Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

March 5th.

Carpaccio wasn’t sure what to feel at his loss towards Mash. There was initial tension in the air surrounding the innocent zero situation, most students quietly whispering about it and pondering their own future moves carefully. Their resounding silence was felt throughout the entire school. The singers were a collective and Carpaccio was part of them but he was singing a different chorus. His own voice drowned out by the hundreds of other singers. Despite this, he could hear himself clearly. The moments of his defeat playing out clearly in his mind and the few moments after he awoke at the infirmary were some of the scariest moments of his life. The immense pressure rang through his ears indefinitely. 

Though all of the students talked about innocent zero, some found time to speculate about Carpaccio’s exploits during the exam. He noticed he was getting more stares than usual. That was only to be expected after they saw what he had done but even still. He gave them all his usual silent stare as if to say ‘ I know what I did, you don’t have to stare’. And that seemed to scare them off usually so he thought himself fine but unlike what he expected, they didn’t back off. In fact, they seemed more determined to stare, well not stare exactly but… “Hey. Carpaccio. Come here.” he didn’t know exactly what they were planning but didn’t intend to play along so he shot them one last mean glance and kept walking.

He knew people like them weren’t ones to really chase after him but it appeared he underestimated them once again, a bad habit he had with his opponents. “Grateis” was shouted and his feet were entrapped in vines.” Hey Carpaccio. Care to talk.” he wasn’t asking him and he didn’t wait for a response “good good. Let’s go then.” the person he was with moved his vines to the flow of the leaders place and soon they arrived in an isolated room. Carpaccio’s feet were still trapped so he had no way to move. He waited for them to speak and was sure they were going to berate him but he was wrong yet again. He felt a pressure come and go against his back and he glanced over his shoulder to look. The main guy was gripping his fist tightly ‘I see.’ “you didn’t watch the fight at all did you.” the guy's face grimaced and he opened his mouth only to get punched in his backside. “Shut up!” the other guy yelled ‘enhance’ and the grip tightened so much so as to draw blood. “Neither of you did it seems.” the guy yelled down in horror at his shins noting how much they were bleeding. In his focus on his own pain, he let carpaccio free. 

Carpaccio didn’t really know what to do next though. In his inactivity, he allowed more people to arrive. It was the worst possible people too, Finn and Mash. As soon as they spotted him both looked more on guard but he showed no reaction. “Carpaccio what are you doing to them?!” Finn exclaimed. Mash got into a fighting position but Carpaccio made no move to attack. He turned towards them and said “Take them to the infirmary. Tell the nurse that Carpaccio did it. She’ll understand.” they both froze from their battle positions in shock barely realizing he had already walked out.

‘ Why must people be so brash. I don’t get it. They were walking into their own loss with that why would they–’ he hadn’t realized it but his hands had been shaking, twitching, and bending in all different directions. Finn and Mash stopped outside to watch as he walked away but they noticed his untimely stop and pondered if he regretted his decision or not. The unconscious shaking ended as soon as he finally saw black and passed out. “Huh?”

To say Mash and Finn weren’t frightened of what he did to them would be a lie but they both realized he and the other two needed to be moved to the infirmary so they silently agreed to help. “I'll take Carpaccio and the one who can’t walk. You help the other guy, Finn.” Finn nodded and grabbed the other man’s hand and the two of them dragged the three all the way to the infirmary. 

“He said to tell you that carpaccio did it. I don’t get why he would want to take blame for it though.”

The nurse turned towards the unconscious body as she dressed the two’s wounds “I guess it’s a sort of code that he developed. He isn’t very liked and after the exam he isn't doing any better. So fights are often picked with him.”

“Those fights are never won are they?” Finn asked.

“They’re not.”

Mash was still confused about something so he broke his stoic silence asking “So why’d he just pass out?”

“Oh, that’s pretty common for him actually. Other Orca dorm members and I have asked him to take better care of himself but he never seems to listen.”

“If he doesn’t feel pain does that mean he doesn’t feel exhaustion?”

The nurse put a finger to her chin “You know, that might actually be it. I’ve never asked him.” The nurse glanced at the clock and realized “Your next class is soon. You two need to get going.”

The two appeared to protest saying “We still have some time—“The nurse shot them a nasty glare and they took the hint. Finn dragging Mash out of the room. 

“Better call Margarette, they should be off next period right?”

Carpaccio awoke to see Margarette sitting next him, their usual smile adorning their face. “You’re awake. The nurse told me about it.”

 They sighed their tiredness visible even in Carpaccio’s sleepy state. ”honestly, you should know better by now. How many more times must we play this game?” Carpaccio looked down, not wanting to meet their gaze. 

“Look. We’re just worried about you. Please try to take care.” He didn’t respond. They gave him a pat on the head and walked out. “Huh.”

The nurse wasn’t in so he did what he usually did when the nurse wasn’t here to scold him, he left. After that it was business as usual for him. He wanted to work some more on his research but he figured an orange would do him some good so he walked back to his dorm and grabbed one. On his way to the library however he noticed something strange. 

An older man was walking through their halls who was not any teacher he recognized. The man shot him a quick glance and he gave no reaction ‘What’s a cop doing here.’ He chose to ignore the man in favor of his research. He picked up several books on pain and magic and sat down, peeling his orange and reading his books.

He finished his reading late in the night and went back to his dorm. He got ready to sleep but as he laid down he thought back to the strange man he saw walking the halls. ‘Unless someone committed some major crime, there would be no need for one to come here. Campus police would take care of it normally, so what happened?’ His rampant curiosity didn’t quell but he couldn't figure out any decisive reason for it so he just decided to sleep.

His questions were answered the following morning though, on March 6th. Two girls were standing in front of their lockers taking out their textbooks “Have you seen Kara?” The other girl shut her locker “No. Weren’t you able to call  her yesterday?” She swayed her head from side to side “Then where the hell is that girl?” His thoughts moved back to the cop and he had the sneaking suspicion that they were related. 

He finished his class normally but was confused to come outside and find everyone whispering again. You could cut the tension in the hall with a butter knife, it was worse than after the divine visionary candidate exam. He walked past the people who attacked him the day before and noted that they hadn’t noticed him at all. It seemed they were so focused that they couldn’t even think about their quarrel from yesterday. He was glad of course but still was confused. He focused his ears on the rest of the hallway and listened, aiming to figure out what was going on.

“Where did she go, do you think she—“ he turned his head to a different side of the hall.

“Did you hear the rumors?”

“What rumors?”

“You really don’t know? There’s so many policemen coming to campus. Do you think…”

‘ So that must have just been an officer that came earlier than the rest. But the girl, Is she—‘

“Missing?” He didn’t mean to say that part aloud but when he did he got some weird stares from other students. “Oh.” He sped to his next class and sat down immediately. This class was affected as well though as no one spoke a word. Only small groups spoke at all and it was to just whisper about the situation. Their professor was elated at their silence for once so she taught happily but, by the end of it, she was also overtaken by the dreadful atmosphere.

The days dreaded on and the atmosphere didn’t improve at all. In fact, it went farther down. When Carpaccio first roamed the halls, it was only talk of a girl named Kara who had gone missing, but now, on March 8th, it extended to other people. A male’s name came up early on, a Jack. Carpaccio guessed that he likely disappeared before Kara but they didn’t figure he did until much later.

Then the names began to pile. It started small at first, one every week or so. And then it became weekly then daily. Then… the divine visionaries were called. Rayne Ames was already pretty present in their school, but now he was completely allowed out of all classes he was taking in favor of the investigation. He could often be seen surveying the halls. 

April 16th

One time he even encountered Rayne in his off period. He was going to do his usual thing, grab a fruit from his room, and do some more research in the library but Rayne stopped him. “What are you doing out here?” he gave the red-head an irritated look but kept his priorities straight as he knew that the disappearances were more important than some grudge he held against Carpaccio.

“going to the library.” 

“To do what exactly? Look I don’t want to have to suspect a student here of doing this but if there were a list you would be high up there.”

Carpaccio didn’t look back “I know you hold grudges but don’t put my profile any higher than any other student because of them.” he knew apologizing wouldn’t do much here and this would likely piss off Rayne more but chose this option because he knew making himself vulnerable would be a bad idea. Even explaining his ‘new’ mentality nowadays wouldn’t do anything.

Rayne seemed to respect his response though as he didn’t pursue further as Carpaccio walked to the library. 

Other than Rayne, it seems Ryoh Grantz decided to try his hand at the investigation. He was mostly there to lift the mood though. The faculty were starting to get very concerned for the student's well-being, both physically and mentally. Bringing Ryoh in would help lighten the mood a bit was their idea. Ryoh was always a hero to the people and could bring joy to them regardless of how bad the situation was. Still, it remained tense.

Rumors of Innocent Zero moving again due to the academy’s current state. It was starting to become a full-blown panic.

Carpaccio wasn’t worried for himself, he knew he was capable if he happened to have been targeted but he was still wary.

Unfortunately for him, what happened to the people going missing was something completely out of their control. The amount of strength one had to combat the threat didn’t matter because they weren’t being murdered or held hostage like some thought, they were being transported.

April 21st

As he awoke for the final time at Easton Academy he noted that today, everything seemed quiet. Sure, most people wouldn’t really be willing to talk in this trying time but something seemed missing. The usual chirping of the birds was absent. He got on his robe and went toward his first class of the day. He couldn’t hear anything. There were no footsteps in the hallway as students walked by, nor were there the quiet whispers he had grown used to use. Then his ears started to ring. It was a quiet flat line at first. He tried to pay attention to what the teacher was saying throughout the lecture but he couldn’t hear a thing.

The bell rang to go to his next class but he only picked up that it was time to go when the other students started to retreat to their next classes. Then the ringing got louder. He stood in the hallway but he couldn’t move. The ringing completely distracted him from anything and he stopped in the middle of the hallway. People were trying to get him to move but he couldn’t hear them. Their feet only being black silhouettes in his vision.

‘ Wha-what is this?’

As soon as he blinked, the ringing stopped. Suddenly there were a lot more people in the hallway. 

 “What are you doing? Get moving!” he put a hand on his ear and muttered a small ‘sorry’ to them as he left.

Throughout the rest of the day, he couldn’t get himself to focus at all. Everything was a hazy blur. It was similar to how he felt before he experienced pain, but it was worse. He couldn’t even bring himself to eat or research in the library like usual. 

He decided to lie down early today, figuring that his body's exhaustion levels were particularly high today. He read the time on his clock 5:02. And passed out.

Unfortunately, that was a bad call to make.

April 27th

A new case was being heard for one Carpaccio Luo-Yang. 

“He lives alone in his dorm so his absence went unseen for longer than expected.”

“I thought every continuing student had to have a new transfer student rooming with them.”

Ryoh shuffled his stack of papers responding to Rayne’s inquiry “It seems like his roommate did not want to live with him anymore citing that ‘Carpaccio is creepy.’”

Rayne huffed “not unexpected. Why didn’t they find a new roommate for him though? Are the staff here really that bad.”

“It appears so. Anyway, the reason I bring this case up to you in particular is that they found something odd about his case.”

“Oh and what’s that.” 

“It seems he was completely out of it the day he went missing.”

“Out of it? How so?”

“I interviewed several students about him and they all reported that he just stood in the middle of the hallway and was staring into space. He didn’t respond to them at all. After the hallway incident, he attended class normally but other professors reported that he seemed off. Apparently he was quite attentive to his classes, and his non-engagement concerned them.”

“He actually pays attention in class?”

Ryoh shot him a pitiful look while also seeming to shoot him daggers “ You really shouldn’t let your first impression of someone color your whole view of them. I understand that you are mad but we need to handle this with professionalism, Rayne.”

Rayne appeared ashamed of himself. “Right… this is a solid lead though right?”

“Right. This is the first thing of information we’ve gotten about any of these disappearances. We need to investigate this one thoroughly.”

Chapter Text

Carpaccio’s vision as he woke up was blurry. The room surrounding him was dark and his hearing wasn’t doing much better than it was the day before. He was fading in and out of consciousness but could make out a few words here or there.

“Are any of them related to—”

“Dammit. Alright well ma–”

“Get the telepor-”

“Right.”

He couldn’t hear anything anymore but now he could feel something on his hand. ‘It hurt?’ it was mild pain in comparison to his defeat but that wasn’t the main issue here. The fact that the goddess statue didn’t activate meant far bigger trouble than just the fact that he felt pain. Something had to have happened to his wand for it not to activate so this could look bad if they were to severely injure him.

Luckily, the pain soon stopped and barely audible footsteps got quieter. He passed out once again. This time though, his senses were clear.

The birds were singing, leaves were swaying the wind and the sun shone

 through the thick meadows of the trees.

He awoke to the bright sun shining on his face; Its rays blinding. His eyes blurred after he stood up. The blurriness was not due to some weird illness this time thankfully. It cleared after he rubbed his eyes. 

‘What happened?’ It all came back into him in mild flashbacks. Little scenes of a dark room and that mild pain appearing in his mind. 

Thinking back to the pain, he thought hard about where exactly that pain was concentrated. He turned his palm towards himself and there was something there that wasn’t there before. It was a mark, not dissimilar to the ones on his face. It was painted black and was an almost complete star. It was missing a side though.

He scratched at it, aiming to dust off whatever it was, but it was ingrained into his hand. 

‘The hell?’

He gave up for now but would come back to it later. Now it was time to figure out where he was.

The flora and fauna were normal but the wildlife weren’t. Oddly colored rabbits and crickets scattered about. The rabbit was a deep maroon color and almost seemed less skittish and more aggressive. The crickets were almost butterfly-like, their wings spreading far and wide and flourishing in a deep purple. It wasn’t scared of him at all. Neither of the creatures noticed he was there actually. They were too busy with their own issues.

As he walked along he noticed more exotic creatures than he was used to as well. Fish with wings danced in the water for a bit before flying off when a new creature came to bare. He thought it was a bear at first but its lankiness almost made it seem more wolflike. Plus there was the fact that it was grey. Most people don’t tend to think grey when they think of bears and he was one of those ones.

The ‘bear’ clawed at more of the leaping fish hoping to get a bite but they all got away. The ‘bear’ was sluggish. As it hopped on its hind legs, he got a good look at its stomach and saw its nipples poking through its fur. It’s belly was also disproportionately larger and it contrasted with its thin, rest of body.

“I see. So you can’t get food because you’re too pregnant.” it glanced towards him and began to growl, its sharp teeth bared. He didn’t approach or show any aggression towards the creature so it calmed. It was still on edge but it wasn’t outright aggressive anymore. He pulled his knife out and aimed it towards the water, looking for any leftover fish.

When a fish finally came barrelling down the stream, he didn’t waste any time and angled his knife towards it. At just the right moment, he sliced into and grabbed it. He tore off the fish from his knife and threw it towards the bear. The bear wasted no time gobbling it up, not even checking to see if he did anything to the fish. “You must’ve been hungry.” glancing towards his knife, he noticed the fish blood still on it was a green color. ‘This place is…”

The splashing of water alerted carpaccio to the bear crawling towards him. It crawled through the stream and sat next to him. “Want more huh?” 

He didn’t object to helping the animal out more so he did. After two more fish the bear seemed satisfied and it tugged at his cloak. “You want me to follow you.” It walked away and he followed.

It led him to a darker part of the forest and the colors of the flora began to change. The usual green grass faded to a glowing baby blue, the trees bark became redder and their leaves bigger. A crop of mushrooms started to show up as well. They slowly increased their size and the white of the shroom changed to deep purples. The pair walked through a particularly thick grass group and what was revealed was beautiful. It was far darker here but everything began to illuminate. A clear path made of wood led the way through further. 

Carpaccio couldn’t help but look around. Each and every little thing caught his eye, until something flew up to him. It was a firefly. He reached up with his hand and it perched on his finger, occasionally flapping its wings. It flew off when he moved again. 

They finally reached the end of the path and the final thing blocking their way was the tree leaves. The leaves had enlarged to such a degree that they were the height of a person each. The bear had no trouble pushing them out of the way, in fact she seemed used to it. The destination was the bear’s den. Cozily made out of those same tree leaves was her bed and she immediately plopped down onto it.

He took cursory glances around the room and noted strange scratch marks lining the trees. He looked back at the bear's claws. 

‘She didn’t make these so… who did?’

He was going to walk out and leave but heard a low growl from behind him. She was intensely staring at him.

“Guess I’m not leaving then.”

The bear eventually fell into a deep slumber but carpaccio knew he probably shouldn’t leave so he slept. He didn’t have any better ideas for what to do. 

He was awoken by the sound of screeching ringing in his ear. 

“The hell?” He stood us and heard the screeching coming from the bear. That was when he noticed the bloody baby. 

“Oh.”

It was screeching for its mother but she rejected it for some reason. He couldn’t read bear faces well but he could tell she was in pain. 

“Are there more coming? But why do you need me here for this?”

Just then, a massive earthquake came over the land, knocking carpaccio square off his feet. The rumbling grew closer and closer and he guarded himself. He couldn’t tell where it was coming from so he tried to guard for all directions but didn’t account for the fact that, whatever the rumbling was, it wasn’t coming for him.

Just then a massive creature barreled through the leaves, towards the baby. 

‘So this is why you wanted me here…”

He threw himself in front of the baby just in time for it not to be hit. The impact of the hit threw him several meters. The creature immediately recoiled at its own power too. 

After just one hit, carpaccio could tell the amount of power it held. As he stood up, he stared at it, taking in its features and was disgusted. It was like a chimera. It had two orca heads stitched together, with giant unrecognizable eyes replacing their normal ones. There was an alligator’s head with the lower jaw missing and a sharp toothed beaver head on there too. A ruined bird wing was stitched onto the side of it. Three tails were flicking behind the creature, one a cat’s tail, one a scorpion’s, and the last one he couldn’t discern. The creature's legs were that of a salamanders but he didn’t think salamanders had 8 feet. surprisingly there weren’t any other species that he could gather. There was a leg hanging from the creature, but he didn’t know if he could call it one of the creature's legs. It was barely hanging on to the thing, some strange vein still connecting it to the body.  It was clear it couldn’t walk on it.

He got up and got ready to defend himself, the goddess statue spreading its angelic wings behind him. Looking at it though, he wasn’t sure how well his damage transfer would be considering this thing wasn’t a human being but he had to try. He made an experimental stab in his right leg. He looked towards the creature’s legs to look at the damage. It’s front right leg was affected but the rest of it’s right legs were not. The hit it inflicted though was shallow, signaling that it was a direct reflection of what he did to himself and it did not take the creature’s size into account. 

“So I can’t just stab myself huh.”

He defaulted to his other strategy when dealing with enemies, just let them hit him and tire themselves out.

The creature sprinted towards him in a wild manner and he made no effort to dodge. The momentum carried the two together when they met but the creature made no effort to stop. The alligator's head focused towards him and tried to gnaw on his head.  It wasn’t trying to hurt him with that though, it’s objective was to trap him. In the back of its throat, a green light formed. Suddenly the creature hit a swerve and ran straight towards a giant tree. The green light bubbled up into a liquid and as it sprayed towards him the group hit the tree.

The creature took a moment to get away from him but a moment later the creature's attacks hit itself and it screamed in agony. Intense burns hit most of the creature and several of its legs broke beneath it. 

‘If I didn’t have the goddess statue…’

A  silver feather fell from above him, he looked back and saw that it came from the statue. There was already a scratch beginning to form on it.

‘I can’t take many more hits then. The damage that thing deals is..’

The thing all but recovered already and it didn’t even flinch as it ran on its mangled feet towards him. He waited till the last second and dodge out of the way, letting it run straight into the tree. In the brief moment it was stunned he took the chance to climb onto the creature. He sat on top of the beaver head and began to rapidly stab into its eyes.

The thing wildly ran around trying to shake him off. He didn’t relent and let it do that though. It was useless until carpaccio saw that it began to run towards another tree. He quickly hopped off and the creature came to an abrupt halt. The remaining heads began to glow a bright amber and it screeched. 

‘What the? It’s aura has changed.’

He saw it move its bottom right foot and then it…

Disappeared.

He looked around, desperate to find it. Suddenly he heard rustling in the trees behind him. He barely got a glimpse of it, the orca’s disgusting eye boring into him. It struck him and he flew through the underbrush. He blanked out and he remembered.

‘I can’t do it again.’

‘I can’t take that pain again.’

‘I can’t’

For the first time in his life, he felt motivated to do something, to fight for something. Even if that something was just the prevention of his own pain.

The goddess statue’s blindfolds were coming off now, he needed to work for this victory. The statue morphed into his newly familiar demonic form and began to shoot its needles. The thing didn’t dodge at first but when the needles pierced its flesh, it realized how much damage it could do. So, it began to dodge. This was the perfect chance for carpaccio to get onto the creature so he got ready and went far right to the creature. Now, all he had to do was wait for the needles to guide the thing to him. 

The thing ran closer and closer to him and once it approached, He jumped onto its back once again and this time targeted the orca’s. They were stitched together  barely and he knew he could deal with it more easily If he got rid of them. So he targeted the stitches and started cutting through them one by one. The thing didn’t like that at all so it stopped dodging and focused on shaking him off. It let its beaver head take more damage as it tried to reach up with what little it had left but it was useless.

He ripped through the final stitch and hopped off, watching as its insides spilled all over. That was when he made a mistake. He expected the creature to be out of the game, if only for a second but it didn’t do that at all, instead targeting him. Or that was what he had thought…

He dodged out of the way but instead of it stopping and curving towards him it kept running. 

“Where is it going…”

“The statue!”

His statue screamed in agony as it ripped through, unrelenting in its assault. He ran with a religious fervor towards it and when he arrived, he stabbed and stabbed and stabbed everything he could. He climbed on it once more and destroyed the beaver's face. The orcas were already out of action so he focused his efforts on the crocodile.

The goddess statue let out an ear-splitting scream and was destroyed once and for all. It turned around to face him but he was situated on the back of its neck so it couldn’t hit him. He began stabbing it. 

Its wings' feathers sharpened and it angled them towards him, shooting the sharp feathers into his back.

He grit his teeth, trying not to let out a scream. The damage soon reflected on the creature and it screeched once again. It tried to claw him off once more and did deal him damage but he grit his teeth and went through it, still stabbing.

After what felt like hours of this, it finally died. But the adrenaline pumping through his head kept him going until he truly felt like he was safe. And then he stepped off of its ruined corpse and only stared at its body. He backed up slowly, still maintaining caution and tried to find his way back to the bears.

He began to see the fluorescent greens again but noted the destroyed trees through it all. He approached the ripped up leaves at the entrance of the den but his vision blurred and he couldn’t keep himself walking. He stumbled until his vision became black. And he passed out.

“Arc, ma’am!”

“Yes?”

“Rea has news for you.”

“And?”

“He said he needs you to come there yourself.”

“Really? he should’ve just sent me a letter.”

She sighed and waited for a response but none came. Seemed they didn’t want to humor her.

“Is it really that important?”

“Forgive me for my impudence but I don’t believe Sir Rea would ask for you specifically if it wasn’t important.”

“I guess you're right. Let’s go then.”

Line break!

“So what’s the issue Rea?”

No response.

“Did you hear me?”

He muttered something inaudible.

“What was that?”

“Someone beat it.”

“By it… you mean?”

He silently nodded.

“You think the Kiares did it.”

“Yeah. And if they found out about that, they’ll surely target the rest soon.”

She sighed, not sure what to say.

“You scared?”

“Yes.”

The silence was palpable and she wasn’t sure what words of comfort she could say so she decided to leave. 

“I‘ll be back later. “

No response.

The door slid shut and Rea was left alone.

 “Alimas save me.”