Chương 6: Origins: Freedom
"Onee-chan?" I heard Eri's feeble voice call out to me in most predominantly confusion. As if she couldn't possibly understand the events currently transpiring right in front of her eyes. Her near silent steps accompanied her words as the spikes riddling my body somehow receded into the ground and I limply fell after them.
To be honest, despite the condition of my body, I couldn't really feel any pain coming from my wounds. If anything I guess I just felt a little cold? I've long endured worse during my training but this was the first time the dull pain was accompanied with an overwhelming sense of helplessness.
I was already tired from the ending of the fight after all. Now with the extra damage done, I couldn't feel my limbs to even humor fighting back. Most curiously though had to be the fact that I could still feel my blood flowing out of my body and pooling around me.
It was…strange to literally feel the life drain out of me but I had more important things to worry about, however temporarily. While I was coming to terms with my situation, Overhaul seemed to be saying something to Eri, but without being able to see him I couldn't make out what it was. Not that it mattered since it appeared like Eri refused to listen to him anyway as she fell to her knees by my side.
As she grabbed my hand, I could see her face warp and contort subtly through a myriad of emotions. From anger and shock to resignation, self-loathing and grief.
She was…blaming herself for this wasn't she? Ah, my little Eri really is too kind…
"I-I'm sorry, I-..." For what felt like the first time, I felt like I could truly understand her from the bottom of my heart, that's why I didn't even allow her to finish that thought and simply smiled at her. Hoping that she might finally be able to understand me as well.
Judging by the look of absolute shock and awe on her face, I'd say it was successful but perhaps that was just a result of her finally seeing my face for the first time. That last attack just barely missed my neck, instead knocking off the mask I had been wearing for as long as I could remember. I hope she didn't think I was ugly or something.
Then again we look surprisingly similar from what I could tell so I suppose if there's one thing I could be confident about, it would be my looks. Eri is the cutest after all. If we really do look similar I have to be at least the third cutest person in the world. For the record, Eri is also the second cutest person in the world. It just wouldn't make sense otherwise. How could she possibly only occupy one spot on the list? I would also give her third place, but who would dare say my Eri is only the third cutest in the world!?
Probably more than a little delirious from my wounds, I failed to notice the cute stubby little horn on the opposite side of her head to mind begin to elongate and let out a slight crimson light.
Pulling me from my hazy thoughts, I noticed a shadow looming over us and barely made out the figure of the man that caused my super adorable, totally the cutest in the whole world, little Eri to be sad and cry. Instantly I felt an emotion I could only figure was rage, bubble up to the surface of my thoughts.
My training had taught me to identify and hide my emotions well, but rarely had I ever truly felt them especially so strongly. Being blinded by this new feeling and seeing him reach out with his filthy bloodstained hands to put them on 'MY' Eri, I didn't even noticed when I unconsciously activated my quirk and drained the last bit of my life force while simultaneously making use of the blood pooling around us to create spikes and stab the offending appendage.
"DoO….NOooT….Tuuooch…Eeer!" I SAID with the last of my power. I couldn't care less they were the first words I could ever remember coming out of my mouth as I glared bloody daggers at 'Overhaul'.
'It did little to help though' I observed weary as I barely made out his figure apply his other hand to the wound and instantly destroyed and reassembled the hand to perfect condition. With that and the yell he let out after, I had no choice but to give up. With my eyes slowly closing, I could only wish somewhere deep in my heart that I could somehow continue to be together with Eri even after I was gone. Strangely enough, I felt my quirk activate just a little bit so maybe my wish would come true.
Just before unconsciousness and a warm red light claimed me, I felt like I imagined giving Eri a tight hug and finally conveying my true thoughts to her…
.
.
.
Suddenly I was. Simple as that. One minute I wasn't and then suddenly I was.
What was I? I wasn't entirely sure but I suppose saying I was 'alive' is the closest thing to compare.
It was strange, existing that is. I felt like I had lived a lifetime even though I was only just born.
I felt both complete and a sense of…more? More what? I wasn't sure but I knew we were one now. They were one now. We were me but was I still them? Having just re-lived my…our…their entire lives, I felt like we were always this way or at the very least should have been.
How…strange.
Perhaps we should be freaking out but…
I just felt whole and…warm.
I felt…love? Yes, we felt loved. We were finally together again.
And I refused to allow us to be apart ever again. This time I would protect us no matter what. After all, I was the cutest in the whole world!
How embarrassing…
-_-_-
[A/N: Just a heads up, while they/she is still adjusting to their combined existence, they/she will swap back and forth between I and we pronouns. Just putting this here so you guys don't think it's typos or grammar issues. It's all intentional (probably). In universe this will take a few months but It'll probably settle on "I" pronouns either next chapter or the one after that with the occasional switch back in certain situations.]
-_-_-
Getting my somewhat embarrassing- 'but entirely true!' -thoughts put together, I could finally focus on the world around me again and take notice of our situation.
It seemed my coming into existence didn't take very long as Overhaul was still standing relatively near us where I was sure my fresh puddle of blood used to surround us.
The others were still where we left them in various states of unconsciousness. Whether it was permanent unconsciousness 'death…' or not remains to be seen.
Taking stock of myself, the first thing I noticed was the lack of weight on my forehead. My horns were gone? But I could still feel them I think? Hidden then?
Deciding to follow that theory, with a slight pinching feeling, we again felt both a familiar and unfamiliar weight on either side of my forehead. If I had to take a guess, both my horns were back where they belonged. Reaching up to touch them, I was able to confirm our theory. We would have to wait until I could get a better look at myself but I suspected they might also be slightly longer than they used to be as well!
Another thing I noticed while reaching up to touch my horns was the strains of hair that I accidentally pulled along with me. That too was strange, as when I first pulled them they were black while bleeding into a bit of red or maybe burnt orange? But after I called my horns back out, it turned back into a familiar white but this time bleeding into…green? Well I guess it's more like turquoise…[A/N: basically she looks like Nezuko(DS) when their horns are put away and Eri/Daki(DS)/Tomoe Gozen(fate) when they are out. I'll put a few reference pics in chat.]
"Hmm? How unexpected. Combining people doesn't usually turn out so smoothly. Not that it matters. Now Eri, go back to your room and stop causing problems. With Cain's blood quirk I'm sure I can finally make progress on the quirk destroying drug. You're the key to my success, Eri! I refuse to let you of all people get in my way any longer." Overhaul said, breaking us out of our thoughts.
Quirk destroying drugs? Is that what he's been after this entire time? We recall him mentioning tidbits during some of the experiments but, individually, what he said didn't mean much to us. But now… before I could think any further I was surprised by the hand gradually nearing us.
When he reached out to grab our arm, I felt my instincts kick in and immediately I was back on my feet and flipping backwards away from him. It was odd following instincts I didn't know we had and doing things I didn't know we could. As I thought, I really am amazing! [A/N: It's going to be a lot of fun writing two sis-cons fused into a single person lol. Max narcissism is a go!]
"You shouldn't be able to do that." He said with obvious irritation in his voice while his body displayed both anger and confusion. Understanding words was also strange but it didn't seem to hamper our ability to read body language-
"Will you continue to stand in my way, Cain?" -But there was no time to think about that. I could see his body tensing in preparation to attack with his quirk again. My training once again kicked in and I knew we needed to,
'FIGHT!' 'RUN!'
Suddenly I was attacked with a mind numbing headache!
'We need to fight!' 'He's too strong!' 'We can't give him a chance!' 'He hurt you!' 'I don't want you to get hurt again!' 'He needs to pay!' 'We need to get away!' 'Why!?' 'I don't want to kill again, I'm scared…' '...It's okay, I'll protect us, I promise.'
At first it felt like my mind was waging a war with itself until suddenly it all vanished seemingly having come to a consensus. Unfortunately the brief pause relinquished the initiative and Overhaul's hand made contact with the ground and following a short rumbling the ground suddenly split open and multiple jagged stone spears stabbed in our general direction.
Thankfully with my energy apparently having mostly been replenished and the direct nature of the attack, I was easily able to dodge around the majority of the spikes while striking out at the ones too close to dodge. It appears our strength mostly carried over but it was noticeably weaker than it had been during my fight with his goons.
If I had to guess, all the changes I made today that haven't set in have been reversed. How strange? 'Is this my power?' If it is then surely it has to be the best one around, right? Umu. Makes perfect sense. Nothing strange about it.
"Tsk, how troublesome. I've had enough of these games, Eri!" Overhaul suddenly yelled causing me to flinch away. We need to get away before this drags on any longer. It would be bad if he had reinforcements on the way- 'Unlikely, he's panicking and doesn't appear to be stalling for time. His usual overconfidence likely led to him coming alone.'
'I need a distraction.' With that thought I was reminded of our previous plan and realized we already had the means necessary to do so. Feeling out with senses I was both familiar and unfamiliar with, I found both my blood-soaked bandages where I left them. One near Overhaul where they had previously been circling around us, and the other hidden behind the giant man after having been used to cut off the hand of the black one under him.
This can work but we still need something to keep his attention. Hmm, might as well knock out two tasks at once.
Knowing I would need it to flee, I once again drew on the power of my quirk. The room was then lit in a turquoise glow that came from both my horns oddly enough. It felt warm. If we had been able to see ourselves we would also notice my now pinkish eyes change as well and subtly glow a similar green light.
Though getting his intention was what we wanted, I wasn't expecting him to start chuckling at our resistance while his panicking posture returned to its normal, much more confident position. Much less for what he said to actually almost make me pause my actions.
"Kuku, are you sure that's wise, Cain? Do you really want to use your quirk and take Eri's life with you?"
Before I could even start to consider the implication, I felt that all encompassing warmth returned as if we were embraced in love itself. It was enough to let me continue with the rewrite uninhibited and luckily fulfilling the original purpose of keeping his attention on us. With Overhaul distracted, I commanded the bandage at his feet to wrap around and bind his legs tightly.
He clearly wasn't expecting any kind of retaliation near him and so his reaction was a bit delayed. This gave me the chance to command the other one further away to compress and harden into the rough shape of a ball, which then came hurtling from behind him and struck him directly in the hip. I would have aimed somewhere else but I didn't want to accidentally kill him. 'Sorry…' But this was fine too!
His pained cry was the signal I used upon completing the rewrite to call both sets of bandages back to me, turn around, and take off in a mad dash towards the exit we were headed to previously! I used the previous rewrite to augment our speed so by the time he even noticed what had happened we were already over 60 meters away from him!
"ARGAHHHHHHHH!!! ERIIIIIIII!!!!" His enraged cry followed our escape as I finally got the bandages to wrap around our arms again for protection. Before we left I couldn't stop myself from commenting barely above a whisper with our new voice.
"Too loud," And with that, I took my first steps to freedom...
[A/N: There is going to be a retroactive change after this point that I will hopefully go back to and make official once I get around to it. When writing this chapter and rereading some of what I already have and had planned, I realized Cain actually shares a lot of similarities with Nezuko from demon slayer. It was completely unintentional as I hadn't even seen the show yet when I first wrote this. (That's a bit of a hint btw for where her blood manipulation might end up *wink wink*). Another thing I (and apparently a lot of other people) noticed is that Nezuko and Eri are a little similar as well. I was already having a pretty tough time visually nailing down Cain's appearance anyway but now after having seen that I'll just have her look like Nezuko.]
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UncrownedKing
UncrownedKing Now that summer is here and classes are out I have a bit more time to start writing again. I should be uploading the rewrite to my Smartphone story in the coming days and possibly MAYBE if I feel like it, I'll try to redo ghost girl. no promises on ghost girl as I have some complicated feeling concerning it that I haven't shared with anyone and likely never will that keeps me from wanting to work on it. For new stories I might upload a RWBY fic I started working on a while ago but never got around to posting.
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