Archive of Our Own

Harmartia

It started the way everything in his life seemed to.

Without him realizing it.

The basement door was an imposing, dark maw that he'd stared down a dozen times, watching the toothy stairs vanish into the unlit room beyond. Typically, he wasn't… he just didn't go down there, not because he was still afraid of the dark, but because…

Well. Because he wasn't really allowed there often.

It was clear that he wasn't supposed to be there from the moment he started to walk into the dark, hand holding the railing so tightly he thought he might be able to snap it in half. He reached up to pull the cord on the lightblulb, but it just clicked into the void. It had burned out, probably a long time ago. He remembered seeing his father change it once, balancing on a step-stool while his mother hovered nervously in the background. It must've been years ago, now, the memory going fuzzy around the edges and seeming… brighter then it could have been, given that the light had been out.

But these days, his parents didn't need something as simple as light to navigate… and he was the one to change them now, when they were left to burn out, and he had to fumble around in the dark to find his way.

He had brought a flashlight with him, just in case… really, he didn't know why he tried the light at all. It was a little hard to turn it on while it was balanced on the small stack of cardboard boxes in his hands, decorations his sister had pawned off on him with a tin-tinted laugh, patting him on the shoulder with a rough, cold hand before vanishing.

"Unless you're still scared of the dark, Emil?" She'd laughed, and he vehemently denied it, falling into her trap. If she still could, he'd imagined she would have given him a sly smile, but instead he tried to read the glitter of cold light across steel as warmth.

...She was supposed to be the one to put these things down here, not him.

The glow of his flashlight was unsteady, as the motion of his steps jostled it's precarious position. He had to tilt his body back and forth to try and keep it on top of the pile, to try and keep it off of the floor. It made the shadows in the room jump out at him, morphing them into strange shapes that swayed and crept around him.

So he focused on where he was putting his feet instead! There wasn't anything down here, not except for a bunch of old stuff, some old cooking utensils, three sets of bedsheets, a half-eaten bag of dog food…

Things that were now… obsolete.

Doing his best to not think about that, he found an empty spot for the boxes under one of the vents, dropping them there with a relieved sigh as the strain on his arms vanished with the weight. He stretched a little, but that was a mistake, since his hands were too far away to catch the flashlight as it finally found the freedom it had been seeking, clattering victoriously on the ground as it rolled off the stack of boxes and began it's journey across the floor.

The cone of light flickered for a second when it impacted the stone, and he scrambled after it, breath caught in his throat as he hoped it wouldn't leave him alone down here in the dark.

Thankfully, it didn't get far, and it didn't go out, either. It just rolled towards the corner, and for the most part it was… fine. The plastic casing had a new crack, but it wasn't like his parents would notice it, when they hadn't touched the flashlight in a long time.

Using his sleeve he wiped off the dust it had collected on its adventure, shining the light into his own eyes thoughtlessly for a second when he tried to clean the lens. He screwed his eyelids shut, but didn't let go, blinking the sting away.

Finally, when he lifted his head, he was ready to leave, to turn back, and get out of this dark place that smelled like mildew, dust, and damp stone… until, out of the corner of his eye, he saw a wet patch of glimmering red in the dark. It looked like blood- and he shrieked as he flailed, pointing his flashlight towards the source while the color drained from his face, palms suddenly sweaty.

The light shone up, and around it, looking for the source- before he shakily pointed it at the red spot directly, feeling his throat close up as he edged toward the stairs, ready to book it. And the red, it seemed to flinch back from the light as it first touched the corner of it. But it didn't go far- and it was soon embarrassingly clear why. There was no monster, or puddle of blood, or scary bug…

Instead, he found himself looking at… a flower?

Curled up on itself like it was trying to hide from the light… or, maybe, because it couldn't bloom down here, in the dark. It was peaking up through a hole in the stone floor, a little patch of dirt. He could see it's thin, pale roots reaching over towards a spot where the water had stained the ground, likely where it had been getting it's water.

Slowly, he crouched down, as if he could have startled it, more startled himself to see it here at all. The small bud at the top of the plant looked withered, and if he looked closely, it resembled a rose like the ones his mother used to tend to, back when she said they smelled lovely. Now, her gardening supplies were piled high down here with the rest of the things his family didn't care about anymore.

Maybe… a seed had gotten loose, and found a spot to try and grow, all alone in the dark? Looking at the rose, he felt… sad, and a little angry, though he tried to quash that quickly. The flower… it wasn't going to survive down here, was it?

It didn't look like it was really alive at all… but…

He tried to remember what his mother had told him about taking care of flowers. They liked it when you talked to them, she'd said, and his sister used to sing to them when she went out to water the now-plastic hedges that lined the estate, evergreen. And they needed sunlight, of course, and water, to grow big and vibrant.

His room had a window, and he missed the smell of roses outside… his mother wouldn't mind if he borrowed some of her old things, would she? If he asked her, she… wouldn't say no, would she?

Everything he needed was already down here, the pots, the bags of soil, the trowel and hand-held rake. Even her old gardening gloves, slightly faded, worn after years of use in the sun, sat abandoned in one of these boxes, didn't they?

He set the flashlight back onto the floor, making sure it couldn't roll away again, before getting everything together, trying to remember how she'd done it. Soil on the bottom of the pot, and a plate underneath to catch any water that dripped through the holes, and then, transplant the flower…

Cautiously, carefully, he stuck the edge of the trowel into the ground around the flower, trying to work it into the soil without damaging it's roots. The dirt went deeper then he thought it did, here, and the tendrils that had inched over the floor were determined to stay there. Eventually, he pried the plant free, coaxing the roots away from the stone into fresh soil, with a whispered promise of more water later. It felt a little silly to be talking to a plant, but afterwards it was almost like the roots were easier to pull off. Or maybe, he'd just gotten a little better at it after the first few.

The transplant was a tentative success, though, he wouldn't really know for sure, until the plant… didn't die? Really, he'd only know if it was a failure with any real… swiftness.

Still. He didn't just want to leave it down here with everything else. If it stayed down here, it would die for sure, wouldn't it? Either because it would wither without any sunlight, or because his parents would see it as a problem to be cleaned up.

Into the pot it was, then.

He held the ceramic in one arm while he made his way up the stairs as quietly as he could, clutching it tightly to his chest when he peeked through the doorframe, listening for the sound of footsteps or clanging metal. It seemed like the coast was clear, since he couldn't hear anything but the beating of his own heart, and he scrambled his way upstairs to his room before anyone caught him sneaking around.

Not that he was doing anything wrong! Not really. Mother wasn't going to miss it. Nobody was.

So that's why he doesn't try to hide it when he puts the pot on his windowsill, clearing off a space where the sun shines brightest for it to sit. It looked worse in the light of day then it did in the light of… flash? By flashlight.

Hesitantly, he rotated the flower to face the sun, watching the dusty petals shake. Plants… needed sunlight, and water… and sugar helped too, didn't it?Maybe he should ask about that… or, well, he's sure he can find it online somewhere!

Water, at least, he was confident about, and it wasn't like it would be hard to sneak up some sugar too… he doubted his parents would even notice if he took the entire bag, so he doesn't have to worry so much about it.

"I'll be back soon…" He said, feeling a little silly. But Mother always said flowers grew best when you spoke to them, and her garden was always the prettiest he'd ever seen.

(It was also, kind of, just nice to feel like he was talking to something.)

He wasn't sure where his family was right now, given that the last he'd seen of them was right before he'd gone downstairs in the first place, and that had only been his sister pawning off the work onto him. Father was probably in his study, or at work if he'd decided to leave after the small party. And he thinks he remembers his sister mentioning plans afterward…

At least it made sneaking around a little easier. Maybe he would grab another slice of the cake he hadn't had the appetite for earlier. Quietly he filled a glass of tap water, before opening the fridge that used to be stuffed full of food. Nowadays it was only used for his meals, which had the unexpected silver lining of leaving it empty enough to shove an entire box of store-bought cake. It wasn't quite as good as the homemade one his parents used to make on his birthday, but he's trying to be happy that they remembered to get him a cake at all, even if it was last minute.

There were a couple of sugar packets lying in the cupboard that he snagged, before balancing everything in his arms and making a wobbly trek upstairs.

He had to kick his door open, a heart-pounding experience for him when he was holding food for two. Not- not in like, a weird way-! Just in a plant and… human way?

"I'm back," he said aloud, trying to stop thinking about that. Of course, the flower said nothing in reply, because it was a plant, but he tried to feel welcome nonetheless as he found a place on his bedside table for everything. "I brought you some water… and sugar, too, so lets see if that… helps, I guess?"

He dumped the sugar packets into the water, before stirring it with his finger. A small whirlpool formed in the center of the glass, and he let the water spin while he set it down next to the flower, trying to decide where to pour the water… and how much of it the plant needed. He reached down to nudge aside one of the large green leaves that now sprawled out over the top of the soil-

"Ow!"

-and quickly recoiled as he felt the blade-like edge dig into his finger, leaving a stinging cut bubbling with blood. Instinctively, he tried to wash it in the water before remembering the sugar was in there, then he gave up and just stuck it in his mouth, with most of the blood ending up turning the glass of water a soft pink. Thankfully it seemed like the wound hadn't been too deep after all, despite how much it bled at first.

Almost hesitantly, he picked up the glass… but, was he really going to throw out the water just because there was some blood in it…? Maybe… maybe the plant was just carnivorous, like a Venus flytrap or something? It wasn't like it'd be allergic, right?

Carefully, he tilted the glass, hesitantly pouring the water onto it. It might've just been his imagination… but it was almost like he could see the plant perk up as it was watered.

He watched it for a moment, as the water trickled towards the center of the plant, sliding down to it's hidden roots. "OK… Um, I hope you… liked it…? I think I'll… be going to bed now, so goodnight…"

Almost awkwardly, he slunk off to get ready for bed, already bracing himself for the inevitable meeting with his parents in the morning, where he'd have to scarf down his breakfast as quickly as possible to avoid looking at the metal that had replaced their faces.

So he tucked himself into bed, and then quietly repeated goodnight.

The flower made it through the night, and when he saw it the next morning it had opened slightly, the dusty color of its desiccated petals brightening into a beautiful, crimson red. And as he spent a few minutes fawning over the plant, he didn't realize the bloom had opened towards him, not the sun.

He spent as long as he could in his room, before he heard a metallic knocking on his door, and he had to go downstairs to have breakfast. He quickly fried up some ham he had been cutting up in the fridge, dicing potatoes and scrambling eggs until he had something he could wrap in a tortilla and eat on the go for lunch.

Then he dumped the rest onto a plate, smothered it in butter and cheese, and mechanically sat at the table and ate.

Buzzing electronics filled his ears as his family appeared in the door, like they'd been waiting for him to sit down. He kept his head low and nodded along to his Fathers static-y voice, trying to pick apart his scramble in a way that made it look like he was too hungry to have any opinions on… business, or upcoming dates.

It didn't taste great, but it was better then nothing, which is what the rest of them had, of course. He guessed they just charged overnight, or had enough battery to function, or something like that… didn't his teachers say the human brain needed sleep to function, though? He doesn't think they sleep anymore… but, they still have brains, right?

He didn't want to think about it too hard, so he just ate his food and left for school, glancing up at the clock and finding he's shaved off another 30 seconds of his usual breakfast time. Nobody followed him into the kitchen when he went to do his dishes, so he managed to get out of the house before his hands had fully dried.

It wasn't far to the school, though he's sure they'll have dried before he gets there. When he shuts the door behind him, he does it as quietly as he can, so his parents don't ask him if he wants a ride.

Usually he doesn't look back, not when the ground gets dusted with dew and the towering trees keep the sun away until the afternoon rolls around. It stays pretty chilly and damp, and the ground here is more slippery now that the regular grass had been treated with whatever Father's new business partners friend had pitched… or something like that. He said it helped keep the ticks away, but it also made his shoes slide across the blades like they were made of ice.

He keeps a pretty close eye on his feet, is what he means to say. Keeps his head down, tries not to slip up.

Today, though, he did. Look back, that is.

First he gets to the gate, to get a handhold in case he did need it, and then for some strange reason, as if possessed by an urge he'd never felt before, he glances up at his window, and sees the small, bright flower on the sill.

He waves. He's not sure why. He likes to think that the flower waves back, though.

Maybe that's where things went wrong for Emil Sinclair. Maybe he walked to school a little to fast, or he smiled too much. It could have been a hundred, tiny things, or perhaps it was destiny in it's most terrible form.

Arriving early, he just has time to slide his bag underneath his desk before the other early students begin chattering. Networking- though no one would say it out loud. Hunting for blood in the water, sniffing out a weakness or a flaw they can use to elevate themselves. He doesn't like them very much, but it' s hard to imagine they like each other either. Friendships… maybe it's weird to put it this way, but those kinds of things were best left outside of school.

They always talk about the same things, over and over again, but he feels like he's missing something no matter how long he has to get the answer right. But he's safe, kind of, because of his family… and it's not like he's hopeless, either! Just, picking the right words can be hard, when you know everyone is trying to speak louder then each other.

He's asked about schoolwork. He tells the truth.

He's asked about his surgery. He tells a lie.

He's asked to prove that he's still someone safe from being ostracized. He gives them a secret in exchange for the protection of their little society.

It's awful, but he barely even thinks about doing it. In a way it's easy, he knows exactly what to say to make them think he's a valuable person, and then all he has to do is sit, and stew over it, wait until they all disperse and bite on his nails until the pit in his stomach goes away.

Today, Emil Sinclair bites too hard.

Today, he meets Kromer.

Kromer is something like a lodestone in Sinclair's life. That's how he wants to put it, anyway. She gives him words for the complicated emotions he has about his family- disgust, anger, betrayal.

Meeting her makes him feel like he's finally figured out which was up when he's been drowning in uncertainty. She's the last breath that bubbles towards the surface, and it feels like he has to follow her to survive.

He mutters some of the things she says to the flower on his windowsill that starts to lose color after a few days on the windowsill. He even brings it up to Kromer once, who laughs and tells him such a beautiful flower could only be watered by blood. It doesn't feel like it was meant to be an instruction, but he still finds himself considering it as he watches the vibrant red start to dull.

It certainly still looked healthier then it had when he had found it… and, last time it nicked him, he only lost a little bit of blood, didn't he? It couldn't have been that bad if it healed up so quickly, leaving nothing but a small scar in his finger the next day.

For a little while he had tried to gather up the courage to get a knife and cut his finger again, but he just couldn't actually bring himself to do it, even if he shut his eyes tight and held his breath.

"…Sorry," he murmured instead, then hesitated. The flower had managed to cut him before hadn't it? There were some thorns on the stem, so maybe he pricked himself in it? Or, no… wasn't it something else?

Leaning in a little closer, he could see the petals a bit better. It looked like they were starting to lose their volume, the previously lush petals wrinkling like they were trying to keep as much color inside as they could.

Delicately, he reached out to touch a petal that seemed in particularly poor health, but to his surprise it seemed to get brighter at his touch. It felt a bit dry at first, but quickly it took on a velvety… kind of silky feeling?

The whole flower seemed to be doing better, actually, which was… confusing but way better then the alternative! He lifted his hand to watch the petal move back into place, like it had never been damaged before, but his attention was quickly drawn back to his fingers when he noticed they felt strangely… sticky?

When he lifted his hand to see, his first instinct was worry for the flower as he saw the red staining his fingers, wondering if he'd squeezed the petal too hard and ruptured something.

But- no, of course not.

…He didn't really know what to do, when he saw the blood on his fingers. It felt surreal, like he was dreaming. He rubbed them together, feeling the sticky texture of drying blood, but he wasn't seeing any cuts, or feeling any pain. He kept pressing his fingers together until the blood dried up and clumped up into flakey balls, hesitantly dropping the broken chunks down onto the plant.

Then he went to the bathroom to wash his hands, and get a better look… but there was nothing. No injury, no… well, anything.

Part of him wasn't even sure it actually happened after he finished washing his hands in a daze. Except, when he went back out into him room, a little warily, he could see a few red drops on the windowsill that must've dripped off his skin.

He grabs a tissue and dabs it up, cleaning the drops up. Side eying the plant, he watches it closely just in case it… bites him. He guesses. It feels a little silly when he thinks about it like that, but he wouldn't be surprised if there was some kind of Venus… man trap…

Um. Maybe that's actually a lot silly.

Especially since the flower looks healthier! A lot healthier, now. Very bright and colorful, which was the goal, so he did manage to succeed…? The small steak knife he'd taken from the kitchen was sitting innocuously near the pot, and he just picked it back up, holding the blade in his hand hesitantly.

Well. Hm.

Problem… solved? He'd have to make sure not to touch the flower… anywhere, kind of ever, but wasn't that what you did with plants anyway? It wasn't like it was a dog… he wasn't even sure if it was healthy for the plant. OK, well, this plant specifically might like it because it somehow made him… sweat blood or something? He really doesn't want to think about it too much, because it's a little… scary if he does.

So that's the situation? If he needs to feed it… blood… then he can just touch it and it'll make him… He shudders. He looks down at his hand. There isn't any more blood on it.

It can't be that dangerous, right? Otherwise, why would it have been in the basement. His parents wouldn't let anything dangerous grow down there, so maybe it was a situation where his Mother had collected the seeds before having kids, and didn't want something that could drink blood around while there were children around? That makes sense.

He isn't a toddler that might stumble into a bush anymore, though! And it only needed a bit of blood every few days, or maybe even less then that, since he thinks that he maybe gave it more this time?

…There has to be some sort of gardening book in the school library that'll help with this… right? Some book about… blood thirsty carnivorous plants? Did all plants drink blood? He hadn't really thought about it before, didn't all plants eat dead things or something?

Was this how new parents felt? Why was he suddenly so worried about the flowers nutrition…? Of course he didn't want it to die! Or wither… it was really pretty, and he realized he's just kind of been staring at it blankly for the last few minutes? But wasn't that fine? It's not like the plant could get self conscious, could it?

"You're very pretty," he tells it, having gotten into the habit of sharing his thoughts with the flower to make his room seem a little less quiet. "Um… please don't suck all of my blood out in the middle of the night? I'll figure out… a schedule that works for both of us, so… yeah. I- I guess you haven't done that yet… so keep it up? Keep up not doing that, please."

Even as he says it he understands how stupid he sounds, but it's supposed to be good for the plant!

He continues to ramble on while he throws away the tissue, debating on returning the knife to the kitchen before deciding to hide it in his bedside table drawer for now instead of risking a familial encounter.

Then, he grabbed his schoolbag, and got started on the homework he was technically supposed to have started working on… half an hour ago or so. His desk was near the window anyway- actually, he wanted to push that closer, he'd have to remember to do that at some point- so he could sit there and talk himself through the questions on the paper to kill two birds with one stone.

Honestly… between Kromer, the flower… and Demian… he's been talking more this past few weeks then he has in a long time.

"So… you carry the 3, and then… huh, is this right…? This looks right, doesn't it?" He glances up at the flower, taking its silence as encouragement, and keeps on scribbling down the hopefully correct answers. "Um… this number, to the power of 11… to the power of 11? Wait, weren't we told we aren't supposed to use a calculator for this? That's…"

By the time he gets his homework done, with several sheets of loose-leaf paper covered in increasingly messy scribbles, he feels like he never wants to look at a number again. But tomorrow is a schooldays, and that means he'll not only have to see more math, but preform even more calculations.

At least he feels more confident about it! Actually, he thinks talking through the problems out loud helped him quite a bit! He smiled, mostly because he was done for the day, and made sure to give a heartfelt thank you to the rose before putting everything back in his bag, leaving the insane mess of numbers alone on the desk to be dealt with tomorrow.

Rather, to be thrown in the garbage when he was going to bring it out in the morning! He spent the rest of his evening fiddling around, Kromer sent him a couple paragraphs of messages to respond to, and he felt like a real teenager when he got to lie on his bed texting her. He didn't know why she was so interested in him, really… she had so much charisma, in her own way. But even in text form she was content to have him only nod along and not really contribute that much to the conversation.

It was just… nice to talk to someone. Someone real- a human being. He said so out loud before stuttering out that, of course, he liked talking to the flower too, but it didn't exactly respond to his voice. When Kromer texted him, he could actually almost hear the emotion behind her words- she had a lot of very strong feelings. About seemingly everything, which looked like an exhausting way to live.

But she also seemed happy, while he… He was doing fine.

Kromer was also pretty busy, as it turned out, and she complained about it to him a few times, though he didn't know what she was talking about. Maybe she had a part-time job, or was working on some big project for one of her classes? When he asked her, she just sent a short message that read:

[Haha, oh, Sinclair… it's my biggest project yet.]

Which meant nothing!

Though it was nice that she was making time to talk to/at him. He didn't want to get her in trouble… but in her own way she reassured him that it wouldn't be a problem. That she wouldn't be texting him if she didn't want too. Which meant that… well, for some reason, she wanted to.

Not a lot of people spoke to him just because they felt like it. He hadn't realized just how much he'd missed it until he got it back.

When he falls asleep, it's with his phone in his hand, screen still lighting up the room while it occasionally chimes.

For the record- he doesn't get eaten by the flower in his sleep. And not just that night, either! The flower stays where it's supposed to be, except for the day he bites the bullet and drags his desk closer to the window to get more natural sunlight (on the rare days when the sun was bright enough to be noticeable) when he almost knocked it over and decided it was best to put it on the floor for a bit so it couldn't fall… to the floor.

That isn't exactly important, though.

What is important… is trying to parse whatever it is Demian is saying to him now.

"Eden was once the garden of heaven," He said, unprompted, the way he started all of his conversations. "Every beautiful thing was kept within it's walls… much like the night sky. And from there, fallen stars were exiled."

"Hi… Demian," Sinclair responded, blinking up at him. "I didn't see you there… again."

The boy smiled, his gaze half-lidded but warm. He hopped up on the desk across form him, crossing his legs and tilting his head just slightly, just so he could look down at his conversational partner with a touch more ease.

"Hello, Sinclair," He greeted, softly. His teeth were perfectly straight, his hair tousled by the wind charmingly. Demian looked like he'd just walked off the cover of a book, and Sinclair wondered what the genre might be. "One day, I'm sure my presence won't be but mere expectation to you."

He doubted that- but he certainly won't complain about seeing Demian more often! Which, is what he means by that, probably? He nods along, regardless.

"Ah… homeroom will be starting soon, aren't you worried you'll be late?" He asks, reluctantly, and the boy on the desk in front of him just laughs quietly.

"Sinclair, I'll be exactly where I'm needed when the time comes." Is the unhelpful response. His lower leg starts to swing lightly while he pauses between his words, giving them time to settle.

Demian has a way of keeping the room quiet while he talks, one that affects Sinclair as much as it does everyone else. He finds himself leaning forward slightly to listen to him talk, drinking in the words.

But he's also a man of few words… in a way. Sometimes he gets to sit and listen to Demian wind through a strange tangent that feels like trying to walk along the strings of a knot, only to find both of the ends had been tied together from the very beginning. Once he's finished his verbal meandering he often wanders off to let him digest… whatever it was he had said.

Today, too, that seems to be the plan, as he hops up off of the desk (and he sees a student in the background sigh in relief as his seat is finally vacated,) waving at him over his shoulder before departing.

He hopes that Demian won't get in trouble for being late… but then, he's pretty sure all the teachers like him a significant amount more then the average student. Demian has a way of making people listen to him, and even the adults don't take his words lightly, at least from what he's seen so far.

And, since he'd been talking with him before class had started, it gave him a bit of a break from dealing with the other students, though they tended to circle around Demian like they were drawn into his orbit. A couple of them give him jealous looks, but what's he supposed to do? Even he doesn't know why Demian started talking to him, let alone why he doesn't talk to those people instead!

The first bell rings, and he immerses himself in his work as best as he can, chewing on the end of his pencil when he's given a workshop to go over, relieved to find that he knows how to handle the problems. He doesn't look up from his work until he feels something hit his head, and when he looks up bewildered he sees Kromer standing in the classroom door with a wild grin, and a crumpled note on his desk.

Cautiously, he glances to the teacher, but they seem to be focused on helping a disinterested peer go over their work. When he looks back, Kromer is gone, like a specter.

When he unfolds the note, he has to bite his lip to stop the instinctive, nervous giggle from bubbling up.

Meet me after school?

[ ] Yes! [ ]Yes.

I'll be waiting, Sinclair.

Wow… so, it looks like he would be busy this afternoon.

He wasn't sure what exactly Kromer wanted from him, but most of the time her requests were… Simple yet strange. She'd been talking about her upcoming project a bit more recently, and she's always been hard to find once school ended. Normally he has to catch her before she goes home, if he wants to talk to her after class in person.

If she went out of her way to tell him to meet up with her… it had to be something important, right? Or did she just want to hang out? For some reason, he didn't think that was it, but maybe that's just because he's never really had a school friend before? In the last month he's gone from having roughly 0 to approximately 2, which is an over 100% increase! Not that he knew how to replicate that success, or, um, how it happened? He bit his finger a little too hard, and he made eye contact with someone through a window… so it seemed like friendship worked in truly mysterious ways.

He sketched a small rose in the corner of his homework, trying to etch it into his memory so he wouldn't forget to research it after meeting with Kromer.

When he walks home later that day in a daze, the books he'd meant to check out in the library are a distant memory.

Peripeteia

"I- I don't know what it was, but-"

"[__][__][__][__][__][__][__]_"

"Emil, have you been having nightmares again?"

He hid his head in his hands, breathing heavily as he stared down at the floor- trying not to think about what was down there, about what he'd seen. In his basement- why was there such a horrible thing in his basement?

The blankets on his bed were drawn up around him like a tent, but it couldn't take the chill out of his body, and it couldn't really hide him all that well either.

Not that the thing in his basement had eyes.

In his basement.

He curled up tighter, his grip on the edges of the blanket getting tighter while he swaddled himself.

Kromer had still been down there when he… when he couldn't be, but he saw her waving from the road after she hollered his name up through the yard like a wailing monster. He didn't even want to look at her, but she didn't wait for him to feel ready before she was gone.

Her smile was so bright it could have blinded him. He didn't want to see it again. Not when he could still hear the wet, tearing flesh filling the fetid, rancid, stale air. He could still taste it in the back of his throat, the heavy, undisturbed air that reeked of old suffering. Even after the acidic sting of bile chased it away, the phantom of that sensation crept back up to haunt him, like it was just waiting for the sour notes to fade.

Should he tell someone? He- he tried, but when he saw his own bloodless face staring back at him from the shiny, camera shaped surface of his parents head, he just couldn't bear the feeling of being watched, his confession stumbling and disjointed while he wrestled with what he'd seen and what he had been feeling.

They didn't believe him the first time… and he wasn't supposed to go down there without permission. Oh, he really, really wasn't supposed to have gone down there, he knows it. He'll be in so much trouble if they find out, and then they'll remember it forever, everything he's done wrong. Forgive, and forget. That's what his Mother used to say, before she stopped being able to forget anything at all. Now he can't stand it, what if they can't forgive him? They'll never forget it, never forget what he's done.

He pulls the blankets even tighten and tried to remember what it felt like when he was a little kid, and his parents used to hug him with warm, giving arms. The cotton felt more like flesh then the cold metal of their arms did now.

As long as Kromer didn't tell anyone, would they have to find out? Even though a part of him wanted to confess immediately, to apologize and hope they wouldn't get mad, he wouldn't even be able to tell if they were lying in return! There was no way to see how disappointed they were if they didn't decide to trigger whatever line of code controlled the tinned sounds of emotion in their voices.

What if-

What if they got so mad, they made him…

Trembling, he shook his head, fingers slowly losing color as his grip tightened and tightened until the knobbly knuckles formed white stones beneath his skin.

"…What do I do…?"

Whispering quietly, he tried to… to speak out his feelings so they'd get out of his chest and make the cold discomfort go away.

"It's- it'll all be OK, they don't… they won't find out about it, r-right? Right… and, and, and if… if it's been down there so long, it's not going too…"

His voice trailed off as he tried to remember, just for a second, if the horrible thing that didn't look like a person at all except in the awful ways it did looked back at him. At them. He hadn't drawn it's attention when he scrambled away, right? Kromer hadn't tried to make it follow her, had she?

"It'll… that thing is going to stay down there, right…?"

It had to. No, it- it had to stay down there, didn't it? The way they got in, through that vent… it, it was certainly… boneless enough, malleable enough to make it, even if it looked too big to fit through the grates on the wall. But thinking about how it writhed, twitching and wet, he didn't… he hope it wasn't able to stand tall enough to get to it.

He didn't know. He didn't want to know. He really just wanted to forget all about it, and pretend it was just a nightmare he'd had.

"…I-I… I don't…" Trailing off, he shudders, going quiet as he realizes he doesn't have any desire to speak. He wants to talk to make the silence stop, so he doesn't have to keep listening for the scraping sound of something chasing after them- him. Chasing him.

Glancing towards the door, he tucks his knees in together against his chest, burying his face away while he tries to block away the worry.

"…"

The light on his bedside table never ends up being turned off that night- but from that point until he falls asleep he doesn't see even a glimmer of light.

When he goes to school the next day, he feels like there's an invisible wall of glass between him and the world he'd known for so long. The secret- and it is a secret, it's going to stay a secret, he can't risk letting his parents know- makes him feels like he's viewing the world through a different lens. All of those petty comments? The little digs and sharp words that his classmates turn on him? It doesn't really hold the same level of severity when he'd spent the last night huddled under a pile of blankets begging silently in the dark for the monster to stay away.

A couple of people ask him about his complexion and the bags under his eyes in snide, hungry tones… but he just mumbles something about homework and keeps his head down so they can't see the way his fingers shake where they're gripping the sides of the desk for dear life. They leave him alone pretty quickly anyways, he's already told them a juicy secret only a few weeks ago and it's enough to keep him out of their cross-hairs for a little while longer.

But trying to fill in the empty boxes that he's starting to notice littering his social life is becoming increasingly unimportant, especially when he crosses paths with Kromer and she gives him a wide, familiar smile that looks more like a gnashing maw full of human teeth than a warm commiseration.

Even more so when she makes a small gesture- drawing her pinched fingers across the toothy zip of her lips, throwing away the key.

Our little secret, Sinclair~!

…It doesn't stay implied for long, since he pulls the crumpled piece of paper out of his locker with a furtive glance, shoving it deep into his pockets where watchful eyes can't reach it. It feels like it's on fire in his clothes the entire day, and he keeps reaching down to touch the place where it's tucked away like he's afraid it'll… spring to life and run away.

Kromer still has the key to his basement, too- but that doesn't feel as important when he's trying to do damage control on something nobody else knows a thing about. He tries to act normal, tries not to be too nervous- at least, no more so then usual- but it feels like he's playing the part of an understudy in a play that no longer has a script. Or maybe like he's studied the script too long, and he can't separate the stage directions from the emotional beats? He never spent much time in the theater program, and most of his roles in the school sponsored plays were along the lines of, "tree one," or "friend three".

Everything feels wrong, but what can he do about it? If he could go back, and unsee the thing that lived only a few minutes away through the dust-laden vents, he would! If he didn't have to wash his clothes early in the morning so the nearly-black buildup against the metal didn't stand out as a stain on the clothes he wore when he followed Kromer, or have welts forming in bright, angry crescents along his nail beds where he'd gnawed them, maybe he could have.

Maybe he could have- should have- pretended it was all a dream… but this morning he'd walked past the place where the basement key was meant to hang, and the empty space accused him of things he really did do.

He needed… to get that key back, but that meant he needed to talk to Kromer. Kromer… who seemed no different then ever. No- she seemed happier then ever.

Did she really… smile the way he remembered when they saw the monster? Or was that just a part of the nightmares he must have had that night, even though he doesn't fully remember falling asleep? He doesn't know how to approach her without feeling the claustrophobic walls of the vent close in around him again.

Plus, she promised to help him, right? He needed help. He didn't want to lose everything like his family had, even if it meant having to deal with things like the smell of rotting meat. He didn't want to turn into a hunk of metal that barely remembered what it meant to be human, and just played the part day after day, eating plastic food and living in a dollhouse where no-one slept in the beds and no-one ever stumbled over their pre-programmed words again.

That was… that would be horrible, and if she could really help him avoid living a nightmare, then surely having a at night was… a fair trade?

It really had… it does matter that much to him, doesn't it? Staying human, even if it meant…

He shook his head, and ducked when the teacher snapped her ruler and sent him a reprimanding glare. It didn't quite hold the same weight it used to, so he quickly found his thoughts drifting off again.

What did he do? Did he do anything? What if Kromer didn't help him, after all, and he went through all that for nothing? Betraying his parents, sneaking Kromer in at night, and then… everything after.

Would he just have to… accept whatever came after?

He didn't want to think about it, but it had barely been a day and it was eating him alive. Could he really keep it up if Kromer just… never spoke of it again, like he wanted?

Maybe… on Christmas- no, before that, he didn't want to ruin the holiday for his family- he would maybe mention something about it, and sound out how mad they would be? Or something like that. Would they get madder the longer he waited?

It was still too early to have to worry about that! He couldn't stand to think about that, so he stared down at the paper on his desk and tried to ignore the way the wood of his pencil was cracking under his tightening grip.

She came to find him after school.

He left with his pockets two coins heavier and his heart dragging in the dirt behind him.

It took him a long time to work up the courage to ask for the basement key back.

He'd lamented his choices aloud to his ever silent audience of one, shutting his eyes tight whenever he had to… feed… the flower. The sight of his own blood, one he'd almost started viewing… fondly, strangely enough, started to become more and more sickening. He couldn't just stop feeding it, though, not if the rose would die without a little blood…

Kromer's coins stayed exactly where she wanted them, burning holes in his pockets. He considered burying them in the soil of the pot, but decided against it when he remembered how sharp the leaves had been. He didn't want to cut his hand open before school… what if it ended up drawing Kromer over again?

Did he really not want to see Kromer that badly? She had been his… friend, in a weird way, though the word feels inappropriate now. Is that even fair to her? He doesn't really care now that he thinks about it, even though he maybe does feel a bit guilty?

Surely she wasn't actually… fine with what they saw down there, right? Maybe she was also avoiding him, because he's pretty sure she could find him if she wanted, not to mention the fact that she already has him home address. He'd been doing his best to act normal, so there's a chance she was just a better actor then he was.

But then, why the coins? And, she promised to uphold her end of the deal… though there was no way she liked what his end had consisted of. He couldn't really blame her if she chose to jut cut ties with him altogether over it, he'd even welcome it, really! Yet at the same time… would he regret saying goodbye to the only person who had seen the same nightmare he had?

He thinks that he could, if it's Kromer.

Maybe she's also struggling with what they saw… but it really didn't look like it.

Kromer had been the same as ever. Magnetic, strange, always smiling and whistling. Whistling like a bullet passing by your head, or at least that's how they sound in movies… Actually, now that he thinks about it, her whistling sounds kind of like a catcall…?

He doesn't know how he feels about that, either. He just knows he doesn't like it.

That day, he sits down at breakfast, and the guilt eats better then he does.

Staring at the spot in the kitchen where the house-keys hang, completed.

Seeing his own features reflected back at him, he ignores the worried comments of his family and tries to act like everything is as fine as it all appears to be.

As much as possible, he avoids Demian.

Not because… well. He doesn't even know why he does it, actually

There's a part of him that wants to stay away because he's afraid that the other boy will think less of him if he found out what he'd done. The same part that feels like he's become something… soiled, in a way, fallen from grace and marked by his betrayal. He just doesn't want to get Demian involved, and potentially ruin his life the way he feels like his had been.

Ruined may be a bit dramatic… but it's how he feels. Like a white rug that's had oil spilled on it, or… a wet park bench. Something you don't want to touch for fear of contamination in some shape or form.

Plus, what would he do if Demian heard about it and decided that he was ruined on his own? He doesn't want to see the expression on his face when he describes that nightmare, what if Demian is as disgusted with him as he is?

Or, worse… what if he smiles like Kromer did, and he's the only one too weak to handle what he's describing…?

The only living thing that he's been able to stand speaking of these things to is a flower that isn't capable of judging him, and one that can't leave him even if it could… which, um, sounds a bit sad, now that he thinks about it… Look, all in all, the plant doesn't have legs and it can't smile at him, and sometimes that's better then a real human person!

…Oh, man. This whole thing… It's really getting to him.

He doesn't… know how long he can keep this up.

There's a light dusting of snow on the ground outside his window.

The trees sway in the fresh winter wind, the needles frosted over to form a beautiful, nearly scale-like pattern of shimmering green overhead. He feels the cold from the moment he wakes up- nose burning and cheeks stinging.

He doesn't want to get out of bed… and he regrets leaving the comfort of his blankets when he slinks out into the shiver inducing room. The floor is so cold that he dances across it for the first few steps, but he gets distracted by the frost covering his window, and acclimates quickly to the change in temperature.

"Did it actually snow last night?" He asks aloud, wiping off the window and shaking the cold residue off his hand. He glances down at the rose to make sure the cold weather isn't causing any damage, and then realizes he has no idea how to tell if a plant needs to be warmer. He opens his mouth to ask, before realizing what he's about to do. For a second, as he hesitates, he feels a painful sensation under his ribs, squeezing tight.

"I've… been spending a lot of time in my room, haven't I…?"

Even though it's only been a few weeks… he hasn't been feeling comfortable walking around the house. It isn't the same discomfort as before, when he just didn't want to talk to his family… that all seemed like a childish feud now that he keep jumping at shadows expecting to be torn apart. And now that he can't go to his parents at all, when he has to dodge his sister in the hallway because he can't look at them without feeling so guilty he could die.

…Not that he isn't feeling that way, anyways.

He rushes through the morning with a single minded determination, just trying to keep his head down and get out the door before anyone realizes somethings up. But with his eyes focused on the table, when his Father asks if there's anything wrong he can almost see the concerned look in his eye leering at him accusingly in his memory. Once he'd thought his families voices had been rendered toneless and emotionless, but now he knows it's not the case.

He knows it, because the worry is as clear as day and it burns him whenever he hears it.

When he rushes out the door, he almost slips, stumbling over his feet as his shoes skid on the icy stone. In that second, that burst of panic, he feels a desperate, instinctive hope that someone will catch him.

No one does, because he's alone. Alone, because of what he's done.

Glancing back over his shoulder, he sees the lone trail of footprints leading from his front door peppered through the snow.

It's all he can think about for the entire day.

He misses his family.

When the last bell rings, he makes up his mind.

Anagnorisis

"Hello? I'm home," Sinclair calls out, his voice echoing through the halls of the quiet, ominously still home. He waited to hear someone call back to him, but instead of voices there's just a quiet thud- footsteps, perhaps…? Other then that, it's almost silent, unnervingly so.

Even the usual ruckus of the dog's tin-rattling barks was missing… were they taking him on a walk for old times sake?

That didn't seem… right…

…

What… What was Kromer doing, here…?

It's all his fault

It takes him a few hours to make his way back home from… wherever Kromer had her… her henchman take him.

Cold. It was cold.

He found the bodies piled up under the Christmas tree he hadn't decorated with him family, too busy hiding in his room. She even left him a card, of a baby angel holding a trumpet, Have a holy holiday.

Numbly, he stared at her signature, written in a dried, flaky brown… and he crushed the card with unfeeling hands, shaking and freezing from the long walk.

If his family were still intact, it would have been a lot harder to get them into the backyard. He fetched a shovel from the basement, too stunned to even be afraid, a new horror overwriting what he thought had been his worst nightmare.

The ground was frozen. But his hands were too cold to feel anything, so he smashed the blade on the ground over and over again until it broke up the soil enough for him to start digging.

He buried his sister. He buried his Father.

But when the time came to start throwing the icy hunks of dirt over his Mother's bleeding scrap… he stopped. Took a deep breath.

Sinclair went back into that house for only a moment, and only one reason. When he opened the door to his childhood bedroom, he didn't bother turning on the lights as he shuffled robotically towards the window.

The rose, he planted over her.

He wouldn't be around to water it anymore, and he whispers that to the plant as he packs in the soil around its roots, transplanting it from the pot he'd stolen from the dead woman beneath it.

Dead. His Mother… was dead.

Whispering softly, just to get the thoughts out of his head… his farewell to the plant sounded deranged, even to himself in some distant corner of his mind. But the flower had never voiced any concerns or complaints, had it?

I'm going to leave. I don't think I'm coming back.

That's what he tells it as its roots reach through the ground like needles of molten iron, devouring the remaining organic components of his family, the brains and those precious few nerves they'd kept safe over the years. The metal casing that had been their body cracks and splinters into further, more unrecognizable shapes, and yet Sinclair (singular, now,) cannot see it, or hear it through the dirt between them.

Because of that, and the fact that he didn't know- couldn't know… when he turned away, to go… somewhere, just anywhere else, it doesn't matter where…

He didn't think about the rose again for a very, very long time.

Lusis

After that, it's history.

Trying his best to think of anything except for Kromer, Sinclair focused on surviving until he was 20- old enough to get a Fixer license and start…

…Doing something. Anything.

It doesn't matter.

He ends up signing on with a group called "Limbus Company", an up-and-coming group with several big names attached to it. He doesn't know why they wanted him… but when the lady with white hair who introduced herself as Faust approached him… he didn't really have anywhere else to go.

That decision changed his life, for better, or for worse…

The other people recruited by the company for this… um, murder bus ride… were mostly strange and unsettling. At least, he thought they were, but none of them seemed to have the same problem that he did, so maybe Sinclair was the odd one out here…? Those other 11 Sinners (12, technically, counting Manager Dante, but they didn't fight so much as… oversee?) had issues they needed to work through that seemed just as bad as what he did.

Being called a Sinner didn't feel… good, but he didn't have the right to be a normal person after getting his family killed.

Gregor ("Just Gregor,") and Rodion ("Call me Rodya~!") had the misfortune of having their sins displayed for all to see, and Sinclair was thankful that the gloves on his new outfit kept him from chewing on his fingers as he watched them be pulled apart and shoved back together.

He had his suspicions… No, he knew it was coming. But he never expected it to be so soon, as they passed through a K-corp checkpoint, doing their best to ignore a small fuss in the immigration section. He shot a furtive glance toward the child watching their parent be dragged away, and his grip on his halberd tightened.

But he didn't make a scene. There was no point, after all. Children are made orphans every day in the City.

He had too much to be worried about, as they drew closer and closer to their destination. It was obvious that he was being affected, and everyone kept trying to push for him to share his intel for the mission. But how could he tell them about what happened?

They didn't need to know, there was no way- there was no way…

Even he didn't really believe that. Especially as the bus began to take familiar roads winding towards a forested town in District 11.

The sky burned red, speared through with towering blackened trees. He kept to his seat in the bus, tucked in to a tight stance to peer half-heartedly out the window because the heart-pounding fear he kept staring at the increasingly familiar scenery was better then meeting the gaze of any of the sinners trying to catch his eye.

…Of course, he wasn't any luckier then Rodya or Gregor had been. He was starting to think, in the back of his mind, that there was maybe a reason why these seemingly random people had all been gathered together on the bus.

Rodya had tried to start up a conversation, but after the scene in the transport point none of them had been in high spirits. Well, um… none of them that expressed emotions in a normal way. Ryoshu seemed… hm, actually, now that he thought about it, she also seemed pretty upset by it…

Aha! Mr. Merusault, surely, was as unaffected as ever!

Sinclair's confidence in that statement was unshakable, until the bus ended up pulled over. And he… recognized the people, recognized that symbol, that outfit, the suit of armor and the way they spoke.

Merusault… perhaps did as well, though he found himself unable to really pay attention to the quiet Sinner when every part of him was laser focused on his grip on his halberd. It felt like he'd snap, and attack the first thing that moved if he so much as untensed a single muscle. Then, the Inquisitor's pointed their nails at Manager Dante, and he didn't have to worry about holding back anymore.

Sinclair had almost gotten used to the sight of blood and viscera splattered about the ground, but as he punched a hole through the plate-mail of one of these N-corp foot soldiers, he only felt a sharp, cold satisfaction that sparked back into an unbearable rage. It was like he was burning from the inside out, scorching, scalding water rushing through his veins that could only be cooled for a second when he killed his next target.

When the battle was done, he made sure to stab the blade of his weapon into the skulls of every fallen Inquisitor he passed on the way back to the bus, making good and sure they were staying dead.

It felt like his head was full of static.

When he heard that whistle again, two different parts of him began to fight for control.

Most of him- the part that won out this time- cowered back from the noise, recoiling as he saw her grinning teeth close around his thoughts for a second, trembling like a mouse spotting a hawks shadow over the field.

The other part?

Furious, roiling… a thrashing, lashing hatred that lit his heart up from the inside after the initial wave of cowardice faded.

There was a part of him, too, that wondered if he'd even still recognize her voice. And it died. Writhing and boiling. Decay filling his veins and being pumped through his system with every thunderous beat of his heart as his eyes snapped to the speaker that he'd been taught was for natural disaster warnings.

If he had to pick a single word to describe Kromer, disaster isn't a terrible option.

Sinclair shakes with the force of his emotions, and decides that he wants to be able to describe her with the word deceased instead.

Merusault had slid in front of him as the speakers kicked to life, the horrible sound filling what used to be a bustling town square. Now it was littered with shining silver corpses- the prosthetic pieces indistinguishable from the Inquisitors armor that was dented and bloodstained and ripped into fleshy, rusty chunks.

Oh, when he heard her voice, he didn't know what to do. He could have cried, or screamed, or grabbed onto Merusault's arm and held so tightly that he wouldn't be able to launch himself forward and find that bitch and rip her to pieces.

Rodya wasn't far, setting her hand on his shoulder and whispering something that he didn't pick up over the rushing blood-lust saturating his thoughts.

When he heard his name… no, his family's name in her cocky, bright voice…

He almost lost it entirely.

At that point, there was no way to hide the fact that he was connected to this entire event… though he hadn't exactly been putting on an excellent veil of apathy.

Biting out an explanation felt like chomping down on his own fingers, but he did it anyway because he'd seen this happen twice already, hasn't he. So the other Sinners get a few short, clear words while he does his best to keep his head somewhat level, beating down her followers and imagining her face behind every one of the helmets he caves in.

Rodya asks if they were friends. Sinclair doesn't want to ever think of her as anything but dead meat again.

Kromer didn't even sound much different then he remembered.

She must've ditched the school uniform that Sinclair could see littering a few half-intact corpses hanging from the boughs of a burning pine, old classmates who'd gotten the surgery they'd been so excited for in their adulthood reduced to scraps of metal and fabric. He could barely hear her speaking over the shrieking, hissing cacophony of metallic voices dully reciting the lines she'd programmed into the newly deceased voices, a chorus of the damned breaking the silence of the holy night.

Or something like that. All of this… nothing here was anything approaching holy.

The coin in his pocket was molten against his thigh.

Beating down the faceless man who'd stood proudly at Kromer's side as she slaughtered his family was easier then trying to rip her body out of the speakers when he couldn't stop trembling from that nauseating mix of cowardice and vendetta.

When they broke off from the fight, his hands wouldn't stop trembling… or so he thought, at first. But as he kept his head down, marching onward to Outis's already familiar calls with Ishmael's words ringing in his ears, he realized that wasn't it.

His hands were steady- perfectly still around the shaft of his weapon. It was the rest of him that shook.

The sound of crackling fire was almost a blessing, because it was harder to hear the dying cries if his neighbors as he pressed onward. Rodya seemed to spend more time looking at them then he did- maybe she was reminded of her own crimes, or at least reminded of what came after they meddled with someone they really should have avoided.

Or maybe she just thought they'd have something valuable in them worth taking. If that was the case… he'd rather not look. What could he do to stop her when he could barely muster the space in his heart to feel sad that these people were dead? He could barely feel anything under the dread that swelled with every step towards "that place," the house that had once been his family home.

Even that dread is out competed by the black, slick hatred that makes him grind his teeth behind Heathcliff's broad back, shakily guiding him back to the scene of the crime like a line of gunpowder just waiting to be sparked. Fire and destruction has swallowed up everything Sinclair remembers fondly about Calw, the once holy nesting site reduced to an ashen tomb.

Their small party grows increasingly anxious as they walk, staring out at limb-shaped shadows that twitch with residual traces of electricity. The nails impaling the pieces of his neighbors to whatever edifice the Inquisition found fitting drip with blood and oil, the slurry pooling in the grooves between cobblestones until the road looks like a grotesque path of stepping stones. Small, thorny brambles line the road, dotted with red bursts that he doubts are flowers, and he won't examine them closely enough to know for sure.

At first, he tries to avoid stepping on the blood… and the bits… but it quickly becomes apparent that that isn't really an option.

"…Shit, that batty broad ain't right," someone grumbles in front of him, though he doesn't really have to guess at who said it. Sinclair nods along glumly anyways, skirting what seems to be someones lower intestine chopped up into little pieces.

It's not like they travel in silence, but he isn't paying attention to the increasingly on-edge chatter of the other Sinners. He just keeps scanning the near horizon, waiting for another figure in tarnished armor to show up, waiting to cross the hill and see Kromer's horrible smile, hear her voice undiluted by the speakers.

Yet- he doesn't.

None of them do.

There's one, single encounter with a small patrol of Inquisitors- and then the town falls silent. The roads grow increasingly overgrown as they wind their way towards the manor where Sinclair had been raised. Towering hedges of razor sharp vines twisting in on themselves with small, ruby cores of color glinting curiously inside. Unlike the forest around them, these plants didn't seem to be at risk of the fire licking their leaves, sprouting lush and colorful patches of green through the white ash and red viscera.

At first, he didn't pay it much mind, too preoccupied with… well. The obvious. But the longer the tenuous peace lasted, the more time they spent wandering the empty streets… It became clearer and clearer that something was…

To say something was wrong felt like such a criminal understatement. Something wrong was wronger? Something terrible was terrible in a different way? The bushes were too vibrant, when the surrounding area was a massacre?

But something was wrong.

Faust, who had been silently (judgmentally) watching them bicker and walk… as the few tense conversations died off with the rising tension she frowned, eyeing up one of the thorn-bushes with a strange expression. Manager Dante also seemed disquieted… but the soft ticking translated to a general fear of an incoming ambush or encounter more so then any ecological inquiries.

Ah… But, why were they worried about these things at all, when Sinclair was still listening for another taunting whistle…?

Yi Sang drifted over with a morose, typically dull expression.

"Mmm, this landscape evokes a scattered nightmare," He said, softly, looking out over Calw. "An accursed sight… this dark reflection of a familiar place."

…Was he talking to Sinclair? He certainly wasn't looking at him. He didn't feel up to responding, anyways, and out of the corner of his eye- because he didn't look at Yi Sang directly, either- he saw him shake his head.

"…Old companions come to blows, then, yet what else is there to do."

Then, he wanders off… or Sinclair speeds up enough to leave him behind. Whatever the genius is trying to get at, he doesn't have the willpower to decipher any of it. It's part of the reason why he's staying so far away from Ryoshu; The other part being the strange certainty that she's not quite as disgusted by the surrounding landscape as the rest of them.

If he looks over to confirm it, and sees her smiling… In theory, they'll all be traveling together for a long time, won't they? Presuming they survive this, and he has to remember that expression every time he looks over at her, every time she demands he translate… He doesn't know if he's strong enough to do that. Or maybe he just doesn't think he could hold back from doing something a little too Heathcliff-like, and then Dante would have to revive him, over and over and over again…

…Not that they wouldn't have to do that anyways. Actually, even here, and now… Sinclair doesn't know if he has it in him to be careful when they encounter more of Kromer's Inquisitors.

Except, they don't.

That's the problem.

"Faust doesn't believe these plants are native to this district," She announces out of nowhere, her frown replaced by the usual apathy. "Dante, I'll require the use of your ability to confirm this hypothesis."

<Huh…? How am I supposed to know…?>

The clock-headed manager is dragged over as Faust sighs, starting to explain something that seems pretty complicated and a little bit… stupid. But it's none of his business right now, and it stays that way until he hears the distressed chiming from the clock that he's begun to associate with something going wrong in a fight.

Ready to swing, he spins around, hoping to see that ambush that people have been muttering about on the walk, but there's nothing except for Faust and the manager, who looks like they're about to faint.

…At least, that's probably what they look like. That's just kind of how Sinclair always pictures Dante anyways.

He doesn't waste time on words, but everyone else really seems to want to. He wants to start screaming when they start to crowd around Dante, who hurriedly explains nothing is wrong in the voice of somebody who was told not to share the whole story. Ishmael stays back to eye them up with a disdainful suspicion, yet she doesn't seem to have any interest in breaking up the cluster, merely shaking her head in silence the same way she has been since leaving J-corp. Sinclair doesn't know how the Sinners can be so… so wish-washy in times like this, but as he watches the group interact he feels a creeping chill wrap frosty fingers around his heart.

It makes him very… angry.

Gritting his teeth, he holds his silence. Maintaining it with the same effort as a volcano doing it's best to not erupt. Sinclair… doesn't want to waste this fury on anyone except for Kromer.

Still, when Dante breaks away from the tangled group to approach him, he does his best to keep from scowling at them. It isn't Dante's fault they're all in this mess, really, it's his. So it stands to reason that he's eager to… correct it, doesn't it? Even if he's still afraid of Kromer, he won't let his cowardice stop him from putting an end to the walking, cackling nightmare that will haunt him until she dies, or he dies, over and over and over again…

Snapping back to reality, Dante's ticking comes into focus, and he lets out a breath that had been threatening to hiss through his teeth where they'd been clenched tightly together.

<…S-Sinclair,> Dante's voice… Mental voice, stuttered, which… how did that even happen, actually? <Were these plants… always here?>

Why does everyone care about these plants so much?!

"Manager Dante," He says, finally too frustrated to keep quiet. "Why- why are we stopping for some bushes? Kromer is waiting for us, we can't let her just-!"

His voice stops, and trails off uncertainly as Dante shakes their head, making a wild gesture to the plants with the kind of nervous energy he's only seen them have when somethings gone really, really wrong. So he sighs angrily, and stomps over to the side of the path with a huff, ignoring Dante's call of <Wait, don't get too close to them…!>

If he died, then Dante could just revive him, and this… this plant distraction can finally be over, and then… then they would find Kromer, and… and he'd fucking tear her to pieces.

The image was so vivid in his mind that he almost didn't see the flora he was meant to be examining at all, the twisting green cords of thorny vines all but invisible to him when he saw the future he needed to achieve so clearly. So clearly, he could almost reach out and touch it…

Even through the thick leather of his gloves, he felt the prick of a thorn sliding under his skin, and even through the raucous of his fantasy, he heard Dante's warning chime once more. Pulling back his hand revealed a spot of wet blood on the black surface of his glove, a familiar sight by now. Yet, having his hand suddenly bleed like this, all from simply carelessly touching a plant… That was familiar, too. Even though by now, he'd spent more time of the bus then he ever had dabbling in gardening… there wasn't a lot he could forget about those days leading up to Kromer's slaughter.

Had she… planted these flowers here to mock him…?

Those cores of red hidden inside the vines… he leaned in, suddenly filled with the need to know, the need to have just one more thing to hate her for, one more stone to tip the scales away from fear. And, yes- there they were, revealed as he carefully sifted through the vines, minding the thorns and uncaring of any other knick or scratch he might end up suffering because of them.

Roses… not blood, not the viscera he'd thought it was… but small blossoms peaking up at him under the cover of graceful leaves. His fingers twitch with the urge to reach out, remembering the feeling of the soft flower he'd planted before he left.

But he refrains. Because he remembers exactly why he used to do that, and because these bright, unfurled petals shine with a luscious crimson that he'd never seen from his own flower before.

They had been feeding, and Kromer has fed them well.

Stumbling back, Sinclair feels a little sick to his stomach, shaking his head. His reaction was not exactly subtle, and considering the fact that there was nothing else going on, the other Sinners turned to look at him when he made that sudden, unexpected movement.

His houseplant? She couldn't even leave his houseplant alone?

"I… I do. Recognize them," Sinclair said numbly, the words falling out of his mouth without his conscious control, as he slowly traced the source of the growth, bile growing in his throat as he saw where the trail led- nowhere except their destination, of course. His house.

If the flower… If this was still his flower, just overfed and overgrown… Then his house must be absolutely filled with…

"They like… blood," He finishes lamely, looking down a once familiar road. "I've never seen… I mean, it wasn't so…" With his halberd he gestures, making a sweeping line that follows an insignificant patch of the massive, sprawling plant.

Dante doesn't love that answer, and neither do the rest of the Sinners. At least, for the most part. Rodya gives a nervous laugh and edges away from the flowers and Ryoshu eyes them with a newfound interest.

"Hmph. W.W.P." She approves, nodding. "T.C.I.A."

Visibly, Dante turns to ask Sinclair what she's talking about before realizing that maybe it's better to just leave this one a mystery. Or maybe it's because they spotted Hong Lu opening his mouth and realized damage control might be imminent.

"Wow~ You're right, the color is something special~! You know, back home, my family had a cherry blossom tree that was almost the same shade as these!" Excited as always, Hong Lu skipped closer to peer at the flowers in that air-headed contemplation they had all gotten used to. "Ah, whenever a gardener made a mistake-"

Heathcliff interrupted what was likely to be an incredibly grim anecdote with a hand over Hong Lu's mouth, dragging him back away from the plants with a grumble while Ryoshu nodded and repeated her first acronym with a smirk. "Right, rich boy, that's enough outta you, innit? Why're we all bollockin' around? Oi, lad!"

The intimidating brute seemed a little less scary when he had Hong Lu's head trapped in the crook of his elbow like a misbehaving cat, but it seemed like the other Sinner was fine with his current predicament so Sinclair tried to be as level headed as possible as a glimmer of hope shone through this ridiculous situation, somehow, through Heathcliff. Somehow.

"Ain't we supposed to be hoofing it? Bloody hell, how much farther is this fucking place!"

"Pipe down, you squawking imbecile!" Outis barked, objectively louder then Heathcliff had been. "The Executive Manager will give us the command to march once the appropriate time has come!"

A truly thunderous expression overcame Heathcliff's face, and his grip around Hong Lu's neck tightened visibly to the point where Sinclair was almost concerned the other Sinner couldn't breathe… though, again, he made no move to extract himself so it was probably fine…?

<No, No, Heathcliff is… right?> Dante said, the usual confusion in their voice. <We really should get going, just… stay away from…> They trailed off after Faust coughed lightly, wringing their hands together. <…The plants. The perfectly normal, blood-drinking plants. Haha. Ha.>

"At once, Executive Manager!" Outis snapped into a salute so quickly that Sinclair didn't even see her move. "Men, step out!"

…At last they were moving again. And whatever Dante was talking about could wait.

Their unimpeded walk continued. No sign of any living creature, hostile or otherwise, except for the roses that swayed in the breeze stirred up by the still smouldering fires that had burned away all of the natural vegetation in the area. He could see it stretching across scorched flowerbeds like a snake slithering into a cradle, could see it winding across broken windows and battered down doors.

But it wasn't as if they were moving to attack them. As long as they stayed away, the flowers wouldn't hurt any of them. They had more then enough to feed on, in the wake of Kromer. In fact… Sinclair doubted he was the only one to spot the body-sized clusters of cheerfully bright flowers that spattered about the roadside, though he didn't look close enough to see anything for certain, deciding that it was best to just focus on one thing before the horror and fear could make him second-guess his resolve.

The only thing to break up the silence of their walk was the sound of crunching gravel underneath their feet, and the soft crackle of flames. Even the chorus of static and sparks faded out, when the general population of Calw (or the bodies that had once represented it) was left behind. Even the more verbose of their group had fallen silent, the moment of conversation left behind as the grim ornaments decorating the town continued to mark their path like a grim signpost.

This way, to the end of the world…

Didn't anyone else… understand that this was so much worse then the small, unmoving plants they kept eyeing? He hadn't been this cowardly when Gregor had them wade through a sea of corpses and crawling, filthy insects, had he? Or, when Rodya had… well, actually, the worst thing he had to do for her was get on a table and dance, but the point still stands… Why were they spending more time paying attention to the little rose bushes over the hanging, battered pieces of his hometown? Maybe… there was an obvious reason for that… But, Sinclair hadn't looked away from their awful acts, had he? If he did, he hadn't been so obvious about it…

At the same time, how could he blame them for not wanting to watch the scattered pieces of his community drip onto the ground? Especially when there wasn't anything to do but take in the scenery, no fighting to break up the quiet that had fallen so harshly over the town.

Sinclair didn't like the quiet, either, and he hated everything he saw. But he couldn't look away, and maybe that's not the case for the rest of them.

They wanted him to toughen up, right?

Heathcliff had certainly made it clear that he didn't think much of him… although, really, he was being quite… tolerable for Heathcliff this time around.

Is that too… mean? Wait, no, why was he letting his thoughts drift like this? Where was… anyone? Were they the only living people left out here?

He glanced back to see Outis having a "quiet" conversation with Faust, asking about the potential targets, muttering with increasing aggression about a trap or waiting ambush.

Faust just shook her head, and reminded Outis that they were here to collect the Golden Bough. No matter what the situation surrounding it may be.

Outis looked like she was about to launch into another long admonishment, until she spotted Dante nodding along and snapped her jaw shut with an audible click that had even Sinclair wincing. But he made sure to turn away before Outis can notice that he's watching, and decide to turn on him next.

Dante gets visibly… or, well, not so visually, but distinctly nervous the further they go. With the wide, skittish berth they're giving the encroaching vines, they're acting like… they expect the plant to do something.

But… If that was the case, then why didn't Faust want Dante to share whatever information the manager has…? Sinclair… wasn't very interested in finding out, but it wasn't likely that it just… wouldn't ever come up, was it?

…Perhaps it was. Because nothing came about.

All too soon- or maybe not soon enough, he doesn't know- the once familiar gate to his home appears on the horizon, the door hanging half off it's hinges, overgrown with dozens of roses. Bright clusters of clinging crimson, wrapped between the wrought iron bars. Sinclair strides through first, while the others are too busy staring at the floral welcome, hesitating to step between their roots.

It's like he's stepping back in time, into a nightmare.

"…Oh, that's…"

There's a ripple of distress behind him as the view of his front step is cleared, the massive, dispiritingly tall nails jabbed into the soil like Kromer thought she could make it bleed, too. But like a pine tree dressed in tinsel, the graveyard of impaled corpses that sprout out of the earth are adorned with looping lengths of prickling vines, covering the faces of the deceased with vibrant, bursting petals.

"…Hey, I'm not an expert on flowers or anything," Rodya said with a nervous laugh, looking a little sick. "But, um, doesn't it look like they're…"

"Fallen seedpods grow upon the ground on which they are sown," Yi Sang responds, though his complexion is notably worse then usual, and he isn't quite looking at anything but the ground. "They must have found these broken husks an ideal place to bud, indeed…"

Sinclair continued to ignore them as he craned his head left and right, looking for any sign of Kromer, outside of the corpses filling his field of vision.

And still… there was nothing.

"Where is she…?" He whispered, unable to keep the words contained in his body anymore. It's like the hiss of rustling leaves slipping between his lips, a furious burst of steam from a kettle that is so close to screaming. "Kromer… you…"

<Uh, Sinclair, are you-?>

He slams the end of his halberd so fiercely into the earth that it sticks into the packed ground, hands balled into fists.

Where is she? Where the hell is she?!

"KROMER!"

The howl ripped clean through his throat, a scream of rage that echoes through the abandoned courtyard, met with no answer except for the quiet rustling of the plants around them. His chest heaved up and down as if the air itself was burning him- maybe it was, maybe the fire from town had started to make it's way towards this macabre garden.

"S.T.A.B." Ryoshu muttered with a glare, lighting another cigarette. "Loud. You'll bring them to us." A pause. Then, she smiled, nodding. "Good."

That awful bitch… yeah, she was right. Right now he wasn't thinking about luring anybody out of hiding though, wasn't even listening to the Sinners that snapped at him to shut up.

Didn't they understand? She must've known they were already here! Why were they pretending they had the advantage of surprise here, when Kromer had always…

Teeth gnashing, blood boiling… his eyes drifted to the small, near sacred patch of earth where the graves of his family had been… and when he sees the recently upturned soil, the disturbed ground, the holes where he'd put his family to rest, down to that tiny patch where he'd buried his dog…

"…They… She… Dug them up…? Ha, HAHA… KROMER…! WHERE ARE YOU? I'M GOING TO-!"

His roar was unfinished, his ability to speak vanishing into the air around him with the dissipating words. Without even a glance back, he yanks free his weapon, lurching forward like a fish on a hook, breaking into a quick sprint for the front door as the world narrows into a pinpoint.

He needs to kill her. No- killing her isn't enough. He needs to rip her apart, turn her into an unrecognizable pile of viscera and shattered bones, and then… and then the nightmare will finally end, won't it? He'll kill her, and mount her fucking head above his bed-frame, and then when he opens his eyes in the morning he won't have to be afraid anymore. That's what he needs to do- that's the only thing he needs to do. Once Kromer is dead, he can live a normal life, or at least put an end to this entire awful tale.

Maybe the other Sinners shouted something at him as he slammed into the front door, flinging it open with a once-familiar twist of his wrist. The only thing that mattered was the fact that they followed after him, chasing him through the dark, abandoned halls of his house, the family photos still hanging on the wall accusing him of something.

There's only one place she could be.

<H-hey, maybe we shouldn't…!>

Dante's ticking felt like an intrusive thought as he snagged the basement key- the fruit of knowledge- from the place where he'd left it, the dust clinging to it's tarnished surface after years of abandonment, rotting in this empty house.

If they want to stop him, they'll need more then a few words. And why would they want to? They're here… for the Golden Bough, aren't they? He doesn't care what the company does with it after they find it. Hell, he would hand it over himself as long as they just shut up and help him kill her…!

Looking down the stairs to the basement, it's strange to think that this is what he used to be so scared of.

Before he can get more then a few steps down, though, someone grabs him by the back of his jacket and hauls him up a few steps, leaving his feet dangling in the air for a second. He nearly takes a swing at them- metal gauntlet against his neck, Merusault- but his weapon is snatched away by a solemn looking Gregor, though it's clear he isn't exactly capable of holding a two-handed weapon with any grace.

If he had… the ability to bite through metal he could get Merusault to let him go… But he wasn't held aloft for long before he was turned around and set on the ground, forced to face the various expressions of his fellows.

"Hah, jeez, you can't just run off into danger, kid…" Shaking his head, Gregor stood with an awkward smile, holding his pole-arm like a broom. "Ah… so, where are we trying to go, huh?" Gregor trailed off like he expected somebody else to pick up whatever talk he was trying to have, but when Sinclair glared at him he sighed and shook his head.

"Eh, tsk, so…" With a wide, sweeping gesture, he clumsily gestures towards the basement door. "Yeah, Manager bud, where are we supposed to be going?"

<…>

Dante's silence was deafening.

Gregor grimaced in that way he did when he was trying and failing to be civil.

"…Oo-kay. Right. Well, thanks for that."

Finally, Sinclair finds his words again, spitting out a few bitter words.

"Kromer's down here. I know she is. I know it… and, that Golden Bough, too, right?"

Instead of addressing the words to Dante, who clearly never knows anything, he snaps at Faust, cuttingly. She doesn't bother trying to deny it, placidly nodding along.

"Yes," She admits. "Faust has identified a Lobotomy Corporation branch facility underneath this building."

It doesn't seem to bother her at all, when he fumes in her direction, but he hears Ishmael sigh in a now-familiar disappointed tone.

"We're wasting time," She mutters, shaking her head. "Look, are we going down there or not? We can walk and talk at the same time, instead of just standing around. Either start moving, or stop bickering…"

He nodded along firmly, waiting for Merusault to move out of the doorframe so he could get down the damn stairs. The stoic man is an immovable wall between him and the stairs, and Sinclair doesn't quite think he can shove past the wide man unless he tries to push him down the stairs… and he doesn't even think that would work, given how sturdy his stance seems.

Thankfully, Dante decided to remember they had a job to do, gesturing for Merusault to go down the staircase… or maybe get out of the way. It wasn't really clear from the gesture they made, and Sinclair snatched back his weapon from Gregor with a glower.

He shouldered his way towards the front of the group, the creaking stairs underneath him protesting the sudden stamping of footsteps. The smell of old stone, dust, and something metallic wafted up from below.

His basement, unlike the rest of the house, was nothing like he remembered.

For one thing, it was already lit as they made their way down to what seemed to be yet another abandoned room. Floodlights and mining equipment was crammed down into piles here, and when he turned to look at the wall where his mother had stored away her pre-operation, obsolete belongings he saw the precarious pile of cardboard had become a wide, hand-carved tunnel.

"Ah, Sinclair, I didn't know you had a tunnel system under your house, too~!" Hong Lu chirped, bounding up to get a better look, leaning forward with his usual smile despite the heavy atmosphere.

"…Too?" Rodya whispered in disbelief, but she shut up when Faust lifted her hand and started to drone in a monotone voice.

"Records indicate that this branch facility had an alternative entrance within the town proper," Her eyes flickered down, and then across, almost like she was re-reading the report in that moment. "However, the presence of hostile entities made the main entrance non-viable, and thus Faust decided it would be best to pursue entry through this avenue."

…So, then. That's what the monster he'd spotted had been. And somehow, Limbus Company had known all about it.

Maybe if he could think straight, he'd care more about that part then he does right now. But, frankly, his one track mind has already stated it's intended target.

It wasn't Faust, any of the other Sinners, the Lobotomy Corporation branch facility or the Golden Bough that allegedly lay within. It wasn't the subtle pushes and pulls of information, the underlying hint of suspicion or whatever it was that they had started to all bicker about when he'd turned to look back down at the tunnel, the vent that had grown up, just like he had.

…The thorns had followed them downstairs, too. Or maybe it was more accurate to say that they had returned to the place where they belonged. When Dante managed to herd them all into the dark, he heard the snapping of dead leaves underfoot, and wondered just how far the roses had spread.

There wasn't long given to them to wonder about it, though. Because, the further they went… the louder the sounds of snapping and ripping became, starting half-way through the tunnel and growing louder and louder, like wet blankets being torn apart. Sinclair has spent enough time with the company to know… that's the sound of tearing flesh.

If the air didn't reek of blood, he would've taken a deep breath to steady himself.

Another one of Kromer's victims, maybe… at least, that's what he thought he was hearing. But he was wrong.

It wasn't the sound of a heretic being "purified" they'd been hearing at all.

Grotesquely beautiful bushes grew up from the split innards, piercing through the faceplate of the warped armor they'd come across within second of emerging into the facility headquarters, truly overgrown labyrinth. When he'd stepped over the threshold, entering the familiar scene of his final childhood nightmare… he stopped, waited, froze.

"…W."

Someone- Rodya, probably- swore and covered Sinclair's eyes with her hands, too late to keep him from seeing the… display, that had been woven together with bones and sinew, strangely gelatinous, honey-textured strips of something red that he lost sight of in an instant. Dante was quick to usher them all out of the room, and even Ishmael didn't complain that they hadn't scouted ahead at all and were blindly charging into enemy territory.

There was a quiet sound- someone retching, though he couldn't see who- that was quickly drowned out by the sounds of their footsteps rushing into the next room, the group strangely quiet… that's why he didn't try to pull off the hand on his face until they all came to a hushed stop. Even Faust looked a little unsteady, though she quickly regained her composure.

Ryoshu seemed to be in a state of deep, ecstatic contemplation, which was enough to let Sinclair know that whatever it was he hadn't seen… he was better off not seeing…

…Even if the scenery in the next room wasn't exactly pleasant either.

At least the violence was more… contained, to the corpses here. It seemed like whatever had happened in the other room was… an outlier.

Why… that place, though? Why make it any more horrible then it already was…?

And, and…

"…The hell is wrong with these damn plants?"

Heathcliff said it worse then he could, but Heathcliff was the only one who seemingly could speak, even his usually brash and careless voice wavering for a second before it swelled with it's familiar boldness.

"Oi, lass! There's something up with these bloody things, so spill it if you know anything," He growled, knocking the end of his bat into the vines, and even if it shook a little when it made impact, the plant made no real indication of awareness. "Just 'cause you're buddy-buddy with the manager doesn't mean I won't wallop you if you don't spill whatever you're hiding."

Dante ticked nervously as Heathcliff swung around to glare at them, and Faust sighed, shaking her head like the threat of bodily harm was nothing more then an inconvenience. Which… Sinclair supposed it was, if you ignored the… pain.

"I did not believe it was necessary to bring up," Faust began, in that condescending, droning tone she often took when speaking to others. "However, Dante had confirmed Faust's suspicion. The plant is indeed… an abnormality."

…Huh?

Despite everything, despite the fact that it really was the only thing that made sense… a part of him had been keeping that realization away even though the flowers were so clearly… well, abnormal. It was just… hard to really internalize that when he looked back on his memories of the little rose with the context that it was some kind of monster.

"But, it never…" He didn't mean to let the words slip, but when they did he clammed up quickly. Heathcliff turned to look at him next, though he didn't try to meet his gaze.

Tensing, he waited a second for the interrogation to continue, but Heathcliff surprisingly just let out a harsh snort and roughly ran his free hand back through his hair, muttering something quiet under his breath.

Sinclair felt a little dazed… and then, slowly, it started to dawn on him. He froze, turning to Faust, lightheaded. "Abnormalities, they… they understand speech, don't they…?"

Some of them… spoke, he'd seen it himself in the mirror dungeons… and- and when he thought back, the only bodies he'd seen tangled in the vines were the already dead citizens and-

Sinclair stumbled back, trying to collect his scattering thoughts as he locked his eyes onto a dead, blooming Inquisitor, crumpled in the middle of the room like he'd just… dropped dead and turned into a garden.

"While many abnormalities are capable of speech," Faust said, even while he swayed. "Only some possess a true awareness, or even consciousness. Much of what has been observed of their behavior can be attributed to either mimicry, or simply a response to stimuli in their environment."

In other words… maybe. Maybe the flower…

Heard him speaking? Remembered him? Was that… a good thing, if it did?

"This abnormality in particular seems passive," she continued, and Heathcliff let out another frustrated sigh as he realized she was in lecture mode. "Given that you've previously stated the abnormality feeds on blood, Faust hypothesizes that it had grown out of control after the town had been seized, and a great deal of exsanguination had been preformed."

"So then it's… full, yeah?" Gregor interjected, looking a little unnerved himself. He vaguely gestured to the overgrown armor on the floor. "Passive means were all clear, doesn't it?"

Faust merely shrugs.

"Perhaps. It's possible the group that had previously interacted with it upset the abnormality in some way, leading to a surge in aggression. However, given the fact that we've so far progressed without issue, it may be best to proceed while ignoring the growth until we reach the core of the abnormality."

Could the core be… no, the graves were dug up, so unless Kromer had transplanted the rose, it wouldn't… Right? No, why would she go through the effort? Would she have even remembered? Had the rose in his room just been… a small piece of this thing all along…?

He swallowed, feeling the dusty air go into his lungs and settle like a film over his ability to breathe… that's why he had to breathe faster, quicker, shallower pants until Rodya nudged his shoulder and he realized he was hyperventilating again.

She gave him a concerned look, asked him if he was OK in a stage whisper that went unheard by the rest of the group as they started to question Faust, who answered the questions she wanted to and ignored the rest of them like they'd never spoken at all… which was really not that different from how talking to Faust normally went.

Except, this time… she'd hid something… dangerous from them, because…

…Why? Because… she needed them to come down here without being afraid? Because she thought they'd refuse to do the mission? Sinclair had tried to refuse in the bus, and he'd been knocked unconscious before he could do more then beg Dante once.

Actually…

When he'd tried to get down into the basement, following the vines deeper… well, he hadn't really been following the plants, had he? He'd just… known that this was where he was supposed to go, and while most of the Sinners had been reluctant to follow him, or outright tried to stop him…

She just followed his lead like it was the only natural thing to do.

Just like… she had with Gregor and Rodya.

Faust… was following them, like a hunter trailing after a bloodhound, waiting to secure the prize.

"You're… using us," Sinclair whispered, and Faust looked over to catch his eye, along with the manager who'd been paying more attention to him then usual this time around. "To find the Boughs, like some kind of sensor. Aren't you?"

The accusation was soft, but sure. Even if she denied it… Sinclair had wondered why they were all chosen to join this company, so many different people from so many places and lifestyles. He ignored Dante, who seemed stunned by the revelation… but, Sinclair couldn't really blame them for that, when they'd only really known the Sinners since losing their memory. Dante… didn't know anything outside of what the group decided to tell them, though both Faust and Vergilius seemed to be uninterested… or, no, actively hiding things from them.

If they could hide important things from the manager, the one who was supposed to lead them… then why would they tell the Sinners anything, either?

Faust didn't deny it- but for a second she looked uncomfortable, like he'd given her an unpleasant surprise. But like always, it didn't last, and she just nodded her head slightly, meeting his eyes before turning back to continuing arguing… or, just stand there while the others argued at her, saying nothing, giving no ground.

The smell of blood and roses was so strong… that he didn't have the energy to push any harder, his eyes drifting over the bushes that had engulfed what looked like some sort of horrible wheel. Iron thorns jabbed through the vines, nails sticking out from something lost in the gentle hold of the roses, making the plants own glistening thorns seem soft in comparison.

Almost like… a veil. Probably the closest thing to a burial that poor person will ever get.

This… is better then seeing what might be a familiar face warped in agony… or seeing nothing but a plate of metal distorted beyond any glimpse of humanity. In a way, it was more… natural, wasn't it? No horrible nails, so blood splattering the ground, no screaming, sparking, torture… just the roses, beautiful and soft, wrapping around the body like the kiss of death, cradling their broken body… and ripping the Inquisitors to chunks of rotten meat.

Lingering on the bodies for a moment, Sinclair couldn't help but think… something terrible. Something… a little too close to Kromer's words, a little too close to purity for him to want to put it into words, or even cohesive, comprehensive thoughts, just a feeling really nibbling at the very corner of his mind, growing into it with deep, slow roots.

They moved on from that room quickly after that, but he wouldn't forget what he'd seen for a long, long time, if he ever forgot at all. This time, at least, the horror came with lovely flowers.

No matter how far they walked, though, the scenery never changed.

Hammers, nails, and heretics alike… each were snared in thirsty vines, red blossoms blinking up at their group like sleepy eyes as they stepped deeper and deeper into the floral nightmare.

Bodies. Fertilizer. And, even the metal that couldn't decay, prosthetic and armor both… those became trellises for the vines to climb, be coming indistinguishable from each other as nature, or at least this convincing perversion of it, reclaimed everything that had even a drop of blood deep inside.

From somewhere unknown, unbidden, he remembered the phrase…

Perhaps, a drop of blood can awaken the sprite within the flower.

Though this bloom was no datura, it was no less intoxicating.

Then they found Saude.

Bleeding, torn apart… and yet, somehow…

Alive.

She could barely speak, could barely move, and when she asked about Effie they had nothing to say. Sinclair looked at a few of the overgrown corpses littering the room, and wondered if they'd walked past him without even thinking about it.

Her hand tightened around the grip of her pistol when they all entered… but, then, it went slack again when it was clear no one was pursuing them.

They had to leave her behind.

Sinclair wondered if they'd ever see her face again, living or dead… or if it was doomed to be hidden between polydipsic petals like all the others.

Deeper, and deeper… until the sun was just a memory.

The flowers swallowed everything in a sea of red, green… and shining, glittering white.

And then they reached the bottom.

Each of them stepped past the door to the containment cell with trepidations caution, warily glancing around the expansive chamber for… something different. For anything.

No matter where they looked, the sight was the same.

But it was, still, different.

"Uniform tango, 12 o'clock." Outis murmured to Dante, her sharp eyes flickering between each of the walls, completely smothered in vines and thorns that had layered over themselves a dozen times, until the entire place was one singular cocoon that shifted ever so slightly under their gazes. "Executive Manager, stand back. A potential hostile lies ahead."

Dante ticked quietly, and Sinclair felt a strange… feeling, really, in his head, kind of like flipping a notebooks pages between his fingers, only the notebook was his memories, and the fingers must've been...

<…The Golden Bough is in there.>

..No, wait.

"W-wait, I- I don't want to, my memories-"

He fought, he struggled, he begged.

But Gregor and Rodya weren't strong enough to deny that shining light, and neither was he.

Kromer haunted every piece of his mind that was wretched forward by that warm glow. Her face, her smile, her whistles and her words. He saw her again, saw his family again, just for a brief second, and felt compelled to confessed everything like the Sinner he was, begging for forgiveness from this beautiful thing that had grown underneath his home.

Would the Bough be able to absolve him of what he'd done? Or… perhaps, the rose…

He couldn't stop speaking, thinking, narrating… whatever form of communication Dante was facilitating, it was like a rushing river. How could he manage to hold it back…? All he was, all he'd ever be…

Was just… Sinclair.

The worst, the only, Sinclair.

There was no getting around it. They had to go deeper.

Nightmares, dreams… hopes and curses, each and every one of them were splayed out across the room, spattered over the twisting walls like paint thrown over a nest of writhing snakes. One step after the next, his feet sunk into the thorns sprouting across the floor… and despite everything, despite the fact that he knew the soles of his combat boots weren't strong enough to keep the bloodthirsty flowers away from his flesh… they only shifted beneath his feet as if giving him permission to walk further. Where he stepped, where his cursed memories touched the room… they withered, twitched, withdrew. As if they couldn't take the sight of his humanity split wide open against them, frothing with misery and regret.

He wondered once if the rooms where the Golden Boughs resided were built to be so expansive, or if it was some side effect of their strange power… though now, as they traveled further and further into this cavernous dark, he found himself questioning… nothing. Only focusing on keeping his head down, trying to avoid the eyes of the others between showings of his most intimate failures, his greatest flaws. All he wanted to do was cover his eyes, his ears, his mouth… to stop the stream of evil that was emerging from the depths of his mind, these horrible, awful memories he couldn't bear to relive.

What he wanted didn't matter to the company, though… so he had to meet the eyes of his horror head on.

Unlike Gregor, or Rodya… his memories didn't accuse him through words, or the haunting figure of an old friend with unknown motives and a smile that chilled the room. There were no enemies to fight to distract them from his history, no clashing or screaming to drown out the sound of his own voice, leaking through the light of the Bough that wove in between his mind like honey dripped over an anthill.

The sparks of his neurons glow with the same electricity that lit up his families circuits, the pulse of chemicals that made up his feelings, his heart and soul… they were the same as well. In a way, Sinclair… was no different then a machine, just one made of protein instead of steel. Carbon made up his limbs, just like theirs, and when he saw that memory of them all sitting at the table together taxidermied in amber resin… he realized, that even if they hadn't eaten, or been able to smile alongside him…

They had… loved him enough to want to spend that time with him, even if it had felt like a punishment at the time. Was realizing that so late… his punishment? Or maybe…

Maybe… it was better, since now, finally, at least… he understood. Even though he never wanted to see these memories again, even though he never wanted to think about those days again…

If he hadn't… would he have ever realized that he loved them, too? Would he have ever realized, that whenever he thought about them, the soft, pleasant memories had been slowly drowned in tar-black guilt…? The Bough… it was cleaning the dust from those thoughts, pulling the skeletons out of his closet to reveal the precious collection of reminiscence. If he hadn't come here, with the other Sinners… would he have always thought about Kromer, instead, when he tried to picture his family?

Of course… he didn't know. Except, perhaps, he did. Those versions of him from another world, the ones Dante pulled free… if the manager didn't know about any of this ahead of time- and they didn't, Dante was a terrible liar, even by omission- then they must have never… spoken about any of this.

In all of those other worlds… had he really never remembered, that his family had loved him?

Sinclair… didn't want to think about that, either, and he didn't have to. But maybe he… should, someday. Far, far into the future… he would try to think about it, without turning away like the coward he was today. He didn't want to forget that again… that he loved them, too.

It was like that revelation unlocked a door in the green world they'd stepped into, and he saw before him… a strange sight. A mountain of corpses, piled high, like a tower to reach heaven… rotting away to create a twisted meadow, a beautiful, decaying horror… that would, one day, rot away into nothing at all.

And the rose.

No, the Rose.

Singular, one bud, resting at the highest peak, glowing faintly from within as if it'd swallowed the sun.

"…That's the core, isn't it?" He breathed, the sweetness of the rot mingling with the smell of roses that hung like a heavy perfume, seeping into the filth that littered the ground below. He didn't wait for an answer before hefting his weapon, holding it firmly while he stares at the un-opened blossom, taking a single step onto that bloody heap. They had to climb the unburied grave, crushing fragile bones and rupturing damaged organs, all to approach that shining ruby atop the dead, glowing with health.

Like the apple… that horrible, maggot filled apple…

The Rose… must've swallowed the Golden Bough, too.

Which meant that he'd have no choice… but to cut it down as well.

If there were another way, he's take it. If he didn't have to kill the last sweet memory he had, the last, distant, if warped remanent of his world of light… even if it had always existed in shadows, he didn't want to see it go. What he wanted… what he'd hoped for, in a twisted way… was to see Kromer here, instead.

But she was nowhere to be found.

At least, not at first.

Sinclair didn't recognize her at first, and when he did… his mind refused to accept what he was seeing.

"Eugh, that's nasty," Rodya muttered, following his fixed gaze to the base of the bud. "That's… ew, kiddo, stop looking at it!"

"…Shit, wait, lad-!"

Maybe Heathcliff was the first to notice… the distinctive, unmistakable haircut on the puddle of shed flesh, clumped by the roots of the Rose, looking like skin that had swollen around something second by second until it split and spilled over, a forgotten clump of viscera and meat becoming a heaving thalamus for this flowering abnormality. Like a flower unfurling from a stem, there was little left to identify whatever it was that grew into the beautiful monster, what receptacle had been overtaken and broken open like a pot that couldn't contain roots cracking and splintering.

But Sinclair didn't need much to know- he'd seen that hair, spread out near the widened base of the bud, part of the skin that wrinkled around it no differently then a pair of pants dropped down to his ankles.

He didn't think twice about the danger.

He didn't look at the others.

He didn't care.

Couldn't.

She was dead.

Sinclair couldn't breathe.

He didn't even realize he was getting closer.

All he knew… was that he had been looking from a distance, before it drew closer and closer, as if his vision was going from cloudy to focused, as if the world were narrowing down to the disfigured, used up shell of meat that was no longer recognizable as human. No loner recognizable as anything at all, except a loose sleeve of skin that had not a drop of the blood she found so fascinating that first day remaining within.

Yet, there was no mistaking it. No mistaking her.

It was Kromer.

And she was dead.

The others hurried up to him, and tried to pull him away from the unknown abnormality, but he stood his ground, rooted in place as he stared at the remaining tuff of yellow and white hair, the only trait left to even identify the body as having been once human.

It was horrible. It looked like it had been… painful. But it couldn't… have hurt enough.

Without thinking, he lifted his halberd, static rushing through his ears, a blinding, strange numbness washing his world over in yellow. Someone reached out to stop him, too late, and he swung. Not at the Rose, not at anything at all, really… the blade severed nothing but a few loose strands of dead keratin, collagen, water and fat.

Again. And again.

Over and over again, stabbing and slashing and hacking away at the snakeskin bloated around the base of beauty. Over and over again, and again, and again, and again, beyond any pattern, slipping from the stance he'd been trained into, slipping from his feet to his knees, his hands sliding down the shaft of his weapon until he held the blade of his pole-arm like a dagger, rising it up and stabbing it down into that unrecognizable, paper dry husk until it scattered like ripped petals in the wind.

He didn't realize he was crying until he felt his gloves rip under the force of his attacks, until the skin beneath them tore, too, his palms chaffed to first blisters and then split into bleeding gashes, and yet he still didn't stop until he couldn't close his hands around the blood-slicked pole, until it slipped away from him with a wet schhlick sound and thudded to the ground meat below him.

Then, and only then, did he scream.

Wordless and violent, the cry of a being who's whole purpose had been robbed, the vengeance he'd dreamt of in his bravest moments crumbling into dust before his very eyes. The one, single star he'd been stretching towards, the beacon that had been urging him to fly, the true north he'd pursued, clung to in his most despondent hours, that secret hope he'd never even whispered to himself, as if speaking it aloud would shatter it… died.

Kromer was dead.

And Sinclair wasn't the one who got to kill her.

A rough hand grabbed him by the waist, throwing him over a broad shoulder. He thrashed with an unbearable fury, but a cacophony of noises drowned out his own screaming, shouts of panic, order being flung about, ringing and ticking that seemed to somehow pierce through the dying scream of his dream. Lashing out, he sunk his teeth deep into the white shirt he spotted out of the corner of his eye, unable to look away from the completely mangled remnants of Kromer.

Muscles tensed, and he heard a growl as he bit down hard enough to send a burst of blood spattering over the collar of the shirt. Ripping free a mouthful of flesh and fabric, Sinclair's teeth were dyed red as he spit frothing pink foam free. It dripped down out from his lips, hitting the vines below… which he finally noticed had begun to twitch.

His eyes, red with anger, misery… and yes, a warped, ugly grief snapped up to the Rose. Silky petals that shone like a curtain of gore dipped at the edges, shifting gracefully as it slowly bloomed, falling away in seconds.

"Fall into formation!" Outis barked, hand falling to her own weapon as she retreated to a tactical distance, already eying up the abnormality in search of some weak-point.

Unceremoniously, Sinclair was dropped to the ground, and Heathcliff rolled his shoulder with a furious snarl on his face, the stain on his shirt only growing when he hissed at the feeling. But he didn't give him a second glance as he tumbled, rolling down the slope until he reached out to grab one of the vines with his bloody hands, instinctively trying to stop his fall without thinking. Thorns slid into his hands like eager guests, but he didn't feel a thing, even as he hauled himself to his feet, letting himself bleed all over the vines. Adrenaline was enough to have him stagger forward, climbing back up to the others who held their weapons warily, waiting for Dante to give the order to attack.

As the petals slowly unfurled, each one larger then a human being by a great margin, the golden glow only grew stronger, the light shining brighter and brighter until most of them had to close their eyes and look away from the blinding shine.

Dante stumbled back, an odd reaction that Sinclair only noticed when Ishmael called out, and when Sinclair sent a reluctant glance towards them he saw Dante clutching their head, looking… he didn't know. For once, the lack of an expression on Dante's face… it effectively hid whatever it was they were experiencing. But he didn't have the chance to look for long, or the time.

Warm light spilled out over them all, as soft as the morning sunlight… and then, slowly it faded, and Sinclair found himself following the spread petals with his eyes, looking towards the center of the Rose, that had open to display, as if proudly, something that'd been cradled within.

"Huh~?" Hong Lu hummed, the first to break the silence with a curious, tension-less voice despite the way he stood ready to strike. "That's not a flower?"

"Momotarō." Ryoshu said, softly. "G.I.F.T."

Blinking, Hong Lu let out a quiet, "Oh… huá, haha…"

Sinclair… didn't understand most of that, instead looking up at the shape… that was too human to really look like an abnormality at all.

There is a twisting, bloody mass of vines within the flower, an approximately human shaped body, one that had been warped and twisted wherever it'd grown… like it had filled in the lines of a mold and then split through a human form. The blood that dripped down from the flower at the "face" of the simulacrum fell in a thick curtain down golden hair, the strands stretching, sprouting out like a mane of sunlight. A membranous film of clotted, rancid blood slicked the back of the creature, like the wings of an angel that had been plucked and flayed. Twisted, worming hand-like approximations of limbs reached up, the twining tendrils breaking into fingers, one hand starting with 8, one hand too focused on forming properly to have more then 3.

<…Somethings… different,> Dante ticked nervously, scurrying back as they… called? Out over their shoulder while they retreated, stumbling down the hill of broken bodies. Faust looked startled, turning as if to stop them, but she didn't raise her voice, or even speak at all. Instead, she looked off into the distance with a focused expression, flicking her pupils back and forth as if she were reading something invisible.

Because Dante tripped. Well, Dante suddenly stopped, and their momentum carried them head over heels. Flailing in a sudden movement, they lifted their chiming head, ringing with sudden clarity.

<I- I don't think that's-!>

Faust's eyes widened, hand dropping to her sword as the other Sinners split their attention between the manager and the forming body, the vines coiling tighter as the creepers flitter over the petals over the abnormalities "face".

"Now's not the time to be hiding things, Faust!" Ishmael shouted over her shoulder, hefting her shield. "Tell us what we're up against!" The genius's response was cut off as the Rose lifted it's hands, and with a wet tearing sound, it began to rip the petals free, with a painful, horribly organic sound.

Instead, it was Dante who spoke- or maybe it was just Dante that they could hear over the pained writhing and self mutilation of this plant.

<It's not an Abnormality!> They ticked, frantically, and Sinclair shifted his feet as he saw what looked like a leg kick out from the blossom, jerking like it was still getting used to having limbs. <That's… that's E.G.O corrosion…!>

W-what?!

"There's a person in there?" Ishmael hissed, propping up her harpoon with a fixed glare. "Are you serious? Faust, is Dante-"

"Lass, now's not the time to be yappin' either!" Heathcliff barked, not turning away from the transformation. His grip on his bat was white-knuckled, and his still-bleeding shoulder shifted back to brace. "Clockhead, hurry up, do your thing!"

Sinclair was almost entranced as he saw more and more of the flower falling away… until a crimson eye was revealed, one that flitted wildly and uncontrollably between the Sinner's before settling on him. Aggressively making eye contact, he felt frozen as it widened, lighting up.

More frantically then before, those hands dug deep, and with a final, awful sound the last of the Rose was ripped away, the green tendrils withering and dropping away to reveal patches of skin, pieces of clothing.

"Executive Manager! Give us the order to engage!"

<Right, guys-!>

"Wait," Faust interrupts, a dawning look of horror on her face. Dante stops talking immediately, propped up on their hands and knees from the fall. "This- Faust… believes this may not be an enemy."

Falling away like a broken eggshell, the coils of darkening plant-matter fell away. The Sinners shared glances- or at least, Sinclair is pretty sure they did, unable to look away from the crimson eyes locked with his.

"…A sanguine transformation, slipped in red," Yi Sang whispered, a distant look in his eyes.

Long, pale fingers formed around jagged thorns, the flesh cumulating into a perfect, manicured hand, that slowly lifted and reached out… towards him. He froze, tense… waiting. Perfect ruby lips, the color of bright blood curved into a hesitant smile, parting a second later, speaking with a voice like wind whistling over a blade of grass.

"My knight…" It, the plant, she, whispered. Longing dripped from her voice as thickly as the blood had, a cape of flowing crimson wavering behind her with refracting light, constantly flowing as she took a hesitant step forward like a fawn learning to walk. "My… Beautiful Emil."

His jaw fell open, stunned.

"G.A.G." Ryoshu said, and Hong Lu let out a quiet laugh as Sinclair turned bright red.

"I-I'm not growing-! She's not…!" Stuttering, he tried to defend himself, but it wasn't very convincing when she smiled with razor sharp teeth, taking another step on increasingly steady legs. And, yes. Like a deer learning to walk, it didn't take her long at all to master it. She lifted both of her hands, as if she were trying to invite him closer, but he didn't move, especially as he heard Ryoshu start to snicker.

"I beckon thee… Prithee, for I had blossomed for thou." Another step closer, and he couldn't help but take one back, breaking eye contact to look at the others, horribly confused. "So was it wailed in euphoria, hark, that softer touch? I bid thee, knight, closer..."

"H-huh? You… are you talking to me?" He squeaked, pointing at himself in shock. She perked up, nodding fiercely, a pleased look on her face as he speaks.

"Indeed, Emil," The lady declared, sounding proud. "T'would be thorns to mine heart, should we part again. Forsooth, for I'd glutted myself upon those who had struck thee blighted, to rend thy misery upon those who had done thee injustice!"

What… was she saying? Something about his misery?

Yi Sang lifted his head, looking struck, which meant he'd… probably had a better chance of understanding what she'd actually said…?

"Then, it was with intent those Inquisitors had been killed…?" He murmured, and the blonde woman glanced towards him, almost dismissively for a moment.

"Ner' had it been more then simple fate, to feed me both strength and vengeance." With a wave of her hand, she spoke of what she'd done like it were nothing more then a coincidence. Which, maybe, it had been. "To return unto mine beloved, such things bear me no consequence, were it not for prior grievances bidding the hand of justice, strike."

The quiet man glanced between the woman and Sinclair, who was wracking his brain to try and remember his lessons on the dialect of S-Corp, gathering his thoughts as best as he could. It really didn't… seem like she was hostile, at all.

But, beloved? Knight…? It- it must've been some sort of… saying or something from wherever this abnormality- no, if it was a corrosion like Dante had said, she was a person, wasn't she…?

"Then, we have no need to cross blades, correct?" Yi Sang continued, slowly, and she nodded firmly.

"Nay, thou hath naught to fear from I!" She announced, and Sinclair heard Rodya let out a very audible sound of relief. "Those who have borne onto me mine heart, therefore art thou struck 'afeared? Had not the roads been cleared of trial, thy blood shed t'would fallen waste."

Yi Sang nodded again, then fell silent, and she returned to locking eyes with Sinclair, creeping closer like a cat sneaking up on her prey.

<…Uh… what's going on?> Dante ticked, hands twisting in front of themselves nervously. <Are we… not fighting? Actually, do you guys see the Golden Bough?>

Sinclair assumed one of the other sinners would handle that inquiry as the lady came to a stop before him, looking proud. She was a little bit shorter then he was… but even though he had to tilt his head to meet her gaze, it really didn't feel like he could… look down on her? There was something compelling about her crimson gaze, almost hypnotic.

Tentatively, he spoke, feeling a little shellshocked from… just, everything. Like a fish, he opened and shut his mouth a few times, before forcing out a quiet, "Um… hi? Who, are you?"

Blinking (for what Sinclair realized was the first time) she looked a bit… lost for a moment, glancing around the room. "…Erm," Was her response, before shrugging.

Not a helpful answer!

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Outis make a sharp, incomprehensible gesture as Merusault approached the massive, dead flower the girl had emerged from, so he frantically looked her over for something to talk about to keep her… distracted? That's what Outis wanted from him, probably…? She didn't seem to mind his gaze, though if she really was his plant… what a weird thing to think… then maybe she was used to being looked at or something? This didn't feel real at all.

The lady was dressed… very strangely. High waisted pants met a silk, frilled blouse, and that cape of blood that had trailed after her had transformed into a long red coat. She looked like a princess, from a long, long time ago… or like a high grade fixer, who could afford to dress in expensive and inconvenient fabrics. And on her feet, were a strange, dirty pair of… running shoes?

He looked down at them, and spotted the script written across them, Rocinante. She followed his gaze down, curiously, and lifted her foot, which revealed a name scrawled across the sole as she tired to get a look at whatever had drawn Sinclair's eye.

"Don… Quixote?" She murmured as she saw it herself, and then she lit up with happiness, smiling even wider. "Ah, prithee, address me as such!"

Cheerfully she lunged forward while he was distracted, and Sinclair shrieked as he was tackled to the ground by a jubilant… Don Quixote, he supposes. Instinctively he reached out to catch her, and she laughed as he hit the soft ground, though he didn't want to think about what, exactly, he was laying on…

"The Golden Bough is not present in this location, Manager." Merusault intoned, without a hint of feeling. Sinclair could only see him for a second, waste deep in petals that were turning brown like drying blood.

"H-hey!" He gasped, not in response but at the same time. He flushed even brighter, and Don Quixote laughed sweetly, wrapping her arms around his waist while he froze, looking to Rodya for help and regretting it as she let out a chuckle and winked at him. "You- I- wh-what are you…?!"

"This is what you had spoken of with such desire, my knight!" Don said with mirth, peeking up at him through her golden eyelashes. "An embrace of flesh, not iron nor vine, thusly I hath re-taken to this form!"

An embrace… A hug? She… wanted to give him a hug, so she stopped being a flower…? Is that how E.G.O corrosion worked? It didn't feel right- he'd experienced it himself once or twice, the feeling of monstrous instincts twisting his existing desires, warping the world to suit the perceptions of whatever abnormality he was borrowing the strength of.

As if she heard his thoughts, Faust frowned, shaking her head.

"To return from an E.G.O corrosion that had progressed far enough to create an Abnormality, you would need a nearly unbreakable force of will, which would've prevented such a transformation in the first place," She muttered to herself, clearly not speaking to any of them. "Either that, or… Ah, yes, that must be it."

Fearlessly, Faust approached, ignoring the sound of Don Quixote's giggles. "It seems as though the Abnormality used the light of the Golden Bough to reverse their corrosion… or, distortion, as it may be. In that case, it should still be in it's possession."

<She ate it?!> Dante asked, ticking and toking away.

Faust did not dignify them with a response.

"I-Is that true, Don… Quixote?" Sinclair asked, stumbling over his words as she accidentally elbowed him in the gut, winding him mid sentence. He wheezed as she paused, trying to catch his breath while she thought about it for a moment.

"Hah? Oh, indeed… I had pursued thy foe beneath the soil, and swallowed the sun so coveted by the wretch…" Trailing off, she seemed surprised by the question, glancing over her shoulder to the other Sinners watching the scene with barely disguised weariness, though Don Quixote herself showed no signs of it. "Was it for that purpose, that thou hath returned as well?"

The offhanded mention of Kromer reminded him…

"You… killed her?" Sinclair gasped, disbelieving.

"Yes, we are here to collect the Golden Bough." Faust spoke over him, her assured words louder then his soft question. Don Quixote tilted her head again, glancing between his pale features and Faust's… well, naturally pale features.

Slowly, as if it pained her, she rose off of Sinclair's prone body, giving him a second to collect himself. "Then… hm, I shall make thee an offer, yes? To part with such a thing… I would not be unwilling."

Sinclair was left staring up at the fake, burning sky, mind a chaotic mess of bursting feelings, no thought given the chance to form as he tried to process… everything, no, anything that had happened today.

"Are you asking to negotiate?" Outis asked, warily, her hand still tight around the hilt of her blade. She was looking between him and the blonde woman with clear suspicion, as if she thought that Sinclair had a hand in this development.

"To provide thee an appropriate dowery… ah, yes, and to secure a place of mine own alongside thou, Emil." she said, adding that last part almost like an afterthought. "T'would serve us all well, would it not? Rest assured, in matters of combat my rivals are few, though t'was not oft I er' had cause to heft thorns."

Faust nodded along, and Sinclair was offered a hand by the still speaking Don Quixote, who helped him to his feet and then refused to let go afterwards, twining their fingers together like ivy around a tree.

"While Limbus Company is unable to arrange for a Sinner to be wed," She started, getting a round of choking sounds from everyone- Sinclair included- who hadn't really understood what Don Quixote was saying. "We would be… amenable, to such an arrangement otherwise."

Heathcliff looked particularly flabbergasted, staring wide-eyed and mouth agape. Rodya pretended to shed a tear, wiping away nothing while she leaned on Gregor's shoulder.

<We- we are?> Dante chimed in, slowly shuffling back up to the group with well-trained caution, still clearly ready to book it if things went south. <But… with Yuri, you said->

"The present circumstances are different." Faust interrupted, with a warning look that made Outis more defensive then the manager.

Don Quixote pouted, swinging their connected hands even while Sinclair's fingers went limp with shock. The blood seeping through the hole he'd torn in his gloves made for an excellent cover as he felt his palms start to sweat, and he hopped that the red lighting from the sky above concealed the way his ears went bright red.

"Is that so…" Sighing, she slumped her shoulders, before springing right back up a moment later, like a beach-ball pushed underwater. "Then, young Emil has no other suitors to fight for his hand?"

Immediately, Faust nodded, which did hurt his feelings a little bit.

"Then I shall court thee with aplomb!" Don Quixote declared, her voice ringing through the empty chamber. Eagerly, she looked back at him, as if she expected Sinclair to swoon into her arms. Sinclair, for his part, had no idea what the hell was going on, and felt the weight of the day starting to creep up on him. He stared back like a deer caught in the headlights, unable to get away and unsure if it was… a good idea to do that.

He… checked out a little bit after that point, nodding every now and then as the Sinners closed ranks around him and… Don Quixote, who still wore a few bright roses identical to the one he'd taken care of in his room… which had grown into a woman, he supposes? Or had always been a woman, just one who went crazy and decided she wanted to be a plant instead of a person? Corrosion was… weird, E.G.O was weird, all of this was weird… or should he say abnormal?

Haha… ha. Oh, man.

This was crazy.

This was absolutely insane.

Subtly, he pinched himself as if his palms weren't stripped down and still leaking blood from the chafed gouges his weapon had made. Of course, it hurt, so he wasn't dreaming. Somehow.

Somehow this was all really happening.

His hand was flung about as Don Quixote introduced herself to the others, the wide gestures and sweeping dramatics flailing about and making him sway and step about in a daze. For someone who hadn't had… limbs… for what must've been a really long time if she'd been contained in a Lobotomy Corporation branch, she seemed very enthusiastic about it. Which was reasonable? He supposes?

None of this is reasonable at all, in any way, shape, or form, but sure! If Sinclair turned into a plant, he'd probably miss having fingers as well!

Even Dante got in on the conversation… in their own way, having Faust translate for them before she decided she didn't want to do so any longer. But it didn't really seem like it mattered- maybe Don Quixote had some weird abnormality mind power that she could use to understand Dante? It seemed like they could understand the manager whenever they spoke in the mirror dungeon… Sinclair wondered why that was, but only a little bit.

He had… other things going on right now.

Slowly, he found his eyes drifting back to the husk that he'd spent a moment ripping apart, the fingers on his free hand twitching uncontrollably. Kromer… it didn't feel right. She couldn't really… be dead, just like that, could she? No, Kromer… she couldn't be dead, just like that, before he even got the chance to overtake her himself.

And yet… there was no mistaking it.

Sinclair was pulled forward on stumbling feet, staggered as they approached the manager, who was seemingly thrilled to have someone new to "talk" to, especially since it meant they wouldn't have to fight anyone. In fact, everyone seemed happy with this turn of events, and he should too, shouldn't he…?

But he just felt… empty.

What… was he supposed to do now…?

He couldn't stop staring, he couldn't stop trying to think. Just trying to think of anything. He'd spent so long just… just waiting, jut trying to get strong enough. Not even strong enough to kill her himself, although now that the chance has been robbed from him, he wishes he did. He'd just wanted to get strong enough to survive her, spent years chasing after the power he'd need to stand toe to toe with Kromer and her influence, and now… the chance would never come.

Sinclair should be grateful, shouldn't he? Grateful that she'd been punished, struck down, killed by someone who thought her life was just as insignificant as she thought his was. Still… Still…!

It was like his whole world was collapsing, and that north star he'd aligned himself around had finally set, leaving him alone in a sky filled with stars so much brighter then he could ever hope to be. The sun setting on his revenge… it left him feeling so much colder then his hatred ever had.

It wasn't as if he could go back and change anything, and if he could, he wouldn't waste that precious wish on Kromer… would he? Maybe, in some world, Emil Sinclair got to be a hero, got to be strong enough to defeat the villain, slay the dragon, save the day…

But not this world. Not this villain.

The rose he'd taken care of for such a brief, short moment of time held tightly to his hand, even as she reached her free one somewhere… else, not a pocket, at least, not a pocket made of fabric. A wavering, rippling space, like a pool of blood disturbed by a stone. A space that shone with all the light he'd lost, adrift in the black, tar-like pits of his undirected hatred, not quite ready to let go. Golden, warm… magical, almost. The treasure at the end of a fairytale, the hoard of a beast rewarding the brave adventurers who'd taken up the quest. Unbearably beautiful, and utterly undeserved.

It felt wrong to take it, to obtain the thing they'd sought without so much as a struggle… but what was he supposed to do? Attack Don Quixote, who was innocent in this, just because she'd done what came naturally to her? Try to make a new dragon out of the lovely fairy who'd danced free from the ensnaring thorns, leaving the bloodless, bone white remnants of the unworthy feast below her?

Did he even really want to hurt her? Or was it just this strangely possessive loathing that wanted nothing more then to lash out at anything it could reach?

He didn't… know.

How could he be expected to know?

That bud of rage, that garden of his own, winding between anything else that might've once mattered more never stopped growing, even as stones of fear crashed through whatever holy place existed inside him once. Winding vines, towering trees, growing day by day, hour by hour, watered by the blood he'd spilled himself, whenever he struck down an enemy imagining it was Kromer in their place…

Ah… perhaps, there was little different between him and Don Quixote, in that regard.

She didn't let go of his hand, even as the bodies melted away beneath them, a withering spreading from the massive flower that had once been the core of the abnormality. Even when the After team arrived, seeming surprised to see them all standing and alive for once, shooting disdainful looks towards them that some Sinners took better then others… Even as they questioned Faust about her presence, ignoring Dante entirely once they'd confirmed the manager was uninjured. With a confidence that felt impossible to replicate, she simply stood among them as if she had always been meant to be there, and so she fit in better then Sinclair ever had.

Was it a lack of understanding, or just the alternative priorities of a monster who'd only just returned to the body of a human being, or at least something that approximated it with a far more convincing shell?

He didn't know.

He couldn't know.

He just followed along by the tether she'd made of their hands, twirled together the same way the vines had been, as they stepped through the withering halls, as they retreated through the blacked, deceased town, the fires that had blazed so brightly reduced to nothing but piles of smouldering ashes littered about the ground in corpse sized heaps.

The Exodus.

And so, it ended the way everything in his life seemed to.

Without him realizing it.

Unconfronted, and unbearable.