15 Annuals, Chapter 6: That Cliche About Stuff Before Storms
This chapter is long. And nearly made me cry. So watch out, okay? ♥
Title: Fifteen Annuals With Her Gay Guardian Glitch (15 Annuals); CHAPTER 6, AKA That Cliche About Stuff Before Storms
Rating: R. SO VERY R.
Summary: Who needs Roboparents when a Queen's got an Advisor-Ninja to take care of their recently deceased daughter?
This Chapter: Glitch is very, very mindfucked. CAIN VS HANA. Jeb gets beat up a lot and likes it. And DG makes a very stupid decision without even knowing it.
Previous Chapters:
Chapter 1: That Part Where Ambrose Gets Executed
Chapter 2: The Bit With The Ninjas
Chapter 3: The End Of The Ninja Bit Thanks To LOTS OF FIRE
Chapter 4: The Resistance Meets A Magical Ninja Princess (And Glitch)
Chapter 5: The Part Where Their Cover's Blown Really, Really Badly
Fifteen Annuals With Her Gay Guardian Glitch
(aka 15 Annuals)
CHAPTER VI:
AKA That Cliché About Stuff Before Storms
There was something oddly familiar about this, one of the scouting Kage thought to himself as they followed the four - three men, one woman - through their misty territory. It had been a while, and he was much older (oldest in the scouting party, even), and there was still that familiarity tickling the back of his mind.
“How long are you going to follow us?” the woman sighed in Kageri, looking straight at the scouting party, which stared at her. “At least introduce yourselves. For all I know we went to school together.”
This is weird one of the scouting party signaled, eyes shifting from the woman to each other.
The woman rolled her eyes, and half the scouting party nearly fell out of the trees at her return signals. No shit, moron.
“Dresses, Hime,” the man in the stretcher muttered a bit dangerously. “I don’t make idle threats.”
“You think I don’t make that by now?” she frowned, and sighed. “You get them off our backs. They’ll pay attention to you.”
The man paused for a moment, finally lurching off the stretcher, much to the other two men’s distress (and the older one with the hat tried to pull him back, which earned him a smack on the wrist), and faced the men.
“Get out of the trees. Two of you stay to lead us to the cavern entrance, since a stretcher can’t get across the rope bridge, and the rest of you inform Hana that we’re coming,” the man said.
The oldest of the scouting party gaped, finally realizing why this felt so familiar.
Spiral smirked at him. “Looks like you learned to think before attacking, at least. Now get moving.”
“Yes, sir,” the oldest Kage - who, thirteen years ago, had been the youngest - said, and they obeyed immediately.
“Well that’s taken care of,” the infamous Spiral said a bit woozily, and the man in the hat caught him as he dropped, pale and panting. “Hime? Think you can handle…handle…”
“Just rest,” the woman said, helping the man back onto the stretcher, where he immediately dropped unconscious after she swept a hand over his forehead. And when that was taken care of, she was bearing down on the Kage, snapping in Kageri. “You will take us to Hana immediately, you will not impede our way, you will assist in any way my companions - who, by the way, you will treat with all due respect - and I in any way we require, or I will make your life a living hell if Hana doesn’t get there to end it first, is that understood?”
The Kage nodded, swallowing a lump in his throat, and wondered which of that Kageri-speaking people he should be more scared of.
---
Maneuvering through a cavern built for defense, confusion, and forcing the enemy to go single-file, also forced Cain to quite literally carry Glitch, who was so out of it could barely even complain at him. The painkillers had worn off, DG only knew a tiny bit of healing magic, and the Kage in general were completely unhelpful when it came to wounds. DG said it was some sort of honor thing, but Cain just thought they were obstinate idiots.
On the trip here, DG had been teaching them a bit of basic Kageri, including a few long phrases of gibberish that he had been told would get them around safely, even if she and Glitch dropped dead in front of them. Her explanation hadn’t made any sense, either, so he just remembered the string of gibberish as ‘safe passage’.
He would probably be using it right now, if he didn’t have Glitch in a bridal-style hold and DG at the back of their little caravan. They were subtle, but he could tell that those shadows in the rocks weren’t normal shadows. Too smooth, too perfect for a jagged little tunnel like this.
Luckily, the creepy jagged tunnel was also a short creepy jagged tunnel, and he stepped out to blink at the sunlight and the all-around beauty of the valley. The grass looked more like a warm fluffy green carpet, the trees looked almost like sculptures, and children ran past, giggling.
“I should have known the fool would only show up after getting himself poisoned,” a woman said, and Cain nearly jumped. She had not been anywhere near them, and now stood right in front of them.
She had dark eyes, gray hair pulled back into a firm ponytail, and strange, ornate earrings on. She was also wearing a dark blue dress with a few black flowers printed on it, a wide bit of red fabric tying it together.
“Hana!” DG cried, and the woman gave her a smile as the princess actually bounded forward and gave Hana a slight hug. A…creepily respectful hug. They gibbered at each other, so fast Cain couldn’t catch a word of it other than Hime, and that didn’t help him very much.
After the gibbering, DG turned back to them, smiling and looking like a teenager instead of a woman for once. “Wyatt Cain, Jeb Cain, meet-”
“Hana no Yamikage,” she said, giving them a dark look, and snapped. Three Kage hopped into view from absolutely nowhere (gods, he was going to end up shooting someone at this rate), and circled Cain. “We’ll take him from here, Wyatt Cain.”
DG gibbered at Hana, and got snappy gibberish back, leaving DG looking chastised and hurt. He’d caught the word ‘son’ in there, along with Hime, but that was it.
“I have the Mobat tooth, too,” Cain said, ignoring the argument and carefully, hesitantly handing Glitch over to one of the Kage, and pulled it out of his breast pocket.
“Well, it’s good to see he’s not fucking a complete idiot,” Hana said blandly, and turned away, leaving Cain’s jaw on the ground.
DG raised her eyebrows. “I did not tell her that.”
Cain sighed, eyes closed forcefully as he rubbed at his forehead. “Well, at least that awkward bit is out in the community at least, I guess,” he said, trying to look at the bright side.
“Actually, Hana is Glitch’s mother,” DG said.
All the color drained from his face, and the worst thing was that he could see how amused Jeb and DG were. “In-laws.”
“In-laws,” DG grinned.
Cain would have bashed his head against a rock or something, but rocks reminded him, much to his embarrassment, of Glitch, and Glitch reminded him that he was here for a reason. So, when DG led into the strangely charred-looking but completely functioning village, he followed.
---
“We’re WHAT?” Cain snapped, and DG winced behind Hana.
“You heard me, Tin Man,” the older woman said, arms crossed. “You’re not getting in my house. I barely let your Glitch in, and he’s been almost dead for five hours.”
“Is he okay?” Cain said, brain completely switching topics at that little piece of information. He paused. “And how do you know I’m a Tin Man?”
She just made a scoffing noise and turned back into the house. “Maybe I stand corrected, and you really are a complete moron.” The door slammed shut behind her.
“Dad?” Jeb asked hesitantly, and Cain turned towards him. “You’re wearing your badge.”
And really, there was no good way to accept how much of an idiot he seemed to turn into when he was around Glitch’s mom.
---
DG was sleeping in the Reverent House Of Hana No Yami, as the locals called it. DG tried to explain that the ‘no yami’ thing was pretty different from when they’d been here before, using words related to codes of honor and abilities and judgment and wisdom and stuff, but it basically all boiled down to the fact that last time they’d been here, Hana had just been a well-respected Kage, and now she was in charge of the entire tribe. The Kage no Yami, which when translated meant something like ‘Shadow of Darkness’ or ‘The Shadow’s Darkness’ or something equally terrifying and intimidating to Cain and Jeb.
DG seemed disturbingly happy about it whenever she came over to the little house that had been empty for forty years and they’d let the Cains inhabit. She would talk mostly about Glitch’s recovery - he was getting better, thank the gods, but still spent most of his time hallucinating and shivering or sleeping. DG got thrown out every time he started hallucinating, and it seemed like the hallucinations were triggered by the treatment.
It also seemed, from the cuts and bruises that Hana would have when DG got back into the house, they were not very happy hallucinations.
“I keep trying to ask her about them, about him, and she’ll only say that the poison needs to be drawn out of more than the blood,” she complained one evening, drinking the ever-present tea. At least now they knew where she got the habit - it seemed like every single Kage lived and died by tea. “I can’t help, either, she says. Best I can do is watch over him when he’s asleep.”
“If you can’t help and he’s getting better, you shouldn’t worry about it,” Jeb said, sipping his tea. “A couple of the Kage have said I could get some basics of Kage training done while we wait for Glitch to get better.” He paused. “But they keep calling him something-something-Spiral. It’s weird.”
“Spiral? Oh, right,” DG said. “Full Kage are referred to by their technique’s name. Since his is all about continuous momentum and shifting and the conservation of energy and spin radiuses - radii? - and the speeds of them depending on how tight your spin…um…yeah. Spiral.”
Cain frowned. “Is everyone’s technique that complex?”
DG actually snorted. “There’s a guy here called Hammer. Glitch was too smart for his own good even when he was a kid.” Her eyes went a little distant. “He got his Mark when he was only eight, did you know that? One of the youngest ever. I haven’t even gotten to take the Trial.”
“You’ve been away,” Cain shrugged.
“He tricked me,” she shook her head. “Said he wanted me to get some weapons training before he let me try, and then he showed up looking like he’d just been attacked by Mobats…okay, bad analogy, but he just shows up, Hana leaves our training, and Glitch and I just up and left. This is the first time I’ve even seen Kage since then.”
Cain was quiet, but Jeb had always seemed to empathize with her on a strange level. “You know he had a good reason for it. And he was keeping you safe.”
“Doesn’t mean he had to get my hopes up like that,” she muttered.
“How old were you?” Cain asked quietly.
“Eleven.”
He could definitely see that. The man you looked up to most in the world had set a record, and you wanted to get as close to it as possible, got the chance, and then practically had the carpet yanked out from under your feet? Ouch.
“Glitch would never do anything to hurt you if it wasn’t for a good reason,” he said, trying not to think of planning to become a martyr annuals in advance. Possibly right from the start, knowing Ambrose.
But he wasn’t thinking about that.
“So, people are offering to run you through your paces?” DG grinned at Jeb, who looked slightly embarrassed at the phrasing. “Sounds like fun. I’d be more than happy to be your tutor, even though my techniques a lot more specialized than anyone else’s.”
“Why?” Jeb asked.
“Add magic into the attacks,” DG shrugged. “If you ever caught sight of Glitch and I sparring, you’d notice these little gaps where it looks like a perfect opportunity to attack, but Glitch goes running and dodging for his life. That’s where the magic goes.”
“Sounds like I would definitely not want to walk in on one of your sparring sessions, then,” Cain said, and DG smiled at him.
“But Cain, you’re the only one who could really survive it.”
She didn’t explain. Cain wasn’t quite sure he wanted her to.
---
Water crushed him from all sides, his Queen’s face watching him from above, his Hime’s face begging for him below, and he was trapped in the middle. He’d live if he went to his Queen - air was that way.
But Hime. DG. She needed him, and he needed her, and she needed him to save her life right now.
Her blue eyes were next to another pair of blue eyes, and he was moving before he could even think, swimming as hard and fast as he could towards them. The deeper he went, the more people joined him - his mother, nearly-forgotten lab assistants, professors, his fellow Kage, Resistance members, Jeb, a large, comfortable shadowy figure.
Cain pushed DG up towards him, and kept sinking.
She was safe, and if he didn’t surface soon, he would die, but Cain needed him. He was just floating there, sinking, a bittersweet smile on his face as he sunk. DG needed him. The Queen needed him. Cain was more than happy to have helped and fall in the process.
But so was he. He kicked down-
- and opened his eyes, roaring, and was suddenly completely aware that he was inches away from kicking his mother in the head and sending her crashing through one of the house’s walls. She was looking shaken, but had braced herself for the attack.
“…Mother?” he whispered, voice hoarse. She was cut up, she was bruised, she even had a black eye. Gods, had he done all of that? Why hadn’t she fought back?
She looked close to crying. “Go back to bed,” she said. Although her eyes wavered, not a note in her voice showed anything but composure.
“What’s…where is…” he murmured, finding himself sinking back down to the floor, his mother helping him down. He swallowed, ignoring the burning pain in his shoulder. “DG?”
“She’s fine, and sleeping in her old bedroom. You’re currently in mine, and I’m sleeping in the middle bedroom,” she said, and paused. “Are you really awake?”
“…yes,” he decided, mind too blurry and fuzzy and he was in too much pain to have this not be real. “All okay?”
“Yes, they’re all fine,” Hana sighed. “You, on the other hand, are an idiot. I know you could have dodged a Mobat bite.”
“Hime,” he just said, and didn’t need to say more. Just nodded.
“Not so stupid, then,” she said as he found himself back in bed, shivering. She smacked something onto his shoulder, and it stung, but he didn’t do anything about it. “At this rate, you may even be coherent in a couple days.”
He tried to frown and give her some sort of ‘I’m always coherent’ reply, but then his mom knocked him out with some herbs under his nose, and all he had time for was the thought I hate how she does that when I’m sick to run through his brain before he was out again.
---
“He screams two names,” Hana said, and Cain nearly shot her as he walked into his bedroom door. “Oh, put it away, I’m too old to die from a gunshot.”
He blinked, trying to make sense of that sentence, but Glitch’s mom plowed right along.
“He screams for a lot of things, but there’s only two names he ever screams for - DG, and Cain,” she said, eyes narrowing. “What have you done to my son.”
“What?” Cain asked, honestly confused this time and not just having a random bout of stupidity. “I haven’t done anything to him-”
She slapped him. She slapped him so hard he found himself stumbling into the nearby wall, touching his cheek and feeling that her ring had left a cut. “Right,” he muttered to himself, looking at the gray-haired woman. “Kage.”
“You had to have done something to him,” she snapped. “I hear him screaming to let you go, for you to stop, for you to save yourself, for you to protect Hime, for everything under the sun. And then sometimes I walk in and he’s crying.” Hana glared. “In no way have I ever seen him cry. Even when he faced down Azkadellia herself, threw everything away to do it, including DG’s unwavering devotion, his own safety, turned himself into a walking target for the Sorceress, when he was so broken that he couldn’t even remember which name was him, he never cried. So. Once more. What did you do to my son?”
Cain couldn’t really think of anything to say. He sat down, befuddled, distraught, numb. “I just…I didn’t mean to hurt him if I did, but he was so busy being someone else for everybody that I wanted to let himself be selfish.” He shook his head, a bitter, nostalgic smile on his face. “I wanted him to let someone take care of him instead of the other way around. Well, me taking care of him. I wanted to see him, not a veil that covered him.”
“So you don’t regret it, then,” Hana stated, back in front of the windowsill, looking for all the world like her title, the darkest bit of shadow.
Cain laughed bitterly. “I didn’t until you told me it was hurting him.”
“Who said it was hurting him?” Hana asked, arms crossed, and Cain blinked up at her.
“He’s okay? He…he’s alright?”
She rolled her eyes. “You’re not a doctor, so I’m not even going to try and explain.” She paused, and crouched on the windowsill. “You may come see him after this night, Wyatt Cain, but if you hurt him there will be no end to the pain I will put you through until someone mercifully decides to end your miserable existence.”
“I get to go inside and see him?” Cain gaped, completely ignoring the death threat, but she was already gone. He was stunned. “I get to go see him in the morning.”
Cain settled down, already knowing this was going to be one of the longest nights of his life.
---
The Sorceress circled her, dress clinging in all the right places as her face revealed all the wrong things she was thinking of. “Ambrose is dead, Mother,” she said.
The Queen gasped, horror filling her. “What…how-”
“My poor, precious Zora,” she said, putting a hand to her skin, the area where her center-most tattoo had been that was now nothing but flesh. “Killed him with her dying breath. And thanks to her sacrifice, you have no hope. You have nobody on the outside fighting me. The Resistance is futile. The Tin Men are gone. You have no hope, do you understand?”
The Queen looked down at the ground of her prison, and smiled.
“I understand that you have engineered your own doom quite elegantly, Azkadellia,” she said. “Or Ambrose did. Either way, the end is upon you.”
The Sorceress rolled her eyes. “Not this again, Mother. Don’t you understand? He’s dead-”
“And with his death, you have brought upon yourself a storm,” the Queen said, chin tilting upwards. “You have released a storm so strong and fierce that even your darkest dreams can never do it justice, a storm that will forever be at your back, a storm fueled by not only the wind, but the shadows, and most importantly, the blood you yourself spilled.” She smiled. “A storm is coming, Azkadellia. And it will be heading straight for you.”
Azkadellia stared at her. Her mouth opened, and then shut.
“So you do remember fear,” the Queen said quietly, lavender eyes boring into her.
She swallowed, and her mother smiled, triumphant.
Without another word, the Sorceress slammed her hands together.
---
The moment the sky began to turn pink, Hana was completely unsurprised to find Wyatt Cain standing on her doorstep. He looked like he hadn’t slept at all and loved every minute of it.
“Oh,” she said indifferently, and stepped out, closing the door behind her as she headed for the laundry string, five blankets in her arms.
“Let me help you with those, ma’am,” Cain said, only to get a glare.
“Boy, I was doing my own laundry before you were born and I’m not about to stop doing it on my own just because you offered,” she said, flinging the first blanket up with such grace and ease that Cain realized that honestly, he probably would have just slowed the woman down. “Now, a few rules.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Cain replied immediately. Hana was very proud of herself for not grinning at that.
“Like any honest Kage household, your shoes will be removed inside of the door, before the hardwood. Considering the state of your clothing, you will be required to wear slippers,” Hana stated. “If he asks you to leave, you leave immediately. If Hime feels you should leave, you will leave immediately. If I find you hurting my son or da…or Hime in any way, you will either leave or die. It will most likely be the latter. Do you agree to abide by these rules?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Cain nodded, about ready to start fidgeting and acting like a six year old while she flung the third blanket on the rack, the sky inching into sunlight. “Anything else?”
“I expect your son - Jeb, was it? - to arrive tomorrow evening for training with Hime and I, under pain of visitation rights being revoked for the both of you. And I fully intend to beat you unconscious when doing so will not harm my son’s recovery.”
Cain gaped. “…you’re serious.”
Hana just raised one elegant eyebrow, giving him a Look that was surprisingly similar to the ones he got from DG sometimes. At least now he knew where she got it.
“You have no idea what I’m doing for you, boy,” Hana said, and shook her head, throwing the final blanket onto the line. “Not a bit of Kage in you, too old to learn anything new, too young to be wise, too foolish to realize so many things about the world.”
“What do you mean?” Cain frowned, and Hana turned, drawing herself to her full height and getting as close to looking him square in the eye as she could.
“My son is injured. A Kage mother permitting another unrelated Kage into the house to visit the injured party when they have no professional purpose for being in there means I’m accepting you.” She frowned, suddenly looking much older. “I should have known the fool would be just as idiotic when it came to love, too. At least you’re not a robot.”
Cain pointedly didn’t point out his time in an Iron Suit, what with being busy realizing that going into the house was the equivalent of a kid getting permission to romantically pursue their child.
He paused. “Shoes by the door, right?”
“Shoes by the door,” Hana nodded, giving him a dark look before motioning to the door. “End of the hall. And remember the rules.”
“Of course, ma’am,” Cain said, and paused. “Thank you. I know you don’t like me-”
“What does my caring have to do with either of you?” Hana snapped, glaring. “I take care of my job as his mother. That includes letting him make his own stupid decisions, fixing him up when he throws himself in front of a Mobat, and…accepting things I can’t change.”
Hana was a good liar, but Cain had been an excellent Tin Man. So he nodded, gave her a slight smile, and walked through the door, making extra sure to take his shoes off and pull on a surprisingly comfortable pair of slippers.
“Cain?!” DG gasped, grinning and in the middle of the kitchen wearing nothing but a loose robe. “She let you in! Gods, Cain, she let you inside!”
Being hugged by a girl wearing nothing but a cotton robe was a bit surprising when suffering from extreme anxiety and sleep depravation, which meant he nearly fell down at the sudden weight increase, only stopped when DG herself grabbed him and propped him on his feet. The slippers, he had determined, were comfortable, but dangerously slippery on the bottoms.
“You were waiting all night out there, weren’t you.” DG looked like she really wanted to jump on him and hug him again, but was thankfully restraining herself.
“Which is why I’m going to go and see Glitch before I collapse,” he smiled, and gave her a small hug. “Last door?”
“Last door,” she agreed, and practically shoved him down the hall, grinning.
The door was easily opened, but he had to stare at the catastrophe inside. There were huge gashes in the walls, fist-sized holes like giant bullets riddling parts of the room, and the bed was completely empty and stripped, leaving a dark-haired figure curled on the floor, shoulder nearly fully healed, his head on the pillow that his uninjured arm was wrapped around, a blanket splayed haphazardly over his body.
Cain closed the door behind him, and sat next to Glitch, just looking at him. Glitch’s pack was sitting in the back corner behind the bed, untouched. Glitch himself was wearing nothing but a pair of thin gray pants. There were still pieces of the wall tossed about the floor, but none near the thrown carpet Glitch was sleeping on.
He leaned over, just a bit, and brushed a strand of dark brown hair away from the other man’s eyes. “You’re looking better every time I see you, Sweetheart,” he said wryly, only to find himself dragged down to the floor, right where the pillow was.
“Don’t go,” Glitch murmured, and Cain finally realized why his sleeping position, all curled around a pillow, had been so familiar.
“I never intend to,” he said, and wrapped his arms carefully around Glitch, who made a happy sighing noise, curling against him.
Cain hadn’t slept a bit last night, and just the smell of Glitch, even sick and full of herbs he could never hope to know, was so familiar and comforting that he found himself pulling the blanket over the both of them, tucking Glitch’s head under his own, and drifting off to sleep.
---
He was warm, he could smell Cain nearby, could feel the thin cotton of his shirt, practically taste the other man’s skin-
“- morning, Sweetheart,” Cain’s voice rumbled in his head, and Glitch sighed, leaning into his chest and practically purring.
“You are a fantastic hallucination,” he said, and gave Cain a very very real-feeling kiss. “Even feel real.”
“That’s because I am,” Cain said, that tiny smirky-smile on his face. “How do you feel?”
“No clue. Anesthesia,” he sighed, cuddling even closer. “But you help me feel better. How’s DG?”
“Worried, but fine. Apparently she and Hana are going to be training Jeb,” he said, slightly guilty at how amused he was by the thought of seeing his son thrashed about by the two women.
Glitch’s eyes widened. “She let you in the house.”
“Yes, she did.”
“My Mother let you enter the house, and she’s training your son.”
“…yes, she did.”
Cain’s mouth was suddenly pleasantly, violently attacked by Glitch’s in a kiss that left his toes curled and his eyes half-rolled into the back of his skull, panting as Glitch kissed him, kissed his nose, his chin, his forehead, his ear - pretty much everywhere he could reach without injuring himself.
“I am so happy, Cain,” he whispered, ecstatic, before giving Cain another one of those spectacularly vicious kisses again, even more vicious because he knew that kissing was just about as far as they could get with Glitch injured. “You have no idea what this means, what all of this means, but gods, I hope it wasn’t just sex for you.”
“Definitely not,” Cain managed to get out in a strangled, choked voice, wishing to all that was holy that he had Glitch’s insane amount of restraint of everything imaginable. “Think I love you, actually.”
“Oh, that is fantastic, absolutely wonderful, you have no idea,” Glitch said, kissing him again, uninjured arm grabbing Cain’s neck and deepening the kiss. Cain hadn’t even KNOWN you could deepen a kiss when you were kissing at this level. Oh god, this was torture, sheer torture. “I love you too, which is really really good because you’re kind of part of the family now already.”
“What?” Cain managed to squeak out, trying very, very hard to not just grab Glitch and…and…RESTRAINT, he reminded himself. Injured Glitch. No sex.
God, where was a conveniently placed rock when he NEEDED one?
“…Oh,” Glitch said, and Cain was thanking everything under the suns that he had finally figured out how sadistic, cruel, and vicious he was. “Luckily I’m going to pass out again, so…bathroom’s on the right, first door.” He paused, voice meek. “Come back?”
“Of course,” Cain said, and gave Glitch one more kiss - a very polite, chaste, and subdued one, but that didn’t help much - before having a very uncomfortable walk to the bathroom.
---
“It’ll get better,” DG called from the conveniently placed rock she was sitting on top of, watching Jeb get punched by a fifty-something-year-old woman so hard he went flying into the dirt. “You’ve only been doing this what, a week? I could barely block after a month, and she was going easy on me.”
“You were six,” Jeb muttered, and that earned a grin from both women.
“You already have fighting experience,” Hana said, the smile gone in a flash. “Hime did not. Now, Hime, if you’d assist him?”
“Yes, Hana,” DG said respectfully, and jumped off the rock and moved straight for Jeb, grabbing his hands and showing him what to do. “If you’re boxing, yeah, it’s good to have your fists in front of your face. Not here though. Hands open for now. I’d say try to hit with your elbows and knees for now, just to get your body used to the movements, considering what you’ll probably be doing later on. And if you do hit with your hands, Glitch always says to only clench into a fist when you know you’re about to hurt someone. Kind of like how you only point your gun at someone when you’re willing to kill them. Make sense?”
“Yes,” Jeb said, slightly disturbed by Kage relating their fists to bullets, but knowing better than to bring that up.
“Good,” Hana said, and paused. “Excellently tutored as well, Hime.”
Hime blushed. “…learned from the best,” she said, and retreated back to her rock.
“Now,” Hana said, and moved her feet shoulder-width apart. “Again.”
Jeb attacked, and both of them were pleasantly surprised when she actually had to block his knee before he went flying into the dirt again.
---
Glitch was given a clean bill of health by the time Jeb actually managed to land a hit on Hana. Within five minutes of that statement, however, he almost wished he’d died.
“I want to take the Trial,” DG said firmly, in front of the whole ‘family’ at dinner. Hana and Glitch’s china smashed against the table, shattering. Hana recovered and managed to save at least her soup bowl, but Glitch was just staring at her.
Cain could tell the moment Ambrose took over. “No. You aren’t Kage, and I don’t want you even thinking about going through the Trial,” he snapped. “You’re good, I’ll grant you that, but…people die during the Trial. You have no idea what you’re even asking for. All you’ve heard is the splendor of life as a full Kage, even though you’ve seen that it honestly doesn’t make any difference whatsoever in the long run. All it means is that if the Kage go to war, you go with them. No, Hime, you are NOT taking the Trial.”
She glared at him. “When I was eleven-”
“I lied to you!” Ambrose snapped, slamming his hands onto the table. “I told you a half-truth that you think was a lie. And I don’t regret it, so don’t even think you can play some sort of guilt card on me. I’m your legal sponsor, and I say no.”
“I thought Hana was my legal sponsor-”
“Spiral changed that,” Hana said simply, and poured two cups of tea, handing one to Ambrose, who swallowed the searing liquid in one gulp like a shot of vodka. “His decision is the one you abide by, in the end.”
“In the end?”
“You’ve got a week to convince me otherwise when you ask,” Ambrose muttered, and stood up from the table. “If you’ll excuse me, I’m not feeling too well anymore.”
But as soon as he slammed his bedroom door shut, Hana started talking. Fast.
“He’s telling you the truth, but I think you should have taken the Trial before you even left us,” she said. “The fool’s terrified of the actual Trial, considering what it is, and he doesn’t want to see you hurt. You can’t convince him you can take care of yourself, I assure you, so try any and all forms of coercion. I will try and help you rein in the idiot, but you know how stupid he can be.”
“I’ll help,” Jeb supplied, and DG nodded. “In fact, we’ll both help, won’t we Dad?”
Cain blinked. “What?”
“Ohhhhh,” DG said, eyes widening.
It finally clicked. Cain went pale. “No.”
“Dad, you heard her story. She’s been waiting for this for nine years, and you’re going to refuse to help her? What about all the stories-”
“I am NOT doing that to him,” he said, shaking his head.
“He did it to you,” DG said dryly, and Cain blinked, dumbfounded. “How long was he recovering, Cain?”
“That was different,” he growled.
“But still a good point,” Jeb added. “What’s another week, Dad? You’ve been doing well enough.”
“But - ”
“Wyatt Cain, I told you that if you hurt Hime in any way I’d throw you out of the house,” Hana said, and sipped her tea.
“You also said if I hurt Glitch you’d throw me out.”
“You’re not hurting Glitch, you’re hurting my family’s pride, honor, and legacy,” Hana stated. “Agree to help, or I will at the very least restrict you from his bedroom, forcing you to help whether you want to or not.”
Cain sighed, and drank his gods-cursed tea. He’d really, really been looking forward to tonight.
---
“Where have you been?” Glitch said, giving Cain a heart attack when he just suddenly APPEARED, pouting, only two days into the week.
“…I’ve been busy,” he said, knowing he was a horrible, horrible liar, especially when it came to Glitch. So he cleared his throat, and looked him squarely in the eye. “I’ve been busy trying to help DG get you to say yes.”
His expression darkened. “You’re asking me to put her in danger.”
“What else have your lives been?” Cain said, glaring…and then pausing to kiss Glitch, who backed him up against a wall and nearly gave him a concussion with all the kissing and the groping and…yeah, he’d missed this.
But then he pushed Glitch away, feeling like he was tearing a hole in his heart when he saw the stunned, hurt look on his face. “But-”
“Let her make her own decisions,” he said. “I’ve had to accept that with Jeb, you need to accept that with DG. She’s 20 now. Let her be an adult.”
Walking away was even harder.
---
“You’re a worthless, disgraceful son,” Hana said the moment Glitch had taken off his shoes.
He paused. “…that was strangely unsurprising,” he muttered to himself.
“If you refuse to let Hime take the Trial when she has taken this long, been this patient, and this well trained, I’ll refuse to acknowledge you,” Hana stated, and walked out the door.
It was the fourth day, and he knew she’d only just started with it.
---
“You’ve been training me my whole life.”
“ALMOST your whole life, remember Hime?”
“You’ve sparred with me a thousand times!”
“More than a thousand, and that’s half the problem.”
“What?”
“The answer’s still no.”
Except it was getting damn lonely in his bedroom, he couldn’t sleep, and every moment he was near his mother he was getting lashed by a tongue so sharp it was practically a knife slicing into his back. But they only had two days left. He could take it for two more days, right?
---
Sixth day, and his mother was sitting next to him on the floor when he woke up.
“I don’t want you to do this to her,” she said quietly. “You know how badly she wants it.”
“And you know exactly why I can’t do it.”
“I did it. Your grandfather did it. If you can tell me you hold a grudge against me for the Trial-”
“Mother, you know I-”
“NO parent wants the Trial,” she snapped. “No brother, no uncle, no grandfather, no father, no mother. It’s torture for us, but what you are doing is only selfishness. You have been living your life protecting her. Now it’s time to let her protect herself.” She paused, looking down at the floor. “And your Cain says he already tries to let you be selfish. One man is enough. Leave your heart behind and let Princess go through with it.”
---
It was the afternoon of the sixth day when Glitch walked into one of DG and Jeb’s sessions, face completely blank.
“Ritual dictates you wear black,” he said. “Hana will help you with that.” He paused, shoulders slumped. “Your trial is in two days. Also according to ritual, you will only be out of the house when the sun is up.”
“Thank you,” DG whispered, as he walked away.
“Gods forgive me,” Glitch said, feeling like his heart was shattering at the love in those words.
---
As soon as word traveled to Cain, he went after Glitch, only to be stopped by Hana as soon as he stepped out the front door.
“Unless you’re willing to shoot at him, don’t even try to find my son,” she said darkly.
“But-” Cain tried to begin, but found himself being punched in the face so hard it almost felt like he’d had a tooth dislodged.
“You will not go near my son for these two days, Wyatt Cain,” she hissed so vehemently that he actually backed away. “Besides, he’s not even in the house. Go find your son. Hug him. Ask about his day. Tell him you love him. But don’t even try to go near my son, Wyatt Cain, or you will die.”
“Yes ma’am,” he said quietly, seeing the hurt she was trying so hard to hide, and wondering what exactly she’d done that had managed to change Glitch’s mind in just one morning.
And when Jeb came back into their house, sweaty and smiling, he did just that.
---
They came at him, fangs out, ready for the kill. He spun, he crushed, he twisted, he attacked. He came in for the kill too. One was stronger than the others. His two knives - Father, Grandfather - slashed into it. Blood splashed against his outfit, against his skin.
But he wasn’t done. They were still out there, lurking.
None had even scratched him. There was no pain. There was nothing to take care of.
He moved forward.
---
“FASTER, Hime,” Hana snapped, and DG tried to, really did, her staff spinning at a speed practically unheard of as she slammed into Kage after Kage, beating them back, twisting the staff behind her and then in front, the onslaught making her feel like she was breathing acid. “I said FASTER.”
The flood of Kage continued rushing her, and she kept fighting, knowing as soon as one of those white-powdered weapons touched a bit of her, the Trial was gone, she wouldn’t even reach it.
She shifted her grip from the middle of the staff to the end, twisting it around her head and smashing it into the Kage, blowing the ranks apart, trying to hold back the magic twisting through her body, screaming for release. This was combat, there would be no magic. She refused to cheat.
“Enough,” Hana said, and DG gasped, her breath almost painful after two hours of this. “You’re ready.”
---
“As accepted family, you get to observe,” Hana said, DG standing a cautious distance behind her wearing tight black pants and top, hair in a black hair tie that kept her vision as clear as it would get.
“How do we observe?” Cain frowned.
Hana shook her head. “Since neither of you can ever be full Kage or attempt the Trial, you may observe from the same area as myself and the Elders.”
“We’re grateful,” Jeb said, and earned a nod from Hana.
“Hime, you know where to go. Cains, follow.”
---
The Trial took place in a big blocky building, bright red columns inside what they called The Court, although it honestly looked more like an atrium to Cain. They’d gone in by a small third entrance - there were three of them, one in the side that led to the flight of stairs they’d walked up and found themselves finding spots on the raised circle that gave a full view of the Court below. The other was a black door that they’d left DG in front of, and the third was a pure white door that went into what looked more or less like a big concrete box. In the Court, they could see there was a corresponding pure white door that would face DG’s entrance.
Hana had left them to sit in one of the big raised chairs in the four corners, so they’d claimed a spot near the middle.
Somewhere, a gong rang, twenty times. Her age. More people filed in during the gong, taking spots around the banister, silent.
“Don’t judge them,” Hana had said before they went up the stairs, and hadn’t chosen to explain herself.
The black doors opened wide, and DG walked in, looking around cautiously, staff still in its collapsed form, and the doors smashed shut behind her with enough force that it hurt the ears.
“Do you come of your own free will?” One of the chair people called out - Cain had been expecting Kageri, but it was the common tongue, to his surprise. DG seemed surprised too, but answered with a yes.
“Do you feel yourself ready to face the Trial?” Another one of the chair people called out, and got a yes again.
“Do you agree that, should you not fail, you will be forever Kage?” Another yes.
Hana’s voice was choked, but she spoke. “Do you believe yourself strong enough in your soul to face any challenge you may face?”
DG seemed confused by that question, but said yes anyway.
“Then let the Trial begin,” Hime said, and the white doors opened. Steam - no, Cain amended, some sort of vaporous herb - came out before anything. DG flicked her staff to the ready, only to freeze.
Out of the door strode a bloody, dark Glitch, wearing an outfit that Cain was stunned to recognize as the thing he’d been wearing when they first met. His head was down, and two very different knives were in his hands. He recognized one as the weapon used on him while DG had been, ah, drawing, but the other was nothing but elegant death.
“…Glitch?” DG whispered, and his head rolled from one shoulder to another. “Gods, Glitch, are you in there-”
“BEGIN,” Hana roared, and that was all the warning anyone got. Glitch launched himself at DG, who was doing her best to fend him off but not hurt him, staff blocking the knives, only for the man to drop the knives, spin over her staff, and kick her straight in the face, rolling her onto the ground.
There was no Glitch in there. There wasn’t a single one of his names in that man, except for Spiral, and even that was questionable. Spiral was a cautious, analytical style that, while fast, could be faster if he stopped thinking. This was that with all the cautions stripped aside, leaving nothing but a deadly, brutal monster.
Cain could see DG was losing, and all because she wasn’t attacking. She was just fending off attack after attack and being beaten bloody by the man she cared about most in the entire world, talking to him the entire time, trying to reason, trying to get her Glitch back, saying something about ‘just take the coat off’, but the creature wasn’t listening. Just kept attacking. Kept hurting her.
And with a sick twist in his stomach, Cain realized that Glitch was toying with her.
“We hurt the ones we love,” one of the chair people shouted out.
“I DON’T!” DG snapped, finally shoving Glitch away - the first hint of an offense she’d put up through the whole thing.
“We hurt ourselves in the fight,” another one shouted.
“I am NOT HURTING HIM,” DG practically roared, smacking Glitch aside and towards one of the red poles, which he…walked up and backflipped off of, slicing at her back, the attack barely avoided with her staff.
“We hurt everything around us,” yet another chair person shouted.
Which was disturbingly poignant, considering at that very moment Glitch had grabbed her staff and, in twenty seconds, had turned it into nothing but tube after tube of metal, laughing maniacally.
“We always hurt,” Hana shouted, fast and desperately.
Glitch froze, both knives poised next to her throat, ready to slice right through.
“…DG?” he whispered, and backed aside, backed into a pole, dropping the knives in horror and twisting his hands into his hair. “Oh gods, DG, DG, my DG…!”
He screamed, pulling at his hair, and Cain didn’t have to be there to see the tears streaming down his face. DG suddenly swooping down and holding him tightly did that.
“Your restraint shows your humanity,” one chair person said. Cain felt like shooting them all.
“Your defense shows your ability,” the next one said.
“And your determination shows your strength,” the third says.
Hana looked her age for once. “We acknowledge you as a full Kage. What is your technique’s name, so that it may be recorded in the archives and recognized by the shadows throughout the OZ.”
Glitch was still crying, DG rocking him back and forth, like it had always been her taking care of him and not the other way around.
“Cyclone,” she snapped at them, glaring. Cain was slightly surprised she wasn’t ripping the building down with magic. Then again, he wasn’t shooting anyone either, so he understood the feeling. “This is why he didn’t want to do it. This is why, and you HELPED ME MAKE HIM DO IT.”
“Cyclone is acknowledged and confirmed as a true Kage,” Hana said, head bowed. “The Mark.”
She didn’t even scream when they pulled her shirt up and tattooed the mark on her body, just kept looking over at Glitch, tears in her eyes.
Cain couldn’t take any more of it. Without saying a word, he walked past Hana and down the stairs, wishing he’d never even heard of the Trial.
---
Also, next chapter is going to be out very very soon. This is actually HALF OF WHAT I WROTE. No, I am not joking. We were going on 40+ pages for this chapter. SO YOU GET 2/3 OF IT.
Title: Fifteen Annuals With Her Gay Guardian Glitch (15 Annuals); CHAPTER 6, AKA That Cliche About Stuff Before Storms
Rating: R. SO VERY R.
Summary: Who needs Roboparents when a Queen's got an Advisor-Ninja to take care of their recently deceased daughter?
This Chapter: Glitch is very, very mindfucked. CAIN VS HANA. Jeb gets beat up a lot and likes it. And DG makes a very stupid decision without even knowing it.
Previous Chapters:
Chapter 1: That Part Where Ambrose Gets Executed
Chapter 2: The Bit With The Ninjas
Chapter 3: The End Of The Ninja Bit Thanks To LOTS OF FIRE
Chapter 4: The Resistance Meets A Magical Ninja Princess (And Glitch)
Chapter 5: The Part Where Their Cover's Blown Really, Really Badly
Fifteen Annuals With Her Gay Guardian Glitch
(aka 15 Annuals)
CHAPTER VI:
AKA That Cliché About Stuff Before Storms
There was something oddly familiar about this, one of the scouting Kage thought to himself as they followed the four - three men, one woman - through their misty territory. It had been a while, and he was much older (oldest in the scouting party, even), and there was still that familiarity tickling the back of his mind.
“How long are you going to follow us?” the woman sighed in Kageri, looking straight at the scouting party, which stared at her. “At least introduce yourselves. For all I know we went to school together.”
This is weird one of the scouting party signaled, eyes shifting from the woman to each other.
The woman rolled her eyes, and half the scouting party nearly fell out of the trees at her return signals. No shit, moron.
“Dresses, Hime,” the man in the stretcher muttered a bit dangerously. “I don’t make idle threats.”
“You think I don’t make that by now?” she frowned, and sighed. “You get them off our backs. They’ll pay attention to you.”
The man paused for a moment, finally lurching off the stretcher, much to the other two men’s distress (and the older one with the hat tried to pull him back, which earned him a smack on the wrist), and faced the men.
“Get out of the trees. Two of you stay to lead us to the cavern entrance, since a stretcher can’t get across the rope bridge, and the rest of you inform Hana that we’re coming,” the man said.
The oldest of the scouting party gaped, finally realizing why this felt so familiar.
Spiral smirked at him. “Looks like you learned to think before attacking, at least. Now get moving.”
“Yes, sir,” the oldest Kage - who, thirteen years ago, had been the youngest - said, and they obeyed immediately.
“Well that’s taken care of,” the infamous Spiral said a bit woozily, and the man in the hat caught him as he dropped, pale and panting. “Hime? Think you can handle…handle…”
“Just rest,” the woman said, helping the man back onto the stretcher, where he immediately dropped unconscious after she swept a hand over his forehead. And when that was taken care of, she was bearing down on the Kage, snapping in Kageri. “You will take us to Hana immediately, you will not impede our way, you will assist in any way my companions - who, by the way, you will treat with all due respect - and I in any way we require, or I will make your life a living hell if Hana doesn’t get there to end it first, is that understood?”
The Kage nodded, swallowing a lump in his throat, and wondered which of that Kageri-speaking people he should be more scared of.
---
Maneuvering through a cavern built for defense, confusion, and forcing the enemy to go single-file, also forced Cain to quite literally carry Glitch, who was so out of it could barely even complain at him. The painkillers had worn off, DG only knew a tiny bit of healing magic, and the Kage in general were completely unhelpful when it came to wounds. DG said it was some sort of honor thing, but Cain just thought they were obstinate idiots.
On the trip here, DG had been teaching them a bit of basic Kageri, including a few long phrases of gibberish that he had been told would get them around safely, even if she and Glitch dropped dead in front of them. Her explanation hadn’t made any sense, either, so he just remembered the string of gibberish as ‘safe passage’.
He would probably be using it right now, if he didn’t have Glitch in a bridal-style hold and DG at the back of their little caravan. They were subtle, but he could tell that those shadows in the rocks weren’t normal shadows. Too smooth, too perfect for a jagged little tunnel like this.
Luckily, the creepy jagged tunnel was also a short creepy jagged tunnel, and he stepped out to blink at the sunlight and the all-around beauty of the valley. The grass looked more like a warm fluffy green carpet, the trees looked almost like sculptures, and children ran past, giggling.
“I should have known the fool would only show up after getting himself poisoned,” a woman said, and Cain nearly jumped. She had not been anywhere near them, and now stood right in front of them.
She had dark eyes, gray hair pulled back into a firm ponytail, and strange, ornate earrings on. She was also wearing a dark blue dress with a few black flowers printed on it, a wide bit of red fabric tying it together.
“Hana!” DG cried, and the woman gave her a smile as the princess actually bounded forward and gave Hana a slight hug. A…creepily respectful hug. They gibbered at each other, so fast Cain couldn’t catch a word of it other than Hime, and that didn’t help him very much.
After the gibbering, DG turned back to them, smiling and looking like a teenager instead of a woman for once. “Wyatt Cain, Jeb Cain, meet-”
“Hana no Yamikage,” she said, giving them a dark look, and snapped. Three Kage hopped into view from absolutely nowhere (gods, he was going to end up shooting someone at this rate), and circled Cain. “We’ll take him from here, Wyatt Cain.”
DG gibbered at Hana, and got snappy gibberish back, leaving DG looking chastised and hurt. He’d caught the word ‘son’ in there, along with Hime, but that was it.
“I have the Mobat tooth, too,” Cain said, ignoring the argument and carefully, hesitantly handing Glitch over to one of the Kage, and pulled it out of his breast pocket.
“Well, it’s good to see he’s not fucking a complete idiot,” Hana said blandly, and turned away, leaving Cain’s jaw on the ground.
DG raised her eyebrows. “I did not tell her that.”
Cain sighed, eyes closed forcefully as he rubbed at his forehead. “Well, at least that awkward bit is out in the community at least, I guess,” he said, trying to look at the bright side.
“Actually, Hana is Glitch’s mother,” DG said.
All the color drained from his face, and the worst thing was that he could see how amused Jeb and DG were. “In-laws.”
“In-laws,” DG grinned.
Cain would have bashed his head against a rock or something, but rocks reminded him, much to his embarrassment, of Glitch, and Glitch reminded him that he was here for a reason. So, when DG led into the strangely charred-looking but completely functioning village, he followed.
---
“We’re WHAT?” Cain snapped, and DG winced behind Hana.
“You heard me, Tin Man,” the older woman said, arms crossed. “You’re not getting in my house. I barely let your Glitch in, and he’s been almost dead for five hours.”
“Is he okay?” Cain said, brain completely switching topics at that little piece of information. He paused. “And how do you know I’m a Tin Man?”
She just made a scoffing noise and turned back into the house. “Maybe I stand corrected, and you really are a complete moron.” The door slammed shut behind her.
“Dad?” Jeb asked hesitantly, and Cain turned towards him. “You’re wearing your badge.”
And really, there was no good way to accept how much of an idiot he seemed to turn into when he was around Glitch’s mom.
---
DG was sleeping in the Reverent House Of Hana No Yami, as the locals called it. DG tried to explain that the ‘no yami’ thing was pretty different from when they’d been here before, using words related to codes of honor and abilities and judgment and wisdom and stuff, but it basically all boiled down to the fact that last time they’d been here, Hana had just been a well-respected Kage, and now she was in charge of the entire tribe. The Kage no Yami, which when translated meant something like ‘Shadow of Darkness’ or ‘The Shadow’s Darkness’ or something equally terrifying and intimidating to Cain and Jeb.
DG seemed disturbingly happy about it whenever she came over to the little house that had been empty for forty years and they’d let the Cains inhabit. She would talk mostly about Glitch’s recovery - he was getting better, thank the gods, but still spent most of his time hallucinating and shivering or sleeping. DG got thrown out every time he started hallucinating, and it seemed like the hallucinations were triggered by the treatment.
It also seemed, from the cuts and bruises that Hana would have when DG got back into the house, they were not very happy hallucinations.
“I keep trying to ask her about them, about him, and she’ll only say that the poison needs to be drawn out of more than the blood,” she complained one evening, drinking the ever-present tea. At least now they knew where she got the habit - it seemed like every single Kage lived and died by tea. “I can’t help, either, she says. Best I can do is watch over him when he’s asleep.”
“If you can’t help and he’s getting better, you shouldn’t worry about it,” Jeb said, sipping his tea. “A couple of the Kage have said I could get some basics of Kage training done while we wait for Glitch to get better.” He paused. “But they keep calling him something-something-Spiral. It’s weird.”
“Spiral? Oh, right,” DG said. “Full Kage are referred to by their technique’s name. Since his is all about continuous momentum and shifting and the conservation of energy and spin radiuses - radii? - and the speeds of them depending on how tight your spin…um…yeah. Spiral.”
Cain frowned. “Is everyone’s technique that complex?”
DG actually snorted. “There’s a guy here called Hammer. Glitch was too smart for his own good even when he was a kid.” Her eyes went a little distant. “He got his Mark when he was only eight, did you know that? One of the youngest ever. I haven’t even gotten to take the Trial.”
“You’ve been away,” Cain shrugged.
“He tricked me,” she shook her head. “Said he wanted me to get some weapons training before he let me try, and then he showed up looking like he’d just been attacked by Mobats…okay, bad analogy, but he just shows up, Hana leaves our training, and Glitch and I just up and left. This is the first time I’ve even seen Kage since then.”
Cain was quiet, but Jeb had always seemed to empathize with her on a strange level. “You know he had a good reason for it. And he was keeping you safe.”
“Doesn’t mean he had to get my hopes up like that,” she muttered.
“How old were you?” Cain asked quietly.
“Eleven.”
He could definitely see that. The man you looked up to most in the world had set a record, and you wanted to get as close to it as possible, got the chance, and then practically had the carpet yanked out from under your feet? Ouch.
“Glitch would never do anything to hurt you if it wasn’t for a good reason,” he said, trying not to think of planning to become a martyr annuals in advance. Possibly right from the start, knowing Ambrose.
But he wasn’t thinking about that.
“So, people are offering to run you through your paces?” DG grinned at Jeb, who looked slightly embarrassed at the phrasing. “Sounds like fun. I’d be more than happy to be your tutor, even though my techniques a lot more specialized than anyone else’s.”
“Why?” Jeb asked.
“Add magic into the attacks,” DG shrugged. “If you ever caught sight of Glitch and I sparring, you’d notice these little gaps where it looks like a perfect opportunity to attack, but Glitch goes running and dodging for his life. That’s where the magic goes.”
“Sounds like I would definitely not want to walk in on one of your sparring sessions, then,” Cain said, and DG smiled at him.
“But Cain, you’re the only one who could really survive it.”
She didn’t explain. Cain wasn’t quite sure he wanted her to.
---
Water crushed him from all sides, his Queen’s face watching him from above, his Hime’s face begging for him below, and he was trapped in the middle. He’d live if he went to his Queen - air was that way.
But Hime. DG. She needed him, and he needed her, and she needed him to save her life right now.
Her blue eyes were next to another pair of blue eyes, and he was moving before he could even think, swimming as hard and fast as he could towards them. The deeper he went, the more people joined him - his mother, nearly-forgotten lab assistants, professors, his fellow Kage, Resistance members, Jeb, a large, comfortable shadowy figure.
Cain pushed DG up towards him, and kept sinking.
She was safe, and if he didn’t surface soon, he would die, but Cain needed him. He was just floating there, sinking, a bittersweet smile on his face as he sunk. DG needed him. The Queen needed him. Cain was more than happy to have helped and fall in the process.
But so was he. He kicked down-
- and opened his eyes, roaring, and was suddenly completely aware that he was inches away from kicking his mother in the head and sending her crashing through one of the house’s walls. She was looking shaken, but had braced herself for the attack.
“…Mother?” he whispered, voice hoarse. She was cut up, she was bruised, she even had a black eye. Gods, had he done all of that? Why hadn’t she fought back?
She looked close to crying. “Go back to bed,” she said. Although her eyes wavered, not a note in her voice showed anything but composure.
“What’s…where is…” he murmured, finding himself sinking back down to the floor, his mother helping him down. He swallowed, ignoring the burning pain in his shoulder. “DG?”
“She’s fine, and sleeping in her old bedroom. You’re currently in mine, and I’m sleeping in the middle bedroom,” she said, and paused. “Are you really awake?”
“…yes,” he decided, mind too blurry and fuzzy and he was in too much pain to have this not be real. “All okay?”
“Yes, they’re all fine,” Hana sighed. “You, on the other hand, are an idiot. I know you could have dodged a Mobat bite.”
“Hime,” he just said, and didn’t need to say more. Just nodded.
“Not so stupid, then,” she said as he found himself back in bed, shivering. She smacked something onto his shoulder, and it stung, but he didn’t do anything about it. “At this rate, you may even be coherent in a couple days.”
He tried to frown and give her some sort of ‘I’m always coherent’ reply, but then his mom knocked him out with some herbs under his nose, and all he had time for was the thought I hate how she does that when I’m sick to run through his brain before he was out again.
---
“He screams two names,” Hana said, and Cain nearly shot her as he walked into his bedroom door. “Oh, put it away, I’m too old to die from a gunshot.”
He blinked, trying to make sense of that sentence, but Glitch’s mom plowed right along.
“He screams for a lot of things, but there’s only two names he ever screams for - DG, and Cain,” she said, eyes narrowing. “What have you done to my son.”
“What?” Cain asked, honestly confused this time and not just having a random bout of stupidity. “I haven’t done anything to him-”
She slapped him. She slapped him so hard he found himself stumbling into the nearby wall, touching his cheek and feeling that her ring had left a cut. “Right,” he muttered to himself, looking at the gray-haired woman. “Kage.”
“You had to have done something to him,” she snapped. “I hear him screaming to let you go, for you to stop, for you to save yourself, for you to protect Hime, for everything under the sun. And then sometimes I walk in and he’s crying.” Hana glared. “In no way have I ever seen him cry. Even when he faced down Azkadellia herself, threw everything away to do it, including DG’s unwavering devotion, his own safety, turned himself into a walking target for the Sorceress, when he was so broken that he couldn’t even remember which name was him, he never cried. So. Once more. What did you do to my son?”
Cain couldn’t really think of anything to say. He sat down, befuddled, distraught, numb. “I just…I didn’t mean to hurt him if I did, but he was so busy being someone else for everybody that I wanted to let himself be selfish.” He shook his head, a bitter, nostalgic smile on his face. “I wanted him to let someone take care of him instead of the other way around. Well, me taking care of him. I wanted to see him, not a veil that covered him.”
“So you don’t regret it, then,” Hana stated, back in front of the windowsill, looking for all the world like her title, the darkest bit of shadow.
Cain laughed bitterly. “I didn’t until you told me it was hurting him.”
“Who said it was hurting him?” Hana asked, arms crossed, and Cain blinked up at her.
“He’s okay? He…he’s alright?”
She rolled her eyes. “You’re not a doctor, so I’m not even going to try and explain.” She paused, and crouched on the windowsill. “You may come see him after this night, Wyatt Cain, but if you hurt him there will be no end to the pain I will put you through until someone mercifully decides to end your miserable existence.”
“I get to go inside and see him?” Cain gaped, completely ignoring the death threat, but she was already gone. He was stunned. “I get to go see him in the morning.”
Cain settled down, already knowing this was going to be one of the longest nights of his life.
---
The Sorceress circled her, dress clinging in all the right places as her face revealed all the wrong things she was thinking of. “Ambrose is dead, Mother,” she said.
The Queen gasped, horror filling her. “What…how-”
“My poor, precious Zora,” she said, putting a hand to her skin, the area where her center-most tattoo had been that was now nothing but flesh. “Killed him with her dying breath. And thanks to her sacrifice, you have no hope. You have nobody on the outside fighting me. The Resistance is futile. The Tin Men are gone. You have no hope, do you understand?”
The Queen looked down at the ground of her prison, and smiled.
“I understand that you have engineered your own doom quite elegantly, Azkadellia,” she said. “Or Ambrose did. Either way, the end is upon you.”
The Sorceress rolled her eyes. “Not this again, Mother. Don’t you understand? He’s dead-”
“And with his death, you have brought upon yourself a storm,” the Queen said, chin tilting upwards. “You have released a storm so strong and fierce that even your darkest dreams can never do it justice, a storm that will forever be at your back, a storm fueled by not only the wind, but the shadows, and most importantly, the blood you yourself spilled.” She smiled. “A storm is coming, Azkadellia. And it will be heading straight for you.”
Azkadellia stared at her. Her mouth opened, and then shut.
“So you do remember fear,” the Queen said quietly, lavender eyes boring into her.
She swallowed, and her mother smiled, triumphant.
Without another word, the Sorceress slammed her hands together.
---
The moment the sky began to turn pink, Hana was completely unsurprised to find Wyatt Cain standing on her doorstep. He looked like he hadn’t slept at all and loved every minute of it.
“Oh,” she said indifferently, and stepped out, closing the door behind her as she headed for the laundry string, five blankets in her arms.
“Let me help you with those, ma’am,” Cain said, only to get a glare.
“Boy, I was doing my own laundry before you were born and I’m not about to stop doing it on my own just because you offered,” she said, flinging the first blanket up with such grace and ease that Cain realized that honestly, he probably would have just slowed the woman down. “Now, a few rules.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Cain replied immediately. Hana was very proud of herself for not grinning at that.
“Like any honest Kage household, your shoes will be removed inside of the door, before the hardwood. Considering the state of your clothing, you will be required to wear slippers,” Hana stated. “If he asks you to leave, you leave immediately. If Hime feels you should leave, you will leave immediately. If I find you hurting my son or da…or Hime in any way, you will either leave or die. It will most likely be the latter. Do you agree to abide by these rules?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Cain nodded, about ready to start fidgeting and acting like a six year old while she flung the third blanket on the rack, the sky inching into sunlight. “Anything else?”
“I expect your son - Jeb, was it? - to arrive tomorrow evening for training with Hime and I, under pain of visitation rights being revoked for the both of you. And I fully intend to beat you unconscious when doing so will not harm my son’s recovery.”
Cain gaped. “…you’re serious.”
Hana just raised one elegant eyebrow, giving him a Look that was surprisingly similar to the ones he got from DG sometimes. At least now he knew where she got it.
“You have no idea what I’m doing for you, boy,” Hana said, and shook her head, throwing the final blanket onto the line. “Not a bit of Kage in you, too old to learn anything new, too young to be wise, too foolish to realize so many things about the world.”
“What do you mean?” Cain frowned, and Hana turned, drawing herself to her full height and getting as close to looking him square in the eye as she could.
“My son is injured. A Kage mother permitting another unrelated Kage into the house to visit the injured party when they have no professional purpose for being in there means I’m accepting you.” She frowned, suddenly looking much older. “I should have known the fool would be just as idiotic when it came to love, too. At least you’re not a robot.”
Cain pointedly didn’t point out his time in an Iron Suit, what with being busy realizing that going into the house was the equivalent of a kid getting permission to romantically pursue their child.
He paused. “Shoes by the door, right?”
“Shoes by the door,” Hana nodded, giving him a dark look before motioning to the door. “End of the hall. And remember the rules.”
“Of course, ma’am,” Cain said, and paused. “Thank you. I know you don’t like me-”
“What does my caring have to do with either of you?” Hana snapped, glaring. “I take care of my job as his mother. That includes letting him make his own stupid decisions, fixing him up when he throws himself in front of a Mobat, and…accepting things I can’t change.”
Hana was a good liar, but Cain had been an excellent Tin Man. So he nodded, gave her a slight smile, and walked through the door, making extra sure to take his shoes off and pull on a surprisingly comfortable pair of slippers.
“Cain?!” DG gasped, grinning and in the middle of the kitchen wearing nothing but a loose robe. “She let you in! Gods, Cain, she let you inside!”
Being hugged by a girl wearing nothing but a cotton robe was a bit surprising when suffering from extreme anxiety and sleep depravation, which meant he nearly fell down at the sudden weight increase, only stopped when DG herself grabbed him and propped him on his feet. The slippers, he had determined, were comfortable, but dangerously slippery on the bottoms.
“You were waiting all night out there, weren’t you.” DG looked like she really wanted to jump on him and hug him again, but was thankfully restraining herself.
“Which is why I’m going to go and see Glitch before I collapse,” he smiled, and gave her a small hug. “Last door?”
“Last door,” she agreed, and practically shoved him down the hall, grinning.
The door was easily opened, but he had to stare at the catastrophe inside. There were huge gashes in the walls, fist-sized holes like giant bullets riddling parts of the room, and the bed was completely empty and stripped, leaving a dark-haired figure curled on the floor, shoulder nearly fully healed, his head on the pillow that his uninjured arm was wrapped around, a blanket splayed haphazardly over his body.
Cain closed the door behind him, and sat next to Glitch, just looking at him. Glitch’s pack was sitting in the back corner behind the bed, untouched. Glitch himself was wearing nothing but a pair of thin gray pants. There were still pieces of the wall tossed about the floor, but none near the thrown carpet Glitch was sleeping on.
He leaned over, just a bit, and brushed a strand of dark brown hair away from the other man’s eyes. “You’re looking better every time I see you, Sweetheart,” he said wryly, only to find himself dragged down to the floor, right where the pillow was.
“Don’t go,” Glitch murmured, and Cain finally realized why his sleeping position, all curled around a pillow, had been so familiar.
“I never intend to,” he said, and wrapped his arms carefully around Glitch, who made a happy sighing noise, curling against him.
Cain hadn’t slept a bit last night, and just the smell of Glitch, even sick and full of herbs he could never hope to know, was so familiar and comforting that he found himself pulling the blanket over the both of them, tucking Glitch’s head under his own, and drifting off to sleep.
---
He was warm, he could smell Cain nearby, could feel the thin cotton of his shirt, practically taste the other man’s skin-
“- morning, Sweetheart,” Cain’s voice rumbled in his head, and Glitch sighed, leaning into his chest and practically purring.
“You are a fantastic hallucination,” he said, and gave Cain a very very real-feeling kiss. “Even feel real.”
“That’s because I am,” Cain said, that tiny smirky-smile on his face. “How do you feel?”
“No clue. Anesthesia,” he sighed, cuddling even closer. “But you help me feel better. How’s DG?”
“Worried, but fine. Apparently she and Hana are going to be training Jeb,” he said, slightly guilty at how amused he was by the thought of seeing his son thrashed about by the two women.
Glitch’s eyes widened. “She let you in the house.”
“Yes, she did.”
“My Mother let you enter the house, and she’s training your son.”
“…yes, she did.”
Cain’s mouth was suddenly pleasantly, violently attacked by Glitch’s in a kiss that left his toes curled and his eyes half-rolled into the back of his skull, panting as Glitch kissed him, kissed his nose, his chin, his forehead, his ear - pretty much everywhere he could reach without injuring himself.
“I am so happy, Cain,” he whispered, ecstatic, before giving Cain another one of those spectacularly vicious kisses again, even more vicious because he knew that kissing was just about as far as they could get with Glitch injured. “You have no idea what this means, what all of this means, but gods, I hope it wasn’t just sex for you.”
“Definitely not,” Cain managed to get out in a strangled, choked voice, wishing to all that was holy that he had Glitch’s insane amount of restraint of everything imaginable. “Think I love you, actually.”
“Oh, that is fantastic, absolutely wonderful, you have no idea,” Glitch said, kissing him again, uninjured arm grabbing Cain’s neck and deepening the kiss. Cain hadn’t even KNOWN you could deepen a kiss when you were kissing at this level. Oh god, this was torture, sheer torture. “I love you too, which is really really good because you’re kind of part of the family now already.”
“What?” Cain managed to squeak out, trying very, very hard to not just grab Glitch and…and…RESTRAINT, he reminded himself. Injured Glitch. No sex.
God, where was a conveniently placed rock when he NEEDED one?
“…Oh,” Glitch said, and Cain was thanking everything under the suns that he had finally figured out how sadistic, cruel, and vicious he was. “Luckily I’m going to pass out again, so…bathroom’s on the right, first door.” He paused, voice meek. “Come back?”
“Of course,” Cain said, and gave Glitch one more kiss - a very polite, chaste, and subdued one, but that didn’t help much - before having a very uncomfortable walk to the bathroom.
---
“It’ll get better,” DG called from the conveniently placed rock she was sitting on top of, watching Jeb get punched by a fifty-something-year-old woman so hard he went flying into the dirt. “You’ve only been doing this what, a week? I could barely block after a month, and she was going easy on me.”
“You were six,” Jeb muttered, and that earned a grin from both women.
“You already have fighting experience,” Hana said, the smile gone in a flash. “Hime did not. Now, Hime, if you’d assist him?”
“Yes, Hana,” DG said respectfully, and jumped off the rock and moved straight for Jeb, grabbing his hands and showing him what to do. “If you’re boxing, yeah, it’s good to have your fists in front of your face. Not here though. Hands open for now. I’d say try to hit with your elbows and knees for now, just to get your body used to the movements, considering what you’ll probably be doing later on. And if you do hit with your hands, Glitch always says to only clench into a fist when you know you’re about to hurt someone. Kind of like how you only point your gun at someone when you’re willing to kill them. Make sense?”
“Yes,” Jeb said, slightly disturbed by Kage relating their fists to bullets, but knowing better than to bring that up.
“Good,” Hana said, and paused. “Excellently tutored as well, Hime.”
Hime blushed. “…learned from the best,” she said, and retreated back to her rock.
“Now,” Hana said, and moved her feet shoulder-width apart. “Again.”
Jeb attacked, and both of them were pleasantly surprised when she actually had to block his knee before he went flying into the dirt again.
---
Glitch was given a clean bill of health by the time Jeb actually managed to land a hit on Hana. Within five minutes of that statement, however, he almost wished he’d died.
“I want to take the Trial,” DG said firmly, in front of the whole ‘family’ at dinner. Hana and Glitch’s china smashed against the table, shattering. Hana recovered and managed to save at least her soup bowl, but Glitch was just staring at her.
Cain could tell the moment Ambrose took over. “No. You aren’t Kage, and I don’t want you even thinking about going through the Trial,” he snapped. “You’re good, I’ll grant you that, but…people die during the Trial. You have no idea what you’re even asking for. All you’ve heard is the splendor of life as a full Kage, even though you’ve seen that it honestly doesn’t make any difference whatsoever in the long run. All it means is that if the Kage go to war, you go with them. No, Hime, you are NOT taking the Trial.”
She glared at him. “When I was eleven-”
“I lied to you!” Ambrose snapped, slamming his hands onto the table. “I told you a half-truth that you think was a lie. And I don’t regret it, so don’t even think you can play some sort of guilt card on me. I’m your legal sponsor, and I say no.”
“I thought Hana was my legal sponsor-”
“Spiral changed that,” Hana said simply, and poured two cups of tea, handing one to Ambrose, who swallowed the searing liquid in one gulp like a shot of vodka. “His decision is the one you abide by, in the end.”
“In the end?”
“You’ve got a week to convince me otherwise when you ask,” Ambrose muttered, and stood up from the table. “If you’ll excuse me, I’m not feeling too well anymore.”
But as soon as he slammed his bedroom door shut, Hana started talking. Fast.
“He’s telling you the truth, but I think you should have taken the Trial before you even left us,” she said. “The fool’s terrified of the actual Trial, considering what it is, and he doesn’t want to see you hurt. You can’t convince him you can take care of yourself, I assure you, so try any and all forms of coercion. I will try and help you rein in the idiot, but you know how stupid he can be.”
“I’ll help,” Jeb supplied, and DG nodded. “In fact, we’ll both help, won’t we Dad?”
Cain blinked. “What?”
“Ohhhhh,” DG said, eyes widening.
It finally clicked. Cain went pale. “No.”
“Dad, you heard her story. She’s been waiting for this for nine years, and you’re going to refuse to help her? What about all the stories-”
“I am NOT doing that to him,” he said, shaking his head.
“He did it to you,” DG said dryly, and Cain blinked, dumbfounded. “How long was he recovering, Cain?”
“That was different,” he growled.
“But still a good point,” Jeb added. “What’s another week, Dad? You’ve been doing well enough.”
“But - ”
“Wyatt Cain, I told you that if you hurt Hime in any way I’d throw you out of the house,” Hana said, and sipped her tea.
“You also said if I hurt Glitch you’d throw me out.”
“You’re not hurting Glitch, you’re hurting my family’s pride, honor, and legacy,” Hana stated. “Agree to help, or I will at the very least restrict you from his bedroom, forcing you to help whether you want to or not.”
Cain sighed, and drank his gods-cursed tea. He’d really, really been looking forward to tonight.
---
“Where have you been?” Glitch said, giving Cain a heart attack when he just suddenly APPEARED, pouting, only two days into the week.
“…I’ve been busy,” he said, knowing he was a horrible, horrible liar, especially when it came to Glitch. So he cleared his throat, and looked him squarely in the eye. “I’ve been busy trying to help DG get you to say yes.”
His expression darkened. “You’re asking me to put her in danger.”
“What else have your lives been?” Cain said, glaring…and then pausing to kiss Glitch, who backed him up against a wall and nearly gave him a concussion with all the kissing and the groping and…yeah, he’d missed this.
But then he pushed Glitch away, feeling like he was tearing a hole in his heart when he saw the stunned, hurt look on his face. “But-”
“Let her make her own decisions,” he said. “I’ve had to accept that with Jeb, you need to accept that with DG. She’s 20 now. Let her be an adult.”
Walking away was even harder.
---
“You’re a worthless, disgraceful son,” Hana said the moment Glitch had taken off his shoes.
He paused. “…that was strangely unsurprising,” he muttered to himself.
“If you refuse to let Hime take the Trial when she has taken this long, been this patient, and this well trained, I’ll refuse to acknowledge you,” Hana stated, and walked out the door.
It was the fourth day, and he knew she’d only just started with it.
---
“You’ve been training me my whole life.”
“ALMOST your whole life, remember Hime?”
“You’ve sparred with me a thousand times!”
“More than a thousand, and that’s half the problem.”
“What?”
“The answer’s still no.”
Except it was getting damn lonely in his bedroom, he couldn’t sleep, and every moment he was near his mother he was getting lashed by a tongue so sharp it was practically a knife slicing into his back. But they only had two days left. He could take it for two more days, right?
---
Sixth day, and his mother was sitting next to him on the floor when he woke up.
“I don’t want you to do this to her,” she said quietly. “You know how badly she wants it.”
“And you know exactly why I can’t do it.”
“I did it. Your grandfather did it. If you can tell me you hold a grudge against me for the Trial-”
“Mother, you know I-”
“NO parent wants the Trial,” she snapped. “No brother, no uncle, no grandfather, no father, no mother. It’s torture for us, but what you are doing is only selfishness. You have been living your life protecting her. Now it’s time to let her protect herself.” She paused, looking down at the floor. “And your Cain says he already tries to let you be selfish. One man is enough. Leave your heart behind and let Princess go through with it.”
---
It was the afternoon of the sixth day when Glitch walked into one of DG and Jeb’s sessions, face completely blank.
“Ritual dictates you wear black,” he said. “Hana will help you with that.” He paused, shoulders slumped. “Your trial is in two days. Also according to ritual, you will only be out of the house when the sun is up.”
“Thank you,” DG whispered, as he walked away.
“Gods forgive me,” Glitch said, feeling like his heart was shattering at the love in those words.
---
As soon as word traveled to Cain, he went after Glitch, only to be stopped by Hana as soon as he stepped out the front door.
“Unless you’re willing to shoot at him, don’t even try to find my son,” she said darkly.
“But-” Cain tried to begin, but found himself being punched in the face so hard it almost felt like he’d had a tooth dislodged.
“You will not go near my son for these two days, Wyatt Cain,” she hissed so vehemently that he actually backed away. “Besides, he’s not even in the house. Go find your son. Hug him. Ask about his day. Tell him you love him. But don’t even try to go near my son, Wyatt Cain, or you will die.”
“Yes ma’am,” he said quietly, seeing the hurt she was trying so hard to hide, and wondering what exactly she’d done that had managed to change Glitch’s mind in just one morning.
And when Jeb came back into their house, sweaty and smiling, he did just that.
---
They came at him, fangs out, ready for the kill. He spun, he crushed, he twisted, he attacked. He came in for the kill too. One was stronger than the others. His two knives - Father, Grandfather - slashed into it. Blood splashed against his outfit, against his skin.
But he wasn’t done. They were still out there, lurking.
None had even scratched him. There was no pain. There was nothing to take care of.
He moved forward.
---
“FASTER, Hime,” Hana snapped, and DG tried to, really did, her staff spinning at a speed practically unheard of as she slammed into Kage after Kage, beating them back, twisting the staff behind her and then in front, the onslaught making her feel like she was breathing acid. “I said FASTER.”
The flood of Kage continued rushing her, and she kept fighting, knowing as soon as one of those white-powdered weapons touched a bit of her, the Trial was gone, she wouldn’t even reach it.
She shifted her grip from the middle of the staff to the end, twisting it around her head and smashing it into the Kage, blowing the ranks apart, trying to hold back the magic twisting through her body, screaming for release. This was combat, there would be no magic. She refused to cheat.
“Enough,” Hana said, and DG gasped, her breath almost painful after two hours of this. “You’re ready.”
---
“As accepted family, you get to observe,” Hana said, DG standing a cautious distance behind her wearing tight black pants and top, hair in a black hair tie that kept her vision as clear as it would get.
“How do we observe?” Cain frowned.
Hana shook her head. “Since neither of you can ever be full Kage or attempt the Trial, you may observe from the same area as myself and the Elders.”
“We’re grateful,” Jeb said, and earned a nod from Hana.
“Hime, you know where to go. Cains, follow.”
---
The Trial took place in a big blocky building, bright red columns inside what they called The Court, although it honestly looked more like an atrium to Cain. They’d gone in by a small third entrance - there were three of them, one in the side that led to the flight of stairs they’d walked up and found themselves finding spots on the raised circle that gave a full view of the Court below. The other was a black door that they’d left DG in front of, and the third was a pure white door that went into what looked more or less like a big concrete box. In the Court, they could see there was a corresponding pure white door that would face DG’s entrance.
Hana had left them to sit in one of the big raised chairs in the four corners, so they’d claimed a spot near the middle.
Somewhere, a gong rang, twenty times. Her age. More people filed in during the gong, taking spots around the banister, silent.
“Don’t judge them,” Hana had said before they went up the stairs, and hadn’t chosen to explain herself.
The black doors opened wide, and DG walked in, looking around cautiously, staff still in its collapsed form, and the doors smashed shut behind her with enough force that it hurt the ears.
“Do you come of your own free will?” One of the chair people called out - Cain had been expecting Kageri, but it was the common tongue, to his surprise. DG seemed surprised too, but answered with a yes.
“Do you feel yourself ready to face the Trial?” Another one of the chair people called out, and got a yes again.
“Do you agree that, should you not fail, you will be forever Kage?” Another yes.
Hana’s voice was choked, but she spoke. “Do you believe yourself strong enough in your soul to face any challenge you may face?”
DG seemed confused by that question, but said yes anyway.
“Then let the Trial begin,” Hime said, and the white doors opened. Steam - no, Cain amended, some sort of vaporous herb - came out before anything. DG flicked her staff to the ready, only to freeze.
Out of the door strode a bloody, dark Glitch, wearing an outfit that Cain was stunned to recognize as the thing he’d been wearing when they first met. His head was down, and two very different knives were in his hands. He recognized one as the weapon used on him while DG had been, ah, drawing, but the other was nothing but elegant death.
“…Glitch?” DG whispered, and his head rolled from one shoulder to another. “Gods, Glitch, are you in there-”
“BEGIN,” Hana roared, and that was all the warning anyone got. Glitch launched himself at DG, who was doing her best to fend him off but not hurt him, staff blocking the knives, only for the man to drop the knives, spin over her staff, and kick her straight in the face, rolling her onto the ground.
There was no Glitch in there. There wasn’t a single one of his names in that man, except for Spiral, and even that was questionable. Spiral was a cautious, analytical style that, while fast, could be faster if he stopped thinking. This was that with all the cautions stripped aside, leaving nothing but a deadly, brutal monster.
Cain could see DG was losing, and all because she wasn’t attacking. She was just fending off attack after attack and being beaten bloody by the man she cared about most in the entire world, talking to him the entire time, trying to reason, trying to get her Glitch back, saying something about ‘just take the coat off’, but the creature wasn’t listening. Just kept attacking. Kept hurting her.
And with a sick twist in his stomach, Cain realized that Glitch was toying with her.
“We hurt the ones we love,” one of the chair people shouted out.
“I DON’T!” DG snapped, finally shoving Glitch away - the first hint of an offense she’d put up through the whole thing.
“We hurt ourselves in the fight,” another one shouted.
“I am NOT HURTING HIM,” DG practically roared, smacking Glitch aside and towards one of the red poles, which he…walked up and backflipped off of, slicing at her back, the attack barely avoided with her staff.
“We hurt everything around us,” yet another chair person shouted.
Which was disturbingly poignant, considering at that very moment Glitch had grabbed her staff and, in twenty seconds, had turned it into nothing but tube after tube of metal, laughing maniacally.
“We always hurt,” Hana shouted, fast and desperately.
Glitch froze, both knives poised next to her throat, ready to slice right through.
“…DG?” he whispered, and backed aside, backed into a pole, dropping the knives in horror and twisting his hands into his hair. “Oh gods, DG, DG, my DG…!”
He screamed, pulling at his hair, and Cain didn’t have to be there to see the tears streaming down his face. DG suddenly swooping down and holding him tightly did that.
“Your restraint shows your humanity,” one chair person said. Cain felt like shooting them all.
“Your defense shows your ability,” the next one said.
“And your determination shows your strength,” the third says.
Hana looked her age for once. “We acknowledge you as a full Kage. What is your technique’s name, so that it may be recorded in the archives and recognized by the shadows throughout the OZ.”
Glitch was still crying, DG rocking him back and forth, like it had always been her taking care of him and not the other way around.
“Cyclone,” she snapped at them, glaring. Cain was slightly surprised she wasn’t ripping the building down with magic. Then again, he wasn’t shooting anyone either, so he understood the feeling. “This is why he didn’t want to do it. This is why, and you HELPED ME MAKE HIM DO IT.”
“Cyclone is acknowledged and confirmed as a true Kage,” Hana said, head bowed. “The Mark.”
She didn’t even scream when they pulled her shirt up and tattooed the mark on her body, just kept looking over at Glitch, tears in her eyes.
Cain couldn’t take any more of it. Without saying a word, he walked past Hana and down the stairs, wishing he’d never even heard of the Trial.
---
Also, next chapter is going to be out very very soon. This is actually HALF OF WHAT I WROTE. No, I am not joking. We were going on 40+ pages for this chapter. SO YOU GET 2/3 OF IT.