Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The Collector carefully placed the dagger in the chimera’s mouth so that it could easily hold the grip with its teeth. “This is a simple enough task. Just get me that data point, alright?” She told it amiably, having already given her commands.

As the small pack of chimeras left the heart, the Collector opened their path towards their target. Finding an area on the surface where she sensed the Life energy that indicated a powerful Life mage hadn’t been difficult, and clearing the way for her pets was trivial.

“I thought mortal souls had ‘nothing more to teach you’?” the bright blue soul trapped in the underground laboratory remarked bitterly.

“Oh, not any specific one.” The Collector replied with a smile. “But considering recent developments, I would very much like to run a couple tests on the interaction of aspects of a Life mage’s soul with yours. It may help me gather data on how this new amalgam happened, and give a better starting point for when I have him.”

Vash seethed. The way she said ‘recent developments’ would’ve sent a chill down his spine if he had one at the moment. He was still trying his best to warn Kendal of her intentions, but his options were limited at the moment, and he didn’t even know if his attempts were heard.

“Not willing to take apart your own soul for the cause?” Vash said scornfully.

“Now that would make it very difficult to get anything done.” The Collector replied with humor in her voice. Then she raised her soulcrystal scalpel and began making a new incision in preparation for her next experiment.

When the stone surface opened up only a few meters away from them, that alone was a bad omen.

Erin immediately sensed its origins, and an opening to the Singing Caves that appeared like this could only mean one thing.

Kendal’s suspicions were confirmed when, moments later, a pack of maybe a half-dozen monsters with glowing green eyes and three-sided mouths sprinted out, directly towards them.

Kendal’s mind raced between the present and the past. Each strike he made, every slash that tore the flesh of the monsters in front of him, made him flashback to the too-similar battle that preceded his existence.

It should’ve been an easy fight. The Collector never showed herself, and there was no one at stake other than themselves. Between the six of them, taking down a single, small pack really wasn’t a problem.

Which was even more reason why Kendal would never forgive himself for not realizing what one of the creatures held its mouth until it was too late. Or who it was aiming for.

“Alinua!”

Kendal whirled around just in time to see one of the monsters twist itself out of an entanglement of vines and turn its head towards Alinua. She yelled as something sank into her arm, but it wasn’t the chimera’s teeth.

It was a dagger.

“No-!” A chimera bit viciously at his leg, and Kendal tore at it with the sword to get it off of him so he could run to his friend.

Alinua’s body collapsed to the ground, the magic around her torn from her control and scattering away into the plant life, and the chimera holding the now-glowing-green dagger in its jaws ran toward the hole in the ground. It leapt into the stone which began moving to close behind it.

“NO!” Kendal screamed as he followed it as fast as he possibly could.

He was too late.

He was only able to reach out with one hand before the ground was sealed shut, blocking his path to Alinua. Cold rock enclosed his hand and wrist, pressing in on all sides with a force that would have shattered the bones of anyone other than himself.

Kendal pulled his hand out of the ground, the stone cracking with the force and pebbles scattering in all directions, and into the space in between the cracks he pushed the sword in to pry the rock apart.

‘It’s like the tunnel cinched shut behind her. No loose stone. There’s not even airflow. It might be hundreds of feet of solid stone before it opens back up again. You’re not getting into the Singing Caves through here.’

Kendal gritted his teeth. There was no reason the Collector wouldn’t do the same here. But what other choice did he have?! Alinua was-

“She’s still alive!”

Kendal whirled around, seeing the rest of the monsters scattered in death and his friends left to deal with the aftermath. Erin had been the one to speak up, hands raised over Alinua’s body with a runic circle of Life magic above her.

“What?” Kendal pulled the sword from the ground and rushed over to them. “What do you mean?”

“Oh my, they must’ve put up quite a fight.” The Collector remarked as a single chimera entered the room, weakened and moving slowly. But grasped in its jaws was a dagger that held the soul of a Life mage, and that was all that mattered.

The second the Collector took the dagger from the creature, it collapsed onto the floor, the Life energy drained from its body.

Vash stayed completely silent when the dagger was brought in. He recognized this soul. Life’s chosen, the mage who’d save Kendal’s life… she was the one in that blade.

“That’s strange,” the Collector mused, “This one appears to be connected to something else. In all my previous findings, mortal souls were only attached to the means of extraction after the body died without a soul to sustain- Oh?” She raised the dagger to get a closer look at it. In the center of the blade had appeared some small fractures that looked like the breaking point of broken glass. “That’s new.”

As she analyzed, more lines spread from the center, creating an odd pattern in the fractures. If anything, it almost made the blade look a bit fragile-

CRACK!

“AH!”

The Collector dropped the dagger in shock as it shattered in front of her, green light flashing from the explosion. Shards of metal were flung across the room with enough force to break several research instruments and even chip dents in the surface of the heart’s interior.

“What in the…” The Collector adjusted her body in order to rid herself of the shards that had embedded themselves in her flesh.

“Nothing more to teach you, huh?” Vash snarked at his captor’s predicament. If what he knew about Kendal’s friend was any indication, she would likely be fine. At least, he hoped so.

And being unable to show emotion had its benefits, meaning that if he was careful, she had no reason to suspect he knew anything (a lesson he learned after the risk he’d taken when bringing Kendal within his soul to try and get him some information), so the Collector was left in ignorance.

“That’s…” the Collector trailed off, deep in thought. Her voice was cold, but betrayed no hint of emotion other than curiosity.  “...Interesting…”

Alinua gasped, eyes flying open and glowing the same bright green color as the magical energy that surrounded her.

As quickly as it had come, the green glow faded, and Alinua was lying in the ground with a confused expression on her face.

“Alinua!” Kendal immediately leaned forward to hug her, almost forgetting to be careful with his strength in his relief. “Are you alright? Are you…” he trailed off, not quite sure how to phrase the question.

“You’re actually Alinua, right?” Falst interjected, “Not another Kendal-and-Vash situation?”

“Falst!”

“What? It’s a fair question!”

“I, yeah, it’s... it’s actually me. And I’m alright.” Alinua frowned in deep thought, “I think… I think I broke the dagger.”

Chapter Text

The first thing she felt, was the sharp edge sinking into her arm. It was pulled out almost immediately, and the next thing she felt was her healing magic getting interrupted.

She didn’t know how she would later describe the experience of her soul getting pulled from her body. The closest thing she could relate it to was dissociation, but even that was an understatement. It wasn’t physical or emotional, but almost like the mirror opposite to the transformation she underwent after her magical outburst that led to the realization that she would live.

And she was still alive; she had to be, or else she wouldn’t have been able to feel the stab wound in her arm healing, albeit slower than it might’ve otherwise. Or she wouldn’t be able to vaguely feel it as her body collapsed to the ground. The difference was that she wasn’t entirely in her body anymore.

The space she found most of herself in was tight and cramped, and in hindsight, perhaps it just couldn’t fit her entire being. Except that didn’t quite make sense, if it was something like this that could contain an entire city god.

She heard Kendal shouting, but couldn’t respond. She was too far away from her body, and couldn’t control the blade she was trapped in even if it could speak.

She felt her consciousness moved farther and farther away from her body, and she could swear she sensed herself descending into the ground. The part of her that was still connected to her body became painfully stretched and thinned out, and Alinua desperately tried to pour more of herself into the stream of her soul that spanned the distance between herself and her body, but the bindings that trapped her were too strong. Only the smallest amount of her was free, and it grew thinner by the second. She was scared that it might snap if stretched too far apart, and unravel until the being named Alinua was gone.

Alinua pounded against the bindings that trapped her like fists to a wall. Let me out! she screamed mentally.

She could still sense the Life in her surroundings. Not just the faraway fragments around her body, but there were small lifeforms scattered in the path below the surface, and one that stayed holding her prison as it descended.

Alinua grabbed at any fragment of Life she could reach. Magic swelled within her as she tried to use anything she could as a hold to pull herself out of the dagger.

In the center of the blade, tiny hairline fractures broke into its surface. The stream of soul energy that connected her to her body became a little bit stronger.

The prison may have been powerful enough to contain gods, but not nearly powerful enough to contain a significant fraction of a Primordial.

Especially not one with a waking consciousness that was willing to help her.

Alinua wasn’t meant to be in this dagger. Only the body that was made to house her soul could.

With every crack in the blade, Alinua got a better hold on the energy and her magic grew stronger, and so did her connection to her body.

She heard a voice. She felt the source of the voice take hold of the dagger she was trapped in.

If it was who Alinua suspected it was... how much damage could she do if she tried to take apart Alinua’s soul?

And could she sever Alinua from the rest of herself?

More cracks in her prison.

She needed to escape. Now!

Alinua reached as far as she could, and found herself able to hold onto the Life energy that surrounded her body.

Then, with all of the strength she could muster, she pulled herself towards it.

CRACK!

Alinua barely noticed the blade shattering as she was freed.

The speed would’ve been disorienting even if she weren’t in an out-of-body situation. She almost wondered how her consciousness was able to keep up with it.

All she knew was that she was unbound from the thing that trapped her, and all the power that was used to release her had no restraints in the way.

The entirety of Alinua’s being snapped back into her body with a force that left her shocked and disoriented. She gasped and her eyes flew open, and she realized where she was.

“Alinua!” She felt Kendal’s embrace, and heard his voice, and this time she was truly experiencing it, instead of vaguely sensing it from far away.

She was back.

“Are you alright? Are you…”

“You’re actually Alinua, right? Not another Kendal-and-Vash situation?”

“Falst!”

“What? It’s a fair question!”

“I, yeah, it’s... it’s actually me. And I’m alright.” Alinua responded hesitantly, still reeling from the experience. “I think… I think I broke the dagger.”