Archive of Our Own ^beta

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Ishmael bit her nails--well, she would have, if this Identity’s metal gauntlets allowed. It was always like this with every Distortion hunt; throwing themselves heedlessly into the jaws of death until Dante finally came up with a plan.

Don Quixote was knocked to the ground by a jagged blade. As Ishmael moved to cry out her name, those damned gears sprouting out of her started to spin again. A wail rose in her throat, only to be drowned out by the screaming of metal. Ryoshu was long gone; her grinning corpse covered in buckets of red. Heathcliff, expectedly, had gotten himself killed trying to force his way through the gears. Sinclair… the minute they started sprouting out of him, he started flailing and blubbering, and didn’t stop until he managed to cut his own neck.

“It’s a pretty nice feeling if you just go along with it~” Hong Lu mused. “What kind of person did it used to be, I wonder?” Hong Lu, despite having absorbed the most attacks out of anyone, was swaying with the Distortion’s lead in battle-lockstep; unbothered by the mechanical fetters spearing his organs.

“Nice… isn’t the word I’d use,” she managed to stagger out. She’d managed to pick up on the same gist he had--this… thing had tried to get inside her head; pointing her compass in some broken, warped direction. No way in hell could she play along with that as painlessly as Hong Lu did.

CLANG! “Ah--” Speak of the devil. As Hong Lu was knocked prone, the Distortion bore over him with surgical implements in hand. They were clean—too clean. None of the blood she and her friends shed ever stained its damn body. Was there a point to keep struggling against such a hopeless tide? No.

Ishmael started to move anyways. The exact pain she had been afraid of repeating tore through her body with each step. The welling of blood in her eyes; the tripping over her own viscera; with the last of her strength, she powered through them, and shoved Hong Lu aside—just in time for the Distortion’s killing blow to rip through her.

As Ishmael’s rent body lay fading on the ground, her dying consciousness recognized Queequeg’s rope, shorn in two. She instinctively tried to scrabble for the pieces, but her arm didn’t respond. Why?

The answer—her actual mace arm—hit Ishmael in the face a second or two later, and she finally expired.

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Out of all the experiences Ishmael had had, she found it hard to enjoy death all that much. Everything about being dead felt murky and slow; as if she was trapped under a thick layer of oil. As her sense of self began to slip, fear set in. What if Dante can’t get to her in time? What if that Distortion remains inside her forever? Yet even as worries clouded her mind, a certain spark of faith stayed the course.

The steel rope around her tugged. Ishmael took hold, and hung on for dear life--to moor herself against the waves. The door in front of her began to open, and beyond it was…

<That hit was pretty nasty. Are you feeling alright, Ishmael?> Dante knelt over her freshly restored form, alongside a solid half of the LCB.

“Um, yeah. Wait, did we win?”

“Faust can confirm the suppression and delivery of Distortion TETH-06-LU-16-02 to LCE R&D.”

“Indeed! Mere moments after thine heroic sacrifice, the cur fell to its knees and wept; clearly repentant over so unjustly claiming such a noble soul! However! Such displays nary did stay its rightful sentence, executed by young Hong Lu and I!”

Heroic sacrifice… right, she died, and then--!

Ishmael shot up into a sitting position. “Everyone, shut up! Where did it go?!”

“Oi, it’s barely even three of us that even said anything. What do you mean ‘every--”

“Listen, damn it! My headband; did anyone see it? Even just a piece--” Her neck flipped violently back and forth--a marvel, there, that she didn’t end up having to be rewound again.

Sinclair raised his hand. “Um, m-Miss Ishmael…?” He shivered, evidently anticipating the same kind of violent reaction she’d been so prone to two Districts ago.

“What?” she shot back, still searching desperately for her partner’s memento.

“I-um, I think it’s…” he trailed off, but managed to tap his forehead.

…She was beginning to spiral. Not like it would accomplish anything--it was several feet away when she died--but Ishmael indulged Sinclair’s suggestion, and tried checking around her head aaaand there it was.

“...huh?” She took the rope down and examined it; looking for some kind of seam where it surely must have been glued back together. “Wait, how did…”

“So H.U.E.D. What a disappointment,” Ryoshu scoffed, then walked away.

“‘Harpoon Unused, Eventually Dull’,” Sinclair instinctually translated. “Um, n-not that I agree with that!” He denied that suspiciously fast, especially as the one who pointed out Ishmael’s mistake in the first place.

“Hah. I’m just glad it wasn’t damaged… somehow,” Ishmael sighed, picking herself up. An exploratory dust-off confirmed that her clothes were back together, too. Dante… her manager had saved them all in ways both large and small so many times, but there was still so much she didn’t understand about them--or Limbus Company, for that matter.

<Is there something on my face, Ishmael? You’re staring.> Dante’s minute hand twitched.

“No, it’s nothing. M-my head just still hurts a little,” Ishmael hastily lied, then started making her way back towards Mephistopheles.

<Huh. Hope this isn’t a repeat of that incident with Doomsday Clock. Oh, speaking of…> Dante turned to Faust, and soon enough, a conversation about the various branches of the former L Corp began to brew.

Inside the bus, Ishmael gave her headband another once-over. It really was just like new, but how…? After all, it wasn’t like rewinding during their time in T Corp. meant any extra tax…

“Well, whatever. I probably shouldn’t… question it too much.” she said out loud, in the seemingly empty bus.

“Mm…” A slumber-broken Yi Sang rose his head groggily from behind the back seat. “A question, Ishmael…? If there is aught that ails you, please don’t hesitate--”

“It’s nothing worth worrying about, Yi Sang,” Ishmael attempted to convince herself. “Go back to sleep.”

“Ah. Well, for my fellows to be bereft of worries should be cause to ease my heart, yet…”

But she had already blitzed past the poet towards her room, determined to sleep off this line of inquiry before she wasted any more time thinking about it.

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“It doesn’t make any sense,” Ishmael muttered to herself. Her cabin’s tides had been steadily climbing throughout the night, and by this time in the morning they hovered around her waist--she’d had to move her corkboard to the ceiling to avoid getting her notes wet. “There’s no way the clothes are part of--no, I have spare suits, I-I’ve taken my uniform on and off…”

The ravings of a lunatic hung above her; the precious few legal documents that Limbus Company saw fit to let her see interspersed by increasingly agitated scribbles; between them travelling frayed ropes, about to snap. The board asked questions--no, loosely associated vague, barely-defined concepts--like ‘time rewinding? -> t corp. tax brackets?’; ‘do we count as houses??? <- head’s definition of ‘sinners’ -> ai ethics amendment’; ‘k corp singularity?? -> memory wipe -> interrogate faust’.

Ishmael continued to slosh back and forth in her room. She’d done the bare minimum of showing up for the LCB’s close of business, but had gotten zero rest besides. “Maybe Queequeg’s rope ‘counts’ as clothing, but what about Yi Sang’s book? I’ve seen it get ripped to shreds; I’m sure I have--unless, was I seeing things? Does he carry spares? Has Ryoshu’s sword ever been damaged?”

In a sudden burst of fury, Ishmael leapt up onto a floating board and tore the ‘interrogate faust’ note off the corkboard--with it, several other pages fell unceremoniously into the water. “No. No, I can’t let anyone else know. They’ll think I’ve lost it,” she giggled. “I have… I have to test the limits. I have to do it in a way nobody else can find out about.”

She grabbed a piece of paper, and started to scribble. Faster than even the waves could wash the ink away; she maniacally wrote without even thinking to move her plans to a safe place. “Try and hide everything from me, will you… I’ll get those secrets out of your skull yet.” Aboard Mephistopheles, the faint sound of cheerful laughter heralded the beginning of a new day.

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<Next up is… the Dream-Devouring Siltcurrent.> The Executive Manager looked up from their PDA, and pointed the Sinners towards the left fork in the path. The Sinners held back a collective groan.

<Sorry, guys…> Dante said guilty. <Hopefully its Gifts will make the rest of the Mirror Dungeon easier? I won’t force anyone, but is there anyone willing to take on the whale?>

Several Sinners raised their hands. <Ooh, thanks, Outis. Then, if your current Identity is from the Blade Lineage… alright; Yi Sang, Ryoshu, Faust, Meursault, and…>

Their typical choice here—and typically the first to nominate herself, Don Quixote, cowered behind Sinner #5. “M-mayhaps, Manager Esquire, I—ahem—think perhaps a different Sinner might deign to s-share the spotlight, today?”

<Don’t worry, I didn’t forget about your fear of water…> Dante ticked, but was evidently at a loss for options. Ishmael put her hand up. <Oh—Ishmael? Well, as long as you’re feeling better…>

“What are you talking about, Dante?” She smiled, and stepped forth. “I feel fantastic.” The refracted Pequod Town, which had played host to so many of her nightmares, squelched beneath Ishmael’s shoes. Dante’s hands clicked quizzically.

<…alright, then. It’s go time, everyone!> Ishmael chuckled silently. It was time to put her plan into motion.

Her left pocket—two strings she quickly fastened into a zeppelin band, plus a bullet she’d swiped off Heathcliff’s fancy case of spare ammo (poor upbringing, her ass. If her memory around his turn served, he… well, it was nothing bad enough to remember, clearly). Her right—a torn seam pre-prepared inside her uniform; one of the bolts from Hearse’s handguard, and one of the pages from Yi Sang’s book, temporarily borrowed (she made a mental note to apologize to him once this was over).

“You’re not escaping… I won’t stop till I’m satisfied,” she murmured. “That’s a good attitude,” Outis barked. “I like that fire in your belly, first mate!” Ishmael cursed silently—she’d been overheard.

“Y-yeah. Let’s, uh, gut that whale.” The Abnormality finally emerged from its egg, and began to charge. For a second, a flash of distrust ran across Outis’s face—but she must have imagined it, because the very next moment, she turned back towards the whale. “Indeed! Brace for contact, men! Today, we shall fell—“

Chapter Text

This feeling… she was dead again. Normally, Ishmael would have to brace for a storm of doubts and anxieties to wash over her… but it didn’t come this time. She wasn’t afraid of dying, now--not when it brought her that much closer to her goal; to eradicating this nagging triviality from her mind. As soon as the chain broke the water’s surface, she grabbed it and yanked.

<Ah, geez. Are you O-->

“Yes!” Ishmael shot up a little too fast. “I-I’m perfectly fine. Go deal with the others.” She pointed towards the Sinners’ bloated corpses, trying her best to look sane.

Her manager stared at her for an awkward few moments. <Are you sure? This was when it was your turn, so I’d get it if you aren’t feeling well…>

“I’m fine, really,” she shooed Dante off, then stalked away to a good alcove to check the experiment’s results in.

First, Ishmael took out the knot--still there. It was a foreign object that wasn’t really part of her , per se. She nodded understandingly. That made sense. After all, the modifications she and several other Sinners saw fit to make to their clothing weren’t rewinded by the clock… just to be sure, Ishmael checked the seam in her outfit that she’d torn before entering the Mirror Dungeon.

“...What the hell? This can’t be right,” she muttered to herself. Her overcoat’s normally torn hems remained damaged, but the new tear she’d made had disappeared, as if nothing there occurred at all. Like Dante--or their clock--somehow recognized the ‘properly’ damaged form of Ishmael’s outfit. “But that makes no sense,” the sailor complained. Nobody heard. “The first time I got rewound, we had barely even met them.” Were the Sinners all simply being rewound to the moment they’d met Dante in the Outskirts? No, the life-and-death battles Ishmael fought with her hair every morning were a testament to the fact that they had continued to change and grow since joining the company. She began to bring her fingernails up towards her quivering teeth.

A sudden flash of reminiscence struck her. The proper form… she understood the obvious risks of making physical records thereof, but Ishmael maintained, in fragments a la the Great Lake’s laws, a log of the various Singularities of the City she’d encountered, and her best understanding of how they operated. During the job at K Corp, something to that effect--turning into a form of the self that was held in mind--had been said about the HP Ampules... or was it the Decay Ampules? Either way, that might be able to explain the seemingly contradictory phenomena of Dante’s clock, Ishmael surmised.

If it did have something to do with the way the Sinners conceived of the things that were ‘themselves’, then, Hearse should be… she checked her shield, and found it completely intact; not a missing bolt in sight. Ishmael breathed a sigh of relief. Affecting humans and their possessions was a step up from whatever K Corp was doing, but this fit well enough within Ishmael’s understanding of things. Who was to say, after all, that an entangling of existences doesn’t occur between a sailor and her well-used harpoon? Wasn’t the forced union of Whale oil proof that something like that was feasible?

Ishmael idly checked her left pocket for Heathcliff’s ammo, and found it empty. Well, that could just have been the nature of the Mirror. Port-side, a resurrected Heathcliff was complaining about the ‘blasted taste of salty fish in [his] nostrils’. ‘Sending an Identity back to its Mirror World sends everything else they brought with them.’ Yeah, she could see that happening. Yi Sang was probably the type of person who’d be loathe to deprive an alternate self of even the smallest measure of happiness. Ishmael checked her right pocket.

She hadn’t been expecting to find anything else, but oddly enough, Yi Sang’s page of poems was still there. Ishmael unfurled it, and sure enough, it was the same page she’d taken from his book. “...Strange,” Ishmael mused. Elsewhere, Yi Sang sneezed, then apologized on behalf of the cavern’s chill. As odd as it would be… maybe his ideal self just didn’t care for his poetry book that much.

Important to him or not, she’d return the page to his book before the end of the day, Ishmael decided. Things blew over pretty fast, but at least she’d managed to sate her curiosity before things got out of hand.

Chapter Text

The sun behind the window in Yi Sang’s room bathed it in perpetual dawn. A golden, nostalgic warmth scattered over Ishmael as she gazed into the imagined light.

The real sun could be a cruel thing. It could bake Rats in District 22’s Backstreets alive; rot the Whales Queequeg pulled up before they could be properly harvested. Even children knew not to stare directly at it. The real sun probably didn’t exist in Yi Sang’s memory; caged as he was for so long.

This, then, was a product of pure imagination; unchained by the grim realities of the City. Ishmael sighed. She was someone who tried not to fantasize if she could help it. Gazing towards the horizon, companion in hand, dreaming of something better… it was too seductive; too easy to get lost in. It blinded one to the dangers right in front of them. The old bitch had managed to teach her that much.

“...That’s enough reminiscing.” She’d taken a piece of Yi Sang on a voyage, and was here to return it. His desk’s top-left cabinet, where she’d found the book originally… was empty. Ishmael rankled her nose. Top right. Bottom left. She’d started out taking great care not to make a sound, but as she grew increasingly agitated in her search, it became harder and harder to keep things quiet.

“Damn it,” Ishmael huffed, trying to catch her breath. “Where the hell is that thing?”

“Ah, if you would be inquiring as to my tome’s whereabouts… it would be on my personage, now.” She whirled around. In the doorframe was Yi Sang, who--well, it couldn’t really be called ‘looming’, what he did, but he looked more down than usual.

Looking upon Ishmael’s tell-tale expression of shock, his gaze and body seemed to wither alike. “...Ere did I wish my eyes had been mistaken; yet your own tell the truth so readily,” he moped. “Ishmael. The right to assign fault does not lie with me, yet… if I should prevent the decay of a garden, instead of merely observing as it wilts, I have no recourse but to recommend against the path you seem set upon.”

The sun behind them sagged below the horizon, lacking the motivation to continue illuminating the room, and the true atmosphere of the City prevailed. Ishmael’s hands tensed. This was no violent confrontation, but it hurt all the more for’t. Really… what the hell was she doing? Going around in circles, sabotaging and stealing from her friends over some inane question…

“...I wanted to read it, alright? That’s all.” Ishmael closed her eyes, and tried to force out an exasperated-sounding sigh.

“Much joy should it bring me to realize the presence of another artist among us, but… never mind. Perhaps I presumed too much about your feelings towards the act of discovery, and painted over you with my own view.”

Her eyes snapped back open. “What the hell is that supposed to mean? Just because I’m not some genius like you or Faust, that means my experiment doesn’t mean anything?”

Yi Sang pondered this for an awfully long time, given the mood he ought to be in. “‘Experiment’... I see. I suppose there is a certain finesse that delineates the nature of forgery.”

…Forgery? “I--what? For--”

In an unprecedented display of boldness for him, Yi Sang pointed an accusing finger directly at Ishmael. His elbows popped violently; his body evidently unable to keep up. ”Even still! To cage your successes and failures, the very nature of your work, to restrain it with the chains given by others… it will rot that tree of discovery, weaned on the soil of curiosity--” Yi Sang coughed.

“Er, wait. I think there’s a big mis--” The full extent of the poet’s ardor was coming out to bear (it wasn’t that much). But even so, his room responded, and the reminisced light began to flicker furiously, accompanied by a gradually increasing sound of flames. With a panicked glance, Ishmael noticed a woozy Sinclair start to open his door to figure out what the commotion was about.

“..Of whether respect is given to my own work, I care not--but as someone who counts you among my fellows, I cannot but-- oof! ”

“...huh?” I-I guess we just hit a pothole…” Sinclair, finding nothing suspicious, retreated back into his room. Ishmael saw the scene through the peephole, and breathed a sigh of relief. She’d managed to bodily hurl Yi Sang into his own room and shut the door in time.

…Yi Sang, for his part, was sprawled across the desk, catatonic. Ishmael bit her fingernails, then began rifling through his pockets.

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“Okay, okay. Listen! I can explain everything ,” Ishmael ranted. No board of conspiracies adorned Yi Sang’s room, but she’d arranged her notes thus far for ease of reading, achieving a roughly similar effect. She opened the poem book (confiscated again) to the stolen page, and then, in her other hand, produced her own replica thereof. “This is a copy, but it’s exact . It’s--do you know what that means? You know that all I can really do with a pencil is take notes, right?”

“But, these pages are inked by the strewn pinions of S Corp’s crows…” Yi Sang complained from his crumpled, inverted position atop his bed. He didn’t raise his body or voice, for a willingness to hear out one who he counted as his friend, but even if he wanted to, there was a manic sailor stomping about his room with hackles raised.

“What are you--just look, here!” She shoved the pages into his face. “3 inches below the margin. These tears are completely identical . There’s no way I’d be able to do that; not me, with these rough-hewn hands of mine. There’s absolutely no way that’d be possible; you get that?” she argued to the headboard behind him. 

Yi Sang looked over the papers. “...I supp--” was all he managed to eke out before being interrupted.

Ishmael tore the pages away from his sight, and continued her mad pacing. “--and THAT means… what does it mean? That’s not just time , and it’s not just regeneration; this--no, I have to assume the worst.”

“--suppose… my apologies for doubting you, Ishmael. Ideally…” Yi Sang stopped his apology short. He’d seen some old friends of his get this excited about some discovery or other they’d made, and knew that they could hardly be stayed from their rambling for the world. Yi Sang closed his eyes and smiled nostalgically.

“What Outis said about the Peccatula on that Railway… but, I don’t remember--no. No, no, no. Wings, don’t tell me that’s the reason for the gaps in our memories. This is really, really bad.” Ishmael finally noticed a strange lack of sound coming from the bed’s general direction. She hurtled around to find Yi Sang’s mind in peaceful repose; tortured contortion of his body (still unfixed from when he’d been tossed) notwithstanding.

“A-are you trying not to laugh right now? Seriously?” Ishmael reflexively accused him, suddenly self-aware of how she looked at this moment.

…Like not a thing about her had changed since then.

Yi Sang blinked in confusion; unceremoniously dropped back into reality. “Ahm, apologies, Ishmael. It has been a long while since I have glimpsed such… interest, in the matters of discovery and ingenuity, for but the sake thereof. I was merely… reminiscing.”

Ishmael stomped towards the bed and gripped Yi Sang with both hands; something wild in her eyes. A moment passed. She sighed, and set him down sitting upright; instead of doing what she’d originally planned to. “...Look. I’m glad you’re not freaking out at me or whatever, but do you, like, actually understand what I’m talking about here? I’m not ‘excited’ about this; this--the Head could be after us for this, you know? If we really are all clones?”

“Mm, that could be concerning indeed,” Yi Sang said, clearly unconcerned. “Yet, were that to be the nature of Dante’s particularities, would the all-encompassing gaze of the Eye not have halted our odyssey long ago?” His body’s gestures moved like that of a scholar in a lively debate with his colleagues; his mind recalling such auld, bittersweet moments likewise. “Or perchance the items which you had found missing upon your return were simply used to create the seeming replica? It may even have been a mirage that only the auspices of our contract allow us to perceive. Surely the most probable explanation cannot be so grim?”

“No, you’re trying to think in terms of what makes sense , but nothing in this damn City is normal,” Ishmael seethed. “Maybe--maybe they’re just like, waiting until they can catch us red-handed or something,” She wrung her hands in frustration. “Like--I heard a tale once about a sailor who broke a bunch of U Corp’s taboos to try to escape the Great Lake, and the Head waited until just as he was about to be free to kill him--can you say that the situation isn’t something like that?”

“You speak of inevitability, I see… and the logic that can be applied to the Wings of the world is… scarce, to be true. Well put, Ishmael. But, in that respect, would it not be more ideal to direct one’s ardor towards those potentialities which do not remain unchanging?”

She struggled to find words for a few moments. “Y-you… how are you not more worried about this?! The ‘potentiality’ I’m talking about is of a Claw coming over to impale Dante’s head on a fucking pike! A-all of you, seriously--am I the only one concerned about whether we all come home at the end of the day?!” Ishmael reached back towards Yi Sang to throttle him as originally planned, but switched gears at the last second to pull at her own hair. “I--aaaargh!”

Yi Sang didn’t even get mad at her outburst. He simply looked down; more ashamed at himself over being the cause of her current state than anything. The taste of Mermaid flesh began to well in the back of Ishmael’s throat. She turned around and choked it down. A minute passed while Ishmael caught her breath, and she remained silent for another before finally speaking. 

“...I know how I must seem to you right now. A half-blind whale, tilting at broken, flickering lights. But that’s… the promise I made to Dante—to all of us. I have to worry about these things.”

Ishmael took her hairband off, and stared at it in her hands. It still held as tightly as the will of the one who lashed it. But would that be Queequeg, who tied it originally, or Dante, who repaired it when it was torn? “Everyone’s… falling in line behind Dante, content to follow their captain’s orders. Even Heathcliff hardly tries to fight me anymore.” She put it back on.

Ishmael turned back towards Yi Sang, and looked through him to the horizon. “But what if the path that we’re on has death at the end? Who will warn everyone about the beasts that live in the forest?”

Yi Sang sighed. A melancholy, shallow exhale. He wasn’t convinced that Ishmael’s concerns were real, but it was plain to see her emotions were. “...I understand. It was arrogant of me to treat your concerns as I have hitherto. The fault lies with me.”

“See, this--this is what I’m talking about. I literally came in, stole your stuff, and attacked you unprovoked; why are you apologizing to me? Everyone… is so scared of steering the ship that we’re all gonna end up crashing,” she said to someone off in the distance.

He cocked his head at Ishmael. “Then… you seem to be committed properly, Ishmael. I am sure, should you make the effort to talk to the manager, Dante would be--”

“ No way in hell ,” Ishmael snapped, then instantly regretted. “...I mean, I-I can’t--”

“Be witnessed, mired in blind obsession once more?”

“...”

“...er, o-or mayb--” Yi Sang stuttered.

“...Haaah. Is it that obvious?”

THe poet’s shoulder’s relaxed with a sad hum. “I have… a passing familiarity with such concerns. The events at K Corp… alight upon my mind’s eaves, from time to time. I, too, fear then, of my wings being clipped once more.”

“…Yeah.” Ishmael motioned for a little seating space on the bed, and Yi Sang scooted aside. It didn’t feel proper to be standing above him anymore. “...It’s not just that I’m prideful over this. I just can’t stand the idea that I’m still the same person as that idiot from back then.”

“I cannot say that I have no sympathy to your plight, yet my own capacities of charisma are… wanting. Were I to verbalize your concerns to Dante, I do not believe the particular result achieved will be the one you… desire.” To wit: It was likely nobody aboard the bus could ever fret as intensely as Ishmael thought was appropriate. Yi Sang contemplated this idea, then pushed it down guiltily. At the same time, it hardly felt right to abandon Ishmael to drown in loneliness and obsession. His friend needed something to whet her mind against, to stave off the cold…

An ingenious idea occurred to Yi Sang, who put a hand on Ishmael’s shoulder confidently. “...You say you have been collating evidence so as to elucidate the mechanism of Dante’s action? Perhaps an especially prodigious sum of such… In years past, even the most absurd ideas that were put forth at our meetings were accepted with alacrity, if the proof supporting them was sound.”

“I mean, I have, but… what is there left to test out? I’m out of ideas,” Ishmael admitted.

“The act of scientific progress is always an endeavour taken on with companions by your side,” Yi Sang reassured her. “...No matter how alone you may seem at that moment,” he added wistfully. “Let us look back on your trail thus far. I am sure that new possibilities will bloom hence.”

“Um. Ok.” Ishmael blanched, clearly still confused by the amount of enthusiasm Yi Sang had for all this. Still, she thought as she began collecting her scattered notes, it was nice to have at least one ally in all this.

Chapter Text

Ishmael’s eyes darted feverishly around the glistening confines of the Mirror Dungeon; the prospect of death waiting around any corner finally--familiarly--managing to shake her again. She clutched her harpoon close. It might have just been her heightened sense of danger, but Dante seemed to be making headway slower than usual today.

A one-off memory from a few months back in K Corp. occurred to her. The security staff, secure in their immortality, hacking off their limbs without thought given to the pain. Someone back then wondered what the revivals cost them, even as their flesh was restored. And then, in that same hallway, Ishmael had had to be rewound herself… she scratched her arm idly. She’d been too lax about this whole immortality thing to begin with, in retrospect. There was absolutely no way the City could have something so humanitarian.

As Dante neared the sweltering den of Ardor Blossom Moth, Ishmael spoke up. “Let’s stop here for today. This is far enough.”

The rest of the Sinners turned to look at her with varying levels of shock and reproach—no, that wasn’t quite right. Really, the latter half of that phrase was entirely made up by Outis breaking the silence before it could even be formed, and marching up to her with contempt in her gaze.

“Oh? I wasn’t aware that Limbus Company had recently changed which of us held the title of Executive Manager,” Outis sneered. “Dante!” She whipped around to their manager’s bewildered face. “I’m in agreement with Ishmael. We can complete this Mirror Dungeon without her. In fact, I daresay that seven or eight--”

<Hold on, Outis,> Dante gestured for her to stand down. <We’re not leaving behind anyone here.> Reluctantly, she stepped back, but continued to behold Ishmael with disdain.

<Also, she’s an important part of the team composition…> they mused to themselves.

Dante cleared their throat (redundantly). <Though… you have been acting kinda weird since that Abnormality hunt a few days ago.> A volley of expectant looks darted from Dante to Ishmael, courtesy of the Sinners. Rodion started to raise her voice in that same old what’s-the-juicy-gossip-here tone, before Gregor shushed her. Seems like they were ‘whispering’ directly to her. <If there’s anything that’s bothering you…> Dante checked out the forming crowd surreptitiously. <...um, you don’t have to say it here.>

Yi Sang gave Ishmael a concerned, telling look. She winced, then tried to look away inconspicuously. “I-I mean, isn’t the Ardor Blossom Moth a terrible Abnormality to go up against with this team? Sure, we might be able to win eventually, but won’t a ton of us die in the process?”

“Uh, yeah? That’s how this thing normally works,” Heathcliff observed. “We die, and Dante turns the clock. What’s weird about that?”

A chorus of agreement rippled throughout the Sinners of “mhm”s, “yep”s, and the occasional “e-even Heathcliff gets it”.

“Oi! Hell is ‘even Heathcliff’ supposed to mean?! Who said that!?” Luckily, Sinclair’s offhand comment had redirected some of the aggro to him instead. As attention and focus turned towards Heathcliff trying to chase down Sinclair, Yi Sang broke from the pack and approached Ishmael.

“…be not afeard for our safety, should you deign to rest your mind here,” he smiled. “...for the recourse of flagging wings has always been found in the upwash of their companions. We may confer, instead, at a later time, with our understandings no more faded for’t—that is, after all, the nature of words taxidermied; to be preserved in physical form ever long.”

“I… yeah.” Ishmael sat down on a nearby rock. It was intolerably hot. “Thanks, Yi Sang.”

“Hah. What a pathetic coward,” Outis scoffed. Of all the people to stay behind. “I should never have promoted you to First Mate.”

“Fuck off, Outis. I’m doing what you wanted, aren’t I?” Ishmael glowered at her. She mentally braced for a taunt like ‘At least you know your place’, but it never came. When she looked up at Outis, she was checking her watch with an inscrutable expression.

“Hmph. The close of business will be soon.” She flipped it closed, then made her way back towards the rest of the clamoring Sinners.

“Executive Manager!” A distant-growing voice shouted. “Ishmael is indisposed at the moment. I suggest we leave her here… pending extraction, of course.”

<I—ok, Sinclair, you shouldn’t have—can anyone else confirm what Outis said? Heathcliff, you—> Dante was desperately trying to wrest control over a brewing argument amidst the Sinners—for better or worse, nobody had much bandwidth to pay attention to Ishmael, of all people.

“I can, ah…” The loudest voice Sinner #1 could muster barely broached half the distance to Dante. He turned to Ishmael, and tried to reassure her that they wouldn’t be long.

“The moment wh—!” Due to his earlier exertion, the sentence died on Yi Sang’s lips with a strangled cough. Ishmael sighed. “Just go.” He gave her a sheepish nod, before running off to join the others.

As the battle against the Ardor Blossom Moth was joined, Ishmael sat alone amidst the flames.

Chapter Text

With the sound of shattering glass, the signature coattails of the Liu Association drifted down Ishmael’s sides. The Sinners--sans her--must have begun the fight in earnest; the distant uproar of shouts and clashing coming moments later to confirm her suspicions. Ishmael pulled up her feet onto the rock with the rest of her, and held her knees close. The embers of this Mirror Dungeon floor were rebuffed by the Liu’s suits, yes. But an intolerable burning remained in the pit of Ishmael’s stomach.

Shame washed over her. Her coworkers--no, her friends--were being slaughtered by that damned Abnormality, and here she was moping outside the chamber because of… what, exactly? If she’d actually cared about protecting the Sinners, she’d be fighting alongside them right now. Instead, she was out here. Too scared to even risk her life. Taunting laughter began to fill Ishmael’s head; of how she’d once again abandoned people to die--people who trusted her; depended on her. The outside world began to grow faint and hazy.

“Damn… it, you bastard…” she managed to croak out. “Even in my head, you’re still…” Something beneath Ishmael cracked.

Do they even--should they even--trust her? What had she done for them, in truth? Had she managed to actually protect them, even once? Did the voyage to the Great Lake not nearly end in disaster because of her ? In her fervor to ‘protect everyone’, was it not her that needed protecting the most, from her own self-destructive tendencies? Bells sounded off in the distance.

That Golden Bough… and the next one, and the one after that… she’d run her mouth, and brought calamity onto the group, hadn’t she? Maybe those missions could have gone off without a hitch, if only she hadn’t been there. Maybe the reason for the manifold sufferings of her friends--no, of the City itself--wasn’t the result of some grander design. Maybe the fault st --

WHAM.

Blood trickled down Ishmael’s fist, then pooled onto the ground; where it began to boil from the absurd heat.

…Ishmael slowly staggered to her feet, then immediately doubled over in irritated pain.

“... Aaaargh, that hurts, damnit!” Was that what she’d said? She couldn’t be quite sure--her head was still ringing from the punch she’d given herself.

As the deafening noise subsided, she turned her ears to the arena; the sounds of battle still ongoing. The Sinners were still alive; still fighting on. Without another moment of doubt, Ishmael broke into a dead sprint.

The gloom would never leave her. Even on the day of her final agony, Ishmael knew she would return to find it in that same cabin from which everything had begun. So… it could stand to wait a little longer. Right now, she was needed--no, even if she wasn’t; even if it was specious… she wanted to help.

As she ran, the Identity molted off her like a cocoon discarded. She was grateful for the refracted armor that Dante wreathed them all in, time and again; but right now, it wasn’t what she needed. Her harpoon rematerialized by her side--yet another technology that she didn’t fully understand; full of potential traps and pitfalls--and she gripped it with grim determination.

Ishmael didn’t quite know why she always felt compelled to blurt out the same canned line whenever she called on this E.G.O.. Maybe it was the sign of an unhealthy compulsion, that had to have everything be just so or its fragile reality would come crumbling down. Maybe she was desperately trying to convince herself that she was perfectly satisfied with the way things were; complacent in the face of the suffering she encountered every day in this City.

…Maybe so. Maybe that was the realistic interpretation, in a world like this. Even then; even if it wasn’t rational; a part of her had a different hypothesis.

Every night aboard the Pequod, even when the hunt had left the crew with nary enough energy to even collapse atop their bunks, Queequeg would pray. Ishmael had never been religious, but curiosity had gotten the better of her, and so she couldn’t keep herself from peeking silently from her bunk. She’d never managed, back then, to piece together the functions of the gestures and words Queequeg muttered to herself; not even when she had been invited to partake in the rites alongside her. To be honest, Ishmael had felt a little silly kneeling in front of that little wooden idol; following clumsily along with Queequeg’s lead. But once she’d started praying alongside her, Ishmael had never once missed a night of prayer aboard the Pequod.

She still wasn’t quite sure what the act of prayer had meant to Queequeg. But Ishmael had a working hypothesis of what it had meant to her . Aboard that hellish ship, it was so easy to forget where one had come from, and where they intended to go. If the Whales didn’t swallow those dreams and ambitions up, the captain did her best to do so in their place. To weather those eroding waves… one needed an anchor.

Every night with Queequeg, she had been repeating a mantra. So that it would always remind her of the direction in which her compass pointed.

As she passed the threshold, she saw the Sinners on the verge of death--staggered, flailing, and with the Ardor Blossom Moth about to make a dire charge. Ishmael grit her teeth. She’d cut it real damn close.

“This is how… I’ll chart my own path,” Ishmael recited silently, then planted her feet.

The harpoon pierced through the air with a wail; seemingly dispelling the embers’ heat as it flew. Behind it flew Ishmael herself; having leapt off the ground alongside--against a prey so distant, no action more reserved would be able to hunt it. Though the harpoon managed to penetrate the Ardor Blossom Moth’s abdomen, it hadn’t carried enough momentum to stop its charge. No, that would be Ishmael; who yanked on the anchored rope to accelerate her even faster towards the Abnormality, and met it in midair with a crushing kick to what she desperately hoped, beneath the fiery haze and lingering concussion, was the moth’s skull.

The strike was true, and the flame-drenched pair fell to earth. Ishmael recovered faster than the Ardor Blossom Moth, and clambered atop its prone body; flesh searing. “What the—Lass, get off the damn Abnormality; you’re gonna cook alive!” Though several Sinners realized what was happening faster than he, Heathcliff was the first one to speak up.

A fist slammed into the Abnormality’s skull. “ You’re the ones that’re nearly dead here!” she roared. “All of you! Step back before the flames get you!”

Fire spewed from the moth’s wounds and leached out in the form of a flaming perimeter, rendering the Sinners largely able only to watch with varying levels of concern. “Lady—cough—Ryoshu! W-wherefore hast thou—“ One of the exceptions to that statement found herself blocked from intervening by Sinner #4’s odachi. Ryoshu’s eyes glittered dangerously. “Shut it, D.Q. Can’t you read the room? L.H.…C. Heh.”

“‘Let her... cook?’ T-that’s horrible, Ryoshu; you shouldn’t—“

<“ISHMAEL!!! What are you doing?!!”>

“Woohoo! Murder the heck out of that gross Abnormality, chica~!”

“Get your grubby hands off me, Meursault! I don’t care if I’ll die or not; I’m going!”

“Non. It is unlikely you will significantly improve her survival odds in exchange for your death.”

Ishmael choked on the scalding air, but continued to pummel the Ardor Blossom Moth. Being surrounded by the nonsensical yammering of the other Sinners would normally be cause for her to groan, seethe, or yell in frustration. Instead, she gave a hacking, painful laugh. A perverse part of her was… grateful, for this situation they were in. Her friends were all there with her once more, and here was a rarefied manifestation of Ishmael’s fears for their safety—one that she could personally pound into the dirt. In the end, Ishmael didn’t stop swinging until her charred corpse hit the ground.

Chapter Text

Ishmael’s fading consciousness drifted bodiless; voiceless; along the endless tide. Time wasn’t much of an object to the dead, but even so; Dante’s chains broke the surface of the water soon enough, by her estimate. She instinctively reached out towards it, before stopping herself.

She’d gotten lucky to not come unmoored, this time--maybe the Moonlight Stones in the Liu garb were to thank, or some other extenuating circumstance. But what about the next time? How could she move forwards from here, if some unknowable event tomorrow might always cause her to crumble? With thoughts like that swimming through her head, Ishmael pushed away the chain, and resolved to return to life only when she was someone who could comport herself as a Sinner ought.

The child decided to wait at the water’s edge; awaiting the moment when the shards that would complete herself could be dredged up from the depths. She would really have waited as long as it took for the languid tide to roll in, unaware of her ego eroding with each passing moment…

But that would never come to pass. Instead of continuing to slosh placidly, the water suddenly shook . The waves crashed and rattled, like the whole world was a bottle in the hands of a particularly energetic child. The skies rotated; swirled chaotically between day and night. Every time the motions subsided, it picked up thereafter with even more strength. To be in the center of this storm was… it was…

So damn annoying , Ishmael thought. There was no way in hell she could even begin to get her thoughts straight. Her thoughts…? What was she thinking about? Ishmael couldn’t bring herself to care anymore. ANYTHING would be better than suffering this a moment more. Flailing blindly, her hands latched onto the first object they could find, and pulled.

Sinner #8 awoke with a gasp--just in time for a cup of water to hit her in the face. “Ahm,” Yi Sang coughed, holding the offending glass. “Welcome back.”

“I can confirm the presence of a pulse,” Meursault commented. He was kneeling, placing two fingers on Ishmael’s wrist--actually, looking around… 

“Mhm! Thou may count my testimony on that note as well!” Don Quixote was holding onto her forehead for dear life.

“S-She was dead for an awfully long time… did something bad happen?” Sinclair… was a bit too squeamish around death to handle her body. He was crouching off to the side.

“Hm, I’m sure it’s nothing worth losing sleep over. Ishmael’s fine, so we can just accept it.” Hong Lu seems to have allowed the other Sinners to use his body as a leg rest for Ishmael. Behind him, Outis was speaking with Faust about… something; she couldn’t divine what.

“You call that bloody fit she was about to throw ‘fine’?” Heathcliff was still holding onto Ishmael’s coat collar; abused by his jostling as it already was.

“G-guys…” She managed to finally get a word in edgewise; buried beneath the mountain of bodies. “Can… you…”

“Hey, she’s finally coming around. How about that?”

“N.S.S. Say something worth the breath next time.”

“... Get the hell off of me! ” Ishmael wriggled wildly; catching a few of the Sinners with incidental  swings, but was finally able to escape their grip. She got up with a huff, but looking back at the tangled pile of limbs; it was hard to maintain her indignance for long. …She was partially the cause of all this, after all. “I’m… I need some time to think. I’m gonna head on back to the bus.” Ishmael got up to leave…

And was promptly hoisted off the ground by Rodion. “Huh?” Ishmael blanched in surprise; hardly helped by the fact that she was then immediately spun for a loop like so much wet laundry.

“…Oi, Rodya. You can put her down; I said ‘stop her from leaving’; not ‘start swinging the lass around like a bloody tote bag’.”

“D’aww, but it’s kinda fun, you know? Like one of those fuzzy worm toys.” Ishmael touched the ground; rotated to face a gallery of inquisitive faces. “I’m still getting paid for this, right?”

Ishmael’s brain was still realigning itself; both physically and mentally. “What? W-What’s… happening right now?” All that resolve to throw herself headlong back into the role of a fellow Sinner was garnered in a silent conversation between Ishmael and herself. The rest of Limbus Company had seen Ishmael apparently snap and isolate herself; only to quickly come back with a manic ardor for beating the everloving shit out of Abnormalities. They had some questions.

“Yeah, yeah, don’t lose your head,” Heathcliff muttered. Rodion whooped. “Right then. We--”

“We’ve noticed some extremely erratic, unpredictable behavior from you lately, Ishmael.” Outis, seeing an opportunity to assume a leadership role, finally leapt into the conversation. “We don’t want a repeat of what happened aboard the Great Lake, do we?”

“Ah, I… don’t really…” Ishmael was still aware of how her whole line of thought might seem to anyone but her. This was probably… the worst possible situation to explain herself convincingly in. “O-Outis, what the heck are you talking about?” She looked to the rest of the Sinners, and chuckled unconvincingly.

“No use hiding it,” Outis smirked. Ishmael’s face fell. “We’ve already extracted a confession from your co-conspirator. Trying to stage a mutiny against the Executive Manager, are we? I must say, you’ve got guts--but clearly not enough finesse.” Yi Sang looked away guiltily.

“I--what? Huh? Wait, that’s not what I’m trying to do at all!” Ishmael protested. “Guys! Look, I know I might seem weird right now, but I promise if you just give me a chance to explain--”

“Alright. Crack on, then. We’re all ears.”

“Wait--not, like now ! I--my notes are still on the bus; and all of Yi Sang’s, too!” Ishmael began to back up, but only met Rodion’s statuesque frame in her way. “You won’t get the whole picture like this; is--is that what you’re OK with? Is that what you really want? Rodion! Whatever Heathcliff is paying you, I’ll double it! Just lemme go!”

“Darn, that’s tempting…”

“...but nope! Watching you squirm like this is just too fun.” Rodion smiled cruelly.

“F-Faust! This has got to fall under infighting, or something, right?! This can’t be allowed; tell them to stop or something! O-or Dante; get them here; they’ll--!”

“To be precise, it is fighting ‘aboard the bus’ that is prohibited, Ishmael.” Faust smiled almost imperceptibly at that; Ishmael was sure--not that that would help her escape the group of people currently dragging her off to a makeshift interrogation room. “Furthermore, Sinner #12 has already obtained Dante’s approval for a… ‘teambuilding exercise’.”

“ OUTIS, YOU BASTARD! I’LL KILL YOU! ” Outis, meanwhile, made no effort to hide her grin at all. In the weeks afterwards, Ishmael would swear up and down that the last thing she remembered seeing that day was Outis and Faust fistbumping. The bus would never come to believe her.

Chapter Text

“...hey. Do you mind if I take a seat?”

<Yeah, go ahead.>

Ishmael made her way to the other end of Dante’s desk, and sat. After yesterday’s events, she had bribed Rodion to get their places in the counseling queue swapped. Dante watched Ishmael with an impassive expression (on account of the clock face--really, their attention was quite rapt); waiting for her to speak up.

Ishmael took a deep breath in, and held it for a while as she amped herself up. She exhaled, then immediately put up her hands; hunched into a conspiratorial stance. “Okay, so, the first thing you have to understand is--”

<It’s alright,> Dante ticked. <I don’t think you’re crazy.> Ishmael grimaced.

The Executive Manager splayed out their hands magnanimously. <No, really. Heck, I barely understand how this ability of mine works, myself. Maybe it does break some regional Taboo or other.>

“You don’t believe that,” Ishmael crossed her arms. “Even if you have amnesia--even if none of us have firsthand experience--you know what happens when the Head comes. Faust doesn’t seem worried, so I’ve probably just been… delusional,” she admitted. “You don’t have to sugarcoat it.”

<W-well,> Dante stammered. <Ok, it is a little hard to believe. But… that’s not to say some other cost might not come from returning you guys, down the line.>

“What’s your game, Dante?” Ishmael huffed.

<Huh?>

“You’re insisting on standing by this asinine theory, when basically everyone else can see that I just lost it. What do you get out of that?”

Dante put their hand up to their chin and pondered. <I guess… when it comes to supporting the Sinners’ endeavors, most of your guys’ knowledge is new to me. So, even when I don’t fully understand your thoughts or feelings… that’s OK. I told myself that I’d accept them anyways.>

Ishmael thought about the implications of this. She blanched, and raised her hand. “Uh, what about if Ryoshu wants to kill Sinclair permanently or something? Or--if the whole revival Taboo thing was real, you’d have to stop bringing back the Sinners. What if one Sinner’s desires conflict with the rest of the bus?”

<Well, I don’t think she’d do that to him,> Dante ticked. <But to answer your question… just abandoning one of the Sinners wouldn’t sit right with me. I’d try to find another solution that works for everyone.> Ishmael gave them a look. <I know that sounds impossible, but… haven’t we done a lot of things on our journey that were ‘impossible’?>

She sighed, and looked into her lap, body tense. So damn naive. Ishmael remembered being like Dante, once. Bright-eyed, grasping at dreams out of her reach. If she didn’t do anything, the City would crush that naivete. This was why she had to be the lookout. She had to judge the threats that lay on the horizon of the LCB’s adventure. She --

<Ishmael?> Dante tapped her on the shoulder. Ishmael nearly leapt out of her chair, reflexively swearing. <You were… kinda spacing out for a minute there. Something on your mind?> Her mouth opened and closed a few times, but nothing came out. Dante nodded understandingly. <Well, you don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to.>

“It’s nothing,” Ishmael lied.

<Alright.> She relaxed almost imperceptibly. <Though…> Dante gave their PDA a few exploratory clicks. <That all said, I, er, do have a question for you.>

The tension returned. “Which is?”

Dante cocked their head. <What… is your theory, anyways? The report Faust gave me said a lot about what everyone else thought, but I couldn’t find your complete account anywhere.>

Ishmael sighed. “Look, the whole peace-and-love shtick, I… what was it again? I don’t understand it, but I get it now. You don’t have to prove to me that you care, anymore.”

<N-no, that’s not what I’m asking for.> The manager waved their hands guiltily. <Sure, sometimes you might get wound up a little, but… I trust your judgement, Ishmael. I… don’t know a lot about the City, so I might not be able to predict its dangers that well. But if you tell me what we might be in store for, I’ll know when to keep an eye out.>

Ishmael snickered. She tried to regain her composure for a moment, but caved just as quickly; and began to giggle deliriously. The thing she’d restrained herself from yelling at Dante the most in this entire conversation, and they’d just… accepted it, without even being aware of what they just did. The same went for the fear at the beginning of the conversation; that Dante would have castigated her, and wanted her to leave the bus. All dispelled like dust in the wind. What else could she do but laugh? The suppressed tension of the past week flowed out of her with each manic peal; leaving Ishmael relieved and Dante slightly afraid.

<Um.>

“I’m fine, Dante. For real this time.” Ishmael wiped away a tear. “Here, let me…” She produced her notes, and began to explain.

“Ahem. So… thinking about it now, it really must be time of some sort. I read the observation log on the Time Ripper, and that’s what the revival mechanism has to be linked to. The revival can’t solely be based in the Mirror, because that alternate Heathcliff needed a different body both times, but Identities get overlaid on us repeatedly, even if we die.”

“Stuff can sometimes appear and disappear, like ammo from certain Identities… but I think the Mirror’s responsible for that. It definitely added some extra bulk to those people at Wuthering Heights who were using it. For the same reason, I don’t think making a copy is unreasonable, either. From what Yi Sang said about the Mirror, it draws on… potentialities, of the different choices someone could have made. Given the number that comes out to, there’s probably, like, a million Heathcliffs that part their hair the other way, and at least a few that managed to become the Seven’s Section 1 Director, or something.”

“What was bothering me was the cost . It’s like… a natural law of the City, that nothing good can come without some terrible price to pay. I… don’t think the Mirror’s that weird in that regard, though. The Identity always returns to its Mirror World when it’s finished being used, and even then, it still takes a Golden Bough to power…? I think. The real problem is your time, Dante. You’ve been doling out all this time to us, but there doesn’t seem to be any kind of backlash. I got stuck on that--I was sure this was too good to be true, that the Head would come for you any minute now… but we’ve influenced so many Wings by now, that can’t be the case.”

Ishmael took a breath. The last time she’d rambled like this was aboard the Pequod. She was out of practice. Dante, who was unaware Ishmael could get this long-winded, was desperately trying to keep up with their PDA’s note-taking.

“...The other day, I was thinking about Ahab. About how that EGO of hers burnt up… Queequeg, and Starbuck, and Pip. No matter how fucked up she’d been, even though she should’ve been dead… the burden of those consequences would be pushed onto someone who… didn’t deserve it. That made me think, if someone like her could hook her rope onto so many other people’s necks, someone more prestigious definitely could. You used to be a big shot, right? Maybe--no, probably, things were set up in some way that would kill someone else if you were going to die instead. Maybe those people are the ones who've been paying our debts.”

“So I found news articles from the Wings we’d visited, and looked for a suspicious increase in deaths around the time the LCB operated there… but I didn’t find anything. Now, maybe it could also be Golden Bough-powered, and they’re just that strong… but for some reason, I feel like in the City, whenever you want to save someone’s life, you have to trade in someone else’s.”

She’d started out just trying to give a summary of her notes, but Ishmael had by this point gotten invested in the act of storytelling itself. She got up and loomed over Dante; putting on a haggard expression to really sell the impact of her concluding statement.

“I think our debt… just hasn’t been paid yet. I don’t know what the repayment is gonna be like, but I think… it’ll shake the entire City when it comes.”

Despite the bright mood Ishmael had launched into her explanation with, it concluded with a heavy pall hanging over Dante’s office. She had talked about the worst kind of calamity--one invisible; formless; unable to be braced for properly.

<...Damn.>

Ishmael coughed, and sat back down. “...Yeah. I hope it’s not true, but…”

<...you can’t help but worry, for everyone’s sake.> she nodded.

“I don’t… actually want you to stop reviving the Sinners, though,” Ishmael admitted with a sad look. “It’s selfish, but I don’t really have anyone besides you guys.”

<We’ll confront it as a team, when the time comes,> Dante reassured her. <As long as you can accept the true shape of your heart… I think it’s fine to be a little selfish.>

“Where’d you read that line?” she laughed. “That’s corny as hell.”

Dante shrugged. <I don’t know; it just… stuck in my mind, somehow. Maybe it’s from my past life, while I was taking a break from stealing the souls of random Rats?>

“Heh. Are you kidding? I bet you were the snobby type who wouldn’t accept any sacrifice less posh than a Feather.”

<Heheh.>

The two leaned back in their chairs; back to feeling hopeful about the future. The fan whirred calmly overhead.

<...Say. I’m sure you of all people have thought about this the most, Ishmael. What if things are like Rodya said, and my original head really was ‘super evil’?>

“Oh, that’s simple.”

<Really?>

“Yeah. I’d knock that head into the next District, and get you back in your body. The other Sinners would want the same, I’m sure.”

<Even if the leadership of Limbus Company…>

“ Fuck Limbus Company.”

Their face didn’t shift, but Ishmael could swear that Dante just smiled. 

“…Uh, did I say anything odd?”

Dante looked awkwardly to the left. <No, it’s just… that’s something I’d have expected Heathcliff to say. …Maybe Rodya was right, and you two are rubbing off on each other!>

Ishmael’s expression shifted. “…”

<It’s refreshing to hear from you, though…?> Dante offered; their non-existent smile having taken a turn for the awkward.

“...”

<...>

She sighed. “…I’m ending the consultation now.”

<Oh, before that, was there anything else—>

“It can wait.” Ishmael gathered her things hastily, and booked it for the exit. Just before leaving, she stopped at the doorframe. “…Good talk though. Thanks.”

<Yeah, you too.> But it was too late—Ishmael had already left for her quarters, trying to avoid anyone else’s gaze along the way. Dante sighed, and their face slumped onto their propped-up hand. <Geez, I hope I didn’t set her off there… things were going pretty well.>

The Executive Manager of the LCB stared at the exit to their office for a while, contemplating whether to go flag the Sinner down. <Nah,> they concluded. <Even if Ishmael goes off course sometimes, she’ll find a way back eventually.>

<She always does.>