damned_institute | Night 69: Main Hallway 2-West

Ed shrugged at Al to say 'I don't know'.

Then Scar spoke and he had to pay attention. "Okay, Al and I can explore there some other time then. Should we do the next hallway?"

"I haven't spent much time up here," Lust admitted, glancing around. "Just the times I've been here with you." She nodded to Scar. Her other nightly adventures had kept her on the ground level, one way or another. "I suppose I don't need to mention we should all be on our guard."

Who knew what had been set loose up here tonight?

Al nodded, shifting his grip on the sword. "Don't have to tell me twice," he murmured, glancing warily about. "We might as well take that second hallway, since we don't know where we might miss something."

He slipped his flashlight out of his pocket and flicked it on, shining it further down the hall to illuminate any hidden dangers.

"The morgue is down there. As well as autopsy rooms, I would assume. And we know that possessions storage is on the eastern end of the building." It was logical to take the second hall.

Scar only nodded in acknowledgement of Lust's comment. He was already wound tight for a potential, perhaps inevitable attack. He was cautious as they arrived at the next turn, flashing his light all around before starting down it.

[To here]

Edited 2013-03-14 01:05 (UTC)

[From here]

Scar was the first to re-enter the main hallway with brisk, long strides intended to keep him at the front. He flashed his light down either end, ensuring that they were alone.

"I awoke down that hall." He indicated the hallway to the right, his movements faltering for a moment. There were brief times like this where it hit him once again that he had, indeed, died a second time. "There could be examination rooms near the morgue." It was a suggestion, at least.

Ed stretched his legs in an attempt to keep up with Scar, mentally grumbling about freakishly tall people all the while.

He nodded and looked down the hall, automail blade held in guard position. "That way, then."

It made sense to Lust.

"Was there anything of note in there?" She may as well ask, considering Scar had experience with the room in question. And likely they did perform experiments there. Or what they passed off as experiments, at least.

At this point, any manner of supplies would be useful.

Alphonse trotted along with the rest of them, hanging back a little to keep the rearguard--thought at the moment, he felt like he was the one that needed guarding the most.

"It was pitch black. I didn't have a light." No, all they had given him was a goddamn sheet.

But given the nature of this hallway, it was lucky nothing had found him. Given their collective luck so far tonight, he wouldn't count on that happening again. This in mind, Scar kept to the front as he made his way down the hallway in the direction of the morgue.

[To here]

[from here]

He wasn't sure what he'd expected of the second floor, but it was just as dingy and ill-maintained as the rest of the building. Castiel's light was just barely enough to show them the different paths open to them.

"It was not practical to hold a flashlight and my weapon at the same time, so I asked a member of the group to hold the light for me while I confronted the yurei," he continued, lifting the bat slightly as he referenced it. Whether the spirit had been drawn to him or another in his party, he wasn't yet sure, but hopefully they could avoid it tonight. He'd spent enough of today haunted by the ghostly remains of that encounter.

It didn't take long for Castiel to piece together that he and Soushi had run into the same ghost that night. If he factored in Gabriel, that was three different groups of people who had encountered the spirit, though he realized it was possible that Soushi and Gabriel had been traveling together last night. That would be a strange coincidence, but not impossible.

"I ran into the same spirit," he said as he finally made it to the top of the stairs. He paused for a minute, leaning against the banister to catch his breath. Being winded after walking up one flight of stairs was ridiculous, but that was still the state of things.

"My traveling partner and I were unable to get past it," he admitted. "Did you feel any remnants of its haunting over the course of the day?" They needed to be moving on and he knew that, but they might as well finish this discussion while he caught his breath.

Edited 2013-03-14 21:48 (UTC)

Soushi watched the empty halls for movement, patients or otherwise, as Castiel caught his breath. It would do no good for him to overexert his guide. But he turned back to the man, once he had finished speaking. Castiel had run into the same spirit?

"Yes. I cannot speak for those I traveled with, but when I spoke with you earlier, that was when I first noticed it. The bench you were sitting on was covered in dust and decay and long black hair. I heard her, for a moment, but then it was gone," he said softly, hoping that in describing the spirit, it would not call it upon them.

It was true that they might be tempting fate by speaking of the spirit when they were out at night like this, but Castiel didn't concern himself too much with it. If that ghost wanted to find them, then it probably would. It was either that or it only haunted a certain part of the institute -- and judging from his previous encounters with it, that was the first floor.

So that was why Soushi had seemed oddly distracted during the latter part of their conversation. Castiel hadn't understood it then, but he'd only felt the aftereffects himself in the following shift.

"I see. Something happened to me as well. I hallucinated the sounds of someone drowning, and then my arms suddenly became drenched in water." It wasn't that harmful in the end, but it was possible that some of the patients who'd encountered that spirit had been affected in worse ways than he and Soushi.

All speculation aside, they needed to move on. Soushi wouldn't know where to go from here on, and so Castiel shuffled away from the banister and down the hall to the right, expecting that Soushi would follow.

[To here.]

[From here.]

It was starting to get more difficult to ignore the ache in his wrists and legs. How much damage had he done in trying to break out of his bonds? Nothing felt broken. Beyond that, though... With a wince, he leaned against the wall and let go of his hand so he could rub his ankle gingerly, trying to assess the damage by feel. Blood, some slick, some starting to form a crust. Some of that was probably from his hand, from when the doctor's scalpel had sliced into his skin, but he could feel the lines in his skin where he'd jerked against the restraints. Dammit, he'd need to get those clean.

Later. He didn't have anything to clean up with, and it wasn't safe to stop. Not for the few moments it took to make certain that he'd be okay to walk (or run) until there was a chance to do something more than that. He straightened up and continued on, struggling to keep his movements quiet despite his growing limp. Nothing broken, just swollen.

A sudden vision of his leg swelling, bulging, with a harsh, gray-green cast, made him nearly stumble again. His heart raced before he could convince himself it wasn't real, he was fine, his leg was normal. He shouldn't even be in any danger yet. He'd barely had the Exsphere attached! There was time. He had time.

I wonder what he would think... The doctor's voice whispered in his ear. Lloyd's breath caught and he froze before he could start forward again. If he know how badly his own son was breaking under the pressure.

He shuddered, trying to force back the thought. He wasn't breaking. He wasn't. He was handling this! His father was the one he should be worried about. Who knew what they'd even done to him when they'd pulled his Exsphere off? He had to find him, somewhere, somehow. He didn't know what he could do, wouldn't know until he saw how bad off his father was, but he was the best chance his father could have. Who else would know anything about Key Crests and dwarven runes and what it might take to save him?

Who else besides the doctors, and no way in hell-

Ow!

He'd started forward in the middle of that thought, only to smack into a wall. With a curse, he clapped a hand to his nose, probably smearing blood on his face, but that was really the least of his concerns. He knew he had blood smeared in other places already. A little more wasn't about to make a difference in how much of a wreck he no doubt looked. No, it was the added pain he was in. Dammit, pay attention! He had to take a few breaths before he could lower his hand. Nothing broken. He didn't think he'd bloodied it, either. No warm-wet trickle of flowing blood on his skin. He'd been pretty lucky, all things considered.

Lucky.

Lucky.

Suddenly, he wanted nothing more than to sit down and either cry or laugh.

Edited 2013-03-26 03:55 (UTC)

[CHARGING IN FROM HERE]

Four more steps...two...there! Kratos burst onto the second floor and immediately turned on his flashlight, sweeping it back and forth across the hall to check for--

Brown hair. Blood, dark red against pale grey.

His heart stopped.

Someone - it wasn't him, couldn't possibly be him - whispered a choked "No!" into the still, night air, and just like that, all of his anger had drained away into a vast pit of despair.

"Lloyd!" His legs were moving, carrying him forward even as his brain refused to cooperate, taking one step and then another, his previous fatigue forgotten as he broke into a run, and then suddenly, he was across the hall, bending down as one of his hands gently moved Lloyd's hand out of his face while he wiped away the blood smeared across his nose with the back of a finger.

"Lloyd," Kratos repeated hoarsely. His hand moved now to shakily brush a stray piece of hair out of Lloyd's eyes; the other had since dropped to his shoulder. "You...you're..." He couldn't bring himself to tear his eyes away and look down, to see what they'd done to his son. To his boy. "I..."

And then, ever timely, the last of his self-imposed barriers flared to life, sharply reminding him that he was going too far, that he and Lloyd were enemies, and that he was coming very close to crossing that line he'd clearly marked for himself. He flinched and hastily backed away, his hands jumping away from Lloyd as if he'd been burned. "I..." Kratos stared at his son for a long moment, looking as if he desperately wanted to say something, but couldn't. He swallowed hard. The words was right there, right on the tip of his tongue (I'm sorryIfailedyouIt'smyfaultIwastooslow), but they were stuck in his throat, and abruptly, he turned and slammed his fist into the wall with a strangled shout of frustration.

Edited 2013-03-26 07:56 (UTC)

Light flickered on the edge of Lloyd's vision, the first warning he had that he wasn't alone anymore, but it felt like he'd barely registered Kratos's voice before suddenly the man was there, his fingers touching Lloyd's face in a move that was... that was... Lloyd didn't know what it was, but it wasn't anything he expected from him. He froze, uncertain how to even respond, even while his heart raced from the initial terror that he'd been found someone was coming who where could he run?! Realizing it was Kratos had helped, but he'd still flinched at the unexpected touch.

"K-Kratos?"

The moment was broken when Kratos jerked back. Lloyd started in surprise. What had that been? Kratos had always been difficult to read, but what kind of reaction was that? Under better circumstances, Lloyd might have spared a moment to be frustrated, to try to muddle through the confusing mix of behavior, maybe grouse at the man for being confusing.

But he was too busy trying to pull himself together. He swallowed, straightened up, tried to wipe his hands on his gray pants in a futile effort to clean himself up. His left had spasmed, just a twitch of his fingers in response to the flare of pain that flexing his fingers like that made, but he managed to barely wince in response. He wasn't weak. He wasn't breaking down. He was eighteen years old, a man now. He needed to be strong. He didn't need to feel relieved that someone he knew had come. He especially didn't need to feel the irrational urge to throw his arms around Kratos and cling like a lost, scared child who'd been found. Just as well he didn't give in to that impulse. That would have been embarrassing for them both, and probably would have gone over as well as a sack of bricks.

But speaking of that...

"How... How did you find me?" He hadn't thought anyone knew exactly where he was. He opened his mouth to say just that - only to jump back, wide-eyed, with a sudden spike of fear. Kratos didn't behave like that unless- "What? What is it?!"

He stood there, panting, head bowed and fist still firmly planted against the wall, for a while, letting the pain radiating from his hand wash over him and burn away the tight ball of emotion sunk into his chest. It was what he'd always wanted to do, punch a wall with all his might, and now that he'd finally done it, Kratos didn't know why he hadn't punched a wall earlier; the catharsis was remarkable.

Finally, he stepped away and exhaled, running a hand through his hair to push it out of his eyes before he bent down to pick up the flashlight he'd dropped somewhere in his mad scramble to reach Lloyd: it was rolling limply at his feet.

"What did they do?" He managed to keep his voice at its usual even, calm, near-monotone, but could not completely block out the bitter bite that tinged the ends of his words.

Edited 2013-03-26 21:55 (UTC)

Dammit, Kratos, never answering his questions, but the question he asked in turn wiped away any protests Lloyd might have formed. He swallowed, abruptly looking away, blaming the light. After so long in the dark, even that small beam of light seemed bright and glaring, almost as harsh as the light had been that had hung over his head in that room. Something tensed inside him at even the memory and his shoulders stiffened. It took an effort even to think about the question.

"They..." His voice choked off. He didn't want to talk about it. Unconsciously, he clutched at his injured hand, palm covering the Exsphere and Crest. He swallowed and tried again. "He... Kratos, they have my dad." Okay, he was copping out, but that was just as important! And while he was talking about it, he could look Kratos in the eye again. He could hold himself up and pretend he was all right, at least enough to keep going. "Not Dirk, I mean. My father! They have my father here!"

"They have my dad."

At that, Kratos's head snapped in Lloyd's direction. "What," he hissed, all the calm suddenly banished. Something about the fact that the doctor had so carelessly toyed with their relationship, as if it was just a thing to be twisted and corrupted for his amusement, was so infuriating that he could hardly think straight, could not even bother with trying to keep his cool. Actually, if he could, he might have laughed at the sheer absurdity of it all, the way the doctor had so cleverly turned all of his lies against him...

The air around him grew heavy as he stepped toward Lloyd, his eyes, alight with anger, locked on his son's. "What did they tell you about him?" Kratos demanded. "What did they say?"

He didn't know why he was asking; it would probably only add to the seething rage slowly spreading through every vein in his body. Some perversely curious part of him bleeding through, no doubt.

Lloyd took an involuntary step back, eyes wide at the sudden fury that practically radiated off the other man. He didn't know what he'd expected from Kratos, though he'd hoped the older swordsman would at least have the decency to sympathize and understand why Lloyd was alarmed by this fact, but why would Kratos be filled with such rage? He didn't even know Lloyd's father!

"I- N-nothing! I asked, but he wouldn't tell me. He just said he was here! And..." His tongue tripped. He didn't know much about his father, but the one thing he knew... He shuddered. He didn't want to talk about it, but it was his only clue. "They... They took his Exsphere. He said the procedure was safe because they did it to him first!." His voice shook. He tried to summon his anger and outrage to cover it, tried to focus on the fact that his father had suffered and not on the fact that the same thing had been done to him, too. He didn't want to think about what might be happening inside his own body right now. It worked, at least to the extent that he was able to draw himself up again, body quivering with indignation.

Indignation, not fear. He wasn't scared. He wasn't.

...never mind that Kratos's expression was terrifying right now. Lloyd wasn't sure he'd ever seen him this angry before. Even when he'd snapped at Kvar, he'd been restrained compared to this.

He took a breath, and shook his head, yanking his thoughts back on track. "We have to find him!" he insisted, pleaded. "He could be turning into a monster right now! He... I dunno... Maybe he looks like me? But older, and I guess he'd have gray hair now. Have you seen anyone like that around?" Kratos had been here longer than him. Maybe he had seen Lloyd's father around.

Kratos had stopped paying attention shortly after Lloyd had talked about Exspheres and procedures. Cursing softly under his breath, he grabbed Lloyd's left hand by the wrist before the boy could protest and held it up to the light.

It had been almost the same procedure: he could the same straight, exacting cuts carved into the skin around the Exsphere. The only difference was the Key Crest gleaming dully underneath--why was that? Why...the dull gold color told him it was zircon, and zircon was only used for--

It was his, wasn't it? All Exspheres looked approximately alike, but somehow, he was so sure. It was his Cruxis Crystal sitting there. They'd given it to Lloyd for whatever reason--he really didn't care at this point, too caught up in the sickening irony. He could just imagine the doctor's glee as he'd dropped the crystal into its new setting: A gift from your father.

He let Lloyd's hand fall away before he accidentally crushed it and tried hard to clear his mind, to remember what was going on, where they were. He was shaking; he could feel it. His fingers were curling into a fist, digging so deeply into his palm that he could feel the fabric of the bandage beginning to give way. It was hard to determine if that was out of anger or a subconscious attempt to keep him rooted in reality through pain...

A little voice in his head - he imagined it sounded like Anna - was pleading with him to just give up, to just say what had to be said because if not now, then when? How much more did he need to endure to make the time right? How much more could he? After all, he had just punched a wall, just like he'd always considered but had never imagined himself capable of doing.

"Safe," he heard himself repeating distantly. And then again with a bark of bitter laughter: "Safe."

The red hot aura building around him melted away, and Kratos visibly deflated. He looked again at Lloyd's hand and sighed. Suddenly, he felt very tired - and old. "Humor me, Lloyd. Why would they use zircon?"

Something was wrong. Kratos's whole demeanor was off, his actions unpredictable and erratic. His hand had snaked out and grabbed Lloyd's wrist before the teen could even try to jerk back. He winced and had to bite back a hiss of pain at the contact, and he almost started to struggle, but it was too late. Kratos had seen the Exsphere, seen what had happened to him. There wouldn't be any avoiding the topic now, even if he'd known it would come up sooner or later.

Only Kratos still wasn't behaving the way he should have. The bitter laughter disturbed him almost as much as his sudden deflation did. The man sounded tired, almost... defeated. Not calm and collected, not keeping a cool head, but like he'd already lost. It wasn't the way he was supposed to sound at all.

Unsettled, Lloyd pulled his hand back and uncertainly tried to do as he'd been told, to humor Kratos and answer the question. Maybe if he did, then things would make sense. "I... He said they couldn't get inhibitor ore, so they had to make a substitute. Zircon... That's what we used in Colette's Rune Crest to make her Key Crest stronger." But Kratos knew that, so why was he asking? "It's not strong enough by itself. It just... helps." A bitter anger crept into his voice. "I don't think he cared if it was good enough, though. I don't think he cares about anyone here at all!"

"'Fully containing the unwanted effects of the Hi-Exsphere requires an inhibitor ore-zircon alloy,'" Kratos recited woodenly, still looking down toward Lloyd's hand. It was from the scientific paper that had been published shortly after he'd been cleared for active duty again during the Kharlan War, the paper that had owed its entire existence to him.

"The Hi-Exsphere...or as you call it, the Cruxis Crystal."

His heart was pounding in his ears. He'd hardly confessed to anything, merely given Lloyd a series of facts that would serve to nudge him in what Kratos assumed would be the right direction, but this was as close as he'd ever dared to giving Lloyd a straight answer, and after so many lies and deflections, it was difficult to choke out something even marginally related to the truth. His greatest secret, now dangerously close to being uncovered, all thanks to Landel and his cronies - how proud they had to be.

"They were all destroyed once the war ended." His voice had fallen to barely above a whisper. "All except, naturally" - his eyes flicked up to Lloyd's, almost begging him to understand - "those that already belonged to Cruxis."

There was something important in this. Kratos rarely explained anything unless he felt it was worth his time to do so, something he thought Lloyd needed to know. Even then, he almost never came out and said anything directly, leaving Lloyd the frustrating task of trying to piece it together himself. There was something in this.

Something off.

Something was wrong. Kratos never sounded like that when he'd explained anything before. Lloyd's heart beat faster though he didn't know why yet. He felt like he was about to touch something that would turn the ground to sand. Exspheres. Cruxis Crystals. Zircon. A simple question. Why would they use zircon?

Pieces started to fit. "Are you," he choked. "Are you saying my father had a Cruxis Crystal on him?" His eyes fell to the damning stone on his hand, but he couldn't see any difference. He never had been able to see one, except when there was an obvious difference in color or shape. It just looked like any other Exsphere to him - an Exsphere surrounded by a zircon plate. "But... That would mean..." He looked back up at Kratos with dawning horror in his face. Horror and pleading. Pleading with him to take back what he was saying. "You think my father was part of Cruxis?"

Slowly, things were falling into place.

"He is--was," Kratos corrected as he turned away. It was easier to keep talking if he focused on something inanimate, something that lacked a face, like the dark outline of the stairs in the distance. It made it easier to beat down the spikes of fear and panic that kept flaring up and urging him to abandon this path because he would only find rejection at its end. He'd gone this far, though; he might as well see it to the end, if only to put himself out of his misery. "He was determined to maintain his loyalty at all costs."

He laughed quietly. "But then he fought you, and found that he had been compromised, because he could not choose his former student over his son."

Not even you could bring yourself to fight against such an opponent...

"For months, he could never fully choose one or the other, but by the time he found himself here, his mind was made up. And then you appeared, unaware, and he tried to let things slip back to how they once were, but now...now, he has no choice but to choose. Not" - Kratos spat the word out with disgust - "unless I want to let Landel have his way."

Edited 2013-03-27 23:14 (UTC)

Lloyd's face blanked as Kratos started to talk. The familiar way he referred to Lloyd's father made it sound like... he knew him? Not just in passing, either. Not if he was talking about Lloyd's father's loyalty, his students, his battles with-

When did I-?

Months. Kratos had known his father for months, and he hadn't said anything-

I.

Not unless I want-

Something inside Lloyd seized. "What... What're you saying?" His heart was pounding, almost deafeningly loud, and the world rocked unsteadily beneath his feet. It sounded like Kratos was saying he... was referring to himself as... But he couldn't be. Lloyd had to be hearing something wrong. Why would Kratos claim he was...? "You're...?" He couldn't even form the words in his mind, let alone say them out loud. If he said them, he didn't know what would happen to his world. Besides, it couldn't be true. The doctor had told him they'd taken his father's Exsphere, and Kratos still had-

-a bandaged hand.

Lloyd inhaled sharply, his world graying a bit at the edges. He hadn't actually seen. Kratos had just said he'd been attacked. 'Attacked' would be a good word if-

Stop it! Stop jumping to conclusions! You don't know!

His voice shook when he tried to speak. "Sh-show me your hand!"

And here it was, the so-called moment of truth. Kratos bowed his head briefly and then turned on the spot to face Lloyd. His lips thinned to a line - a near-grimace - as he slowly unwrapped the bandage on his left hand, shook it out, and then neatly folded the cloth up so he could drape it over his arm. He brushed his fingers lightly across the top of the Exsphere and the skin around it, as if to make sure it looked presentable, before wordlessly raising his flashlight and extending his hand, palm down, toward Lloyd for his inspection.

The crystal was blue, the same as the one now in Lloyd's possession, but did not shine nearly as brilliantly; in fact, most of the light was reflected off of the thin, glassy ring of aqua green surrounding it, a thin ring that soon gave way to an intricate network of precise, straight cuts on Kratos's skin that stood out more starkly under the light without a Key Crest to hide them. They had mostly closed up by now, but here and there, the scabs were cracked from when he'd clenched his fist too tightly, exposing the angry red underneath.

He waited in silence, jaw taut and back ramrod straight, knowing what would come, and braced himself for the blow.

Edited 2013-03-28 00:16 (UTC)

Unlike Kratos, Lloyd didn't know. The pieces had been there, but his mind had rebelled every time he'd tried to put them together. Rebelled, but couldn't let go of it either, circling, skipping, coming back around, because it couldn't leave well enough alone. He couldn't ignore what he saw with his eyes, though. Couldn't pretend he'd just misinterpreted or misunderstood someone's words. Kratos's ravaged hand was there and plain to see, and just as plain as the fact that that wasn't his Exsphere. Lloyd knew what Kratos's Exsphere looked like. Even in a hall as dark as this, it should have sparkled in the light. His Exsphere was gone, taken, replaced-

-cut out of his hand with precise, straight cuts-

-pain, as a blade sliced into his skin-

They were like his. He hadn't had a chance to look closely at his hand, but somehow he knew the cuts were like his. The same hand had held the knife the same way.

We've already performed this experiment once.

What did you do to them?!

It was just the one.

Only one other person had lost their Exsphere here. Only one other person had suffered what the doctor had done to him. If Kratos's Exsphere was gone, replaced with a fake, then he... They'd... Kratos had... He was...

"No." He couldn't breathe. He shook his head, in denial as his world crashed down. "No! You- You can't be! If you were- Why would you betray us like that?! Why did you-? My father wouldn't have tried to kill me!"

If he could act on hindsight, Kratos would have willingly gone back in time and punched himself in the face at the Tower of Salvation for what he'd done, even though he knew that at the time, there was no way he would have disregarded orders, no matter how conflicted he might have felt. That Kratos had still been Yggdrasill's man, had been utterly convinced that he could and would rid himself of the last vestige of his ill-fated attempt at independence up until the very moment he'd raised his sword above Lloyd's head and found himself shockingly unable to bring it down. It was only then that his resolve, the resolve he'd thought he'd rebuilt so solidly over the past fourteen years, had proved paper thin, only then that he had realized what Anna had done to him was in fact irreversible.

"And yet, I did," Kratos said softly as he retracted his hand. "And I had my reasons for everything I ever did to you - long, complicated reasons that I thought would let things turn out for the best. Now, of course, I know that they were all wrong...

"I will not try to excuse my actions to you, Lloyd." As your father--no, he wasn't ready to say that. More importantly, he had no right to say that. Not yet. In the mean time, he would face the consequences of all the lies and poor decisions he'd ever made. There would be no Yuan to come between the two of them, no passing of time to soften Lloyd's rage. He would face it all now, as perhaps he had always wanted to.

Edited (SORRY I KEEP EDITING EVERYTHING.........................) 2013-03-28 05:13 (UTC)

"You had reasons you thought killing me was right?!" For a moment, incredulity and outrage blasted through his denial. "Killing shouldn't ever be right! It's awful even when it's necessary!" Once, what felt a lifetime ago, he would have fought against even that idea, too, but then he'd met people like Magnius and Kvar, people like Vharley, people who wouldn't stop hurting people so long as they were alive.

But his outrage could only hold out so long before his mind circled around right back to the start, unable to just let go. Kratos hadn't backed off, hadn't retracted his claim, was still referring to himself obliquely as the man in his story, the man who was Lloyd's-

His mind jerked away again. Lloyd had to drag in a harsh, ragged breath, on the verge of panic. Panic as everything he knew about himself was threatened. If this was true, then who was he-?

It's not true! It's not! Dammit, then why couldn't he just let it drop?! Why did he always have to believe that there was truth in everything he heard!?

"If you- If he- If my father had found me, why wouldn't he tell me? Didn't he care that he'd found his son? You- He would have had months! Why wouldn't he say something?!"

Lloyd did not disappoint - his indignation shone clearly in every word he spoke - and Kratos accepted it all without complaint: it would have been far more disturbing, far more uncomfortable if Lloyd had brushed off his crimes with ease. It was...this was right. Now that he'd finally gone and revealed the truth he'd tried to hide for so long, he could feel that this was the way things had always been meant to go.

It still hurt, though. Kratos might have faced another night not too different from this one before, but that did not make the sting any less.

"He did care." And he had, even though nothing he'd done pointed that way. He had cared, and very much so. "But he was afraid. Afraid of what you would think, of what might happen to you - of becoming attached and then losing you..."

Randomly, he wondered what the Professor would think were she to see him now. Probably sigh, roll her eyes, and then tell him it was about time he actually gave a straight answer to someone of his own accord.

"That proved fear enough to keep him silent."

"So, what, you didn't think I would care if I never found out who my father was?!" Anger bubbled, and Lloyd latched onto it like it was his salvation. It made it hard to think, hard to pick which words were the right ones to use to refer to Kratos and his father, didn't even know if he was thinking about them as one or separate anymore, but anger was something he could deal with, something solid and uncomplicated. "You didn't think it would hurt me to think I'd lost him forever?!" His hand throbbed, and he ignored it. It wasn't important anymore. "To never know if he cared or if he just... just abandoned me? Just left me and mom to die because he didn't want us?"

He clenched his hands. It was too easy to let all his childhood fears spill out, all the things he'd kept to himself, buried under hope and a positive attitude, but he couldn't stop himself now. Not when he was confronted with this man, this arrogant, selfish bastard who hadn't even thought to think what his actions would do to his son! How much his silence could tear Lloyd apart. Lloyd raised his voice, shouting now. "I had no idea what happened, and nobody could tell me but you! Do you have any idea what things I came up with to explain why you weren't there?!"

Edited 2013-03-29 13:21 (UTC)

"I thought you would prefer that to the truth--better to leave you with the slim chance that your father had died a hero or was still out there for the finding than give you a man who would only betray you later, as I knew I would. We were enemies, Lloyd. I wanted to spare you the pain" --also so you could kill me without too much regret.

He had told Lloyd that he wouldn't try to excuse away anything he'd done, but Kratos felt like he at least owed Lloyd an explanation before he became sold on this idea that he hadn't considered his feelings at all--

Actually, he probably hadn't.

"But, that's no good reason, and there is nothing else I could say, so...I apologize," he said heavily. "For everything."

And that was that. He'd said all he could; whether or not Lloyd rejected him, it was out of his hands now.

"What kind of chance would no chance be?" Lloyd retorted hotly. "At least I would have known, instead of living out my life hoping for something I wouldn't ever get. Just because I prefer to have hope doesn't mean I want to live in a lie."

But it was hard to hold onto that incandescent rage when Kratos was outright apologizing. Since when did Kratos ever apologize? Since when did he admit he was wrong? Without that anger, though, all he had left was a cold ache in his throat that had nothing to do with damage left by the monster the night before. It was getting harder to tell himself Kratos had to be lying. What would he have to gain from apologizing it if it wasn't actually true?

It wasn't just that, either. Things that Kratos had done that had confused Lloyd before would make better sense if Kratos was his father. All those lectures, all those lessons, even those infuriating times when he'd tried to discourage Lloyd from joining the Journey of Regeneration with Colette. He'd always felt like there'd been something between them, a bond he'd felt was something more than mentorship at the end, which had only made the hurt of the betrayal even worse. Even the baffling moments when it seemed like he was still giving them clues to help even after he'd gone back to Cruxis. It would explain a whole lot more if those were the actions of a father who was trying to... to what? Protect Lloyd? Even though they were enemies? The thought made the bitter ache more pronounced, to be told you mattered, but not enough to make his own father change his mind. The thought that Kratos could acknowledge him as his son, even if only to himself, and still not tell him, still do all the things he did... It made it hard for those few paternal gestures to even begin to make up the difference. How were they supposed to when Lloyd hadn't known what they were, had only been able to be confused and frustrated with the mixed signals he was getting?

And it still didn't address the root problem.

"If you're not lying," he said. "If you're..." The words didn't want to come. But even with all the pain, there was something, a part of him that ached in a different way, that wanted to know, that wanted the words to come out. He took a breath, and had to swallow. "If you're really my father, then... then why? Why did you leave me and mom?"

Kratos paused as he determined how best to explain himself. Then: "The answer to that is more complex than just a few words. Allow me to start from the beginning, so as not to confuse you later."

That seemingly long ago snowy night in Flanoir had marked the first time he'd related the entire sordid tale of his brief rebellion against Cruxis to anyone, let alone Lloyd, and back then, he had only wanted to get it over with as fast as possible, even though he had been more than willing to finally tell Lloyd the whole truth. This time around, though, it wasn't nearly as nerve-wracking, and slowly, Kratos once again made his way through the blur of memories that frequently haunted his dreams in a manner that sounded less like a barrage of facts and more like an actual story.

"...I gave up, I admit that. I searched as long as I could, but in the end, all I ever found were Desian corpses and blood everywhere. I thought you had died. Perhaps if I had been granted more time, I might have found you, but I am Origin's seal, the guardian of Yggdrasill's power, so naturally, he couldn't just leave me alone. He soon found me and" - Kratos's voice caught momentarily - "asked me to return to Cruxis. He would have dragged me back to Derris-Kharlan regardless of how I answered, and I was tired of fighting and convinced that I had lost everything anyway...I accepted."

That had been followed by fourteen years' worth of attempts to carve Anna out of his heart and mold him back into the obedient knight that had first sworn fealty to Mithos - fourteen years' worth of guilt and suffering and retribution and despair and things that he would be taking to the grave.

"I was not permitted to return to the two worlds until the Journey of Regeneration, so I never received any more time to look for you--even if I had...well." The corner of Kratos's mouth twisted upward briefly. "But I did not choose to leave you and Anna. You two were the most important things in my life. I would have never just left."

Edited 2013-04-01 05:04 (UTC)

It may have been the second time Kratos had told anyone this story, but it was the first time that Lloyd had heard the whole story of his mother's dead. He'd only had bits and pieces up until now. She fell off a cliff. No, it was Desians. Then finally Kvar had told him the most, told him that his father had killed his mother after her Exsphere had been removed, transforming her into a monster. He hated to take Kvar's word for anything, but he was starved for details about his parents and that was the most he'd ever had.

Starved until now. Now the details of Anna's death pounded into his ears. Confirmed by someone other than Kvar, he could see her distorted, tortured body, her skin stretched and bulging with the glut of mana gone out of control. Why had he wanted to hear this? This wasn't what he wanted to know! "Stop it," he choked the words out - or tried to. The words stuck in his throat, and he didn't know if Kratos heard because he kept telling the story. The story of how his father had to kill his mother, had to take his sword and- "Stop it!" His whole body was shaking now - with horror, with stress, he didn't know. Every breath he dragged in shuddered in his chest.

But there it was. The missing piece, the reason why his father had vanished between the moment he'd had to kill Anna and when Dirk had found Lloyd and his mother at the bottom of the cliff. He'd looked. He hadn't left. He'd looked. He'd just been too late. Something stung in Lloyd's eyes, making him fiercely blink it away.

"But you still gave into him! How could you do that when you knew what he was doing was wrong?! How could you be okay with going back to the man who's in charge of the people who killed mom?!" In his mind, even knowing the truth, he still blamed Kvar. Kvar had been the one to doom his mother when he'd taken her Exsphere away. Lloyd clenched his hands, vibrating with anger and emotions he could barely hold in check, emotions he was afraid even to identify, that made his eyes sting even more. "Even if you didn't have a choice, you still could have fought! Maybe you still could have gotten away. Just because someone's strong doesn't mean they can't make a mistake! Isn't that what you taught me?!"

It was curious how this conversation was mirroring all of the ones from the past, as if even the words they were to say were somehow fated to be. "I could have, but I didn't care anymore by that point. I convinced myself that since Mithos had promised to reunite the two worlds once he'd revived Martel, I could live with my decision, because what I wanted would be accomplished anyway. That's what I thought, that I could only keep moving down the flawed path I had paved for myself, until you taught me otherwise."

He had still managed to muck up quite a lot, but somehow, he had still been alive at the end of it all, and that was definitely not what Kratos had expected. He had been almost disappointed at first, but more and more, he was happy things had not gone as he'd originally intended.

Fated to be, or perhaps this was just the way Lloyd was, they way he'd always respond when faced with revelations like this. Either way, his hands were curling and clenching into fists, heedless of the pain this caused as his cut and cauterized skin pulled and stretched, the thin scabs splitting under the strain. In a way, he was almost glad for it. It gave him something physical to focus on, to ground him in the here and now.

It also gave him something to blame for the dampness in his eyes.

It took one shuddering breath, then another, before he could form words again. "I... taught you?" That didn't make sense. "You were the one teaching me. At least... before..." Before the Tower of Salvation.

Somewhere in the back of his mind, it still felt weird to hear someone refer to Yggdrasill as Mithos. Mithos the Hero... All this time...

Edited 2013-04-03 02:02 (UTC)

Night 69: Main Hallway 2-West

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