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"Baiken!”
This was not the first time Anji had woken her up like this- that was, way before the ass-crack of dawn and screaming loud enough to wake the devil- and, needless to say, she was just as enthusiastic about it this time than she had been the last time. Actually, moreso, because she knew there was a very good chance that this was going to be some petty shit that absolutely could have waited until morning.
She rolled back over in bed. Anji could handle this by himself. And in the small probability he couldn’t, he could wait until the sun was up.
“Baiken!” Anji shouted again, and went ignored again. “Augh, c’mon! I dunno what to do here!”
Pulling the sheets over her head didn’t muffle it much. Anji just kept shouting. Damn it, was she really going to cave just because he kept whining? Was she really that impatient?
“Baiken- !”
The samurai was up and out of bed within ten seconds, and despised each and every one of them. She slung the harness of her prosthetic over her shoulder, in case this was a job that needed something smashed up. Sonuvabitch better have been grateful, whatever broken glass or splinter or wild animal in the tent or whatever he’d gotten himself into must have been damn important to justify this bullshit.
“Fuck’s sake-” She growled under her breath, pushing away the tent divider that sectioned off her room. “Alright, Anji, you win. I’ll bite. What the hell are you screaming about?”
This time, Anji said nothing. Actually, he wasn’t even in his room. Where the hell had he gone?
Baiken groaned. “Go to all this trouble to get my ass out of bed, then you fuckin’ vanish? You’re asking me to kick your ass now.”
If he hadn’t come into her side of the tent, then he must have gone out the other side. The second flap was yanked back even harsher than the first, and it was a wonder she didn’t tear the fabric in two. For the most part, the only reason she didn’t was from something wet staining it, enough so that the material was slick and slipped out of her fingers with enough force.
She wiped her hand off on her sleeve. “Can’t even keep his own goddamn tent clean, grown-ass idiot still acts like a teenage-”
There was a dark smear on her clothes now. The stain on the tent was dark, as well. Though it was hard to see in the dark, when she sniffed her hand, there was a clear coppery stench.
Baiken was far past the point where the sight and scent of blood made her recoil and scream, but she didn’t disregard it. Shrill screaming, and bloodstains on the tent. Anji nowhere to be found. This wasn’t something where she could just turn around and go back to bed.
First things first, take stock. Was everyone else safe? Anyone else missing? Anji wouldn’t just pull something like this for a joke. Trickster or not, he knew enough not to go too far with it. If only because he knew she’d cut him in half for it after the fact. The blood had come from somewhere, and it was something serious enough that Anji would be shouting over it. She had that much to go on.
At the thought of danger, her first instinct was to check on Delilah. Sure, the kid had magic, but she was still a kid. Baiken didn’t want her at risk. Once she was sure Delilah was okay, she could worry about Anji.
On the way to her tent, she spotted another smear of blood on the grass. It was small, but it was enough to give her pause. That wasn’t…it wasn’t Delilah’s, was it? It had to be Anji’s? Wasn’t that the most rational answer?
She didn’t have much time to dwell on it. Somewhere nearby, in the direction of Delilah’s bed, she could make out a sound somewhere between a wet hiccup and a retch. It had Baiken running at full speed almost immediately. “Delilah?!”
“Wh- Baiken!” Not the kid’s voice, but Anji’s, and thank fuck for that. Only so many crises to be dealt with at once. But…well, crisis did feel like a good descriptor. As soon as she barged in, she saw her old friend as fine and normal as ever, but Delilah was an absolute mess, barely breathing through the shoulder-shaking sobs. Her face and the front of her clothes were doused in blood, which Anji was desperately trying to staunch with a fistful of gauze.
“What the hell happened to her?” Baiken practically snarled, ready to maul whoever was responsible. “Who did this?!”
“Baiken- Baiken, easy, hold it.” Anji threw up an arm to placate her, keeping the other to continue mopping up the blood. “It’s just a bloody nose- a really bad one, but she’s not hurt.”
The samurai was quiet for a moment. Upon second glance, it was easy to see that there weren’t any cuts or scrapes. But Delilah was still inconsolable.
As much as she didn’t want to come across as judgemental, it still bled through. “Jeez, kid, you’re this torn up about a bloody nose? It doesn’t last long, and the stains come out. No need to get worked up about it.”
Her words weren’t helpful. Anji shot her a frustrated look before Delilah fell into another round of wails. She tried to take a breath in but choked on it, coughing and wheezing until Anji gave her a few thumps on the back.
“Come on, talk to me.” He said. “What do you need?”
“Did she wake you up?” Asked Baiken.
“Came to my tent. Couldn’t get a word out, but between the crying and all the blood on her, wasn’t exactly hard to tell something was up, but…”
But he couldn’t figure out what it was. The rest of it was plain to see.
Why was he looking at her? Did he want her to apologize? What exactly did he…oh…oh no…
“You know I’m shit at this,” Baiken said, just loud enough for Anji to hear.
He nodded. “But you’re better at it than me.”
Well, that was just a bald-faced lie. If anyone was good at making people feel good, it was Anji. Granted, that was usually just to butter them up enough to shmooze out a favor, or to get someone’s confidence up before whipping out some dug-up secret juicy enough to extort them. Anji was practically the king of pretty words. What he thought she could possibly do better, she was at a total loss.
Still, she knew he’d just be persistent if she didn’t step in. Baiken found a spot on the other side of the bed and perched near the edge. Delilah immediately swiveled in her direction, looking up with big, wet eyes.
“S-s-s-”
“Worry about breathing before you try saying anything. D’ya feel dizzy? Don’t talk, just gimme a nod or a shake.”
Delilah nodded. “‘Kay, put your head a little lower, closer to your knees. Might feel a little tighter, but it’ll help the blood flow back up. Should help with the bleeding, too.”
Anji helped her down, pinching the gauze over her nose all the while. He sent Baiken an uncertain look, but she remained unshaken.
“Good. Keep doing that. Don’t forget about breathing. Nothing wrong with your chest, y’ didn’t break anything, it just feels tight ‘cause you’re panicking. Give it a minute.”
The tent fell quiet, aside from Delilah’s harsh breaths. Baiken let her attention go elsewhere for a moment, eye skimming over the messy bed and the little shelf nearby. From the latter, she swiped a long, thin piece of rope.
When the breathing started smoothing around the edges, Baiken slid in a little closer. “Surprised you’ve still got this thing. Guess it means you like it, huh? Here. This help?”
Without a word, or a nod, or any kind of acknowledgment, Delilah took the frayed rope and wound it around her fingers. She thumbed over the strands, tugging every so often in a pattern that only existed in her mind. Whatever it was, it worked well enough. Though she was audibly hoarse, she at least managed a sigh in between staccato breaths.
“There, see? You ain’t dying. Maybe tomorrow.”
“Baiken!” Anji said, with horror in his eyes.
Despite that, there was a little sniffly giggle in between them. Delilah wiped one red eye with the heel of her hand, while the other continued to tangle the rope. She sat back up, clearly shaken, but stable for now.
“Hey, you still bleeding?” Anji pulled the gauze away. “Ah, looks like it’s finally clotted. I’ll go grab something you can wipe your face with.”
It was obvious this was another ploy of his, but Baiken just sighed and went along with it. She watched Delilah pull her legs to where Anji had been sitting and curled up at Baiken’s side.
She didn’t say anything at first. She didn’t know what to say. Polite niceties, like Anji’s? Sure, her usual brusqueness had done the job in the past, for the most part, but Delilah had been angry then, not crying her eyes out. Completely different situations.
A thought struck her. “So what’s got you up this late? Bad dream?”
The girl at her side nodded. “Mmhm.”
“It the freaky kind, or the bad-memory kind?”
That earned her another little laugh. “The- the last one. If it was just something weird, I wouldn’t be crying. I’m not a little kid.” Her voice turned brittle again. “Do you still get nightmares? About old stuff?”
“Sometimes.”
“You don’t cry, though.”
“I mean, it ain’t real.”
Delilah paused in thought, winding the rope so tightly around her thumb that it started turning red. “It still feels real.”
“Huh. That bad.” Something was amiss here, even beyond the oddity of the evening, but Baiken wasn’t sure what. “Y’know, I’ve never seen a nightmare bad enough that it gave someone a nosebleed.”
She felt Delilah flinch, but didn’t comment on it. She didn’t even look down.
“It…” The girl swallowed. “It wasn’t all that bad.”
“Y’ can’t say that after waking me up like this. C’mon, if it ain’t that, then what is it?”
More silence. “Mattie always made the nightmares go away…” She hiccuped. “He had a song…I don’t remember it. He’d sing it when I had nightmares. I woke up, and when I realized he wasn’t coming, I tried to sing it to myself to calm down, and- and I couldn’t remember how any of the words went, and when I went to go out and get more air outside I hit my head on the pole- ”
“Okay, okay, slow down, don’t set yourself off again.” This was exactly the sort of thing Baiken knew she wasn’t good at, and all she could think to do was let her hand rest on Delilah’s shoulder and try not to let her lack of confidence show.
“Do you…did you have any siblings?”
“Nah. I was more than enough trouble on my own.”
“For your parents, you mean? What were their names?”
For a moment, Baiken debated whether or not to answer. And when she decided, the memories came up weathered and rusty, like an old ship at the bottom of the sea.
“Ryuko and Kimura.”
Something about the way Delilah’s lower lip curled felt like an attack before she could even say anything. “That took you a while. Did you forget?”
This was veering into a territory that Baiken was very much not happy to be in. She tried to rein in the way her mind was urging her to lash out in response. “Some days are fuzzier.”
Though her face didn’t wrench up and her eyes didn’t start to run again, something about Delilah’s face was devastated by that.
“What about it?”
“You and him moved on.” Baiken assumed ‘him’ was Anji. “And the two of us were supposed to move on.”
She wasn’t quite following Delilah’s train of thought. “Yeah. And?”
The girl shook her head. “You moved on. You forgot. Is that how it gets better?”
Baiken couldn’t think of anything else than to shrug. “Maybe.”
“Then I’m a lost cause.”
“...Alright, wherever the fuck you think you’re going with this, I’m not letting it get any further, get it?” And just like that, it set something off. Familiar anger, maybe not with Delilah herself but with whatever sentiment this was supposed to be. How strange it was, when she thought about it, how little ago would she have just heard something like that and not given a shit? She wasn’t a person made for philosophical debates, how the hell had she ended up here, in a tent comforting a child over her personal problems?
There was no anger in Delilah’s eyes, not even any sadness. Just resignation. “Mattie was my whole world. I can’t forget him. I can’t be like you. I can’t do what I promised you.”
The tightly-wound rope had been on so long that it was turning the girl’s fingers purple and cold. Baiken reached over and untangled it.
“Okay, so what did that promise have anything to do with any of this?”
There was a little high-pitched sound, almost a question, but not a word.
“It was vengeance.” Replied Baiken. “Just vengeance. That’s it. All there was to it.”
“But…” Despite the interjection, Delilah made it obvious she had no real refutation.
“You’re not planning on changing your mind and blowing someone’s head off, right?”
“I-I- no, but-”
“But nothing, then. Look,” the samurai moved her hand to rub at her temples. “I’m not good at this shit. So I’m just gonna hope I can get this across without being here all night. I don’t want you to be like me. I don’t want anyone to be like me, but especially not you. However I feel about my home, or my family, or whatever- that has nothing to you. You can hold onto whatever you gotta keep.”
Delilah shifted in place. “So, like a crutch. You want me to use it like a crutch, until I can get over it.”
“Fuck, kid, no, that ain’t it at all. It’s…” Baiken tried to ward off the headache that was brewing, from a combination of frustration and sleep deprivation. “Listen. Don’t tell Anji I said this, but y’know why he’s so into fans? The whole dancing shtick he just won’t ever fucking drop? It reminds him of home. He collects the damn things- most of ‘em are just normal fans, he’s not suicidally overconfident enough to steal every magic fan he could get his paws on, but all of ‘em are Japanese crafts. Most of ‘em worth a damn fortune, he could sell the things and live off of that forever, but that’s how he copes. Dancing around and collecting fucking fans. Keeping mementos of a place that’s a fucking hole in the ocean now. Been at it a hundred years, you think he’s gonna get over it anytime soon?”
She only realized in hindsight how intense her words had come out. But Delilah wasn’t teary-eyed again- if anything, she was more at ease than she had been the whole time before.
Baiken put her hand back on her shoulder. “Everyone gets by somehow. If it’s collecting fans, fine. If it’s holding onto the good memories of your brother, fine. Life’s a fucking shitshow, so you keep what you need to put up with it. As long as you’re not blowing up heads, you don’t gotta justify anything. Got it?”
It took a few seconds, but she finally got a quiet little ‘okay’ murmured into her ribs. While she wasn’t one for hugs, even ignoring the one arm, Baiken gave her the closest thing she was willing, a little squeeze with her arm still around Delilah.
Anji, conveniently- too conveniently, as always- just so happened to come bustling back in with a wet rag.
“Goodness, that took way too long! So sorry for the wait, Delilah, you must be going crazy by now.” He knelt down and started dabbing at the line of her jaw, still spotted with rusty flakes. “Here, I’ll get it. Can you turn your head a little? I know this has gotta be driving you up the wall.”
“...Actually, I forgot about it.” When she moved to sit up, something about the girl’s posture was like a ragdoll, unable to properly support itself without drooping over. “There’s not much, is there? I wanna go to sleep…”
“Wh- all that effort spent looking around, and for what!” Anji said, in a voice that was so cartoonishly overwrought that it almost looped back into seriousness. “Well, if you’re so insistent, then perhaps I should just go back to bed, myself!”
“If it means you’ll shut your goddamn trap, then great.” Baiken gave Delilah’s hair a fatherly ruffle and Anji’s a warning smack. “Think you’ll be okay, kid? Need me to stick around?”
Delilah shook her head sluggishly. “Nnnh. Thanks, big sis. Sorry.”
“Don’t.” She replied with an offhand shrug. “Guess it’s good to keep me on my toes. Vengeance or not, I sure as fuck don’t want to get rusty.”
Anji eyed her oddly. “Rusty? Ah, and every time I think you’ve started to soften, Baiken…”
“Listen, Anji, there’s being ‘soft,’ and then there’s being fucking domestic.”
“Well, for as much as you say that,” he paused, just long enough to be annoying, “you seem quite the natural.”
On any other day, she would have decked him so hard that his nose would have fused to the back of his skull, but for now, she just clocked him over the head again. “Don’t push it, Anji.”