Chapter Text
The white noise in his head abruptly cuts out.
Zanka blinks.
Had he blacked out?
No.
He was still standing exactly where he'd been.
Mouth dry and heart thumping in his ears.
For a fleeting moment he feels strangely disoriented, like he'd lost hold of a thought before he could finish thinking it.
He doesn’t have time to dwell. Kyouka's voice cuts through the air.
" If you wish to take the spherite back so badly..."
She pauses by design, to let him torture himself before she puts him out of his misery. Scenarios danced over his grave in his head on what cruel plot she was cooking up for him before it hits him like a sledgehammer.
Grip on his beloved staff suddenly turns white-knuckled as fear seeps into the calm he'd carefully maintained. Composure crumbling. Regressing.
This was more what his siblings would expect from him. A trembling, pathetic child still trying to stand tall among people who made it all look effortless.
She was going to ask him to break Lovely.
Break the source of his failure as a Nijiku in exchange for Rudo. His eyes glazed over. It made perfect sense in the way only fucked up Nijiku logic could. He briefly wonders if he even could, even if it’s for Rudo’s sake.
He buries the thought immediately. He has to. He has to.
He can't stop the tremors in his hands as he imagines the wood of his partner splintering apart in his own hands.
His nightmare looms above him as she continues.
“Show me his worth to you.”
Kyouka’s gaze lies heavy at the stick on Zanka’s back. Resentment dripping from her for a worthless object that her brother chose over his Duty as a Nijiku. Over her. He should be stronger than that.
He feels Kyouka make her demand before she so much as speaks it.
“Prove your resolve and offer up what you hold most dear.”
No.
“And destroy it with your own hands.”
No no no no no no
Enjin steps forward, face twisting in horror at the suggestion being laid at Zanka’s feet.
“Hey that's- “
A gunshot cracks through the air.
The bullet bites the ground just shy of Enjin's boot, skimming the leather.
Enjin freezes.
A dangerous steeled glare is cast up to his shooter. Not good. Zanka can tell Enjin is ready to escalate, hand slowly drifting to draw Umbreaker.
Zanka’s eyes go wide. Things will go sour quick, and it won’t end in their favour.
“It’s okay,” He forces the words to spill out. Willing them to back down.
Enjin's attention snaps to him in an instant. Heartbroken disbelief searching his face for a trick he'd missed. Despite everything, he still desperately hoped Zanka had a plan up his sleeve.
“It's my choice...”
His throat tightens.
“You said you'd let me call the shots here yeah?”
He swallows thickly, this was his deal to make. No one else had to be hurt.
“ So back down.”
Enjin opens his mouth to argue. He doesn’t get the chance.
”Back down... or Rudo is lost to us forever”
Enjin hisses curses through clenched teeth. Riyo looking back and forth between the two of them. The reminder lands. They won't gamble with Rudo's life.
“I...
“It's okay...”
His voice finally breaks.
“She understands.”
Lovely always understood.
They were one and the same. He feels her. Warm. Patient. Offering him soft encouragement that feels like poison.
She understands, and somehow that’s worse. He hasn’t even moved to do the unspeakable yet, and he feels his half of his soul shattering at her resolve.
She saved him. Now he was going to kill her.
Shaking hands reach behind his shoulder. Fingers close around familiar wood, bringing her into his vision.
His thumbs trace every grain, bump and groove, each as known to him as his own skin.
For a long moment...
he can't move.
Staring into blue varnish.
Notices a worn spot and without even thinking makes a mental note to recoat her. He almost falls apart on the spot.
There wasn't going to be another coat of varnish.
He'd always reached for her without thinking. Reached for her when thinking too much.
They moved as one, extensions of eachother.
He bared his soul to her. She'd seen every ugly, twisted part of him that had cursed her for ruining his life, and embraced him anyway.
She held his soul as he held hers.
For the first time in his life, her weight in his hands doesn't feel comforting.
It feels like saying goodbye.
....
He takes too long to let himself mourn.
Kyouka makes him pay for it.
The door screams open and Rudo comes into view. Bound. Gagged. Thrashing wildly. Struggling with all he has. Giving the guards holding him trouble despite them being five times his size. A sight to make him proud, if he had the time to chew on that.
Then it catches up to him why Rudo is brought into the picture.
She’s cruel, fucking barbaric.
She's a fucking monster.
Some impossible part of him wishes he'd found the strength to break Lovely sooner.
Spare Rudo having to see it.
He can already hear the anguished wail it will rip from the kid.
He’s too damn soft. Beneath all those feral teeth and claws, the brat was too damn empathetic for his own good. He wouldn't just watch Lovely die. He'd feel the moment she took half of Zanka with her.
His breathing is ragged.
Uncontrolled.
He raises his arms to hold Lovely out in front of him. A grand display of the despicable act he’d sworn to commit.
Some of the onlookers lose interest, decide the interesting part of this exchange is all wrapped up and move on with their day. Not a care to be had for a giver's sentiments towards a hunk of junk. Others stay, still far too curious for their own good.
He feels the other cleaners wincing behind him, held in place beneath the watchful eyes of gathered guards.
But worst of all is Rudo.
The kid had stopped struggling entirely. Red eyes wide with betrayal, refusing to accept what he was seeing. That he could do this to Lovely.
He wishes he would look away.
He feels her. Offering comfort even now... that made it worse. Soft whispers brush against his soul as his own hands begin to feel her splinter. Breath hitches, eyes stinging with tears he can’t shed as his grip tightens.
His soul surges in his chest, protesting his own actions. Eyes glowing bright as blue flamed anima engulfs wood.
Willing her to turn wood to metal.
She refuses the call, remaining unchanged.
He squeezes his eyes shut, unable to bear the sight of it.
Pressure mounting, wood groans before it all gives.
A sickening crack echoes.
Then an emptiness fills him.
He doesn’t move.
......
Eventually eyes open, needing to confirm for himself.
He did it.
He broke her.
Two halves of what should be whole remain held in the air.
He lets go.
For a moment, his palms remain open.
The same empty-handed taunt he'd shown enemies a hundred times before.
A silent question.
Where is she?
Enemies had always learned the answer a heartbeat later.
This time, it only served to let a broken stick tumble from his grasp.
And he follows it.
Falling to his knees before her remains.
.....
Kyouka looks down at him.
Satisfied.
The guards shove Rudo forward at her nod. Gag pulled from him in a yelp, releasing an onslaught of curses.
The eldest Nijiku coldly regards her brother, something about weakness. About bonding to objects being pathetic. About needing this to grow.
Her mouth keeps moving. He doesn't hear a word.
Enjin yells back to her. Even more distant words to him.
Kyouka, Goka, the guards, at some point they’d disappeared out of view. The door to his familys home closed to him for the last time.
He barely notices.
Too many voices.
He can't tell them apart.
Hands grab his shoulders.
Shake him.
Apologies tumble over one another.
Spoken.
Unspoken.
It all blurs into white noise.
He can’t take in any of their words, can’t speak a word in return.
Then gloves.
White hair.
Desperate red eyes.
Rudo forces his way into his vision.
Kneeling in front of him, eyes laden with grief, anger, guilt.
Gloved hands gathering every splinter with trembling care.
Then they reach to Zanka, guiding two halves back into Zanka’s hands. Where she belonged. Before finally cupping his own gloved hands over his. Holding the splintered wood together, as though their touch could bring her back together.
Red crackles at his hands. He knows what he’s thinking.
“No.”
Soft. Uncannily flat.
Rudo freezes.
Hands jerk back as though burned, fingers curling into his palms. Touched something he shouldn't have. Made things worse. Fresh tears spill over old ones as his body trembles, face contorting into a grimace.
Zanka watches blankly. Watches Rudo try to take the choice he made away from him.
Clear he never learnt the first lesson he taught him.
Don't take things that ain't yours.
Something stirs through the numbness, but words still won’t pass his lips
A shaking hand reaches out, pulling Rudo to his chest. He doesn’t have it in him to do anything else. The only clear thought he has right now... Has to let him know. Can’t let the idiot blame himself for this.
“I chose this....”
“S’not your fault...”
He whispers it over and over into white hair.
The only words he can still find.
Rudo nuzzles further into him, gripping at his jacket and wailing the way Zanka wishes he could.
Everything in his chest aches. He wants to sob, scream out, let an endless flow of tears spill from him.
It doesn't come.
Rudo weeps for him.
---
He isn't sure how long he kneels there, Rudo held against him.
Memory begins to fall apart.
Fragments.
Hands on him.
Someone saying his name.
White noise.
...
Walking.
The path downhill.
Gris.
The car.
Door opening.
Someone guiding him inside.
Leather beneath him.
...
Rudo doesn’t let go.
Riyo clings too.
It doesn't help.
...
Driving.
Hum of an engine.
The radio stays off.
...
The gates of Headquarters.
Home.
Concrete beneath boots.
...
Then something gives.
Legs buckle beneath him.
Rudo.
Darkness.
---
Enjin hovered over Zanka's cot.
A week.
Deep blue eyes stared at the ceiling.
Empty.
Like someone had forgotten to put Zanka behind them.
Eishia fusses, her nervous habits going into overdrive under the uncertainty. Adjusts the IV. Straightens a monitor. Checks the tubing. Five minutes later, she started all over again. As though a slightly out of place IV could be what’s stopping Zanka from getting better.
He'd barely slept. Doubted any of them had.
Rudo was giving Zanka a run for his money on who looked the most dead inside, taken him and Riyo to finally prise him from Zanka’s side at all after he first collapsed.
Riyo had latched onto looking after him. Thank fuck. Enjin didn't think any of them could survive just sitting around Zanka's bedside all day, which is why this was his job. She wasn't okay either but he thought maybe it helped. Better to fuss over Rudo than sit here and face the possibility Zanka might never really come back.
He'd known Zanka's family had... tension. Never imagined it ran this deep. Wishes he'd done more than scream at the eldest. She hadn't looked like she gave a shit. Not about anything he'd said. Certainly not about Zanka.
He couldn't make sense of someone who knew Zanka and still decided he wasn't worth a damn thing. Let alone demand he tear apart his own soul.
All they can do now is watch him lie there. And worry. Dammit, they'd gotten Rudo back. All of them in one piece. That’s a damn miracle for a dealing with the Hell Guard. So why did it feel like they'd lost the war?
He turns to Eishia, fiddling with wires, again. She’s in as rough a shape as the rest of them. Knows it must be taking it’s toll having a patient she can’t heal. That’s the problem really. None of them know what the problem even is...
“He’s not injured...”
Eishia almost jumps at being addressed.
“No...”
Enjin’s eyes plead, as though asking the same question none of them have been able to answer will change a damn thing.
“Then what’s wrong with him?”
Bad thing to ask he knows. Eishia deflates.
“I...I really don’t know...There’s still nothing physical that seems to be the cause...”
He sucks in a sigh, he can’t keep torturing both of them like this. She’s doing all she can.
“Well if anyone can figure this out it’s you, just...Any hot takes on what it might be?”
“I...I- think.. it’s more anima related...”
“How so?”
"When I heal someone usually...I can feel them."
"What do you mean?"
"Their anima pushes back."
"..."
"Zanka doesn't. It’s like there’s...There’s nothing there."
“Nothing? Is that....normal for...y’know.” A giver without their vital instrument.
“No... Everyone has some, I can feel even small parts of it responding to me when I heal anyone”
“Hm...” Enjin ponders, chewing on it like he had any clue what any of it meant, what it meant for Zanka.
“I’m sorry- It’s not something I’ve ever healed before, I- I don’t know if i even can help at all...”
“Oh cmon, you’ve literally saved the life of everyone on in this building at least once, have a little faith in yourself. If anyone can figure this out it’s you....”
He stares down at the motionless teen with a heavy look.
“And..Zanka really needs you to trust yourself right now...”
....
They’d never really handled a giver having lost their vital instrument before.
There has been some gossip of it, passed around like a campfire horror story... Givers who lost their instruments. Most died protecting them before that ever happened. Those that survived... supposedly didn't stay themselves.
Never heard of anything like this though. Zanka chose this.
Maybe that made it worse?
No one really knows what it is. Eishia has a theory that Zanka poured every ounce of anima in his body into Lovely before he....
Then when she snapped it was all just...gone, dispersing into nothing and leaving Zanka in a state of anima deprivation. If that was really what happened...How were they supposed to heal someone who'd run out of soul?
If it even is that.
They'd run over it a few times, could easily just be some kind of traumatic shock. All tangled up anima bullshit. People broke under less, hell, he'd seen it happen. The Ground chewed people up. And shock was a real killer.
Eishia keeps insisting on letting her try to reignite his anima with Type heal anyway, as though she were jumpstarting a car.
He trusts her to make the best call.
None of them can really tell if it’s working.
Zanka doesn’t give them much indication of any change.
Eyes open.
Breathing.
Existing.
Somewhere drifting between comatose and catatonic.
Riyo appears that evening, suddenly shooing him out the room with a playful urgency like she needed to have a private conversation about crushes with her bestie .
“Alright sleepyhead, get your butt out of here. It’s my turn.”
Enjin almost protests through his groggy haze but then he catches something in her eyes.
She needs this.
Needs to be here for him now.
As much as for his sake as hers.
He casts a glance back, Riyo had already climbed onto the edge of the cot.
The usual smile she'd worn for everyone else all week disappeared, laid to rest on Zanka’s bedside table.
For a moment she hesitated.
Normally she'd already be curled against his side, invading his space to his half hearted protest without a second thought.
This time...
She left a sliver of space between them.
She only lay beside him.
Watching every rise and fall of his chest.
Waiting.