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Things rarely happen so quickly that Rixia Mao can't keep up with it. She is Yin, even when adorning her civilian clothing or her stage outfits, she cannot stop being Yin. Still, the chaos the signing ceremony is difficult for even her to keep up with. Or maybe she stopped paying close attention when she saw Lloyd hit the pavement. Rixia had stopped paying attention to anything else and picked him up, the only thought in her head was that she had to get him out of the city.
Maybe it was the instincts the two of them had honed over the past two years of running from the Erebonian Military, if one of them got hurt, the other would carry them to safety, no one left behind. Not that Rixia was ever the one getting hurt, Lloyd promising to carry her was nothing more than words. Maybe it was true, maybe he would have, but would never come to that.
Rixia Mao is Yin, she always will be.
Lloyd Bannings is just a police officer.
Lloyd Bannings is bleeding out in her arms.
She can feel warm blood beginning to seep in between the layers of her armour. It's not an unfamiliar feeling, depending on where and how you slash, and a target's blood pressure, blood can spray from a person like a geyser. And that amount of volume will always run down and across her blade, no matter how clean a cut.
Blood covering her arms and clothing and hands is nothing new. It's been her life. Sharp and metallic. But it's never hers. It's never the blood of someone she cares about.
She didn't pull Ilya out from the chandelier, she couldn't slay her father.
Lloyd Bannings is bleeding out in her arms.
Her legs take her to the mostly abandoned boat house, their usual hiding spot. Hidden enough to hide away from the imperial army, but with porous enough paths to let them slip away if they had to. Under one of the shelves is an unassuming ceramic bowl, covered with muslin cloth. The moment she pulls it out the astringent scent already begins to spread through out the boat house. Taking the muslin cloth off makes the smell even stronger.
There's only a small amount of medication left at the bottom of the bowl, but it's enough. It has to be enough.
She sets the bowl down on a small side table before kneeling down by Lloyd's side and carefully removing his jacket and shirt. With his torso and chest exposed Rixia can see the shallow rise and fall of his breathing.
Carefully Rixia removes her armour and claws. There's blood on her skin that she quickly cleans with a wet rag before drying them again. Even if it's Lloyd's own blood, she can't risk infecting him with anything.
Rixia does her best to treat Lloyd's wounds. Cleaning the blood away before genitally applying her medicine to his exposed muscle and flesh. It makes his breath quicken for a few moments, a small cry of unconscious pain from the sting of her medicine. "It alright." Rixia tells him, though she knows he can't hear her, "It's just me." just me as if being alone in the presence of Yin would be reassuring to anyone.
Once the immediate sting of her medicine fades Lloyd's breath grows shallow again before Rixia wraps his wounds in the bandages they kept hidden in the boat house. She hopes they haven't been contaminated from sitting around for so long.
With nothing else to do Rixia sits beside Lloyd, taking his limp right hand in hers. Convincing herself she just monitoring his heart beat.
Her hand isn't near his wrist.
It's just the two of them, alone in the boat house. It's never been just them. There was always KeA and Arios as well. Arios was wanted as a ring leader of Crossbell's original attempt at Independence, and KeA as the divine child. Even if she no longer had her powers the Erebonian government wasn't going to let her run around free.
But now it's just the two of them.
Though, maybe right now it's really just one of them. Just Rixia, alone with an almost dead body. Almost dead not dead yet, there's still a chance he'll live. Ilya started walking again. If she doesn't believe Lloyd will wake up, no one will, there's no one else who can.
She watches as Lloyd's breathing gets deeper, chest rising and falling more visibly as Rixia squeezes his hand a little tighter.
She sees his face contort before taking a sharp breath and opening his eyes.
"Lloyd!" Rixia can hear the sound of her voice splintering in her throat as Lloyd sits up too quickly with his injuries, "Be careful." she says, free hand grabbing at his uninjured waist to hold him still, realising maybe a little too late that she was still holding his hand and now had an uncovered hand on his naked waist.
She does her best to ignore how warm she suddenly feels.
"S-sorry, Rixia…" His voice is slightly horse.
"I did my best to treat you wounds." She tells him, eyes moving away from his to focus on the wall behind him, "But I don't have anymore of my medicine. So you can't get hurt like that again." Rixia warns him.
It wasn't quite true, there was still enough at the bottom of her bowl to treat maybe one more major wound, or a couple minor ones.
He couldn't get hurt like again.
"Alright…" Lloyd nods, "Thank you, Rixia." He says, and Rixia pulls him into a hug.
There's nothing sensual about it, nothing beyond the necessity of Lloyd's shirtless-ness and the style of Rixia's outfit, but Rixia's body disagrees, and she feels a cold guilt creep down her spine, that she realises is Lloyd's other hand caressing her back.
"Sorry." He mumbles, "Sorry for scaring you like that."
"No… Don't apologise for something you don't have control over." Rixia tells him.
"Do you know…" He begins, clearly contemplating whether or not break their hug, "Do you know what happened to everyone else?"
"No." Rixia tells him, "But, from everyone's positions before the chaos started, Elie should have gone this way as well, Tio would have gone in the direction of St Ursula, while Randy and Noel would have gone towards Mainz." She recalls, though she doesn't quite remember where Wazy was standing, or even if he was still in the crowd. Though she assumes no matter the direction Wazy had gone, he and his two squires had returned to their merkabah. "You were so hurt I couldn't waste time watching the direction of the evacuation."
"Right…" She feels Lloyd's chin graze her shoulder as part of a nod before pulling away from her, "Do you…" She can see his face slowly being tinged with pink, "Do you remember if we kept any spare clothes here?" He asks her.
"I think they should be in one of the drawers, hang on…" Rixia gets up and opens a few of the drawers before finding the one they hid a few spare shirts in. A little bigger than Lloyd's actual size so they could feasibly have been owned by the Fishermen's Guild on the chance the Imperial Army ransacked the location.
"Here." She passes him one of the shirts that he quickly pulls over before putting his usual jacket back on.
It's time for the two of them to move on.
~
Things rarely happen so quickly that Randolph Orlando can't keep up with them. He is the Red Reaper, no matter how far away from the Red Constellation his feet can take him. The instincts have permeated him down to the bone, even as the police officer Randy, he can't stop being the Red Reaper. Still, even he has trouble keeping up with the chaos of the signing ceremony. Or maybe he started seeing red after hearing the voice of Rufus Albarea.
He follows the only other voice he's able to hear over the ringing in his own ears. Mireille, leading the civilian evacuation toward Mainz. That's what he had been doing, until it's cut short by by the sound of a firing line, and the crumpling of flesh against road.
He looks back, hoping to see anyone else lifting themself up by their rifle. Randy's sure he himself screams, rush forward and wiping out anything remotely purple he can see before dropping down beside Mireille.
She'd not managed to make it to her feet. Instead collapsing onto to the Mainz Moutain Path.
He tries to pull her up into his arms, he can feel warm blood flowing onto his hands arms and his shirt. He shouts her name a few more times, at a volume that hurts his throat, until he finally sees small slivers of green.
"Ran…… dy……." Her voice is thin and Randy can barely hear it.
"Mireille!" Randy's voice desperately leaps from the back of his throat, as if saying her name will keep her alive, "Please, Mireille." He doesn't know what he's asking for, there's nothing left that she can do.
"The…… Evacuation……. Did… Did the civilians…. Did they make it out?" She somehow manages to ask, and Randy wishes she'd worry more about herself at a time like this.
"Yeah." He tells her, "They've all made it Mainz." He says, "We'll… we've made a full retreat there as well." Feeling more blood flowing out onto him makes him grip her tighter, using the only pressure he can muster to try and stymie the bleeding.
"Good." She barely breaths out, "you need to…. get……." her voice dies away as her eyes close.
"Mireille!" He shouts her name again, it was happening again. First his friend and now…. and now…. He was going to loose the first person he ever really loved.
She's not dead yet a voice inside his says, it's somewhere between Lloyd's and Ilya's, saying that if no one believes in them it will never happen.
Randy doesn't know if he's able to believe in anything.
He tosses Berzerker's strap over his shoulder before picking up Mireille. He doesn't know what they can do in Mainz but… It was better than letting her bleed out on the side of the mountain.
He's able to reach Mainz, Berzerker lazily falling off his shoulder, blood from the blade smearing on the ground outside of the Inn with the clatter.
The only person able to provide medical attention is Towa. She knows the basics, but she's not Aeolia or Cecile. Just his luck that neither of them would come this way.
"Her condition's stable, for now." Towa tells him, "But there are still bullets lodged in her chest." She says, "There's no way to remove it without surgery."
He doesn't need Towa to tell him that. The only way Mireille has a shot is if all of Crossbell is flushed clean of the Imperial Army.
There one thing his strength is good for. He can't protect shit, but he can kill.
"Got it." He says before turing away from Towa. She can hear him calling after him, but it doesn't matter. There are plenty of people who need her help, there's no one who needs his.
He leaves the Inn and picks up his rifle, wiping the blood that had already stained his blade from it before lifting onto his shoulder and checking over the mechanisms.
All in working order, there's nothing left for him to do here.
Just clear the valley.
~
"Ah, Rixia." Elie's voice comes from the stairs in front of the Armorica Sanatorium, followed by the sound of her shuffling against the wood, "Come, sit down." She says, the sound of her hand tapping the wood softly echoing through out the still of the night.
Rixia join's the SSS's vice leader on the stairs, sitting down beside her, the moonlight shimmering off her pearl-grey hair.
"Are you sure you want to go out on your own?" Elie asks, not wasting any time on plesantries, her blunter side a sign of the diplomat's trust.
"I want to prioritise Ilya." Rixia lies, if she wanted to do that, the obvious answer is to stick with Lloyd and the rest of their group.
"Are you sure?" Elie asks her, in a way that makes Rixia feels as though Elie's already figured it out.
"I'm sure." Rixia nods.
"Hm…" Elie hums before leaning against Rixia's shoulder, "You know, I was hoping to clear something up between us." She says, "I've no interest in Lloyd." She tells him.
As usual, Rixia is stunned by Elie's sudden bluntness, but she continues.
"I tried." She admits, "Lloyd is understanding, agreeable, safe." She says, "No one would bat an eye at us. So I did try to play at wanting him." She whispers, "But there are somethings we can't change. I'll never want him like that, I've come to accept that."
"What do you…" Rixia goes to ask, but halts when she feels the weight of Elie's head lifts from her shoulder.
"It would be selfish, too." Elie continues, looking up at the sky, and Rixia can see the stars reflected in her eyes, "If I needed someone to put their feelings aside for a show relationship, I should have gone after Randy." She sighs, though Rixia can tell it mostly preformative, "My mistake."
That, at least, gets a small laugh out of Rixia. "I think I… I think I understand." Rixia tries to smile, but instead she finds herself flushing, "B-but… I fail to see how that counts as clearing something us between us."
"Is that so?" Rixia's sure Elie raises an eyebrow, "So you've not been more forth coming because you're worried about my feelings?" She asks, "Or are you holding back for something else?" She asks, and Rixia squirms under her gaze.
"He can do better than me." Rixia whispers, letting her worst insecurities bubble to the surface.
"That's what you're worried about?" Elie asks before softly laughing, "Why? Because you've committed horrid sins that no one good should be able to forgive? Not to the extent of devoting themselves to you?" She asks, and Rixia squirms, not knowing even Elie could be that perceptive.
Rixia can only awkwardly nod, "S-something like that…" She mumbles.
"You really are so alike…" Elie mumbles.
"Huh?" Elie's totally lost her.
"You and Randy." Elie says, "I had a similar conversation with him sometime ago. He seemed the safest person to go do though… he was much drunker when the topic of his own prospects came up."
"Is… Is that so." Rixia doesn't find that very hard to believe, Randy wasn't exactly… subtle about his own personal view of himself.
"You can't let it stop you." Elie tells her, "You shouldn't let it stop you, if you don't pursue your happiness, then there wasn't really a point to all of this." Elie says, putting her hand on her shoulder and squeezing it tightly.
"I… I'll try." Rixia promises.
~
"Randy." A soft voice comes from the door frame, though he can barely hear it, the gore and wire clogged mechanisms of Berzerker are more important than who ever is trying to get his attention.
"Randy." his name's called again, accompanied by footsteps getting closer to him.
He glances to the side, noting Towa before before returning his attention to the weapon on the table.
"Here." Towa sets something down on the table before sitting on the stool next to him.
He glances down to see a cup of steaming black liquid on the table, he supposes Machias must've dug into the Inn's supply of coffee beans.
"I know you're not going to sleep, Randy." Towa says, "But at least have a bit of caffeine." she requests, motioning to the cup on the table.
He looks at her for a moment, her white uniform still mostly clean with only a few smeared dirt stains around the cuffs of her sleeves. He must look like shit - especially compared to her - smeared with gore and dirt, hair matted and half falling out of it's ponytail, clothing not changed (nor even cleaned) since this incident began… What? A week ago? Maybe more, maybe less. He's lost track of how long it's been, day and night becoming a blurred haze of fighting.
It's been a long time since he's felt like this. It doesn't feel good. He feels like absolute shit, but that's nothing new.
"Thanks." He says before quickly downing the cup and setting down on the table. Towa probably didn't want to more time than necessary in his presence, not with the way he was now.
"It's alright." Towa tells him, "Are you hurt?" She suddenly asks, "You haven't visited the medical quarters…"
"I'm fine." He tells her. On a physical level that's true, he's not had anything more than a few minor cuts and bruises.
He hears Towa take in a loud breath, like she was about to start crying, "I'm worried." She says, though it's so quiet he can barely hear her, or maybe only now was he realising that his own ears felt as though they'd been stuffed full of cotton.
"I want to… But… No matter how many friends this happens too, I can never stop it." She says, and he glances down to see her shoulder's shaking and… She really is crying, or at least she wants to.
He remembers when the two of them first met, Randy having to awkwardly tell he he'd never been to school, and she had to hastily teach him how to, well, teach. He still remembers the night she took him up to the roof, telling him about the stars they could still see clearly, and Randy, in turn, taught her about how they used them for navigation. The same things his father had once taught him.
Towa was, before anything else, an extremely understanding woman. She'd always made the effort to understand everything around her. It's an admirable quality, one Randy knows he'll never share.
"It… It was the same thing with Crow." She says, slightly suppressing her sobbing, "I couldn't stop him. I couldn't do anything… Then we lost him…" She says, and only now, in trying to focus on what Towa is saying, does he realise how drowsy he's become.
"We got him back, but… There aren't any miracles left for us." Towa warns him, somehow, though the haze of Randy's exhaustion addled brain.
He thinks he get what she's asking for him, but it's not something he can do. It's not something he's worth doing. His only purpose is to slaughter, even as his vision begins to blur.
He can see Towa pick the cup she gave him up, with an almost apologetic look on her face.
"I'm sorry Randy." She says, "But you need to rest."
"Towa you…" He finally speaks, voice wading through a thick haze of induced drowsiness.
"I know you won't forgive me for this. But… No one here wants to lose you." Towa says and he feels himself losing to whatever drug she put in his drink, "Sleep well." Towa says stepping away from the table, her voice growing distant as darkness over takes her senses.
~
Cold air from Lake Elm fills the courtyard of St Ursula. The chill bringing with it their final chance at break before returning to to take back Crossbell. Rixia pulls the police jacket Lloyd had given around her shoulders. He insisted that she take it if she were going outside, seeing as his plan was to stay in Cecile's dorm room and repair KeA's own tattered jacket. She hadn't put her own arms through it, not wanting to shed her armour nor shred through the sleave Lloyd had just repaired.
Still it does the trick, keeping her shoulders and neck warm enough, and, in pulling the collar around the lower part of her face, the linger scent of the jacket's original owner making her perhaps a little too warm internally.
She walks down to the small part of the courtyard that over looks Lake Elm, only to see someone else leaning on the railing, looking out at the lake.
"Randy!" She calls out before slotting in next to him.
"Yo, Rixia." He says, not looking away from the lake but leaning further down against the railing to get closer to her face.
"How've you been?" She asks.
"Better." He tells her, "Much…. much better now." he says, hands listlessly running along the railing, "Mireille," He continues, "Is gonna be fine, she woken up and… She'll be back on her feet, soon enough."
"That's good." Rixia nods before going quiet, the two of them looking out over the lake before Rixia summons her confidence.
"Randy, can I tell you something?" She asks.
"Yeah, course you can." He says.
"W-well, to be honest, I've always been rather jealous of you." She admits.
"Jealous?" He repeats, "Of me?"
Rixia nods, "When I first met you, I was confused." She says, "I knew your father had passed away and that the Red Constellation was without it's leader. So what were you doing in Crossbell? I thought it was some kind of cover, that you were the same as me. But, the more I got to know you, the more I realised you left because you didn't want to be the War God, that the meaning your ancestors had didn't matter you." Rixia looks down at the fish swimming in the lake right by the railing, "By the time I realised that, it was too late for me." She adds, "I saw you declare what you wanted to Sigmund in the Azure tree and…" She trails off.
"Haha…" Randy laughs as a hand in berried in Rixia's hair, "It's easier to do when you know there's someone to carry on in your place." He says, an obvious tinge of regret in his voice, "But, if we're bein' candid, I've always been a little jealous of you, Rixia." He admits, and Rixia fails to see how that's possible.
"You too?"
"Yeah." He says, "Thought it must be nice to have somethin' you're good at outside 'a fightin'."
"Ah…"
"Dancin', makin' people people feel somethin' other than terror." He says, "Think that's why I put up with the teachin' gig for so long." He tells her, "If I'm ever in position to leave the police. I wanna go back to teachin'." He says, "Not, not in Erebonia, obviously, but, well, y'know might just end up bein' at the Police Academy but, you never know." He sighs, "I'm sure you're lookin' forward to gettin' back on the stage for real."
"Yeah." Rixia nods, "I am."
"When this over, anything else you gotta do." he asks, eyebrows raised and expression… Suggestive.
"I don't know what you're talking about." Rixia says, her face heating up and her hands unconsciously pulling Lloyd's jacket tighter around her shoulders.
"Ah, ah, ah, if I'm gettin' the fifth degree from everyone else, you're gonna get it from me." Randy says, "You gonna keep holdin' both of ya back?" He asks.
Rixia leans further against the railing, "I want to… But…" She tightens her grip around the railing, "I'm… I suppose I'm scared." She admits, "I don't want him to say no." She didn't feel as though her being accepted was as forgone a conclusion as Randy and Mireille.
"Ha!" Randy snorts, "I'm sure it'll go fine." He assures before sighing, "Think I'm gettin' a taste of what I put the poor SSS through."
Rixia groans, "I'm not… I'm not that bad…" She grumbles.
"Maybe even worse." He says, obviously trying to push her buttons.
"I'm… I'm much more capable of being subtle!" She grumbles before feeling a short pain in her forehead, "Ouch!" Rixia grumbles.
"C'mon, I'm gonna do it, so you're gonna do it." He says, "And if you get rejected, you get a free shot with your needles." He says, "Deal?"
"Fine." Rixia nods, "Deal."