, his entire body is shaking. He can no longer stop the tears, not that he ever tried. It would be futile and he knew it.
He hated this man, surely. Hated him for so many things, hated him because all he ever felt when with him now was a horrible stinging in his chest. Like knives and needles stabbed right through his chest and it never got any better. And right now, it felt like his entire chest was being pulled from his torso, with his skin vivisected and bones being pulled apart from his tendons and all the organs filling the space being ripped out of him with it.
An inhale makes his body shudder in pain, as if a tendon was snapped away from the bones being torn out of him.
The voice that comes out of him next is weak and his face contorts and twists under the weight of his now audible sobbing.
“I hate you,” he manages to squeeze out from between his teeth, so broken and mangled.
“I hate you I hate you I hate you I hate you I hate you I hate you I hate you I hate you I hate…” This time there is no malice, only a withering desperation, repeated over and over like a prayer or assurance. Broken into pieces between the sobs and bitten back whines.
And now there is no glory in continuing to beat down someone who is already so broken, so smashed up into pieces that they're only option is to crumble to the ground. Heathcliff lets go of Kiya, releases him from the ground, unsure what now to do.
Yes, the words sting. Yes, for at least this moment, he still wants to care for the person curling up into his agonies. Yes. He recognizes this sort of behavior.
Pain that hurts so deeply and profoundly that the only logical answer must be that it would be born of hate. A pain so personal it feels like it should never be shared until it bubbles over. Yeah, he knew that kind of pain a little too well. Maybe that's why he can't bring himself to just paste the crumbled mess of a person in front of him, now curled in on himself and clearly drowning in that feeling.
Pain that wasn't truly born of hate, but had surely evolved into it. And this was everything that lay beneath it.
Kiya digs his nails into the floor of the cabin, trying to grab onto anything that would ground him, make him understand the world a little better now, but his vision is blurry from the tears streaming down his face. Pain and anger tear him apart from the inside and he watches the blood drip down his face and pool onto the ground.
And then there was something else. Something else he felt tugging at his body and brain, forcing it into a near state of fight-or-flight.
Fear.
He can feel it as his anger ebbs and the tears get stronger, feeling his face contort with the waves of sadness at the mere idea he's faced with.
“...o scared,” he basically babbles into the ground. “ I'm scared. Please. I'm afraid.”
No one else breaks the silence. Any attempt for help is promptly stopped by the retaliator, but not out of malice either.
Kiya's actions hurt Heathcliff, that was not something that could be debated, but this was not to prolong his suffering for the purposes of basking in it. Not when he broke so violently and quickly, and now he was banking on finding out why.
“No, no. No, don't leave. Please don't leave me alone. I'm scared. I can't… I can't lose anyone else..I can't do it anymore. Pleasepleasepleaseplease don't take anyone else from me.”
Still, it's uncomfortable. It's hard to tell if he even knows where he is anymore, or if he'd found himself lost inside his memories.
He sniffles and sobs, the wailing carrying throughout the tense air. His body shakes from what little power he has to exert over himself, to keep some of his secrets bitten back. He presses himself smaller, even more compressed, into as much of a ball as he can. He knows well that there are people here, people who are watching him, passing judgement, witnessing the broken shards of what little remains of his dignity.
He's afraid.
He is once again that girl, sitting in a darkened corner with those that she has lost dangled just out of her reach.
She is assured that she is destined to lose it all.
“Please. No more. I don't… I can't… Pl–ease.”
A hand reaches out towards Kiya but not violently as it had been mere minutes earlier. Heathcliff doesn't even realize when his body had moved, in an aim to comfort the figure. And then he freezes.
He wasn't the one who had instigated this fight, no, but it would be a lie if he wasn't part of what brought it to this point. More vitally however, if he was the first thing for Kiya to see in this state… What would that make him do? Would that actually be helpful right now? He hesitates.
But hesitates just a moment too long.
Everyone feels the chill in their body long before they set eyes on the cause, not that they needed to in the first place. This sensation is one they have become all too familiar with already and it wasn't the sign of anything pleasant.
Footsteps down the corridor reverberate in the near silent bus, coming to stop between the two participants of the fight. Neither move, nor speak. Kiya bites back his tears, Heathcliff holds his body in place. A grotesque fate may as well have befallen the two from the second a blow was traded, or perhaps long before.
“Perhaps I had too much faith in letting you utilize the Company's resources on your own for so long without any supervision,” Vergilius speaks with exhaustion in his voice. By now, he probably thought that incidents such as this were not to be occurring, or at least not where he could see them.
The signature red eyes of the Guide flick between the two men, both biting their tongues from making up some new excuse that they know will all but fall flat. An outstretched bloody hand with a bite mark torn into the skin, a trail of blood streaked across the floor from a head. They already knew the outcome.
Instead, exhausted, Vergilius turns to his seat.
“Continue. This isn't my duty to sort out. If a consultation is needed, then do so at the allotted time.”
The warning is clear, and Dante uses this time to get between the two. They rest a hand on both of them to ensure some distance is kept before anything else decides it wants to blow up in their face.
“<Heathcliff, let's get situated in our seats before Charon speeds off again,>” Dante speaks calmly to them. Frantic panicking wouldn't serve any purpose to these two as they were.
Heathcliff bites something back, clicking his tongue as he turns away from the scene. He sweeps the bus over with his eyes, then gathers up the fallen weapons before heading back to his seat where he rests Remember against the cushion.
Dante looks back down at Kiya, unsure how to handle him. The Sinner they were so used to being so calm and level headed, consistently the most reliable person, lashing out like that and now broken. It's hard to imagine how this even happened and what was going through his head for it to get to this point. But for now…
“<Ishmael, come help Kiya to the kitchen. He keeps a comprehensive first aid kit in there.>”
Without missing a beat, Ishmael rushes from her place to Kiya's side.
“Let's go get you patched up,” Her words are calm as she pulls him off of the ground and slings an arm over her shoulder. He doesn't fight back, there is no energy to. But he's grateful that she doesn't pull him straight up off of the ground and force him to be witnessed by everyone. She at least gives him the grace to keep hiding himself away, even if just for a little while.
He hobbles with her through the corridor threshold, making not a sound more as he is shuffled off to the depths of Mephistopheles.
With them set off, Dante turns their attention back to the rest of the group. Everyone is thoroughly uncomfortable. A fight like that hadn't broken out within the group for some time now, and they worry that it may be a sign of things to come.
More than a few find the developments with Kiya and his behavior today to be something to be mindful of, especially given his nature before this. Where he had always been compliant, patient, and kind with very few deviations, his snap offers an alternative for them to dwell on. That none of it had been the reality for this person they've been traveling with and that they'll soon have to confront the truth of that facade.
But for now most of them are just tired now, more so than before the fight had broken out. The unease in the air permeates everyone's bones.
Dante's shoulders drop. There's nothing they can do about it right now, but they will have to address it sooner or later.
‘<Let's hope whatever this is… has a decent ending. I don't want to lose any of the Sinners.>’